Aristotle

	Biography	Quotations	Links

Home Authors Subjects Resources Contact About		(This is a test effort. The text is copyrighted, I took it from Biography.com. This will not be the final version of the text I use.) Greek philosopher, scientist, and physician, one of the greatest figures in the history of Western thought, born in Stagira, Macedonia. In 367 he went to Athens, where he was associated with Plato's Academy until Plato's death in 347 BC. In 342 BC he was invited by Philip of Macedon to educate his son, Alexander (later, the Great). He returned to Athens (335 BC) and opened a school (the Lyceum); his followers were called Peripatetics, supposedly from his practice of walking up and down restlessly during his lectures. After Alexander's death (323 BC), there was strong anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens; Aristotle was accused of impiety and, perhaps with Socrates' fate in mind, escaped to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died the next year. ; Aristotle's writings represented an enormous, encyclopedic output over virtually every field of knowledge: logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, rhetoric, poetry, biology, zoology, physics, and psychology. The bulk of the work that survives actually consists of unpublished material in the form of lecture notes or students' textbooks; but even this incomplete corpus is extraordinary for its range, originality, systematization, and sophistication, and his work exerted an enormous influence on mediaeval philosophy (especially through St Thomas Aquinas), Islamic philosophy (especially through Averroës), and indeed on the whole Western intellectual and scientific tradition. The works most read today include the Metaphysics (the book written "after the Physics'), Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Poetics, De anima and the Organon (treatises on logic). (384 - 322 BC)
		Aristotle Quotations
		tr> *The acceptance of a fact as a fact is the starting point, and if this is sufficiently clear, there will be no further need to ask why it is so. A man with this kind of background has or can easily acquire the foundations from which he must start. But if he neither has nor can acquire them, let him lend an ear to Hesiod's words:              The man is all-best who himself works out every problem. . . .              That man, too, is admirable who follows one who speaks well.              He who cannot see the truth for himself, nor, hearing it from others,              Store it away in his mind, that man is utterly useless. (archê gar to hoti, kai ei touto phainoito arkountôs, ouden prosdeêsei tou dioti: ho de toioutos echei ê laboi an archas rhaidiôs. hôi de mêdeteron huparchei toutôn, akousatô tôn Hêsiodou:              houtos men panaristos hos autos panta noêsêi, esthlos d' au              kakeinos hos eu eiponti pithêtai. hos de ke mêt' autos noeêi mêt'              allou akouôn en thumôi ballêtai, ho d' aut' achrêios anêr.) -Artistotle Nicomachean Ethics, 350 BC 1095b 7-15 Martin Oswald, trans., 1962 *[T]he crown at the Olympic Games is not awarded to the most beautiful and the strongest but to the participants in the contests. (hôsper d' Olumpiasin ouch hoi kallistoi kai ischurotatoi stephanountai all') -Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, 350BC 1099a 5 Martin Ostwald, trans., 1962 *Actions which conform to virtue are naturally pleasant. (toiautai d' hai kat' aretên praxeis, hôste kai toutois eisin hêdeiai) -Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, 350BC 1099a 14 Martin Ostwald, trans., 1962 *And those who act under compulsion and unwillingly act with pain, but those who do acts for their pleasantness and nobility do them with pleasure. (. . .kai hoi men biai kai akontes lupêrôs, hoi de dia to hêdu kai kalon meth' hêdonês. . .) -Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, 350 BC 1110b 12 W.D. Ross, trans. ~We can do noble acts without ruling the earth and sea. (dunaton de kai mê archonta gês kai thalattês prattein) -Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, 350BC 1179a 10 W.D. Ross, trans. *For, since he differs from the other, it is better that he should have a name of his own. -Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, 350 BC Martin Ostwald, trans., 1962 . . .the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars. -Aristotle Poetics 22, 1459a 5-7 The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; and these are the -greatest forms of the beautiful. -Aristotle Metaphysica 3-1078b For if a man had everything, but the thinking part of him was corrupted and diseased, life would not be desirable for him. -Aristotle Protrepticus It will contribute towards one's object, who wishes to acquire a facility in the gaining of knowledge, to doubt judiciously. -Aristotle A friend is another I. -Aristotle Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. -Aristotle Wit is educated insolence. -Aristotle
		Aristotle Links
		Yahoo's Aristotle Page Britannica Online's Article Text Versions of Aristotle's Works

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