Aristotle

Known for

Classification of governments, Politics, father of political science

Thought

Unlike Plato, Aristotle held that form and matter are inseparable — universal truths are discovered by careful observation and classification of the real, physical world, not by looking beyond it. In ethics he taught that the good life comes from the habitual practice of virtue, a reasoned mean between extremes (virtue ethics); in politics he classified constitutions by who rules and whether they rule for the common good or their own.

Biography

Plato's student at the Academy for twenty years before founding his own school, the Lyceum; tutored the young Alexander the Great.

CSS Philosophy paper topics

Major works

• Politics
• Nicomachean Ethics
• Metaphysics