ABSTRACT
Aristotle’s teaching is most relevant to the history of the growth and transfer of knowledge. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) remarks that Aristotle “is the first to write like a professor.” (Russell 1975, 174). With him, knowledge expands and acquires methods, some of which still persist today: the role of dialectics contracts and is largely replaced by observation—all practices relatively common in modern higher education. Who was Aristotle and what was his contribution, for better or worse, to knowledge and higher learning? To be sure, Aristotle’s learning is complex, at times contradictory, and has been subject to many interpretations, past and present.
