Física eBook

Aristotle was born in Stagira, in Chalcidice. Despite being from Macedonia, Greek was the language spoken. He was the son of Nicomachus, a friend and personal physician of the Macedonian king Amyntas II, father of Philip II of Macedon, and grandfather of Alexander the Great. It is likely that Aristotle's interest in biology and physiology stemmed from his father's medical activity. At about 16 or 17 years of age he left for Athens, the largest intellectual and artistic center in Greece. Like many other young people of his time, he went there to continue his studies. Two major institutions competed for the preference of young people: the school of Isocrates, which aimed to prepare the student for political life, and Plato and his Academy, with a preference for science (episteme) as the foundation of reality. Despite the warning that anyone who did not know geometry should not enter there, Aristotle decided on the Platonic Academy and remained there for 20 years, until 347 BC, the year Plato died. With the death of the great master and the choice of Plato's nephew, Speusippus, to head the Academy, Aristotle left for Assos with some former students. Two facts seem to be related to this episode: Speusippus represented a tendency that displeased Aristotle immensely, that is, the mathematization of philosophy; and Aristotle felt passed over (or rejected), since he thought he was the most suitable to assume the direction of the Academy. In Assoo, Aristotle founded a small philosophical circle with the help of Hermias, a local tyrant and occasional listener of Plato. He stayed there for three years and married Pythias, the niece of Hermias. After the murder of Hermias, Aristotle left for Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos, where he carried out most of his famous biological investigations. In the year 343 BC, called by Philip II, he became Alexander's receiver, a position he held until 336 BC, when Alexander ascended the throne. That same year, back in Athens, he founded the "Lykeion", the origin of the word Lyceum, whose pupils became known as peripatetics (those who walk), a name derived from Aristotle's habit of teaching outdoors, often under the trees that surrounded the Lyceum. Unlike Plato's Academy, the Lyceum privileged the natural sciences. Alexander himself sent the master specimens of the fauna and flora of the conquered regions. His work covered the fields of classical knowledge at the time: philosophy, metaphysics, logic, ethics, politics, rhetoric, poetry, biology, zoology, medicine and not only established the foundations of such disciplines but also their scientific methodology. Aristotle directed the school until 323 BC, shortly after Alexander's death. The anti-Macedonian sentiments of the Athenians turned against him who, feeling threatened, left Athens stating that he would not allow the city to commit a second crime against philosophy (allusion to the trial of Socrates). He left the school in the care of his chief disciple, Theophrastus (371 BC – 287 BC) and retired to Chalcis, in Euboea, where he died the following year.