Top 20 Facts about Aristotle


 

Originally published by Pamela on March 2020 and updated by Charity K on August 2022 and Updated by Vanessa R on June 2023 and Updated by Beatrice J on February 2024

Aristotle was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice, about 34 miles east of modern-day Thessaloniki. He is debatably one of the most renowned figures in the history of ancient Greece. He was an admired pupil of famed olden Greek philosopher Plato. But, unlike Plato and Socrates, Aristotle exhibited the characteristic of using scientific and factual reasoning in his study of nature, a peculiarity his forerunners regularly discarded in favour of their philosophical opinions.

Perhaps it was because of his firm fascination with nature, logic and reason that he went on to make some pivotal contributions. These contributions are still reflected in modern-day mathematics, metaphysics, physics, biology, botany, politics, medicine, and many more. He earned the honour of being called the First Teacher. To delve further into the details of his achievements, here is a list of the top 20 facts about Aristotle.

1. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age

Both of Aristotle’s parents died when he was about thirteen, and Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian. Proxenus educated Aristotle for a couple of years before sending him to Athens to Plato’s Academy. He lived on Atarneus, a city in Asia Minor. Aristotle remained in Athens for nearly twenty years before leaving in 348/47 BC. It is possible that he feared the anti-Macedonian sentiments in Athens at that time and left before Plato died.

2. He is the founder of zoology

Upon Plato’s death, Aristotle travelled on to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor, accompanied by Xenocrates. After the death of Hermias, Aristotle travelled with his pupil Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island and its sheltered lagoon. Aristotle was a man ahead of his time. He had new ideas on how to study the world. He used to make detailed observations of the world and recorded what he saw. In his quest to learn more about the anatomy of animals he started dissecting them, which was a new practice. Greek philosophers and educators of those times used to do all their work in their mind, thinking about the world without observing it.

3. He was a tutor to royalty

In 343 BC, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander the Great. He took much advice from his teacher. Aristotle also taught Ptolemy and Cassander, who were both eventually crowned kings.

3. Aristotle’s life of romance

Aristotle married Pythias and had a daughter whom he also named Pythias, after her mother. After the unfortunate passing of his first wife, Aristotle fell in love with Herpyllis. Herpyllis was the former slave of Pythias.  His new wife went on to bear him a son who he named Nicomachus.

4. Aristotle contributed to the classification of animals

Aristotle was the first person to venture into the classification of different animals. He used characteristics that are common among certain animals to categorize them into comparable groups. For example, based on the presence of blood, he created two different groups such as animals with blood and animals without blood. Similarly, based on their habitat, he classified animals as ones that live in water and ones that live on land. In his view, life had a hierarchical makeup and all living beings could be grouped in this hierarchy based on their position from lowest to highest. He placed the human species highest in this pecking order.

5. His contributions to Physics

It is true that while Aristotle was the founder of new frontiers in the field of life sciences, his ventures into physics fell short by comparison. His studies in physics seem to have been highly influenced by pre-established ideas of modern and earlier Greek thinkers. For example, in his dissertations on Generation and Corruption and On the Heavens, the world set-up he described had many similarities with proposals made by some pre-Socratic era theorists. He embraced Empedocles’ view on the make-up of the universe that everything was created from different compositions of the four fundamental elements: earth, water, air, and fire.

In the same way, Aristotle supposed that any kind of change meant something was in motion. In a rather self-contradicting way (at least the initial interpreters found it to be so), he defined the motion of anything as the actuality of a potentiality. In its entirety, Aristotle understood physics as a part of theoretical science that was in sync with natural philosophy. Perhaps a more identical term to attach to Aristotle’s interpretation would be simply the study of nature.

6. His thoughts on Psychology

Aristotle was the first to write a book that was concerned with the specifics of psychology: De Anima or On the Soul. In this book, he suggests the idea of abstraction that reigns over the body and mind of a human being. The body and mind exist within the same being and are entwined in such a way that the mind is one of the many basic functions of the body.

In a more detailed psychological analysis, he divided the human intellect into two essential categories: the passive intellect and the active intellect. According to Aristotle, it is human nature to imitate something that, even if on a merely superficial level, provides us with a sense of happiness and satisfaction. His contributions were a giant leap forward from the pre-scientific era psychology that went before him and led us into an age of far more precise qualitative and quantitative analysis.

7. Aristotle’s views on ethics

It would be an injustice to Aristotle’s work if one were to attempt to summarize the rich details of Aristotelian ethics within the bounds of a couple of paragraphs. However, we cannot shy away from sharing his magnificent contributions. The Nicomachean Ethics stands out as a major highlight of Aristotle’s interpretations. It represents the best-known work on ethics by Aristotle: a collection of ten books based on notes taken from his various lectures at the Lyceum. The Nicomachean Ethics lays out Aristotle’s thoughts on various moral virtues and their respective details.

Aristotelian ethics outline the different social and behavioural virtues of an ideal man. For example, the confidence one bears in the face of fear and defeat stacks up as courage, the ability to resist the temptations of physical pleasures stand out as a person’s temperance, liberality and magnificence speak of the volumes of wealth one can give away for the welfare of others, and any ambition can never be truly magnanimous unless it attains an impeccable balance between the honour it promises and the dues it pays. These, along with other pivotal excerpts, build the groundwork for Aristotle’s endeavours in ethics. In this ethical essence, Aristotle believed that “regardless of the various influences of our parents, society and nature, we are the sole narrators of our souls and their active states.”

8. Aristotle on Politics

“Politics” is a word derived from the Greek word polis which in ancient Greece represented any city-state. Aristotle believed that the ‘polis’ reflected the topmost strata of political association. Being a citizen of a polis was essential for a person to lead a good-quality life. Attaining this status meant that a citizen needed to make necessary political connections to secure permanent residence. In Aristotle’s view, this very pursuit pointed to the fact that “man is a political animal.”

Without a doubt, the various ventures of Aristotle’s life helped shape his political acumen in ways his predecessors and contemporaries could not. His progressive adventures in the biology of natural flora and fauna are quite visible in the naturalism of his politics. He divides the polis and its respective constitutions into six categories, of which three he judges to be good and the remaining three bad. In his view, the good ones are constitutional government, aristocracy, and kingship, and the bad ones include democracy, oligarchy, and tyranny. He believes that the political valuation of an individual directly depends on their contributions in making the life of their polis better.

9. Aristotle has many nicknames

Aristotle’s name roughly translated means “the best purpose“. However, as Aristotle became famous he gathered several monikers. While he was still alive he was known as “the man who knew everything“. Later Tomas Aquinas named him simply “The Philosopher“, as he thought Aristotle was the only philosopher one would ever need. In the late medieval era, Dante Alighieri named him “The Master” in his masterpiece Divine Comedy.

10. Aristotle started a school

Aristotle started a school in Lyceum known as Peripatetic school. Many attribute this name to Aristotle’s alleged habit of walking while lecturing, coming from the word peripatêtikos (Greek meaning “of walking”), it’s more likely the name came from peripatoi, colonnades that surrounded the Lyceum.

Now you know the top 10 facts about Aristotle. I hope you enjoyed reading this article.

11. Aristotle believed in education as the attainment of happiness and goodness

Photo by Wikimedia Commons – Wikimedia 

Aristotle’s view about the aim of education was different from that of his predecessors Socrates and Plato. He believed in the purposefulness of education. According to Socrates and Plato, the aim of education was to attain knowledge while Aristotle’s aim was to attain happiness or goodness in life emphasising that virtue lies in those two. He further divided goodness into two categories namely goodness of intellect and goodness of character citing that the former can be produced and increased by teaching and is the product of training and experience while the latter is the result of habit and can be attained by the formation of good habits.

12. Aristotle’s education curriculum

Photo by Wikimedia Commons – Wikimedia 

Aristotle stresses ‘gymnastics’ although to him the purpose for getting the training of gymnastics was not only to produce perfection in athletics but also to develop the spirit of sportsmanship and above all to develop good habits for the control of passions and appetites.

13. Aristotle was also the father of Physics and Astronomy

He considers music and literature useful for moral and intellectual development at an early stage of education. He recommended the teaching of ‘mathematics’ for higher education because it develops the power of deductive reasoning in man. The teaching of physics and astronomy was also his idea.

14. Aristotle the Father of the Communication Model 

Photo by Wikimedia Commons – Wikimedia 

Aristotle, a great philosopher initiated the earliest mass communication model called “Aristotle’s Model of Communication”. He proposed a model before 300 B.C that found the importance of the audience’s role in the communication chain in his communication model. 

15. Aristotle’s ideology of communication

According to Aristotle’s Model of Communication, the speaker is the main figure in communication. This person is fully responsible for all communication. In this model of communication, it is important that the speaker selects his words carefully. He must analyse his audience and prepare his speech accordingly.

16. Aristotle recorded most of his works in the form of notes and manuscripts 

The majority of Aristotle’s writings were kept in the form of notes and manuscripts, which required preservation from dust and mites in order to maintain their content. This is one of the key reasons why, despite his work on more than 200 manuscripts, only roughly 31 of them are still in the hands of modern readers.

Aristotle’s followers, like Theophrastus and his pupil Neleus, have considerable historical significance because of their responsibility for preserving Aristotle’s writings. They, like other later Classical scholars, prioritised conserving and analysing Aristotle’s work over expanding it.

17. He might have been involved in a love affair with a man

Aristotle met Pythias, Hermias’ niece and adoptive daughter when visiting the court of Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. Aristotle eventually married Pythias, and the two of them had a daughter they both named Pythias. Aristotle’s wife Pythias passed away around 335 BC.

After his wife passed away, he did not remarry but did develop a relationship with Herpyllis, a visitor from his hometown of Stagirus. Aristotle reportedly had a romantic relationship with historian Palaephatus of Abydos, according to the Byzantine Encyclopaedia Suda from the 10th century. Ancient Greek mythology was written by another well-known author, Palaephatus. Ancient Greek men regularly engaged in marital woes with other men.

18. He was a misogynist

The attitudes and societal standards of Aristotle’s period can be seen in his opinions on women. He felt that because of their inferiority to men, women ought to be subservient to their husbands and kept out of politics. He claimed that women were better suited to being ruled than to exercising power.

Although these ideas might be regarded as outdated and problematic by contemporary standards, it is important to take into account that they were widespread in ancient Greek culture and were not limited to Aristotle.

19. There are mountains named after him

Antarctica.Author Liam Quinn.WIKIMEDIA

The Latinized form of the Greek word antarktike is called Antarctica. It refers to something that is “opposite to the Arctic” or “opposite to the north.” Aristotle theorised about a landform in the southern high-altitude region of the world and named it Antarctica in his book Meteorology.

Even though he had no way of learning about its existence, he became the first person to write about Antarctica as a result. The Aristotle Mountains in Antarctica bear his name in recognition of this. Aristoteles, the classical spelling and pronunciation of his name, has been given a crater on the moon, which is in addition to Antarctica.

20. There are a number of theories he proposed that are inaccurate

Nearly all of Aristotle’s physics and chemistry theories were later found to be incorrect. For instance, whereas Aristotle claimed that the sun orbits the earth, Copernicus and Kepler demonstrated that the earth orbits the sun.

The Aristotelian idea of an incorruptibly perfect smooth Moon was shown false by Galileo’s telescope, which showed mountains and craters on the moon. Aristotle thought that heavier items fall on earth more quickly than lighter ones, but Galileo’s experiments demonstrated that the pace at which anything falls to earth is independent of mass.

 

Top 10 Quotes by Aristotle on Philosophy

1.“The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.”

Aristotle’s insight here emphasizes the perpetual nature of learning. As one acquires knowledge, the scope of the unknown expands. This quote underscores the humility required in intellectual pursuits, encouraging a continuous quest for understanding. It highlights the vastness of knowledge and the ever-expanding frontiers that curiosity reveals, fostering a mindset of perpetual curiosity and learning.

2.”It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

This statement underscores the importance of intellectual openness and critical thinking. An educated mind, according to Aristotle, is not only capable of comprehending diverse ideas but also adept at evaluating them objectively. It advocates for the ability to engage with differing perspectives without necessarily embracing them, promoting a balanced and discerning approach to intellectual discourse.

3.”The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

Aristotle’s holistic perspective suggests that the collective synergy of components transcends their individual contributions. This idea is fundamental to systems thinking, emphasizing interconnectedness and the emergence of properties that are not evident at the individual level. It encourages a comprehensive understanding of complex phenomena, recognizing the significance of relationships and interactions.

4.”Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

This aphorism underscores the foundational role of self-awareness in the pursuit of wisdom. Aristotle suggests that understanding one’s own character, values, and motivations lays the groundwork for acquiring deeper insights. It implies that self-reflection is a crucial precursor to meaningful intellectual and moral development, aligning with the classical Greek emphasis on the examined life as a path to wisdom.

5.”Excellence is an art won by training and habituation.”

Aristotle emphasizes the role of disciplined practice and consistent effort in achieving excellence. This quote underscores the idea that mastery and virtuosity are not innate qualities but are cultivated through deliberate training and ingrained habits.

It reinforces the notion that sustained commitment to improvement, coupled with intentional practice, is the key to achieving excellence in any endeavor. This aligns with Aristotle’s broader philosophy of virtue as a product of habituation and ethical cultivation.

6.”The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know”:

Aristotle’s insight into knowledge reflects the profound humility that accompanies true understanding. In acknowledging that the vast expanse of knowledge is never fully grasped, he highlights the perpetual nature of learning. The quote underscores the transformative journey of intellectual discovery, where each revelation opens new avenues of inquiry.

Aristotle encourages a mindset that embraces the unknown, fostering a curious spirit and an insatiable appetite for wisdom. The recognition of one’s limitations becomes a driving force, propelling individuals towards continuous self-improvement and a deeper appreciation for the complexities of the world.

7.”It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”

Aristotle’s assertion on the educated mind champions a level of intellectual sophistication that transcends mere acceptance or rejection of ideas. He advocates for an open-minded approach rooted in critical thinking. True education, according to Aristotle, involves the ability to consider diverse perspectives without immediately adopting or dismissing them.

This intellectual flexibility promotes a nuanced understanding of complex issues, fostering a society capable of thoughtful discourse and mutual understanding. It encourages individuals to engage in intellectual exploration, cultivating a mindset that values the examination of ideas for the sake of knowledge and insight, rather than the need for immediate agreement or disagreement.

8.”The whole is more than the sum of its parts”

Aristotle’s philosophical perspective on holism posits that the totality of a system transcends the mere aggregation of its individual components. This concept profoundly influences how we perceive the interconnectedness of the universe. By recognizing that entities, when combined, form something greater and more intricate, Aristotle lays the foundation for understanding emergent properties and the complexity of relationships within systems.

This holistic viewpoint extends beyond mere physical structures, touching on the richness of interactions in human societies, ecosystems, and even abstract concepts. The quote prompts contemplation on the synergy that arises when elements come together, emphasizing the need to appreciate the interconnected nature of existence.

9.”Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”

Aristotle’s timeless wisdom underscores the significance of self-awareness as the fundamental precursor to true wisdom. The journey to understanding oneself is positioned as the starting point for a life of depth and purpose. By acknowledging one’s strengths, weaknesses, and motivations, individuals can make informed decisions, pursue meaningful goals, and engage authentically with the world.

Aristotle’s emphasis on introspection aligns with the ancient Greek philosophical tradition, where the examined life was considered the path to a fulfilled and purposeful existence. The quote serves as a guiding principle, encouraging individuals to embark on the transformative process of self-discovery as the foundational step toward genuine wisdom.

10.”Excellence is an art won by training and habituation”:

Aristotle’s perspective on excellence transcends innate talent, emphasizing the transformative power of disciplined effort and repetitive practice. The quote aligns with Aristotle’s virtue ethics, positing that virtuous qualities are not inherent but cultivated through intentional training.

By viewing excellence as an art form, Aristotle underscores the importance of habitual practice in shaping character and behavior. This philosophy challenges the notion of inherent abilities, asserting that sustained effort and discipline are the keys to achieving moral and intellectual excellence.

Aristotle’s emphasis on training and habituation serves as a timeless reminder that personal growth and virtuous living require continuous commitment and intentional development of good habits.

Aristotle’s emphasis on the perpetual nature of learning, the importance of critical thinking, and the interconnectedness of all things reflects a holistic approach to understanding the complexities of existence.

The recognition that self-awareness is the cornerstone of wisdom and the acknowledgment that excellence is cultivated through disciplined training underscore his timeless teachings on personal growth and ethical living.

Furthermore, Aristotle’s reflections on happiness, goal-setting, and the intrinsic connection between pleasure and perfection provide valuable guidance for navigating the complexities of human experience.

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