How does this author show Alexander personal character leadership style?
Aristotle's Lost Thoughts
On a list of thinkers from antiquity who contributed most to modern thought, Aristotle's name would
be found at or near the top. Aristotle was making scientific observations in the ancient world long
before anyone knew about science. Unlike his own teacher, the great philosopher Plato, Aristotle
believed that the world and everything in it obeys natural laws. He also believed that acquiring
knowledge about natural laws would lead to the truth about what we in modern times call objective
reality. In many ways, Aristotle, born in Greece in 384 B.C., was a modern thinker.
Aristotle conducted scientific research in what is now Turkey before returning home. to ancient.,
Greece. He had spent time classifying plant and animal life through the species level--work that is
still done by scientists today--before King Philip Il of northern Greece made a historic request of the
learned man. The king asked him to tutor his thirteen-year-old son, Alexander. The boy was being
groomed to someday replace his fathér as king and required a superior education. Perhaps no one 2
in the world at that time had so much knowledge about so many subjects as Aristotle. In exchange
for accepting the assignment, Philip II restored Aristotle's hometown and the citizenship of its
overthrown inhabitants. The land and its people had been earlier overthrown by Philip I1.
Alexander would become Alexander the Great and live to essentially conquer the world. Many
readers of history know about Alexander's military expertise. Fewer, however, know of his lifelong
love of learning. Throughout his battles that led as far east as India, Alexander slept with a copy of
Homer's epic poem, The lliad. The copy was given to him, with handwritten notes, by Aristotle.
Alexander would remark that while his father gave him life, Aristotle taught him how to live.
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The closeness between Alexander and Aristotle began to dissipate before the end of the great king's
short life. While out battling the world, Alexander learned that his teacher had published a portion of
his esoteric ideas. These were thoughts that Aristotle had decided never to share with the public. He
would only discuss them orally with special acquaintances, including Alexander. Alexander wrote to
his teacher that h? was disappointed to learn of the publication.
Aristotle did make at least one attempt to smooth the feathers of his student. He explained that even
though he had published some of his esoteric thoughts, the public would never understand them.
The language would be meaningful only to those who had shared in direct discussion with Aristotle
himself.
Despite Aristotle's brilliance- his ability to skip countless generations of human experience to arrive
at modern thought through some mysterious backdoor-some of his mental habits were apparently
stuck in antiquity. Genius belongs to no individual person, not even the mind and spirit it inhabits.
The idea that even a portion of Aristotle's mental makeup should have been locked away for the
appreciation of a privileged few is almost unthinkable today. As it is, the modern world lost much of
what Aristotle left behind. Politics, the endless battles over property, and time destroyed the bulk of
his writings. What remains in the twenty-first century is a treasure that avails itself to anyone who
seeks it.