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|Historical Context=Aristotle was born in Stagira, Chalkidice in central Macedonia in 384 BCE. His father was the court physician to the king of Macedonia, and his interest in living things probably derives from this source. [[CiteRef:: Anagnostopoulos (2009)]] At the age of 17 or 18, he was sent to Athens to pursue a higher education at Plato's (427-347 BCE) Academy, then the premier Greek learning institution. Plato had been the student of the renown Socrates (469-399 BCE). Aristotle was an outstanding scholar and remained at the Academy for twenty years. [[CiteRef::Biography.com Editors (2017)]][[CiteRef::Shields (2016)]] When Plato died, he did not, as he expected, receive the directorship of the Academy. He returned home to Macedonia, and became a tutor to King 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)]][[CiteRef::Shields (2016)]] After conquering Aristotle's former home; Athens, for Macedonia, Alexander helped him found the Lyceum there as a school and library. [[CiteRef::Shields (2016)]] The pro-Macedonian government of Athens was overthrown in 323 BCE. Because of his ties to Alexander, Aristotle was forced to flee to Chalcis on the Greek island of Euboea where he died a year later at the age of 62.
Aristotle drew on a preceding Greek tradition of inquiry which he saw as dating back to Thales of Miletus (circa 620-546 BCE) more than 150 years previously. He distinguished between a group of thinkers which he called 'inquirers into nature' as distinct from poetical 'myth-makers'. The latter, such as the Greek poet Hesiod (circa 750-650 BCE) explained the world primarily by positing divinities who behaved like super-powerful versions of human beings, with human-like genealogies and conflicts. These gods intervened in all aspects of the world, rendering it beyond mere human understanding. By contrast, 'inquirers into nature' saw the world as an ordered natural arrangement, or '''Kosmos''' not subject to supernatural intervention and potentially comprehensible to the human mind. Plato and Aristotle used the term '''philosophy''' to refer to this latter line of inquiry. Beginning in the eighteenth century this group of thinkers came to be referred to as the '''pre-Socratics''' [[CiteRef::Curd (2016)]]
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).
