Aristotle

384 BCE – 322 BCE · Stagira, Athens · Greek philosophy

The systematizer: logic, biology, ethics, politics, poetics — Aristotle organized knowledge into fields and investigated each one empirically.

“We are what we repeatedly do.”
Nicomachean Ethics (paraphrase of Book II; popularly attributed)

Core ideas

Flourishing (eudaimonia) is activity of the soul in accordance with virtue
We are what we repeatedly do: virtue is habituated, not decreed
Everything strives toward its proper fulfillment

Historical context

Plato's student, Alexander's teacher, and the Lyceum's founder — working when Greek science and the fresh income of empire made encyclopedic curiosity possible.

Key works

Nicomachean Ethics · Politics · Metaphysics

Questions they speak to

How should I live?
What is justice?
What is the good life?

Minds in conversation

PlatoAthens
Ibn Sina (Avicenna)Bukhara → Isfahan
Ibn Rushd (Averroes)Cordoba

Sources

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Aristotle