Essay about Aristotle: Scientific Method and Aristotle

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Born in Macedonia in 384 B.C., Aristotle was one of the most influential philosophers of his time in Greece. His views and contributions to philosophy greatly ran counter with those of his teacher at Plato’s Academy. He traveled to Pella in 343 B.C, by request of King Philip of Macedon, to tutor his son, Alexander, whom, one day, would become Alexander the Great (Shields). Aristotle overall had an immense on Greece, contributing to nearly four-hundred subjects, such as biology, physics, philosophy, ethics, logic, and politics (Fiero 108). Aristotle, being the son of a physician, did extensive work in the field of biology. He collected plant and animal samples and, according to the similarities and differences of the specimens, classified them. He classified over five-hundred different species of animal, which are listed in his Historica Animalium. Throughout his experimentations he developed the empirical method, which was a way to deduce information by means of personal experience. People did not usually go against Aristotle’s conclusions in his many fields of study. For instance his views on female sexuality and her biology led other scholars to believe that the woman was simply the incomplete and lesser version of the male (Fiero 108).
“Aristotle’s application of scientific principles to the reasoning process was the base for the science of logic,” (Fiero 108). With his creation of the syllogism, which is a “deductive scheme that presents two premises from which a conclusion may be drawn” (108) he presented a logical way of finding conclusions through a system that was very similar to mathematics.
Aside from his logical and scientific studies and conclusions, Aristotle was also involved heavily in politics and ethics. He believed that one must recognize his or her function and fulfill it, and however well that person or thing performs is synonymous with its virtue (Fiero 109). In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes and explains the “Theory of the Good Life” as well as the “Nature of Happiness” (Fiero 109). The Doctrine of the Mean searched for the healthy medium in all things, for example, between being cowardly and reckless, one should find that median and seek to be courageous. In addition to his involvement in ethics, Aristotle was involved in politics. He believed that no person held a higher superiority to other people and that it was in the government’s
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