人類的存在有何目的？一套解釋萬物的哲學理論？世界的本質為何？世界為何存在？亞里斯多德的百科全書式哲學 | 四因說 | 潛能理論 | 形上學 | 實體學 | 哲學爽歪歪EP6

Philosophy With SuperY Each episode introduces you to a philosophical thinker The series finally restarted Last episode we introduced Plato So today I'm going to introduce you to Plato's students Aristotle The Encyclopedic Philosophers of Ancient Greece Aristotle was a Macedonian born in the Greek colonies not from athens this point is very important Because he didn't actually get the citizenship of Athens This allowed him to think about political philosophy from a Gentile perspective He went to Plato's Academy of Athens at the age of 17 to study for 20 years after plato's death The Academy of Athens was taken over by Plato's nephew Speusippus Aristotle did not inherit the head So disappointed to leave Athens Go to various islands to study zoology and botany at the age of 40 Invited by King Philip II of Macedon to be a tutor Teaching Alexander the Great in Philosophy This allowed Aristotle to realize Plato's ideal Plato believes that to build an ideal country Let the philosopher be the emperor Or teach the emperor philosophy Later Aristotle returned to Athens Founded his own academy Lyceum This word still exists in French today. French high school is called lycée So what kind of philosophy did Aristotle teach in the academy? aristotle thought The difference between humans and animals is that Human children have a curious desire from childhood Your dogs and cats won't be confused by changes in nature But humans want to know the principles behind natural phenomena And when man studies everything Discovered that there is indeed a set of truths behind the world for human beings to understand So man has a wonderful relationship with the world curious about the world And the world also provides answers to human beings As if man and the world were born for each other The desire to be curious is the bridge that connects human beings with the world When will people's curiosity be stimulated? as he observed changes in nature For example the ancient Greeks were curious Why do you plant a tree in the ground and it grows a tree But you put a bed in the ground and it doesn't grow a bed Obviously the bed is also made of wood. This means that there is a difference between natural objects and man-made objects flora and fauna in nature principle of change From a seed to a plant there is inherent power to grow The principle of movement of this organism defined by Aristotle as nature So we can say that being a man is natural for little boys But man-made things must be endowed by man with the principle of change For example one can turn wood into a bed But how did wood become a bed? Of course, the craftsman has the form of the bed in mind first and then transforms the wood Therefore, the principle of change of man-made form in the human brain On the basis of this division Aristotle is about to start explaining all the changes in the world He thinks it can all be answered with a set of theories called "Four Reasons" When our curiosity is piqued to ask why According to Aristotle, there are 4 ways to answer For example we ask why the house exists For a house to exist, there must be building materials Aristotle called "material cause" But building materials don't automatically turn into houses Must first have the blueprint form of the house, the interior design This is called "formal cause" But if you have building materials and forms, you won’t be able to build a house by yourself. You also need architects, craftsmen These people provide the motivation so they are called "motivators" But the house was built and there was still no explanation: why do we have this house? So there needs to be a "purpose cause" Explain the purpose of the house Aristotle believes that all things come into existence simultaneously with these four causes Indispensable So to understand how the world works we have to clarify when we talk about the reason Which of these four reasons are you talking about? After the scientific revolution in the 17th century Western science tries to explain everything with material cause Believes that everything is made of atoms Do another experiment to break atoms down into smaller elementary particles think that this grasps the reason of the composition of things But for Aristotle Material causes alone are not enough to explain the world because if everything could be reduced to atoms Then why do some atoms develop into animal flesh and organs Some atoms become human flesh, organs There must be a force that organizes the atoms into different forms This leads to the difference in the life structure of animals and humans This force is the cause of form Aristotle believed that the formal cause is the most important of the four causes because it embodies the essence of a thing Ancient Greek called logos Logos can be translated into words and principles In fact, it is somewhat similar to the Chinese "reason" Because in Chinese, "Tao" also means to speak The formal cause is the logos of a thing If it does not develop according to the logos of a thing the thing would not be itself For example, the logos of pasta are derived from the chef's knowledge recorded in the recipe When the chef prepares the ingredients, only the ingredients cause It is also necessary to give these ingredients an order according to the recipe Turn them into pasta form If you didn't follow the recipe step by step What you end up with can turn out to be like shit Of course the form also depends on the material For example, the form of a dolphin cannot be realized with human material An episode of South Park It's just someone having surgery to turn themselves into a dolphin All I do is change my shape to look like I'm inside Of course it failed Because the form of the dolphin can only be realized by the data of the dolphin Man cannot become a dolphin But form is still more important than substance Because matter is born and dies but form can be eternal no individual can be immortal every generation dies But there's one thing that goes on and on is the form of species Humans have survived for tens of thousands of years and no one can survive Human matter has been experiencing death But the human form remained So what is really immortal is the form Aristotle thought this was why plants and animals reproduce Because we want to pass on the form to the next generation emphasis on form Also influenced Aristotle's views on the division of labor in society Aristotle believes that architects are more important Construction workers, slaves are secondary because the architect is a man of form But workers and slaves are only responsible for processing data What architects learn is not steel and concrete but the form and structure of buildings It is also from Aristotle The division of disciplines in the West began to have high and low points Knowledge is more advanced than technology Because form is superior to matter At the same time, the form not only reflects the logos of one thing It also drives the organism to develop into itself Like a seed trying to grow into a big tree only when it matures into a tree it really shows the form of the species so it can be said The form is also the cause of the change the driving force Here we need to clarify a concept Changes as we moderns understand In fact, it has been influenced by the philosopher David Hume we all thought Things change because of an event that happened before So an event is the source of the motivation There is a problem with this view of causality: so many events in history How do you trace which is the cause and effect? aristotle thinks wrong There is only one event in the world is change the real problem is What is the purpose of this change For example, the form of a house should be able to achieve There must be the architect as the moving cause and the brick as the material cause But we can imagine a situation where Architects have blueprints in mind but never realize them Bricks never came in handy In this case Aristotle would say Both architects and bricks are not realizing their potential And the so-called change is the realization of potential when architects become architects building houses When bricks become bricks taken to build houses These two things are actually the same thing It is the form of the house that changes from potential to realization so not a lot of events There is only one event happening here It is realized in the form of a house So more precisely The principle of dynamic cause is still formal cause only through the intermediary For example, when a teacher teaches students, the teacher is the motivation The knowledge that the teacher possesses is the form The student's soul is like the material Teachers use knowledge to transform students' souls So the focus of education is not on the teacher It is the knowledge that students absorb Finally, there is a very important final cause (telos) Aristotle believes that the final cause will determine the development of form To understand the purpose of a thing's existence can be studied in its fullest and most complete form you can see why you had to go through different stages before For example, why is the structural foundation of the house made of cement and the roof made of wood? This cannot be answered with material It's not because the cement is heavier so it's on the bottom, and the wood is lighter so it's on the top but because people are going to live in houses there must be a secure foundation Therefore, the purpose of making people live safely determines the form of the house Aristotle believed that more than man-made objects purposeful cause The existence of all things in nature develops towards a certain purpose The most intuitive look Plants grow in the same direction no matter where on earth is where the sun shines ? ? ? Or the human species has a feature that other primates don't have That is, the human thumb can easily touch the other fingers Make tools easy to master These are called "opposable thumbs" here comes the problem how to explain this particular form of human Contemporary biologists explain from an evolutionary perspective think it's because primate hands need to adapt to climbing trees The human hand evolved to create tools and transform the living environment But Aristotle didn't teach evolution teleology Nature endows human beings with hands to match human rationality Because the hand is the key to exercising the human capacity for reason People are born with rationality and can conceive a set of solutions to problems Then practice your own rational plan by making tools with your hands So human nature is the hands of rationality and creativity You won't see fish, birds grow arms because they are irrational Of course you don't need a pair of hands but people are rational If nature itself is also rational it should give human hands We can imagine an irrational nature It endows humans with reason but does not give humans hands to realize their own ideas Such a person is crippled incapable of practicing one's own humanity This world is irrational Because he created two contradictory things that's why Marx said capitalism is irrational Because capitalism on the one hand wants to maximize efficiency But on the other hand, it deprives laborers of their means of production so that labor cannot really achieve maximum efficiency Marx on this Influenced by Aristotle think that to create a rational society In order to be in line with rational human nature And for Aristotle The complete human form must have the hands of reason and practical reason we can conversely think if a scientist Children who spend their lives studying only humans He didn't know that children can become adults with rational abilities Thought humans were forever in child form Then the scientist's definition of human nature must be incorrect. because he missed the end cause One must look at a fully developed human to truly find the definition of a human being Aristotle's purpose had an important impact on the history of philosophy is to use results to explain the essence of things instead of origin The truth is not hidden in the origin but in the result So Hegel said: The essence of philosophy is to look back The whole of human history is like the process of changing from a child to an adult The task of philosophy is to answer What is the significance of the development of human beings in the past thousands of years to today But contemporary science has forgotten the end cause Stop believing that natural development has a purpose Think that everything is just evolution to adapt to the environment The purpose of many human activities in today's society is even distorted Why do chefs cook? It should be for people to eat and satisfy Why do architects build houses? It should be for people to live comfortably Why do teachers teach? It should be to enable students to gain more knowledge But in contemporary capitalist society Chefs don't cook to satisfy people but to make more money So cutting corners in the food causes food safety problems Builders build houses not for people to live in but for real estate speculation So a bunch of houses were built and they turned out to be empty Teachers do not teach to satisfy students' thirst for knowledge It is to help cram schools and schools to fight for the enrollment rate We will discover many problems in contemporary society In fact, it's all because of forgetting the purpose. After putting forward the theory of four causes Now Aristotle has another challenge ancient greeks were confused Why we eat bread and grow human flesh How can human flesh come from something that is not human flesh? The philosophy behind this is How is change possible? This conundrum actually has a more powerful formulation from the philosopher parmenides He said change is impossible Because a thing needs to exist, it needs a horse to create something out of nothing, and it needs a horse to create something out of something if the first case It started with nothing then it is impossible to create something out of nothing if the second case something existed in the beginning Then there is no problem generated So the changes seen in daily life are all illusions How did Aristotle solve Parmenides' puzzle? He said suppose there is a person who doesn't understand music After learning music theory from the teacher, I understand music theory Is this something out of nothing? wrong Even people who don't understand music have the potential to learn music This potential has always been there It's just that you can't observe it A teacher does not create a person who understands music out of nothing It's about realizing the potential of music out of this person. What does not appear to exist on the surface actually exists in the form of potential same All human beings begin as potentialities father provides sperm mother offers womb give birth to your embryo But you're not legally alone in the mother's belly How could a person who did not exist suddenly become a person? Because man slowly develops into an embryo in a latent way Rerealize as a human change is possible because the human form already existed before the change took place Aristotle made this potential/realized distinction very useful such as in the workplace The company is not optimistic about you and thinks you are incompetent but you are really incapable It still has potential, but no chance of realizing it. According to Aristotle The environment must also provide opportunities, incentives to realize the potential of employees Just like the teacher's guidance is needed, the potential of the students will be stimulated It takes an architect to power it so wood becomes a house here it shows Aristotle was very different from his teacher Plato Plato believes that the ideal is the pre-existing eternal world always there But Aristotle thought The rationale should be gradually developed and realized And this change doesn't happen automatically A facilitator is needed to initiate the change potential theory Later, it influenced the philosophy of Hegel and Marx Marx said If a railroad track is built, but no trains run that's at best a potential railroad track without realizing its real function Likewise, capitalism produces a bunch of goods But give laborers low wages so that they can't afford goods Many items cannot be sold Just a "potential" commodity In this way, the value of the commodity cannot be "realized" capital will not be able to make a profit May eventually lead to market crash, economic crisis This is the self-contradiction of capitalism Similarly, Taiwanese builders built a bunch of houses but no one can afford it The house should be used to live in, this is the "nature" of the house But these empty houses are not living up to their potential So Marx would say that capitalism violates nature another philosopher hegel developed the master-slave dialectic to criticize Aristotle in ancient greek society Philosophers are slave masters they don't need to spend time working Free time to conceive philosophy and realize human rationality Aristotle thought Mathematics originated in Egypt because the ancient Egyptian priests had leisure time Slave masters lived a better life satisfies human curiosity But Hegel says just the opposite The master does not need to work, the potentialities in the soul are forever blocked Because they only talk on paper Tell everyone the philosophy of potential This is what Aristotle was doing The master only has one mouth by contrast because slaves are working Instead, they can realize the potential in their souls In the process of building a house, create the ideal shape of the house So it looks like the master is enslaving the slave But there are no slaves, masters are nothing This is Haig's master-slave dialectic Inspiration is derived from Aristotle's philosophy of potential Finally we come to the hardest part of Aristotle's philosophy: Metaphysics what is metaphysics Metaphysics is the science after mythology and science When the ancient Greeks studied natural phenomena Like to ask what is the reason for the change For example, what is the cause of thunder The interpretation of the Age of Mythology is: It thunders because Zeus is angry so different natural phenomena Can be explained by different Olympian gods But after the first philosophers appeared Begin to discover the laws of nature Thunder is always accompanied by lightning So come up with a theory Thunder and lightning are the result of clouds rubbing against each other and catching fire in the atmosphere People no longer use gods to explain change Instead, a simple principle is used to explain the change This is the beginning of scientific thinking Use "one" to explain "many" Instead of using "many" to explain "many" But Aristotle was still not satisfied If thunder is just a change of cloud clouds from water molecules It turns into water after it rains The entire water cycle is constantly changing. So what is the constant behind it? This question is the starting point of metaphysics What is the real constant behind the changes in the experience world? Because "Metaphysics" is the next book after "Physics" So it's called Metaphysics meaning after physics aristotle thought Philosophers must study the unchanging things behind the world's changes Because they are the most fundamental existence That is to say, existence is hierarchical some things don't exist independently like colors, numbers, shapes you can say white exists But white can only exist as the color of something You won't see white floating in the air alone They are not the object of study of metaphysics This point is very important Because this is the big difference between Aristotle and Plato Plato said Everything in the experiential world is unreal The perfect archetype, whiteness, and justice exist only in the realm of ideals And only the soul can know those ideals now aristotle says no only one world exists is nature The reason why Plato mistakenly believed that a rational world exists It is because everything in nature has length, width, height, and shape. Mathematicians can abstract them into geometric figures But you abstract the watermelon into a circle This circle actually exists only in your mind Plato's mistake was that mistakenly think that something abstracted in the mind is derived from an extrasensory rational world In fact they are just manifestations of nature A circle simply cannot stand on its own A circle is always the shape of something real Likewise, all good values ​​do not exist independently in the world of ideals You must have seen courage, justice, goodness in someone You don't see these values ​​standing alone, floating in the air so if you think There is an absolute, one-size-fits-all concept of justice then you are a platonist but if you think The justice we see is an example of it being done in the world Every society is different So justice must be set by the political community then you are an aristotelian Aristotle's theory also solved a problem that Plato couldn't According to Plato there are two worlds The natural world is not perfect, but the rational world is perfect how do you explain Mathematical knowledge can be applied to the imperfect nature Aristotle's system has only one nature won't have this problem In fact, there are still debates between these two factions in the scientific community today. Should science be based on mathematics or empirical evidence? If you think truth is in nature, it can be observed Then you are Aristotelian More emphasis on scientific experiments but if you think the truth should be in the math formula Then you are a Platonist, and you pay more attention to theoretical deduction for aristotle The Ideas of Plato are always attached to something So their rank is relatively low and secondary The really important existence must be self-existence Exist without being dependent on anything else Aristotle called these things "substances" (Ousia) Entity is the constant change of various properties, behind the unchanging thing Because it remains the same, it can be regarded as the essence of a thing Early Aristotle believed that all organisms are substances This makes his metaphysics a bit like a world of models Entity is like the base of the model many properties attached to the model For example, a horse is an entity that exists independently Color is the existence attached to the horse No matter how the attributes of a horse change What remains unchanged is that he is a horse Aristotle discovered This level of existence has a corresponding relationship with human language An entity that exists independently and is the subject of a sentence Properties that cannot exist independently are all descriptors of one sentence So grammatically we can say "the horse is white" But nobody says "white is a horse" This sentence itself does not make sense in other words The logic of thought is also the logic of the world Because the world is made up of entities and properties So human beings are limited to think like this The language invented by humans naturally reflects the structure of the world This has a great impact on the history of Western philosophy Western metaphysics has held for two thousand years that Understand the category of language to understand the structure of the world And this is what postmodernism in the 20th century wants to challenge Do you think language can accurately reproduce reality It's possible that this is just human fantasy In the later years of Aristotle He began to abandon the organism as the primary entity because there's a big problem here Think about what is the essence of your person? Is it your body? But your body cells are metabolizing every day So the material of the body cannot define who you are And your physical body continues after you die You wouldn't say that that corpse was your essence, would you? So matter would not be a human entity Could it be the form? For example Socrates was the wisest man in Athens This form of wisdom may be the key to defining Socrates But if you use form to define people, there will be a problem If we say that Socrates is the embodiment of wisdom If one day there is a person with the same wisdom Then there are two Socrates in the world or imagine you're in a relationship certain characteristics of someone you fall in love with But after a few years of dating those traits are gone Is this person still the same person? if not You're just cheating on someone else So Aristotle discovered The definition of individuality cannot be grasped When we want to define the essence of man can only grasp the form of the human species Think about it, everyone will die someday No one who ever existed on earth is now So they must not be the most fundamental existence in this world People can exist because the previous generation gave birth to them The previous generation is because of the previous generation Push back infinitely will find Each generation of human beings cannot survive on its own are not entities The definition of an entity is something that can exist on its own So what exactly is the human entity? in the process of human reproduction something that really passed on In fact, it is the form of the human species. All who are born depend on this form Otherwise you can't be called a human What is this species form? Aristotle said it was the soul of man He's not talking about the Christian concept of the soul. Not going to heaven or hell after death not individual soul aristotle thought The entire human species has only one soul People all over the world actually share one soul This human soul is in different flesh and blood Grow out the life principle of you and me This principle governs human beings From baby to adult developed a full human form this sounds like a mystery If understood in the language of modern science This soul that gives the human species form In fact, it is similar to the gene DNA code mentioned today. Different permutations and combinations of DNA endow life with different forms Humans share 99% of our genes with chimpanzees The 1% difference makes the life principle of human beings and chimpanzees different The logos (essence) of life development can also be translated into words in ancient Greek And DNA is actually a speech This language determines the reason for the growth of a species The concept of the entity There will be more wonderful arguments in the history of philosophy in the future history of philosophy You must understand Aristotle's concept of substance in this episode We introduce Aristotle's theory of four causes Potential Theory, Metaphysics, Entity Let's continue talking in the next episode Aristotle's Ethics and Views of Human Nature How else can someone live their best life?