Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher,
reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was
the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He
studied under Plato at Athens and taught there
(367-347); subsequently he spent three years at the
court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at
this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias's relations.
After some time at Mitylene, in 343-2 he was appointed
by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged
son Alexander. After Philip's death in 336, Aristotle
became head of his own school (of 'Peripatetics'), the
Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling
there after Alexander's death in 323, he withdrew to
Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. Nearly all the
works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the
priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and
memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized
as follows: I ''Practical'' Nicomachean Ethics; Great
Ethics (Magna Moralia); Eudemian Ethics; Politics;
Economics (on the good of the family); On Virtues and
Vices. II ''Logical'' Categories; Analytics (Prior and
Posterior); Interpretation; Refutations used by
Sophists; Topica. III ''Physical'' Twenty-six works
(some suspect) including astronomy, generation and
destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life,
facts about animals, etc. IV ''Metaphysics'' on being as
being. V ''Art'' Rhetoric and Poetics. VI Other works
including the Constitution of Athens; more works also of
doubtful authorship. VII Fragments of various works such
as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of
treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics. The
Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristotle is in
twenty-three volumes. |
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