Aristotle

Among ancient philosophers, Aristotle is to this day one of the most influential in the formation of Western philosophy and thought. He was born in Stageira, Greece in 384 BC, to Nichomachus, the personal physician of the king of Macedonia. As a child, Aristotle was brought up and educated among the aristocracy, and then began attending Plato's Academy in Athens when he was eighteen. After twenty years at the Academy, Aristotle began traveling through Asia Minor and Lesbos, studying plants and animals. While pursuing these sciences, Aristotle became aquainted with Hermias, the ruler of Atarneus in Asia Minor, and married Hermias' young relative Pythias. They had one daughter.

Not too long afterwards, in 343 BC, Philip II of Macedon appointed Aristotle as head of their royal academy. Aristotle was now the tutor of young kings, most notably Philip's son Alexander, who would become the conqueror of the known world. Aristotle is said to have encourged Alexander with these thoughts of conquest, first with Greece and then with the eastern cultures. Alexander also readily absorbed the knowledge of philosophy, logic, science, and literature that he obtained from his brilliant tutor. Eventually, Aristotle had the opportunity to found his own school in Athens in 335, which he called the Lyceum. He taught there for twelve years, while writing intermittently. He was a prolific writing, although only a fraction of his works survive today. Many of these are deemed to be lecture notes of some kind, and they follow a very terse, methodical, informative pattern. This format has come to be considered as characteristically Aristotelian, while the dialogue belongs to Plato; however, some Aristotle's dialogues have been passed down in fragments.

From Aristotle's works we encounter the picture of a man who studied everything--physics and metaphysics, anatomy and geology, astronomy and politics, not to mention all the humanities, education, and even foreign cultures. Aristotle studied each subject extensively, and not only wrote down the information that was passed on to him, but informed and contributed to each subject with his own thoughts. From him we receive formal logic, and the view of each subject as a science, with each of its tenets clearly organized and described (for instance, Physics, the study of earthly things, presents two basic categories, Elements and Causality, which he breaks down separately then discusses how they relate to form what we experience on earth). Aristotle's detail, categories, and use of hierarchy were very popular in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, influencing areas of thought from science and art to theology and of course, philosophy. He was also honored by Arab philosophers, who reintroduced his works to the West. Much of his authority has been replaced by modern developments, but he remains foundational to understanding the progression of Western culture and philosophy.

After Alexander died, Athens experience a recurrence of hostility against Macedonia. Having primarily tutored Alexander the Great, Aristotle hastened from Athens to protect himself, and shortly thereafter died in Euboea in 322 BC.