Aristotle Essay Research Paper Aristotle was perhaps

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Aristotle Essay, Research Paper Aristotle was perhaps the first and greatest of all polymaths, being credited with the founding of logic. He is said to have transformed every field of logic that he touched (apart from mathematics where Plato and Platonic thought remained supreme). He divided human knowledge into separate categories, which enabled our understanding of the world to develop in systematics fashion. Resulting in the modern world of science. Aristotelian thought has given rise to many philosophical questions that lead many modern day philosophers to wonder how dangerous the flaws are in our way of thinking as well as what the flaws are preventing us from learning. Aristotle was born in 383 B.C. at ancient Stagira in Greek Macedonia. It was here that he lived with

his father, Nicomachus, the personal physician to the King of Macedonia and the grandfather of Alexander the Great. Aristotle’s father was a rich man, owning many estates throughout Greece. Aristotle was brought up in an atmosphere of medical learning, until his father died. After his father died, Aristotle was taken to Atarneus where he was brought up by his cousin. It was here that he blew the entire inheritance left to him by his father. He then returned to Stagira where he studies medicine. At the age of thirty-two he gave up all of his medical career and went to Athens to study under Plato. Under Plato he intensely studied and established himself as the finest mind of his generation. Shortly after being a student under Plato, because he excelled greatly, he was asked to be

a colleague of Plato. Because of the fact that Aristotle worshiped Plato and absorbed the Platonic doctrine, to begin with, he accepted as colleague under Plato. His own philosophy was later to be firmly grounded in the Platonic Doctrine. Because Aristotle was far to bright to be a mere “follower” of anyone, even Plato, he felt it his intellectual duty to point out any contradiction he discerned. This resulted in an irritated Plato, though they appeared not to have quarreled, evidence suggest that the two greatest minds of their time, found it politic to maintain certain distance. Aristotle had a natural inclination toward the practical and the scientific, which led him to view Plato’s ideas from an increasingly realistic standpoint. Shifting away from Plato’s view that

the particular world we perceive around us consist of mere appearances and the ultimate reality lies in a further world of ideas, Aristotle tended to have more of a scientific mind and became more convinced that he was living in the real. Aristotle saw forms more as essences embodied in the substance of the world, with no separate existence of their own. The contradictions in Aristotle’s words gave medieval scholars food for endless controversy arising from different interpretations of the two doctrines. Aristotle also had a very profound understanding of politics, which he displayed in Athens when he Hernias, a Greek mercenary who took of a portion of Asia Minor, on the best way to go about making Atarneus a center of Greek culture. His political philosophy consist largely of

an examination of the different types of state, and how best they can be run. Aristotle’s belief was that the purpose of state was to produce and support a class of cultured gentlemen, such as himself, although he understood that this was not always possible. As Aristotle approached middle age, he fell in love. The object of his affection being a young girl by the name of Pythias. In Aristotle’s remarks of marriage, he announced that the best age to marry is 37 for a man and 18 for a women, surprisingly the age of both he and Pythias when they were married. Although Aristotle was said to be brilliant, imagination was obviously not his strong point. This makes it all the more ironic that in his Poetics, the Prosaic Aristotle sets out the most influential elucidation of poetry