For if Being is just one, and one in the way mentioned, there is a principle no longer, since a principle must be the principle of some thing or things.
aristotlequotes
384 – 322 BC
The founder of formal logic, Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC), was also an astounding scientist, who pioneered the study of zoology. Indeed, his scope of intellect ranged from ethics to aesthetics, logic and biology and everything in between. He enrolled in Plato’s Academy when he was 17 and devoted his entire life to study. After Plato’s death, Aristotle went on to be the private tutor to Alexander the Great for at a time, and then, with Alexander’s permission, built his own academy in Lyceum.
At the school, Aristotle was known to lecture while walking about the campus, which gave rise to his students being dubbed, “Peripatetics,” or those who travel from place to place. The school housed one of the most impressive libraries of the ancient world, and offered open and free lectures to the public.
Christian scholasticism and Medieval Islamic philosophy were rooted in Aristotle’s philosophical and scientific systems. He formalized universal principles of logic that used deduction and inference to form logical arguments, his most famous being syllogism.
Despite only 31 of his 200 manuscripts remaining today, Aristotle’s legacy remains immeasurably far-reaching as his arguments touched on almost every aspect of human knowledge, and philosopher’s continue to debate, interpret and teach his principles.
A man investigating principles cannot argue with one who denies their existence.
Now to investigate whether Being is one and motionless is not a contribution to the science of Nature.
The life of the mind is only open to rich people.
Hence intellectual perception is both a beginning and an end, for the demonstrations arise from these, and concern them. As a result, one ought to pay attention to the undemonstrated assertions and opinions of experienced and older people, or of the prudent, no less than to demonstrations, for, because the have an experienced eye, they see correctly.
Happiness above all seems to be of this character, for we always choose it on account of itself and never on account of something else. Yet honor, pleasure, intellect, and every virtue we choose on their own account — for even if nothing resulted from them, we would choose each of them — but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, because we suppose that, through them, we will be happy.
For we are noble in only one way, but bad in all sorts of ways.
The simply complete thing, then, is that which is always chosen for itself and never on account of something else.
Being will not have magnitude, if it is substance. For each of the two parts must be in a different sense.
They are the ones who are responsible for the fact that decrees and not laws are authoritative, by referring everything to the populace. They end up becoming powerful by having the populace be in authority over everything, while they themselves have authority over the opinion of the populace, since the multitude is persuaded by them.