Aristotle was born in 384 BC at Stagira in Macedonia, on the Chalkidiki peninsula. His father was physician to the king of Macedon, and perhaps from him he inherited his interest in observing nature. At 17 he went to Athens and entered Plato's Academy, where he stayed twenty years, until his teacher's death.
Tutor to Alexander
After some years in Asia Minor and on Lesbos, where he studied the marine life of the Kalloni lagoon, in 343 BC King Philip II summoned him as tutor to his thirteen-year-old son, the future Alexander the Great. He taught him for several years at Mieza, in a place known as "Aristotle's school" that can still be visited near Naoussa.
The Lyceum
In 335 BC he returned to Athens and founded his own school in the gymnasium of the Lyceum, dedicated to Apollo Lykeios. Because he taught while walking under the colonnade (peripatos), his followers were called Peripatetics. The Lyceum built up a library and collections of data on plants, animals and city constitutions. When Alexander died in 323 BC Aristotle, like Socrates, was charged with impiety; he left Athens "so the Athenians would not sin twice against philosophy" and died the following year at Chalcis, in Euboea. In 1996 the remains of the Lyceum were discovered in Athens and can now be visited.
Big ideas
| Field | Main idea |
|---|---|
| Logic | The syllogism: "All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal" |
| Metaphysics | The study of being as being; substance, matter and form, potentiality and actuality |
| Physics | The four causes: material, formal, efficient, final |
| Biology | Classified over 500 animal species by observation and dissection |
| Ethics | Happiness is the human goal; virtue is the mean between two extremes (courage between cowardice and rashness) |
| Politics | Man is a political animal, made to live in the city; comparison of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy |
| Poetics | Tragedy brings about catharsis, the purging of pity and fear |
| Rhetoric | The techniques of persuasion: ethos, pathos, logos |
Differences from Plato
In the School of Athens in the Vatican, Raphael painted Plato pointing to the sky and Aristotle stretching his hand towards the earth. For Plato true reality is the Forms, beyond the world of the senses; for Aristotle form exists only within concrete things, and knowledge starts from experience and observation. "Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth" is attributed to him.
Influence
Aristotle's works were preserved and commented on by Arab philosophers such as Averroes and returned to Europe in the Middle Ages, where Thomas Aquinas reconciled them with Christian theology. Dante called him "the master of those who know". For centuries his physics and astronomy were official science, until Galileo and the scientific revolution overturned them. Aristotelian logic, biology, ethics and poetics are still studied today.
See also Greek philosophy and Greek science.