Paste your essay in here…Before starting a discussion of how Aristotle explained or defended the possibility of objective knowledge about the world, it is important to first appreciate who he was and his contribution to knowledge.
As a popular figure who hugely contributed to various fields from logic to physics and other physical and social sciences in ancient Greek philosophy. Many of these branches in knowledge owe their growth to Aristotle and other Greek philosophers of his time and those who came before and after him.
In a nutshell, he contributed so much to various disciplines of knowledge and went ahead to classify the knowledge into three different types Episteme (scientific), Techne (Skill and crafts) and Phronesis (Wisdom). Aristotle’s Categories of knowledge A look at these three categories of knowledge gives an understanding of how Aristotle explained knowledge. Episteme, for instance, means “to know” in Greek. Episteme is the kind of knowledge that one gains from reading books and this kind of knowledge tells you about the world and how it works, this is the theory of something. Episteme means the kind of knowledge that can be easily stored and transmitted to others.. The other category is Techne or (Skill and craft knowledge). This Greek work Techne means craftsmanship, craft, or art or skill. It refers to knowledge that people are born with and do not always know that they have it. According to Alexander, In Metaph. 2, 1-10 knowledge and is related to techne which refers to knowing how organized things work. Techne is the knowledge that is of importance to others too. Techne kind of knowledge is not easy to share; this is because one has to learn it by himself and through practicing. As (Cicero, On Ends III.50) states, technê does not have the same kind of stability.
The other category of knowledge is Phronesis (Practical wisdom). This means practical wisdom in Greek. Aristotle makes a distinction between sophia and phronesis. Sophia (translated to wisdom) refers to the ability to think well about the nature of the world, the capacity to discover systems why the world is the way it is. Sophia is the ability to find universal truths and theories. Phroneses on the other hand refers to the ability to realize how a specific goal or value is arrived at. Phroneses refers to the aspects of a situation. Phroneses includes the reflections that are utilized in the examining of knowledge systems, achievement of goals, different practices and which are oftenly not taken seriously.
Dottori, Ethics & Politics, XI, 2009, 1, pp. 301-310, explains that this concept is the reason why Aristotle critiques Platos doctrines of ideas. According to the teachings of Aristotle, when one has the needed “Episteme” and “Techne” of a specific matter he can develop the capability to find the “right answer” in a particular situation, which is what phronesis is about. Aristotle did revise Plato's theory of Forms and Ideas. Though Aristotle looked at the critical principles of ideas and form, the appreciation of the reality of changing of physical things was as important as appreciating the knowledge of those physical things.
Aristotle, Metaphysics I1 states that "All men desire knowledge (to know) by nature Aristotle, Metaphysics I,III,XXXii, Pp. 79-110, wrote about tha use of language (dialectic) and logic as being our means of knowing to a level still in use today. In defence of knowledge, and the objectivity of it, he analyzed subject-predicate sentences and puzzled over the relationship between being or essence and the copula "is." Aristotle clarified the simplest rules of logic – that are necessary for the reasoning behind justification of knowledge – the Law of Identity (A is A), the Law of Non-Contradiction, and the Law of the Excluded Middle, Aristotle, Metaphysics,3,XXXii, Pp. 79-110. Aristotle went ahead to develop the rules for logical inference, identifying many types of syllogism. All these point to an explanation of the possibility of objective knowledge. But he did not stop there. Aristotle’s quest to explain knowledge went beyond reason and Platonic dialectic. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 3,XXXIll, added that the need for demonstration to discover the cause and explanation of a phenomenon.
It can be said that this was the beginning of empirical knowledge. The observations and experiments that contribute to the foundations of modern science instead of knowledge that is subjective and personal are readily available for learning and reflection.
Aristotle, Metaphysics 1, III, Pp. 47— 68, identified the four basic causes (material, formal, efficient, and final). He said that chance might be a fifth cause. Aristotle posits that all things do not happen because of causal necessity though some issues , chance will have a hand in it.
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1,XIII, PP. 390-415, made a distinction between distinguished certain a priori knowledge, for example logic and mathematics from the merely probable and contingent a posteriori knowledge of ethics and politics. Aristotle denied that the truth of a proposition about the future entailed the necessity of a future event.
For him, there are various methods of inquiry and many kinds of knowledge depending on the subject matter. For instance, the knowledge of the things themselves in the external world (ontology and metaphysics) what is now referred to as the physical sciences, and knowledge about people (ethics and politics) what is today called the social sciences. (Plutarch, On moral virtue 441 C-D), posits that psychology can also be added here because of its subjective and reflective knowledge of introspection. Though Aristotle sought to embrace empiricism more even more than Plato, he swayed from the holding on to necessary truths and first principles.
He also recognized "theses" and "axioms" And Aristotle distinguished many kinds of logical argument. When the premises are true and certain Aristotle, Metaphysics 3,I, Pp. 79-110. (he does not explain how this can be the case except for those that are self-evident "first principles" and the deductive syllogism is correct so that the conclusions follow, Aristotle calls this a demonstration, the truth of it is apodeictic a logical proof. The resulting knowledge is demonstrative knowledge. Aristotle realized that not all reasons given to justify beliefs could themselves have reasons without an infinite regress or circular argument, so he proposed that some reasons could be "self-evident" axioms, worth believing on their own merits or because they are popular opinion.
Returning to Plato here, Aristotle says that all parts of this demonstration – premises, deductions, and conclusions – are necessary. When the premises are popular opinion, their truth merely probable, the argument is dialectical. When the premises are false, the argument is sophistical, and can prove anything. Much of modern epistemology feels somewhat sophistical. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 3,XXXIll, writes that we come to know the foundations of knowledge, or first principles, differently than we come to know other propositions.
They do not require demonstrative proof; rather, we arrive at first principles through a process that begins with perception. That is objective knowledge. He continues to say that we perceive particular things and form memories of them. Particulars, on Aristotle’s view, are not objects of knowledge per se. Nevertheless, when we form enough memories about particulars of a certain type, we thereby attain experience. He adds that through experience we finally arrive at universals, which, for Aristotle, are the first principles.
Aristotle intends for this argument to explain how the foundations of knowledge can be comprehended without having to be proved from something more basic. It does nothing, though, to establish that knowledge acquired in this fashion is by any means indubitable. Aristotle’s first principles depend on the faculties of perception and memory. However, our senses can deceive us, and memory is not always reliable. It follows that first principles are subject to doubt. Thus, first principles are not definite. As we have seen, Aristotle offers robust explanation and defence of objective knowledge.
Although Aristotle draws on empiricism in order to account for knowledge of first principle, his foundationalism is largely a product of rationalism. For Aristotle, we know that knowledge can be deduced from first principles. Because deduction is a truth-preserving operation, as long as the first principles are true, whatever is deduced from them will also be true and objective. Despite Aristotle’s commitment to rationalism, in order to avoid an infinite regress, he is forced to account for the acquisition of first principles via empirical processes, viz., sense perception and memory.
This suggests a limit to rationalism’s capacity to explain how we acquire knowledge (especially knowledge of the external world). In conclusion, it can be said that first principles are somehow encoded within, and apprehended through perception of what Aristotle terms particulars. Aristotles first principles are important in the pursuit of knowledge. His principles show that Aristotle was explained and defended the possibility of objective knowledge about the worldAnd only then, for Aristotle, do first principles function as foundational constituents of knowledge.