Aristotle (384–322 BC)

A 14th-century manuscript showing Greek philosopher Aristotle teaching the young

Alexander, later Alexander the Great, king of Macedon. Typically, the illustration uses
medieval dress and architecture to show a scene from many centuries earlier. Aristotle,
himself a pupil of the Greek philosopher Plato, was appointed tutor to the young Alexander in
342 BC.
Greek philosopher who advocated reason and moderation. He maintained that
sense experience is our only source of knowledge, and that by reasoning we
can discover the essences of things, that is, their distinguishing qualities. In
his works on ethics and politics, he suggested that human happiness
consists in living in conformity with nature. He derived his political theory
from the recognition that mutual aid is natural to humankind, and refused to
set up any one constitution as universally ideal. Of Aristotle's works, around
22 treatises survive, dealing with logic, metaphysics, physics, astronomy,
meteorology, biology, psychology, ethics, politics, and literary criticism.

Aristotle was born in Stagira in Thrace and studied in Athens, where he

became a distinguished member of the Academy founded by Plato. He then
opened a school at Assos. At this time he regarded himself as a Platonist,
but his subsequent thought led him further from the traditions that had formed
his early background and he was later critical of Plato. In about 344 BC he
moved to Mytilene in Lesvos, and devoted the next two years to the study of
natural history. Meanwhile, during his residence at Assos, he had married
Pythias, niece and adopted daughter of Hermeias, ruler of Atarneus.

In 342 BC he accepted an invitation from Philip II of Macedon to go to Pella

as tutor to Philip's son Alexander the Great. In 335 BC he opened a school in
the Lyceum (grove sacred to Apollo) in Athens. It became known as the
‘peripatetic school’ because he walked up and down as he talked, and his
works are a collection of his lecture notes. When Alexander died in 323 BC,
Aristotle was forced to flee to Chalcis, where he died.

Among his many contributions to political thought were the first systematic
attempts to distinguish between different forms of government, ideas about
the role of law in the state, and the conception of a science of politics.

In the Poetics, Aristotle defines tragic drama as an imitation (mimesis) of the

actions of human beings, with character subordinated to plot. The audience is
affected by pity and fear, but experiences a purgation (catharsis) of these
emotions through watching the play. The second book of the Poetics, on
comedy, is lost. The three books of the Rhetoric form the earliest analytical
discussion of the techniques of persuasion, and the last presents a theory of
the emotions to which a speaker must appeal.