Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher and polymath whose writings span logic, metaphysics, ethics, biology, politics and poetics. A student of Plato and tutor to Alexander the Great, he became one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Western civilisation. [1]
Life
Aristotle was born around 384 BCE in Stageira, a town in northern Greece. At about the age of seventeen he travelled to Athens to study at Plato's Academy, where he remained for some twenty years. [1]
Teacher and founder
After Plato's death Aristotle left Athens and for a time tutored the young Alexander the Great in Macedonia. He later returned to Athens and founded his own school, the Lyceum, whose followers became known as the Peripatetics. [1][2]
Philosophy and science
Aristotle wrote on an extraordinary range of subjects. He created the first formal system of logic, analysed the nature of being in his metaphysics, and set out an ethics centred on virtue and human flourishing. He also carried out pioneering observations in biology and wrote influential works on politics, rhetoric and poetics. [2][3]
Influence
Aristotle died in 322 BCE. His works were preserved, translated and intensely studied in the medieval Islamic and Christian worlds, where he was often referred to simply as The Philosopher, and they remained central to European thought into the modern era. [1]
