LIFE OF ARISTOTLE, 384-323 B.C. 1. FAMILY BACKGROUND. Artistotle, born in Stagire, Macedonia, in 384 B.C.

, was the son of a physician at the court of Amyntas, king of Macedonia. 2. YOUTH. There are conflicting accounts of his early life. It is generally believed that Artistotle came to Athens in 366 B.C., when he was eighteen years old, and became a student in Plato's Academy. Plato regarded Aristotle as brilliant and referred to him as the "nous" or "the mind." 3. MARRIAGE. About the year 344 B.C. Aristotle married Pythias, the sister of Hermias, a student and friend of his. Hermias later became dictator of the city of Atarneus 4. TUTOR. King Philip of Macedon appointed Aristotle, then age forty-one, as official tutor of his son Alexander. (This son later conquered the Persian empire and became known as Alexander the Great.) Aristotle succeeded Lysimachus who had taught the boy the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Philip hoped Aristotle would help his son to avoid some of the evil excesses of life through the study of philosophy. 5. UNIFICATION OF GREECE. In 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon defeated the Athenian army at the battle of Chaeronea. He thereby effected the unification of Greece under Macedonian rule. 6. THE LYCEUM. Aristotle, now age fifty, moved to Athens once again. He purchased a valuable group of buildings, land and gardens, and there established a school of higher education in philosophy. The property had been dedicated to Appollo Lyceus and the school took its name, the Lyceum, from that of the god. Aristotle's Lyceum won acclaim for its distinguished work in the natural sciences. 7. GROWTH OF SCIENCE. When Alexander returned from his expeditions of conquest, he brought back to his former tutor Aristotle samples of animal and vegetable life from all over the conquered territories. Alexander also endowed Aristotle's school with the equivalent of almost four million dollars. Thus Aristotle was able to establish the first zoo and the first botanical garden in the world. Aristotle's scientific observations became the world's chief source of scientific knowledge for the next thousand years. 8. TEACHING. Aristotle continued teaching in the Lyceum until 323 B.C. In the morning, he strolled about the gardens with his regular students. The Greek descriptive word for "walking about" came to be applied to the school itself. Thus the school was "peripatetic," and its students and adherents were "peripatetics." Aristotle always took his noon meal with his regular students. In the afternoon, he delivered lectures on politics, literature, and philosophy to the populace in general. a. The Lyceum. Two distinctive features among many at the Lyceum were:

(1) Student Rule. Students at the Lyceum organized and ruled themselves. Every ten days a different student would be elected to handle the adminitrative duties.

(2) Student Research. All students were assigned tasks involving historical or scientific research. Aristotle based many of his scientific propositions upon this research. 9. LAST YEARS. Aristotle had publicly supported Macedonian policies which were hateful to the subjugated Athenians. But he found continued support increasingly difficult as Alexander, flushed with conquest, became more arrogant and more capricious in cruelty. The political climate of Athens became dangerous for everyone, and especially for an independent philosopher. Aristotle broke with Alexander after he, Alexander, had Callisthenes, nephew of Aristotle, put to death for failing to reverence the ruler as a god. Aristotle went into exile, moving to Chalcis in Euboea in 323 B.C. He died this same year in Chalcis at age sixty-one.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE PHILOSOPHY. A full presentation of the philosophical thought of Aristotle would require many volumes. However, some of the important points of that thought which influence the Aristotelian educational theory can be summarized briefly. Those points are: 1. METAPHYSICS. a. Reality. The universe is composed of two ultimate entities, spirit or form and materiality or matter. All things are reducible to one or other of these basic entities. b. The Nature of Man. Man is a rational animal. He is animal in his possession of a body With its physical needs and appetites. He is rational because he has a soul. The active element of the soul is part of the universal principle of life. This element is immortal. The passive element of the soul is the individual personality, with memories and thoughts relating to the experiences of life. This passive element ceases to exist with death. The soul and body form a necessary whole for the existence of the organism. The implications of this theory are:

(1) Destiny. Man has no eternal destiny. He ceases to exist as an individual personality at death. (2) Nature. The highest faculty in man is his spiritual nature. Man acts according to his nature when he subordinates his physical appetites to reason.

c. Teleology. There is purpose, order and intelligence in the universe, stemming from the first being, the unmoved Mover, God. 2. EPISTEMOLOGY. a. Source of Truth. The faculty of reason in every man can be trained, through the principles of logic, to reason toward true conclusions.

b. Nature of Truth. Truth is objective. For example, a true proposition does not depend upon the mind of the individual man for its existence. Truths exist in nature and are discoverable by the reason of man. 3. ETHICS. a. Happiness. The highest good to which man may aspire is happiness. A truly happy life can be assessed only upon its completion. b. Naturalism. A man lives happily when his actions are in accordance with his nature. Man's spiritual nature is superior to his physical nature. The highest good for any man is the activity of his soul.

c. Reason. The faculty of reason, resident in the soul of man, must guide his every action. The physical appetites must be controlled by reason. Reason, therefore, is the source of virtue. d. Virtue. Man uses his reason to judge between the extremes of any given act. The middle course constitutes virtue. For example, the mean between the two extremes of the vice of rashness (excess of courage) and the vice of cowardice (lack of courage) is the virtue of temperate courage.

4. POLITICS. a. Purpose. The purpose of the state is to produce human good. b. Naturalism. Man is social by nature. He will naturally be political. The difficulty in political philosophy is to determine how man may act reasonably and virtuously to achieve the best political action. c. Reason. The ideal state must be reasoned as a mean between two governmental extremes. d. Constitutional Monarchy. The best form of government is a constitutional monarchy, which is the mean between the extremes of despotism and democracy. The constitution guarantees moderation between the demands of the wealthy and the interests of the poor. e. Public Education. The state is perpetuated through the education of its citizens. Therefore education is, of necessity, public in nature.

THE EDUCATIONALTHEORY OF ARISTOTLE

EDUCATION. The importance of education in the philosophy of Aristotle was great, since the individual man could learn to use his reason to arrive at virtue, happiness, and political harmony only through the process of education.

1. AIM OF EDUCATION. The purpose of education is to produce a good man. Man is not good by nature. He must learn to control his animal activities through the use of reason. Only when man behaves by habit and reason, according to his nature as a rational being, is he capable of happiness. Education must aim at the development of the full potentialities of each man. It must seek the development of man's intellectual capacities to their fullest extent. It must aim also at developing each individual's body to its highest level of health and strength. 2. EDUCATION OF WOMEN. Women were considered inferior to men. The nature of women suggested that their proper function was fulfilled exclusively in the home. Women would not be educated with men. They would receive training in gymnastics and domestic arts to enable them to manage households, to bear and raise children, and to please and be obedient to their husbands. 3. EDUCATION OF MEN. Since citizenship would extend only to the aristocracy, which included rulers, soldiers, and priests, education would be given exclusively to this group. The farmer, laborer, merchant, and slave would be trained in whatever specific skills were required of them. Training in industrial arts or vocational skills is not education. Education is that which liberates man, enabling him to live his leisured existence according to his full potentialities. Education is therefore a practical means to the end of achieving the acme of man's nature. 4. THE CONTENT OF EDUCATION. Education must not serve any mean or vocational activity. These activities are the functions of slaves. The subject material must train the future rulers in the use of reason. Future rulers must learn obedience and responsibility before they rule. We may infer from the curriculum of the Academy that the following subjects would be taught: a. Basics. These would include reading, writing and mathematics (not for purposes of trade, but as a preparation for the intellectual abstractions of higher mathematics). b. Natural Sciences. Aristotle emphasized the natural sciences of astronomy, biology, physiology, zoology, chemistry and physics.

c. Physical Education. The training of the body is important to the physical well-being of every citizen. d. Humanities. Rhetoric, grammar, poetry, politics and philosophy would be important subjects. During the early education of the child, Aristotle would have the state legislature censor the material which would be read by children. 5. THE METHOD OF EDUCATION. Aristotle placed habit high in the learning process. Man learns by nature, by habit, and by reason. Consequently, the teacher would organize materials according to the laws of reason. Repetitive drill would be used to reinforce what was understood by reason.an elementary knowledge of reading and writing. Arithmetic was never developed to a sophisticated extent because of the awkward method of writing numerals.