7 Times Aristotle Was Startling Stupid
He believed women were disfigured men not worth more than a slave.
The ancient Greeks gave much to the world, a civilization like no other, the Greeks made several advancements in areas of philosophy, maths, literature, and politics. Much of their lessons are still studied today.
Amongst the great Greek thinkers was Aristotle, a master of philosophy and poetry. However the man wasn’t as genius as he claimed to be, and more often than not, his ideas were ridiculously stupid.
1- His ideas about Women
Aristotle claimed to be progressive, but his ideas surrounding women were rooted in traditional misogyny. He believed women were of the status of slaves and advocated against their right to authority.
He also claimed that women were disfigured men, and had little to no role in reproduction. He called women incubators for the true fertile seed that was given by men and said that the menstrual discharge was semen that was corrupted and non-viable.
Today we know how ridiculous and misogynistic these “facts” are, but because of his influence on Greek society, Aristotle had a great negative effect on the lives of women around him.
2- Earth is matter and matter comes from nothing
The ancient Greeks were always dabbling in the creation of the universe. Aristotle claimed that since Earth was made of matter, which was a fundamental brick in the creation of everything, it must have always been present and will always be there. He called this theory “Eternalism” and even though today we all know how wrong he was, he managed to get a following in Ancient Greece.
3- The brain is just a radiator
Perhaps the most laughable of Aristotle’s claims was his theory of the purpose of the brain. According to him, the heart was the center of consciousness whereas the brain served only as a radiator to get rid of extra heat.
This claim came because he pointed out that animals with brains had blood, while animals without do not. What Aristotle failed to notice in his dissections was that animals even without a brain had a different center of consciousness that served as a pseudo brain. Guess he truly was thinking with his heart and not his brains.
4- Force and Motion
Aristotle clearly loved playing scientist because he boldly made many assumptions about science that had little to no basis in actual experimentation.
He said that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects because of their weight, today we all know that the Earth has a fixed acceleration of 9.81 meters per second squared, and the reason a feather falls so slow is because of air resistance.
He also claimed that gravity was just things going back to where they belong. So water and earth objects fell down, whereas fire and air objects went up.
If only this was true, I would never have to clean up my messes, my books would simply rearrange themselves on the shelf. 😂
5- Geocentric Model of the Universe
Another scientific claim from Aristotle was the idea of the Earth being the center of the universe, and all the stars and galaxies orbiting it.
This claim came because the Greeks would observe the same stars appearing at the same time and angle every day, and so if the Earth was “moving” this would not be possible.
What was unknown to the Greeks was the concept of Stellar parallax, which would explain why observed through the naked eye, the Earth seems to be unmoving.
6- Eels cannot reproduce
Poor Aristotle just had bad luck when it came to sciences. On dissecting an eel, he observed that the creature lacks gonads. So no sperm, no eggs, that must mean they can’t reproduce!
What he didn’t know was that Eels only develop gonads once they have lived their life to the full. After spawning tiny little eels, the parent eel dies.
But Aristotle claimed that eels, along with insects like flies, lice, midges, etc spawn from inanimate objects like sand. Today we know all animals, no matter how small and weird, come from a parent animal. It is one of the fundamental characteristics of a living being.
7- Aristotle’s Ideas about slavery
You would think that a man claiming to be progressive and unconventional would understand how fundamentally wrong slavery is. But Aristotle was too fond of the idea of being served and pampered to be unbiased in his opinions.
According to Aristotle, some men were born to be slaves. They did not have the mental capacity and the personality to live as free men, and could not be trusted with authority. They were best kept as mere workers to be ordered around and mistreated.
In Nutshell
In conclusion, despite being widely acclaimed as a genius and a great thinker of his times, many of Aristotle’s ideas were based on folly assumptions and old traditional thinking. He was not strong in the areas of science because he relied heavily on his ability to theorize an explanation without carrying out experiments to back his claims.
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