Plato and Aristotle

•	Aristotle (384-322 BC) 
•	Greek philosopher, logician and a great scientist in several fields. Aristotle was born in Stageira in Chalcidice in the northern Greece. 
•	His father was notable doctor, among his patients was the King of Macedonia, Amyntas. 

•	At 17 Aristotle went to Athens to study at Plato's Academy. 
•	Aristotle stayed for 20 years and became Plato's most famous pupil: became one of the greatest philosophers of all time.
•	 Unlike Plato, whose writings were published for a public audience, the works of Aristotle consist of lecture notes written for himself or members of his circle. We are therefore left with very complex, rough texts. 

•	Aristotle himself had a famous pupil, Alexander the Great. 
•	Aristotle was forced to flee Athens in 322 - or, as he is said to have expressed: "in order that the Athenians might not commit a second crime against philosophy"... alluding to the Athenians’ trial and sentencing of Socrates. He died at his mothers family's estate in Chalcis, on the island of Euboea within the same year. 

•	"Being is said in many ways" is a standard formulation of Aristotle. 
•	Aristotle rejected the theory of forms (eidos) as known from Plato. In Aristotle's ontology there is only concrete substances (this horse, that cup, this vase etc.) and in talking of the particular substances we use concepts, but the things - substances - is prior to the concepts or forms which we ascribe to them. 
•	Plato worked the other way around. 

•	For Plato the forms (eidos) were prior and necessary conditions which formed a intelligible realm in contrast the phenomenal realm. 
•	In his formulation of his own theory Aristotle developed his own terminology, invented grammatical forms and a system of classification (primary substance, secondary substance; the categories).
•	 In addition Aristotle invented and created classical logic as we know it. 

•	Aristotle was indeed gifted and talented. The most central theoretical theme in his philosophy is metaphysics, the study of beings qua being. 
•	Ethics and philosophy of politics are the main themes. 
•	In addition Aristotle was concerned with, and wrote on, epistemology, physics, biology, meteorology, dynamics, mathematics, psychology, rhetoric, dialectic and aesthetics. 

•	Aristotle's writings covered a wide range of subjects;all together Diogenes listed 150 items, divided into 550 books and approximately 6.000 pages. 
•	Aristotle's works were inherited by Theophrastus, and in turn Theophrastus' nephew Nelues inherited them, but hid them away in a cave and  were rediscovered two centuries later, unfortunately in bad condition. 
•	Aristotle's surviving writings - around 30 items - were edited by Andronicus (Roman Peripatetic philosopher).