History Creator / Aristotle

-->--'''Aristotle''', ''Metaphysics''

* ScienceMarchesOn: By the time of the Renaissance, a new generation of scientists actually tested out Aristotle's scientific theories and found that they did not hold up. To name one example, Creator/GalileoGalilei wrote in his work ''Two New Sciences'' that one of Aristotle's arguments against those who hold that a void is necessary for motion is that bodies move through a medium at a speed proportional to their weight. That means a boulder that is ten times as heavy as a stone would fall ten times as rapidly. Galileo shows that, in reality, both would actually fall at roughly the same speed.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: He practically invented the concept, as quoted above, in his ''Poetics'': it doesn't matter if story elements are accurate or possible, only that the audience can accept them.

* ScienceMarchesOn: By the time of the Renaissance, a new generation of scientists actually tested out Aristotle's scientific theories and found that they did not hold up. To name one example from Creator/GalileoGalilei in his work ''Two New Sciences'', one of Aristotle's arguments against those who hold that a void is necessary for motion is that bodies move through a medium at a speed proportional to their weight. That means a boulder that is ten times as heavy as a stone would move ten times as rapidly. Galileo shows that in reality, both would actually fall at roughly the same speed.

Aristotle (Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs, circa 384/3–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath. Taught by Creator/{{Plato}}, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy (so-called because Aristotle was said to walk around while lecturing) and of the wider Aristotelian tradition. His writings covered many topics including physics, biology, metaphysics, logic, rhetoric, politics, aesthetics, and even literary criticism, making him an OmnidisciplinaryScientist of the time.

In 368-7, at the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle went to Athens, where he remained in close association with the Academy of Plato for twenty years, until the death of Plato in 348/7. After Plato's death, Aristotle left Athens and, with Xenocrates, visited the court of Hermias, a former member of the Academy who had become tyrant of Assos and Atarneus in Mysia in Asia Minor. Aristotle married Pythias, Hermias' niece, and probably taught in an Academic center in Assos. Later, he went to Mitylene in Lesbos, and got engaged in biological research. In 343/2, on the invitation of Philip of Macedon, he became the tutor of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat, and his tutelage probably extended up to 340, when Alexander was appointed regent for his father. Aristotle did not return to Athens until 335/4, a year after the death of Philip.

For the next twelve years, Aristotle established a school, the Lyceum, to the institution and pursuit of a program of investigation, speculation, and teaching in almost every branch of knowledge, and to the composition of all, or most, or at least the most scientific portions, of those of his writings which are now extant. When Alexander died in 323, Aristotle's Macedonian connections brought him under suspicion; he was charged with impiety, not unlike that on which Creator/{{Socrates}} had been condemned, and accused of instituting a private cult in memory of Hermias, since he erected a statue at Delphi and composed a poem, in what was alleged to be the manner of a paean, in his honour.

Aristotle was forced to flee Athens lest, as he is said to have remarked, the Athenians sin twice against philosophy. He took refuge under the protection of Antipater, viceroy to Alexander, in Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322 a short time before the death of Demosthenes.

Aristotle's views profoundly impacted medieval thought, in the realms of the physical sciences and philosophy, especially in the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church (St. Creator/ThomasAquinas, one of the most influential of scholastic philosophers, referred to Aristotle as "the Philosopher"). His scientific ideas [[ScienceMarchesOn came to be considered dated by the time of the Enlightenment]], but his influence on logic and ethics continues to this day.

* AlcoholInducedIdiocy: In 'Nichomachean Ethics'' he says that anything wrong that you do due to drunkenness is still your fault. While you may not have chosen to do that thing due to inebriation, you chose to get drunk.
* BeigeProse: Compared with Plato, Aristotle's stuff is very dry and difficult to read. This is partially because most of his finished works were lost after the Fall of Rome, and what we have available today is essentially his lecture notes. However, many people find that the simplicity of Aristotle's words make his works delightful reads. Creator/{{Cicero}} described Aristotle's literary style as being "a river of gold."
* ChickenAndEggParadox: The TropeNamer was one of his observations: the chicken lays the egg, but also hatches from it. Aristotle considered this an ontological mystery that was key to understanding the nature of the universe.

* DemocracyIsBad: Just like his teacher, he used "democracy" as a term of art for what happens when a popular government goes bad.[[note]]A good popular government was called a ''politeia'', usually translated into "republic" in English simply for lack of a better word. For all practical purposes, it essentially just means "good democracy."[[/note]] He maintained, however, that a government where the multitude have power is just as valid as one where a select few or a single person has power, as long as it is done correctly. His ideal government combines traits of all three--meaning he was actually ''in favor'' of what we in modern times commonly refer to as "representative democracy".

* HeManWomanHater: He considered women to be naturally inferior to men, was opposed to women's education (in contrast with Plato), did not believe women should be afforded the same nourishment as men, and believed that they should be ruled over as only slightly better than slaves and children. Artistotle was also opposed to the way Sparta treated women (Spartan women enjoyed far more rights than Athenian women did) and believed this would cause the downfall of Spartan society. However, in his ''Rhetoric'' and ''Oikonomios'', he advocates treating women kindly and valuing their happiness.
* IHaveYourWife: In ''Nichomachean Ethics'' even he is not sure of what this trope means ethically. If it is a voluntary action that means any evil committed because of this is immoral. But if it is an involuntary action, then the person is not at fault for any evil.

* MeasuringTheMarigolds: In his ''Metaphysics'', Aristotle cautions against this attitude, stating that there are some questions that physical science simply can't answer.

* PopCulturalOsmosis: For centuries Aristotle's major claim to fame was his scientific theories, which are nowadays mostly debunked by scientists in the centuries after him actually putting them to the test. So today he is more famous as a philosopher, whose theories are still taught in universities.

* WordSaladPhilosophy: His ''Metaphysics'' had this reputation among Medieval scholars. It was a difficult book to begin with, and only got more incoherent in translation.

* The French {{edutainment|Show}} ConfessionCam parody web-series ''WebVideo/ConfessionsDHistoire'' has a planned four parter about Alexander the Great, the first part of which has Aristotle being interviewed about his years tutoring Alexander.

* The French {{edutainment|Show}} ConfessionCams ConfessionCam parody web-series ''WebVideo/ConfessionsDHistoire'' has a planned four parter about Alexander the Great, the first part of which has Aristotle being interviewed about his years tutoring Alexander.

->''"A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents; there should be nothing of the sort in it."''
-->--'''Literature/{{Poetics}}'''

Aristotle (Ἀριστοτέλης, 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Creator/{{Plato}}'s, and either the second or third (after Plato and, depending on who you're asking, Creator/{{Xenophon}}) from whom we have complete works. He was the first philosopher to write treatises addressing the subjects of his philosophy directly; Plato had been rather more indirect, preferring to write dialogues involving Creator/{{Socrates}} instead. Aristotle was also the first philosopher to attempt a complete survey of human knowledge (except for mathematics), making him an OmnidisciplinaryScientist.

He also served as [[PrivateTutor tutor]] to UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat, after differences with Plato and his Academy led him to leave Athens. His work also heavily influenced Galileo--even though Galileo's most enduring work in physics disproved Aristotle's theories in the subject,[[note]]viz., Aristotle's theories held that objects fell at a constant speed that varied based on their weight/mass; Galileo's experiments proved that they fell at a constant ''acceleration'' (i.e. a constantly ''increasing'' speed), and that the rate of acceleration was constant for all objects irrespective of mass so long as air resistance was held constant[[/note]] and his work in astronomy severely undermined them[[note]]Galileo's observations of sunspots, mountains on the Moon, the phases of Venus, and the moons of Jupiter directly contradicted Aristotelian claims that the heavenly bodies were perfect, uniform spheres in perfect circular orbits around the Earth, though they did not directly disprove geocentric models of the Universe.[[/note]] in that field, Galileo always made sure to emphasize his respect for the ancient genius.

Of particular note to tropers is that he wrote the ''Poetics'', studying [[{{Tragedy}} tragic plays]], epics, and comedy, making him the first troper of whom we have knowledge, and many tropes were first diagnosed by him.

Aristotle is also important within science. His work of categorizing plants laid much of the foundation for today's biology. He also tried himself at physics, and his theories were commonly accepted for almost two thousand years -- until people started to actually test them, and found many of them to be completely wrong. For example, Aristotle used logic to determine that if two objects with similar form and volume but different mass are dropped simultaneously, the heaviest one will land first. Medieval natural philosophers started to realize that this was wrong, and later disproved it by actually dropping two objects with said qualities, and finding that they landed at the same time.

All in all, he is the sole person to have acheived the impressive feats of his ideas 1)turning up in [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist just about every modern textbook issued to students]] 2)...for being wrong (the one notable exception is the field of Logic).

!!Works of Aristotle which have their own pages:
* ''Literature/{{Poetics}}''