Natural Causes

Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, was born at Stagirus in 384 BC. He was the son of a physician and studied under Plato at Athens. He taught there from 367 to 347 BC, and subsequently spent three years at the court of a former pupil in Asia Minor. After some time at Mitylene, he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teenage son, Alexander.

After Philip’s death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school, the Lyceum at Athens, known for the "Peripatetics." Due to anti-Macedonian sentiments following Alexander’s death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322 BC.

Nearly all of Aristotle’s works prepared for publication have been lost; however, the priceless extant works consist of lecture materials, notes, and memoranda, some of which are considered spurious. These works can be categorized as follows:

I. Practical: Nicomachean Ethics; Great Ethics (Magna Moralia); Eudemian Ethics; Politics; Economics; On Virtues and Vices.

II. Logical: Categories; Analytics (Prior and Posterior); Interpretation; Refutations used by Sophists; Topica.

III. Physical: Twenty-six works (some suspect) covering topics such as astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, and facts about animals.

IV. Metaphysics: On being as being.

V. Art: Rhetoric and Poetics.

VI. Other works: Including the Constitution of Athens and additional works of doubtful authorship.

VII. Fragments: Various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature, and treatises on rhetoric, politics, and metaphysics.

The Loeb Classical Library® edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes.

Pages: 464, Year of Publication: 0101, Dimensions: 10.8x10.8cm