2 Schools of Thought: From Aristotle to Augustine he fourth century saw a shift in political power from the city-states of classical Greece to the kingdom of Macedonia to the north In the same way, after the Athenians Socrates and Plato, the next great philosopher was a Macedonian Aristotle was born, Wfteen years after Socrates’ death, in the small colony of Stagira, on the peninsula of Chalcidice He was the son of Nicomachus, court physician to King Amyntas, the grandfather of Alexander the Great After the death of his father he migrated to Athens in 367, being then 17, and joined Plato’s Academy He remained for twenty years as Plato’s pupil and colleague, and it can safely be said that on no other occasion in history was such intellectual power concentrated in a single institution T Aristotle in the Academy Many of Plato’s later dialogues date from these decades, and some of the arguments they contain may reXect Aristotle’s contributions to debate By a Xattering anachronism, Plato introduces a character called Aristotle into the Parmenides, the dialogue that contains the most acute criticisms of the Theory of Ideas Some of Aristotle’s own writings also belong to this period, though many of these early works survive only in fragments quoted by later writers Like his master, he wrote initially in dialogue form, and in content his dialogues show a strong Platonic inXuence