Three Minute Philosophy - Aristotle

When scholars refer to you as "the philosopher" for about two thousand years, and everyone understands what that means, you're kind of a big deal. That's exactly what happened to Aristotle because, let's face it, the man's depth and breath of intellectual sophistication simply blew everyone out of the water for two millennia.

If you want a nice introduction to his thought, you could go the comedic route with Mark Steel. For the more ambitious of you, there's always the eloquent Martha Nussbaum discussing Aristotle with Bryan Magee, or Barry Schwarts lecturing on Aristotle's virtue ethics and practical wisdom, or Michael Sandel's teaching his excellent Harvard course on Justice.

But if you have absolutely no idea who Aristotle was, give us 3 minutes:

Ok, so he's too important to distill in only 3 minutes, so give us 3 more:

And to get an even better idea, here is an explanation of Aristotle's four causes:

If you liked that, check out the excellent History of Philosophy podcast; your brain will thank you.