Aristotle

Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC)[1] was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the mostimportant founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.

Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimatelyreplaced by Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewishtraditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues(Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"),[2] it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.[3]
Contents
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1 Life
2 Logic
2.1 History
2.2 Analytics and the Organon
3 Aristotle's scientific method
4 Physics
4.1 The five elements
4.2 Motion4.3 Causality, The Four Causes
4.4 Optics
4.5 Chance and spontaneity
5 Metaphysics
5.1 Substance, potentiality and actuality
5.2 Universals and particulars
6 Biology and medicine
6.1 Empirical research program
6.2 Classification of living things
6.3 Successor: Theophrastus
6.4 Influence on Hellenistic medicine7 Practical philosophy
7.1 Ethics
7.2 Politics
7.3 Rhetoric and poetics
8 Loss and preservation of his works
9 Legacy
9.1 Later Greek philosophers
9.2 Influence on Christian theologians
9.3 Views on women
9.4 Post-Enlightenment thinkers
10 List of works
11 See also
12 Notes and references
13 Furtherreading
14 External links

Life

Aristotle was born in Stageira, Chalcidice, in 384 BC, about 55 km (34 mi) east of modern-day Thessaloniki.[4] His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was trained and 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. Aristotleremained at the academy for nearly twenty years before quitting Athens in 348/47 BC. The traditional story about his departure reports that he was disappointed with the direction the academy took after control passed to Plato's nephew Speusippus upon his death, although it is possible that he feared anti-Macedonian sentiments and left before Plato had died.[5] He then traveled with Xenocrates to thecourt of his friend 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's adoptive daughter (or niece) Pythias. She bore him a daughter, whom they named Pythias. Soon after Hermias' death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become...