Aristotle’s thought was original, profound, wide-ranging, and systematic. It eventually became the intellectual framework of Western Scholasticism, the system of philosophical assumptions and problems characteristic of philosophy in western Europe during the Middle Ages. In the 13th century St. Thomas Aquinas undertook to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy and science with Christian dogma, and through him the theology and intellectual worldview of the Roman Catholic Church became Aristotelian. Since the mid-20th century, Aristotle’s ethics has inspired the field of virtue theory, an approach to ethics that emphasizes human well-being and the development of character. Aristotle’s thought also constitutes an important current in other fields of contemporary philosophy, especially metaphysics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of science.
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