Aristotle's Life and Education
- Aristotle was born in 384BC in Stagira, Chalcidice, to Nicomachus, the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon.
- Both of Aristotle's parents died when he was about thirteen, and Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian.
- At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy.
- Aristotle studied at Plato's Academy in Athens for nearly twenty years.
- After leaving Athens, Aristotle traveled to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor.
- In 343 BCE, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander.
Aristotle's Contributions and Works
- Aristotle was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum in Athens.
- His writings covered a broad range of subjects including natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts.
- Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him.
- He influenced medieval scholarship, Judeo-Islamic philosophies, Christian theology, and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church.
- His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic and had a significant impact on the development of modern science.
- Aristotle's most important treatises include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, On the Soul, and Poetics.
Aristotle's Legacy
- Aristotle's views profoundly shaped medieval scholarship and had a lasting influence on Western philosophy.
- His influence on logic continued well into the 19th century.
- Aristotle's ethics gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics.
- He was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as The First Teacher and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply The Philosopher.
- Aristotelian tradition set the groundwork for the development of modern science.
Aristotle's Metaphysics
- Coined by a first-century CE editor, Aristotle called it first philosophy.
- Distinguished from mathematics and natural science, metaphysics is a contemplative philosophy that studies the divine.
- It studies being as being and its properties.
- Aristotle examines substance and essence in his Metaphysics.
- Substance is a combination of matter and form, with matter being the substratum and form being the actual substance.
- Immanent realism is Aristotle's philosophy that aims at the universal, with both matter and form belonging to the individual thing.
Aristotle's Contributions to Physics, Optics, and Biology
- Aristotle related the four classical elements to the sensible qualities and added the heavenly aether representing the substance of the heavenly spheres.
- Aristotle's laws of motion stated that heavy objects require more force to move and objects pushed with greater force move faster.
- He proposed that natural motion depends on the element, with aether moving in a circle and the four elements moving vertically.
- Aristotle's theory of falling bodies stated that the speed of fall is proportional to weight and inversely proportional to the density of the fluid.
- Aristotle conducted experiments in optics using a camera obscura and made observations on light and image formation.
- Aristotle recognized spontaneity and chance as causes of certain events and distinguished them from other types of causes.
- Aristotle was the first person to study biology systematically, describing various marine creatures and their characteristics.
- His scientific style involved gathering data, discovering patterns, and inferring possible explanations, making his biology considered scientific.
- Aristotle did not propose the idea of common ancestry or support the concept of survival of the fittest in relation to evolution.
Aristotle (/ˈærɪˌstɒtəl/; Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs, pronounced [aristotélɛːs]; 384–322 BCE) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science.
Aristotle | |
|---|---|
 Roman copy (in marble) of a Greek bronze bust of Aristotle by Lysippos (c. 330 BCE), with modern alabaster mantle | |
| Born | 384 BCE |
| Died | 322 BCE (aged 61–62) |
| Education | Platonic Academy |
| Notable work | |
| Era | Ancient Greek philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | |
| Notable students | Alexander the Great, Theophrastus, Aristoxenus |
Main interests | |
Notable ideas | Aristotelianism
Theoretical philosophy Natural philosophy Practical philosophy
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Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical period. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At 17 or 18 he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there till the age of 37 (c. 347 BCE). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored his son Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BC. He established a library in the Lyceum which helped him to produce many of his hundreds of books on papyrus scrolls.
Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues for publication, only around a third of his original output has survived, none of it intended for publication. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. His teachings and methods of inquiry have had a significant impact across the world, and remain a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion.
Aristotle's views profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. The influence of his physical science extended from late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and was not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics were developed. He influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophies during the Middle Ages, as well as Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church.
Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as "The First Teacher", and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply "The Philosopher", while the poet Dante called him "the master of those who know". His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, and were studied by medieval scholars such as Peter Abelard and Jean Buridan. Aristotle's influence on logic continued well into the 19th century. In addition, his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics.
