Talk:Aristotle

This page is for discussion of the article on Aristotle.

Contents

1 Typography

2 Aristotle's Cave

7 Form of Greek names

8 Academe, Academia, Academy...

9 Biography

10 Picture

11 His works littered with mistakes for his failure to follow his own precept?

12 Further reading

13 Suggest 18 possible wiki links and 7 possible backlinks for Aristotle.

14 cosmology, plenum, elements and motion

15 List of Works; "On Xenophanes Zeno and Gorgias"

Typography

This article should be cleaned up to replace fancy quotes (”) with straight ones (") in accordance with WP:STYLE. Brighterorange 14:00, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Aristotle's Cave

While I was visiting Veria, Greece I was taken to the location where Aristotle was supposed to have taught Alexander the Great. I'm not adding anything to the main article because I can't find any more information about this location, but I have pictures here (http://rufus.hackish.org/gallery/10-Veria/1825_school_of_aristotle) and here (http://rufus.hackish.org/gallery/10-Veria/1824_school_of_aristotle_cave) if anyone manages to find some information.

Aristotle taught the prince of Macedonia in a cave? Brutannica 21:38, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That's what my uncle who took me there and the signs around the cave said. This is why I didn't add anything to the main article since I don't have firm information. Rufus210 01:33, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would think signs at the site would be pretty firm information. Brutannica 21:03, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In any case stating in the article that there are such signs should be safe even if—unlikely—what they say turns out to be false. Rafał Pocztarski 00:05, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bibliography

Added a bibliography with links to existing texts. Made a few other minor changes.

Unfortunately it looks like VT have had a reshuffle of their site: a couple of the links I tried didn't work. -- Nairobiny

The VT links were to their "Project ERIS" -- which has been defunct for about six years or more, although you'll still find links to it all over the net. Fortunately, I saved the whole project years ago, and converted much to HTML, so I've been able to replace all the vt links with links to eBooks@Adelaide. Pamplemousse 06:38, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Aristotle and bees

I will let someone else find an appropriate, if any, place for the following text in the article:

Aristotle was the first to describe the "dancing" of bees, "on reaching the hive they throw off their load [aposeiontai 'they shake themselves'], and each bee on his [sic] return is accompanied by three or four companions," and the first to classify dolphins with mammals, "The dolphin, when taken out of water, gives a squeak and moans in the air...For this creature has a voice, for it is furnished with a lung nad a windpipe; but its tongue is not loose, nor has it lips, so as to give utterance to an articulate sound." Quoted in Essays in Zoosemiotics by T.A. Sebeok, ISSN 08385858

Greek form of name

I've added the Greek form of the name 'Aristotle', both in Greek characters and romanisation. I've also remove the mention of the form in Italian and other languages, which I don't think is of interest to English speakers, and is covered by romanised form of the Greek. m.e. 09:51, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Clean-up

I was wondering if I could really clean up this page a bit, specifically under the section titled "Biography." It's long and informative, but in my opinion it needs some editing. Some of the sentences are structured in a format that seems outdated and certainly is not used on most Wikipedia pages. So I was wondering if I could 'get permission' from someone to edit the section, keeping the info, maybe adding some of my own, but changing the sentence structure.

Second, I think it would be a good idea to open a section discussing his actual ideas and theories instead of just methodology and influence. It would have to be divided into subsections like 'Politics,' 'Physics,' 'Embryology,' and 'Ethics,' and that way a lot of miscellaneous information, like the bit on zoology posted above, could be fit into the article properly. Unfortunately, I'd need a little help on this since a) I'm not an expert on Aristotle and b) I'm very inexperienced at Wikipedia contributions. Any volunteers? Brutannica 00:28, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

All right, so so far no one's "volunteered." I won't do part 2 now, but I will go ahead and rewrite the Biography. If anyone objects, they can revert and please post your complaint. Brutannica 19:20, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Form of Greek names

In what sense are numeric values more "correct" than mnemonics in entering non-Latin characters? Please see Wikipedia:Special_characters, which specifically recommends menomics, as does Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page#The_wiki_markup Dandrake 19:19, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

See Greek letters in Aristotle entry on my talk page for a good explanation. Rafał Pocztarski 19:44, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I see you have reverted the reversion. I am confused. Should I change it back to named HTML entities on pl:Arystoteles as well? Rafał Pocztarski 20:15, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, now I see a sense in which the numeric values are correct! Or they seem to be; it still doesn't seem clear. Anyway, if there really are no mnemonics that correctly give breathings and all, then then one would have to use numerics, at least for those cases.

This is definitely out of my depth. I'm not going to interfere more, now that I understand the problem. Perhaps my reversion should be reverted!

But it would be a really good thing if the people involved in getting Greek text into the articles would go over to Wikipedia:Special_characters and start a discussion on its Discussion page. It may be recommending a policy that just doesn't work, and a lot of future trouble could be prevented if it were fixed. Dandrake 01:05, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

There is an extended discussion at Wikipedia talk:Unicode about the use of Unicode for Greek letters in Wikipedia. My apologies to Rafał Pocztarski for reverting his changes — I erroneously assumed that the named entities created mathematical symbols different from the Greek letters [I was confusing it with ] — but the first character should properly be Ἀ Ἀ (1F08;GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI), which is different from Α Α — Ἀ has a psili also known as spiritus lenis or soft breathing. m.e. 11:07, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Academe, Academia, Academy...

Maybe it would be a little clearer if links would point to Academy (the one meant in the article) instead of Academe (which redirects onto Academia anyway)? --Oop 00:37, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Oh. O.K.... Brutannica 05:08, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Biography

As an example of Aristotle's influence on Alexander, it could be mentioned that while Stageira was destroyed earlier by Macedonia, it was rebuilt at Aristotle's request. Though not important in history, it is a significant detail. --Oop 12:56, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

What time frame are we talking about here? Brutannica 07:32, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

According to Stageira, it was both destroyed and rebuilt by Philip. Plutarch says it was destroyed by Philip, but Plinius Elder and Diogenes Laertius confirm it was Alexander; I'm afraid it may be impossible to find exact dates. --Oop 22:04, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

It wouldn't be a bad idea if you got some more details. Brutannica 06:27, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Diogenes Laertius says: "Who knows?" I haven't got Strabo or Plutarch right now, but I'll try to look it up. Still, [1] (http://socsci.gulfcoast.edu/rbaldwin/classical_greece.htm) says Philip sent Aristotle back to Stageira in 343BC; [2] (http://www.rmki.kfki.hu/~lukacs/FOMENKO3.htm) (passage 4) (though generally a controversial source - cf. the hypothesis of Aristotle's Aiolian origins -, various authors are summarized there) claims Stageira was destroyed in 340BC. Most of general treatises, though, do not find this detail worth mentioning at all. --Oop 23:44, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

"Lexikon der Antike" (Leipzig, 1979) accuses Philip in destruction of Stageira in 349BC. I suppose the fact could be mentioned in the article, but there seems to be no consensus on the date.

Also, in the passage about education of Alexander, it could be mentioned that while most of the authors estimate Aristotle's influence on Alexander as quite noticeable, Bertrand Russell wrote most likely Alexander considered Aristotle an old pedantic fool. It is not a general opinion nor well-founded, but still a notorious one. --Oop 23:49, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Picture

There two better pictures of A.

(a) at http://www.klima-luft.de/steinicke/ngcic/persons/aristoteles.htm

(b) at the french A.-article

I'm not so sure the klima-luft.de picture is much of an improvement; what's more, there's no copyright statement (this is a bad thing). The picture illustrating the French article is both sourceless and licenseless; but then, so is the one used here. I think we should leave the picture we already have until we find one that's known to be compatible with the GNUFDL. -- Hadal 07:29, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's not much of an improvement, but it is an improvement. I think the French picture is very similar, just as a bust. Brutannica 02:06, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

His works littered with mistakes for his failure to follow his own precept?

I think this is an exaggeration. Please give more examples of his mistakes if you have time. Andries 19:52, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Suggest 18 possible wiki links and 7 possible backlinks for Aristotle.

An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Aristotle article:

Can link Greek philosophy: ...eeded in bringing together the works of his predecessors in Greek philosophy, and how he pursued, either personally or through others, h... (link to section)
Can link great library: ...d [[Strabo]] asserted that he was the first to accumulate a great library. ... (link to section)
Can link country house: ... third time against philosophy. He took up residence at his country house at [[Chalcis]], in [[Euboea]], and there he died the follow... (link to section)
Can link average height: ...im as sharp and keen of countenance, and somewhat below the average height. His character (as revealed by his writings, his will (whic... (link to section)
Can link Platonism: ... enemies and rivals, grateful towards his benefactors. When Platonism ceased to dominate the world of Christian speculation, and ... (link to section)
Can link laws of physics: ...enon of the natural world,which include: motion, light, the laws of physics. Many centuries later these subjects would later become the... (link to section)
Can link modern science: ...turies later these subjects would later become the basis of modern science, as studied through the [[scientific method]]. The term ''p... (link to section)
Can link fine arts: ...cs; by poetical, he means the study of poetry and the other fine arts; while by theoretical philosophy he means physics, mathemat... (link to section)
Can link logical reasoning: ...ul empirical investigation, but often drifted into abstract logical reasoning, with the result that his work was littered with conclusion... (link to section)
Can link empirical evidence: ...rk was littered with conclusions that were not supported by empirical evidence; for example, his assertion that objects of different mass ... (link to section)
Can link middle ages: ... was later refuted by [[Galileo Galilei|Galileo]]. # In the middle ages, roughly from the 12th century to the 15th century, the phi... (link to section)
Can link 15th century: ... # In the middle ages, roughly from the 12th century to the 15th century, the philosophy of Aristotle became firmly established dogm... (link to section)
Can link empirical methods: ... themselves for the discovery of modern scientific laws and empirical methods.... (link to section)
Can link On Interpretation: ...es. Their volumes are listed below: *Volume I. Categories. On Interpretation. Prior Analytics ISBN 0-674-99359-4... (link to section)
Can link Prior Analytics: ...re listed below: *Volume I. Categories. On Interpretation. Prior Analytics ISBN 0-674-99359-4... (link to section)
Can link William Hamilton: ...library.adelaide.edu.au/a/a8ph/ *'''Poetics''', trans. by William Hamilton Fyfe (HTML at Perseus)... (link to section)
Can link Benjamin Jowett: ...text?lookup=aristot.+pol.+1252a *'''Politics''', trans. by Benjamin Jowett... (link to section)
Can link John Henry: ...library.adelaide.edu.au/a/a8rh/ *'''Rhetoric''', trans. by John Henry Freese (HTML at Perseus)... (link to section)

Additionally, there are some other articles which may be able to linked to this one (also known as "backlinks"):

In Islam and Judaism, can backlink Aristotelianism: ...h and Muslim Peripatetics stopped short in their respective Aristotelianism whenever there was danger of wounding orthodox religion....
In Islamic philosophy, can backlink Aristotelianism: ...l-Farabi, and Avicenna, and Arab thinker, al-Kindi combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam....
In Alexandrian school of anatomy, can backlink Aristotelian philosophy: ...e day, and initiated particularly into the mysteries of the Aristotelian philosophy. In an order somewhat whimsical he afterwards studied phil...
In Emunoth ve-Deoth, can backlink Aristotelian philosophy: ...ia offers four proofs; three of these show the influence of Aristotelian philosophy, which may be traced also elsewhere in this author's writin...
In Gerald Eaton, can backlink The Philosopher: ...that was made by James McCollum and Jason Levine, also from The Philosopher Kings....
In Hasdai Crescas, can backlink Aristotelianism: ...the Lord'' became a classical Jewish refutation of medieval Aristotelianism, and a harbinger of the scientific revolution in the 16th c...
In Spirits in Bondage, can backlink The Philosopher: ...III. Satan Speaks :XIV. The Witch :XV. Dungeon Grates :XVI. The Philosopher...

Notes: The article text has not been changed in any way; Some of these suggestions may be wrong, some may be right.
Feedback: I like it, I hate it, Please don't link to — LinkBot 11:21, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

cosmology, plenum, elements and motion

I am by no means an expert on Aristotle but I noticed that there is no mention here concerning some of his theories about cosmology, plenum (and void), the five elements, and the various motions that the elements adhere to. I would think that these things would be worth mentioning but I am ill-suited to fill it in myself. Just a suggestion.

List of Works; "On Xenophanes Zeno and Gorgias"

this short (spurious) writing IS actually included in the Corpus Aristotelicum, and is published on p. 974a of Bekker's edition (right before the Metaphysics). I don't know of any specific writing on Melissus. --zuben 22:10, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I was wondering, too, whether we could suppress "Major" in the "Major Works" heading just above the list of COMPLETE works!--zuben 22:36, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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