Download The Peripatetic School

The Peripatetic School
Aristotle
384-322
Aristotle
• Came to Athens from
northern Greece (Stagira)
to study with Plato.
• Left the Academy
probably after Plato’s
death in 347.
• Later founded his own
“school” in a gymnasium
(the Lyceum) outside
Athens.
The Academy
• Plato’s Academy was
located in a grove of
trees outside Athens.
• It seems that it was
just a place where
people met for
discussion.
• Probably no library.
A Grove…
• The Academy had been a
place of gymnastic
exercise sacred to the hero
Academus. (Other
accounts put it in an olive
grove sacred to Athena.)
• Plato chose it as a meeting
place probably because
young men would go there
regularly.
Today…
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We use “academy” to
mean “universities in
general.”
Some countries use
“gymnasium” to mean
school.
In France a Lycée is a
secondary school.
They are places of mental
and bodily strengthening.
So two gymnasia…
• Academy--Plato.
• Stressed geometry-mathematics.
• Plato wrote dialogues but
not descriptions of nature.
• Method was the
dialectic--a sort of
conversational Q&A--that
was expected to lead the
mind to perfect abstract
truths.
• Lyceum--Aristotle.
• Stressed meticulous
observation,
recording, and
classifying-describing nature.
• Method was
systematic logic-deduction from
observation.
Define “chair”
• Using the method
of Plato.
• As Aristotle
would have done.
The Lyceum
• In the ancient world, a gymnasium was
simply a place where men (young and old)
would meet for exercise and conversation.
• It was customary to have places nearby
through which people could go for walks
(Gr. peripatoi).
The Lyceum
• When Plato died (347), Aristotle did not
take his place at the head of the Academy
(Speusippus did).
• Instead he moved from place to place until
he returned to Athens in 335 and founded
his own school, the Lyceum, where he
stayed until 322. These dates roughly
correspond to the dates of Alexander’s
leadership of Greece and the Macedonian
The Walking School
(The Peripatos)
• Perhaps the students
discussed things with
Aristotle while they
were on walks around
the Lyceum.
• Perhaps Aristotle
lectured while
walking.
Theophrastus
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Took over the
Peripatos after
Aristotle.
Was a wealthy
Athenian.
He gave the school
land and started a
library.
The Curriculum
• Physics.
• Rhetoric.
• Literary theory and
criticism.
• Psychology (the
soul).
• Biology (Zoology
and Botany).
• Logic.
• Politics (political
constitutions),
ethics.
Aristotle observed and
recorded…
• Practical, this-worldly,
focus to his thinking.
• If experience is the
focus, there is an
advantage to
recording one’s
observations for
posterity.
• Enter the book. Enter
the library.
Plato’s Curriculum
• Asked big questions (What is justice?).
• Took a theoretical approach to his
answers (his examples of different types
of government in Republic are all
generic, i.e., not real governments
found in specific places the way
Aristotle would have done).
Plato was suspicious of books
• His focus was on
stimulating the mind
to make it see big
truths by means of
insightful ‘flashes.’
• For him, recording
experiences was
simply the recording
of impressions or
opinions.
Later…
• Not many people read Aristotle’s works after
he died. His style was dry and uninspiring.
• Most philosophical schools throughout
antiquity were offshoots of the Academy.
They tended to focus on ethics rather than
searching for the Forms.
• The Neo-Platonists, however, were closer to
Platonism than most other movements.