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|Brief=an Ancient Greek philosopher who together with Socrates and Plato laid much of the groundwork for western philosophy and science
|Summary=Throughout his life, Aristotle covered a broad range of topics including: physics, ethics, biology, theatre, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, logic, zoology, metaphysics, and aesthetics. Among these, those most relevant to the philosophy of science are his theory of causation, theories on metaphysics, and his method of science - the Aristotelian-medieval method of intuition schooled by experience.
|Historical Context=Aristotle was born in Stagira, Chalkidicein central Macedonia in 384 BC. After his father’s death, Aristotle he was raised by Proxenus of Atarneus.[[CiteRef::During (1957)|pp. 253]] At the age of 17 or 18, Proxenus sent off Aristotle to Athens to pursue a higher education. In Athens, Aristotle joined Plato’s Academy and remained there until the age of thirty-seven (347 BC). It was in this In that year, his teacher and great philosophical companion, Plato, had died. Unfortunately, because Because of the many disputes amongst between the two, Aristotle did not receive directorship of Plato’s Academy as he imagined he would.[[CiteRef::Biography.com Editors (2017)]] Returning He returned home to Macedonia, Aristotle was met with the request of and became a tutor to Philip II of Macedon's son Alexander.Upon succeeding his father as king, Alexander won the appellation 'Alexander the Great' for his military conquests [[CiteRef::Biography.com Editors (2017)]] Philip II, asked Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, soon to be Alexander the great. A subject of great dispute is how long this tutorship lasted. Some speculate Aristotle continued to tutor Alexander for three years, however others posit it may have been as long as eight years.[[CiteRef::Shields (2016)]] A little further down the lineAfter conquering Athens, at around 335 BC Alexander succeeded his father and conquered Athens. It was with Alexander’s permission and their previous relationship that helped Aristotle started found the Lyceum. The Lyceum would act as a school and a library, where most of his works would be stored. The students of Aristotle who studied at the Lyceum, eventually became known as the Peripatetics.[[CiteRef::Shields (2016)]] The students were called Peripatetics because of their tendency to ‘travel about’ just as the word means. Remarkably, Aristotle’s association with Alexander the Great also contributed to where he spent the last years of his life. When the pro-Macedonian government of Athens was overthrown in 323 BC, Aristotle was forced to be executed for impiety. His charges were for associating with Alexander, and to avoid them, Aristotle fled flee to Chalcis, on the Greek island of Euboea to remain until where he died a year laterat the age of 62.
As one of the first writers on method, Aristotle’s ideas on method are found mostly in a body of texts known as Organon. The most important of these ideas to philosophy of science come from Analytica Priora and Analytica Posteriora. In the former, Aristotle discusses deduction, while in the latter, he discusses induction. Out of the two, Analytica Priora forms the basis of most systems of logic found up until the late 19th century, while Analytica Posteriora forms the basis of empirical science to around the same date.[[CiteRef::Falcon (2015)]] The philosophies in Analytica Priora worked particularly well in taxonomical frameworks within biology. Beyond mentioned works, the Organon comprises 4 other works, Categoriae, Topica, De Sophisticis Elenchis, and De Interpretatione).
