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Aristotle’s most famous teacher was Plato (c. 428–c. 348 BCE), who himself had been a student of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE). Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, whose lifetimes spanned a period of only about 150 years, remain among the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy.
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Aristotle’s most famous teacher was Plato (c. 428–c. 348...
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Aristotle was one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived and the first genuine scientist in history. He made pioneering contributions to all fields of philosophy and science, he invented the field of formal logic, and he identified the various scientific disciplines and explored their relationships to each other. Aristotle was also a teacher and founded his own school in Athens, known as the Lyceum.
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Where did Aristotle live?
After his father died about 367 BCE, Aristotle journeyed to Athens, where he joined the Academy of Plato. He left the Academy upon Plato’s death about 348, traveling to the northwestern coast of present-day Turkey. He lived there and on the island of Lésbos until 343 or 342, when King Philip II of Macedonia summoned him to the Macedonian capital, Pella, to act as tutor to Philip’s young teenage son, Alexander, which he did for two or three years. Aristotle presumably lived somewhere in Macedonia until his (second) arrival in Athens in 335. In 323 hostility toward Macedonians in Athens prompted Aristotle to flee to the island of Euboea, where he died the following year.
Aristotle was born on the Chalcidic peninsula of Macedonia, in northern Greece. His father, Nicomachus, was the physician of Amyntas III (reigned c. 393–c. 370 bce), king of Macedonia and grandfather of Alexander the Great (reigned 336–323 bce). After his father’s death in 367, Aristotle migrated to Athens, where he joined the Academy of Plato (c. 428–c. 348 bce). He remained there for 20 years as Plato’s pupil and colleague.
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Many of Plato’s later dialogues date from these decades, and they may reflect Aristotle’s contributions to philosophical debate at the Academy. Some of Aristotle’s writings also belong to this period, though mostly they survive only in fragments. Like his master, Aristotle wrote initially in dialogue form, and his early ideas show a strong Platonic influence. His dialogue Eudemus, for example, reflects the Platonic view of the soul as imprisoned in the body and as capable of a happier life only when the body has been left behind. According to Aristotle, the dead are more blessed and happier than the living, and to die is to return to one’s real home.
Another youthful work, the Protrepticus (“Exhortation”), has been reconstructed by modern scholars from quotations in various works from late antiquity. Everyone must do philosophy, Aristotle claims, because even arguing against the practice of philosophy is itself a form of philosophizing. The best form of philosophy is the contemplation of the universe of nature; it is for this purpose that God made human beings and gave them a godlike intellect. All else—strength, beauty, power, and honour—is worthless.
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When Plato died about 348, his nephew Speusippus became head of the Academy, and Aristotle left Athens. He migrated to Assus, a city on the northwestern coast of Anatolia (in present-day Turkey), where Hermias, a graduate of the Academy, was ruler. Aristotle became a close friend of Hermias and eventually married his ward Pythias. Aristotle helped Hermias to negotiate an alliance with Macedonia, which angered the Persian king, who had Hermias treacherously arrested and put to death about 341. Aristotle saluted Hermias’s memory in “Ode to Virtue,” his only surviving poem.
While in Assus and during the subsequent few years when he lived in the city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, Aristotle carried out extensive scientific research, particularly in zoology and marine biology. This work was summarized in a book later known, misleadingly, as The History of Animals, to which Aristotle added two short treatises, On the Parts of Animals and On the Generation of Animals. Although Aristotle did not claim to have founded the science of zoology, his detailed observations of a wide variety of organisms were quite without precedent. He—or one of his research assistants—must have been gifted with remarkably acute eyesight, since some of the features of insects that he accurately reports were not again observed until the invention of the microscope in the 17th century.
The scope of Aristotle’s scientific research is astonishing. Much of it is concerned with the classification of animals into genus and species; more than 500 species figure in his treatises, many of them described in detail. The myriad items of information about the anatomy, diet, habitat, modes of copulation, and reproductive systems of mammals, reptiles, fish, and insects are a melange of minute investigation and vestiges of superstition. In some cases his unlikely stories about rare species of fish were proved accurate many centuries later. In other places he states clearly and fairly a biological problem that took millennia to solve, such as the nature of embryonic development.
Despite an admixture of the fabulous, Aristotle’s biological works must be regarded as a stupendous achievement. His inquiries were conducted in a genuinely scientific spirit, and he was always ready to confess ignorance where evidence was insufficient. Whenever there is a conflict between theory and observation, one must trust observation, he insisted, and theories are to be trusted only if their results conform with the observed phenomena.
Sep 25, 2024 · That’s right, Aristotle taught one of history’s most famous conquerors. He also established his own school, the Lyceum, covering everything from ethics and politics to biology. And let’s not forget that Aristotle’s own teacher was the equally iconic Plato, who himself was taught by Socrates.
Aug 8, 2023 · Aristotle (c. 384 B.C. to 322 B.C.) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and scientist who is still considered one of the greatest thinkers in politics, psychology and ethics. When Aristotle turned...
May 22, 2019 · Aristotle's favorite student at the school was Theophrastus who would succeed him as leader of the school and who collected and published his works.
- Joshua J. Mark
- Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who pioneered the systematic study of every branch of human knowledge so thoroughly that he came to be known as T...
- In his Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Aristotle writes that happiness is the final purpose of life. Humans, he said, were supposed to be happy and one...
- Aristotle's most famous theory is the Golden Mean: living a life of moderation. If one tends to spend too much, for example, one should try not spe...
- A central difference between Aristotle and Plato is Plato's Theory of Forms. Plato believed in a higher realm that informed the reality of the worl...
Nov 9, 2009 · Aristotle (384‑322 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher who made significant and lasting contributions to nearly every aspect of human knowledge, from logic to biology to ethics and aesthetics.
May 21, 2011 · Aristotle, the student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great, is the most influential philosopher in history. In these episodes Peter looks at his life and works, and then examines a range of topics in Aristotle's thought, ranging from zoology to literary theory.
