This is an amazing lecture! The philosophy of Aristotle is often presented as a list of separated concepts: here is what he says on matter, here is how he describes form, now we move to a survey of the four causes, oh, and there are also such things as energeia and entelechia, completely unrelated to the rest, etc. Here it is not the case. Aristotle's thought has been shown in motion, interplay between the concepts becomes evident. This is such powerful stuff! Thank you for posting this. I will most definitely continue to watch the course!
I, too, have come to realize that what is special about Aristotle's philosophy is that its a completely integrated system. By analogy to a living being, it is a "body" of work. From head-to-toe, all his ideas are connected and arranged in a hierarchy. Starting with metaphysics, defined as the search for the first principle of existence (Being qua Being), we can proceed to verify the principles of thought in the study of epistemology. Then, having established the nature of true premises, we have thus established the foundation for ethical behavior. The ethical ideal then determines the standard for a justifiable system of politics. By clearly identifying the structure of knowledge, Aristotle may be the greatest philosopher in history. Aristotle, however, believed that his greatest contribution was merely the more specific fact of discovering the formula for demonstrating non-contradiction when calculating the variety of relationships between these categories and their sub-categories: the discovery of logic. In the whole history of philosophy, only Plato and Kant come close to developing such a fully closed system.
The lectures are terrible, they only touch upon the surface of the subject. The lecturer really tests your patience by what he thinks his unique and original approach to teaching philosophy, that is spending most of his time on incessant, ( and often stylistically vulgar and suburban) feedback exchange with the class, which comes down to mere blabbering. This rosy professor should follow his true calling : teaching in high school, somewhere in New Jersey. DO NOT waste your time on this , better go to Arthur Holmes' History of Philosophy Lectures , they are real treat.
Very gracious of you to post all your lectures! I'm enjoying your lectures and I am looking forward to listening to all of them! You are very energetic and funny at times... good professionalism too! Good blend of teaching. Thanks again. But after watching all your videos...I hope we achieve some WISDOM....
In the metaphysics Aristotle says Plato also touches incidentally on the final cause when he talks about the form of the good although incidentally and vague
Metaphysics Meta = Beyond Physics = Physical Beyond the physical, matters concerning mind and spirit. Much deeper than "what we talked about after we talked about physics"
@15:00 St. Augustine didn't become a Platonist then he became Christian. He became Christian, then began to study Plato and found Plato explained better Christianity than any other philosophy. Indeed, he is Christian Platonist rather than the other way round. Read his Confession, i think book 8, for better understanding of his mental and spirtual state.
Indeed - in no small part due to his being inspired by his study of Ancient Greek philosophy. You may be interested in some of Heidegger's pre-Being & Time work on Aristotle (and other Ancient Greek philosophers). www.amazon.com/Concepts-Aristotelian-Philosophy-Studies-Continental/dp/0253353491
@@adamrosenfeld9384 Thanks for the link. Learning Heidegger right now, so I'm definitely buying this book some time soon. Also, do you know of any books or readings that compare Ancient Greek epistemology to that of Descartes all the way through Kant? So like a comparison between Plato's/Aristotle's epistemology with Descarte's and all the others in between up to Kant.
I don't quite agree that "All men by nature desire to know." Know what exactly? Do all humans desire to know what it FEELS LIKE to rape a child or rape a woman? Do all humans desire to know what it FEELS LIKE to rob a bank or to murder someone? I could go on and on with such examples. So what would Aristotle say about knowledge of rape, robbery, murder, etc?
@@xanatanuwu It's not a misreading. It's a reading that is contained inside the reading that you don't normally recognize to still apply. Knowledge of internal states is still knowledge. I won't be so petty as to accuse you of seeking to know what it's like to have sex with a child, rape a woman, have sex with a corpse, etc., etc., etc. However, that is denying yourself KNOWLEDGE. But most normal people wouldn't be the least bit interested in THAT knowledge.
The presentation of Aristotle laced with vulgarity is an insult to the development of students' intelligence. As Mortimer Adler pointed out, all of the great thinkers are engaged in a conversation with each other that has lasted for over 2,000 years. There can be nothing shallow or casual about the man who started that conversation. The current trend of accepting leaders who are incapable of deep thought and complex problem solving abilities is a contradiction to what made Western civilization possible, and to what is required to sustain it.
Yeah, perhaps too many vulgarities but nevertheless a nice and entertaining lecture. The guy probably has to try very hard to keep students engaged, I cannot imagine how it is being interested in philosophy in the most materialistic nation ever.
The wisdom tradition is littered with polemical low blows and vulgarities. Plotinus... Iamblichus... Thomas Taylor... all made vulgar shots at their contemporaries and those they were responding to in their master works. It's one of the great tragedies of modern academic scholarship that they have sanitized themselves so much to strip their humanity and personality from their discourses. Stop taking yourself so seriously.
