Aristotle was a Greek philosopher best known as the student of Plato and the teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote and taught concerning government, poetry, physics, logic, biology and ethics, among many other things. He was one of the three great Greek scholars, along with Plato and Socrates, and a founder of modern Western philosophy. He joined Plato's Academy at the age of eighteen and remained there until Plato's death twenty years later. He then went on a biological and zoological research trip with Xenocrates and married the daughter of Phythias. After the death of his wife, he was invited to tutor Alexander the Great. He remained in Athens and founded another school of philosophy. He wrote on such a wide variety of subjects that his writings have been called the encyclopedia of Greek knowledge, and it has been suggested that Aristotle was the last man to know all there was to know during the time that he lived. He died of natural causes on his own farm.
亚里士多德是希腊哲学家，是柏拉图的学生、亚历山大大帝的老师。他和柏拉图、苏格拉底被称为希腊的三个伟大学者，他们是西方哲学的奠基者。他18岁时进入柏拉图的“学园”，在那里学习了20年。他后来和色诺克拉底一起开始出行做植物和动物学方面的研究，后来和赫米亚斯的女儿琵蒂亚斯结婚。在他的妻子去世之后，他被邀请去做亚历山大的老师，亚历山大后来征服了整个希腊称为亚历山大大帝。亚里士多德在雅典生活下来，并创办了一个哲学学园。亚里士多德写作的话题广泛，因而人们把他的作品称之为希腊知识的百科全书。
（本文选自人民教育出版社《中学英语文化背景知识手册》，2008年8月第1版）
