384 – 322 B.C.

Aristotle

Worth knowing

Plato's student for twenty years, then tutor to Alexander the Great, then founder of his own school in Athens.
He wrote on logic, physics, biology, ethics, politics and poetry. The logic of formal argument, used by every debater in the game, comes largely from him.
Most of what survives is lecture notes rather than published work, which is why it reads the way it does.

In Scholar’s Dream, Aristotle has one book

AristotleThe Works of AristotleRationalityEthics

Aristotle’s quotes in the game

Every quotation from Aristotle that a player meets in Scholar’s Dream, attached to the move that says it. Or see them as a plain list →

In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other, and each thing a book can do in a debate is called a move. Every quote below is spoken by one of those moves. Open “How it works in the game” under a quote to see the move, which books learn it, and which arguments it answers best.

“It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits.”
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.3 (trans. W. D. Ross, 1908, public domain). Hence the mean: courage between cowardice and rashness, generosity between stinginess and waste — a settled habit, not a feeling.public domain

How it works in the game: the move Golden Mean

EthicsArgument · power 50 · 100% accurate

In the gameVirtue as the middle path between excess and defect.

Learned byAristotle (Lv 1)

Aristotle reasoned to a first cause that moves all things while itself unmoved — a pagan argument the church would later put to work.
Aristotle, Metaphysics 12.

How it works in the game: the move Unmoved Mover

RationalityArgument · power 60 · 100% accurate

In the gameEvery motion needs a mover; the chain cannot run back forever.

Learned byAristotle (Lv 1)

“For he who can be, and therefore is another’s, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, reason, is a slave by nature… It is clear, then, that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and that for these latter slavery is both expedient and right.”
Aristotle, Politics 1.5 (trans. Benjamin Jowett, 1885/1905, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain

How it works in the game: the move A Slave by Nature

EthicsArgument · power 65 · 100% accurate

In the gameNot an aside — the conclusion of a sustained argument, Politics Book 1, chapters 3–7. Aristotle means every word of it.

Learned byAristotle (Lv 15)

Words Aristotle’s books borrow from others

Moves these books can learn whose quotation comes from somebody else. The citation on each one names who actually said it.

“Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.”
James 1:19 (WEB).

How it works in the game: the move Steelman

RationalityType shift

In the gameRestate the foe’s position in its strongest form — exposing its true weak point. Lowers the foe’s Defend. Always fair; never a bad move to use.

Learned byAristotle (Lv 8)

Who else was alive

Aristotle against everyone else in the game.

1050 B.C.800 B.C.550 B.C.300 B.C.50 B.C.A.D. 200A.D. 450

David Homer The prophets of Israel Herodotus Thucydides Plato Aristotle Cicero Virgil Matthew Paul John Mark Pliny the Elder Clement of Rome Ignatius An early Christian community Polycarp Claudius Ptolemy Hermas Justin Martyr Aristides Quadratus Melito Unknown authors writing under borrowed names Irenaeus The author of the Epistle to Diognetus Athenagoras Clement of Alexandria Tertullian Marcus Minucius Felix Origen Cyprian Plotinus Lactantius Eusebius Athanasius Eustathius of Sebaste Apollinaris of Laodicea Cyril of Jerusalem Epiphanius of Salamis Gregory of Nazianzus Basil of Caesarea Eunomius of Cyzicus Gregory of Nyssa Ambrose of Milan Jovinian Augustine The Macedonians Helvidius

Solid bar = firm dates · faded = approximate52 authors sit outside this window