Aristotle

Born in 384 BCE in Stagira in northern Greece, Aristotle studied for about twenty years in Plato’s Academy at Athens before going on to teach, write, and build his own school, the Lyceum. Ancient sources and standard reference works also connect him with the education of Alexander the Great, a detail that helps explain how closely his life was tied to the wider Greek world of his time.

Aristotle wrote across an astonishing range of subjects: logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, rhetoric, literary theory, physics, and the study of living things. Works such as Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Poetics, and Metaphysics helped define major fields of inquiry, and his method of careful observation and systematic argument gave later scholars a powerful model for how to think.

Although he died in 322 BCE, Aristotle’s influence lasted far beyond the ancient world. His writings were studied and debated for centuries in Greek, Islamic, and Latin traditions, making him a central figure in the history of philosophy and one of the key architects of Western intellectual life.