THE PLACE OF MAN IN ARISTOTLE: THE BASIS OF MAN’S

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

That man experiences crisis in life is an unalterable fact of life. This crisis is an existential conflict arising from the existential struggle that has significance in his consideration of himself and experience of himself, comprehension of his existence and his expectation of himself, the real and the ideal.

Aristotle, among other thinkers projected such an ideal world of man, which is considerably separate and at the same time unrealistic to natural existence. This existential conflict arises from the nature of place accorded to man in nature. Contrary to the fact that  a greater part of man is animal, scholars like Aristotle in their placement of man have led man to bring into the world, only a capacity for a humanity, which he does not naturally posses but to form  through diligence and labour.

Born of Stagira, little town situated at the North-east side of Chalcedon in 384, B.C. Aristotle was the son of Nichomachus, who was a physician of the court of Macedon. Though his father died earlier in his life, Aristotle at seventeen became a disciple of Plato’s accademy in Athens in 367/66 B.C where, for over twenty years, he experienced Plato until the latter’s death in 348/47 B.C. He had much influence from Plato and danced to his tunes until his mature period when he later became a critic of Plato’s view. Later, he formed his own thought patterns. Leaving Athens with   Xenocrates, his colleague at the academy, he visited Hermias the king of Atarneus on his invitation, who later died of a great torture.

In 343/42, he was invited to Pella by Philip of Macedon, to tutor his son, Alexander the Great for about three years. This was brought to an abrupt end, by the demand of an active part from Alexander the Great in Macedon. Alexander having rebuilt the city in honor of Aristotle, he[Aristotle]changed his residence to his native residence in Stagira. Aristotle, however, moved back to Athens and spent twelve years teaching and writing at the Lyceum. But this was terminated after Alexander’s death and he left Athens impulsively at a death threat for his mother’s birth-place, Chalcis, where he died in exile in November 322 B.C, at the age of 62.

Most of his earliest works were lost, but some fragments still remain. His work covers a wide range of knowledge from physics to psychology, from metaphysics to ethics, from politics to the arts, from logic to rhetoric. His years away from Athens were predominantly taken up with biological research and writing. Judged on the basis of the content, Aristotle’s most important psychological writings belong as the case may be