Aristotle
Biographical note
Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology.
Together with Plato and Socrates, Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. He was the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics. Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian Physics. In the biological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the nineteenth century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late nineteenth century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially Eastern Orthodox theology, and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today.
Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived
See also:
Works
Organon (collected works on logic):
- Categories (or Categoriae)
translated by E. M. Edghill - On Interpretation (or De Interpretatione)
translated by E. M. Edghill - Prior Analytics (or Analytica Priora)
translated by A. J. Jenkinson - Posterior Analytics (or Analytica Posteriora)
translated by G. R. G. Mure - Topics (or Topica)
translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge - On Sophistical Refutations (or De Sophisticis Elenchis)
translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge
Physical and scientific writings
- Physics (or Physica)
translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye - On the Heavens (or De Caelo)
translated by J. L. Stocks - On Generation and Corruption (or De Generatione et Corruptione)
translated by H. H. Joachim - Meteorology (or Meteorologica)
translated by E. W. Webster - On the Universe (or De Mundo, or On the Cosmos) *
- On the Soul (or De Anima)
translated by J. A. Smith
Parva Naturalia (or Little Physical Treatises):
- On sense and the sensible (or De Sensu et Sensibilibus)
translated by J. I. Beare - On memory and reminiscence (or De Memoria et Reminiscentia)
translated by J. I. Beare - On sleep and sleeplessness (or De Somno et Vigilia)
translated by J. I. Beare - On Dreams (or De Insomniis)
translated by J. I. Beare - On prophesying by dreams (or De Divinatione per Somnum)
translated by J. I. Beare - On longevity and shortness of life (or De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae)
translated by G. R. T. Ross - On Youth, Old Age, Life and Death, and Respiration (or De Juventute et Senectute, De Vita et
Morte, De Respiratione)
translated by G. R. T. Ross
- On Breath (or De Spiritu) *
- The History of Animals (or Historia Animalium, or Description of Animals)
translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson - On the parts of Animals (or De Partibus Animalium)
translated by William Ogle - On the motion of animals (or De Motu Animalium)
translated by A. S. L. Farquharson - On the Gait of Animals (or De Incessu Animalium)
translated by A. S. L. Farquharson - On the Generation of Animals (or De Generatione Animalium)
translated by Arthur Platt - On Colors (or De Coloribus) *
- On Things Heard (or De audibilibus) *
- Physiognomics (or Physiognomonica) *
- On Plants (or De Plantis) *
- On Marvellous Things Heard (or De mirabilibus auscultationibus) *
- Mechanics (or Mechanica or Mechanical Problems) *
- Problems (or Problemata)
- On Indivisible Lines (or De Lineis Insecabilibus) *
- The Situations and Names of Winds (or Ventorum Situs) *
- On Melissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias (or MXG) *
- Metaphysics (or Metaphysica)
translated by W. D. Ross
Ethical writings
- Nicomachean Ethics (or Ethica Nicomachea, or The Ethics)
translated by W. D. Ross - Magna Moralia (or Great Ethics) *
- Eudemian Ethics (or Ethica Eudemia)
- On Virtues and Vices (or De Virtutibus et Vitiis Libellus, Libellus de virtutibus) *
- Politics (or Politica)
translated by Benjamin Jowett - Economics (or Oeconomica)
- The Athenian Constitution (or Athenaion Politeia)
translated by Sir Frederic G. Kenyon
Aesthetic writings
- Rhetoric (or Ars Rhetorica, or The Art of Rhetoric or Treatise on Rhetoric)
translated by W. Rhys Roberts - Rhetoric to Alexander (or Rhetorica ad Alexandrum) *
- Poetics (or Ars Poetica)
translated by S. H. Butcher