First Period

In 347 B.C, after Plato’s death, Aristotle embarked on a journey that took him as far as Assos, a city in Asia Minor. Here, a friend of his, Hermias was the ruler. He married his niece and adopted daughter Phythias, and engaged in the study of biology and natural history, which had always been his first love. Aristotle left Athens when he realised that he was ineligible to succeed Plato as the school’s head because of his status as a resident alien. But it was more likely that anti-Macedonian feelings prevalent in Athens at that time prompted him to leave. During his travels, Aristotle was accompanied by another member of Plato’s Academy – Xenocrates, and together they set up a new academy known as " Lyceum" on the Asian side of the Aegean Sea, at the newly built town of Assos. It is probable that Aristotle wrote the first 12 chapters of Book 7 of Politics during this period. Here, he examined the connection between philosophy and politics and the broad outlines of a city-state. His conviction about the superiority of the Greek race led him to suggest an enlightened oligarchy where only Greeks would constitute the ruling class and non – Greek people would comprise the slaves and menial labour class.

Second Period

After three years at the Assos Academy, Aristotle moved to the nearby island of Lesbos. With his friend Theophrastus a native of that island, he established a philosophical circle patterned after the Athenian Academy. There, his interest shifted to biology, and he introduced a new type of causation, namely teleological (Greek telos – “an end”). Associated with his researches on plant and animal life, were his reflections on the relation of the soul to the body as put down in his book On the soul. Aristotle’s 12 year absence from Athens indicate that he valued his association with Theophrastus, his pupil and colleague, more than he did his membership of the Platonic Academy.

The Third Period

After Hermias was captured and executed by the Persians (345BC), Aristotle left Assos and came to Pella in Macedonia. He became the tutor of Alexander (342BC), who was the son of Philip II. Thus it happened that one of the greatest generals in history was tutored by one of the greatest thinkers of all time. Aristotle tried to mould Alexander into an icon of classical Greek virtues and advised him to dominate other non-Greek races. But the relation between the two was embittered by the execution of Aristotle’s nephew Callisthenes. Aristotle was also opposed to Alexander’s imperial policy as it undermined his own ideal of the City–State. After the death of Philip II, Alexander succeeded his father to the throne, and Aristotle went back to Stagira. He remained there until 335 B.C, and then returned to Athens. He was then nearly 50.

The Fourth Period

Here he founded Lyceum, a school where he introduced many innovative methods of teaching, included a collection of manuscripts- perhaps the earliest instance of a University library. The school was very important to Aristotle as for the next 12 years he organized it as a centre for speculation and research in every field of scientific and philosophical inquiry. The school ran quite successfully till 323 B.C, when news of Alexander’s death created uncertainty in Athens and Aristotle decided to retire to Chalices, his mother’s hometown, where he died the next year possibly from a stomach illness at the age of 62 or 63. It was said that he left Athens in order to save the Athenians from sinning twice against philosophy (The first victim being Socrates).

Works

Among his texts, the most famous are his treatises on logic called Organon (instrument), because they provide the means by which positive knowledge is to be attained and Physics – studies on astronomy, meteorology, plants and animals. His writings on the nature, scope and properties of ‘being’, which Aristotle called, ‘First philosophy’ (Prote Philosophia) were given the title Meta physics, in the first published edition of his works (60 BC). He dedicated his work on Ethics to his son Nicomachus, which he called Nicomachean Ethics. Other major works include, Rhetoric, Poetics (which survives in an incomplete form) and Politics. Aristotle’s views on philosophy are best exemplified in his work On Philosophy where he tried to establish philosophy as a profession.

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C at Stagira on the Chalcidic Peninsula of Macedonia, in northern Greece. His father Nichomachus had been the court physician of the Macedonian king Amyntas III, father of Philip II and grandfather of Alexander the Great. Aristotle lost both his parents while still a child and was brought up by Proxenus, a friend of the family. As a doctor’s son, Aristotle inherited a scientific tradition going back some 200 years. Because medicine was a traditional occupation handed down from father to son, Aristotle probably learnt the fundamentals of biological skill from his father, which he later displayed in his biological researches. Aristotle’s own institute in Athens – “Lyceum” instructed students in history and medicine. At the age of seventeen, Aristotle travelled to Athens and joined Plato’s Academy, where he studied assiduously. He impressed Plato with his original thinking and was described by him as being the “intelligent of the school”. He remained there for twenty years, first as a student, then as teacher.

Aristotle’s system of philosophy was never as influential in ancient times as Plato’s. It was only in the Middle Ages that Aristotle’s ideas found acceptance and in fact, he replaced Plato as the philosopher. Following a period of over adulation, his theories once again raised questions, and his physical laws were the first to be rejected at the time of the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nevertheless, Aristotle continues to remain relevant today as a great Philosopher and Thinker.

Aristotle appears to have been quite handsome and refined judging by his busts and engravings. But an ancient tradition mentions his having spindle shanks and small eyes and that he spoke with a lisp. But he was always well dressed and sported rings on his fingers. He used his wealth to collect and read books and was referred by Plato as “the Reader”. Anecdotes speak of him as a kindly, affectionate character and full of love and affection for his family and friends. Aristotle, for all his scientific theories, was not a great experimentalist. He did not properly appreciate the importance of precise, quantitative measurement. This was not mere perversity, but also due to the rudimentary state of instrumentation at that time. He was however, a keen observer and his rational thinking cannot be disputed.

Aristotle’s lectures were collected into nearly 150 volumes, but only 50 have survived, many of them probably not authentic. His greatest contribution was in logical thinking, for it was he who developed the art of reasoning and demonstrated the validity of a line of thought. In science, Aristotle studied animals, dealing with over five hundred animal species and dissecting nearly fifty of them. His mode of classification was reasonable and in some cases, strikingly modern. He was particularly interested in marine life. His classification of the dolphins as “beasts of the field” rather than fish was based on close observation of the breeding habits of the sea mammals. His formation of a hierarchy of living things led him towards the idea that animals represented a chain of progressive change- a sort of evolution. A rational theory of evolution was propounded by Darwin 2200 years later.

In physics, Aristotle was far less successful. He believed that the earth and heavens were subject to two different sets of natural laws. On earth, all things were changeable and corrupt and in the heavens, all were unchanging and permanent. His reasoning to support the concept of a round earth, however, cannot be faulted and remains valid even today. He defined the role of a philosopher as being the culmination of five stages of human development. First is mere survival, next comes art, then art of politics, then knowledge of material things and finally the study of divine philosophy when the mind lifts itself above the material world and realizes the reality and purpose of all change.