Aristotle was born in Stagiros, Macedon, in 384BCE. His father was a court physician to King Amyntas of Macedon, but died when Aristotle was young. At that time, medicine was a secret craft passed down from father to son, so his father's early death drastically changed the course of Aristotle's life. He was brought up and educated by a guardian, who sent him at the age of seventeen to the centre of intellectual and artistic life, Athens. There he entered Plato's Academy (Plato was away in Syracuse at the time), where he stayed for about twenty years, first as student then as teacher.

When Plato died, the story becomes a little obscure. Aristotle left Athens, but it's not clear exactly why. It might have been because he was passed over as head of the Academy, or because of his philosophical differences with the new head, Speusippus, or because of his Macedonian antecedents. Macedon was unpopular at that time, because the new king, Philip, was rapidly expanding the borders of his kingdom, and Athenians felt threatened. Moreover, Aristotle wasn't simply tarred by the brush of geography; he was a childhood friend of Philip, and had retained his connections with the family.

Whatever the reason, Aristotle sailed for Assos in Asia Minor, where he lived for three years, developed his interest in anatomy and biology, and began work on his book the Politics. However, the Persians attacked and overran Assos in 345BCE, killing the king, and Aristotle left with his circle of philosophers, staying for a year in Mytilene on Lesbos (where he pursued his zoological investigations), before moving to Macedon, and is said to have became tutor to Philip's son, Alexander.

When Philip died and Alexander succeeded him, Aristotle returned to Athens. The Academy was flourishing under its new head, Xenocrates, and Aristotle founded his own school outside Athens, in a place called the Lyceum. He taught there for thirteen years, giving both public and private lectures. The Lyceum had a broader curriculum than the Academy, and a stronger emphasis on natural philosophy. With Alexander the Great's death in 323BCE came a change in the government of Athens, and a wave of anti-Macedonian feeling. Aristotle left Athens to live in a family house in Chalcis in Euboea; he died there the following year.

Aristotle's writings formed a huge and varied corpus, including dialogues, popular treatises, and serious works of scholarship; most of these have been lost, as has the vast collection of scientific and historical observational data that he built up himself and through his corres­pondents). What remains falls mainly into two (unclearly differentiated) categories: lecture notes worked up and published after his death, and work by later members of his school. It's for this reason that what we know of Aristotle's work is very unlike the golden prose so admired by his contemporaries. The content, however, more than makes up for any deficiencies in the style.

The surviving works fall into five main categories, usually ordered as they were in the first edition of Aristotle's work by his follower Andronicus of Rhodes (fl. 1st century BCE): the six logical works, which together are known as the Organon ("tool" or "instrument"); the three works on the physical sciences (including the Physics itself); the work devoted to "first philosophy", the most fundamental and abstract of studies, now known as the Metaphysics ("meta ta phusika": "after the physics"); six works in politics, ethics, and aesthetics, including most importantly the Nicomachean Ethics (named for his son by his second wife, Nicomachus); a large number of works on psychology and natural history, including On the Soul (often known by its Latin title, De Anima)

In many of these works, and in his teaching at the Lyceum, Aristotle was the first to divide the subjects in the way that we still do nearly 2,500 years later, as well as the first to treat them systematically and rationally. The major difference between him and Plato lay in their epistemology. Both valued and emphasised the rôle of reason, but Plato held that the most important truths, the objects of knowledge, must be attained through reason alone, while Aristotle took observation to be crucial; he held that both the world and the human mind were so structured as to make understanding possible. His scientific work was hugely important for the development of our knowledge of the world; it was, of course, full of errors, but his project of a systematic investigation into natural phenomena – especially the living world – marks the birth of empirical science.

Even restricting ourselves to the narrower modern notion of philosophy proper, his work and influence is too vast to cover in a short space. His concern with empirical observation wasn't restricted to sciences such as biology and astronomy, but extended to history, psychology, language, ethics, and politics. Ironically, though, his influence on mediaeval philosophy was so tremendous that it stifled empirical investigation (though not as completely as is sometimes thought). It wouldn't be too far-fetched to say that people lived in an Aristotelian world for nineteen centuries after Aristotle's death. Not only were Arab philosophers deeply influenced by him (and it's largely through them that his work survived the collapse of the Roman Empire), but Christian theology from the end of the twelfth century, and especially in the work of Thomas Aquinas and his successors, spent much time trying to adjust Christian teaching to fit in with Aristotelian theories (both Plato and Aristotle played such a central rôle in mediaeval theology that they were dubbed "Christians before Christ", and sometimes even given haloes in paintings).

One Hundred Philosophers (2004)

U.S.A.:     Barron's Educational Books

U.K.:        Apple Press

Australia: A.B.C. Books

The book covers the history of philosophy chronologically from Thales of Miletus (6th century BCE) to Peter Singer (b.1946 CE), with philosophers from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australasia, and the U.S.A., about 60% getting a page, 40% two pages. Scattered through the book are brief introductions to such topics as African, Chinese, and Indian philosophy, scepticism, women in philosophy, mind and body, the philosophy of science, and moral philosophy. The book's divided into periods, each with its own introduction and timeline of other important events. There's also a glossary, suggested further reading, and an index.

Aristotle

Article by Garth Kemerling, with useful set of links

Aristotle

Article by William Turner, from the Catholic Encyclopedia

Aristotle

Article by Mieczysław A. Krąpiec for the Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles on Aristotle:

a. Introduction

b. Motion and its Place in Nature (Joe Sachs)

c. Metaphysics (Joe Sachs)

d. Biology (Michael Boylan)

e. Ethics (Joe Sachs)

f. Politics (Edward Clayton)

g. Poetics (Joe Sachs)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles:

Aristotle's rhetoric (Christof Rapp)

Aristotle's logic (Robin Smith)

Aristotle and mathematics (Henry Mendell)

Aristotle's metaphysics (S. Marc Cohen)

Aristotle's psychology (Christopher Shields)

Aristotle's ethics (Richard Kraut)

Aristotle's political theory (Fred D. Miller, Jr)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles:

Aristotle in Jewish Legend (Kaufmann Kohler & Louis Ginzberg)

Aristotle in Jewish Literature (Kaufmann Kohler & A. Loewenthal)

Aristotle

Wikipedia article.

Aristotle

Article by J.J. O'Connor and E.F. Robertson, for the MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive (University of St Andrews)

Aristotle's Political Philosophy Page 

Maintained by Clifford A. Bates, Jr

Aristotle Bibliography

Maintained by Richard Ingardia. "Now you are able to search over 100 years of Aristotelian scholarship with ease. 1900 to 2000 and beyond. This international bibliography is the most complete database on Aristotelian scholarship available in the world." Requires registration by on-line form

Complete Works of Aristotle

In various translations, from the Internet Classics Archive.

The philosophy of Aristotle

A page from Hellas On Line, offering some introductory material by Barbara Jancar, and Aristotle's complete works in various English translations as zipped text files.

Works of Aristotle

Plain-text versions, from the W.D. Ross edition; provided by the University of Georgia at Athens.

Read Aristotle

HTML versions in the various translations found below, maintained by S.C. Park.

The Works of Aristotle

Just eight, in fact, by the same variety of translators to be found below. There's also a very odd short introduction, which tells us: "It is primarily Aristotle's metaphysics (nature of existence) and epistemology (the study of knowledge) that led to the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the concept that man must be free to live the life proper to man."

Athenian Constitution

Greek text in the Kenyon edition, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

Frederic G. Kenyon translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

Frederic G. Kenyon translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

Frederic G. Kenyon translation, provided by the Constitution Society.

H. Rackham translation, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

Categories

E. M. Edghill translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

Eudemian Ethics

Greek text, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

H. Rackham translation, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

History of Animals

D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

Metaphysics

Greek text, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

W. D. Ross translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

W. D. Ross translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

Hugh Tredennick translation, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

Meteorology

E. W. Webster translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

E. W. Webster translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

Nicomachean Ethics

Greek text ed. J. Bywater, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

W. D. Ross translation, provided by the Institute for Learning Technologies

plain text version of the above

H. Rackham translation, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

W.D. Ross translation, provided by nothingistic.org

W. D. Ross translation, provided by the Constitution Society.

W. D. Ross translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

PDF W.D. Ross translation, provided by McMaster University.

On Dreams

J. I. Beare translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

J. I. Beare translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

On the Gait of Animals

A. S. L. Farquharson translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

On Generation and Corruption

H. H. Joachim translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

On the Generation of Animals

Arthur Platt translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

On the Heavens

J. L. Stocks translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

J. L. Stocks translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

On Interpretation

E. M. Edghill translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

E. M. Edghill translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

On Longevity and Shortness of Life

G. R. T. Ross translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

G. R. T. Ross translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

On Memory and Reminiscence

J. I. Beare translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

J. I. Beare translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

J. I. Beare translation, provided by Classics in the History of Psychology.

On the Motion of Animals

A. S. L. Farquharson translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

On the Parts of Animals

William Ogle translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

William Ogle translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

On Prophesying by Dreams

J. I. Beare translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

On Sense and the Sensible

J. I. Beare translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

J. I. Beare translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

On Sleep and Sleeplessness

J. I. Beare translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

W. D. Ross translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

On Sophistical Refutations

W. A. Pickard-Cambridge translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

W. A. Pickard-Cambridge translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

On the Soul (De Anima)

J. A. Smith translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

J. A. Smith translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

J. A. Smith translation, provided by Classics in the History of Psychology.

On Youth and Old Age, On Life and Death, & On Breathing

G. R. T. Ross translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

G. R. T. Ross translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

Physics

R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

Poetics

Greek text ed. R. Kassel, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

S. H. Butcher translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

S. H. Butcher translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

W.H. Fyfe translation, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

Politics

Greek text ed. W. D. Ross, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

Benjamin Jowett translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

Benjamin Jowett translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

Benjamin Jowett translation, provided by the Constitution Society.

Benjamin Jowett translation, provided by the Politics Hypertext Library, Swansea University.

PDF W.D. Ross translation, provided by McMaster University.

H. Rackham translation, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

Posterior Analytics

G. R. G. Mure translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

G. R. G. Mure translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

Prior Analytics

A. J. Jenkinson translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

Rhetoric

Greek text ed. W. D. Ross, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

A hypertextual resource compiled by Lee Honeycutt (with a text-search feature)

W. Rhys Roberts translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

W. Rhys Roberts translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

J. H. Freese translation, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

Topics

W. A. Pickard-Cambridge translation, provided by eBooks@Adelaide.

W. A. Pickard-Cambridge translation, provided by the Internet Classics Archive.

Virtues and Vices

Greek text ed. I. Bekker, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

H. Rackham translation, provided by the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.