ARISTOTLE: Keeper Of The Philosophical Flame!
Plato died…and many feared that his tradition of thinking and learning might die with him. No one yet realized that someone waited in the wings to pick up the torch…
written by Fred Van Lente drawn by Ryan Dunlavey colored by Adam Guzowski
Script for Action Philosophers: Aristotle
ACTION PHILOSOPHER #20:
ARISTOTLE!
Script by Fred Van Lente
Copyright © 2006 Fred Van Lente & Ryan Dunlavey.
PAGE ONE
Panel 1: PLATO’S FUNERAL. The Wrestling Superstar of Ancient Greece, now old, his beard white (I know, it’s a B&W comic – what other color would it be?) is laid out on a couch with his feet facing the door (as per the custom of ancient Greece, at least as detailed on this web site). His students surround him, wearing BLACK ROBES, and tearing at their hair and wailing. The young Aristotle is in the back, looking sad—by “young” I mean he’s about our age (37 at the time): here is how Raphael depicts him (to the right of Plato) in School of Athens.
CAPTION: Plato, founder of the Athenian ACADEMY, died in 347 B.C., and many feared that his tradition of thinking and learning might die WITH him.
CAPTION: But no one yet realized that ACTION PHILOSOPHER #20 waited in the wings to pick up the TORCH…
LOGO: ARISTOTLE!
CREDITS: A is predicated of all C where B is predicated of all C, andA = Fred Van Lente’s SCRIPT (nature)
B = Ryan Dunlavey’s ART (cause)
C = this comic (substance).
Panel 2: The Academy faculty lounge (It’d be funny to show guys in togas smoking cigarettes and lounging on arm chairs): Speusippus, Plato’s annoying, ugly, nerdy, Urkel-like nephew, unveils the “NEW CURRICULUM: MATH, MATH & MORE MATH”. In fact, he’s wearing the Pythagorean robe from “Plato.” Calculators and adding machines are handed out to all the instructors.
SPEUSIPPUS: LISTEN UP, people! Though we’re ALL still mourning my uncle, I’d like to announce some CHANGES to next term’s COURSE OFFERINGS:
SPEUSIPPUS: We’re replacing history with PROBABILITY—Literature with GEOMETRY— And, instead of RECESS…
SPEUSIPPUS …CALCULUS!
TWO
Panel 1: Aristotle, holding the course curriculum scroll high, angrily confronts a haughty Speusippus. Loads o’ dialogue.
ARISTOTLE: See here, SPEUSIPPUS! I know Plato named you his SUCCESSOR…
ARISTOTLE: …but I’ve taught BIOLOGY at this school for almost TWENTY YEARS! I don’t see it offered ANYWHERE in your new COURSE CATALOG!
SPEUSIPPUS: I KNOW who you are, Aristotle.
SPEUSIPPUS: I ALSO know you never appreciated the MATHEMATICAL BEAUTY of my uncle’s THEORY OF FORMS…
Panel 2: A sneering Speusippus hands Aristotle an adding machine.
ARISTOTLE: Well… Yes, I protested his idea that the Forms actually EXIST in NATURE, though there is no EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE to support such a claim--
SPEUSIPPUS: >Tsk!< A PITY.
SPEUSIPPUS: Oh, that REMINDS me-- we’ve replaced Biology with ACCOUNTING!
SPEUSIPPUS: If you don’t LIKE it, I believe there’s a HALL MONITOR position open…
Panel 3: Aristotle stalks angrily out of the faculty lounge after stuffing the adding machine into Speusippus’s mouth.
ARISTOTLE: See if you can’t ADD THIS UP, Speusippus…
ARISTOTLE (BIG): …I QUIT!
CAPTION: Aristotle, son of the ROYAL PHYSICIAN to the court of nearby MACEDON, had arrived at the Academy as a 17-year-old student and never LEFT – until NOW!
Panel 4: Two BULL-DYKE LESBIANS in TOGAS whisper as Aristotle chases a butterfly around the ISLAND OF LESBOS.
CAPTION: Unlike PLATO, he believed that Being wasn’t STATIC, but rather in a constant state of CHANGE—so one could draw conclusions about it only by OBSERVING Beings in action in NATURE.
CAPTION: After leaving the Academy, he embarked on a series of teaching gigs and SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITIONS to various places around the Hellenic world, including the island of LESBOS.
TOGA LESBIAN: What’s HER problem?
Panel 5: Aristotle unfurls a scroll, reading a letter from King Philip of Macedon, who addresses him in a thought bubble coming out of the scroll. According to Oliver Stone in Alexander (the less said about that the better), ol’ Philip (at least as Val Kilmer played him) has only one eye. Aristotle is covered in dirt and has twigs and such sticking out of his hair from tromping through the underbrush.
CAPTION: Then, in 343 B.C., he received a ROYAL SUMMONS from Macedon’s KING PHILIP II:
KING PHILIP: You shall serve the crown as TUTOR to the heir to the THRONE!
ARISTOTLE: Oh, well. A steady paycheck WOULD support my RESEARCH…
THREE
Panel 1: Tight on a blackboard where Aristotle has written his name in chalk.
ARISTOTLE: Good MORNING, class. I am Mr. ARISTOTLE. I look forward to a FUN and REWARDING school year.
ARISTOTLE: Now let’s check ATTENDANCE…
Panel 2: Reverse angle: The gag is that this is a huge, cavernous ancient Greek chamber with exactly one desk in it—behind which sits the ancient Greek equivalent of Dennis the Menace (or Bart Simpson, if you prefer): a prepubescent ALEXANDER THE GREAT. Aristotle holds an “Attendance Scroll”.
ARISTOTLE: ALEXANDER.
ALEXANDER: Here!
ARISTOTLE: Okay, great, now THAT’S done…
Panel 4: Aristotle stands at the front of Alexander’s desk and unfurls a scroll. Alexander looks innocently up at him.
ARISTOTLE: …let us unfurl our TEXT-SCROLLS to line TWENTY-FIVE…
ARISTOTLE: …so we may commence your instruction in FIRST PRINCIPLES.
ALEXANDER: Why?
Panel 5: Same shot: Aristotle smiles condescendingly down at Alexander. (Quotes: Aristotle 691-2)
ARISTOTLE: Because the first principles and the CAUSES are most KNOWABLE.
ALEXANDER: Why?
ARISTOTLE: Because from them all OTHER things come to be known, and not by means of the things SUBORDINATE to them.
ALEXANDER: Why?
Panel 6: Same shot: Aristotle gets more and more frustrated with the brat.
ARISTOTLE: Because THAT is which is most truly KNOWLEDGE—and thus that is what we who choose to know for the sake of KNOWING must choose to KNOW.
ALEXANDER: Why?
ARISTOTLE: Because knowledge pursued for its OWN sake is higher than any UTILITARIAN end.
ALEXANDER: Why?
Panel 7: Same shot: fuming Aristotle resists the urge to throttle the brat.
NO COPY
MORE
THREE, CON’D
Panel 8: Aristotle buries his face in his hands. Alexander runs outside joyfully.
ARISTOTLE: Perhaps we should start at the very BEGINNING.
ARISTOTLE: We’re having class OUTSIDE today.
ALEXANDER: YAAAAAAAAAY!!
FOUR
Panel 1: Aristotle & Alexander take a walk through the palace gardens. (This design is cool too.) Aristotle plucks a flower to sniff. [Quotes on this whole page: Aristotle 689.] JUST A SUGGESTION: Maybe, as opposed to dividing up a page into corner quarters, maybe divide it lengthwise, go for a panoramic cinematic thing? Just to, y’know, shake things up a bit. (You can do the same with the next page, make a nice spread.)
ARISTOTLE: ALL MEN by nature desire to KNOW, Young Alex.
ARISTOTLE: An indication of this is the DELIGHT we take in our SENSES… >sniff!< Aaaaahhhh…
ARISTOTLE: For even apart from their USEFULNESS they are loved for THEMSELVES…
Panel 2: Aristotle has to cover Alexander’s eyes and lead him away from a palace bathhouse where hot royal babes are bathing.
ARISTOTLE: …and above all others the sense of SIGHT. For not only with a view to er…
ARISTOTLE: …ACTION… Come ALONG now, young man…
ARISTOTLE: …we prefer SEEING to everything else, for it makes us know the DIFFERENCES between things!
Panel 3: In the palace kitchen, a dog waits for a cook to toss him some scraps from where she is preparing a meal.
ARISTOTLE: From these differences MEMORY is produced in SOME of the animals, which, therefore, are the more INTELLIGENT and apt at LEARNING than those that CANNOT remember.
Panel 4: Just beyond, at a picnic table-style dining area for the guards, one ancient Hoplite soldier bores the shit out of younger guards slumped over a table as he tells the same boring stories over and over again.
ARISTOTLE: Now from memory EXPERIENCE is produced in MEN.
ARISTOTLE: For the SEVERAL MEMORIES of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a SINGLE EXPERIENCE.
OLD HOPLITE: Young people these days think they know how to WALK. Well, let me tell you, in MY day, we had a GAIT! Why, I remember, during the war with SPARTA…blah, blah, blah…
YOUNG HOPLITE: ZZZZZZZZ
FIVE
Panel 1: In the palace infirmary, a Greek doctor (picture C) tries to give a protesting patient his medicine.
ARISTOTLE: ART arises when from MANY notions gained by experience one UNIVERSAL judgment about a CLASS of objects is PRODUCED.
ARISTOTLE: To say when your friend CALLIAS was ill of this disease and THIS medicine did him good, that is EXPERIENCE—
ARISTOTLE: --but to say the SAME medicine will do good to ALL men with that disease, THAT is ART!
Panel 2: Alex and Aristotle pass by a smart master-worker supervising a bunch of dumbass workers hoisting up a big ol’ marble block on a pulley by a wing of the palace under construction.
ARISTOTLE: For men of EXPERIENCE may know that a thing is SO, but do not know WHY.
ARISTOTLE: Hence we think that MASTER-WORKERS in each craft are WISER than the MANUAL WORKERS, because they know the CAUSES of the things that are done.
Panel 3: Alex and Aristotle pass by a washed-up SCULPTOR instructing a class; he’s annoyed by Alex’s smart-alecky remark.
ARISTOTLE: Furthermore, ARTISTS, because they know the WHYS of a thing, unlike men of mere EXPERIENCE, may teach OTHERS how to do it.
ALEXANDER: A LOT of times, that’s the ONLY work they can GET…
SCULPTOR: I HEARD THAT!!
Panel 4: Aristotle and Alexander return to their classroom. (Quote: Aristotle 691)
ALEXANDER: So…the man of EXPERIENCE is smarter than those that merely possess SENSE-PERCEPTION…
ALEXANDER: …the ARTIST smarter than the man of experience, the master-worker than the MECHANIC…
ALEXANDER: …but, if I am to be KING, I need to be smarter than ALL of them COMBINED, Master!
SIX
Panel 1: Aristotle excitedly refers to the blackboard, where he has written “METAPHYSICS”.
ARISTOTLE: INDEED! A GOOD RULER requires WISDOM—which deals with the FIRST CAUSES AND PRINCIPLES of things!
ARISTOTLE: The MOST universal is the HARDEST for men to know, for it is “BEYOND NATURE”—the FARTHEST from the SENSES!
Panel 2: Alexander watches Aristotle digs through his suitcase for his notes.
ARISTOTLE: But through my exhaustive observations of the workings of NATURE and MAN alike, I have classified these causes into FOUR categories!
ARISTOTLE: Let’s see here… I know I have the list here SOMEWHERE…
Panel 3: For the benefit of the reader, Alexander produces a Grecian URN with a stopper on it. (Quotes throughout: Aristotle 170)
ARISTOTLE (OFF): Well… I DO remember that ONE type of cause is the MATERIAL one…
ARISTOTLE (OFF): …what smaller PARTS, or INGREDIENTS, go into the WHOLE to make it EXIST?
ALEXANDER: GREEK FIRE: sulfur, petroleum, phosphorous, saltpeter!
Panel 4: Alexander dumps the oily contents of the urn onto his teacher’s left foot.
ARISTOTLE (OFF): Oh, yes, and then there’s the FORMAL CAUSE—
ARISTOTLE (OFF): —what is the DEFINITION or PATTERN the thing fits INTO?
ALEXANDER: You mean like, “practical jokes”?
Panel 5: Alexander winks at the reader and strikes a SPARK with a bit of flint.
ARISTOTLE (OFF): Yes, EXACTLY! And then the EFFICIENT CAUSE would be the INCITING INCIDENT that brings the thing INTO being—
ALEXANDER: Such as… The SPARK that ignites the FLAMES?
Panel 6: Aristotle has found his notes and he examines them delightedly – but then there’s the small matter of the SMOKE wafting up from below the panel and past his nose.
ARISTOTLE: EXCELLENT, Young Alex, excel—Ah, HERE are my notes!
ARISTOTLE: Of course, the FOURTH cause is the FINAL one – for or to what END does a thing EXIST—
Panel 7: Same shot: Aristotle smells the smoke wafting past…
ARISTOTLE: >sniff, sniff?<
SEVEN
Panel 1: Alexander springs gleefully away from Aristotle as he grabs his foot and blows on it to try and put it out.
ARISTOTLE: OOH! AAHH!!
ALEXANDER: In the case of a HOTFOOT…
ALEXANDER: …because it’s HILARIOUS!
ALEXANDER: BWAHAHAHAHA!!
Panel 2: Aristotle chases Alexander across the classroom, Tom-and-Jerry (or possibly Wile E. Coyote-and-Road Runner) style.
ARISTOTLE: GRRRRR!! Just as in REGULAR Physics, the basis of all METAphysics is MOTION—
ARISTOTLE: --for CHANGE (“kinesis”) is the ONLY constant in Nature!
Panel 3: Aristotle corners Alexander in one corner of the classroom, arms raised as if he’s about to strangle him.
ARISTOTLE: And the most COMMON form of change—The one NECESSARY to existence—
ARISTOTLE: --is when beings move from a POTENTIAL state—
ARISTOTLE: --just as an ACORN is a potential tree or a pile of bricks and lumber is a POTENTIAL house—
Panel 4: Doing his best Homer Simpson imitation, Aristotle strangles Alex.
ARISTOTLE: --into ACTUALLY existing or happening!
ARISTOTLE: Like the strangling of YOU by ME!
ALEXANDER: Ugh—Gak-!
ARISTOTLE (small) Snot nosed—little—royal—brat!
Panel 5: King Philip suddenly appears in the doorway of the classroom. Aristotle still has his hands wrapped around his student’s throat.
PHILIP: Good afternoon, Aristotle!
PHILIP: How is the boy’s first day of SCHOOLING going?
ARISTOTLE: KING PHILIP!
ARISTOTLE: Uh… Well… I was just explaining to dearest Alex that…
EIGHT
Panel 1: Mortified Aristotle thinks – in the LEFT-HAND THOUGHT BALLOON, of Philip discovering Aristotle holding Alex’s dead body (X’s in his eyes) – and in the RIGHT-HAND BALLOON, he’s executed for killing the prince. There is an arrow connecting the two to illustrate the concept of Change.
ARISTOTLE: …ACTUALITY is the…
ARISTOTLE: …>gulp!< END (telos) of POTENTIALITY!
ARISTOTLE: A-another way of putting is that SUBSTANCE, or MATTER, is potential BEING, but is g-given FORM in actuality…
Panel 2: A bored Philip walks back out of the room. Aristotle glowers down at the released Alex, who grins up at him bashfully.
PHILIP: Yeesh! Too EGGHEAD for me!
PHILIP: I have SUBJECTS that need OPPRESSING!
ARISTOTLE: Thanks for DROPPING BY, sire…
Panel 3: Having picked up Alex by his toga, Aristotle drops him back behind his seat.
ARISTOTLE: I can tell you’re a RESTLESS lad.
ARISTOTLE: You need an ACTIVITY with which to OCCUPY your time.
ARISTOTLE: Fortunately, I have the PERFECT ONE:
Panel 4: Aristotle puts a cloth-covered block on the desk. Alexander excitedly waits for his teacher to unveil it.
ARISTOTLE: We have TRUE knowledge only when we think we know the CAUSE on which a fact depends, as the cause of THAT fact and NO OTHER, and further, that the fact could NOT be OTHER THAN IT IS.
ARISTOTLE: And we CONNECT causes to facts through a little INVENTION of mine I like to call…
Panel 5: Same shot: Alex pulls off the drape, showing a clear box within which three alphabet blocks lie upon a royal pillow. The blocks are lettered A-B-C. Alexander is less than impressed.
ARISTOTLE (BIG): …LOGIC!
ALEXANDER: Ooh. Goody.
ALEXANDER: BLOCKS.
NINE
Panel 1: Aristotle excitedly removes the blocks from the case.
ARISTOTLE: The fundamental construction of logic is the SYLLOGISM…
ARISTOTLE: …a discourse in which certain things being stated, something other than what is stated follows OF NECESSITY from their BEING SO.
Panel 2: Aristotle juggles the blocks for Alexander’s benefit.
ARISTOTLE: In other words…
ARISTOTLE: If A is predicated of all B and B is predicated of all C, then A is necessarily predicated of all of C!
ALEXANDER: Okay…so…in OTHER, more UNDERSTANDABLE words…
THREE-PANEL EXPLICATION OF SYLLOGISM (in a side-by-side tier please):
Panel 3: A graveyard: a gravestone with the “MAN” symbol on it (circle w/arrow)
TOP CAPTION: All men are MORTAL.
BOTTOM CAPTION: MAJOR PREMISE (“A”)
Panel 4: Socrates lifts up toga to show us is schlong… So we can keep our lunches down, though, there’s a black “CENSORED” bar over said man-part.
TOP CAPTION: Socrates is a MAN.
BOTTOM CAPTION: MINOR PREMISE (“B”)
Panel 5: Guards in Socrates’ prison cell present him with a bowl of hemlock.
TOP CAPTION: Therefore, SOCRATES is MORTAL.
SOCRATES (THOUGHT): Crap.
BOTTOM CAPTION: CONCLUSION (“C”)
Panel 6: Aristotle excitedly sticks a gold star on Alexander’s forehead. The student beams.
ARISTOTLE: By ZEUS, my boy…
ARISTOTLE: …I think you’ve GOT it!
TEN
Panel 1: The newly-crowned (and now teenaged) ALEXANDER THE GREAT bids farewell to Aristotle, shaking his hands. The teacher has his suitcases around him.
CAPTION: YEARS passed this way, but Alexander’s schooling finally came to ABRUPT END upon his father’s ASSASSINATION in 336 B.C., necessitating the prince’s CORONATION.
ALEXANDER: My armies and I march east to PERSIA, Master. Would you come WITH me, so I might continue to benefit from your sage advice?
ARISTOTLE: Thank you, Alex—
ARISTOTLE: YOUR MAJESTY, I mean! >Heh!< But NO…
Panel 2: Back in Athens, a Century 21 realtor shows Aristotle a grove of uh, (olive?) trees.
CAPTION: “…I have decided to return to ATHENS… and use the money I earned HERE to buy land for my OWN school!”
REALTOR: Socrates HIMSELF came to think under these groves—sacred as they are to APOLLO LYCEUS, the LIGHT-GIVER!
ARISTOTLE: Ooh! Good KARMA! I’ll TAKE it!
Panel 3: Aristotle and his students walk through the Periaptos, a tree-covered walk. One of his students holds a letter.
CAPTION: Aristotle’s LYCEUM opened around 334 B.C. His unusual teaching method involved walking around a PERIAPTOS, or tree-covered walk… So his school was called “PERIPATETIC.”
STUDENT: Master, you’ve received a letter from your former PUPIL, the ruler of MACEDON!
ARISTOTLE: READ it to me, will you?
Panel 4: Alexander and his armies do battle with Asian warriors mounted on war elephants.
LETTER (SCRIPT): Dear Master, having a SMASHING TIME conquering Asia Minor. And I do mean that LITERALLY! Ha, ha!
LETTER (SCRIPT): But SERIOUSLY, in my campaigns I have come across many fascinating SPECIMENS that will help you in your RESEARCH. I will be sending them to you shortly.
LETTER (SCRIPT): Whoops--The ground is shaking, so that must mean enemy WAR ELEPHANTS are on their way! No rest for the WICKED! Hope the Lyceum is going well and I will write again soon.
LETTER (SCRIPT): XOXOXOXOX ALEX.
ELEVEN
Panel 1: Speusippus (remember him?) busts into an Academy classroom. He wears a whistle around his neck like a track coach.
CAPTION: By 323 BC, ALEXANDER THE GREAT had established the largest empire in history—one that stretched from EGYPT to INDIA and included the city-state of ATHENS herself!
SPEUSIPPUS: Where is that shipment of SLIDE RULES I ordered? I can’t teach GYM without them!
Panel 2: Speusippus angrily strides through an Academy hallway while his clerk follows.
CLERK: I-I’m SORRY, Speusippus, but the Academy is near BROKE! Enrollment is down EIGHTY PERCENT this year!
SPEUSIPPUS: WHAT? How is that POSSIBLE? Where could all our students be GOING—
Panel 3: He’s brought up short, stunned, by the huge BILLBOARD across the street from the Academy—It shows Alexander giving a thumb’s up and the copy reads:
BILLBOARD COPY: The Lyceum:
WE MADE
ALEXANDER
GREAT!
SPEUSIPPUS: GAAAAAHH!!
Panel 4: Speusippus arrives at the Lyceum, where scores students try to organize all the crates of specimens arriving from Alexander—including a war elephant wrapped in brown paper. The tags read: TO: MASTER FROM: ALEX
SPEUSIPPUS (small): I could be the greatest genius of the ancients TOO, if I had the RULER OF THE KNOWN WORLD on my ALUMNI MAILING LIST… Grumble, mumble…
Panel 5: Speusippus sticks his nose in the window of Aristotle’s office, where the scholar works feverishly on book after book after book.
CAPTION: Aristotle spent much of his time writing massive works on the classification of the SCIENCES. The BREADTH of his studies can be seen by their TITLES:
CAPTION: “Topics”, “Physics”, “Metaphysics”, “On the Soul”, “On Dreams”, “The History of Animals”, “Ethics”, “Politics”, “Poetics”, “Rhetoric”…
SPEUSIPPUS: Geez, why don’t you do one on GOING TO THE BATHROOM, too?
TWELVE
Panel 1: Aristotle shoves a book entitled “ON #1 & #2” under Speusippus’s nose.
ARISTOTLE (OFF): DONE!
SPEUSIPPUS: GGGGRRRRRR!!!
Panel 2: Deathbed of Alexander the Great.
CAPTION: Alexander died after a night of heavy BOOZING – possibly of a tropical disease like MALARIA – on June 11, 323 BC, in BABYLON.
CAPTION: When asked who should SUCCEED him, he answered:
ALEXANDER: The STRONGEST!
Panel 3: At the Lyceum, Aristotle and a student fret over the letter announcing Alexander’s death.
CAPTION: While his lieutenants battled over his CROWN, Alexander’s empire quickly CRUMBLED.
ARISTOTLE: >Tsk!< Poor Alex… He was only THIRTY-THREE!
ARISTOTLE: Let’s hope, with him GONE, the political situation HERE doesn’t degenerate too QUICKLY—
Panel 4: Aristotle walks outside and is shocked to find an angry, anti-Alexander mob has already gathered in front of the Lyceum, carrying torches and anti-Macedonian signs (one possibility could be an “X” through the Vergina Sun symbol). The mob is led by Speusippus.
SPEUSIPPUS: WE WILL PURGE ATHENS OF ALEXANDER’S TYRANNY…
SPEUSIPPUS: …AND HIS MACEDONIAN PUPPETS!
ARISTOTLE: GAAAHHH!
Panel 5: Just like Plato before him, Hoplites chase Aristotle beyond the city limits.
CAPTION: Like Socrates BEFORE him, Aristotle was charged with “IMPIETY”, obliging him to flee the city…
ARISTOTLE: …lest the Athenians sin against philosophy TWICE!*
ARISTOTLE: FEETS DON’T FAIL ME NOW!
CAPTION (small): *: Actual quote!
###