Plato’s most brilliant student and perhaps the most significant intellectual in world history, Aristotle of Stageira built on the doctrines he had studied at the Academy but also radically disagreed with them.

The founder of Athens’ second great university, the Lyceum, did not believe there was any perfect, ideal world that transcended human ability to see, touch, smell and hear it, and proposed that all philosophy begin from with material reality of being a human animal in a complex natural world.

Aristotle contributed to many disciplines—scientific subjects as well as ‘Humanities’, but his core philosophical beliefs are laid down in his Nicomachean Ethics, Politics and Rhetoric, which are analysed in this lecture, as well as the major works of the next generation of practitioners of what became known as 'Peripatetic' philosophy.

A lecture by Edith Hall 4 March

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/aristotle

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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