I commented a few weeks ago about the fact that rise of our culture is based on the periodic re-rise of Aristotle. Back in the 70's, I was taught that the real history of Western Civ was the history of science. That Issac Newton was "the anchor-point of history." That he caused the industrial revolution.
My teacher of these concepts was Andrew J. Galambos, an Astrophysicist turned Philosopher, who knew of Aristotle's importance but didn't grasp the extent of it as Ayn Rand did. She, OTOH, did not have A.J.'s understanding of the importance of Science.
However, they both understood the importance of looking at people as individuals, of individual freedom and of free enterprise to the advancement of civilization. Our history today is taught by academics who deny these concepts. They are collectivists who will never teach history from this POV.
We are “hardwired” to go though each day subconsciously asking ourselves three questions. “Where am I, how do I know it, and what should I do?” This is a genetic response, we have no choice in the matter. These three questions are studied today by the names, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics. They form the basics of all cultures even though only Western Civ formally approached them this way.
We did approach them because we had Plato and Aristotle at the base of our civilization. They had contrasting answers to these questions. Plato contended that this was not the real world, that one was beyond us and reason was of no use in understanding it. Aristotle contended that this was the real world and reason was the only way to understand it. Western Civilization is built on Aristotle's POV.
The rise of Wikipedia has allowed me to study Aristotle's influence on our history quite easily. When you look at the rise of civilization in our past history, The Roman empire, the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment, the first thing you see in reading about it is the rise of Aristotle's ideas again. In the periods between these happenings, when monks are spending their time chanting in halls and discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, Plato's POV was running things.
This is why I consider Aristotle the basis for our Civilization. The rest of the world based their civilization on Plato's mysticism, even though they may have never heard of him. That is why none of them got past a Medieval Civilization level until the West ran into them.
So a small group of White males of Euro BG invented Western Civ, standing on the shoulders of Aristotle. They were the ones who gave us the Industrial Revolution. |
