Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath born in 384 BCE who belonged to the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He was orphaned at a young age and studied under Plato, eventually starting his own school called the Lyceum in Athens. Aristotle made contributions to many fields, including biology, physics, psychology, and zoology. He is considered the founder of many disciplines and wrote on various topics, establishing himself as one of the most influential ancient philosophers.

1. Some Important Points
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2. ▸ Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath
(a person of wide knowledge or learning).
▸ He belongs to Classical period in Ancient Greece.
▸ He was born in 384 BCE and died in 322 BCE.
▸ His father, Nicomachus, was the physician
▸ Aristotle was an orphaned at a young age
▸ His teacher was Plato.
▸ Aristotle started a school Lyceum known
as Peripatetic school in Athens.
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Aristotle’s
Lyceum in
Athens

3. ▸ Even after the intellectual revolutions of
the Renaissance, the Reformation, and
the Enlightenment, Aristotelian concepts
remained embedded in Western thinking.
▸ He was the first genuine scientist in history.
▸ He identified the various scientific disciplines and
explored their relationships to each other.
▸ Aristotle's philosophy stresses biology, instead of
mathematics like Plato.
▸ He believed the world was made up of individuals
(substances) occurring in fixed natural kinds
(species).
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4. ▸ He is the founder of zoology
▸ He was a tutor to royalty
▸ Aristotle married Pythias and had a daughter
whom he also named Pythias
▸ Aristotle contributed to the classification of
animals
▸ He contributed to Physics
▸ He also contributed to Psychology
▸ Aristotelian ethics outline the different social and
behavioural virtues of an ideal man.
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5. ▸ In Aristotle’s view, “man is a political animal.”
▸ Aristotle’s intellectual range was vast, covering
most of the sciences and many of the arts,
including biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history
, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy of
mind, philosophy of science, physics, poetics,
political theory, psychology, and zoology.
▸ Like his master Plato, Aristotle wrote initially
in dialogue form, and his early ideas show a
strong Platonic influence.
▸ His dialogue Eudemus, for example, reflects the
Platonic view of the soul as imprisoned in the body
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6. ▸ According to Aristotle, the dead are more blessed
and happier than the living, and to die is to return
to one’s real home.
▸ Aristotle claims, The best form of philosophy is the
contemplation of the universe of nature; it is for this
purpose that God made human beings and gave
them a godlike intellect.
▸ Aristotle always acknowledged a great debt to Plato.
▸ Aristotle’s biological works must be regarded as a
stupendous achievement
▸ Aristotle’s works, though not as polished as Plato’s,
are systematic in a way that Plato’s never were.
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7. ▸ Aristotle divided the sciences into three kinds:
productive (engineering and architecture),
practical (ethics and politics) , and theoretical
(physics, mathematics, and theology).
▸ Aristotle’s writings fall into two groups: those that
were published by him but are now almost
entirely lost, and those that were not intended for
publication but were collected and preserved by
others.
▸ Aristotle’s writings show that even he realized
that there is more to logic than syllogistic.
▸ Aristotle thought, would be those that define the
proper subject matter of a science
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8. ▸ Rhetoric, for Aristotle, is a topic-
neutral discipline that studies the possible means
of persuasion.
▸ The Poetics is much better known than
the Rhetoric, though only the first book of the
former, a treatment of epic and tragic poetry,
survives.
▸ Aristotle is realistic, utilitarian, commonsensical.
▸ By any reckoning,
Aristotle’s intellectual achievement is
stupendous.
▸ He was the first genuine scientist in history.
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9. Next Video – Aristotle’s Poetics