Aristotle's Overarching Metaphor

Upon examination of these three prominent works, a clear overarching metaphor can be seen; pattern change, as illustrated through astronomy, nature (phases), and the metaphors of the sun, light and the heavens; pattern to change. The overarching metaphor can be found most prominently with the loudest of Plato’s themes; reflection. He writes that only through reflection, the act of turning around, retracing our steps, recalling/investigating our memories, examining boundaries we can achieve enlightenment-akin to reason and knowledge.

Similar as Socrates was to Plato, Aristotle became the student of Plato and was also similarly influenced by him in an impactful way. Aristotle was born in 384 BC, in a village close to Syllabic in Northern Greece,

Macedonia. Due to its location Macedonia was on the fringe of Greece and therefore considered almost barbarous. Aristotle was considered an outsider and a ‘country boy’. His father was the court physician to the King of Macedonia, consequently he was educated in the court, from which he was eventually sent to study in Athens at Plato’s academy. Following the death of his mentor in 347, Aristotle left the academy to study the natural sciences and study abroad. In the time that Aristotle lived, the Greek world was made up of many small city-states, each with their own independent government. He later became the tutor to Alexander the Great. Whom eventually within Aristotle's lifetime united Greece and brought it under one state. Unlike Plato, Aristotle did not write in dialogues but in discursive form. He wrote a large scope of works including science, politics, rhetoric, logic and metaphysics. Aristotelian thought is dictated by the natural law of tradition and the scientific method.

Like Plato, Aristotle is noted for his impressive list of extensive works, particularly Politics.

Within this particular piece he carefully unpacks the notion that all associations (i.e states) are aimed at forming some good (after all why else would we chose to willingly leave the state of nature?); “every city is some sort of community , and that every community is constituted for the sake of some good (for everyone does everything for the sake of what is held to be good)” (Aristotle, “Politics” 1). In the Politics Aristotle makes it clear that though the city-state is created and sustained through politics it encompasses and foster many other associations such as families and economics. Within this work he discusses what makes the polis; the people (material cause), the constitution (boundary), legislators and the type of government (who will benefit and who will lose). Aristotle uses the relationship between causal and explanation to illustrate the necessary condition from which the city comes into being. He identifies two types of causality; primary (the most basic; material/matter) and secondary (formal; the form). He classifies the people, the first element of the polis as the material cause (first/primary causality). Aristotle writes that we are all here because of primary causality; the city-state is prior to the parts (can’t have a whole without the parts) and the parts constitute the whole (the conditions that must pertain for the city to come into

existence).