Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Bio

“Aristotle was called by Roman Catholics the greatest of pagan
Philosophers. He was born at Stagira, a Grecian colony in the
Macedonian peninsula Chalcidice, in 384 B.C., and died at Chalcis, in
Euboea, 322 B.C.

“His father, Nicomachus, was court physician to King Amyntas of
Macedonia. This position, we have reason to believe, was held under
various predecessors of Amyntas by Aristotle's ancestors, so that the
profession of medicine was in a sense hereditary in the family. Whatever
early training Aristotle received was probably influenced by this
circumstance; when, therefore at the age of eighteen he went to Athens
his mind was already determined in the direction which it afterwards took,
the investigation of natural phenomena.

“From his eighteenth to his thirty-seventh year he remained at Athens as
pupil of Plato and was, we are told, distinguished among those who
gathered for instruction in the Grove of Academus, adjoining Plato's
house. The relations between the renowned teacher and his illustrious
pupil have formed the subject of various legends, many of which
represent Aristotle in an unfavourable light. No doubt there were
divergences of opinion between the master, who took his stand on
sublime, idealistic principles, and the scholar, who, even at that time,
showed a preference for the investigation of the facts and laws of the
physical world. It is probable that Plato did, indeed, declare that Aristotle
needed the curb rather than the spur; but we have no reason to believe
that there was an open breach of friendship. In fact, Aristotle's conduct
after the death of Plato, his continued association with Xenocrates and
other Platonists, and his allusions in his writings to Plato's doctrines,
prove that while there were differences of opinion between teacher and
pupil, there was no lack of cordial appreciation, or of that mutual
forbearance which one would expect from men of lofty character.

“Aristotle was eventually summoned to his native Stagira by King Philip II
of Macedon, to become the tutor of Alexander the Great, who was then in
his thirteenth year. Whether or not we believe Plutarch when he tells us
that Aristotle not only imparted to the future world-conqueror a knowledge
of ethics and politics, but also initiated him into the most profound secrets
of philosophy, we have positive proof, on the one hand, that the royal pupil
profited by contact with the philosopher, and, on the other hand, that the
teacher made prudent and beneficial use of his influence over the mind of
the young prince.

“Aside from politics and ethics, Aristotle is famous for his development of
logic and natural science. Aristotle defines 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; the former however, finds the universal in particular things,
and calls it the essence of things, while the latter 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.”

Aristotle’s ethics reflects this difference with Plato as almost a mirror
image: whereas Plato viewed perfection as an ideal, fixed form, of which
mankind was a crude copy, or from which we had generally fallen away,
Aristotle viewed perfection as our attainment of the ideal. For Plato, virtue
was obedience to a fixed or set purpose for man; for Aristotle, it was the
realization of a pre-determined potential, the complete development of a
human essence.

(Excerpts and adaptations within quotes, as well as portrait, taken from the Wikipedia
article on Aristotle. Click here for complete article.)

For a more extensive treatment of Aristotle's ethics, click here for the
article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

For a more extensive treatment of Aristotle's politics, click here for the
article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.


Works

Nichomachean Ethics

Politics