Aristotle Biography – For Kids & Teachers

Philosophy is a Greek word, which means, "love of wisdom". Philosophy is the study of some of the most basic questions about human life, like what can people learn from life, how can we be happy or what makes us sad.

lets talk about Aristotle. Aristotle was born in Northern Greece in the city of Stagira around the year 384 BC. And BC means before the birth of Christ. If you want to know more about BC, please watch our video on Alexander.

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Aristotle’s father, Nicomachus was the doctor to King Amyntas of Macedonia. Growing up, Aristotle became interested in nature. He learned about Greek Gods, philosophy and mathematics. At the age of 17, Aristotle travelled to Athens to join Plato's academy where he learned about philosophy and logical thinking.

Aristotle stayed in Plato’s school for about 20 years, first as a student and later as a teacher. Plato’s academy was not a school or college like we have today. They didn’t have classes on specific subjects taught by teachers. Instead the teachers and students challenged each other with questions and then discussed.

Aristotle left Plato’s academy in 347 BC and travelled through Greece and Turkey. Aristotle had new ideas on how the world should be studied. He like to take detailed obsevations. He even dissected animals to know about the function of each organ.

This method of working laid the foundation of science we study today. Aristotle spent a lot of time learning about biology. He was the first person to classify different types of animals into different groups. Aristotle’s way of classification was called Homomorphism.

Homomorphism means classification based on forms or how the animals looked. For example there are many bird forms – cranes, eagles, crows, bustards and sparrows. In 343 BC King Philip II asked Aristotle to teach his son Alexander. Aristotle taught philosophy, logic, mathematics and many other subject to Alexander.

After teaching Alexander, Aristotle returned to Athens and opened his school. It was called the Peripatetic School, where students learnt the philosophy of Aristotle.

During those times people believed that everything was made of four elements, earth, water, air and fire. Aristotle proposed that there was a fifth element aether, and said that stars, moon and sun were made of aether.

Aristotle also worked on how people should behave. Like doing everything in a balanced way…..dont eat too many chocolates, don’t watch too much TV, don’t play video games all the time…study, play and eat in balanced way. That’s a nice thought. I will practice the idea of “mean”…what do you say friends.

The existing works of Aristotle are grouped into four categories Organon, Metaphysics, Rhetoric and Poetics.

Aristotle died in 322 BC and sadly his students could not take his work to the world. In the 13th century, Aristotle was reintroduced to the West through the works of western philosophers. Even today, Aristotle’s work remains a significant starting point for any argument in the fields of logic, aesthetics, political theory and ethics.

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Aristotle Biography – For Kids & Teachers