Aristotle (384–322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and polymath born in the city of Stagira. After losing his father at a young age, he was raised by a guardian and eventually joined Plato's Academy in Athens at around eighteen years old. He remained at the Academy for nearly twenty years until Plato's death. Following his time in Athens, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to tutor his young son, Alexander the Great. He later established his own school and library at the Lyceum in Athens, where he produced a vast body of work written on papyrus scrolls.
Although Aristotle wrote numerous dialogues and treatises, only about a third of his original output has survived, none of which was originally intended for publication. His writings provided a complex synthesis of prior philosophies and spanned an extraordinary range of subjects, including the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. He is credited with conducting the earliest known systematic study of logic, and his methods of inquiry laid the foundation for the development of modern science.
Aristotle's ideas profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, earning him the title of "The First Teacher" among Muslim scholars and "The Philosopher" among Christian scholastics like Thomas Aquinas. His theories on physical science dominated academic thought from late antiquity through the Renaissance, only being systematically replaced during the Enlightenment. In addition to his lasting impact on logic and theology, Aristotle's ethical theories continue to experience a modern revival through the contemporary interest in virtue ethics.
