Aristotle’s historical background.

Aristotle is known worldwide for his role as a philosopher, scientist, and logician. Originally from Ancient Greece, without a doubt all of his ideas have significantly influenced intellectuals of many generations, helping to shape the current history of the West. This great Greek master wrote more than 200 different treatises, although only 31 have survived to this day and he touched on all kinds of topics: from logic, to metaphysics, through philosophy, rhetoric and even biology.

Father and Founder:

He was a great visionary and transformer of each and every one of the thematic areas on which he decided to work. He is known as the father and founder of both biology and logic, although before him there were different thinkers who worked on both subjects, which he later channeled into systemic research.

Among his contributions to current knowledge, the principle of non-contradiction or the theory of spontaneous generation stand out, as well as many ideas that, although at the time they were truly novel, we have currently adapted as part of our common sense. Aristotle was a well-known disciple of Plato and in turn he was the teacher of Alexander the Great.

Likewise, taking into account the influence that this thinker has continued to exert for so many centuries, it is worth noting how Aristotle’s phrases continue to be very popular, since he has thoughts related to many areas of the reality of the world: from friendship to happiness, going through ignorance, sadness and even life, which many people use or quote without even knowing that they belong to the philosopher. Below we present some interesting data so that you can better understand this great intellectual reference of the classical world whose ideas are still valid today in many areas of reality.

Aristotle’s early years:

The year of Aristotle’s birth is estimated between 384 BC or 383 BC, while the first year of the XCIX Olympics was taking place. His father was a doctor belonging to the Asclepiadeans and was doctor to the king of Macedonia, so this court would exert a great influence on the thinker’s life while his mother was also linked to medicine.

For some time he resided in Pella, but when his parents died he moved to Atreus and, when he turned 17, upon the death of his father, he was tutored by Pyroxenes of Atreus, who sent him to Athens so that he could learn at the well-known Academy of Plato, where he spent the next twenty years of his life.

Aristotle and the Academy:

Thus, at the Academy he developed all his knowledge optimally, since he lived there in the years of greatest splendor of that place. Eudoxus was the one who exerted the first decisive influence on the thinker. Later, Aristotle realized that his ideas were different from Plato’s philosophy and therefore he stopped following him and related more to Speusippus or Philip of Opunte.

When Plato dies, Aristotle leaves Athens and travels to Asia Minor, where he lived with Hermias, a former companion at the Academy and leader of the city. When he was murdered, he went to the island of Lesbos where he continued researching with Theophrastus, focusing especially on biology and zoology, and married and had a daughter.

Aristotle and Alexander the Great:

Aristotle served as a teacher and trainer of Alexander the Great’s intellect, instilling in him all his knowledge during his adolescence, until he had to begin his military career. It is believed that Aristotle’s classes were undoubtedly decisive for the later decisions that Alexander the Great would make. The letters that Alexander and Aristotle sent to each other were recorded in the book of his biographer Callisthenes, who was also the nephew of Alexander the Great.

After this:

Aristotle returned to Athens and founded the Lyceum, his own school. Compared to the Academy, this school was much more open, since free public classes were given there. Throughout his life, Aristotle had many followers and also managed to master a large library. The followers of Aristotle were called peripatetics or itinerants, because they always debated while walking. A large number of the surviving works of this scholar are from that time.

Also around that time, his first wife died and he found another relationship. Many people believe that that woman was simply his slave, but other theories show that they were married at the time of her death. They did have children, among them a boy to whom Aristotle dedicated his book “Nichomachean Ethics.”

The death of Aristotle

Alexander the Great died in 323 BC and, probably, then Athens became a delicate place for all Macedonians, especially for people like Aristotle. From here and after several problems with the condemnation of Socrates, he left Athens and went to the island of Euboea, where he died in 322 BC due to natural causes.

Although there is no evidence, different researchers argue that a building was found in the city of Stagira in 1996 that is very likely to be the mausoleum of Aristotle.

The influence of Aristotle

Likewise, the influence that the thinker Aristotle has exerted throughout the world today is known worldwide. Antiquity grew around his enormous encyclopedia and without a doubt Aristotle’s Metaphysics will be the philosophical basis of everything that came after. After several years in oblivion, the Arabs rediscovered Aristotle, who would later be studied by scholastics.

During the years of the Renaissance his philosophy would be somewhat hidden by what happened at that time, since with the novelty of the new sciences and the new concepts around science, his contributions were relegated to the background. Even so, without a doubt all its influence, although not as much in physics as in other fields, will always continue to be valid, as it continues to be present today, and also present in the strict philosophical thoughts of all the great philosophers who would come after: from Hegel, until Leibniz.