ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICS vol.I by Eduard Zeller, B.F.C.Costelloe 1897

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF %
ARISTOTLB 161
CHAPTER IV
STANDPOINT, METHOD, AND DIVISIONS OF THE
PHILOSOPHY OF AEISTOTLE
As Plato connects directly with Socrates, so Aristotle'
with Plato.
Yet he made a comprehensive use of the
earlier philosophies as well. He was tetter versed
than any of the earlier teachers in the theories and
writings of his forerunners, and it is with him a
favourite method to preface his own inquiries with a
retrospect of earlier opinions. He is wont to let them
designate the problems to be dealt with. He is eager
to refute their errors, to resolve their doubts, to bring
out the truth which underlay their views. But the
influence of the pre-Socratic~~systems upon Aristotle is
far less apparent m the general structure of his system
than it is in the treatment of special points. In principle,
Plato had refuted them all. Aristotle is not
under the same necessity to distinguish his position
accurately from theirs. He 1 does not, at least in any
of the extant writings, devote any space to such propaideutic
efforts as those by which Plato established
the claims of philosophy and the true meaning of know-
1
Even in Metapli. i. 8 their Heraclitus, about whom Plato
principles are merely criticised busied himself so much, are
briefly from an Aristotelian point passed over altogether,
of view, and the Eleatics and
VOL. I.
M
102 ARISTOTLE
ledge, as against ' the ordinary consciousness ' on the
one hand, and the Sophists on the other. Aristotle
presupposes throughout that general point of view which
characterised the Socratico-Platonic Philosophy of Ideas.
His task is to work out, on these general lines, a more
perfect system of knowledge, by a more exact definition
of the leading principles, by a stricter accuracy ot
method, and by an extension and improvement of all
the scientific data ?
It is true that in his own writings
the rare expressions of agreement with his teacher
almost lost
are
sight of by comparison with his keen and
constant polemic against Platonic views. 1 Yet in
reality and in the whole his
agreement with Plato is
far greater than his divergence, 2 and his whole system
cannot truly be understood until we treat it as a development
and evolution of that of Plato and as the completion
of that very Philosophy of Ideas which Socrates
founded and Plato carried on.
In the first place, he agrees for the most part with
Plato in his general views as to the meaning and office
of Philosophy itself. To him, as to Plato, the object of
'
We shall deal later on with stotle, as we have shown on p.
this polemic, especially as it was 14, n. 3, not unfrequently includes
directed against the doctrine of himself in the first person along
Ideas in Metaph. i. 9, xiii., xiv. with the rest of the Platonic
&c. Only a few passages are school. But his way of treating
found inwh,ich Aristotle expressly such a relation is the opposite
declares his agreement with Plato, to that of Plato. Whilst Plato
Besides the passages noted on puts his own view, even where
p. 12, and p. f4, n. 4, see Eth. it contradicts the original one
IV. i. 2, 1095, a, 32*; ii. 2, 1104, b, of Socrates, into the mouth of
11 ; De An. iii. 4, 429, a, 27 his teacher, Aristotle not un-
Polit. ii. 6, 1265, a, 10. frequently attacks his teacher
2 Cf. also the valuable re- even where they agree in the
marks of Steumpbll, Gfesck. d. main point, and only differ in
theor. Phil. d. Qr. 177. Ari- opinion as to secondary matters.