Importance.

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) was a philosopher whose achievement has been fundamental to the subsequent development of Western philosophy. No field of knowledge was beyond his purview, and for 2,000 years, his influence on European thought was supreme. It eventually became a straitjacket; from the start of the seventeenth century C.E., almost every new direction in the humanities and science had to start by overthrowing some Aristotelean doctrine, for after Aristotle, Europe never produced even his approximate equal until the Renaissance. Hence Aristotle's philosophy ultimately became unchallenged doctrine and his writings remained "holy writ" for a thousand years. That was not Aristotle's fault, however, but the fault of his disciples in the medieval period. In his own day, he set philosophy in a new direction. He learned from Plato, but he tempered Plato with common sense. He emphasized research and observation, and although he never developed the...