When was aristotle born and died

Philip was now at the height of his power but, as so often happens, that proved the time for internal disputes. Aristotle supported Alexander, Philip's son who soon became king. Alexander decided on a policy similar to his father in regard to Athens and sought to assert his power by peaceful means. Alexander protected the Academy and encouraged it to continue with its work.

At the same time, however, he sent Aristotle to Athens to found a rival establishment. He arrived in the city with assistants to staff the school and a large range of teaching materials he had gathered while in Macedonia; books, maps, and other teaching material which may well have been intended at one stage to support Aristotle in his bid to become head of the Academy.

The Academy had always been narrow in its interests but the Lyceum under Aristotle pursued a broader range of subjects. Prominence was given by Aristotle to the detailed study of nature and in this and all the other subjects he studied [ 6 ] :- His own researches were carried out in company, and he communicated his thoughts to his friends and pupils, never thinking to retain them as a private treasure-store.

He thought, indeed, that a man could not claim to know a subject unless he was capable of transmitting his knowledge to others, and he regarded teaching as the proper manifestation of knowledge. Whether the works that come down to us are due to Aristotle or to later members of his school was questioned by a number of scholars towards the end of the 19 th century.

The reasons are discussed by Jaeger [ 16 ] , but in this work Jaeger argues that the apparent differences in the approach by Aristotle in different works can be explained by his ideas developing over a number of years.

Grayeff [ 6 ] examines certain texts in detail and again claims that they represent developments in the ideas of Aristotle's school long after his death.

He writes:- According to a tradition which arose about two hundred and fifty years after his death, which then became dominant and even today is hardly disputed, Aristotle in these same years lectured - not once, but two or three times, in almost every subject - on logic, physics, astronomy, meteorology, zoology, metaphysics , theology, psychology, politics, economics, ethics , rhetoric, poetics; and that he wrote down these lectures, expanding them and amending them several times, until they reached the stage in which we read them.

However, still more astounding is the fact that the majority of these subjects did not exist as such before him, so that he would have been the first to conceive of and establish them, as systematic disciplines. After the death of Alexander the Great in BC, anti-Macedonian feeling in Athens made Aristotle retire to Chalcis where he lived in the house which had once belonged to his mother and was still retained by the family.

He died the following year from a stomach complaint at the age of It is virtually impossible to give an impression of Aristotle's personality with any certainty but the authors of [ 2 ] write:- The anecdotes related of him reveal him as a kindly, affectionate character, and they show barely any trace of the self-importance that some scholars think they can detect in his works.

His will, which has been preserved, exhibits the same kindly traits; he makes references to his happy family life and takes solicitous care of his children, as well as his servants. Barnes [ 6 ] writes:- He was a bit of a dandy, wearing rings on his fingers and cutting his hair fashionably short. He suffered from poor digestion, and is said to have been spindle-shanked. He was a good speaker, lucid in his lectures, persuasive in conversation; and he had a mordant wit.

His enemies, who were numerous, made him out to be arrogant and overbearing. As a man he was, I suspect, admirable rather than amiable. We have commented above on the disputes among modern scholars as to whether Aristotle wrote the treatises now assigned to him. We do know that his work falls into two distinct parts, namely works which he published during his lifetime and are now lost although some fragments survive in quotations in works by others , and the collection of writings which have come down to us and were not published by Aristotle in his lifetime.

We can say with certainty that Aristotle never intended these 30 works which fill over printed pages to be published. They are certainly lecture notes from the courses given at the Lyceum either being, as most scholars believe, the work of Aristotle, or of later lecturers. Of course it is distinctly possible that they are notes of courses originally given by Aristotle but later added to by other lecturers after Aristotle's death.

Certainly [ 2 ] :- The form, titles, and order of Aristotle's texts that are studied today were given to them by Andronicus almost three centuries after the philosopher's death, and the long history of commentary upon them began at this stage. What do these works contain? There are important works on logic. Aristotle believed that logic was not a science but rather had to be treated before the study of every branch of knowledge.

Aristotle's name for logic was "analytics", the term logic being introduced by Xenocrates working at the Academy. Aristotle believed that logic must be applied to the sciences [ 6 ] :- The sciences - at any rate the theoretical sciences - are to be axiomatised. What, then, are their axioms to be? What conditions must a proposition satisfy to count as an axiom?

By what rules will theorems be deduced from axioms? Those are among the questions which Aristotle poses in his logical writings, and in particular in the works known as Prior and Posterior Analytics. The Topics and the Analytics deal with logic the study of reasoning and dialectic a method of argument and reveal Aristotle's contributions to the development of debate.

His view of nature is set forth in the Physics and the Metaphysics, which mark the most serious difference between Aristotelianism and Platonism: that all investigation must begin with what the senses record and must move only from that point to thought.

As a result of this process of intellectualizing, God, who for Plato represents beauty and goodness, is for Aristotle the highest form of being and is completely lacking in materiality. Aristotle's God neither created nor controls the universe, although the universe is affected by this God. Man is the only creature capable of thought even remotely resembling that of God, so man's highest goal is to reason abstractly, like God, and he is more truly human to the extent that he achieves that goal.

Aristotle's work was often misunderstood in later times. The scientific and philosophical systems set forth in his writings are not conclusions that must be taken as the final answer, but rather experimental positions arrived at through careful observation and analysis.

During the slow intellectual climate of the Roman Empire, which ruled over much of Europe for hundreds of years after Aristotle died, and the totally unscientific Christian Middle Ages — , Aristotle's views on nature and science were taken as a complete system. As a result, his influence was enormous but not for any reason that would have pleased him. Aristotle shares with his master, Plato, the role of stimulating human thought.

Plato had a more direct influence on the development of that great spiritual movement in late antiquity years before the Middle Ages , and Aristotle had a greater effect on science. Antiquity produced no greater minds than those of Plato and Aristotle.

The intellectual history of the West would be extremely different without them. Barnes, Jonathan. New York: Oxford University Press, Dunn, John, and Ian Harris. Ross, W. New York: Routledge, Toggle navigation. That said, he acted as mediator between Macedon and various Greek cities, for which the citizens of Athens were grateful.

Most of his time was consumed with his studies, research and teaching. If the ancient reports are to be believed, Aristotle spoke with incisive wit and could deliver clear and captivating lectures.

A diligent reader, collector and thinker, he was ever open to the world and learned in its ways, well beyond simply the teachings of the Academy.

He was masterfully versed in the works of the sophists, the pre-Socratics, the medical writers, as well as Greek lyric, epic, and drama, and the various constitutions of his world. In Assus in Asia Minor, Aristotle was well provided for by the ruler and free to pursue philosophy and the sciences. Marine biology was also an area of fascination for Aristotle.

Through dissection, he closely examined the anatomy of marine creatures. In contrast to his biological classifications, his observations of marine life, as expressed in his books, are considerably more accurate.

Aristotle in The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael, Photo: Raphael [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Together, the couple had a daughter, Pythias, named after her mother. In B. Soon after, Aristotle embarked on a romance with a woman named Herpyllis, who hailed from his hometown of Stagira.

They presume that he eventually freed and married her. Phillip and Alexander both held Aristotle in high esteem and ensured that the Macedonia court generously compensated him for his work. On and off, Aristotle spent most of the remainder of his life working as a teacher, researcher and writer at the Lyceum in Athens until the death of his former student Alexander the Great.

Art was also a popular area of interest. Members of the Lyceum wrote up their findings in manuscripts. When Alexander the Great died suddenly in B. To avoid being prosecuted and executed, he left Athens and fled to Chalcis on the island of Euboea, where he would remain until his death a year later.

Over time, they came to lay the foundation of more than seven centuries of philosophy. We strive for accuracy and fairness.