Aristotle

Aristotle was born in 384 BCE in Stagira, a Greek city on the northern Aegean coast. According to ancient sources, his father Nicomachus was a physician at the Macedonian court; little is known about his mother, Phaestis. He grew up in an environment influenced by contact with Macedonia. Details of his childhood come mainly from later biographical traditions.

As a young man Aristotle travelled to Athens and joined Plato’s Academy around 367 BCE, where he remained for about twenty years. Athens gave him access to philosophical teaching and a scholarly network, although as a resident of another polis he was not a citizen. After Plato’s death he left the Academy and spent time in Asia Minor and on Lesbos, studying natural phenomena.

Aristotle investigated logic, natural philosophy, biology, ethics, politics, rhetoric and poetry. Many surviving texts appear to be lecture notes or teaching materials, rather than polished books written for a broad audience. He organised knowledge by defining concepts, testing arguments systematically and comparing observations. His inquiry combined reasoning with empirical description, although its methods were not those of modern experimental science.

In ethics, he described the good life as action guided by reason and the development of virtues through habit. He used the idea of a mean to explain how appropriate action often lies between two extremes, without claiming that one simple rule applied to every situation. In the Politics he compared constitutions and treated the polis as a community in which citizens could deliberate together about laws and government.

After a period at the Macedonian court, where tradition says he taught Alexander, Aristotle founded the Lyceum in Athens in 335 BCE. The school conducted teaching and research in several fields; the term ‘Peripatetic’ became associated with its circle later. His writings were transmitted, arranged and commented on after his death, so some works were lost and the coherence of his original programme remains debated.

Aristotle lived in a Greek world of independent poleis, colonies and larger kingdoms. Macedonia grew in power under Philip II and Alexander, while Athens underwent political change and conflict after the Peloponnesian War. Philosophical schools offered competing accounts of knowledge, virtue and the organisation of the city-state, often engaging with the political crises of their time.

Greek society depended on agriculture, trade and slavery; political rights were generally restricted to male citizens. Aristotle collected observations and texts in a world without modern laboratories or specialised universities. His interest in classification formed part of a broader effort to organise knowledge, while the expansion of Macedonian power was transforming the traditional order of the polis.

The Lyceum provided an organised setting for teaching and inquiry and gathered information on subjects including animals, constitutions and literature. Aristotle’s texts influenced pupils and later philosophers by treating diverse fields through a connected conceptual framework. His work on logic became an important tool for debate and education, although its immediate influence during his lifetime varied by subject.

From antiquity onwards, his works were preserved and discussed in Greek, Byzantine, Arabic-speaking and Latin scholarly traditions. Translations and commentaries contributed to medieval debates about nature, knowledge and theology; they did not make his ideas universally accepted. Some claims were later rejected or revised, while his systematic approach continued to influence education and scientific classification.

After Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, Aristotle and other people associated with Macedonia left Athens amid anti-Macedonian tensions. He withdrew to Chalcis on Euboea and died there in 322 BCE. Tradition attributes his death to a stomach ailment, but the circumstances and precise cause cannot be established with certainty.

His legacy has been interpreted differently over the centuries. Medieval thinkers made him a central authority, while early modern natural philosophers criticised particular physical theories and reorganised the testing of observation. Historians stress that the present image derives from texts selected, edited and commented on over time; Aristotle was influential, but was not the founder of every modern science in its current form.