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Roman marble portrait of Aristotle, with short curls and a closely trimmed beard.

Aristotle

384–322 BC

Greek philosopher

Born in Stagira, Aristotle spent roughly twenty years at Plato’s Academy before developing a school of his own, the Lyceum in Athens. His inquiries ranged from marine animals to political constitutions. He also tutored the young Alexander of Macedon, although the extent of his influence on the future ruler remains uncertain.

Aristotle sought explanations that account for what things are, how they change, and what they are for. He developed tools for assessing arguments and connected ethics with political life. For him, flourishing involves exercising human capacities well through reason and excellence in action. Much of his surviving writing records investigations in progress, with difficulties still visible.

How to read Aristotle

Aristotle’s surviving treatises can be compressed and technical. Start with familiar human questions, then widen the inquiry. This thematic route is our editorial recommendation, not the order in which he wrote; keep a glossary as words such as substance, cause, and soul acquire specialised meanings.

Character and community

Read Nicomachean Ethics first, especially Books I–II and VIII–IX, then Politics. Eudaimonia, often translated happiness, concerns living well across a life. Eudemian Ethics offers a comparison; Magna Moralia and Constitution of the Athenians carry attribution cautions.

  1. Nicomachean Ethics
  2. Politics
  3. Eudemian Ethics
  4. Magna Moralia
  5. Constitution of the Athenians

Persuasion and poetry

Rhetoric and Poetics provide a change of pace. Follow how an argument, an audience’s emotions, or a plot produces its effect; their questions connect public speaking and imaginative writing to human judgement.

  1. Rhetoric
  2. Poetics

Tools for reasoning

Try Categories and On Interpretation before the Analytics. Use Topics and Sophistical Refutations alongside them to distinguish sound deduction, scientific explanation, dialectical discussion, and merely persuasive-looking argument.

  1. Categories
  2. On Interpretation
  3. Prior Analytics
  4. Posterior Analytics
  5. Topics
  6. Sophistical Refutations

Nature and change

Physics introduces causes and change. The remaining natural treatises apply that inquiry to the heavens, material transformations, and weather. Watch the reasoning while recognising that these are ancient investigations.

  1. Physics
  2. On the Heavens
  3. On Generation and Corruption
  4. Meteorology

Living things

In On the Soul, soul names a principle of life, including plant life. Read Parts of Animals I for method, then sample the comparative inquiries and shorter biological studies. Parva Naturalia groups several small treatises.

  1. On the Soul
  2. Sense and Sensibilia
  3. On Memory and Recollection
  4. On Sleep and Waking
  5. On Dreams
  6. On Divination in Sleep
  7. On Length and Shortness of Life
  8. On Youth and Old Age, On Life and Death
  9. On Respiration
  10. History of Animals
  11. Parts of Animals
  12. Movement of Animals
  13. Progression of Animals
  14. Generation of Animals

First principles

Return to Metaphysics after these foundations. Begin with Book I’s survey and Book IV’s account of being; tackle the concentrated arguments about substance in VII–IX with notes and frequent rereading.

  1. Metaphysics

Transmitted with his works

These shorter works travelled with Aristotle’s treatises, but most are judged to come from his school or from later writers. Read them as evidence for the range of Peripatetic interests, from colours, sounds and mechanics to plants, wonders, winds, household management and a speech-writer’s handbook. Each reader page states its attribution caution.

  1. On Colours
  2. On Things Heard
  3. Physiognomonics
  4. On Plants
  5. On Marvellous Things Heard
  6. Mechanics
  7. On Indivisible Lines
  8. Situations and Names of Winds
  9. On Melissus, Xenophanes and Gorgias
  10. Virtues and Vices
  11. Economics
  12. Rhetoric to Alexander
  13. On the Universe
  14. On Breath
  15. Problems
  16. History of Animals, Book X
Reading guide sources
  1. Christopher Shields, “Aristotle,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2026 archive, Revised 25 August 2020, Sections 2, 7–8, 11 and 13.
  2. Richard Kraut, “Aristotle’s Ethics,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2026 archive, Revised 2 July 2022, Sections 1–2; glossary. Fred Miller, “Aristotle’s Political Theory,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2026 archive, Revised 1 July 2022, Sections 1–5; bibliography B.
  3. Christopher Shields, “Aristotle,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2026 archive, Revised 25 August 2020, Sections 2, 7–8, 11 and 13.
  4. Robin Smith, “Aristotle’s Logic,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2026 archive, Revised 22 November 2022, Sections 2, 4–8.
  5. Christopher Shields, “Aristotle,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2026 archive, Revised 25 August 2020, Sections 2, 7–8, 11 and 13.
  6. Christopher Shields, “Aristotle,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2026 archive, Revised 25 August 2020, Sections 2, 7–8, 11 and 13. James Lennox and Mariska Leunissen, “Aristotle’s Biology,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2026 archive, Revised 19 April 2026, Sections 1 and 3–5.
  7. Christopher Shields, “Aristotle,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2026 archive, Revised 25 August 2020, Sections 2, 7–8, 11 and 13.
  8. Christopher Shields, “Aristotle,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2026 archive, Revised 25 August 2020, Section 2. W. D. Ross (editor), “The Works of Aristotle, volume VI: Opuscula,” Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913, Translators’ prefaces.

Works in the library

48 available
Sources & portrait
  1. Christopher Shields, “Aristotle,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2023 edition, revised August 25, 2020, sec. 1.
  2. Christopher Shields, “Aristotle,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2023 edition, revised August 25, 2020, secs. 2, 4, 7, and 12.

Portrait: Roman marble portrait after Lysippos, whose original dates to about 330 BCE; mantle added in a later restoration. Palazzo Altemps, Inv. 8575. Photograph: Jastrow, 2006. Image source. Public domain; photograph dedicated to the public domain by Jastrow. Displayed in monochrome with a circular crop.