Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on diverse subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry (including theater), biology and zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, and ethics. Along with Socrates and Plato, Aristotle was one of the most influential of the ancient Greek philosophers. They transformed Presocratic Greek philosophy into the foundations of Western philosophy as we know it. Some consider Plato and Aristotle to have founded two of the most important schools of Ancient philosophy; others consider Aristotelianism as a development and concretization of Plato's insights.

Life

Aristotle was born in Stageira (Greek: Στάγειρα)in Chalcidice. His parents were Phaestis and Nicomachus, who became physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was educated as a member of the aristocracy. At about the age of eighteen, he went to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. Aristotle remained at the Academy for nearly twenty years, not leaving until after Plato's death in 347 BC. He then traveled with Xenocrates to the court of Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. While in Asia, Aristotle traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Hermias' daughter (or niece) Pythias. She bore him a daughter, whom they named after his wife, Pythias. Soon after Hermias' death, Aristotle was invited by Philip of Macedon to become tutor to Alexander the Great.

After spending several years tutoring the young Alexander, Aristotle returned to Athens. By 335 BC, he established his own school there, the Lyceum. Aristotle directed courses at the Lyceum for the next twelve years. While in Athens, his wife Pythias died. Aristotle soon became involved with Herpyllis of Stagira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus.

It is during this time in Athens that Aristotle is thought to have composed many of his works. Although Aristotle wrote dialogues, only fragments of these have survived. The works that have survived are in treatise form and, for the most part, were not meant for widespread publication. These are generally thought to be lecture notes or texts used by his students. Among the most important are Physics, Metaphysics (or Ontology), Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics. These works, although connected in many fundamental ways, differ significantly in both style and substance.

Aristotle not only studied almost every subject possible at the time, but made significant contributions to most of them. In science, Aristotle studied anatomy, astronomy, economics, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology, physics, and zoology. In philosophy, Aristotle wrote on aesthetics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, psychology, rhetoric and theology. He also dealt with education, foreign customs, literature and poetry. His combined works practically constitute an encyclopedia of Greek knowledge. It has been remarked that Aristotle was likely the last person to know everything there was to be known in his own time.

Upon Alexander's death in 323 BC, anti-Macedonian feelings in Athens once again flared. Eurymedon the hierophant denounced Aristotle, claiming he did not hold the gods in honor. Aristotle fled the city to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, explaining, "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy." However, he died there of natural causes within the year. Aristotle left a will, which has been preserved, in which he asked to be buried next to his wife.

Methodology

Aristotle defines his philosophy in terms of essence, saying that philosophy is "the science of the universal essence of that which is actual". Plato had defined it as the "science of the idea", meaning by idea what we should call the unconditional basis of phenomena. Both pupil and master regard philosophy as concerned with the universal; Aristotle, however, finds the universal in particular things, and called it the essence of things, while Plato finds that the universal exists apart from particular things, and is related to them as their prototype or exemplar. For Aristotle, therefore, philosophic method implies the ascent from the study of particular phenomena to the knowledge of essences, while for Plato philosophic method means the descent from a knowledge of universal ideas to a contemplation of particular imitations of those ideas. In a certain sense, Aristotle's method is both inductive and deductive, while Plato's is essentially deductive from a priori principles (Jori, 2003).

In Aristotle's terminology, "natural philosophy" was a branch of philosophy that studied the phenomena of the natural world, and included matters that today fall under the domain of physics, biology, and other natural sciences. In modern times the scope of philosophy has come to be more narrowly defined as limited to more generic or abstract inquiries such as ethics and metaphysics, in which logic plays a major role, and as excluding the empirical study of the natural world by means of the scientific method. In contrast, in Aristotle's time and use, philosophy was taken to encompass all facets of intellectual inquiry.

In the larger sense of the word, Aristotle makes philosophy coextensive with reasoning, which he also called "science". Note, however, that his use of the term science carries a different meaning than that covered by the term "scientific method". For Aristotle, "all science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical". By practical science he means ethics and politics; by poetical science, he means the study of poetry and the other fine arts; while by theoretical science he means physics, mathematics, and metaphysics.

If logic, or, as Aristotle calls it, Analytic, is regarded as a study preliminary to philosophy, the divisions of Aristotelian philosophy are: (1) Logic; (2) Theoretical Philosophy, including Metaphysics, Physics, Mathematics, (3) Practical Philosophy; and (4) Poetical Philosophy.