Aristotle's theory of knowledge, in 4 keys

In the history of philosophy, Aristotle's theory of knowledge is one of the most relevant intellectual ingredients in the construction of Western culture. In fact, although we have never heard of this Greek sage (as difficult as this may be today), inadvertently his philosophical works are influencing our way of thinking.

We'll see now what is Aristotle's theory of knowledge?, a way of understanding the way in which our intellectual activity is formed.

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Aristotle's theory of knowledge

These are the main elements that structure Aristotle's theory of knowledge. However, it must be borne in mind that there are many explanatory gaps in it, partly because at the time of this thinker it was not customary to develop philosophical systems much.

1. The primacy of the senses

According to Aristotle's theory of knowledge, the senses are the starting point of any form of knowledge. That means that any information likely to trigger intellectual activity is contained in the "raw" sensory data that enters our body through the eyes, ears, smell, etc.

In this sense, Aristotelian thought clearly differs from Plato's ideas, for who what surrounds us cannot be known nor can generate significant intellectual activity, given that the material is mutable and constantly changing.

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2. The creation of concepts

As we have seen, the process of generating knowledge begins with sensory stimuli. However, up to this stage, the process is the same as what, according to this philosopher, occurs in the minds of other forms of animal life. This knowledge is of a sensitive type, and is not exclusive to the human being.

The properly human process of cognition, according to Aristotle's theory of knowledge, begins with the way in which we process sensory data to reach conclusions more abstract than what we have seen, heard, touched, smelled or savored. To do this, first of all common sense unifies the properties of the object or entity that we are perceiving to create a "mental image" of it thanks to our imaginative capacity.

So even if it all starts with the perceptual impression, it is necessary for this information to go through a series of mental mechanisms. How do you do it?

3. To know is to identify

As Aristotle admits that reality is composed of changing elements, for him knowing means knowing how to identify what each thing is. This identification process consists of recognizing the efficient, formal, material and final cause. All of these are potentialities that for Aristotle reside in matter and that allow us to understand each thing and what it will transform into.

Thus, the combination of imagination and memory not only makes us retain an image of what we have experienced through the senses, but also gives us a first piece based on what we can go on understanding what the potentialities of each thing are, in what way it is and how it is changing. For example, thanks to this we know that a tree can grow from a seed, and also that a part of the tree can be used to build houses and boats.

So that, from the impressions left by the senses, we create abstractions. These abstractions are not reflections of a reality composed of pure ideas, just as Plato believedRather, they are representations of qualities contained in material elements that make up physical reality.

4. The creation of universals

Parallel to the creation of the image, we generate a universal of that idea, that is, the concept that we will apply not only to what we have seen, heard, touched and savored, but also other hypothetical elements with which we have not come into direct contact, on the one hand, and others that we had not seen before, for the other.

For Aristotle, the process by which the universal is created from impressions it is done by something he calls "agent understanding", while the recognition of the universal in the new forms of sensory stimuli is carried out by the "patient understanding."

An intellectual legacy that still affects us today

Aristotle is and has been one of the most remembered Greek philosophers in history, and not without reason. The influences of his thinking are still present today, more than two millennia after his birth.

The reason? Along with Plato's, his work in epistemological philosophy has laid the foundation for Western culture influenced by Christianity, which in the Middle Ages articulated its explanations of nature using the ideas of this thinker.

Today the influences of the Church are no longer so noticeable, but many elements that were used to shape its doctrine are still valid, and Aristotelian thought is one of them. In fact, since the Renaissance, at the same time that it was beginning to question that knowledge revealed by God, Aristotle's principles were also reinforced, to the point of making that one of the main currents of philosophy, such as empiricism, she was totally indebted to the works of the Greek.