aristotlelianism

<p><b>Aristotelianism</b> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English" title="Help:IPA for English">/ˌærᵻstəˈtiːliənᵻzəm/</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Pronunciation_respelling_key" title="Help:Pronunciation respelling key"><i><b>ARR</b>-i-stə-<b>TEE</b>-li-ə-niz-əm</i></a>) is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradition#Philosophy" title="Tradition">tradition</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy" title="Philosophy">philosophy</a> that takes its defining inspiration from the work of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle" title="Aristotle">Aristotle</a>. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripatetic_school" title="Peripatetic school">Peripatetic school</a>, and, later on, by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism" title="Neoplatonism">Neoplatonists</a>, who produced many <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_Aristotle" title="Commentaries on Aristotle">commentaries on Aristotle's writings</a>. In the Islamic world, the works of Aristotle were translated into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Arabic language">Arabic</a>, and under philosophers such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Kindi" title="Al-Kindi">Al-Kindi</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Farabi" title="Al-Farabi">Al-Farabi</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna" title="Avicenna">Avicenna</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes" title="Averroes">Averroes</a>, Aristotelianism became a major part of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Islamic_philosophy" title="Early Islamic philosophy">early Islamic philosophy</a>.

Moses Maimonides adopted Aristotelianism from the Islamic scholars and based his famous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guide_for_the_Perplexed" class="mw-redirect" title="Guide for the Perplexed">Guide for the Perplexed</a> on it; and that became the basis of Jewish Scholastic Philosophy. Although some knowledge of Aristotle's logical works was known to western Europe, it wasn't until the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_translations_of_the_12th_century" title="Latin translations of the 12th century">Latin translations of the 12th century</a> that the works of Aristotle and his Arabic commentators became widely available. Scholars such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertus_Magnus" title="Albertus Magnus">Albertus Magnus</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas" title="Thomas Aquinas">Thomas Aquinas</a> interpreted and systematized Aristotle's works in accordance with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_theology" title="Christian theology">Christian theology</a>.

After retreating under criticism from modern natural philosophers, the distinctively Aristotelian idea of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology" title="Teleology">teleology</a> was transmitted through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Wolff_%28philosopher%29" title="Christian Wolff (philosopher)">Wolff</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant" title="Immanuel Kant">Kant</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegel" class="mw-redirect" title="Hegel">Hegel</a>, who applied it to history as a totality. Although this project was criticized by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Adolf_Trendelenburg" title="Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg">Trendelenburg</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Brentano" title="Franz Brentano">Brentano</a> as non-Aristotelian, Hegel's influence is now often said to be responsible for an important Aristotelian influence upon <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx" class="mw-redirect" title="Marx">Marx</a>. Postmodernists, in contrast, reject Aristotelianism's claim to reveal important theoretical truths. In this, they follow <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidegger" class="mw-redirect" title="Heidegger">Heidegger</a>'s critique of Aristotle as the greatest source of the entire tradition of Western philosophy.

Recent Aristotelian ethical and 'practical' philosophy, such as that of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Georg_Gadamer" title="Hans-Georg Gadamer">Gadamer</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McDowell" title="John McDowell">McDowell</a>, is often premissed upon a rejection of Aristotelianism's traditional metaphysical or theoretical philosophy. From this viewpoint, the early modern tradition of political <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism" title="Republicanism">republicanism</a>, which views the <i>res publica</i>, public sphere or state as constituted by its citizens' virtuous activity, can appear thoroughly Aristotelian.

The most famous contemporary Aristotelian philosopher is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alasdair_MacIntyre" title="Alasdair MacIntyre">Alasdair MacIntyre</a>. Especially famous for helping to revive <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics" title="Virtue ethics">virtue ethics</a> in his book <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Virtue" title="After Virtue">After Virtue</a></i>, MacIntyre revises Aristotelianism with the argument that the highest temporal goods, which are internal to human beings, are actualized through participation in social practices. He juxtaposes Aristotelianism with the managerial institutions of capitalism and its state, and with rival traditions&nbsp;— including the philosophies of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume" title="David Hume">Hume</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche" title="Friedrich Nietzsche">Nietzsche</a>&nbsp;— that reject Aristotle's idea of essentially human goods and virtues and instead legitimate capitalism. Therefore, on MacIntyre's account, Aristotelianism is not identical with Western philosophy as a whole; rather, it is "the best theory so far, [including] the best theory so far about what makes a particular theory the best one." Politically and socially, it has been characterized as a newly 'revolutionary Aristotelianism'. This may be contrasted with the more conventional, apolitical and effectively conservative uses of Aristotle by, for example, Gadamer and McDowell. Other important contemporary Aristotelian theorists include <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_D.Miller,Jr." class="mw-redirect" title="Fred D. Miller, Jr.">Fred D. Miller, Jr.</a> in politics and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Hursthouse" title="Rosalind Hursthouse">Rosalind Hursthouse</a> in ethics.</p>