Aristotle, who lived from approximately 384 BCE to 322 BCE, was one of the most significant figures of ancient Greek philosophy, politics, science, psychology, and the arts. He was born in Stagira, a city in Macedonia, to a father who served as a court physician; at the age of seventeen, he began training at Plato's Academy, where he spent more than twenty years. He left the Academy shortly after Plato's death in 347 BCE; he worked with his former students on the coast of Asia Minor, where he met and married his wife, Pythias. Around 342, he also became a tutor to the young Alexander the Great in Macedonia.
As Alexander became a young adult and began his legendary campaign of conquest,...