While Alexander was conquering Asia, Aristotle, now 50 years old, was in
Athens. Just outside the city boundary, he established his own school in a
gymnasium known as the Lyceum. He built a substantial library and gathered
around him a group of brilliant research students, called “peripatetics” from
the name of the cloister (peripatos) in which they walked and held their
discussions. The Lyceum was not a private club like the Academy; many of the
lectures there were open to the general public and given free of charge.
Most of Aristotle’s surviving works, with the exception of the
zoological treatises, probably belong to this second Athenian sojourn. There is
no certainty about their chronological order, and indeed it is probable that
the main treatises—on physics, metaphysics, psychology, ethics, and
politics—were constantly rewritten and updated. Every proposition of Aristotle
is fertile of ideas and full of energy, though his prose is commonly neither
lucid nor elegant.
Aristotle’s works, though not as polished as Plato’s, are systematic in
a way that Plato’s never were. Plato’s dialogues shift constantly from one
topic to another, always (from a modern perspective) crossing the boundaries
between different philosophical or scientific disciplines. Indeed, there was no
such thing as an intellectual discipline until Aristotle invented the notion
during his Lyceum period.
Aristotle divided the sciences into three kinds: productive, practical,
and theoretical. The productive sciences, naturally enough, are those that have
a product. They include not only engineering and architecture, which have
products like bridges and houses, but also disciplines such as strategy and
rhetoric, where the product is something less concrete, such as victory on the
battlefield or in the courts. The practical sciences, most notably ethics and
politics, are those that guide behaviour. The theoretical sciences—physics,
mathematics, and theology—are those that have no product and no practical goal
but in which information and understanding are sought for their own sake.
During Aristotle’s years at the Lyceum, his relationship with his former
pupil Alexander apparently cooled. Alexander became more and more megalomaniac,
finally proclaiming himself divine and demanding that Greeks prostrate
themselves before him in adoration. Opposition to this demand was led by
Aristotle’s nephew Callisthenes (c. 360–327 bce), who had been appointed
historian of Alexander’s Asiatic expedition on Aristotle’s recommendation. For
his heroism Callisthenes was falsely implicated in a plot and executed.
When Alexander died in 323, democratic Athens became uncomfortable for
Macedonians, even those who were anti-imperialist. Saying that he did not wish
the city that had executed Socrates “to sin twice against philosophy,”
Aristotle fled to Chalcis, where he died the following year. His will, which
survives, makes thoughtful provision for a large number of friends and
dependents. To Theophrastus (c. 372–c. 287 bce), his successor as head of the
Lyceum, he left his library, including his own writings, which were vast.
Aristotle’s surviving works amount to about one million words, though they
probably represent only about one-fifth of his total output.
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