The historical Aristotle is enigmatic. He does not enjoy the same level of infamy as Socrates, and whilst he is connected with the slightly less enigmatic but grand and popular Alexander, his famous pupil (of that there is no doubt, though there is no certainty as to the contents of his tutelage), he remains a mystery. There are few expressions of his personality, and more information about him comes from rumours and invectives than sources one may consider historical á la Thucydides. My account here is based on my observations whilst reading Carlo Natali’s Aristotle: His Life and School,¹ which was the most advanced scholarship I could find and peruse. I will attempt to avoid commonplace observations about him, unless they are inescapable.²

Aristotle seems to have been comparatively reserved; he did not find his objects of inquiry and persons of attack in the marketplace but in the Academy and later the Lyceum. Natali distinguishes between the brusque and brash method of Socrates and the gentle, dignified demeanour of Aristotle:

“The attitude of Socrates and many of those who closely followed his example, in the face of such widespread opinion, was at the same time didactic and polemical. They based their activity as thinkers and teachers primarily if not exclusively on direct discussion, on personal contact with their students, on persuasion, and on empathy, trying to produce in their own students a conversion of sorts and an alienation from the lifestyle of ordinary citizens. The philosophical activity of Socrates gave rise to a particular type of human relationship. In Aristotle’s view of the intellectual life, by contrast, there was no tendency at all to missionary proselytising, to conceive one’s life choice as ‘witnessing’ involving not only narrowly intellectual work but also the entire personality of the subject.” [66]

Socrates, intelligent as he may be, can never be agreeable: he is the sort of man one can tolerate either whilst drunk (see Book 1 of the Laws), or generally only away from polite society. But Aristotle is different: he is not agreeable for the sake of being agreeable, but would rather be kind and considerate and teach to those interested, instead of accosting those who come into his sight. In my mind, Socrates is merely a notch above Diogenes, who resided in a tub outside Athens; whilst both had remarkable ideas, the former more than the latter, surely they both abandoned civilisation. Aristotle embraced society and the complexities of life, and, while he “was often a bit harsh with those who did not think like him,” he nonetheless avoided “the personal sphere, which was in fact usually respected (e.g. Plato, Eudoxus)” [130].

If I had Socrates as a teacher, I would be instinctually turned away from a life of contemplation; fortunately, Aristotle beckoned. Aristotle seems to have been the sort of philosopher who was a gentleman scholar. Even during his time at the Platonic academy, Natali notes, “the master [Plato] supposedly admired a very peculiar, and very anti-Socratic, way of doing philosophy on his student’s part. Aristotle is said to have frequently walked out on the discussions in the school to be by himself reading hooks, and Plato found nothing to laugh at in that, though he tried courteously to involve the solitary young man in the school discussions” [20]. It seems as though the historic Aristotle was somewhat reticent, loved books, and spent time with his head buried in scrolls (codices were not Hellenistic, but rather one of the more remarkable gifts Rome gave to us). He spent time thinking carefully and at length, letting ideas reach a certain stage of development before articulating them, instead of relying on the unknown interlocutor to be reduced to absurd propositions and viewpoints, which may or may not have fallacious paths into the discussion.

The other contention, that “Aristotle, at a certain point in his ‘career’ as a teacher of philosophy … changed his theoretical opposition to rhetoric, and began to teach this  technē” [26–27], is equally revealing. Socrates’ criticism of the arts notwithstanding, studying them still had some value; in any case, Socrates was the unwitting touchstone for a brand of oratory now subsumed into the dialogo. Aristotle’s treatises, however, are much more demanding; they are not merely lecture notes but small steps of logic that can and must be recreated with rigour and at ease. But more importantly, by teaching rhetoric Aristotle rescued language from decay and despair, and from eternal damnation. Every teacher of elocution, oratory, and writing has a certain inner disposition that enables them to reach for what is appropriate at any given moment by reason that is second nature, almost a matter of instinct. Acuity in language is a skill that marries reason to instinct, transforms the domain of opinion into knowledge, and provides a framework from which the semantic level of argumentation fades away. Socrates was a belligerent, even a partisan of the sort that would support the ‘simplification’ of language, whilst Aristotle would bring forth the brilliance of Gibbon and Burke, the two greatest minds (and writers) of the 18th century. The subtle complexity of Aristotle is much more suitable to a good life than the brash generalisations of Socrates.

The elephant in the room, however, is that “Aristotle never mentions any events in the life of Alexander or his wars; when he speaks of Thebes, he does not mention the fact that Alexander razed it to the ground, nor does he ever mention the expedition into Asia and the destruction of the Persian Empire” [47]. While Natali acknowledges and sides with the overwhelming evidence that Aristotle was in fact the tutor of Alexander the Great, he points out the conspicuous absence of Alexander in Aristotle’s works. I have some reason to think that this is a mere matter of disposition. While Socrates, the up-and-coming philosopher, needs to justify himself by associating with men like Alcibiades and Gorgias, popular men in their own right, Aristotle needs no reason to acquire a reputation by association. He is confident of his brilliance, and because I conjecture that he is by disposition a conservative, he respects the sanctity of the bond between the student and the teacher; the discussions had with Alexander were private and only for the two, not general lessons to be shared and amplified by the vox populi. Socrates had no issues with asking Cephalus about his sex drive, but Aristotle found it in himself the ability to shirk crude chatter and embrace his position.

Natali sums up his position on the evidence about Aristotle as such: “Aristotle therefore does not seem to have enjoyed the vast public notoriety that Socrates and Plato had among their more humble fellow citizens, but rather to have been a philosopher who was well know primarily among educated people” [57]. Aristotle, contra Socrates, was “less preoccupied with how philosophical studies were judged by the ordinary citizen” [57], striking the right balance between an appreciation for the world around him and a certain detachment that would enable him to continue upon the path of philosophic investigation without fretting over close ties to the world. Aristotle had one leg in the world, and one out of it; he did not renounce the world entirely, but appreciated it for its noble simplicity and quiet grandeur.