Aristotle – Nature
A Big Idea is something which revolves around a specific topic of controversy and has no exact known answer. When thinking about big ideas, philosophers such as Aristotle come to mind. As we know, Aristotle came up with and discussed some big ideas such as Happiness, Telos and Nature. Aristotle has made significant impact on the views of nature, why it is important as an idea and many other concepts which he has discussed in the past. Nature is not something that is just seen, we are a part of nature ourselves and it is important to learn why.
Nature is not a thing, but rather an idea, a concept which defines what things are and where they came from. Aristotle had said that nature is “a source or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily” (Aristotle). This entitles that natural things, such as us as humans, have the ability to move whenever we want or to remain at rest. Nature relates to objects not by being ‘nature’ but rather by existing ‘by nature’. Things can be ‘natural’ or ‘according to nature’ but do not physically possess a characteristic of ‘nature’. This topic is a Big Idea because it relates to everything that follows the previous quote Aristotle had said. Going by that quote, we can see that nature is referring to the object at hand, and whenever it is able to move, grow, gain traits and characteristics and so on. Furthermore, these all describe the general idea of ‘being alive’. The idea of nature affects us as humans as we are all born, live and die. Understanding what we are by nature is an important aspect to learning more about ourselves and expanding on the idea of life. The idea of nature is important as Aristotle was trying to define what nature is and how the world around us is affected by it. Nature can be related to other aspects such as Telos. This connection can be made by the fact that everything which exists by nature has a final purpose or objective that it needs to do. An example of Telos is fire; fire is something that burns a flammable object until it is no more. Related to nature, trees are a natural object which produce oxygen, their Telos, until they die. Nature is defined based upon what you are examining, and once the nature of a substance has been implied, it cannot be changed as it essentially exists within that. This simply means once an object has been given a definition according to nature, it can no longer be changed as it has already received its definition. Some of these ideas are also main claims which Aristotle makes in his paper.
Aristotle states that nature is simply an object which is capable of not only moving, but growing, developing characteristics and in general, being born and dying. Putting it into simpler terms, being alive is a main key point as to being a part of nature. Aristotle main point here is that to define nature, the thing being discussed must be able to do all things described initially, which I agree with. If the object at hand fits under all these categories, that object can be defined as ‘natural’. Another major claim which Aristotle makes is that everything which is ‘natural’ or a part of nature must abide ‘by nature’ and follow the rules of nature. He argues this claim by speaking of nature and matter; Aristotle says “for a thing is more properly said to be what it is when it has attained to fulfillment than when it exists potentially” (Aristotle). I believe this means that rather than just being made up of matter, the object itself has to have characteristics which define it as a part of nature. An example to use is that as humans, we are generally all made up of the similar arrangements of matter but we are defined simply by our characteristics. Something like a rock would be just like any other rock and since it has no differing characteristics, it is not a ‘natural’ object. Aristotle states that “man is born from man, but not bed from bed” (Aristotle) as a supplement to his argument. The bed