The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (lived 384 – 322 BCE) is widely portrayed in popular culture as an overconfident buffoon who made assertions based on no evidence whatsoever and who was wrong about nearly everything. It is often claimed that his errors and overconfidence held back the progress of science for two thousand years. This portrayal is wildly inaccurate and is rooted in a centuries-old tradition of hostile writers deliberately misrepresenting Aristotle’s works to make him look as stupid as possible.
It is undoubtedly true that Aristotle made quite a few mistakes, but he was wrong a lot less often than is usually claimed. Furthermore, Aristotle did, in fact, rely on empirical evidence. In fact, of all ancient Greek philosophers, Aristotle is by far one of the most empirical. When Aristotle did make a mistake, it was generally not because he didn’t care about evidence, but rather because the evidence available to him was incomplete or his interpretation of the evidence was faulty.
Finally, the claim that Aristotle held back the progress of science for two thousand years is demonstrably wrong and ridiculous. For one thing, for much of the two thousand years in question, Aristotle wasn’t even generally seen as the most authoritative philosopher in the parts of the world where his works were being regularly studied. Furthermore, even when Aristotle was seen as the most authoritative philosopher, his authority was still open to some degree of question.
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