this video is made possible by Brilliant. You're gonna learn more about Brilliant later in today's video, but if you'd like to learn more right now, you can go to brilliant.org/Byzographics. You'll also find a link in the description below. He was the most influential thinker in world history, a man whose ideas permeated every sector of society. Here's the father of modern logic, the inventor of the science of biology, and the founder of ethical reasoning. Despite only a small fragment of his writing surviving to our times, his influence on both the Western and the Islamic world has been profound. In this week's Byzographics, we discover the brilliance of Aristotle. [Music] The details of Aristotle's life are sketchy. We know that he was born in 384 BCE in the Greek-Macedonian town of Stagira on the north coast of the Aegean Sea. His father, Nicomachus, was the court physician to the Macedonian King Amyntas II. It is believed that

Aristotle's mother faced us was descended from Greek aristocracy. The couple had three children, with Aristotle being the youngest. He had a sister named Arimnesta and a brother named Arimnestus. Nikomachus died when Aristotle was only 13. His mother died soon after, and he was raised through his teenage years by his older sister's husband, Proxenus. By the age of 17, Aristotle was sent to Athens to pursue higher education. There, he enrolled at Plato's Academy. Plato was the most renowned thinker of the time, who himself had been taught by the great Socrates. The Academy had been founded 20 years earlier and was situated beside an olive grove outside of the city walls. Rather than a formal school with a set curriculum and a clear delineation between teacher and students, the Academy provided an informal setting where the master Plato would pose problems to be pondered by his students. Instead of listening to lectures, the students were encouraged to engage in dialectic discussion in order.

to establish a truth by means of reasoned argument. The main subjects under discussion were philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. Aristotle studied at the Academy for 20 years, advancing from student to teacher. During this time, he developed a great respect and a close friendship with Plato. The two men, however, they did have some fundamental philosophical differences. As a result, when Plato died in 347 BCE, Aristotle, his most brilliant student, was not offered the directorship of the Academy. That privilege instead went to Plato's nephew, Speusippus. Shortly thereafter, Aristotle left the Academy, apparently unhappy with the direction that it was taking. It is also possible that he was keen to get out of Athens as a result of the tide of anti-Macedonian sentiment in the city. Aristotle had by this time developed some important friendships which would pave the way forward for him. One of them was Hermias, king of the Greek city of Assos in Asia Minor. Hermias was a former student at Plato's Academy. Upon hearing of the Master's death, he invited

Aristotle came to our tenías. Aristotle settled in Asus, the city which faced the island of Lesbos. There he became the head of a group of philosophers, establishing a brand new Academy. His focus there was on the observation of the natural world. He also began to work on two volumes dealing with politics and kingship. During his time in our source, Aristotle met, fell in love with, and married the niece of Hermia named fie theists. Soon a daughter was born, who was also named a theist. Soon after, our source was attacked by the Persians, and King Hermia was taken captive and executed. Aristotle and his family relocated to the island of Lesbos, where they spent the next two years. It was here that he indulged in his passion for the study of marine life. The work that Aristotle conducted on the islands gave rise to a whole new scientific discipline, biology, the study of life. He was relentlessly systematic in his classifications. Creatures were divided into larger groups.

according to their characteristics, this resulted in the publication of three books that minutely detail the characteristics of living things. He also studied the ecology of the island. In 343 BCE, Aristotle received an invitation from Philip II, the king of Macedon, to come and tutor his son, Alexander, who was 13 at the time. Aristotle accepted and moved his family to Macedonia, where he became the director of the Royal Academy. King Philip had a reputation as an uncouth and uneducated barbarian warrior. He was prouder that his son was developing the same strength of resolve but wanted the prince to balance his strength with knowledge and with wisdom. He feared that the instruction that was being provided by the boys' tutors would only create another version of himself. It was these concerns that prompted the king to call for the great teacher, Aristotle, at the academy. Aristotle taught Alexander and other young members of the royal household in a style reminiscent of the Platonic Academy. He instructed them in morality and logic.

well as the arts and medicine. In addition, one-on-one lessons were given to Alexander. The Roy was impetuous and stubborn, often challenging and resisting his teacher. However, Aristotle exhibited great patience as he shaped and molded the thinking of the future conqueror. His superior reasoning inevitably won over the prince. One of Aristotle's greatest challenges was to reign in Alexander's impetuous nature. In one memorable exchange, he asked the prince what the most valuable virtue was that a soldier could possess. Alexander immediately replied that it was courage. But, Aristotle asked, what would happen if the warrior's excess courage caused him to run ahead of his army and face the enemy all alone? Alexander acknowledged that he would surely be killed. What though, the teacher asked, would happen if a lack of courage caused the soldier to run the other direction? Well, then he would be a coward, chaotic scientist reply. By this exchange, Aristotle taught Alexander the importance of always finding the middle points and therefore developing balance in one's life. Aristotle also educated Alexander in the warrior hero traditions.

of the past. He provided the teenager with a copy of the Iliad and encouraged him upon assuming rulership to conquer the barbarian lands to the east. Aristotle has a very ethnocentric view of non-Greeks, which he passed on to his people. He viewed them as fit only for slavery and famously gave this piece of advice to the future Conqueror: be a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians; to look after the former as friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants. Aristotle was able to cultivate in the teenage prince a love of reading and of learning for the rest of his life. Alexander remained an avid reader, developing a special love for the writings of Homer. It is claimed that he learned all 15,693 lines of poetry in the Iliad by heart. The prince's education at the hands of the great philosopher came to an abrupt halt in 340 BC. Alexander was the

16-year-old heir to the throne, and he was called to Pella to rule over Macedonia while his father was off waging war. By 335 BCE, Alexander had succeeded his father as king. One of his first acts was to conquer Athens, which paved the way for Aristotle to return to the city where he had spent his formative years. Plato's Academy, which was now run by a former student named Critias, was still the leading influence on Greek thinking. However, Aristotle was given permission by Alexander to start up his own rival Academy. As a foreigner, Aristotle was not able to own property in Athens. As a result, he rented a building called the Lyceum, which was a former wrestling school now outside of the city. Unlike Plato's Academy, the Lyceum was not a private club. Half of the day Aristotle and his tutors would teach their paying students in advanced topics, and the doors would be opened, and the lectures and discussions would be free of charge and open to anyone who wished to.

attend Aristotle spent the bulk of the remainder of his life working at the Lyceum. He developed a unique style teaching his students while they wandered around the gardens of the school. This gave rise to the nickname peripatetic s' meaning people who wander about. The scope of study at the Lyceum was vast. Aristotle wanted his students to research and write about every area of human thought from mathematics to biology, philosophy, politics, and rhetoric. Students were required to ride their arguments down in manuscript form. These were collected in the Lyceum's library, which became one of the first great collections of historical writings. At some time during the first few years after his return to Athens, Aristotle's wife, Atheists, she died. It is believed that the Persian King, upset that Aristotle had helped to arrange an alliance with NASA, donea had paisius arrested and then executed Aristotle. He was heartbroken in his grief. He wrote the only poem of his life that survived, which he titled an ode to virtue. In time, though, Aristotle he became romantically involved with a

woman named her Phyllis. Some account states that her Phyllis was a slave who had been given to Aristotle by the court of Alexander, but this cannot be verified. The two were never married, but her Phyllis bore Aristotle many children, the first of whom they named Nickamicus after Aristotle's father. Her Phyllis remains with Aristotle until his death. During the years that Aristotle established his Lyceum at Athens, his former pupil Alexander was very busy conquering the known world. As his power grew, so did his ego. The virtues that the philosophers had instilled in him were cast aside as he became increasingly megalomaniacal. Eventually, he proclaimed himself to be divine and required that all peoples prostrate themselves before him in awe of his status as a living God. On Aristotle's recommendation, his nephew, Calles, had been appointed as an officer-historian of Alexander's Asiatic expedition. Calles was concerned about the King's out-of-control ego and somewhat foolishly let his concerns be

known and well. This led to his execution. Then, in 323 BC, the 32-year-old Alexander, he suddenly died. Soon thereafter, the pro-Macedonian governments, it was forcibly removed. The Athenians were now back in control and a backlash was unleashed against the Macedonians. [Music] Aristotle, as the leading Macedonian intellect and supporter of Alexander, was a prime target of the new regime. He was formally charged with impiety, or not believing in the gods of the state. This was the same charge that had been leveled at Socrates and had led to his conviction and his execution. Stating that he refused to allow Athens to sin against philosophy twice, Aristotle decided not to stay and defend himself. He fled the city and headed for the island of Euboea where his mother's estate was located. He died on the island in 323 BC of natural causes at 62 years of age. Now, normally this is where a biographical video would end, but there is much more about Aristotle to come. But first, I do want to thank

today's sponsor is Brilliant. I know ads in the middle of a video aren't great, but sponsors like Brilliant do make these longer videos possible. Brilliant is a science learning platform that allows you to learn through active learning, which, summed up, is basically the opposite of that feeling of reading a complex paragraph about some principle and then just having absolutely no clue about what they were going on about. You know, even though you've read it 10 times, still got no idea what's happening. Brilliant doesn't just cover the basics, although they totally cover those as well. They go all the way through to really complex things like advanced statistics. Brilliant makes even complex statistical concepts very easy to understand. They give you something super short to read, it's easy, and then you immediately apply what you just read to a problem, and rinse and repeat, and boom, suddenly you understand stuff that you didn't really think you'd ever be able to understand. I've used Brilliant to do just this. It's pretty amazing how quickly you grasp such a complex

subjects you can support by graphics by going to brilliant org /by graphics. And now let's get back to Aristotle. Aristotle had died as an enemy of the state, and so memory of him was discouraged. However, his student and friend Theophrastus kept his writing secretly hidden while also taking the reins of the Lyceum. The works of Aristotle did not see the light of day until the beginning of the first century BCE when they became appreciated throughout the Roman world. After the fall of Rome, Aristotle became familiar to the Islamic world as well, where many thinkers of the time came to appreciate his logical and deductive methodology. In fact, it was largely because of his popularity in the Byzantine world that Aristotle's teachings were able to survive the dark ages. It was during the 13th century CE that Aristotle was reintroduced to the West. This was achieved primarily through the work of Thomas Aquinas, who attempted to amalgamate religious beliefs with

science and philosophy. Aquinas incorporated Aristotle's assertion that a stationary earth lies at the center of the universe as a fundamental tenet of Catholicism. During the Renaissance and Reformation years, a succession of religious reformers and scientists began to question some Aristotle and beliefs that had been absorbed into the Catholic Church. One of them was the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who presented observational proof that the earth orbited the Sun. It's ironic that while Aristotle would undoubtedly have embraced this new observation, the Catholic Church Fathers made Galileo appear before the Inquisition and recant his assertion. English physicist William Harvey later discovered that internal organs don't work the way that Aristotle had stated. Another of Aristotle's views that was disproved was that decay only happens on the earth while the heavens never change. 19th-century astronomers Lord Kelvin challenged this notion with the concept of entropy, which states that all matter, whether earthly or heavenly, will eventually decay. Aristotle also taught that planets and stars are all

encased in crystalline spheres, each one nested inside the next, with the earth being the innermost sphere. By the 18th century, the contradictory idea that the planets hang on a void was gaining acceptance. [Music] Aristotle wrote some 10 million words in order to preserve his thoughts. Unfortunately, the majority of them have not survived the passing of the years. The manuscripts were uncovered in the 1st century BCE when they were edited by a man named Andronicus. The works that we have today are derived from Andronicus as edited versions and so we're not directly prepared for publication by Aristotle. Today, we are able to read about a million of Aristotle's writings, which represents some 20% of his total work. As a result of the paucity of writings that we have, we are only able to see a shadow of the brilliance of Aristotle. The quality of the prose, which has been lost to us, was hinted at by Roman statesman Cicero who went glaring.

Aristotle's writings, to those of Plato, declared: if Plato's prose was silver, Aristotle's was a flowing river of gold. The works of Aristotle that have survived are grouped into four categories. First is the organon, which quantifies a set of logical principles to follow when conducting an investigation. Then comes the theoretical, consisting of a range of treatises on the natural world. The practical category focuses on achieving excellence within the individual, the family, and in society. Finally, the rhetoric writing is collected together Aristotle's surviving political and philosophical speeches. [Music] Aristotle divided the sciences into three categories: the productive, the practical, and the theoretical. Productive sciences encompass such things as building and architecture, but also battlefield strategy and courtroom tactics. There's also practical sciences, which cover ethics and guided behavior. The theoretical sciences, which included mathematics and physics, involved the quest for knowledge and understanding as their own end result. The scope of Aristotle's scientific research was staggering. His writings feature minute descriptions of more than 500 species.

some of the features that he observed were not verified until the invention of the microscope thousands of years later. His detailed observations included the anatomy, diet, habitat, and reproductive system of the fish, insects, and animals that he observed while on the island of Lesvos. A trademark of Aristotle's thinking was that evidence was the ultimate arbiter of truth. Regardless of what theories you may hold, if observation proved them wrong, then you must have the humility to discard them and go with the evidence. Despite being charged with impiety, Aristotle he did believe in God. However, his God did not create nor control the universe but could affect it. He viewed God as the ultimate abstract reason and considered that the highest level of attainment for a human is to as closely emulate God's ability to reason abstractly as possible. So the closer a person could get to this heightened ability to reason, the closer they would be to God himself. Aristotle's greatest contribution to mankind was that he provided a methodology by which to find solutions to problems rather than providing these.

solutions themselves. When he did come to conclusions, he was careful to qualify it by stating that the conclusion was based upon the evidence available at the time. If new evidence was to come to light that proved his conclusions wrong, then he would discard them. However, during the period known as the Christian Middle Ages between 476 and 1453 C.E., Aristotle's methodology was cast aside, and the focus went squarely on his conclusions, which, contrary to his wishes, were accepted without question. So, rather than observing nature to find the answers, they simply accepted what Aristotle had written on the subject. Plato and Aristotle ended up with very different philosophical approaches. Plato was the ultimate idealist, believing that the world around us is merely a collection of ideas. On the other hand, Aristotle was a realist who believed that the only reality was the physical world which we inhabit. Each man would provide a work of political philosophy. In Plato's case, he was entitled The Republic, while Aristotle called his The Politics. Plato's work was focused on achieving the ideal state. He believed

that one way to achieve this was through the eradication of private property, the family, and gender roles. By doing away with the societal norms, Plato was hoping to transcend human selfishness in order to achieve social unity. Aristotle, however, rejected the end goal of Plato's ideal state. He contended that selfishness is a part of human nature. His idea was to design a government that acknowledged human selfishness and put in place checks and balances to mitigate it. He pointed out the impracticality of Plato's views, asking such questions as who would look after the children if they weren't part of a family. He further contended that human selfishness is one of the driving forces that results in achievement. Aristotle devised a working government that he referred to as polity. In it, there was a balance between the rich and the poor, with neither one dominating the other, and people were forced to work together for the overall good of society while retaining their property rights. One of the hallmarks of Aristotle's method of argument was logical developments where each point builds

upon the last, this was very different to Plato, who would jump all over the place with his ideas. In contrast, Aristotle emphasized the need for mental discipline by which those engaged in debate would stay focused on the topic at hands. Plato was mainly concerned with the accumulation of knowledge. He believed that ideas were subjective and could be influenced by personal views. Aristotle, on the other hand, was focused on observation and the examination of what is real. He was an objective thinker who did not allow place for emotion or personal opinion. Plato was an idealist. He believed, for example, that knowing good was enough for a person to do God. Aristotle, however, argued that knowing good was not good enough. The person had to practice being good to benefit himself as well as society. Plato also believed that every concept had an ideal form, whereas Aristotle was of the view that every conception needed to be studied on an individual level in order to understand it. Plato was of the view that reasoning and thought experiments were sufficient to

prove matters whereas Aristotle relied upon direct experience. As a result of their differing approaches, the scientific contributions of Aristotle were much greater than those of his teacher Plato. The latter's teachings were predominantly theoretical, lacking practicality, whereas Aristotle he's left us with the scientific method, which is grounded in practical observation. So I really hope you found that video interesting. If you did, do give us a thumbs up below, and please don't forget to subscribe if you want to see more biographic Swee put out several videos just like this. So hit that subscribe button and hit that notification bell if you actually want to find out when we put our videos. YouTube doesn't work how it used to, and if you want to see something else by us, we've got some videos from the archive linked you on the screen. And as always, thank you for watching. [Music]

Aristotle: History's Most Influential Thinker

Aristotle: History's Most Influential Thinker