The years of Aristotle's life a brief biography. What is Aristotle famous for?

Ancient Greek philosopher. Studied with Plato in Athens; in 335 BC. e. founded the Lyceum, or Peripatetic school. Educator of Alexander the Great. Aristotle's writings cover all branches of knowledge of that time. Founder of formal logic, creator of syllogistic. "First Philosophy" (later called metaphysics) contains the doctrine of the basic principles of being. He vacillated between materialism and idealism. Main works: logical code "Organon" ("Categories", "On Interpretation", "Analysts" 1st and 2nd, "Topeka"), "Metaphysics", "Physics", "On the Origin of Animals", "On soul", "Ethics", "Politics", "Rhetoric", "Politics". Aristotle was born in Stageira, a Greek colony located on the northwestern coast of the Aegean Sea. Torn off from Hellas, Stagir and its neighboring policies (sovereign city-states, including the lands adjacent to them) surrounded the Illyrian and Thracian tribes, who were then still at the tribal stage of social development. Aristotle's father, Nicomachus, was a court physician under Amyntas III, king of Macedon; Nicomachus came from a family of hereditary doctors. He was Aristotle's first mentor and passed on his knowledge of natural science and medicine to him. Aristotle spent his childhood at the court, communicating with his peer - Amynta's son Philip, the future Macedonian king. Subsequently, Aristotle was the tutor of his son - Alexander the Great.

The free way of life of Aristotle gave rise to various rumors. It was said that he lost his fortune in revelry and, in order to earn a living, chose the profession of a drogist. In reality, Aristotle, who did not suffer restraints, never indulged in excesses; he knew medicine and in Athens provided medical care when they called for her. But at that time every physician made and sold medicines to his patients; hence the absurd rumor. Aristotle spent seventeen years in Plato's company. There is reason to believe that Plato loved his brilliant and recalcitrant student and not only gave him all his knowledge, but poured his whole soul into him. A close friendship developed between the teacher and the student with all its attributes - temporary quarrels, hot reconciliation, etc. Aristotle was often accused of ingratitude towards Plato, but the best refutation of this is the words of Aristotle himself about his attitude towards Plato. In one of three surviving poems, he wrote that a bad person does not even have the right to praise Plato, who was the first to show, both by his way of life and by his teaching, that to be good and to be happy are two sides of the same desire. In the "Ethics of Nicomachus" he, as always, laconicly, reports how hard it is for him, for the sake of truth, to speak against Plato. Indeed, in polemics with the creator of ideas, he always spoke in a restrained and deeply respectful tone. Until the death of Plato, Aristotle did not open his own school, although his philosophical views had long been developed. Despite this, he only taught rhetoric. In his lectures, he argued with the sophist Isocrates, striking him with ridicule. Isocrates was about eighty years old at the time. Actually, it was not worth fighting with him, but Aristotle in his person beat all the sophists. Among the disciples of Aristotle was Hermias, the slave of the Atarnean tyrant; afterwards, by virtue of his friendship with his master and his education, he became his successor.

So, Aristotle studied at Plato's Academy for about twenty years. He had little interest political life. In 355 BC. e. Aristotle's position in Athens, where he, as a non-resident, did not have political and civil rights, was somewhat strengthened in connection with the coming to power of the pro-Macedonian party. However, Aristotle and Xenocrates decided to leave Athens. They were prompted to this by their unwillingness to remain in the Academy under the command of Plato's nephew Speusippus, who became a scholar not due to his superiority, but only because the property of the Academy passed to him as Plato's heir.

Leaving the great city, Aristotle, together with Xenocrates, went to Central Asia and accepted the invitation of his beloved disciple Hermias, the tyrant of the Asia Minor city of Atarney, to stay with him in coastal Assos. Brought up in Athens and devoted to philosophy, the ardent Hermias cherished the dream of freeing all the Greek cities of Asia Minor from the Persian yoke. Desires Hermias could not but share Aristotle; probably, the great philosopher played an important role in this matter, because it was not for nothing that Aristotle's journey at that time was given the character of a diplomatic mission. But Diogenes Laertes was still wrong when he said that the Athenians sent Aristotle as an ambassador to the Macedonian king.

Hermia suffered a tragic fate. The exact date of his death is not known. The following happened to him. Unwillingly connected with the Persians, Hermias, however, negotiated with Philip II, who was already plotting an all-Hellenic war with the Persian monarchy of the Achaemenids. The fugitive Greek Mentor, who was in the service of the Persian king, involved Hermias in a conspiracy and then betrayed him to Artaxerxes, who ordered the tyrant Atarney to be killed. Before his death, Hermias asked to be told to his philosopher friends that he did nothing that would be unworthy of philosophy.

The death of Hermias deeply saddened Aristotle, perhaps even more because he died for an idea that had matured in the mind of the philosopher himself. Aristotle poured out his grief in two poems that have come down to us. The first is a hymn to virtue. Here is its beginning:

“O virtue that makes people conquer their nature, you are the first of the treasures that a person should try to win for himself. For your sake, Greece, happy in her suffering, invariably endures endless grief. For your holy beauty, a noble and pure maiden, she sees the death of her sons "So beautiful is the eternal fruit with which you captivate the souls of heroes. The Greeks prefer this fruit to nobility of origin, gold and sweet peace."

Another poem is a quatrain representing the inscription on the monument erected by Aristotle to Hermias in the Temple of Delphi:

"One Persian king, an opponent of all laws, killed the one who is depicted here. A magnanimous enemy would try to defeat him openly with weapons; a traitor betrayed him, entangling him with networks of false friendship."

Aristotle acted like a true Greek: his friend died, whom he undoubtedly considered a model of virtue; and he does not mourn the loss in his poems, does not express his feelings, but sings a hymn of virtue in his honor. This hymn served as the motive of Horace for one of his best odes. Aristotle was an enemy of the Persians, whose yoke he considered the greatest evil for Greece. What brought him closer to the Macedonian king was a general hatred for them, for barbarism, and not for deep cosmopolitanism, as some suggested.

Aristotle spent three years in this city (348 (347) -345 BC), here he found himself, here his own worldview was determined Aristotle married younger sister Hermias, Pythiades; the girl was left after the death of her brother without protection and without any means of subsistence. Aristotle took a brotherly part in her fate, and then they were brought together by a common grief.

The anger of the Persian king was so great that Aristotle had to save the life of a young girl and his own. For the next three years, the thinker lived in the city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, neighboring Assos, where he was invited by Theophrastus, a friend and assistant, a native of those places. Xenocrates returned to Athens.

Pythiades lived with Aristotle for a long time, she felt completely happy with him; dying, she bequeathed that her remains be placed in the grave of her beloved husband. Having survived his wife, Aristotle in his will mentioned this desire of hers. From Pythiades, Aristotle had a daughter, Pythias the Younger.

During his stay on the island of Lesvos, Aristotle received an invitation from the Macedonian king Philip to come to Macedonia and become the tutor of his son Alexander.

Tradition says that in the year of the birth of the heir to the throne, Philip wrote a letter to Aristotle with the following content: "The King of Macedon welcomes Aristotle. I inform you that my son was born; but I thank the gods not so much for giving me a son, but for his birth in the time of Aristotle; because I hope that your instructions will make him worthy to succeed me and command the Macedonians."

At the end of the 340s BC. e. Aristotle arrived in the new capital of Macedonia - the city of Pella. Aristotle devoted three years to the upbringing of Alexander. It is difficult to say what was Aristotle's method of education and how he managed to ennoble the character of the future "conqueror of the world", distinguished by reckless courage, irascibility, stubbornness and boundless ambition. But, of course, Aristotle did not seek to make a philosopher out of Alexander and did not torment him with geometry, but found the main means of education in poetry, and especially in Homer's epic. They say that Aristotle "published" Homer's Iliad especially for his pupil, thanks to which he found his ideal in Achilles. Subsequently, Alexander allegedly said: "I honor Aristotle on a par with my father, because if I owe my life to my father, then Aristotle - that gives her a price." Alexander's education ended when the latter became co-ruler of Macedonia.

During his eight years' stay in Macedonia, Aristotle was chiefly concerned with the observation of nature; this can be attributed partly to the influence of memories, partly to the fact that the too varied court life interfered with occupations that required great concentration and mental exertion. Philip, and then Alexander, spared nothing to provide Aristotle with the opportunity to study the sciences. Alexander, himself prone to science, gave Aristotle a substantial amount of money, more than a thousand people were obliged to deliver him rare animals, plants, etc. The death of Philip found Aristotle still in Macedonia, he spent the first years of his reign with his pupil, but when Alexander went on a campaign to Asia, Aristotle left for Athens, leaving Alexandra instead of his nephew and student, the philosopher Callisthenes. Aristotle was fifty at the time. Some historians claim that Aristotle accompanied Alexander on the first campaigns to distant lands, and cite Aristotle's observations of the life of animals that were not easy to transport to Macedonia to confirm their guesses. It is only known for certain that at the beginning of the reign, Alexander was associated with his former teacher common interests, but the philosopher Callisthenes served as a living link between them. Aristotle returned to his homeland - to Stagira, destroyed by Philip II in the war against Athens. There he spent three years (339-336 BC). At this time (338 BC), a decisive event for the whole of Hellas took place - the battle of Chaeronea (in Boeotia), in which Philip II defeated the united Greek army and became the ruler of all Hellas. The era of classical Greece as a set of policies ends here. Having come to power, Alexander, out of respect for his teacher, restored the destroyed Stagir. Grateful compatriots erected a magnificent building in honor of the thinker, where he could teach his philosophy, surrounded by love and honor, but Aristotle decided to return to Athens.

In 335 BC. e. the philosopher arrived there with his wife Pythiades, with his daughter and pupil Nicanor. In the Academy at that time, the head of the Platonic school was Xenocrates Aristotle, with the support of the Macedonians, and first of all of his friend Antipater, whom Alexander, who had gone on a campaign against the Persians, left as governor in the Balkans, opened his own school. True, as a nonresident, he was allowed to open a school only outside the city - to the east of the city border of Athens, in Lyceum. Previously, the Lyceum was one of the Athenian gymnasiums (a place for gymnastic exercises). It was located next to the place of Apollo Lyceum, which gave the name to both the gymnasium and the school of Aristotle.

On the territory of the school there was a shady grove and a garden with covered galleries for walking. Since "walk" and "covered gallery around the courtyard" in ancient Greek "peripatos", the school of Aristotle received a second name - "peripathic". True, there is another version of the origin of this name. Aristotle taught while walking along the shady alleys. Diogenes Laertes says that this habit developed as a result of Aristotle's concern for Alexander, whom he forbade much to sit. From this habit the school got its name.

Soon after the relocation of Aristotle to Athens, his wife Pythiades died, Aristotle bitterly mourned his loss and erected a mausoleum for her. Two years after her death, however, he married his slave Harpymides, from whom his son Nicomachus was born.

Aristotle taught classes twice a day - in the morning and in the evening, in the mornings he talked about difficult subjects with students familiar with the beginnings of philosophy, and in the evenings he taught beginners. Xenocrates, having many students, established a certain discipline for them, appointed archons in turn and arranged banquets for them. Aristotle liked this, and he introduced the same tradition in his school, adding a new rule that students should appear at banquets only in clean clothes. This characterizes Aristotle and betrays the slovenliness of other philosophers of his time.

Aristotle began to study early and began to teach late, this is his advantage. With the exception of the years devoted to Alexander the Great, he devoted his whole life to obtaining knowledge and independent work of thought. Aristotle argued that after fifty years of mental strength weakens, this is the time when you need to reap what you sowed before.

Most of his writing was written in Athens during the last thirteen years of his life. Such work was able to absorb all the time. In those years when Aristotle wrote his writings and patiently explained to his students the features of his philosophy, Athens was a real volcano, ready to erupt. Hatred of the Macedonians seethed in the hearts of the Athenians and threatened to produce devastating devastation. The second Athenian period coincides entirely with the period of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, in other words, with the "epoch of Alexander." Aristotle tried to instill in Alexander the idea of ​​a fundamental difference between Greeks and non-Greeks. His open letter to Alexander "On colonization" was not successful with the king. The latter led a completely different policy in the Middle East; he prevented the mixing of the alien, Greek, and local population. In addition, he imagined himself as an oriental demigod despot and demanded appropriate honors from his friends and associates.

Aristotle's nephew Callisthenes, who was Alexander's historiographer, refused to recognize the transformation of the Macedonian monarch into a pharaoh and was executed, which led to a cooling of relations between the former pupil and the former educator. The unexpected death of thirty-three-year-old Alexander in Babylon (which he intended to make the capital of his state) on June 13, 323 BC. e. caused an anti-Macedonian uprising in Athens, during which representatives of the pro-Macedonian party were subjected to repression.

Although Aristotle kept aloof and behaved like a true sage, his position became dangerous every day. Having no good reason for his exile, the Athenians accused him of disrespect for the gods. The high priest of the Eleusinian mysteries charged him with the stereotypical accusation of blasphemy. The reason for this was Aristotle's poem on the death of Hermias. It qualified as a paean - a hymn in honor of God, which was not befitting a mortal, and therefore was considered blasphemy. Without waiting for the trial, Aristotle handed over the management of the Lyceum to Theophrastus and left the city so that the Athenians would not again commit a crime against philosophy, he meant the death of Socrates.

Perhaps the thinker hastened to flee, his friend Antipater soon crushed the uprising in Athens and the power of the pro-Macedonian party was restored. Aristotle left Athens for Chalkis, where he died two months later in 322 BC. e. from a stomach disease, he suffered from it all his life, it was a hereditary disease in his family.

Slander haunted Aristotle all his life, although he died of natural causes, a rumor spread that Aristotle killed himself, not wanting to stand trial before the Areopagus. But Aristotle was always against suicide. His actions never ran counter to his convictions. Some Church Fathers subsequently claimed that Aristotle drowned by throwing himself into the strait separating the island of Euboea from Greece. This was explained by the philosopher's despair due to the inability to comprehend at that time the phenomenon of ebb and flow. Such a fiction, however, deserves attention because it testifies to the passionate curiosity of Aristotle. The said strait is really one of the few places in the Mediterranean Sea in which the phenomenon of ebb and flow is especially noticeable.

Diogenes Laertes preserved the testament of Aristotle, the authenticity of which we have no reason to doubt, such is the opinion of many authorities about him. Aristotle appointed Antipater, the commander of Alexander the Great, as the executor of his last will. “In the event of my death,” says Aristotle, “let Antipater take over the execution of my last will. As long as Nicanor is able to take control of my property, let Aristomenes, Timarchus, Hipparchus and Theophrastus take care of him, the same refers to my children and Herpyllis.

When my daughter grows up, let her be given to Nikanor, if she dies before marriage or leaves no children, Nikanor will inherit all my wealth and become the master of all my slaves. Nicanor is obliged to take care of my daughter and my son Nikomachus, so that they do not suffer a lack of anything, he must replace their father and brother with them. If Nicanor dies before his marriage or leaves no children, his orders must be carried out. In this case, if Theophrastus wants to take my daughter to himself, then all the rights granted by me to Nicanor will belong to him, but if Theophrastus does not wish to marry my daughter, then let the guardians of Antipater decide the fate of my children.

I ask my guardians and Nicanor to remember me and not to forget the affection Herpyllis had for me. If she wants to marry after my death, the guardians must see to it that she does not choose a person inferior to me by birth. In case of marriage, give her, in addition to everything she received from me, a talent of silver and three servants, if she wishes to take the latter. If she wants to live in Chalkis, then give her a room adjacent to the garden, but if Stagira prefers, let her occupy the house of my ancestors.

I give freedom to Ambracida and assign her a dowry of five hundred drachmas and one slave a Fala in addition to the plot of land that I bought her, one young slave and a thousand drachmas. Tikhon will get his freedom after my daughter's marriage. Then release Philo and Olympia with her son. Not to sell the children of my servants, but to give them into the service of my heirs until they come of age, and then, if they prove worthy, release them. I also ask you to finish and put in place the statues I ordered (in honor of Prokuren and his wife). Place the remains of Nifiada in my grave, as she herself wished. I also bequeath to fulfill the vow given by me for the preservation of the life of Nikanor - to erect statues of animals made of stone in Stagira in honor of Zeus and Athena the Saviors.

The body of Aristotle was transported from Chalkis to Stagira, where his fellow citizens erected a luxurious mausoleum for him, it existed for quite a long time, but has not survived to this day. Probably, the above passage is only part of the will, we do not find in it any instructions regarding the library, which, as we know, was denied to Theophrastus, the disciple and successor of Aristotle.

His concern for people close to him speaks of true affection and even tenderness, which Aristotle himself considered an adornment of a man, he said if a man wants to be captivating, he should take grace and tenderness from women, and if a woman wants to win hearts, she must have a certain share courage. One should also pay attention to the attitude of Aristotle towards his slaves, Aristotle is considered to be a zealous defender of slavery. From his will it is clear that in his heart he could not but recognize in them the same people, he cared about their fate after his death, just as about the members of his own family. Aristotle's son Nicomachus, who took part in the publication of the written heritage left from his father, died young. The daughter, Pythiades the Younger, was married three times and had three sons, the youngest of whom (from her third husband, the physicist Metrodorus) was the namesake of his great grandfather and teacher, after his death he took the post of head of the Lyceum, he took care of raising the grandchildren of Aristotle. The brainchild of Aristotle - his philosophical school Lyceum - lasted until the end of the ancient world.

The "children" of Stagirite were his writings. The legacy of the thinker is enormous. Ancient catalogs numbered several hundred of his works. Only a small part of them has come down to us.

It remains for us to say a few words about Aristotle's attitude towards his contemporaries, towards that party of demagogues that forced him to retire from Athens. He spoke little in this respect during his lifetime, it was not safe for him to speak and even write, Aristotle observed the manifestations of passions with the calmness with which he noted the phenomena of storms and the direction of the winds. One of the oldest writers speaks of this." In the days of Solomon, wisdom raised its voice in the marketplaces, but was not heard.

This continues to this day. There is no room for wisdom in the squares. Wisdom requires calm reflection, but in the squares there is always noise and bustle. Aristotle is imbued with contempt for the crowd, and the crowd, in turn, has an instinctive contempt for Aristotle. Extreme opinions, expressed in harsh language, are most popular among the crowd. "Aristotle did not believe in unlimited democracy, noting sarcastically that although the Athenians discovered two useful things - wheat and freedom, they knew how to use only the first, and the other was used for a short time, and then only to abuse it.Aristotle, as a universal thinker, not only possessed the entire body of knowledge of his time, but also laid the foundations for essentially new sciences, such as physics, biology, psychology, as well as logic and ethics. ceased to worry about the question of what, in fact, does philosophy itself do and what is its place among other sciences?Earlier Greek thinkers investigated the nature of things and were called "physiologists", since at that time philosophy had not yet separated from science as a study of nature.Socrates and Plato opposed the former “physiologists” with the principle “know thyself.” In turn, Aristotle synthesized these extreme points of view, according to having shown that human thinking and the surrounding world in their essence coincide, they are one and the same. Those forms in which human thinking and its object are one and the same are the main object of philosophy from the point of view of its classical tradition.

Aristotle, however, continued to call "philosophy" the totality of scientific and theoretical knowledge about reality. At the same time, he introduced the names "first philosophy" and "second philosophy", which he also called "physics". As for the "first philosophy", then later it will be called "metaphysics". Moreover, the term "metaphysics" was not used by Aristotle himself. It began to be used by a student of Aristotle and a systematizer of his works, Andronicus of Rhodes. By this term, he called the work that Aristotle followed after "Physics". Literally, "metaphysics" is translated as "that which is after physics." But in essence it is the science of the intelligible, that is, of what is beyond our experience, beyond the limits of visible nature.

Rejecting the Platonic doctrine of "ideas" as the incorporeal essences of everything, Aristotle put forward a theory according to which everything that exists occurs and consists of two main principles - "form" and "matter" The active and leading principle in this pair in Aristotle is the form, it is with it it binds the solution to the problem of the universal.

God, according to Aristotle, is the source of creative activity. It is God who endows all existing bodies with their specificity, that is, with a special form. But God in Aristotle is also the goal towards which all things strive.

Medieval thinkers with special attention reacted to the teachings of Aristotle on the soul, set forth in the treatise of the same name. Aristotle begins by saying that not only man has a soul. Plants and animals also have it. The plant soul, according to Aristotle, has the ability to grow, nourish and reproduce. The animal soul is distinguished by the fact that it has feeling. The human soul is a rational soul.

Another important property of the soul, according to Aristotle, is its incorporeality. He consistently and reasonably argues that the soul cannot be a body, because it is, as Aristotle puts it, meaning and form. Moreover, the soul as a form of a living body is not an external form, it is an internal form of a living body, which Aristotle calls entelechy. At the same time, objecting to the Pythagoreans and his teacher Plato, Aristotle insists that the soul is inseparable from the body, and therefore the transmigration of souls is impossible. This is especially true of vegetable and animal souls. As for the human soul, Aristotle allowed himself various judgments about its immortality, which gave rise to disputes among his followers in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The legacy of Aristotle is so extensive that it is impossible to characterize all of its sections. It is important to note that the main directions of his thought significantly determined the further development of European philosophy. Unlike Plato, Aristotle sees in God the highest instance not so much of the social as of the natural order. God for Aristotle is not the Platonic Supreme Good, which Christian theology will then emphasize, but the ultimate foundation of the universe. As a "form of forms" and prime mover, God is by no means outside our world. God and primary matter, as it were, set and define the boundaries of the world. And this is the originality of the dualistic philosophy of Aristotle.

The "first philosophy", or metaphysics, is only interested in what exists always and everywhere and cannot be otherwise. Such concepts Aristotle calls "categories". He refers to them essence, quality, quantity, relation, place, time, position, possession, action, suffering. At the same time, he most often speaks of categories as forms of "saying" about the world. And he took the term "category" from grammar.

In his political views, Aristotle proceeds from the understanding of man as a "social animal", the sphere of life of which is the family, society, state. Aristotle considers the state (as well as the economy) very realistically, the statesman cannot wait until ideal political conditions come, but must, based on the possibilities, best manage people - as they are, and above all take care of the physical and moral condition of young people. The best state forms are monarchy, aristocracy, moderate democracy, the reverse side of which, that is, the worst state forms, are tyranny, oligarchy, ochlocracy (dominance of the mob).