Aristotle (384–322 BCE)

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher, scientist and teacher. He was born in Stagira in northern Greece in 384 BCE and spent about twenty years studying at Plato's Academy in Athens. After Plato's death, Aristotle travelled and carried out research in subjects including biology and natural science. He later became the tutor of Alexander of Macedon, who became Alexander the Great. Around 335 BCE, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded his own school, the Lyceum. 

Aristotle wrote about a remarkable range of subjects. His surviving works deal with logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, rhetoric, psychology, biology and the study of nature. Ancient reports suggest that he wrote a much larger number of works than those that survive today. The surviving texts are mostly treatises and lecture materials rather than books written in the conversational style associated with Plato. 

A central concern in Aristotle's philosophy is the question of how things work and what makes a thing what it is. He was interested in causes, change, nature and the purposes or functions of things. In the Metaphysics, he describes his inquiry as the study of being and of the first causes and principles of reality. 

His ethics begins with the question of how human beings should live. Aristotle argues in the Nicomachean Ethics that human action aims at some good, and that the highest human good is eudaimonia, often translated as happiness or flourishing. For him, this does not mean simply feeling happy. It means living a life in which a person exercises human capacities well and develops the virtues needed for good action. 

This brings him to the idea of virtue. Aristotle's virtues include courage, justice, temperance and generosity. Virtue is developed through habit and practice. A person does not become courageous merely by knowing what courage means; one becomes courageous by repeatedly learning to respond properly to difficult situations. Aristotle is also concerned with finding an appropriate response in particular circumstances rather than following a rigid rule in every case. This requires practical wisdom, or the ability to deliberate well about what should be done. 

One of his most discussed ideas is the doctrine of the mean. Aristotle holds that many moral virtues lie between two forms of excess. Courage, for example, stands between rashness and cowardice. The mean should not be understood as an exact mathematical midpoint. What is appropriate depends on the situation and on the person involved. Practical judgment is therefore part of moral life. 

Aristotle connects ethics and politics very closely. He treats politics as a practical discipline concerned with the human good of the political community. A political community needs institutions, laws and forms of education that allow citizens to live well. The purpose of political organisation is therefore not simply survival or economic exchange; it is connected with the kind of life citizens are able to lead. 

In the Politics, Aristotle examines different forms of government and studies actual constitutions rather than discussing politics only in abstract terms. He distinguishes constitutions according to who rules and whether rulers govern for the common advantage or for their own benefit. His categories include monarchy, aristocracy and polity, alongside their corresponding corrupted forms, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. His discussion of these categories belongs to the political conditions of the ancient Greek city-state and should not simply be treated as a classification of modern political systems. 

Aristotle is also known for his work in logic and scientific inquiry. He developed a systematic study of argument and reasoning, and his biological writings contain detailed observations of animals. His approach often begins with the examination of particular cases and attempts to organise them into broader explanations. His surviving corpus covers fields that later became separate academic disciplines. 

His relationship with Plato was both close and critical. Aristotle accepted many of Plato's questions but rejected some of his solutions, most notably Plato's Theory of Forms. Aristotle did not think that the explanation of things required a separate realm of Forms existing independently of the things we encounter. His own philosophy placed greater emphasis on substances, their properties, change and the causes involved in natural processes. 

Aristotle's writings later became important to Islamic, Jewish and Christian philosophers and were studied extensively in medieval Europe. His ideas also became part of later debates about science, ethics, political authority and metaphysics. His influence comes partly from the sheer range of questions he investigated: he treated philosophy as something that could examine nature, human conduct, society, reasoning and the structure of reality. 

Main ideas associated with Aristotle

Eudaimonia: Human flourishing as the highest aim of ethical life.

Virtue: Good character is developed through repeated practice and appropriate action.

Practical wisdom: Good decisions require judgment about particular circumstances, not simply knowledge of general rules.

Doctrine of the mean: Moral virtue generally involves finding an appropriate response between opposing extremes.

Politics and the common good: Political life should be concerned with the conditions that allow citizens and communities to live well. 

Four causes: Aristotle explains things through different kinds of causes, including what something is made from, what form it has, what produces it and what it is for.

Logic and scientific inquiry: He developed systematic methods for analysing arguments and investigating the natural world.

Major works

• Nicomachean Ethics
• Politics
• Metaphysics
• Physics
• On the Soul (De Anima)
• Poetics
• Rhetoric
• Categories
• On Interpretation
• Eudemian Ethics

Aristotle's work brings together questions about what exists, how we know, how we should live and how political communities should be organised. For him, these were connected questions: understanding human beings required attention to their capacities and habits, their relationships with others and the political communities in which they lived.