General English_"Biographical Profile of Aristotle"-Mr.Toby Bond

Biographical Profile of Aristotle

Aristotle was born in Stagirus, on the Chalcidic peninsula of northern Greece. His father was Nicomachus, a medical doctor, while his mother was named Phaestis. Nicomachus was certainly living in Chalcidice when Aristotle was born and he had probably been born in that region. Aristotle’s mother, Phaestis, came from Chalcis in Euboea and her family owned property there.

Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher whose work has been extremely important to the development of both western philosophy and western theology. It has traditionally been thought that Aristotle started out in agreement with Plato and gradually moved away from his ideas, but recent research suggests just the opposite.

Very little of what we have appears to have been published by Aristotle himself. Instead, we have notes from his school, much of which were created by his students during the time Aristotle taught. Aristotle himself wrote a few works intended for publication, but we only have fragments of these. Major works : Catagories, Organon, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Rhetorics, poetics.

Another topic to which Aristotle made major contributions was natural philosophy or rather physics by today’s terminology. (I [EFR] show my age and the traditional nature of St Andrews University if I remark that in the 1960s a pass in ‘General Natural Philosophy’ formed part of my degree.) Aristotle looks at matter, change, movement, space, position, and time. He also made contributions to the study of astronomy where in particular he studied comets, geography with an examination of features such as rivers, chemistry where he was interested in processes such as burning, as well as meteorology and the study of rainbows.

Aristotle have two Famous Quotation, the first “Man is by nature a political animal.” (Politics). The second “Excellence or virtue is a settled disposition of the mean relative to us … a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which on defect.” (Nicomachean Ethics).

Aristotle came to Athens as a teenager and studied with Plato for 17 years. After Plato’s death in 347 BCE, he traveled widely and ended up in Macedonia where he served as the private tutor of Alexander the Great. In 335 he returned to Athens and founded his own school, called the Lyceum. He was forced to leave in 323 because the death of Alexander allowed free reign to anti-Macedoninan sentiment and Aristotle was too close to the conqueror to dare stick around.

On Assos, Aristotle became the leader of the group of philosopher which Hermias had gathered there. It is possible that Xenocrates was also a member of the group for a time. Aristotle had a strong interest in anatomy and the structure of living things in general, an interest which his father had fostered in him in his early years, that helped him to develop a remarkable talent for observation. Aristotle and the members of his group began to collect observations while in Assos, in particular in zoology and biology.

However, Aristotle’s time in Assos was ended by political events. The Persians attacked the town and Hermias was captured and executed. Aristotle escaped and stopped on the island of Lesbos on his way to Macedonia. It was more a passing visit for he remained there for about a year and must have had the group of scientists from Assos with him for they continued their biological researches there.

Aristotle and Philosophy in Organon and similar works, Aristotle develops a comprehensive system of logic and reasoning for addressing problems of logics, being and reality. In Physics, Aristotle investigates the nature of causation and, hence, our ability to explain what we see and experience.

In Metaphysics (which got its name not from Aristotle, but from a later librarian who needed a title for it and, because it was shelved following Physics, got the name After-Physics), Aristotle engages in a very abstract discussion of being and existence in his attempts to justify his other work on causation, experience, etc.

In Nicomachean Ethics, among other works, Aristotle explores the nature of ethical conduct, arguing that an ethical life involves achieving happiness and that happiness is best achieved through rational thought and contemplation. Aristotle also defended the idea that ethical conduct derives from human virtues and that virtues are themselves a product of moderation between extremes.

With regards to politics, Aristotle argued that humans are, by nature, political animals. This means that humans are also social animals and that any understanding of human behavior and human needs must include social considerations. He also investigated the merits of various kinds of political system, describing their different virtues and vices. His classification system of monarchies, oligarchies, tyrannies, democracies and republics is still used today.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://library.thinkquest.org/18775/aristotle/bioar.htm