A Bit about Aristotle

Welcome back to "Greek Week" at KnowledgeNews! So far, we've met Socrates and Plato. Tomorrow and Friday, we'll move on to some serious math and drama Greeks. But today, we're all about Aristotle.

For centuries, Aristotle's ideas were dominant throughout the western world, and they're still influential in many fields today. So let's meet the great Greek empiricist.

Born to Biology

Aristotle was born in 384 BC, in Stagira, a small town in what's now northern Greece. His father had been court physician to the Macedonian king and may have trained his young son in medicine. In any case, Aristotle had a lifelong interest in biology.

Both of his parents died while Aristotle was still a child, and from the age of ten he lived with an uncle, who had him educated in Greek, rhetoric, and poetry. When Aristotle was 17 or 18, he headed for Athens to enroll at the Academy, the school of philosophy founded by Plato.

Plato's Pupil

Aristotle studied with Plato for twenty years. By all accounts, his appetite for learning was insatiable. In addition to medicine and biology, he is known to have studied anatomy, ethics, astronomy, politics, metaphysics, geography, geology, psychology, rhetoric, meteorology, physics, theology, literature, and zoology.

Over the years, Plato and Aristotle formed a close relationship. They did have their differences, though. "Plato is dear to me," Aristotle reportedly said, "but dearer still is truth." In fact, the two had very different philosophical methods. Plato believed that abstract contemplation was the best method for finding truth. Aristotle was more like modern scientists. He started with empirical observation and tried to derive general truths from what he saw.

Alexander's Great Tutor

When Plato died in 347 BC, Aristotle might have expected to be appointed director of the Academy. Instead, the job went to Plato's nephew, and Aristotle hit the road. First he traveled to the city of Assus, in what's now Turkey. There he founded a school, got married, and had a daughter.

Then he was summoned back to Macedonia by King Phillip II, who hired him to tutor his 13-year-old son, Alexander (the soon-to-be-Great). The relationship was mutually beneficial. Alexander learned mental discipline from one of history's greatest thinkers, and Aristotle got money to build an enormous private library.

Lyceum Lecturer

When Alexander succeeded his father and set off to conquer the world, Aristotle went back to Athens. There he opened his own school of philosophy: the "Lyceum." Like Plato, Aristotle wrote philosophical dialogues, but only fragments of these survive. Most of the works we attribute to Aristotle today were probably lecture notes or texts used by his Lyceum students. Many were revised by later hands, and most probably weren't intended for general consumption--which explains why they can be hard to read.

Aristotle's time in Athens ended in 323 BC, when word reached Greece that Alexander had died. Anti-Macedonian sentiment ran high, and Aristotle became a target. When charges of impiety were brought against him--the same charges for which Socrates had been executed--Aristotle left, saying he didn't want Athens to "sin a second time against philosophy." He died just a year later.