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Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle reports on the sea-life visible from observation on Lesbos and the catches of fishermen. He describes the catfish, electric ray, and frogfish in detail, as well as cephalopods such as the octopus and paper nautilus. His description of the hectocotyl arm of cephalopods, used in sexual reproduction, was widely disbelieved until the 19th century. He gives accurate descriptions of the four-chambered fore-stomachs of ruminants, and of the ovoviviparous embryological development of the hound shark.

Aristotle [SEP] He notes that an animal's structure is well matched to function, so, among birds, the heron, which lives in marshes with soft mud and lives by catching fish, has a long neck and long legs, and a sharp spear-like beak, whereas ducks that swim have short legs and webbed feet. Darwin, too, noted these sorts of differences between similar kinds of animal, but unlike Aristotle used the data to come to the theory of evolution.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle's writings can seem to modern readers close to implying evolution, but while Aristotle was aware that new mutations or hybridisations could occur, he saw these as rare accidents. For Aristotle, accidents, like heat waves in winter, must be considered distinct from natural causes. He was thus critical of Empedocles's materialist theory of a "survival of the fittest" origin of living things and their organs, and ridiculed the idea that accidents could lead to orderly results.

Aristotle [SEP] To put his views into modern terms, he nowhere says that different species can have a common ancestor, or that one kind can change into another, or that kinds can become extinct. Aristotle did not do experiments in the modern sense. He used the ancient Greek term "pepeiramenoi" to mean observations, or at most investigative procedures like dissection. In "Generation of Animals", he finds a fertilised hen's egg of a suitable stage and opens it to see the embryo's heart beating inside.

Aristotle [SEP] Instead, he practised a different style of science: systematically gathering data, discovering patterns common to whole groups of animals, and inferring possible causal explanations from these. This style is common in modern biology when large amounts of data become available in a new field, such as genomics. It does not result in the same certainty as experimental science, but it sets out testable hypotheses and constructs a narrative explanation of what is observed. In this sense, Aristotle's biology is scientific.

Aristotle [SEP] From the data he collected and documented, Aristotle inferred quite a number of rules relating the life-history features of the live-bearing tetrapods (terrestrial placental mammals) that he studied. Among these correct predictions are the following. Brood size decreases with (adult) body mass, so that an elephant has fewer young (usually just one) per brood than a mouse.

Aristotle [SEP] Lifespan increases with gestation period, and also with body mass, so that elephants live longer than mice, have a longer period of gestation, and are heavier. As a final example, fecundity decreases with lifespan, so long-lived kinds like elephants have fewer young in total than short-lived kinds like mice. Aristotle distinguished about 500 species of animals, arranging these in the "History of Animals" in a graded scale of perfection, a "scala naturae", with man at the top.

Aristotle [SEP] His system had eleven grades of animal, from highest potential to lowest, expressed in their form at birth: the highest gave live birth to hot and wet creatures, the lowest laid cold, dry mineral-like eggs. Animals came above plants, and these in turn were above minerals. see also: He grouped what the modern zoologist would call vertebrates as the hotter "animals with blood", and below them the colder invertebrates as "animals without blood".

Aristotle [SEP] Those with blood were divided into the live-bearing (mammals), and the egg-laying (birds, reptiles, fish). Those without blood were insects, crustacea (non-shelled – cephalopods, and shelled) and the hard-shelled molluscs (bivalves and gastropods). He recognised that animals did not exactly fit into a linear scale, and noted various exceptions, such as that sharks had a placenta like the tetrapods.

Aristotle [SEP] To a modern biologist, the explanation, not available to Aristotle, is convergent evolution. He believed that purposive final causes guided all natural processes; this teleological view justified his observed data as an expression of formal design. Aristotle's psychology, given in his treatise "On the Soul" ("peri psychēs"), posits three kinds of soul ("psyches"): the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul, and the rational soul. Humans have a rational soul.

Aristotle [SEP] The human soul incorporates the powers of the other kinds: Like the vegetative soul it can grow and nourish itself; like the sensitive soul it can experience sensations and move locally. The unique part of the human, rational soul is its ability to receive forms of other things and to compare them using the "nous" (intellect) and "logos" (reason). For Aristotle, the soul is the form of a living being.

Aristotle [SEP] Because all beings are composites of form and matter, the form of living beings is that which endows them with what is specific to living beings, e.g. the ability to initiate movement (or in the case of plants, growth and chemical transformations, which Aristotle considers types of movement). In contrast to earlier philosophers, but in accordance with the Egyptians, he placed the rational soul in the heart, rather than the brain.

Aristotle [SEP] Notable is Aristotle's division of sensation and thought, which generally differed from the concepts of previous philosophers, with the exception of Alcmaeon. According to Aristotle in "On the Soul", memory is the ability to hold a perceived experience in the mind and to distinguish between the internal "appearance" and an occurrence in the past. In other words, a memory is a mental picture (phantasm) that can be recovered.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle believed an impression is left on a semi-fluid bodily organ that undergoes several changes in order to make a memory. A memory occurs when stimuli such as sights or sounds are so complex that the nervous system cannot receive all the impressions at once. These changes are the same as those involved in the operations of sensation, Aristotelian 'common sense', and thinking.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle uses the term 'memory' for the actual retaining of an experience in the impression that can develop from sensation, and for the intellectual anxiety that comes with the impression because it is formed at a particular time and processing specific contents. Memory is of the past, prediction is of the future, and sensation is of the present. Retrieval of impressions cannot be performed suddenly. A transitional channel is needed and located in our past experiences, both for our previous experience and present experience.

Aristotle [SEP] Because Aristotle believes people receive all kinds of sense perceptions and perceive them as impressions, people are continually weaving together new impressions of experiences. To search for these impressions, people search the memory itself. Within the memory, if one experience is offered instead of a specific memory, that person will reject this experience until they find what they are looking for. Recollection occurs when one retrieved experience naturally follows another. If the chain of "images" is needed, one memory will stimulate the next.

Aristotle [SEP] When people recall experiences, they stimulate certain previous experiences until they reach the one that is needed. Recollection is thus the self-directed activity of retrieving the information stored in a memory impression. Only humans can remember impressions of intellectual activity, such as numbers and words. Animals that have perception of time can retrieve memories of their past observations. Remembering involves only perception of the things remembered and of the time passed.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle believed the chain of thought, which ends in recollection of certain impressions, was connected systematically in relationships such as similarity, contrast, and contiguity, described in his Laws of Association. Aristotle believed that past experiences are hidden within the mind. A force operates to awaken the hidden material to bring up the actual experience. According to Aristotle, association is the power innate in a mental state, which operates upon the unexpressed remains of former experiences, allowing them to rise and be recalled.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle describes sleep in "On Sleep and Wakefulness". Sleep takes place as a result of overuse of the senses or of digestion, so it is vital to the body. While a person is asleep, the critical activities, which include thinking, sensing, recalling and remembering, do not function as they do during wakefulness. Since a person cannot sense during sleep they can not have desire, which is the result of sensation.

Aristotle [SEP] However, the senses are able to work during sleep, albeit differently, unless they are weary. Dreams do not involve actually sensing a stimulus. In dreams, sensation is still involved, but in an altered manner. Aristotle explains that when a person stares at a moving stimulus such as the waves in a body of water, and then look away, the next thing they look at appears to have a wavelike motion.

Aristotle [SEP] When a person perceives a stimulus and the stimulus is no longer the focus of their attention, it leaves an impression. When the body is awake and the senses are functioning properly, a person constantly encounters new stimuli to sense and so the impressions of previously perceived stimuli are ignored. However, during sleep the impressions made throughout the day are noticed as there are no new distracting sensory experiences. So, dreams result from these lasting impressions.

Aristotle [SEP] Since impressions are all that are left and not the exact stimuli, dreams do not resemble the actual waking experience. During sleep, a person is in an altered state of mind. Aristotle compares a sleeping person to a person who is overtaken by strong feelings toward a stimulus. For example, a person who has a strong infatuation with someone may begin to think they see that person everywhere because they are so overtaken by their feelings.

Aristotle [SEP] Since a person sleeping is in a suggestible state and unable to make judgements, they become easily deceived by what appears in their dreams, like the infatuated person. This leads the person to believe the dream is real, even when the dreams are absurd in nature. One component of Aristotle's theory of dreams disagrees with previously held beliefs. He claimed that dreams are not foretelling and not sent by a divine being. Aristotle reasoned naturalistically that instances in which dreams do resemble future events are simply coincidences.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle claimed that a dream is first established by the fact that the person is asleep when they experience it. If a person had an image appear for a moment after waking up or if they see something in the dark it is not considered a dream because they were awake when it occurred. Secondly, any sensory experience that is perceived while a person is asleep does not qualify as part of a dream.

Aristotle [SEP] For example, if, while a person is sleeping, a door shuts and in their dream they hear a door is shut, this sensory experience is not part of the dream. Lastly, the images of dreams must be a result of lasting impressions of waking sensory experiences. Aristotle's practical philosophy covers areas such as ethics, politics, economics, and rhetoric. Aristotelian just war theory is not well regarded in the present day, especially his view that warfare was justified to enslave "natural slaves".

Aristotle [SEP] In Aristotelian philosophy, the abolition of what he considers "natural slavery" would undermine civic freedom. The pursuit of freedom is inseparable from pursuing mastery over "those who deserve to be slaves". According to "The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Politics" the targets of this aggressive warfare were non-Greeks, noting Aristotle's view that "our poets say 'it is proper for Greeks to rule non-Greeks'".

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle generally has a favorable opinion of war, extolling it as a chance for virtue and writing that "the leisure that accompanies peace" tends to make people "arrogant". War to "avoid becoming enslaved to others" is justified as self-defense. He writes that war "compels people to be just and temperate", however, in order to be just "war must be chosen for the sake of peace" (with the exception of wars of aggression discussed above).

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle considered ethics to be a practical rather than theoretical study, i.e., one aimed at becoming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake. He wrote several treatises on ethics, including most notably, the "Nicomachean Ethics". Aristotle taught that virtue has to do with the proper function ("ergon") of a thing. An eye is only a good eye in so much as it can see, because the proper function of an eye is sight.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle reasoned that humans must have a function specific to humans, and that this function must be an activity of the "psuchē" ("soul") in accordance with reason ("logos"). Aristotle identified such an optimum activity (the virtuous mean, between the accompanying vices of excess or deficiency) of the soul as the aim of all human deliberate action, "eudaimonia", generally translated as "happiness" or sometimes "well being".

Aristotle [SEP] To have the potential of ever being happy in this way necessarily requires a good character ("ēthikē" "aretē"), often translated as moral or ethical virtue or excellence. Aristotle taught that to achieve a virtuous and potentially happy character requires a first stage of having the fortune to be habituated not deliberately, but by teachers, and experience, leading to a later stage in which one consciously chooses to do the best things.

Aristotle [SEP] When the best people come to live life this way their practical wisdom ("phronesis") and their intellect ("nous") can develop with each other towards the highest possible human virtue, the wisdom of an accomplished theoretical or speculative thinker, or in other words, a philosopher. In addition to his works on ethics, which address the individual, Aristotle addressed the city in his work titled "Politics". Aristotle considered the city to be a natural community.

Aristotle [SEP] Moreover, he considered the city to be prior in importance to the family which in turn is prior to the individual, "for the whole must of necessity be prior to the part". He also famously stated that "man is by nature a political animal" and also arguing that humanity's defining factor among others in the animal kingdom is its rationality. Aristotle conceived of politics as being like an organism rather than like a machine, and as a collection of parts none of which can exist without the others.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle's conception of the city is organic, and he is considered one of the first to conceive of the city in this manner. The common modern understanding of a political community as a modern state is quite different from Aristotle's understanding. Although he was aware of the existence and potential of larger empires, the natural community according to Aristotle was the city ("polis") which functions as a political "community" or "partnership" ("koinōnia").

Aristotle [SEP] The aim of the city is not just to avoid injustice or for economic stability, but rather to allow at least some citizens the possibility to live a good life, and to perform beautiful acts: "The political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together."

Aristotle [SEP] This is distinguished from modern approaches, beginning with social contract theory, according to which individuals leave the state of nature because of "fear of violent death" or its "inconveniences." In "Protrepticus", the character 'Aristotle' states: Aristotle made substantial contributions to economic thought, especially to thought in the Middle Ages. In "Politics", Aristotle addresses the city, property, and trade.

Aristotle [SEP] His response to criticisms of private property, in Lionel Robbins's view, anticipated later proponents of private property among philosophers and economists, as it related to the overall utility of social arrangements. Aristotle believed that although communal arrangements may seem beneficial to society, and that although private property is often blamed for social strife, such evils in fact come from human nature. In "Politics", Aristotle offers one of the earliest accounts of the origin of money.

Aristotle [SEP] Money came into use because people became dependent on one another, importing what they needed and exporting the surplus. For the sake of convenience, people then agreed to deal in something that is intrinsically useful and easily applicable, such as iron or silver. Aristotle's discussions on retail and interest was a major influence on economic thought in the Middle Ages. He had a low opinion of retail, believing that contrary to using money to procure things one needs in managing the household, retail trade seeks to make a profit.

Aristotle [SEP] It thus uses goods as a means to an end, rather than as an end unto itself. He believed that retail trade was in this way unnatural. Similarly, Aristotle considered making a profit through interest unnatural, as it makes a gain out of the money itself, and not from its use. Aristotle gave a summary of the function of money that was perhaps remarkably precocious for his time.

Aristotle [SEP] He wrote that because it is impossible to determine the value of every good through a count of the number of other goods it is worth, the necessity arises of a single universal standard of measurement. Money thus allows for the association of different goods and makes them "commensurable". He goes to on state that money is also useful for future exchange, making it a sort of security.

Aristotle [SEP] That is, "if we do not want a thing now, we shall be able to get it when we do want it". Aristotle's "Rhetoric" proposes that a speaker can use three basic kinds of appeals to persuade his audience: "ethos" (an appeal to the speaker's character), "pathos" (an appeal to the audience's emotion), and "logos" (an appeal to logical reasoning).

Aristotle [SEP] He also categorises rhetoric into three genres: epideictic (ceremonial speeches dealing with praise or blame), forensic (judicial speeches over guilt or innocence), and deliberative (speeches calling on an audience to make a decision on an issue). Aristotle also outlines two kinds of rhetorical proofs: "enthymeme" (proof by syllogism) and "paradeigma" (proof by example).

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle writes in his "Poetics" that epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and dance are all fundamentally acts of "mimesis" ("imitation"), each varying in imitation by medium, object, and manner. He applies the term "mimesis" both as a property of a work of art and also as the product of the artist's intention and contends that the audience's realisation of the "mimesis" is vital to understanding the work itself.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle states that "mimesis" is a natural instinct of humanity that separates humans from animals and that all human artistry "follows the pattern of nature". Because of this, Aristotle believed that each of the mimetic arts possesses what Stephen Halliwell calls "highly structured procedures for the achievement of their purposes." For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language. The forms also differ in their object of imitation.

Aristotle [SEP] Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average; whereas tragedy imitates men slightly better than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation – through narrative or character, through change or no change, and through drama or no drama. While it is believed that Aristotle's "Poetics" originally comprised two books – one on comedy and one on tragedy – only the portion that focuses on tragedy has survived.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle taught that tragedy is composed of six elements: plot-structure, character, style, thought, spectacle, and lyric poetry. The characters in a tragedy are merely a means of driving the story; and the plot, not the characters, is the chief focus of tragedy. Tragedy is the imitation of action arousing pity and fear, and is meant to effect the catharsis of those same emotions. Aristotle concludes "Poetics" with a discussion on which, if either, is superior: epic or tragic mimesis.

Aristotle [SEP] He suggests that because tragedy possesses all the attributes of an epic, possibly possesses additional attributes such as spectacle and music, is more unified, and achieves the aim of its mimesis in shorter scope, it can be considered superior to epic. Aristotle was a keen systematic collector of riddles, folklore, and proverbs; he and his school had a special interest in the riddles of the Delphic Oracle and studied the fables of Aesop.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle's analysis of procreation describes an active, ensouling masculine element bringing life to an inert, passive female element. On this ground, proponents of feminist metaphysics have accused Aristotle of misogyny and sexism. However, Aristotle gave equal weight to women's happiness as he did to men's, and commented in his "Rhetoric" that the things that lead to happiness need to be in women as well as men.

Aristotle [SEP] More than 2300 years after his death, Aristotle remains one of the most influential people who ever lived. He contributed to almost every field of human knowledge then in existence, and he was the founder of many new fields. According to the philosopher Bryan Magee, "it is doubtful whether any human being has ever known as much as he did".

Aristotle [SEP] Among countless other achievements, Aristotle was the founder of formal logic, pioneered the study of zoology, and left every future scientist and philosopher in his debt through his contributions to the scientific method. Taneli Kukkonen, writing in "The Classical Tradition", observes that his achievement in founding two sciences is unmatched, and his reach in influencing "every branch of intellectual enterprise" including Western ethical and political theory, theology, rhetoric and literary analysis is equally long.

Aristotle [SEP] As a result, Kukkonen argues, any analysis of reality today "will almost certainly carry Aristotelian overtones ... evidence of an exceptionally forceful mind." Jonathan Barnes wrote that "an account of Aristotle's intellectual afterlife would be little less than a history of European thought". Aristotle's pupil and successor, Theophrastus, wrote the "History of Plants", a pioneering work in botany.

Aristotle [SEP] Some of his technical terms remain in use, such as carpel from "carpos", fruit, and pericarp, from "pericarpion", seed chamber. Theophrastus was much less concerned with formal causes than Aristotle was, instead pragmatically describing how plants functioned. The immediate influence of Aristotle's work was felt as the Lyceum grew into the Peripatetic school. Aristotle's notable students included Aristoxenus, Dicaearchus, Demetrius of Phalerum, Eudemos of Rhodes, Harpalus, Hephaestion, Mnason of Phocis, Nicomachus, and Theophrastus.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle's influence over Alexander the Great is seen in the latter's bringing with him on his expedition a host of zoologists, botanists, and researchers. He had also learned a great deal about Persian customs and traditions from his teacher.

Aristotle [SEP] Although his respect for Aristotle was diminished as his travels made it clear that much of Aristotle's geography was clearly wrong, when the old philosopher released his works to the public, Alexander complained "Thou hast not done well to publish thy acroamatic doctrines; for in what shall I surpass other men if those doctrines wherein I have been trained are to be all men's common property?" After Theophrastus, the Lyceum failed to produce any original work.

Aristotle [SEP] Though interest in Aristotle's ideas survived, they were generally taken unquestioningly. It is not until the age of Alexandria under the Ptolemies that advances in biology can be again found. The first medical teacher at Alexandria, Herophilus of Chalcedon, corrected Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and connected the nervous system to motion and sensation. Herophilus also distinguished between veins and arteries, noting that the latter pulse while the former do not.

Aristotle [SEP] Though a few ancient atomists such as Lucretius challenged the teleological viewpoint of Aristotelian ideas about life, teleology (and after the rise of Christianity, natural theology) would remain central to biological thought essentially until the 18th and 19th centuries. Ernst Mayr states that there was "nothing of any real consequence in biology after Lucretius and Galen until the Renaissance." Greek Christian scribes played a crucial role in the preservation of Aristotle by copying all the extant Greek language manuscripts of the corpus.

Aristotle [SEP] The first Greek Christians to comment extensively on Aristotle were Philoponus, Elias, and David in the sixth century, and Stephen of Alexandria in the early seventh century. John Philoponus stands out for having attempted a fundamental critique of Aristotle's views on the eternity of the world, movement, and other elements of Aristotelian thought. Philoponus questioned Aristotle's teaching of physics, noting its flaws and introducing the theory of impetus to explain his observations.

Aristotle [SEP] After a hiatus of several centuries, formal commentary by Eustratius and Michael of Ephesus reappeared in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, apparently sponsored by Anna Comnena. Aristotle was one of the most revered Western thinkers in early Islamic theology. Most of the still extant works of Aristotle, as well as a number of the original Greek commentaries, were translated into Arabic and studied by Muslim philosophers, scientists and scholars.

Aristotle [SEP] Averroes, Avicenna and Alpharabius, who wrote on Aristotle in great depth, also influenced Thomas Aquinas and other Western Christian scholastic philosophers. Alkindus greatly admired Aristotle's philosophy, and Averroes spoke of Aristotle as the "exemplar" for all future philosophers. Medieval Muslim scholars regularly described Aristotle as the "First Teacher". The title "teacher" was first given to Aristotle by Muslim scholars, and was later used by Western philosophers (as in the famous poem of Dante) who were influenced by the tradition of Islamic philosophy.

Aristotle [SEP] With the loss of the study of ancient Greek in the early medieval Latin West, Aristotle was practically unknown there from c. AD 600 to c. 1100 except through the Latin translation of the "Organon" made by Boethius. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, interest in Aristotle revived and Latin Christians had translations made, both from Arabic translations, such as those by Gerard of Cremona, and from the original Greek, such as those by James of Venice and William of Moerbeke.

Aristotle [SEP] After the Scholastic Thomas Aquinas wrote his "Summa Theologica", working from Moerbeke's translations and calling Aristotle "The Philosopher", the demand for Aristotle's writings grew, and the Greek manuscripts returned to the West, stimulating a revival of Aristotelianism in Europe that continued into the Renaissance. These thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages. Scholars such as Boethius, Peter Abelard, and John Buridan worked on Aristotelian logic.

Aristotle [SEP] The medieval English poet Chaucer describes his student as being happy by having A cautionary medieval tale held that Aristotle advised his pupil Alexander to avoid the king's seductive mistress, Phyllis, but was himself captivated by her, and allowed her to ride him. Phyllis had secretly told Alexander what to expect, and he witnessed Phyllis proving that a woman's charms could overcome even the greatest philosopher's male intellect. Artists such as Hans Baldung produced a series of illustrations of the popular theme.

Aristotle [SEP] The Italian poet Dante says of Aristotle in "The Divine Comedy": In the Early Modern period, scientists such as William Harvey in England and Galileo Galilei in Italy reacted against the theories of Aristotle and other classical era thinkers like Galen, establishing new theories based to some degree on observation and experiment. Harvey demonstrated the circulation of the blood, establishing that the heart functioned as a pump rather than being the seat of the soul and the controller of the body's heat, as Aristotle thought.

Aristotle [SEP] Galileo used more doubtful arguments to displace Aristotle's physics, proposing that bodies all fall at the same speed whatever their weight. The 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been said to have taken nearly all of his political philosophy from Aristotle. Aristotle rigidly separated action from production, and argued for the deserved subservience of some people ("natural slaves"), and the natural superiority (virtue, "arete") of others.

Aristotle [SEP] It was Martin Heidegger, not Nietzsche, who elaborated a new interpretation of Aristotle, intended to warrant his deconstruction of scholastic and philosophical tradition. The English mathematician George Boole fully accepted Aristotle's logic, but decided "to go under, over, and beyond" it with his system of algebraic logic in his 1854 book "The Laws of Thought".

Aristotle [SEP] This gives logic a mathematical foundation with equations, enables it to solve equations as well as check validity, and allows it to handle a wider class of problems by expanding propositions of any number of terms, not just two. During the 20th century, Aristotle's work was widely criticised. The philosopher Bertrand Russell argued that "almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine".

Aristotle [SEP] Russell called Aristotle's ethics "repulsive", and labelled his logic "as definitely antiquated as Ptolemaic astronomy". Russell stated that these errors made it difficult to do historical justice to Aristotle, until one remembered what an advance he made upon all of his predecessors. The Dutch historian of science Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis wrote that Aristotle and his predecessors showed the difficulty of science by "proceed[ing] so readily to frame a theory of such a general character" on limited evidence from their senses.

Aristotle [SEP] In 1985, the biologist Peter Medawar could still state in "pure seventeenth century" tones that Aristotle had assembled "a strange and generally speaking rather tiresome farrago of hearsay, imperfect observation, wishful thinking and credulity amounting to downright gullibility". By the start of the 21st century, however, Aristotle was taken more seriously: Kukkonen noted that "In the best 20th-century scholarship Aristotle comes alive as a thinker wrestling with the full weight of the Greek philosophical tradition."

Aristotle [SEP] Ayn Rand accredited Aristotle as "the greatest philosopher in history" and cited him as a major influence on her thinking. More recently, Alasdair MacIntyre has attempted to reform what he calls the Aristotelian tradition in a way that is anti-elitist and capable of disputing the claims of both liberals and Nietzscheans.

Aristotle [SEP] Kukkonen observed, too, that "that most enduring of romantic images, Aristotle tutoring the future conqueror Alexander" remained current, as in the 2004 film "Alexander", while the "firm rules" of Aristotle's theory of drama have ensured a role for the "Poetics" in Hollywood. Biologists continue to be interested in Aristotle's thinking.

Aristotle [SEP] Armand Marie Leroi has reconstructed Aristotle's biology, while Niko Tinbergen's four questions, based on Aristotle's four causes, are used to analyse animal behaviour; they examine function, phylogeny, mechanism, and ontogeny. The works of Aristotle that have survived from antiquity through medieval manuscript transmission are collected in the Corpus Aristotelicum. These texts, as opposed to Aristotle's lost works, are technical philosophical treatises from within Aristotle's school.

Aristotle [SEP] Reference to them is made according to the organisation of Immanuel Bekker's Royal Prussian Academy edition ("Aristotelis Opera edidit Academia Regia Borussica", Berlin, 1831–1870), which in turn is based on ancient classifications of these works. Aristotle wrote his works on papyrus scrolls, the common writing medium of that era. His writings are divisible into two groups: the "exoteric", intended for the public, and the "esoteric", for use within the Lyceum school.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle's "lost" works stray considerably in characterisation from the surviving Aristotelian corpus. Whereas the lost works appear to have been originally written with a view to subsequent publication, the surviving works mostly resemble lecture notes not intended for publication. Cicero's description of Aristotle's literary style as "a river of gold" must have applied to the published works, not the surviving notes.

Aristotle [SEP] A major question in the history of Aristotle's works is how the exoteric writings were all lost, and how the ones we now possess came to us. The consensus is that Andronicus of Rhodes collected the esoteric works of Aristotle's school which existed in the form of smaller, separate works, distinguished them from those of Theophrastus and other Peripatetics, edited them, and finally compiled them into the more cohesive, larger works as they are known today.

Aristotle [SEP] Aristotle has been depicted by major artists including Lucas Cranach the Elder, Justus van Gent, Raphael, Paolo Veronese, Jusepe de Ribera, Rembrandt, and Francesco Hayez over the centuries. Among the best-known is Raphael's fresco "The School of Athens", in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, where the figures of Plato and Aristotle are central to the image, at the architectural vanishing point, reflecting their importance.

Aristotle [SEP] Rembrandt's "Aristotle with a Bust of Homer", too, is a celebrated work, showing the knowing philosopher and the blind Homer from an earlier age: as the art critic Jonathan Jones writes, "this painting will remain one of the greatest and most mysterious in the world, ensnaring us in its musty, glowing, pitch-black, terrible knowledge of time." The Aristotle Mountains in Antarctica are named after Aristotle.

Aristotle [SEP] He was the first person known to conjecture, in his book "Meteorology", the existence of a landmass in the southern high-latitude region and called it "Antarctica". Aristoteles is a crater on the Moon bearing the classical form of Aristotle's name. The secondary literature on Aristotle is vast. The following is only a small selection.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] The Battle of Malakoff was a French attack against Russian forces on the Malakoff redoubt and its subsequent capture on 8 September 1855 as a part of the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. The French army under General MacMahon successfully stormed the Malakoff redoubt, while a simultaneous British attack on the Redan to the south of the Malakoff was repulsed. In one of the war's defining moments, the French "zouave" Eugène Libaut raised the French flag on the top of the Russian redoubt.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] The Battle of Malakoff resulted in the fall of Sevastopol on 9 September, bringing the 11-month siege to an end. Until 1784 most of the fortifications around Sevastopol were dedicated to the protection of the harbour entrance, the city itself and its naval base and were positioned close to these features. The construction of fortifications in the surrounding hills had been planned as early as 1837, but at the time of the battle only basic facilities and roadways had been completed on the north side of the long, westward-facing bay.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] To the south the central anchor of the defence system was the Malakoff-Kurgan ridge. Situated about southeast of the city, it consisted of a two-story stone tower of limestone on which the Russians had placed five heavy 18-pounder cannons at the beginning of the siege. There is some mystery surrounding this tower.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] Although it is known that the tower was built some time before the start of the war, the historical records do not show exactly when this occurred, and no mention of this is made in the contemporary descriptions of the siege itself. Additionally, there are different spellings and translations into or from Russian, including Малахова башня. What is known is that the tower was originally built or expanded by Sevastopol merchants and then later taken over by the Russian Navy. The tower had a diameter of about and a height of .

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] In its centre the battery known as "Lunette Kamchatka" was placed. This was a smaller fortification that was designed to protect several artillery pieces. At this time the Russian cartographers marked all landmarks in and around this ridge as "Fort Malakoff". This included several large grave mounds and the same ridge lying in front known as Mamelon ("vert Mamelon").

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] The name "Fortmortal Malakoff" (or French "Fort Malakoff", Russian "Mal'akhoff") was retained after the war in Western literature covering the Crimean War. The harbour of Sevastopol, formed by the estuary of the Chernaya, was protected against attack by sea not only by the Russian war-vessels, afloat and sunken, but also by heavy granite forts on the south side and by the defensive works.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] For the town itself and the Karabelnaya suburb the plans for the works had been laid down for years. The Malakoff Tower covered the suburb, flanked on either side by the Redan and the Little Redan. The town was covered by a line of works marked by a flagstaff and central bastions, and separated from the Redan by the inner harbour. Lieutenant Colonel Eduard Totleben, the Russian chief engineer, had begun work on these sites early in the war.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] Through daily efforts to rebuild, re-arm and improve the fortifications, he was able to finally connect them with a continuous defence system enceinte. Yet early in October 1854, Sevastopol was not the towering fortress it later became, and Totleben himself maintained that had the allies assaulted it immediately, they would have succeeded in taking the city. There were, however, many reasons against them doing so at the time, and it was not until 17 October that the first attack took place.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] Throughout 17 October, a tremendous artillery duel raged. The Russian artillery was initially successful, the French corps fell under siege and suffered heavy losses. The advancing fleet engaging the harbour batteries also suffered a loss of 500 men and several ships were heavily damaged. Still, British siege batteries managed to silence the Malakoff and its annexes, after having succeeded in hitting a munitions depot and, if failure had not occurred at the other points of attack, an assault might have succeeded.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] As it was, by daybreak, Totleben's engineers had repaired and improved the damaged works. For months the siege of Sevastopol continued. During July the Russians lost on an average of 250 men a day, and finally the Russians decided to break the stalemate and gradual attrition of their army. Gorchakov and the field army were to make another attack at the Chernaya, the first since the Inkerman.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] On 16 August, both Pavel Liprandi and Read's corps furiously attacked the 37,000 French and Sardinian troops on the heights above Traktir Bridge. The assailants came on with the greatest determination, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. At the end of the day, the Russians drew off leaving 260 officers and 8,000 men dead or dying on the field; the French and British only lost 1,700. With this defeat the last chance of saving Sevastopol vanished.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] The same day, a determined bombardment once more reduced the Malakoff and its dependencies to impotence, and it was with absolute confidence in the result that Marshal Pélissier planned the final assault. At noon on 8 September 1855, the whole of Bosquet's corps suddenly attacked all along the right sector. The fighting was of the most desperate kind: the French attack on the Malakoff was successful, but the other two French attacks were repelled.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] The British attack on the Redan was initially successful, but a Russian counterattack drove the British out of the bastion after two hours after the French attacks on the Flagstaff Bastion (left of the Great Redan) were repelled. With the failure of the French attacks in the left sector but with the fall of the Malakoff in French hands further attacks were cancelled. The Russian positions around the city were no longer tenable. Throughout the day the bombardment mowed down the massed Russian soldiers along the whole line.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] The fall of the Malakoff was the end of the siege of the city. That night the Russians fled over the bridges to the north side, and on 9 September the victors took possession of the empty and burning city. The losses in the last assault had been very heavy: for the Allies over 10,000 men, for the Russians 13,000. At least nineteen generals had fallen on the final day and with the capture of Sevastopol the war was decided.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] No serious operations were undertaken against Gorchakov who, with the field army and the remnants of the garrison, held the heights at Mackenzie's Farm. But Kinburn was attacked by sea and, from the naval point of view, became the first instance of the employment of Ironclad warships. An armistice was agreed upon on 26 February and the Treaty of Paris was signed on 30 March 1856.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] Right to left French right sector (French 2nd Corps under GdD Bosquet) British sector (see Battle of the Great Redan) French left sector (French 1st Corps under GdD La Salles) At first sight Russia would seem to be almost invulnerable to a sea power, and no first success, however crushing, could have humbled Nicholas I. Indeed, the mere capture of Sevastopol would not have been strategically decisive.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] However, as the Tsar had decided to defend it at all costs and with unlimited resources, it became an unpleasant defeat, especially as the Allies had reached victory with limited resources. During the nearly one-year siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War, the fortifications on the Malakhov were hotly contested as they overlooked the whole city and the inner harbour.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] After the success of the French troops under the command of Marshal Pelissier, later the Duke of Malakoff (French: Duc de Malakoff), and General Patrice de Mac-Mahon, the Russian defenders evacuated the entire city on 8 September 1855, bringing a climax to the war. As the fortress enabled the control of the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, the Russian forces destroyed all of their equipment and withdrew, leaving Russia with no more military fortifications on the Black Sea.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] The long-awaited Russian domination of the inland sea to obtain free passage through the Bosporus to the Mediterranean (and beyond) was now not possible. In terms of logistics, the British and French had a significant advantage over the Russians as they were able to receive supplies from the sea, while the Russians had to bring supplies over the underdeveloped and dangerous desert tracks of southern Russia. The Russians lost many men and horses in bringing supplies to Sevastopol.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] The hasty nature, too, of the fortifications, which were damaged every day during the siege by the fire of a thousand guns, and had to be rebuilt every night, required large, unprotected working parties and the losses amongst these were correspondingly heavy. These losses exhausted Russia's resources and when they were forced to employ large bodies of militia in the Battle of Traktir Bridge, it was obvious that the end was at hand.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] The short stories of Leo Tolstoy, who was present at the siege, give a graphic picture of the war from the Russian point of view, portraying the miseries of the desert march, the still greater miseries of life in the casemates, and the almost daily ordeal of manning the lines, under shell-fire, against an assault which might or might not come.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] Among the seven surviving defenders of a stone tower on the Malakov Kurgan, which were found by French troops among the dead, was the seriously wounded Vasily Kolchak, the father of Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak. Kolchak would later become the head of all the counter-revolutionary anti-communist White forces during the Russian Civil War. As a result of press coverage of the siege of the tower, Malakhov Kurgan became a household name in Europe and many large and expensive towers in Western Europe were named after it.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] Among these were a number of stone mining towers in the Ruhrgebiet, the so-called caponier Fort Malakoff in Mainz, and the yellow sandstone Malakoff Tower in the city of Luxembourg. In addition, the Malakoff cake was named after the Duke of Malakoff, as was a cheese dish in parts of Switzerland.

Battle of Malakoff [SEP] In France, the battle was officially commemorated in a rare way: apart from the Battle of Magenta (in the Italian Campaign), it was the only one of Emperor Napoleon III's exploits to result in the awarding of a victory title (both of ducal rank); this distinction was bestowed upon Marshal Pélissier. A suburb of Paris was also named after this battle, as well as the Avenue de Malakoff.