ARISTOTLE

Name: Aristotle

Born: 384 BC, Stagira, Greece

Died: 322 BC, Chalcis, Greece

Nationality: Greek

Spouse: Pythias

Children: Nicomachus, Pythias

Parents: Nicomachus, Phaestis

Notable ideas: On the Soul, Golden mean, Syllogism, Term

logic, Hylomorphism, Hexis

Influenced by: Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, Democritus,

Heraclitus, MORE

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who is known for being taught by Plato. He is also known for
developing the Lyceum, which was the Peripatetic school of philosophic, and the Aristotelian traditions.
He is best known for his work on philosophy, physics, zoology, and theology.

Aristotle was born circa 384 B.C. in Stagira, a small town on the northern coast of Greece that was once a
seaport. His father, Nicomachus, was working as a court physician to the Macedonian king Amyntas II.
Although Nicomachus dies when Aristotle was young, Aristotle remains associated with and influenced
by the Macedonian court for the rest of his life. While Aristotle’s mother, Phaestis, believed to have died
when Aristotle was young and not much of information known about her. After his father died, Proxenus
of Atarneus become Aristotle’s guardian until he came of age. Proxenus of Atarneus was married to
Aristotle’s older sister, Arimneste. When Aristotle turned 17, Proxenus sent him to Athens when at that
time was considered as the academic center of the universe. In Athens, Aristotle enrolled in Plato’s
Academy, Greek’s premier learning institution, and proved an exemplary scholar, remained there until the
age of thirty-seven (c. 347 BC). Aristotle maintained a relationship with Greek philosopher Plato, himself
a student of Socrates, and his academy for two decades. Plato died in 347 B.C. Because Aristotle had
disagreed with some of Plato’s philosophical treatises, Aristotle did not inherit the position of director of
the academy, as many imagined he would.

Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored
Alexander the Great, beginning in 343 BC. Aristotle set up his own school in a public exercise area
dedicated to the god Apollo Lykeios, whence its name, the Lyceum. Those affiliated with Aristotle’s
school later came to be called Peripatetics, probably because of the existence of an ambulatory (peripatos)
on the school’s property adjacent to the exercise ground. Members of the Lyceum conducted research into
a wide range of subjects, all of which were of interest to Aristotle himself: botany, biology, logic, music,
mathematics, astronomy, medicine, cosmology, physics, the history of philosophy, metaphysics,
psychology, ethics, theology, rhetoric, political history, government and political theory, rhetoric, and the
arts. In all these areas, the Lyceum collected manuscripts, thereby, according to some ancient accounts,
assembling the first great library of antiquity. During this period, Aristotle’s wife, Pythias, died and he
developed a new relationship with Herpyllis, maybe like him a native of Stagira, though her origins are
not sure, as is the question of her exact relationship to Aristotle. Some suppose that she was merely his
slave; others infer from the provisions of Aristotle’s will that she was a freed woman and likely his wife
at the time of his death. In any event, they had children together, including a son, Nicomachus, named
after Aristotle’s father and whom his Nicomachean Ethics is presumably named. After thirteen years in
Athens, Aristotle once again found cause to retire from the city, in 323. Probably his departure was
occasioned by a resurgence of the always-simmering anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens, which was
free to come to the boil after Alexander succumbed to disease in Babylon during that same year. Because
of his connections to Macedon, Aristotle reasonably feared for his safety and left Athens, remarking, as
an oft-repeated ancient tale would tell it, that he saw no reason to permit Athens to sin twice against
philosophy. He withdrew directly to Chalcis, on Euboea, an island off the Attic coast, and died there of
natural causes the following year, in 322.

At the Lyceum, Aristotle probably composed approximately 200 works, unfortunately only 31 survived.
Aristotle's most important surviving authentic works are grouped into four; Organon, Theoretical
Sciences, Practical Sciences, Productive Science. The Organon is the standard collection of Aristotle's six
works on logic that provide a logical instrument for use in any philosophical or scientific investigation.
Next come Aristotle’s theoretical works, most famously his treatises on animals. Third are Aristotle’s
practical works, particularly notably the “Nicomachean Ethics” and “Politics,” both deep investigations
into the nature of human flourishing on the individual, familial and societal levels. Finally, productive
science such a science aims at knowledge of action, or praxis. The science of action underlies the ability
to act well, or to live the good life, which according to Aristotle was a life guided by reason. And up until
today, over 2000 years after Aristotle proposed these divisions of science, no one has been able to think
of an object of science which does not fall into one of these three categories.

After Alexander the Great dies in 323 B.C., Aristotle was forced to flee Athens by the anti-Macedonian
sentiment. Aristotle died a little north of the city in 322, due to digestive problem. He was buried next to
his wife, who died years earlier.

A favored student of Aristotle took over the Lyceum, but the school’s influence fades after a few decades
because of rival academy. For several generations, Aristotle’s works never been forgotten. The historian
Strabo says they were stored for centuries in a moldy cellar in Asia Minor before their rediscovery in the
first century B.C., though it is unlikely that these were the only copies. In 30 B.C. Andronicus of Rhodes
grouped and edited Aristotle’s remaining works that soon became the basis for all the later editions. The
historian Strabo says they were stored for centuries in a moldy cellar in Asia Minor before their
rediscovery in the first century B.C., though it is unlikely that these were the only copies.
Aristotle has been called "the father of logic", "the father of biology", "the father of political science",
"the father of zoology", "the father of embryology", "the father of natural law", "the father of scientific
method", "the father of rhetoric", "the father of psychology", "the father of realism", "the father of
criticism", "the father of individualism", "the father of teleology", and "the father of meteorology"

Up until today, Aristotle’s works made a huge impact to the modern society and will never be forgotten.
Aristotle will remain as one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived and the first genuine scientist in
history.