Aristotle (384–322 BC), born in Stagira, ancient Greece, was a polymath philosopher of unparalleled breadth. He studied at Plato's Academy for twenty years before becoming tutor to Alexander the Great. Later he founded the Lyceum, pioneering systematic empirical research.
Aristotle's contributions span logic, metaphysics, physics, biology, ethics, politics, and poetics. He invented formal syllogistic logic, proposed the ethical doctrine of the Golden Mean, and championed observation and experience as the path to knowledge, founding the Western empirical tradition.
Aristotle's works were transmitted to medieval Europe through Arab scholars and became the core of Scholastic philosophy. His contributions to logic and scientific method shaped the entire Western academic tradition. Karl Marx called him 'the greatest thinker of antiquity,' and Dante referred to him as 'the master of those who know.'
