Aristotle was born 384 B.C at a place called Stagira. Stagira was a small sea port town in the Greek north eastern coast. His father, Nichomachus, who worked as court physician to king Amyntas II died when Aristotle was still a very young boy. (Brent 2000). However, Aristotle remained closely allied to and influenced by Macedonian court, where his father worked as a court physician. There little known of Aristotle’s mother of whom it is believed she also died when Aristotle was very young. After his father’s demise his brother in-law, Proxenus, who was married to Aristotle’s sister, took care of Aristotle until he became an independent man.
At that time Athens was one of the best academic or educational centers in Greece. At seventeen, Aristotle was thus sent by his brother –in-law to Athens to further his education. He was enrolled in a premier learning institution in Athens of which he joined Plato’s academy. Plato was himself a student of a fellow celebrated philosopher.(Katz 2007). Despite his exemplary performance at the institution, Aristotle did not Plato’s position as the academy’s director as many would have thought.
After the death of Plato, Hermias, a great friend to Plato who was also king of Assos and Atarneus in Mysia invited Aristotle to serve in the court. In his three year stay in the Mysian monarch, he met Pythias, a niece to Hermias, of whom she married. (Katz 2007). The two had one daughter who was named after her mother.
In 338 B.C, after spending three years in Mysia, Aristotle went back home to Macedonia where he taught Alexander the Great ,son to the then king of Macedonia ,Phillip II.Alexander and Phillip held too much respect for Aristotle and made sure that the Macedonian court generously rewarded him for the great work he was doing.( Katz 2007).
At around 335 B.C after Alexander took over the monarch from his father Phillip II and conquered the city of Athens, the great philosopher went back to the city of Athens. At this time Plato’s academy was still the leading school for philosophy. (Höffe 2003). With the permission of Alexander, Aristotle was allowed to start his own school in the city. For the remaining years of his life, he worked at his school, Lyceum as a researcher, writer and teacher. Aristotle walked around the school teaching and most of his students had to follow him as he was walking. . (Brent 2000). His students thus nick named him,’ Peripatetics’ which in Greek means,’ people who travel about’. Students at Lyceum researched and studied disciplines ranging from agriculture, philosophy, politics, science, art, mathematics and almost everything in between.
Art was a major area of study at Lyceum. Students at Lyceum recorded most of their findings and research on manuscripts by so doing they were able to build a very big collection of written literature. This was credited as one of the first magnificent libraries in the history of Greece.
In the very year that he opened the Lyceum, his first wife died and they began a romantic relationship with another woman known as Herpyllis. (Brent 2000). It was believed that Herpyllis was a slave given to Aristotle by the court of Macedonia. This woman hailed from Stagira, the home town to Aristotle.
When Alexander, one of his great students suddenly died in 323 B.C, the pro-Macedonian government was overthrown and immediately replaced by an anti-Macedonian government. Aristotle was charged of transgression and to avoid execution he fled together with his wife to Chalcis which was situated in the Euboean. He would remain in this island until his demise.
Aristotle has remained to be one of the most celebrated philosophers in the world. His noble contributions in the fields of Mathematics, Biology, Metaphysics, politics ,logic ,botany, agriculture ,ethics and arts has made him a towering figure in philosophy. (Höffe 2003). Although he was preceded by other famous philosophers such as Plato and Socrates, he proved to be more experientially-minded. He became even more famous when he rejected his teachers (Plato) theory of forms. This explains why Aristotle did not inherit Plato’s position in the institution after his demise in 347 B.C.
As a polymath and a prolific writer, Aristotle drastically transformed most areas of study that he touched. This explains why Aquinas basically regarded him as, ‘’the philosopher”. All throughout his life ‘The Philosopher’, as regarded by Aquinas wrote over two thousand treatises .However, there are only 31 treatises in existence at the moment. (Höffe 2003). This is because most of his writings were written on manuscripts and were not meant for general reading. Aristotle was the first philosopher to classify knowledge into currently existing disciplines such as Mathematics, Science, Arts, Biology and Ethics among others. Aristotle was the father of logic reasoning and pompous system of analysis and thinking based on keen observations, thorough research and conclusions. Aristotle believed that the validity of a thought can only be determined by its structure and not content as many other philosophers who preceded him assumed.
Aristotle will remain to be one of the respected philosophers due to his immeasurable contribution in almost all disciplines of knowledge.
References
Katz, C. S. (2007). Aristotle: Philosopher, teacher, and scientist. Minneapolis, Minn: Compass Point Books.
Brent, J. (2000). Charles Sanders Peirce: A life. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Höffe, O. (2003). Aristotle. Albany: State University of New York Press.
