Pluralism

One of the underappreciated aspects of Aristotle’s thought is his pluralism. A thing will typically have multiple causes. Important words are “said in many ways”. We should be careful not to make claims that are too strong.

There has been a tendency to read Aristotle as a systematizer — which he is, but only up to a point — that has interfered with recognition of the principled and not just incidental nature of Aristotelian pluralism. Aristotle’s pluralism is part of a deep and admirable commitment to what in a modern context would be called antireductionism. This is just part of his extraordinary, methodologically sophisticated intellectual honesty, which is stronger than his desire to systematize.

Historically, Aristotle’s immediate successors were the Stoics, who did aim at extremely strong systematicity, and claimed to have achieved it. Philosophy after that, including what was called Aristotelian philosophy, largely proceeded on the Stoic model. Strong systematic claims became de rigeur. (See also The Epistemic Modesty of Plato and Aristotle; Univocity; Mean; Aristotelian Dialectic; Free Will and Determinism.)