ARISTOTLE

A student of Plato’s and tutor to Alexander the Great, Aristotle was one of the great figures of ancient Greek philosophy. Born in Stageira, Chalkidiki, Aristotle spent many years in Athens, where, after leaving Plato’s Academy, he later founded a school of his own, the Lyceum. Distancing himself from the idealism of the Academy, Aristotle believed that true knowledge should be acquired through empirical observation and sense perception. His work laid the foundations for numerous disciplines, such as logic, physics, biology, psychology, ethics, rhetoric and political science. His influence was immense until the Renaissance, spreading across major civilisations, from the Arab to the Western European.