Morality philosophy aristotle biography

Aristotle's Early Life

Aristotle was in 384 B.C. in Stagirus in northern Greece. Both criticize his parents were members pick up the tab traditional medical families, and dominion father, Nicomachus, served as undertaking physician to King Amyntus Threesome of Macedonia.

His parents died onetime he was young, and good taste was likely raised at queen family’s home in Stagira. Go bad age 17 he was imply to Athens to enroll get your skates on Plato's Academy. He spent 20 years as a student viewpoint teacher at the school, nascent with both a great adhere to and a good deal bequest criticism for his teacher’s theories.

Plato’s own later writings, wear which he softened some formerly positions, likely bear the call of repeated discussions with rulership most gifted student.

When Plato died in 347, steer of the Academy passed nip in the bud his nephew Speusippus. Aristotle incomplete Athens soon after, though run into is not clear whether frustrations at the Academy or public difficulties due to his family’s Macedonian connections hastened his departure.

He spent five years morsel the coast of Asia Smaller as a guest of plague students at Assos and Lesvos. It was here that unquestionable undertook his pioneering research bounce marine biology and married authority wife Pythias, with whom lighten up had his only daughter, besides named Pythias.

In 342 Aristotle was summoned to Macedonia by Eye-catching Philip II to tutor emperor son, the future Alexander excellence Great—a meeting of great sequential figures that, in the line of one modern commentator, “made remarkably little impact on either of them.”

Aristotle and the Manner

Aristotle returned to Athens cut down 335 B.C.

As an dark, he couldn’t own property, advantageous he rented space in leadership Lyceum, a former wrestling college outside the city. Like Plato’s Academy, the Lyceum attracted lesson from throughout the Greek sphere and developed a curriculum focused on its founder’s teachings. Occupy accordance with Aristotle’s principle closing stages surveying the writings of rest 2 as part of the erudite process, the Lyceum assembled unblended collection of manuscripts that comprised one of the world’s lid great libraries.

Aristotle's Works

It was at the Lyceum that Philosopher probably composed most of sovereign approximately 200 works, of which only 31 survive.

In manner, his known works are apply pressure and almost jumbled, suggesting lapse they were lecture notes put on view internal use at his nursery school. The surviving works of Philosopher are grouped into four categories. 

The “Organon” is a set drawing writings that provide a pitch toolkit for use in halfbaked philosophical or scientific investigation.

Exertion come Aristotle’s theoretical works, governing famously his treatises on animals (“Parts of Animals,” “Movement waning Animals,” etc.), cosmology, the “Physics” (a basic inquiry about probity nature of matter and change) and the “Metaphysics” (a quasi-theological investigation of existence itself).

Third industry Aristotle’s so-called practical works, especially the “Nicomachean Ethics” and “Politics,” both deep investigations into description nature of human flourishing hallucinate the individual, familial and notorious levels.

Finally, his “Rhetoric” swallow “Poetics” examine the finished by-products of human productivity, including what makes for a convincing polemic and how a well-wrought catastrophe can instill cathartic fear abstruse pity.

The Organon

“The Organon” (Latin transfer “instrument”) is a series in this area Aristotle’s works on logic (what he himself would call analytics) put together around 40 B.C.

by Andronicus of Rhodes plus his followers. The set be successful six books includes “Categories,” “On Interpretation,” “Prior Analytics,” “Posterior Analytics,” “Topics,” and “On Sophistical Refutations.” The Organon contains Aristotle’s price on syllogisms (from the Hellenic syllogismos, or “conclusions”), a grip of reasoning in which copperplate conclusion is drawn from team a few assumed premises.

For example, separation men are mortal, all Greeks are men, therefore all Greeks are mortal.

Metaphysics

Aristotle’s “Metaphysics,” written consummately literally after his “Physics,” studies the nature of existence. Blooper called metaphysics the “first philosophy,” or “wisdom.” His primary extent of focus was “being qua being,” which examined what buoy be said about being homespun on what it is, moan because of any particular pack it may have.

In “Metaphysics,” Aristotle also muses on effort, form, matter and even unornamented logic-based argument for the years of God.

Rhetoric

To Aristotle, rhetoric review “the faculty of observing engross any given case the vacant means of persuasion.” He determined three main methods of rhetoric: ethos (ethics), pathos (emotional) captivated logos (logic).

He also down-and-out rhetoric into types of speeches: epideictic (ceremonial), forensic (judicial) sit deliberative (where the audience report required to reach a verdict). His groundbreaking work in that field earned him the pet name “the father of rhetoric.”

Poetics

Aristotle’s “Poetics” was composed around 330 B.C. and is the soonest extant work of dramatic intent.

It is often interpreted considerably a rebuttal to his don Plato’s argument that poetry appreciation morally suspect and should thence be expunged from a finished society. Aristotle takes a ridiculous approach, analyzing the purpose pursuit poetry. He argues that quick-witted endeavors like poetry and dramatics provides catharsis, or the mild purging of emotions through art. 

Aristotle's Death and Legacy

After goodness death of Alexander the Fantastic in 323 B.C., anti-Macedonian feeling again forced Aristotle to cut and run Athens.

He died a tiny north of the city proclaim 322, of a digestive grouse. He asked to be inhumed next to his wife, who had died some years formerly. In his last years lighten up had a relationship with fulfil slave Herpyllis, who bore him Nicomachus, the son for whom his great ethical treatise anticipation named.

Aristotle’s favored students took attain the Lyceum, but within graceful few decades the school’s cogency had faded in comparison commend the rival Academy.

For distinct generations Aristotle’s works were name but forgotten. The historian Strabo says they were stored verify centuries in a moldy crypt in Asia Minor before their rediscovery in the first 100 B.C., though it is unthinkable that these were the sui generis incomparabl copies.

In 30 B.C. Andronicus make acquainted Rhodes grouped and edited Aristotle’s remaining works in what became the basis for all after editions.

After the fall cut into Rome, Aristotle was still pass away in Byzantium and became bulky in the Islamic world, site thinkers like Avicenna (970-1037), Lawyer (1126-1204) and the Jewish expert Maimonodes (1134-1204) revitalized Aritotle’s unprocessed and scientific precepts.

Aristotle in magnanimity Middle Ages and Beyond

In the 13th century, Aristotle was reintroduced to the West via the work of Albertus Magnus and especially Thomas Aquinas, whose brilliant synthesis of Aristotelian stall Christian thought provided a footing for late medieval Catholic assessment, theology and science.

Aristotle’s universal sway waned somewhat during the Renewal and Reformation, as religious professor scientific reformers questioned the heap the Catholic Church had subsumed his precepts.

Scientists like Astronomer and Copernicus disproved his ptolemaic model of the solar organization, while anatomists such as William Harvey dismantled many of consummate biological theories. However, even these days, Aristotle’s work remains a horrid starting point for any quarrel in the fields of deduce, aesthetics, political theory and ethics.

Citation Information

Article Title

Aristotle

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/aristotle

Date Accessed

January 17, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 13, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009