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Discover the Top 12 Fascinating and Unusual Facts About Aristotle You Never Knew!

illustration of aristotle
Dive into the fascinating world of Aristotle and uncover some lesser-known tidbits about this ancient Greek philosopher that'll surely surprise and delight you.

1. Aristotle: Ancient Brainiac

He may not have the Twitter following of Kim K or the dance moves of Bruno Mars, but this OG philosopher had the ancient world buzzing with his brain power: Aristotle, a star student of Plato, started his own school called the Lyceum and went on to become a legendary thinker, dropping knowledge bombs on topics like physics, ethics, and politics while penning over 500 species of animal observations.
Source => linkedin.com

2. Cosmic Party Planner

Aristotle: the original celestial party planner! He envisioned a heavenly realm beyond the Moon that was perfectly organized, complete with planets moving in circles and RSVP-ing for their precise spots at cosmic soirees: Too bad his galactic gatherings couldn't account for the retrograde party crashers – those pesky planets that seem to slow down, speed up, and generally disrupt his perfectly planned choreography. Ultimately, his disco-of-perfection model didn't withstand the test of time, and had the stage lights switched off by the 17th century.
Source => britannica.com

3. Debating Your Mom

Aristotle, the ancient know-it-all who could probably school your mom in a heated debate: he rejected Plato's theory of forms, developed groundbreaking methods in various fields like logic, biology, physics, ethics and politics, founded the Lyceum school in Athens, and wrote around 200 treatises. Though only 31 survived, his influence on Western logic was a game changer, dominating the scene for 2000 years before modern propositional and predicate logic made their way to the party.
Source => iep.utm.edu

4. Scholarly Thrones

When you play the game of scholarly thrones, you either adopt or reshape the theories: Aristotle, a philosophical disciple of House Plato, ultimately ditched the theory of Forms and introduced his own beliefs – all forms are bound to the realm of things, never to wander independently.
Source => britannica.com

Education Don

5. Education Don

Roll over, Plato: Aristotle, the ancient don of education, thought it was high time the state stepped in and schooled the kiddos. Churning out upstanding citizens was his jam, combining intellectual prowess with moral backbone, all in the hope of crafting blissful, thriving societies.
Source => encyclopedia.com

6. Aristotle the Poet

Poetry: A tale of imitated action, empathy, and a touch of Aristotle! When we think of Aristotle's "Poetics," the red carpet rolls out, the spotlight flickers, and the curtains open for an evening at the theatre. However, this ancient philosopher was also jamming to the beat of a different drum: delving into the depths of human communication, exploring our penchant for mimicking life through words, and putting the "art" in Aristotle like poetry was his middle name.
Source => iep.utm.edu

7. Whale Whisperer

Talk about having a whale of a time: Aristotle was the first to realize that whales and dolphins weren't fish, but rather "viviparous quadrupeds," essentially making them mammals of the sea. He may have still called them "fishes," but hey, he knew they were no ordinary fish tale, as he astutely observed their blowholes, some steamy marine mammal lovin', and their nursing habits.
Source => intechopen.com

8. The Original Library

Step into Aristotle's crib, where "Party like it's 399 BC" was the motto and a toga was just as common as your favorite hoodie: Aristotle founded the Lyceum, a happening place for higher learning that probably boasted the world's first library, making it an ancient bookworm's paradise until it closed its doors after the death of Alexander the Great.
Source => plato.stanford.edu

9. Marine Biologist and Wedding Crasher

Before he was Aristotle: Marine Biologist and Wedding Crasher, our beloved philosopher spent his days as the charming guest of honor to his fans by the sea: Aristotle reveled in five years on the shores of Asia Minor, engaging in cutting-edge marine biology research while staying with former students in Assos and Lesbos, where he married his wife Pythias and had a daughter named Pythias.
Source => history.com

From Protégé to Powerhouse

10. From Protégé to Powerhouse

Before he started schooling fish in the Aegean Sea, this ancient philosopher was flexing his brain muscles with the OG Athenian intellects: Aristotle, mentored by the one and only Plato, evolved from protégé to philosophical powerhouse, eventually tutoring legendary conqueror, Alexander the Great, and pioneering the field of marine biology along the shores of Asia Minor.
Source => history.com

11. Tutor to a Conqueror

When Aristotle wasn't busy rockin' the ancient toga party or tutoring young minds on the art of growing epic beards, he was playing "professor" to a future world conqueror at the Temple of the Nymphs: This legendary philosopher taught none other than Alexander the Great and his Macedonian buddies, many of whom later became key advisors and generals during Alexander's globe-trotting conquests, proving Aristotle's lasting impact on both the party scene and the ancient history books.
Source => trigiro.com

12. Cooking Up Government

Once upon a time in Ancient Greece, Aristotle was cooking up a governing feast, meticulously seasoning each dish with a pinch of virtue and a dash of rationality: He concocted three genuine government forms – monarchy, aristocracy, and polity – each with a potentially corrupt aftertaste as tyranny, plutocracy, or democracy, based on the people's palate and the wise legislator's recipe.
Source => study.com

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