# Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

## Life

- Born in Stagira, northern Greece
- Son of Nicomachus, physician to the Macedonian king
- Studied at Plato's Academy in Athens for about 20 years
- Tutored the young Alexander the Great
- Founded his own school, the **Lyceum**, in Athens (335 BCE)
- His followers were called "Peripatetics" (walkers), possibly from his habit of teaching while walking

## Major Works

His surviving writings include treatises on:
- **Logic**: *Organon* (Categories, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics)
- **Natural science**: *Physics*, *On the Heavens*, *On Generation and Corruption*
- **Biology**: *History of Animals*, *Parts of Animals*
- **Metaphysics**: *Metaphysics*
- **Ethics**: *Nicomachean Ethics*, *Eudemian Ethics*
- **Politics**: *Politics*
- **Aesthetics**: *Poetics*, *Rhetoric*
- **Psychology**: *On the Soul* (De Anima)

## Key Ideas

- **Four Causes**: material, formal, efficient, final
- **Virtue ethics**: happiness (*eudaimonia*) through virtuous living; the "golden mean"
- **Logic**: developed syllogistic reasoning
- **Substance and form**: hylomorphism
- **Unmoved Mover**: prime cause of motion

## Legacy

Profoundly influenced Western philosophy, Islamic thought, medieval scholasticism, and science for nearly two millennia.
