What do we mean when we talk about Aristotelianism?

Question

Let's say that "Aristotelianism" is a philosophical "view" based on Aristotle's thought. Let's say that the contents of this "view" are those presented in the Corpus Aristotelicum. There are different ways to systematize these contents. One way has been the "Latin" or "scholastic" Aristotle, typical of Thomas Aquinas or Averroes. Another way can be the one proposed following Trendelenburg, for example with Brentano. These systematizations encompasse a wide range of subjects, including logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, science, and epistemology.

However, this way of viewing Aristotelianism is so broad that it encompasses many ways of understanding this "view". Is there any way to understand it more specifically and univocally?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

Generally, as it has been pointed out, Aristotelianism encompasses all thought that features similar ideas.

The general thrust in which the term is mostly used is, in my experience, as a metaphysical/epistemological term opposed to Platonism, ie. Aristotelian is the view that true knowledge is about particulars that can be experienced and reasoned about (some form of Empiricism), not abstract ideals. The waters become muddy fast here, though, as both feature speculative elements that only much later, in British Empiricism onwards, started to be systematically reduced.

Thus, the idealistic Hegel is able to name himself Aristotelian albeit his metaphysical unity of Absolute Geist. That is because he takes sensual experience of particulars as a necessary starting point of true knowledge and insists that we can derive the true nature of being from that, while for Plato, the true ideas will always remain unreachable for us.

Answer 2

One could say that Socrates symbolizes the starting point of Western philosophy, although its roots go down to Pythagoras, Parmenidis and Heractlitus. In the same way we could say that Aristotelis symbolizes the ending (completion) (telos) of Clasical Greece. The past (old world) ideas have been infused into the new world (by the presocratics), revolutionized by Socrates, forged into the intelect by Plato and rationalized by Aristotelis. The outcome was the Hellenistic period. Philosophy - as we understand it today in out modern-western world - is in fact a by-product of the Aristotelian logic. But, his work, still contains all the links (although not always clearly understood) with the old world. He casts out the deamons of the past - either rationalizing them, or enclosing them in new (invented) words - and moves foreward preparing the stage for a new civilization; but the deamons are still there (obscured) and waiting to be revealed. Aristotelianism - for me - is exactly that; a "discussion" with logic, in the frontier of metaphysics.