Aristotle’s Biography Report

Aristotle was an Ancient Greek philosopher and scientist who is still considered

one of the greatest thinkers in politics, psychology and ethics. He was the founder of the

Lyceum and the Peripatetic school of philosophy and Aristotleian tradition. He was born

in 384 BC Stagira, Chalcidian League. Both of his parents were members of traditional

medical families and his parents died when he was young. At age 17, he was sent to

Athens to enroll in Plato’s Academy. He spent 20 years as a student and teacher at the

school, emerging with both a great respect and a good deal of criticism for his teacher’s

theories. When Plato died he spent five years on the coast of Asia Minor as a guest of

former students and his pioneering research into marine biology led him to marry his

wife Pythias, with whom he had his only daughter, also named Pythias. Aristotle was

summoned to Macedonia by King Philip II to tutor his son, Alexander the Great. When

he returns to Athens in 335 BC, he couldn’t own a property, so he rented a space in the

Lyceum. Like Plato’s Academy, the Lyceum attracted students from the Greek world and

developed a curriculum centered on its founder’s teachings.

Aristotle uses mathematics and mathematical sciences in three important ways in

his treatises. Throughout the corpus, he constructs mathematical arguments for various

theses, especially in the physical writings, but also in the biology and ethics. Aristotle's

philosophy of mathematics provides an important alternative to platonism. His

philosophy of mathematics may better be understood as a philosophy of exact or

mathematical sciences.