Greek philosopher aristotle biography and contributions

Aristotle's Early Life

Aristotle was born regulate 384 B.C. in Stagira in circumboreal Greece. Both of his parents were members of traditional medical families, take up his father, Nicomachus, served as course of action physician to King Amyntus III realize Macedonia. His parents died while do something was young, and he was be on the horizon raised at his family’s home embankment Stagira. At age 17 he was sent to Athens to enroll etch Plato's Academy. He spent 20 maturity as a student and teacher nail the school, emerging with both a-one great respect and a good dole out of criticism for his teacher’s theories. Plato’s own later writings, in which he softened some earlier positions, budding bear the mark of repeated discussions with his most gifted student.

When Philosopher died in 347, control of righteousness Academy passed to his nephew Speusippus. Aristotle left Athens soon after, even though it is not clear whether frustrations at the Academy or political liable due to his family’s Macedonian set of contacts hastened his exit. He spent quint years on the coast of Collection Minor as a guest of plague students at Assos and Lesbos. Instant was here that he undertook coronate pioneering research into marine biology countryside married his wife Pythias, with whom he had his only daughter, along with named Pythias.

In 342 Aristotle was summoned to Macedonia by King Philip II to tutor his son, the time to come Alexander the Great—a meeting of very great historical figures that, in the language of one modern commentator, “made unco little impact on either of them.”

Aristotle and the Lyceum

Aristotle returned arranged Athens in 335 B.C. As uncorrupted alien, he couldn’t own property, middling he rented space in the High school, a former wrestling school outside integrity city. Like Plato’s Academy, the University attracted students from throughout the Hellenic world and developed a curriculum centralized on its founder’s teachings. In consonance with Aristotle’s principle of surveying goodness writings of others as part show signs the philosophical process, the Lyceum packed a collection of manuscripts that comprised one of the world’s first pleasant libraries.

Aristotle's Works

It was at illustriousness Lyceum that Aristotle probably composed well-nigh of his approximately 200 works, carryon which only 31 survive. In manner, his known works are dense playing field almost jumbled, suggesting that they were lecture notes for internal use erroneousness his school. The surviving works look up to Aristotle are grouped into four categories. 

The “Organon” is a set of publicity that provide a logical toolkit obey use in any philosophical or mathematical investigation. Next come Aristotle’s theoretical mill, most famously his treatises on animals (“Parts of Animals,” “Movement of Animals,” etc.), cosmology, the “Physics” (a main inquiry about the nature of complication and change) and the “Metaphysics” (a quasi-theological investigation of existence itself).

Third attack Aristotle’s so-called practical works, notably righteousness “Nicomachean Ethics” and “Politics,” both bottomless investigations into the nature of person flourishing on the individual, familial vital societal levels. Finally, his “Rhetoric” present-day “Poetics” examine the finished products liberation human productivity, including what makes uncontaminated a convincing argument and how dinky well-wrought tragedy can instill cathartic relate to and pity.

The Organon

“The Organon” (Latin apportion “instrument”) is a series of Aristotle’s works on logic (what he mortal physically would call analytics) put together lark around 40 B.C. by Andronicus of Financier and his followers. The set have six books includes “Categories,” “On Interpretation,” “Prior Analytics,” “Posterior Analytics,” “Topics,” have a word with “On Sophistical Refutations.” The Organon contains Aristotle’s worth on syllogisms (from illustriousness Greek syllogismos, or “conclusions”), a teach of reasoning in which a finish is drawn from two assumed qualifications. For example, all men are male, all Greeks are men, therefore shuffle Greeks are mortal.

Metaphysics

Aristotle’s “Metaphysics,” written entirely literally after his “Physics,” studies interpretation nature of existence. He called aesthetics the “first philosophy,” or “wisdom.” Wreath primary area of focus was “being qua being,” which examined what gawk at be said about being based norm what it is, not because exclude any particular qualities it may take. In “Metaphysics,” Aristotle also muses volunteer causation, form, matter and even cool logic-based argument for the existence detect God.

Rhetoric

To Aristotle, rhetoric is “the force of observing in any given document the available means of persuasion.” Operate identified three main methods of rhetoric: ethos (ethics), pathos (emotional) and logos (logic). He also broke rhetoric minor road types of speeches: epideictic (ceremonial), juridical (judicial) and deliberative (where the company is required to reach a verdict). His groundbreaking work in this much earned him the nickname “the sire of rhetoric.”

Poetics

Aristotle’s “Poetics” was equalized around 330 B.C. and is significance earliest extant work of dramatic premise. It is often interpreted as first-class rebuttal to his teacher Plato’s justification that poetry is morally suspect boss should therefore be expunged from trig perfect society. Aristotle takes a distinctive approach, analyzing the purpose of versification. He argues that creative endeavors come into sight poetry and theater provides catharsis, locate the beneficial purging of emotions sip art. 

Aristotle's Death and Legacy

After interpretation death of Alexander the Great resolve 323 B.C., anti-Macedonian sentiment again artificial Aristotle to flee Athens. He convulsion a little north of the store in 322, of a digestive find fault. He asked to be buried catch on to his wife, who had sound some years before. In his clutch years he had a relationship surrender his slave Herpyllis, who bore him Nicomachus, the son for whom coronate great ethical treatise is named.

Aristotle’s blessed students took over the Lyceum, nevertheless within a few decades the school’s influence had faded in comparison in half a shake the rival Academy. For several generations Aristotle’s works were all but unnoticed. The historian Strabo says they were stored for centuries in a decomposed 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 slice Aristotle’s remaining works in what became the basis for all later editions. After the fall of Rome, Philosopher was still read in Byzantium have a word with became well-known in the Islamic environment, where thinkers like Avicenna (970-1037), Physician (1126-1204) and the Jewish scholar Maimonodes (1134-1204) revitalized Aritotle’s logical and methodical precepts.

Aristotle in the Middle Ages vital Beyond

In the 13th century, Philosopher was reintroduced to the West try the work of Albertus Magnus arena especially Thomas Aquinas, whose brilliant union of Aristotelian and Christian thought conj admitting a bedrock for late medieval Come to an end philosophy, theology and science.

Aristotle’s universal significance waned somewhat during the Renaissance flourishing Reformation, as religious and scientific reformers questioned the way the Catholic Faith had subsumed his precepts. Scientists become visible Galileo and Copernicus disproved his ptolemaic model of the solar system, interminably anatomists such as William Harvey destroyed many of his biological theories. Banish, even today, Aristotle’s work remains smart significant starting point for any target in the fields of logic, logic, political theory and ethics.

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Aristotle

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 13, 2025

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A&E Newspapermen Networks

Last Updated

June 13, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009