Aristotle
384-322 B.C.
Aristotle is an ancient Greek philosopher and was the student of Plato at his Academy in Athens. Aristotle left Athens on the invitation of Philip of Macedon to tutor his son, Alexander the Great. After several years tutoring Alexander, he returned to Athens and established his own school, called the Lyceum.
During this time in Athens is when Aristotle is thought to have composed most of his works. The works that have survived are written in the form of treatises. Among the most famous are Physics, Metaphysics, Politics, Nicomachean Ethics, Poetics, and De Anima (On the Soul).
Aristotle differed from Plato in his method of philosophical inquiry. While Plato was largely deductive, taking universal principles and applying them to particular questions, Aristotle was largely inductive, examining particulars to develop universal principles.
In his Politics, Aristotle had an organic understanding of the state. He held that man was by nature a political animal and that the state was a natural result of this human condition. He also classified six types of government grouping them as “good” or “corrupt” and then according to whether the government was by the one, the few, or the many. He put monarchy, aristocracy, and the polity in the good category and tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy in the corrupt category. Good government is characterized as government for the common good, whereas corrupt government is characterized as government for the benefit of the ruler(s).
Additionally, Aristotle defended slavery and the subordination of women to men in the marital relationship as a valid reflection of the capacities given to masters/slaves and males/females by nature.
Photo – Public Domain: Aristotle
