#30: Was Aristotle wrong about everything?

Our 30th prompt comes from Sigmund Freudian Annihilist. They say:

Aristotle was wrong about everything

*

Sigmund Freudian Annihilist,

You are really hard core. For those who are new to this argument, it’s a running trope/joke in philosophy circles that Aristotle was wrong about everything. Aristotle is one of the Greek philosophy greats, alongside his teacher Plato, and Plato’s teacher Socrates. He is said to have invented logic (as we know it, though who is to say some other person didn’t do it first and fail to record/share it) and made it a fully systematic discipline, and his work covered metaphysics, physics, ethics, political theory, poetics among other fields.

As a result of the time he lived, and being interested in/contributing to so many fields, of course he was wrong about many things. For example, he believed there were three basic elements – earth, fire, and the celestial substance. We know this isn’t true now. He also said that men have more teeth than women (he thought women were deformed, deficient and immature), that women couldn’t be citizens, that men’s blood is hotter than women’s blood, that all women did was carry babies (and that everything else about babies came from men), that only fair skinned women were capable of orgasm, that some people are just born to be slaves so it’s ok to enslave them, that the earth is the centre of the universe (hence Galileo’s misery), that the heart is the source of intellect, that the brain exists to cool the blood, that there are only seven celestial bodies, that the universe and daily rotation of the heaven were everlasting, that the earth and everything win it had/would exist eternally, that the sun would eternally continue to generate plants and animals, that some animals just spontaneously came from mud/soil, that the natural state of things is to be at rest unless moved by force, and that sharks have their mouths on their underside to prevent them from destroying the world through overeating.

Obviously those things sound absurd to us right now, and of course he contributed a lot to misogyny and the patriarchy as we know it today. However, I believe he was right about some important things. For example, his teachings on eudaimonia. To summarize these teachings, he thought that all the things human beings do have an aim that we consider to be good. These activities are a means to a greater good. This greater good is happiness. We seek happiness as its own end, not for some other purpose. The goal of ethics (a la his Nicomachean Ethics) is to help us achieve this happiness. I largely agree with him on the happiness bit, though we differ on the path. I also like his teachings on political theory (covered briefly here: #4: Who runs Kenya?).

I’ve learnt a couple of things from his being so right about some things, and so wrong about others. For example, it is possible for one to spread oneself too thin. To explore too many opportunities. I’ve learnt the value of humility, and acknowledging that perhaps we may not be well suited to do every single thing we think we should – perhaps we should let some slide and trust that others will do good, or even great, work. I’ve learnt that it is possible for someone to be so intelligent and visionary, while holding backward ideas on, for example, women and slaves. The biggest lesson for me, however, is that we are all deeply flawed, and awareness of this would go a long way.

*

This post is part of a daily writing experiment that I’m running for a year. I’d love it if you took part! ?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *