Aristotle's early works consisted largely of dialogues,
many of which were lost. His model for these dialogues was, of
course, Plato. At the height of Plato's productivity, Plato sought
not to establish doctrines but rather to depict the philosopher
in the dramatic process of discovery. Moreover, the process was
not merely intellectual, for it took place in the context of politics,
society, and personal struggle, over which philosophy had to emerge.
Later in Plato's career, however, which is when Aristotle came
to the Academy, Plato departed from this formula and placed less
emphasis on aesthetic composition. His dialogues ceased to depict
genuine intellectual struggle and instead consisted largely of
prolonged exposition with occasional interjections of agreement.
At least part of the reason for this change was that Plato's interests
turned to more abstract studies, and he felt that more direct exposition
would convey his ideas in a clearer manner.
Nevertheless, all members of the Academy wrote dialogues because
they were the method established by Plato. Even Aristotle did not
yet recognize that the method perfected by Plato might not be capable
of imitation. His own dialogues, however, did take a different
approach that went more along the lines of Plato's later works.
Abandoning the question-and-answer dialogue, epitomized by the
figure of Socrates, Aristotle employed longer opposing speeches.
Some literary historians have thus argued that Aristotle induced
the decline of the dialogue form, but it is more accurate perhaps
to say that he simply adapted an old form to the changing direction
of philosophy. His dialogues, moreover, were a closer imitation
of real conversations and debates taking place in the Academy, and
imitation was the point of the original dialogues.
Of his surviving early works, several deserve individual
attention. The dialogue Eudemus was written shortly
after the title character, a real-life friend of Aristotle's, died
in 354–353 B.C. Eudemus had been banished from Cyprus and fallen
ill in Thessaly, and his doctors had essentially given up. In a
dream, a handsome young man appeared to deliver three prophecies:
Eudemus would soon recover, the tyrant of Pherae would fall, and
after five years Eudemus would return to his home. The first two
events took place as prophesied, and five years later Eudemus fell
in battle, returning to a figurative home. Aristotle used this
story as a starting point to discuss the soul–in particular its
immortality–and dealing largely with issues brought up in Plato's Phaedo. One
long passage of Phaedo refutes the idea that the
soul is simply a state of harmony within the body. But while Plato
dealt with the issue somewhat cumbersomely, Aristotle attempted
to simplify the argument. One of his arguments went as follows:
harmony has an opposite, namely disharmony. But since the soul
has no contrary, it cannot be a state of harmony.
In his Protrepticus, Aristotle continued
to illuminate Platonic ideas, using Eudemus as
a model, but from his own unique perspective. His central argument
is that intellectual wisdom is the chief virtue and the only real
basis of happiness. Through various metaphors and illustrations,
he attempts to prove that a life without philosophy is inevitably
barren.
In a later work, entitled simply Philosophy, Aristotle
began to show more significant differences from Plato. The work
consisted of three self-contained books. In the first Aristotle
attempts a history of philosophy, in conjunction with religion,
tracing the two areas as parts of a single point of development.
While the first book gives Plato an illustrious spot in the context
of history, the second book consists of a cogent refutation of
Plato's Theory of Forms. By the third book, Aristotle has established
the foundational viewpoint from which to offer his own views. Although
he argues confidently for the existence of God, his actual conception
is unclear: sometimes he speaks of God as the universe, other times
he speaks of God as pure intellect. Nevertheless, Philosophy
is one of Aristotle's first truly original works in which he clearly
rejects Platonic ideas and presents several of his own.
