Aristotle: From Logic to Life

In our introductory lecture, we examine Aristotle’s foundational role in Western philosophy, exploring his life, historical context, and wide-ranging contributions to logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, and literary theory. We trace his twenty years studying under Plato at the Academy, his work as tutor to Alexander the Great, and his founding of the Lyceum, where his empirical approach contrasted with Plato’s abstract method. The lecture concludes by highlighting Aristotle’s systematic thinking and his lasting influence on medieval education and contemporary philosophy.

In lecture two, we explore Aristotle’s groundbreaking work in logic, focusing on the Organon, which formalized human reasoning and shaped logical thought for over two millennia. We examine the laws of thought, syllogistic reasoning, and the distinction between validity and soundness. Dr. Orr concludes by introducing his four causes and his theory of change as the movement from potentiality to actuality, linking logic to natural philosophy and metaphysics.

In lecture three, we turn to Aristotle’s metaphysics, focusing on “being as being” and the question of why anything exists at all. We explore his theory of substance as form–matter composites, his concept of the unmoved mover as pure actuality, and how this connects to his ethics, where contemplation is the highest human activity. The lecture concludes with his psychology in De Anima, where the soul is the organizing principle of living beings, and humans uniquely possess a rational soul that enables both practical and theoretical reason.