Aristotle Quiz: this Test checks your knowledge about one of history's greatest philosophers: answer the questions and find out immediately how much you know!
With this quiz on Aristotle you can test your knowledge about this Greek philosopher: Along with Socrates and Plato, Aristotle is considered one of the greatest thinkers of antiquity. He dealt with everything: science, physics, philosophy, religion... Trained at the Platonic Academy, after Plato's death he traveled far and wide and was master of Alexander the Great. He then returned to Athens and founded his own school, and his research-which touched the fields of metaphysics, psychology, poetics, and other disciplines-went on to form a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge that dominated Western culture for centuries.
In the Greek philosopher's philosophical research, three periods can be distinguished:
the academic period (Aristotle spent almost twenty years in the Platonic Academy, until the death of his master);
the sojourn in Aceus, Methylen and Macedonia;
the period of teaching at the Lyceum.
In the wake of Plato, Aristotle takes up the theme of the immortality of the soul. He also extols the contemplative life: reflection is what leads to knowledge, and he considers the "good" as the supreme end. As time goes on, Aristotle's research becomes increasingly independent of the teachings of his teacher, Plato. The Platonic idea-the eternal essence that is determined in matter and constitutes reality-becomes the Aristotelian matter, which the form shapes into the individual. It is the individual that is real, for neither form nor matter has independent existence.
To Aristotle we owe numerous concepts that later became part of Western philosophy for centuries after his death: the concept of "potency," the capacity to develop in the sense of a certain form; Act or energy, the realization of potency; entelechy, the formed matter. Potency continually transforms into act, and the world is a constant process of determining idea (form) into matter (potency) and potency into act. At the end of this process, Aristotle posits a perfect entity: a DIo, defined as a Pure Act.
This was just a brief summary. If you think you know more about Aristotle's life and thought, test yourself with our quiz!