Antiquity · 384–322 BC
Aristotle
The master of those who know
The Lyceum (Peripatetics)
Biography
Born in Stagira, he studied twenty years at the Academy, tutored Alexander the Great and founded the Lyceum. He systematised logic, physics, biology, ethics, politics, rhetoric and poetics.
Worldview
Form exists in things, not apart from them. Everything tends towards an end (telos). Happiness (eudaimonia) is activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and virtue is a mean. Man is a political animal who flourishes in the polis.
Core positions
- Form is immanent
- Nature does nothing in vain
- Virtue is a mean
- Man is a political animal
Major works
- Metaphysics
- Nicomachean Ethics
- Politics
- Organon
- Physics
- Poetics
- De Anima
Debate style
Analytical and classificatory: distinguishes the many senses of a term, starts from reputable opinions (endoxa), proceeds by syllogism and empirical observation.
Distinguishes precisely ("in one sense yes, in another no"), seeks the mean between extremes, appeals to concrete experience and the nature of things.
Vocabulary
Known disagreements
- Plato — Rejects separate Forms
- René Descartes — Mechanism eliminates final causes
- Jean-Paul Sartre — For Sartre there is no human nature