JOHN VESPASIAN is the author of sixteen books, including “When everything fails, try this” (2009), “Rationality is the way to happiness” (2009), “The philosophy of builders” (2010), “The 10 principles of rational living” (2012), “Rational living, rational working” (2013), “Consistency: The key to permanent stress relief” (2014), “On becoming unbreakable” (2015), “Thriving in difficult times” (2016), “Causality: Aristotle’s life and ideas” (2024), “Foresight: Schopenhauer’s life and ideas” (2024), and "Constancy: Michel de Montaigne's life and ideas" (2025).
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JOHN VESPASIAN is the author of sixteen books, including “When everything fails, try this” (2009), “Rationality is the way to happiness” (2009), “The philosophy of builders” (2010), “The 10 principles of rational living” (2012), “Rational living, rational working” (2013), “Consistency: The key to permanent stress relief” (2014), “On becoming unbreakable” (2015), “Thriving in difficult times” (2016), “Causality: Aristotle’s life and ideas” (2024), “Foresight: Schopenhauer’s life and ideas” (2024), and "Constancy: Michel de Montaigne's life and ideas" (2025).
The path of Aristotle’s influence on Western philosophy
John Vespasian
6 minutes
1 week ago
The path of Aristotle’s influence on Western philosophy
The influence of Aristotle (384-322 BC) on Western ideals, philosophy and society has been a slow and difficult process. I tend to choose direct ways when it comes to business, learning, and problem solving but Aristotelian ideas survived and spread only indirectly. Before Aristotle’s works became popular in twelve-century Europe, they had been preserved in Eastern countries. Without the studies made by Avicenna (990-1037), I am convinced that some works by Aristotle would have been definitively lost. Avicenna lived in Persia (today’s Iran), where he laboured to preserve and transmit Aristotelian ideas. His “Handbook of Medicine” borrows heavily from Aristotle’s metaphysics. In Avicenna’s work, we can find the Aristotelian concepts of material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, final cause, and prime mover. Avicenna named it “Unmoved Mover,” but gave it exactly the same meaning as Aristotle’s prime mover. It is the ultimate cause behind all actions taking place in the world. The meaning given by Avicenna to the “Unmoved Mover” is connected to religion. While Aristotelian philosophy regards the prime mover as a speculation (a potential explanation that still needs to be proven), Avicenna considered the theory of the “Unmoved Mover” as a demonstration of God’s existence and infinite power. Avicenna’s “Handbook of Medicine” relies on Aristotelian empiricism from beginning to end. It advises physicians to use their senses (smell, touch, vision) to assess symptoms, identify the pattern of sickness, and treat it methodically. The trial-and-error method outlined by Avicenna was more sophisticated than Aristotle’s incipient empiricism. His deeper understanding of scientific inquiry can be attributed to the fact that he was a practising physician. In contrast, Aristotle’s observations on zoology and botany had often remained at layman’s level. During his stay at Lesbos in 337 BC, he took extensive notes and later turned them into two books, but I must rate them as superficial if compared with Avicenna’s “Handbook of Medicine.” Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/the-path-of-aristotles-influence-on-western-philosophy/
John Vespasian
JOHN VESPASIAN is the author of sixteen books, including “When everything fails, try this” (2009), “Rationality is the way to happiness” (2009), “The philosophy of builders” (2010), “The 10 principles of rational living” (2012), “Rational living, rational working” (2013), “Consistency: The key to permanent stress relief” (2014), “On becoming unbreakable” (2015), “Thriving in difficult times” (2016), “Causality: Aristotle’s life and ideas” (2024), “Foresight: Schopenhauer’s life and ideas” (2024), and "Constancy: Michel de Montaigne's life and ideas" (2025).
