Little is known about his life. Aristotle was born in the city of Stagira in Northern Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At seventeen or eighteen years of age he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven (c. 347 BC). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BC. He established a library in the Lyceum which helped him to produce many of his hundreds of books on papyrus scrolls.
Introduction
Aristotle
Aristotle | Introduction
384–322 BC The Classical period. `The Classical period. During the Classical period
where is the solar system located in our galaxy
user
The Solar System, is located in the Milky Way's galactic habitable zone.
assistant
what is the milky way?
user
It is the galaxy that contains our Solar System.
assistant
can you tell me the names of the stars that form a part of this galaxy?
user
The Milky Way may contain ten billion white dwarfs, a billion neutron stars, and a hundred million stellar black holes.
assistant
can this galaxy be seen from earth in the northern hemisphere?
user
The Milky Way is visible from Earth as a hazy band of white light, some 30° wide, arching across the night sky.  As viewed from Earth, the visible region of the Milky Way's galactic plane occupies an area of the sky that includes 30 constellations.
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how would you describe its size?
user
The Milky Way is the second-largest galaxy in the Local Group with its stellar disk approximately in diameter and, on average, approximately thick. The Milky Way is approximately 890 billion times the mass of the Sun.
assistant
name the structural parts of this.
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
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what is the estimated age of this galaxy?
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Several individual stars have been found in the Milky Way's halo with measured ages very close to the 13.80-billion-year age of the Universe.
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what are the names of the intellects who studied and observed this cluster of stars?
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Aristotle, Anaxagoras, Democritus
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what is the professional background of the first person mentioned?
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He  was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece.
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which period did he exist?
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The first Pseudo-Aristotelian works were produced by the members of the Peripatetic school which was founded by Aristotle. However, many more works were written much later, during the Middle Ages. Because Aristotle had produced so many works on such a variety of subjects it was possible for writers in many different contexts—notably medieval Europeans, North Africans and Arabs—to write a work and ascribe it to Aristotle. Attaching his name to such a work guaranteed it a certain amount of respect and acceptance, since Aristotle was regarded as one of the most authoritative ancient writers for the learned men of both Christian Europe and the Muslim Arab lands.
Pseudo-Aristotle | History
The "Rhetoric" was developed by Aristotle during two periods when he was in Athens, the first, from 367–347 BCE (when he was seconded to Plato in the Academy); and the second, from 335–322 BCE (when he was running his own school, the Lyceum).
Rhetoric (Aristotle) | Background
Aristotle of Stagira (384 BC–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher. Aristotle may also refer to:
Aristotle (disambiguation) | Introduction
The work contained the biographies of a great many ancient figures, including orators, poets, historians, and philosophers. It contained the earliest known biography of Aristotle, as well as philosophers such as Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Democritus, Zeno, Socrates, Plato, Antisthenes, Diogenes, Stilpo, Epicurus, Theophrastus, Heraclides, Demetrius Phalereus, and Chrysippus. The work has been lost, but many later "Lives" extensively quote it.
Hermippus of Smyrna | Introduction
Although it cannot be excluded that this was the same person, it appears more probable that this Aristotle was a son or a relative of the dialectician.
Aristotle the Dialectician | Introduction
Aristotle (384–322 BC) studied at Plato's Academy in Athens, remaining there for about 20 years. Like Plato, he sought universals in his philosophy, but unlike Plato he backed up his views with detailed and systematic observation, notably of the natural history of the island of Lesbos, where he spent about two years, and the marine life in the seas around it, especially of the Pyrrha lagoon in the island's centre. This study made him the earliest scientist whose written work survives. No similarly detailed work on zoology was attempted until the sixteenth century; accordingly Aristotle remained highly influential for some two thousand years.
Aristotle's biology | Aristotle's background
The Greek writer and teacher Aristotle (384–322 BC) had much to say on a broad range of subjects, including biology, anatomy, psychology, physics, meteorology, zoology, poetics, rhetoric, logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and political thought. He was among the first writers to describe how to classify material by subject, the first step in writing an encyclopedia. Aristotle wrote to help his students follow his teaching, so his corpus did not much resemble an encyclopedia during his lifetime. Long after his death, commentators filled in the gaps, reordered his works, and put his writing in a systematic form. Catalogs of his work were produced by Andronicus in the first century and by Ptolemy in the second century.
Encyclopedism | Aristotle
Greek Christian scribes played a crucial role in the preservation of Aristotle by copying all the extant Greek language manuscripts of the corpus. The first Greek Christians to comment extensively on Aristotle were Philoponus, Elias, and David in the sixth century, and Stephen of Alexandria in the early seventh century. John Philoponus stands out for having attempted a fundamental critique of Aristotle's views on the eternity of the world, movement, and other elements of Aristotelian thought. Philoponus questioned Aristotle's teaching of physics, noting its flaws and introducing the theory of impetus to explain his observations. After a hiatus of several centuries, formal commentary by Eustratius and Michael of Ephesus reappeared in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, apparently sponsored by Anna Comnena.
Aristotle | On Byzantine scholars
He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition, unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries. Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist. His writings cover many subjects – including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and government—and constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy. Aristotle's views on physical science had a profound influence on medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and his views were not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics.
Western canon | Ancient Greeks
The first named Greek philosopher, according to Aristotle, is Thales of Miletus, early 6th century BCE. He made use of purely physical explanations to explain the phenomena of the world rather than the mythological and divine explanations of tradition. He is thought to have posited water as the single underlying principle (or "Arche in later Aristotelian terminology) of the material world". His fellow, but younger Miletians, Anaximander and Anaximenes, also posited monistic underlying principles, namely apeiron (the indefinite or boundless) and air respectively. Another school was the Eleatics, in southern Italy. The group was founded in the early fifth century BCE by Parmenides, and included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos.
Metaphysics | Pre-Socratic Greece
For Aristotle, directly observable things are real; ideas (or as he called them, forms) only exist as they express themselves in matter, such as in living things, or in the mind of an observer or artisan.
History of science in classical antiquity | Plato and Aristotle
In metaphysics, Aristotelianism profoundly influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophical and theological thought during the Middle Ages and continues to influence Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as "The First Teacher" (). His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today.
Western canon | Ancient Greeks
Aristotle (; "Aristotélēs", ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and the Aristotelian tradition. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, and government. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. It was above all from his teachings that the West inherited its intellectual lexicon, as well as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion.
Aristotle | Introduction
During the classical period in Greece (6th, 5th and 4th centuries BCE) and in Hellenistic times, natural philosophy slowly developed into an exciting and contentious field of study. Aristotle (, "Aristotélēs") (384 – 322 BCE), a student of Plato, promoted the concept that observation of physical phenomena could ultimately lead to the discovery of the natural laws governing them. Aristotle's writings cover physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology. He wrote the first work which refers to that line of study as "Physics" – in the 4th century BCE, Aristotle founded the system known as Aristotelian physics.
History of physics | Ancient Greece
Moreover, the Faculty of Philosophy was expanded by integrating the Institutes of Foreign Languages (English, French, German and Italian).
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | First stage (1926–1950)
The business of the friends was not merely education in existing knowledge. As is expressed in the first few paragraphs of "Physics", they were interested in discovering the principles, or elements of the knowledge, which was an entirely new goal in Greek education. This research was divided into specific "fields" (methodoi). First they collected written works representing the existing knowledge. Subsequently, they collected field data through interviews and specimen-hunting. Aristotle is the first known scientist to have sent out field workers, and to have sent them with military expeditions. Alexander's ethnic and political intelligence gathering as a friend of the school was certainly of greatest value in his ultimate goal, to create a new, multi-cultural world empire.
Corpus Aristotelicum | Research at the Lyceum
Alexamenus of Teos () was, according to Aristotle in his dialogue "On Poets", the first person who wrote Socratic dialogues before the time of Plato. An Aristotelian papyrus from Oxyrhynchus claims that this is merely malicious gossip by Aristotle.
Alexamenus of Teos | Introduction
There is a man by the same name mentioned in Aristotle's "Politics" who overthrew the democracy at Cyme, but nothing is known of this event, nor can it be said with any degree of certainty that they are the same man. Aristotle mentions a Thrasymachus again in his "Sophistical Refutations", where he credits him with a pivotal role in the development of rhetorical theory. Quoting the W. A. Pickard-Cambridge text: "For it may be that in everything, as the saying is 'the first start is the main part'... This is in fact what has happened in regard to rhetorical speeches and to practically all the other arts: for those who discovered the beginnings of them advanced them in all only a little way, whereas the celebrities of to-day are the heirs (so to speak) of a long succession of men who have advanced them bit by bit, and so have developed them to their present form, Tisias coming next after the first founders, then Thrasymachus after Tisias, and Theodorus next to him, while several people have made their several contributions to it: and therefore it is not to be wondered at that the art has attained considerable dimensions." Dillon and Gergel are cautious not to read this as stating that this makes Thrasymachus a student of Tisias, just as it does not make Theodorus a student of Thrasymachus.
Thrasymachus | Life, date, and career
Indeed, Plato and Aristotle appear to be the central figures in the scene. However, all the philosophers depicted sought knowledge of first causes. Many lived before Plato and Aristotle, and hardly a third were Athenians. The architecture contains Roman elements, but the general semi-circular setting having Plato and Aristotle at its centre might be alluding to Pythagoras' "circumpunct". Commentators have suggested that nearly every great ancient Greek philosopher can be found in the painting, but determining which are depicted is difficult, since Raphael made no designations outside possible likenesses, and no contemporary documents explain the painting. Compounding the problem, Raphael had to invent a system of iconography to allude to various figures for whom there were no traditional visual types.
The School of Athens | Program, subject, figure identifications and interpretations
The "Refutation" attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (I, 5), and the later 6th century Byzantine philosopher Simplicius of Cilicia, attribute to Anaximander the earliest use of the word "apeiron" ( "infinite" or "limitless") to designate the original principle. He was the first philosopher to employ, in a philosophical context, the term "archē" (), which until then had meant beginning or origin. "That Anaximander called this something by the name of is the natural interpretation of what Theophrastos says; the current statement that the term was introduced by him appears to be due to a misunderstanding." And "Hippolytos, however, is not an independent authority, and the only question is what Theophrastos wrote."
Anaximander | Apeiron
The pre-Socratic philosophers were interested in cosmology; the nature and origin of the universe, while rejecting mythical answers to such questions. They were specifically interested in the "arche" (the cause or first principle) of the world. The first recognized philosopher, Thales of Miletus (born ca. 625 BCE in Ionia) identified water as the arche (claiming "all is water"). His use of observation and reason to derive this conclusion is the reason for distinguishing him as the first philosopher. Thales' student Anaximander claimed that the "arche" was the "apeiron", the infinite. Following both Thales and Anaximander, Anaximenes of Miletus claimed that air was the most suitable candidate.Pythagoras (born ca.
Western philosophy | Pre-Socratic period
Aristotle (384–322 BC) studied at Plato's Academy in Athens, remaining there for some 17 years. Like Plato, he sought universals in his philosophy, but unlike Plato he backed up his views with detailed observation, notably of the natural history of the island of Lesbos and the marine life in the island's lagoon at Pyrrha. This study made him the earliest natural historian whose written work survives. No similarly detailed work on zoology was attempted until the sixteenth century; accordingly Aristotle remained highly influential for some two thousand years. His writings on zoology form about a quarter of his surviving work.
History of Animals | Context
He criticizes the regimes described in Plato's "Republic" and "Laws", and refers to the theory of forms as "empty words and poetic metaphors." He is generally presented as giving greater weight to empirical observation and practical concerns. Aristotle's fame was not great during the Hellenistic period, when Stoic logic was in vogue, but later peripatetic commentators popularized his work, which eventually contributed heavily to Islamic, Jewish, and medieval Christian philosophy. His influence was such that Avicenna referred to him simply as "the Master"; Maimonides, Alfarabi, Averroes, and Aquinas as "the Philosopher."
Ancient Greek philosophy | Aristotle
The start of a new era began in 1981 when his work of ancient Greek religious anthropology, "Homo Necans" (1972), was published in an Italian translation, followed in 1983 by an English translation. The book is today considered an outstanding account of concepts in Greek religion. He was Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Zurich (1969–1996); Visiting Professor of Classical Literature at the University of California for two years (1977 and 1988); Lecturer at Harvard in 1982; Dean of the Philosophical Faculty I at Zurich (1986–1988); and presented the Gifford Lectures at the University of St Andrews in Scotland (1989).
Walter Burkert | Second academic era
Aristotle was the first person to study biology systematically. He spent two years observing and describing the zoology of Lesbos and the surrounding seas, including in particular the Pyrrha lagoon in the centre of Lesbos. His data are assembled from his own observations, statements given by people with specialised knowledge such as beekeepers and fishermen, and less accurate accounts provided by travellers from overseas. His observations on catfish, electric fish ("Torpedo") and angler fish are detailed, as is his writing on cephalopods including the octopus, cuttlefish and paper nautilus. His claim that the octopus had a hectocotyl arm which was perhaps used in sexual reproduction was widely disbelieved, until its rediscovery in the 19th century.
Aristotle's biology | Empirical research
The modern Greek name is also anglicized "Aristotelis"; the French form is "Aristote":
Aristotle (disambiguation) | People with the given name
After Theophrastus (d. 286 BC), the extent of original work produced was diminished. Though interest in Aristotle's ideas survived, they were generally taken unquestioningly. It is not until the age of Alexandria under the Ptolemies that advances in biology can be again found. The first medical teacher at Alexandria was Herophilus of Chalcedon, who differed from Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and connected the nervous system to motion and sensation. Herophilus also distinguished between veins and arteries, noting that the latter had a pulse while the former do not. He did this using an experiment involving cutting certain veins and arteries in a pig's neck until the squealing stopped.
Ancient Greek medicine | Herophilus and Erasistratus
Some scholars place him immediately before the period when Zancle was first called Messene, but there is nothing in the words of Pausanias to require such a restriction. By extending the calculation to the other artists mentioned above, we get the following table of dates:
Aristocles (sculptors) | Introduction
In general, the details of Aristotle's life are not well-established. The biographies written in ancient times are often speculative and historians only agree on a few salient points. Aristotle, whose name means "the best purpose" in Ancient Greek, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice, about 55 km (34 miles) east of modern-day Thessaloniki. His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Both of Aristotle's parents died when he was about thirteen, and Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian. Although little information about Aristotle's childhood has survived, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy.
Aristotle | Life
Aristotle was the first person to study biology systematically, and biology forms a large part of his writings. He spent two years observing and describing the zoology of Lesbos and the surrounding seas, including in particular the Pyrrha lagoon in the centre of Lesbos. His data in "History of Animals", "Generation of Animals", "Movement of Animals", and "Parts of Animals" are assembled from his own observations, statements given by people with specialized knowledge such as beekeepers and fishermen, and less accurate accounts provided by travellers from overseas. His apparent emphasis on animals rather than plants is a historical accident: his works on botany have been lost, but two books on plants by his pupil Theophrastus have survived.
Aristotle | Empirical research
This is what Robin Smith says in English that Aristotle said in Ancient Greek: "... If M belongs to every N but to no X, then neither will N belong to any X. For if M belongs to no X, neither does X belong to any M; but M belonged to every N; therefore, X will belong to no N (for the first figure has again come about)." The above statement can be simplified by using the symbolical method used in the Middle Ages: If MaN
Prior Analytics | Syllogism in the second figure
He was the first of his intellectual circle to raise the philosophy of Plato above that of Aristotle and to teach philosophy as a professor. Surpassing Photius in intellect and wit, he lacks that scholar's dignity and solidity of character. A restless brilliance characterized his life and literary activity. At first a lawyer, then a professor; now a monk, now a court official; he ended his career the prime minister. He was equally adroit and many-sided in his literary work; in harmony with the polished, pliant nature of the courtier is his elegant Platonic style of his letters and speeches.
Byzantine literature | Encyclopedists and essayists
If, in speeches, the speaker "decides or avoids nothing at all", then those speeches "do not have character" (1450b9—11). Aristotle argues for the primacy of plot ("mythos") over character ("ethos"). He writes: Aristotle suggests that works were distinguished in the first instance according to the nature of the person who created them: "the grander people represented fine actions, i.e. those of fine persons" by producing "hymns and praise-poems", while "ordinary people represented those of inferior ones" by "composing invectives" (1448b20—1449a5). On this basis, a distinction between the individuals represented in tragedy and in comedy arose: tragedy, along with epic poetry, is "a representation of serious people" (1449b9—10), while comedy is "a representation of people who are rather inferior" (1449a32—33).
Character (arts) | Classical analysis
Aristotle discusses this in "Sophistical Refutations" and in "Prior Analytics" book II, (64b, 34–65a 9, for circular reasoning see 57b, 18–59b, 1). The stylized dialectical exchanges Aristotle discusses in the "Topics" included rules for scoring the debate, and one important issue was precisely the matter of "asking for the initial thing"—which included not just making the actual thesis adopted by the answerer into a question, but also making a question out of a sentence that was too close to that thesis (for example, "PA" II 16).
Begging the question | History
The original followers of Aristotle were the members of the Peripatetic school. The most prominent members of the school after Aristotle were Theophrastus and Strato of Lampsacus, who both continued Aristotle's researches. During the Roman era the school concentrated on preserving and defending his work. The most important figure in this regard was Alexander of Aphrodisias who commentated on Aristotle's writings. With the rise of Neoplatonism in the 3rd century, Peripateticism as an independent philosophy came to an end, but the Neoplatonists sought to incorporate Aristotle's philosophy within their own system, and produced many commentaries on Aristotle.
Aristotelianism | Ancient Greek
Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues for publication, only around a third of his original output has survived, none of it intended for publication. Aristotle's views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and were not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics were developed. Some of Aristotle's zoological observations found in his biology, such as on the hectocotyl (reproductive) arm of the octopus, were disbelieved until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, studied by medieval scholars such as Peter Abelard and John Buridan.
Aristotle | Introduction
He was born at the village of Cuts, Picardy; his father was a farmer. He gained admission at age twelve (thus about 1527) to the Collège de Navarre, working as a servant. A reaction against scholasticism was in full tide, at a transitional time for Aristotelianism. On the occasion of receiving his M.A. degree in 1536, Ramus allegedly took as his thesis "Quaecumque ab Aristotele dicta essent, commentitia esse" ("Everything that Aristotle has said is false"), which Walter J. Ong paraphrases as follows: According to Ong this kind of spectacular thesis was in fact routine at the time. Even so, Ong raises questions as to whether Ramus actually ever delivered this thesis.
Petrus Ramus | Early life
Commentaries on Aristotle refers to the great mass of literature produced, especially in the ancient and medieval world, to explain and clarify the works of Aristotle. The pupils of Aristotle were the first to comment on his writings, a tradition which was continued by the Peripatetic school throughout the Hellenistic period and the Roman era. The Neoplatonists of the late Roman empire wrote many commentaries on Aristotle, attempting to incorporate him into their philosophy. Although Ancient Greek commentaries are considered the most useful, commentaries continued to be written by the Christian scholars of the Byzantine Empire and by the many Islamic philosophers and Western scholastics who had inherited his texts.
Commentaries on Aristotle | Introduction
Aristotle was apparently receptive to such an idea, as evidenced by a passage in his "Prior Analytics": The first systematic physiognomic treatise to survive to the present day is a slim volume, "Physiognomonica" (English: "Physiognomonics"), ascribed to Aristotle (but probably of his "school" rather than created by the philosopher himself). The volume is divided into two parts, conjectured to have been originally two separate works. The first section discusses arguments drawn from nature or other races, and concentrates on the concept of human behavior. The second section focuses on animal behavior, dividing the animal kingdom into male and female types.
Physiognomy | Ancient physiognomy
All of these notions had deep philosophical problems. Aristotle (384–322 BC) was the first to put the conception on a sound philosophical basis, which he did in his natural philosophy, especially in "Physics" book I. He adopted as reasonable suppositions the four Empedoclean elements, but added a fifth, aether. Nevertheless, these elements are not basic in Aristotle's mind. Rather they, like everything else in the visible world, are composed of the basic "principles" matter and form.
Matter | Antiquity (c. 600 BC–c. 322 BC)
Aristotle was a pupil of Plato. Aristotle was perhaps the first truly systematic philosopher and scientist. He wrote about physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, politics and logic. Aristotelian logic was the first type of logic to attempt to categorize every valid syllogism. Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great, who in turn conquered much of the ancient world at a rapid pace. Hellenization and Aristotelian philosophy exercised considerable influence on almost all subsequent Western and Middle Eastern philosophers, including Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Western medieval, Jewish, and Islamic thinkers.
Western philosophy | Aristotle
In the Early Modern period, scientists such as William Harvey in England and Galileo Galilei in Italy reacted against the theories of Aristotle and other classical era thinkers like Galen, establishing new theories based to some degree on observation and experiment. Harvey demonstrated the circulation of the blood, establishing that the heart functioned as a pump rather than being the seat of the soul and the controller of the body's heat, as Aristotle thought. Galileo used more doubtful arguments to displace Aristotle's physics, proposing that bodies all fall at the same speed whatever their weight.
Aristotle | On Early Modern scientists
This is a list of commentators on the works of Aristotle who wrote in Latin, from the Late Antique to the last years of the European Middle Ages. The names are given in their Latin forms. "Sources": Taken from Charles H. Lohr, "Commentateurs d'Aristote au Moyen-Âge Latin" (1988).
List of medieval Latin commentators on Aristotle | Introduction
Aristotle (384–322 BC) was a student of Plato who famously set forth an extended treatise on rhetoric that still repays careful study today. In the first sentence of The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle says that "rhetoric is the counterpart [literally, the antistrophe] of dialectic". As the "antistrophe" of a Greek ode responds to and is patterned after the structure of the "strophe" (they form two sections of the whole and are sung by two parts of the chorus), so the art of rhetoric follows and is structurally patterned after the art of dialectic because both are arts of discourse production.
Rhetoric | Aristotle
Unfortunately, they appeared at the very end of the creative period of Greek thought, and therefore came to be accepted as authoritative. By the time that logical originality revived, a reign of two thousand years had made Aristotle very difficult to dethrone. Throughout modern times, practically every advance in science, in logic, or in philosophy has had to be made in the teeth of the opposition from Aristotle's disciples.
Aristotelianism | Criticism
Within the Aristotelian corpus itself, the metaphysical treatises are referred to as τὰ περὶ τῆς πρώτης φιλοσοφίας (literally, "the [writings] concerning first philosophy"); "first philosophy" was what Aristotle called the subjects of metaphysics. (He called the study of nature or natural philosophy "second philosophy" ("Metaphysics" 1037a15).) It is notoriously difficult to specify the date at which Aristotle wrote these treatises as a whole or even individually, especially because the "Metaphysics" is, in Jonathan Barnes' words, "a farrago, a hotch-potch", and more generally because of the difficulty of dating "any" of Aristotle's writings. In the manuscripts, books are referred to by Greek letters.
Metaphysics (Aristotle) | Title, date, and the arrangement of the treatises
Michael of Ephesus or Michael Ephesius (; fl. early or mid-12th century AD) wrote important commentaries on Aristotle, including the first full commentary on the "Sophistical Refutations", which established the regular study of that text.
Michael of Ephesus | Introduction
There has been confusion over the identify of the man in the painting because Don Antonio Ruffo did not specifically request a subject for his commission. It has been thought to be Albertus Magnus, Tasso, Ariosto, Virgil and seventeenth-century Dutch poet Pieter Cornelisz Hooft. The identity of the subject was also challenged by Simon Schama in his book called "Rembrandt's Eyes." Schama presents a substantial argument that it was the famous ancient Greek painter Apelles who is depicted in Rembrandt's painting. In 1969, Julius Held argued that it was Aristotle in the painting by analyzing his facial features, his clothes and the objects he holds.
Aristotle with a Bust of Homer | Misconceptions
Aristotle moved to Athens from his native Stageira in 367 BC and began to study philosophy (perhaps even rhetoric, under Isocrates), eventually enrolling at Plato's Academy. He left Athens approximately twenty years later to study botany and zoology, became a tutor of Alexander the Great, and ultimately returned to Athens a decade later to establish his own school: the Lyceum. At least twenty-nine of his treatises have survived, known as the "corpus Aristotelicum", and address a variety of subjects including logic, physics, optics, metaphysics, ethics, rhetoric, politics, poetry, botany, and zoology. Aristotle is often portrayed as disagreeing with his teacher Plato (e.g., in Raphael's School of Athens).
Ancient Greek philosophy | Aristotle
Another philosopher, Anaxagoras (5th century BCE), claimed that the Sun was "a fiery mass, larger than the Peloponnese"; a charge of impiety was brought against him, and he was forced to flee Athens. The first fully materialistic philosophy was produced by the atomists Leucippus and Democritus (5th century BCE), who attempted to explain the formation and development of the world in terms of the chance movements of atoms moving in infinite space. Euripides (480–406 BCE), in his play "Bellerophon", had the eponymous main character say: “Doth some one say that there be gods above? There are not; no, there are not.
History of atheism | Presocratic philosophy
One of the first known actors was an ancient Greek called Thespis of Icaria. Writing two centuries after the event, Aristotle in his "Poetics" () suggests that Thespis stepped out of the dithyrambic chorus and addressed it as a separate character. Before Thespis, the chorus narrated (for example, "Dionysus did this, Dionysus said that"). When Thespis stepped out from the chorus, he spoke as if he was the character (for example, "I am Dionysus, I did this"). To distinguish between these different modes of storytelling—enactment and narration—Aristotle uses the terms "mimesis" (via enactment) and "diegesis" (via narration). From Thespis' name derives the word "thespian".
Acting | History
This is part of a protracted debate about truth and falsity. In the case of the classical Greek city-states, interest in argumentation was also stimulated by the activities of the Rhetoricians or Orators and the Sophists, who used arguments to defend or attack a thesis, both in legal and political contexts.
History of logic | Ancient Greece before Aristotle
The earliest commentaries which survive, are those written in the 2nd century by Adrastus and Aspasius. Alexander of Aphrodisias (c. 200) was regarded by subsequent Aristotelians among the Greeks, Latins, and Muslims, as the best interpreter of Aristotle. On account of the number and value of his commentaries, he was called, by way of distinction, "The Commentator". Several of his works are still extant, among which is a treatise "On Fate", wherein he supports the doctrine of divine providence. Many of the Neoplatonists undertook to explain and illustrate the writings of Aristotle, particularly on the subject of dialectics, which Plato had left imperfect.
Commentaries on Aristotle | Greek commentators
Pseudo-Aristotle is a general for authors of philosophical or medical treatises who attributed their work to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, or whose work was later attributed to him by others. Such falsely attributed works are known as pseudepigrapha.
Pseudo-Aristotle | Introduction
Previous scholars had noted that ancient texts refer to an "Aristotle" as a teacher of Alexander of Aphrodisias, and, unaware of any 2nd-century philosophers by that name, had emended the name to "Aristocles". If Moraux's theory is correct, and Aristotle of Mytilene was Alexander's teacher, then his philosophical views are represented in a passage of Alexander's "On Intellect" dealing with the doctrine of "the external intellect".
Aristotle of Mytilene | Introduction
Ammonius quotes also an opinion of Boethus concerning the study of the works of Aristotle, viz. that the student should begin with the Physics, whereas Andronicus had maintained that the beginning should be made with the Logic writings of Aristotle. According to Giovanni Reale, in "The Schools of the Imperial Age", Boethus believed that ‘substance’ was ‘matter’ – that it was the composite of being, and not the individual form of being. Thus “form falls outside of the category of substance and enters into the scope of other categories”. The significance of this is that individuality is not only how we understand and interpret reality, but is actually the basic nature of that reality.
Boethus of Sidon | Biography
Indeed, since the 18th, very different opinions, not supported by a thorough examination according to Jourdain, were expressed on the introduction of the texts of Aristotle in medieval Christian West, its date and its Byzantine or Arabic origin: On the one hand for example, the Italian Ludovico Antonio Muratori had defended the idea of an early and exclusively Byzantine branch ("Non ergo ex Arabum penu [...], sed e Græcia"), while the Spaniard of Lebanese origin Miguel Casiri maintained that the direct translations of Greek had been very late ("[...] adeo ut hac Arabica versione latine reddita, priusquam Aristoteles Græcus repertus esset, divus Thomas ceterique scholastici usi fuerint").
Amable Jourdain | Work
However, Russell's theory analyses proper names into a logical structure which makes sense of this problem. According to Russell, Socrates can be analyzed into the form 'The Philosopher of Greece.' In the wide scope, this would then read: It is not the case that there existed a philosopher of Greece who was bald. In the narrow scope, it would read the Philosopher of Greece was not bald. According to the direct-reference view, an early version of which was originally proposed by Bertrand Russell, and perhaps earlier by Gottlob Frege, a proper name strictly has no meaning when there is no object to which it refers.
Existence | Modern approaches
Thespis (; ; fl. 6th century BC) of Icaria (present-day Dionysos, Greece), according to certain Ancient Greek sources and especially Aristotle, was the first person ever to appear on stage as an actor playing a character in a play (instead of speaking as him or herself). In other sources, he is said to have introduced the first principal actor in addition to the chorus. Thespis was a singer of dithyrambs (songs about stories from mythology with choric refrains). He is credited with introducing a new style in which one singer or actor performed the words of individual characters in the stories, distinguishing between the characters with the aid of different masks.
Thespis | Introduction
The same period saw the commentaries and paraphrases of Sophonias. In the post-Byzantine period, one of the most important Aristotelian commentators is Theophilos Corydalleus.
Commentaries on Aristotle | Byzantine commentators
Composition was not a primary subject taught in schools until the fifth century. In fact, the term “progymnasmata” first appeared in Chapter 28 of Rhetoric to Alexander, most likely written by Anaximenes of Lampsacus in the late fourth century. This work is preserved alongside those of Aristotle, yet he never mentions the use of preliminary exercises. But Aristotle does touch on the rhetorical forms, which became an aspect within the nature of progymnasmata. The use of preliminary rhetorical exercises is discussed briefly in some Greek and Roman dialogues, but all handbooks from that time remain lost today. There are only four known surviving handbooks of progymnasmata.
Progymnasmata | History
Archelaus was a philosopher of the Ionian School, called "Physicus" from having been the first to teach natural philosophy at Athens. This statement of Diogenes Laërtius, is contradicted by Clement of Alexandria, but the two may be reconciled by supposing that Archelaus was the first Athenian who did so. According to Simplicius, who probably got his information from Theophrastus, Archelaus was a native of Athens, even though Diogenes Laërtius says he was born in Miletus. He was the son of Apollodorus, or as some say, of Mydon, Midon, or Myson; was a pupil of Anaxagoras; and is said to have taught at Lampsacus before he established himself at Athens.
Archelaus (philosopher) | Life
The way Aristotle's texts were available to Eudorus is now an open field for research. Simplicius refers to him as a Peripatetic philosopher, and relates that he had written on the Aristotelian "Categories". He was a native of Alexandria, and had, like Aristo of Alexandria, written a work on the Nile.
Eudorus of Alexandria | Introduction
In Paris, he studied painting at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts from 1954 to 1957 under the direction of . Alongside, during 1954 and 1955, he studied lithography with professor . From 1955 to 1957 at the École pratique des hautes études he studied architectural analysis of the ancient Greek style and anecdotal evidence for Delphi with professor Pierre de La Coste-Messelière who was also the department manager. In 1958 he attended the first and second year of studies at the École du Louvre and also the general history of art. Having studied for many years in Greece and abroad, with guidance from important artists he continued until 1964.
Thanassis Stephopoulos | First Period
With the loss of the study of ancient Greek in the early medieval Latin West, Aristotle was practically unknown there from c. AD 600 to c. 1100 except through the Latin translation of the "Organon" made by Boethius. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, interest in Aristotle revived and Latin Christians had translations made, both from Arabic translations, such as those by Gerard of Cremona, and from the original Greek, such as those by James of Venice and William of Moerbeke. After the Scholastic Thomas Aquinas wrote his "Summa Theologica", working from Moerbeke's translations and calling Aristotle "The Philosopher", the demand for Aristotle's writings grew, and the Greek manuscripts returned to the West, stimulating a revival of Aristotelianism in Europe that continued into the Renaissance.
Aristotle | On medieval Europe
These thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages. Scholars such as Boethius, Peter Abelard, and John Buridan worked on Aristotelian logic. The medieval English poet Chaucer describes his student as being happy by having A cautionary medieval tale held that Aristotle advised his pupil Alexander to avoid the king's seductive mistress, Phyllis, but was himself captivated by her, and allowed her to ride him. Phyllis had secretly told Alexander what to expect, and he witnessed Phyllis proving that a woman's charms could overcome even the greatest philosopher's male intellect. Artists such as Hans Baldung produced a series of illustrations of the popular theme.
Aristotle | On medieval Europe
This period of intellectual brilliance was to be short lived and Liantinis wrote that "it would be a sign of honesty if the Greeks where to stop philosophizing right after Aristotle" ["Πολυχρόνιο" 2005]. In contrast, today, Greeks are completely unknown as "...for the Europeans [...] we, the 'New-Greeks', are but a faceless bunch, something of a Balko-Turkish Arab. We are the Ortodox [intentionally misspelled] with the Russian-like writing [...] and the domes on our village houses" ["Gemma" 1997]. On this topic, he often touched upon the highly controversial issue of the alleged superiority of Greek to Jewish culture, the former being expressed through the ancient philosophers and folk mythology and the latter through the great Judaic religions of Judaism, Islam and most importantly Christianity.
Dimitris Liantinis | Core philosophical views
Unlike some earlier scholastic philosophers, he was literate in Greek, and was therefore able to use the Greek texts of Aristotle. He devoted much effort to presenting what he considered to be the true meaning of Aristotle's texts.
Jacopo Zabarella | Work
While discussing his "new science", now associated with the social sciences, Ibn Khaldūn states that no other author before him, as far as he was aware, had written about it. However, he was aware that much knowledge of the past had been lost, and thus he was open to the possibility that someone might have anticipated him but that their work had not survived: Ibn Khaldūn characterized Aristotle as "the First Teacher", for his having "improved the methods of logic and systematized its problems and details".
Muqaddimah | Assessment of various civilizations
Questions on Aristotle were printed in a number of editions at Cologne, from 1485 onwards.
John Versor | Works
After Theophrastus, though interest in Aristotle's ideas survived, they were generally taken unquestioningly. It is not until the age of Alexandria under the Ptolemies that advances in biology resumed. The first medical teacher at Alexandria, Herophilus of Chalcedon, corrected Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and connected the nervous system to motion and sensation. Herophilus also distinguished between veins and arteries, noting that the latter pulse while the former do not.
Aristotle's biology | On Hellenistic medicine
In the Early Modern period, Aristotle came to represent all that was obsolete, scholastic, and wrong, not helped by his association with medieval theology. In 1632, Galileo represented Aristotelianism in his "Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo" (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems) by the strawman Simplicio ("Simpleton"). That same year, William Harvey proved Aristotle wrong by demonstrating that blood circulates. Aristotle still represented the enemy of true science into the 20th century. Leroi noted that in 1985, Peter Medawar stated in "pure seventeenth century" tones that Aristotle had assembled "a strange and generally speaking rather tiresome farrago of hearsay, imperfect observation, wishful thinking and credulity amounting to downright gullibility".
Aristotle's biology | Early Modern rejection
Pericles, the leader of Athens during the period of its greatest glory was an admirer of Anaxagoras. Other influential pre-Socratics or rational philosophers include Protagoras (like Anaxagoras a friend of Pericles), known for his famous dictum "man is the measure of all things" and Democritus, who proposed that matter was composed of atoms. Little of the written work of these early philosophers survives and they are known mainly from fragments and quotations in other writers, principally Plato and Aristotle. The historian Thucydides, noted for his scientific and rational approach to history, is also much admired by later humanists. In the 3rd century BCE, Epicurus became known for his concise phrasing of the problem of evil, lack of belief in the afterlife, and human-centred approaches to achieving eudaimonia.
Humanism | Ancient Greece
The Problems (; ) is an Aristotelian or possibly pseudo-Aristotelian, as its authenticity has been questioned, collection of problems written in a question and answer format. The collection, gradually assembled by the peripatetic school, reached its final form anywhere between the third century BC to the 6th century AD. The work is divided by topic into 38 sections, and the whole contains almost 900 problems. Later writers of "Problemata" include Plutarch, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Cassius Iatrosophista.
Problems (Aristotle) | Introduction
The secondary literature on Aristotle is vast. The following is only a small selection.
Aristotle | Further reading
Job is the prophetic answer to the question of evil in our world. Ancient Greece gave us the philosopher: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. One factor in the rise of philosophy was the transition from oral to written knowledge. Complex thoughts could be retained, referenced and augmented. Greek society was the first to celebrate the thinker, the rationalist and this questioning attitude became a hallmark of Western Civilization. Boorstin especially praises Aristotle for his searching and curious mind, his introduction of classification and his nascent hints at modern science. But more than that he state, "I admire his appeal to common sense and experience.
The Seekers (book) | Book One: An Ancient Heritage
In Aristotle's conception, humans are destined "by nature" to live in a political association and take short turns at ruling, inclusively, participating in making legislative, judicial and executive decisions. But Aristotle's sense of "inclusiveness" was limited to adult Greek males born in the polity: women, children, slaves, and foreigners (that is, resident aliens), were generally excluded from political participation.
History of citizenship | Aristotle on citizenship
However, for years, the IMA identified the subject as Archimedes due to the geometric drawings in his hand, although that particular philosopher was not mentioned in the inventory.
Aristotle (Ribera painting) | Historical information
The first pupils of Aristotle commentated on his writings, but often with a view to expand his work. Thus Theophrastus invented five moods of syllogism in the first figure, in addition to the four invented by Aristotle, and stated with additional accuracy the rules of hypothetical syllogisms. He also often differed with his master, including in collecting much information concerning animals and natural events, which Aristotle had omitted. During the early Roman empire we find few celebrated names among the Peripatetic philosophers. Nicolaus of Damascus wrote several treatises on the philosophy of Aristotle; and Alexander of Aegae also wrote commentaries on Aristotle.
Commentaries on Aristotle | Greek commentators
In the Classical period there was a revolution in Greek statuary, usually associated with the introduction of democracy and the end of the aristocratic culture associated with the "kouroi". The Classical period saw changes in the style and function of sculpture. Poses became more naturalistic (see the Charioteer of Delphi for an example of the transition to more naturalistic sculpture), and the technical skill of Greek sculptors in depicting the human form in a variety of poses greatly increased. From about 500 BC statues began to depict real people. The statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton set up in Athens to mark the overthrow of the tyranny were said to be the first public monuments to actual people.
Ancient Greek art | Classical
The works of Aristotle that have survived from antiquity through medieval manuscript transmission are collected in the Corpus Aristotelicum. These texts, as opposed to Aristotle's lost works, are technical philosophical treatises from within Aristotle's school. Reference to them is made according to the organization of Immanuel Bekker's Royal Prussian Academy edition ("Aristotelis Opera edidit Academia Regia Borussica", Berlin, 1831–1870), which in turn is based on ancient classifications of these works.
Aristotle | Corpus Aristotelicum
The period of writing and studying in Athens is known as the "Athenian period" of Parlichev's life, as defined by the author Raymond Detrez.
O Armatolos | Background
In Aristotle's time, philosophy included natural philosophy, which preceded the advent of modern science during the Scientific Revolution. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the Peripatetic school and later on by the Neoplatonists, who produced many commentaries on Aristotle's writings. In the Islamic Golden Age, Avicenna and Averroes translated the works of Aristotle into Arabic and under them, along with philosophers such as Al-Kindi and Al-Farabi, Aristotelianism became a major part of early Islamic philosophy. Moses Maimonides adopted Aristotelianism from the Islamic scholars and based his "Guide for the Perplexed" on it and that became the basis of Jewish scholastic philosophy.
Aristotelianism | Introduction
Benedetti critiqued those anatomists who trusted in the authorities more than their own experience: “Aristotle has had so much authority for so many centuries that even those things which [physicians] have not seen they will affirm to exist, even without experiment.” Benedetti valued personal observation over blind trust in the authorities and even, shockingly for the time, corrected Aristotle. “Aristotle believes that the nerves first arise from the heart… but almost all of them (as is more evidently established) are perceived to originate in large part from the brain….” Medieval scholars preferred to trust the authorities over their own observations, while this new generation of anatomists increasingly valued the experience over theory.
Alessandro Benedetti | Introduction
There is no evidence for the reception or translation of Aristotle's "Politics" by Arabic philosophers during the Islamic Golden Age. It was introduced to the Latin West by William of Moerbeke's Latin translation from the Greek original in the 1260s. Soon after the translation was finished, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas wrote commentaries on it, trying to illuminate its sometimes obscure meaning and to reconcile it with Christian doctrine. Thomas' unfinished commentary was continued by Peter of Auvergne. The first known French translation of the "Politics" by Pierre de Paris is lost. Before starting work on his own translation, Oresme was already a distinguished academic.
Livre de Politiques | Historical background
According to a tradition, the first person to have a developed designation of applied to his activities, ergo himself was a pupil of Theophrastus, the philosopher of the peripatetic school of Praxiphanes of Rhodes, active and flourishing about 300 BC, although another tradition suggests that Antidorus might instead have been the first γραμματικός.
Antidorus of Cyme | Arguments
Aristotle, in his biology initially believed the heart to be the seat of intelligence, and saw the brain as a cooling mechanism for the blood. He reasoned that humans are more rational than the beasts because, among other reasons, they have a larger brain to cool their hot-bloodedness. Aristotle did describe the meninges and distinguished between the cerebrum and cerebellum. Herophilus of Chalcedon in the fourth and third centuries BC distinguished the cerebrum and the cerebellum, and provided the first clear description of the ventricles; and with Erasistratus of Ceos experimented on living brains. Their works are now mostly lost, and we know about their achievements due mostly to secondary sources.
Human brain | Early history
The study of the Character, as it is now known, was conceived by Aristotle's student Theophrastus. In "The Characters" (c. 319 BC), Theophrastus introduced the "character sketch", which became the core of "the Character as a genre". It included 30 character types. Each type is said to be an illustration of an individual who represents a group, characterized by his most prominent trait. The Theophrastan types are as follows: It is unclear from where Theophraestes derived these types, but many strongly resemble those from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Despite the fact that Theophrastus sought to portray character types and not individuals, some of the sketches may have been drawn from observations of actual persons in Athenian public life.
Stock character | Ancient Greece
The line of the Aristotelian commentators was continued to the later ages of the Byzantine Empire. In the 12th century Anna Comnena organised a group of scholars which included the commentators Michael of Ephesus, and Eustratius of Nicaea who employed himself upon the dialectic and moral treatises, and whom she does not hesitate to elevate above the Stoics and Platonists for his talent in philosophical discussions. Nicephorus Blemmydes wrote logical and physical epitomes for the use of John III Doukas Vatatzes; George Pachymeres composed an epitome of the philosophy of Aristotle, and a compendium of his logic: Theodore Metochites, who was famous in his time for his eloquence and his learning, has left a paraphrase of the books of Aristotle on "Physics", "On the Soul", "On the Heavens", etc.
Commentaries on Aristotle | Byzantine commentators
In the "Prior Analytics" translated by A. J. Jenkins as it appears in volume 8 of the Great Books of the Western World, Aristotle says of the First Figure: "... If A is predicated of all B, and B of all C, A must be predicated of all C." In the "Prior Analytics" translated by Robin Smith, Aristotle says of the first figure: "... For if A is predicated of every B and B of every C, it is necessary for A to be predicated of every C." Taking a = is predicated of all = is predicated of every, and using the symbolical method used in the Middle Ages, then the first figure is simplified to: If AaB
Prior Analytics | Syllogism in the first figure
Aspasius (; ; c. 80 – c. 150 AD) was a Peripatetic philosopher. Boethius, who frequently refers to his works, says that Aspasius wrote commentaries on most of the works of Aristotle. The following commentaries are expressly mentioned: on "De Interpretatione", the "Physica", "Metaphysica", "Categoriae", and the "Nicomachean Ethics". A portion of the commentary on the "Nicomachean Ethics" (books 1, 2, 4, 7, and 8) is extant. The Greek text of this commentary has been published as "Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca" (CAG) vol. 19.1, and David Konstan has published an English translation. It is notable as the earliest extant commentary on any of Aristotle's works.
Aspasius | Introduction
Kriaras worked on, and promoted research in, the problems related to medieval and modern Greek philology, lexicography and comparative grammatology, with his heart in the demotic language and the movements connected with its promotion. In 2006, in recognition of his work and to mark his 100th birthday, he was awarded the "Golden Aristotle" by the University of Thessaloniki.
Emmanuel Kriaras | Professional life
Thales of Miletus, regarded by Aristotle as the first philosopher, held that all things arise from a single material substance, water. It is not because he gave a cosmogony that John Burnet calls him the "first man of science," but because he gave a naturalistic explanation of the cosmos and supported it with reasons. According to tradition, Thales was able to predict an eclipse and taught the Egyptians how to measure the height of the pyramids. Thales inspired the Milesian school of philosophy and was followed by Anaximander, who argued that the substratum or "arche" could not be water or any of the classical elements but was instead something "unlimited" or "indefinite" (in Greek, the "apeiron").
Ancient Greek philosophy | Milesian school
This law was widely disregarded in practice, but was never abolished, which meant that orators could "never" present themselves as legal professionals or experts. They had to uphold the legal fiction that they were merely an ordinary citizen generously helping out a friend for free, and thus they could never organize into a real profession—with professional associations and titles and all the other pomp and circumstance—like their modern counterparts. Therefore, if one narrows the definition to those men who could practice the legal profession openly and legally, then the first lawyers would have to be the orators of ancient Rome.
Lawyer | Ancient Greece
Aristotle first used the term ethics to name a field of study developed by his predecessors Socrates and Plato. In philosophy, ethics is the attempt to offer a rational response to the question of how humans should best live. Aristotle regarded ethics and politics as two related but separate fields of study, since ethics examines the good of the individual, while politics examines the good of the City-State, which he considered to be the best type of community. Aristotle's writings have been read more or less continuously since ancient times, and his ethical treatises in particular continue to influence philosophers working today.
Aristotelian ethics | Introduction
The historical period of ancient Greece is unique in world history as the first period attested directly in proper historiography, while earlier ancient history or proto-history is known by much more circumstantial evidence, such as annals, chronicles, king lists, and pragmatic epigraphy. Herodotus is widely known as the "father of history", his "Histories" being eponymous of the entire field. Written between the 450s and 420s BC, the scope of Herodotus's work reaches about a century in the past, discussing 6th century historical figures such as Darius I of Persia, Cambyses II, and Psamtik III and alludes to some 8th century ones such as Candaules.
Hellenic historiography | Overview
Pomponazzi claimed the right to study Aristotle for himself, and devoted himself to the "De anima" with the view of showing that Thomas Aquinas had entirely misconceived the Aristotelian theory of the active and the passive intellect.
Pietro Pomponazzi | Biography
Until the early modern era, much of the discussion which has survived today concerning "nous" or intellect, in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, concerned how to correctly interpret Aristotle and Plato. However, at least during the classical period, materialist philosophies, more similar to modern science, such as Epicureanism, were still relatively common also. The Epicureans believed that the bodily senses themselves were not the cause of error, but the interpretations can be. The term "prolepsis" was used by Epicureans to describe the way the mind forms general concepts from sense perceptions. To the Stoics, more like Heraclitus than Anaxagoras, order in the cosmos comes from an entity called logos, the cosmic reason.
Nous | Post Aristotelian classical theories
Anaximander, son of Praxiades, was born in the third year of the 42nd Olympiad (610 BC). According to Apollodorus of Athens, Greek grammarian of the 2nd century BC, he was sixty-four years old during the second year of the 58th Olympiad (547–546 BC), and died shortly afterwards. Establishing a timeline of his work is now impossible, since no document provides chronological references. Themistius, a 4th-century Byzantine rhetorician, mentions that he was the "first of the known Greeks to publish a written document on nature." Therefore, his texts would be amongst the earliest written in prose, at least in the Western world.
Anaximander | Biography
Thomaeus was born in Venice, Italy on February 1, 1456 to a Greek family from Epirus. While in Florence, he studied Greek philosophy and literature under the tutelage of Demetrios Chalcondyles. In 1497, the University of Padua appointed Thomaeus as its first official lecturer on the Greek text of Aristotle. In 1504, he was elected to succeed Giorgio Valla as chair of Greek in Venice, but because Thomaeus failed to take the post seriously, he was succeeded in 1512 by Marcus Musurus. In 1524, Thomaeus published a collection of philosophical dialogues in Latin, the first of which was titled "Trophonius, sive, De divinatione".
Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus | Biography