(384-322 B.C.)

Ancient Greece had many learned men. One of the most learned of them all was Aristotle. Two thousand years after he died, Europeans still did not believe easily anything which did not agree with his teachings. Even today people consider Aristotle one of the greatest thinkers who ever lived.

Aristotle's father was a doctor in the court of the King of Macedon, a country north of Greece. As a boy, Aristotle took a great interest in everything in the world around him. When he was only 17 he went to Athens to study with Plato, a famous Greek philosopher.

The word "philosophy" comes from the Greek words meaning "love" and "wisdom". To the Greeks, studying philosophy meant studying what we now call science. It meant also studying government and ideas of right and wrong.

Aristotle stayed in Athens for 20 years. Besides studying with Plato he did a great deal of writing. He and Plato were good friends, but they did not always agree.

A few years after Plato died, Philip, then the king of Macedon, asked Aristotle to come there to teach his son. His son was Alexander, who became Alexander the Great. For seven years Aristotle was Alexander's tutor. He taught him all that he thought was best in the Greek way of living.

Aristotle then went back to Athens. He started a school of philosophy there. Today we know much more than Aristotle did about many things. We have gone far beyond him in science, for instance. But in all the centuries since Aristotle's time people have learned little about ways of thinking that Aristotle did not know.

Sean Townes

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