Aristotle

Greek philosopher who advocated reason and moderation. He maintained that sense experience is our only source of knowledge, and that by reasoning we can discover the essences of things, that is, their distinguishing qualities. In his works on ethics and politics, he suggested that human happiness consists in living in conformity with nature. He derived his political theory from the recognition that mutual aid is natural to humankind, and refused to set up any one constitution as universally ideal. Of Aristotle's works, around 22 treatises survive, dealing with logic, metaphysics, physics, astronomy, meteorology, biology, psychology, ethics, politics, and literary criticism.

Aristotle was born in Stagira in Thrace and studied in Athens, where he became a distinguished member of the Academy founded by Plato. He then opened a school at Assos. At this time he regarded himself as a Platonist, but his subsequent thought led him further from the traditions that had formed his early background and he was later critical of Plato. In about 344 BC he moved to Mytilene in Lesvos, and devoted the next two years to the study of natural history. Meanwhile, during his residence at Assos, he had married Pythias, niece and adopted daughter of Hermeias, ruler of Atarneus.

In 342 BC he accepted an invitation from Philip II of Macedon to go to Pella as tutor to Philip's son Alexander the Great. In 335 BC he opened a school in the Lyceum (grove sacred to Apollo) in Athens. It became known as the ‘peripatetic school’ because he walked up and down as he talked, and his works are a collection of his lecture notes. When Alexander died in 323 BC, Aristotle was forced to flee to Chalcis, where he died.

Among his many contributions to political thought were the first systematic attempts to distinguish between different forms of government, ideas about the role of law in the state, and the conception of a science of politics.

In the Poetics, Aristotle defines tragic drama as an imitation (mimesis) of the actions of human beings, with character subordinated to plot. The audience is affected by pity and fear, but experiences a purgation (catharsis) of these emotions through watching the play. The second book of the Poetics, on comedy, is lost. The three books of the Rhetoric form the earliest analytical discussion of the techniques of persuasion, and the last presents a theory of the emotions to which a speaker must appeal.