Thinker · TH-0002
Aristotle
Student of Plato for some twenty years and later tutor to Alexander the Great, Aristotle founded the Lyceum in Athens. His writings on logic,…
Ἀριστοτέλης
Also known as Aristoteles, The Philosopher, Aristu
384 – 322 BCE · Stagira, Athens, Assos, Pella, Chalcis
Traditions: Greek & Roman
Schools: Aristotelianism
Student of Plato for some twenty years and later tutor to Alexander the Great, Aristotle founded the Lyceum in Athens. His writings on logic, nature, the soul, ethics and politics shaped Greek, Islamic, Jewish and Christian philosophy for nearly two thousand years.
Key ideas
- The syllogism as the first formal system of logic
- Substance, form and matter, and the four causes
- Eudaimonia as activity of the soul in accordance with virtue
- Virtue as a mean between excess and deficiency
- Humans as political animals who flourish in a polis
Major works
- Prior Analytics
- Physics
- Metaphysics
- Nicomachean Ethics
In the conversation
- Discussion Does anger ever help? Seneca’s On Anger versus Aristotle
- Discussion Łukasiewicz, the sea battle, and why three-valued logic was born in Lwów
- Debate Aristotle’s account of friendship is still the best one we have
- Question What exactly is Aristotle’s “function argument” in Nicomachean Ethics I.7?
- Debate The actual infinite is a useful fiction, not something real
- Question How does rasa theory compare with Aristotle’s catharsis?
- Discussion The Nyaya five-membered syllogism versus Aristotle’s three