People and misc.
- ARISTOTLE : born: Stagira in northern Greece - 384 BC.
Son of a doctor named Nicomachus.
Also known as: The Philosopher, and The Stagirite.
Age 17 - studied in Athens at Plato's Academy until age 37.
In 343 or 342 BC, Aristotle was invited to tutor Alexander the Great in Pella.
In 335 BC, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded a school: the Lyceum.
"The story is told of him that his love of study was so great that he devised the plan of holding in his hand, while at work, a ball of copper which, if he fell asleep, would rouse him by falling into a metal basin. -- Maritain; Introduction pg. 93.
- MARITAIN, JACQUES : French Roman Catholic Philosophy whom Pope Paul VI called: "my teacher." He died at the age of 91.
A convert from Protestantist, Maritain was a leader in liberal thought on social and political questions while maintaining an orthodox stand on doctrinal matters.
Maritain held chairs of medieval studies at Toronto, Columbia, and Princeton universities before and during WWII. On the liberation of France, he was named French ambassador to the Vatican and served until 1948, when he returned to Princeton.
Maritian published 55 books, several of which had worldwide significance. "True Humanism" in 1936, "A Short Treatise of Existence and the Existent" was published in 1947 while at the Vatican embassy, and his most controversial work: "The Peasant of the Garonne" (1966) which drew heavy criticism from liberal church circles for its attack on the excesses of some of the clergy on both theological and liturgical matters, taking issue with the work of the Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In 1969, he publihsed: Reflections on America and his final work was a reflection of his faith: The Church of Christ.
- PLATO
- SOCRATES
- SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS