Biography > Short biography of Aristotle

Short Biography of Aristotle

Short Biography of Aristotle, dates - born 384 BC in Stagira, Greece. Died 323 BC, Chalcis, aged 62.

Short Biography of Aristotle, details

Aristotle’s early life

Aristotle was born in 384BC in Stagira, a small town in North-East Greece. This was the place where he spent his childhood before moving to join Plato’s Academy. Aristotle’s father died when Aristotle was young, and he was brought up by his rich and learned uncle Proxenus. Nothing is recorded about Aristotle's early life, but he probably received the excellent education of most high-born Greeks. 

In 367, at the age of seventeen, Aristotle joined the Academy in Athens under Plato’s leadership. He may have been inspired by reading Plato’s Gorgias to make this move. The Academy was, in theory, a public arena. But, in practice, Plato and his pupils were based in an exclusive college on a private estate.

Aristotle in Plato’s Academy

Plato was not the polymath that Aristotle was to become. He concentrated on philosophy—especially metaphysics, the theory of knowledge, logic, ethics, and political theory. Therefore, Plato’s impact on Aristotle was largely in the area of philosophy.

Although Plato was not a mathematician or scientist, he set his pupils mathematical problems and encouraged them to study natural science.

The Academy taught rhetoric, a subject at which Aristotle excelled. The ideas later to be found in Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Topics began to take formation here. He also wrote accounts of Homer and the other Greek poets. This prepared the ground for Aristotle’s Poetics.

Aristotle’s character and physical appearance

There are a few, poorly supported, facts that have come down to us about Aristotle’s character and appearance as an adult. These include:

• Aristotle was a fashionable dresser.
• He had a poor digestion and was spindle-shanked; 
• He was a witty lecturer and conversationalist. 
• He was accused of arrogance by his enemies.
• He was generous to his friends and relatives.

Aristotle’s intellectual life and works

Although Aristotle’s personal life is not well documented, his intellectual life is. Aristotle’s surviving works provide us with a good record of his philosophical, scientific, and cultural thinking. The sheer range and volume of these show that Aristotle was driven by the desire for knowledge. In fact, this desire was thought by him to be fundamental to human nature. He affirmed that “all men by nature desire to know”, and that a fully human life is “the activity of the mind”. 

For Aristotle, philosophy means the love of wisdom, the search for “knowledge of things human and divine”. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that happiness is a life of intellectual activity, the mental state in which men realize themselves and flourish best. But Aristotle did not retreat to a life of studious contemplation. He was never a politician, but he was certainly a public figure. 

Between the Academy and the Lyceum

From 367 to 347 Aristotle lived in Athens, then Demosthenes and his anti-Macedonian allies came to power. Aristotle moved to the city of Assos, famed for philosophy and Macedonian sympathies. He was invited there by the ruler, Hernias. In return, Aristotle married his niece Phythias. She bore him two children, Phythias and Nicomachus. After a couple of year he moved, for unknown reasons, to the island of Lesbos and then back to Stagira, his birthplace. Then he was summoned by Philip.

During Aristotle's lifetime, Philip II of Macedonia, and his son, Alexander the Great, dominated Greece. This led to the loss of independence of city-states like Athens. Not surprisingly, many in the city-states resented anyone associated with Macedonia. Aristotle’s father, Nicomachus, had been a physician at the Macedonian court. In 343, Philip invited Aristotle to tutor Alexander, and Aristotle remained in this position for several years. During the travels between his first period in Athens and his second and last, Aristotle’s scientific work proceeded apace.

Natural Science, Theology and Metaphysics

Aristotle, like Plato, believed in changeless substances, and their area of study--theology, the science of the divine. But for Aristotle, always more practical than Plato, many divine objects were identified with astronomical objects.

Back to Athens and the Lyceum

Aristotle spent thirteen years from 335 in Athens, and taught regularly at the Lyceum. This is when he performed most of his political studies. His researches were often conducted in a team, and always communicated to others. For him, teaching was the best proof and manifestation of knowledge. But the Lyceum was not a private college, it was a public place. The general public were as welcome as students, and there were no exams or fees.

Alexander the Great died in 323. In 322, Aristotle fearing he might suffer Socrates' fate, retired to his mother’s homeland—Chalcis on the island of Euboea. Although never a Macedonian agent, and indeed an opponent of emperors and imperialism, he was in great danger after the demise of his most powerful pupil. His last months were spent lamenting his isolation.

Aristotle's Legacy

Aristotle summarised the whole of human knowledge as known to the Greeks of his time, and advanced it across a broad front. He provided the intellectual substance of Christianity and Western Culture until the end of the 17th century. Aristotelian ideas remain a fountain of inspiration for modern thinkers.

Aristotle ranged over most sciences and arts. He advanced the sciences of cosmology, physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, botany, and psychology. He pioneered the study of zoology, both observational and theoretical, and his work in this area was not surpassed until the 19th century.

He had profound insights into the human sciences of political theory, psychology and ethics. His impact in philosophy resulted in the creation of Aristotelian logic, which was regarded as a finished system until the 19th century (and still makes up the core of the  subject). His massive advances in metaphysics and ethics are still central to much current debate. 

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