Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E) was born at Stagira, in Macedon, a Greek Colonial town settled by the Ionians. The son of Nicomachus, the personal physician of King Amyntas of Macedon, Aristotle entered Plato's Academy at the age of 17 and quickly became Plato's most prodigious pupil. Besides absorbing Plato's philosophy, in his lifetime Aristotle developed a method of systematizing all knowledge and wrote on virtually every subject, including physics, astronomy, meteorology, taxonomy, psychology, biology, ethics, politics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and logic.

bio by Daniel Kolak in Lovers of Wisdom
(Wadsworth, 1997)