Aristotle was born in 384 BC in the town of Stagira, state of Macedonia, in northern Greece. His father was a physician. He was a gifted student and therefore was sent to Athens to study in the Academy of Plato. He remained there for some twenty years until Plato died.
In 342, he returned home and was employed by King Phillip of Macedonia as the private tutor for his 13-year-old son, later to be known as Alexander the Great. When Alexander ascended the throne, Aristotle returned to Athens where he opened his own school which he called the Lyceum. Alexander sent Aristotle funds to support the school and to aid in his research.
Both the quantity and the quality of Aristotle's work is astonishing. He authored at least 170 books, 47 of which have survived. He was the personification of all knowledge in the ancient world. He studied, wrote about, and became the worlds' acknowledged expert in every field of science from astronomy to zoology.
Italy
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Detail of The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio...Part of his knowledge represented a compilation of knowledge acquired by others, sometimes obtained through the help of research assistants and part of it was the result of original research and his own observations. He left his strongest influence on the fields of anatomy, physiology, physics, geology, geography, and astronomy.
Impressive as these accomplishments were, they only begin to describe his contributions. Aristotle wrote about psychology, theology, and economics and is generally recognized as the greatest name in philosophy. He made important and original contributions to each of the five branches of philosophy. His contributions to the study of ethics, politics, aesthetics, and metaphysics are particularly significant. However, it his work on the theory of logic that has most impressed historians. He invented this branch of philosophy and it was his logical mind which allowed...