Peripatetic School

(from Greek peripateo, “I walk about”), the philosophical school of Aristotle. The name arose from Aristotle’s habit of walking about with his students in the Lyceum while lecturing.

In its initial period (fourth to first centuries B.C.), the Peripatetic school was headed first by Theophrastus and then by Strato of Lampsacus. Members of the school included Eudemus of Rhodes, Aristoxenus of Tarentum, and Dicaearchus of Messana.

The Peripatetics of this period were interested predominantly in individual studies, such as logic and botany (Theophrastus) and musical theory (Aristoxenus). Some of Aristotle’s students became naturalists, historians, geographers, and literary theorists and historians.

Andronicus of Rhodes was a distinguished representative of the school’s second period (first century B.C.). In both this period and the one following (first to third centuries A.D.), Aristotle’s works were published, edited, and annotated.

The Peripatetic school influenced the Platonists, Pythagoreans, Stoics, and Neoplatonists.