The Ancient GreeksAristotle Ἀριστοτέλης

Life

•Born in 384 B.C., to the personal physician to the king of Macedonia

•At age 18, he went to Athens To study at Plato's Academy. He stayed there for twenty years.

•He was appointed the head of the royal academy of Macedonia, where he tutored many kings, including Alexander the Great.

Life •He later returned tom Athens and established his own school, the Lyceum.

•During this time, he wrote his most important works:

•Physics

•Metaphysics

•Nichomachean Ethics

•De Anima

•Poetics

Relationship with Alexander the Great

•When Alexander became Emperor, he referred to himself as a god, a practice that Aristotle publicly denounced.

•Alexander sent threatening letters to Aristotle and even executed Aristotle's grandnephew as a traitor.

•After Alexander's death, some Greek leaders accused Aristotle of not holding the gods in honor (sound familiar?).

•Aristotle fled Athens, saying he would not allow Athens to sin twice against philosophy.

Aristotle

•Aristotle was a polymath, a person whose knowledge spans a wide variety of subjects.

•He made significant contributions to

Science

Art

Theater

Mathematics

Metaphysics

Logic

Linguistics

EthicsMusic

Logic Politic

s

Rhetoric

Physics

Poetry

. . .to name a few

Aristotle•Aristotle was very interested

in categorizing things and processes.

•He is credited with creating the Scientific Method.

•He was the first to propose a fifth element to the classical list of four (earth, air, fire, and water), aether which was a divine element that made up the heavenly bodies.

Materialism•Aristotle rejected Plato's Idealism, proposing instead that true reality

could be found only in the material world.

• In other words, the ideal Form of any object does not exist separately from it, but is intrinsically tied to that object.

•His writings were translated into Arabic and were widely taught in the Muslim world for centuries

•Many schools of Western philosophy base their legitimacy upon Aristotle, such as

•Thomas Aquinas, founder of the Scholastics

•Karl Marx, founder of communism

Logic

•Aristotle was also the first person to develop a systematic method of reasoning called Logic.

•Logic is a mathematical method of organizing an argument by using fact to reach a conclusion, for example:

All men are mortal.

Socrates is a man.

Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

A B

AC

C B

Quotes

•"All men by nature desire knowledge."

•"Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them."

•"Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity."

•"Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered."

•"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self."

Body Biography•THE HEART

•What he loves the most

•THE BACKBONE •What his most important goal?

•THE FEET •What is the foundation for his beliefs?•What does he stand for?

•THE HANDS •What is the work that he does?•What tools does he use?

• QUOTATIONS •“Direct” quotations•Things other people say

•SURROUNDINGS – Other influences

•WRITTEN EXPLANATION•Write a paragraph explaining your design

•Explain each of the symbols you used and why