Script for Aristotle Audio
Modified: 2023-08-11 (2:00 PM CDST)
Here is the script for the audio file on Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates
- Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle comprise early philosophy’s big three.
- Plato was Socrates student and Aristotle was Plato’s student. Because Socrates upset the Athenian government, he was tried and chose to drink hemlock and die rather than accept exile.
- Plato, shocked by his master’s death, returned to philosophy eventually and founded a school, the Academy. He preserved much of Socrates’ teachings and later went on to develop his own philosophical system, one that looked to an ideal, mental world.
- Aristotle, however, may have been the first biologist. He, too, founded a school, the Lyceum. There, he explored beyond his own mind and even wrote some psychological works. He also wrote about the cosmos and physics. He believed the sun circled the earth and that heavier objects fell faster than light objects.
- In the Middle Ages the Catholic Church rediscovered Aristotle’s works and made them part and parcel of Christianity’s dogma. The astronomers, especially Galileo, challenged his geocentric model of the universe and sought to replace it with a heliocentric model, putting the sun in the middle and the planets circling it. Those challenges marked the beginnings of modern science.
Back to Chapter 1 and 2 Lectures