Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and student of Plato who stunningly changed the course of Western philosophy. He has gone down in history as one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher, once called his writing style "a river of gold;" and his scope of thought and subsequent influence on the study of science, logic, philosophical discourse, and theology has led many to dub him "The Philosopher." Contents: Part 1: Logic (Organon) Categories, translated by E. M. Edghill On Interpretation, translated by E. M. Edghill Prior Analytics (2 Books), translated by A. J. Jenkinson Posterior Analytics (2 Books), translated by G. R. G. Mure Topics (8 Books), translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge Sophistical Refutations, translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge Part 2: Universal Physics Physics (8 Books), translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye On the Heavens (4 Books), translated by J. L. Stocks On Gerneration and Corruption (2 Books), translated by H. H. Joachim Meteorology (4 Books), translated by E. W. Webster Part 3: Human Physics On the Soul (3 Books), translated by J. A. Smith On Sense and the Sensible, translated by J. I. Beare On Memory and Reminiscence, translated by J. I. Beare On Sleep and Sleeplessness, translated by J. I. Beare On Dreams, translated by J. I. Beare On Prophesying by Dreams, translated by J. I. Beare On Longevity and Shortness of Life, translated by G. R. T. Ross On Youth, Old Age, Life and Death, and Respiration, translated by G. R. T. Ross Part 4: Animal Physics The History of Animals (9 Books), translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson On the Parts of Animals (4 Books), translated by William Ogle On the Motion of Animals, translated by A. S. L. Farquharson On the Gait of Animals, translated by A. S. L. Farquharson On the Generation of Animals (5 Books), translated by Arthur Platt Part 5: Metaphysics (15 Books), translated by W. D. Ross Part 6: Ethics and Politics Nicomachean Ethics (10 Books), translated by W. D. Ross Politics (8 Books), translated by Benjamin Jowett The Athenian Constitution, translated by Sir Frederic G. Kenyon Part 7: Aesthetic Writings Rhetoric (3 Books), translated by W. Rhys Roberts Poetics, translated by S. H. Butcher
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384 BC–322 BC Greek philosopher Aristotle, a pupil of Plato and the tutor of Alexander the Great, authored works on ethics, natural sciences, politics, and poetics that profoundly influenced western thought; empirical observation precedes theory, and the syllogism bases logic, the essential method of rational inquiry in his system, which led him to see and to criticize metaphysical excesses. German religious philosopher Saint Albertus Magnus later sought to apply his methods to current scientific questions. Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the most influential thinker of the medieval period, combined doctrine of Aristotle within a context of Christianity. Aristotle numbers among the greatest of all time. Almost peerless, he shaped centuries from late antiquity through the Renaissance, and people even today continue to study him with keen, non-antiquarian interest. This prodigious researcher and writer left a great body, perhaps numbering as many as two hundred treatises, from which 31 survive. His extant writings span a wide range of disciplines from mind through aesthetics and rhetoric and into such primary fields as biology; he excelled at detailed plant and animal taxonomy. In all these topics, he provided illumination, met with resistance, sparked debate, and generally stimulated the sustained interest of an abiding readership. Wide range and its remoteness in time defies easy encapsulation. The long history of interpretation and appropriation of texts and themes, spanning over two millennia within a variety of religious and secular traditions, rendered controversial even basic points of interpretation.
