Philosophy
384 to 322 BC, Stagira, Greece
Virtue, purpose, logic, and the architecture of the good life.
Start learning Aristotle →Aristotle’s theory of how to live well - that the good life is the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, that virtue is a mean between extremes, and that we become good by doing good.
Aristotle’s invention of formal logic - the syllogism and the systematic study of valid reasoning - which governed Western thought for over two thousand years.
Aristotle’s political philosophy - that human beings are by nature political animals, that the state exists by nature for the good life, and that we can only flourish in community.
Aristotle’s theory of the soul as the form of the living body - neither a separate spirit nor reducible to matter - and his account of perception and the faculties of life.
Aristotle’s inquiry into being itself - substance, form and matter, the four causes, potentiality and actuality - culminating in the unmoved mover, the ultimate source of all motion and being.
More in Philosophy
PlatoImmanuel KantFriedrich NietzscheConfuciusSenecaEpictetusMarcus AureliusSocratesepoché — a humanities education that remembers you.