Aristotle was born around the time of 384 B.C. in Stagira, a small village on the northern coast of Greece. Aristotle’s father, Nicomachus, was court physician to the Macedonian king Amyntas II. His father died when Aristotle was very young, and even after his death Aristotle remained close with and was influenced by the Macedonian court that his father played a big role in for the rest of his life. It is believed that Aristotle’s mother, Phaestis, also died whenever he was young. After Aristotle’s father died, the husband of his older sister became his legal guardian until he was of age. When Aristotle turned 17, he was sent to Athens to pursue higher education than which he would have received in the small seaport town he was raised. There in Athens, Aristotle enrolled in Plato’s The Academy. The Academy was considered the premier learning institution of the known world. Plato called Aristotle “the mind of the school”, even though they did not agree on the fundamental parts of their individual philosophies. Aristotle may also …show more content…
It was known to everyone who encountered the two that Aristotle and Plato had an intimate, intellectual relationship and it was a huge surprise to know that Plato’s nephew would be the one to run Aristotle’s beloved Academy. Aristotle used this failure instead to better himself, later returning to Athens to start his own school.
Road To Success Given the information I have learned about Aristotle, I am encouraged by his constant need to learn and build himself intellectually, even though it was not completely necessary. Aristotle sought to study things like marine biology, which were not widely accepted as a “serious science”, regardless of what the general population believed. It was his endurance and seeking of knowledge that led him to become one of the most famous and widely known philosophers of his time, even up until