Philosopher · Classical Greece · Greece
Aristotle
384–322 BC
Philosopher from Stagira. Studied at Plato's Academy for about twenty years, later founded the Lyceum, and rejected Plato's separate Forms. Tutored Alexander of Macedon.
Facts
- Life
- 384 BC, Stagira, to 322 BC, Chalcis.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Aristotle
- Academy
- Studied at Plato's Academy for about twenty years. Left Athens after Plato's death.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Aristotle
- Lyceum
- Founded his own school at Athens, the Lyceum, about 335 BC.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Aristotle
- Alexander
- Tutored Alexander, son of Philip II of Macedon, before Alexander became king.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Aristotle
The record
Aristotle entered Plato's Academy as a young man and stayed about twenty years. After Plato died he left Athens. Philip II of Macedon brought him to tutor Alexander. He returned to Athens around 335 BC and founded the Lyceum.
He wrote on logic, nature, the soul, ethics, politics, and rhetoric. Against Plato, he argued that forms do not exist apart from the things of which they are the forms. The surviving works are mostly treatises, not dialogues, and many read like notes from the school rather than books finished for the public.
A claim in the Politics or the Nicomachean Ethics is a claim in that book. It is not a law of Athens and not a law Alexander enforced.
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