Aristotle
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), whose writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology, was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.
Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important 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 life
- Aristotle was born in Stageira, Chalcidice, in 384 BC, about 55 km (34 miles) east of modern-day Thessaloniki.
- 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.
- Aristotle remained at the academy for nearly twenty years before quitting Athens in 348/47 BC.
- He then traveled with Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor.
- 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 the tutor to his son Alexander the Great in 343 BC
- Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave lessons not only to Alexander, but also to two other future kings: Ptolemy and Cassander.
- By 335 BC he had returned to Athens, establishing his own school there known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. *
- While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stageira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus.
- It is during this period in Athens from 335 to 323 BC when Aristotle is believed to have composed many of his works.
- Aristotle not only studied almost every subject possible at the time, but made significant contributions to most of them.
- The works that have survived are in treatise which include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics.
- Near the end of Alexander's life, Alexander began to suspect plots against himself, and threatened Aristotle in letters. A widespread tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little evidence for this
- Upon Alexander's death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens once again flared. Aristotle fled the city to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, explaining, "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy, a reference to Athens's prior trial and execution of Socrates.
- However, he died in Euboea of natural causes within the year (in 322 BC). Aristotle named chief executor his student Antipater and left a will in which he asked to be buried next to his wife.
Source:
Wikipedia
