The Republic of Idealism – Fact Sheet On Aristotle and Marx
The Life of Aristotle
 Born at Stagira in Macedonia, the son of Nicomachus
 was together with Plato the most influential philosopher of the western tradition
 age 17 he entered Plato's academy in Athens, and remained there until Plato's
death
 Aristotle lived with Hermias at Assos. When Hermias died Aristotle married his
niece, Pythias in 345
 In 335 he went back to Athens and founded a school, the Lyceum where he
organized and conducted research on many subjects, and built the first great
library of antiquity
 Between 343/2 and 340 he acted as the tutor to the young Alexander the Great
 On the death of Alexander in 325 anti-Macedonian feeling in Athens caused
Aristotle to retire to Chalcis where he died in 322.
Aristotle’s Principles
 Aristotle's philosophy laid its principal stress on biology
 Each thing or event, he thought, has more than one "reason" that helps to
explain what, why, and where it is
 Aristotle mistakenly believed that the Earth was at the center of the universe and
made up of only four elements: earth, water, air, and fire
 He also thought that celestial bodies such as the sun, moon, and stars, were
perfect and divine, and made of a fifth element called ether.
 These four causes:
 the material cause –
 the matter out of which a thing is made;
 the efficient cause –
 the source of motion, generation, or change
 the formal cause  which is the species, kind, or type;
 the goal –
 or full development, of an individual, or the intended function of a
construction or invention
Aristotle’s Statements
 He also proposed that all human beings want "happiness"
 Aristotle argued for ethics:
 Full excellence can be realized only by the mature male adult of the
upper class, not by women, or children, or barbarians (non-Greeks),
or salaried "mechanics" (manual workers) from Aristotle wanted to
take away voting rights
 distinguished two kinds of "virtue," or human excellence:
 Intellectual virtues
 Moral virtue
Aristotle’s Beliefs
 Aristotle regarded politics as an examination of the way in which ideals, laws,
customs, and property interconnect in actual cases
 Aristotle approved the contemporary institution of slavery but covered up by
insisting that masters should not abuse their authority
 Aristotle wrote the Constitution of Athens, and it was rediscovered in a papyrus
copy in 1890.
What Aristotle Did!
 Aristotle developed rules for chains of reasoning that if followed would never give
a false conclusion (validity rules). Example, "All humans are mortal" and "All
Greeks are humans" yield the valid conclusion "All Greeks are mortal."
Aristotle’s Quotes
 "All men by nature desire knowledge."
 "What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies."
"Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them."
 "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."
 "Plausible impossibilities should be preferred to unconvincing possibilities."
Aristotle’s Search
 Aristotle's search for the good is a search for the highest good, and he assumes
that the highest good, whatever it turns out to be, has three characteristics:
 it is desirable for itself
 it is not desirable for the sake of some other good
 all other goods are desirable for its sake
Virtue
 Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of virtue : those that pertain to the part of the
soul that engages in reasoning (virtues of mind or intellect), and those that
pertain to the part of the soul that cannot itself reason but is nonetheless capable
of following reason (ethical virtues, virtues of character).
 Intellectual virtues are in turn divided into two sorts: those that pertain to
theoretical reasoning, and those that pertain to practical thinking.
Karl Marx
 German political philosopher and revolutionist, cofounder with Friedrich Engels of
scientific socialism (modern communism), and, as such, one of the most
influential thinkers of all times
Life of Marx
 born in Trier and was educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena
 is writings in the Rheinische Zeitung criticizing contemporary political and social
conditions led him to controversy with the authorities, and in 1843 Marx resigned
his editorial position
The Birth of Communism
 In Paris he furthered studies in philosophy, history, and political science, he
adopted communist beliefs
 In Paris two men found that they had independently arrived at identical views on
the nature of revolutionary problems.
 They began a collaboration practice systematically the theoretical principles of
communism and to organize an international working-class movement dedicated
to those principles
The Implementation of Communism
 In 1845 Marx had to leave because of the commotion he was stirring based on
his beleifs
 Went to Brussels - Communist Correspondence Committees
 commissioned to formulate a statement of principles - Communist Manifesto
(first systematic statement of modern socialist doctrine )
Marx’s Beliefs
 The economic system that provides society’s necessities determines the form of
societal organization and the political and intellectual history
 the history of society is a history of struggles between exploiting and exploited,
that is, between ruling and oppressed, social classes
 drew the conclusion in the Manifesto that the capitalist class would be
overthrown and that it would be eliminated by a worldwide working-class
revolution and replaced by a classless society
…Later Years
 When the Communist League dissolved in 1852, Marx continued to correspond
with hundreds of revolutionists with the aim of forming another revolutionary
organization
 Marx’s influence during his life was not great. After his death it increased with the
growth of the labor movement. Marx’s ideas and theories came to be known as
Marxism, or scientific socialism, which constitutes one of the principal currents of
contemporary political thought
Karl Marx
 Marx’s ideas, as interpreted by Lenin, continued to have influence throughout
most of the 20th century. In much of the world, including Africa and South
America, emerging nations were formed by leaders who claimed to represent the
proletariat
 “The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his
production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper
commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the
world of things proceeds in direct proportion to the devaluation of the world of
men. Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as
a commodity -- and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities
generally.”