Aristotle's work became very influential during the period of the Middle Ages especially in the work of Thomas Aquinas. During the Middle Ages Aristotle was thought of as "the" philosopher or "the" master.
He was very flexible in his opinions and presented philosophy as an ongoing search or quest for truth.
Aristotle was never content with his discoveries and was always developing his findings.
With regard, for instance, to the issue of "time" Aristotle began with ordinary beliefs about time. He investigated further however in order to discover if there were inherent contradictions in the common assumptions about "time".
In addition, Aristotle distinguished between the world and discourse about the world.
The notion of appearances was prominent in Aristotle's theories. He argued that sometimes we rely more on the sense while at other times we rely more on beliefs of sayings about the world.
One general unifying notion to which Aristotle clung was his idea that all perception is interpretive.
In some sense Aristotle's approach may be perceived as somewhat "flat footed" in that he confines his interpretations to the world of experiences rather than getting behind the surfaces with the intention of discovering what is actually taking place behind all of perceived reality.
It is in this sense that Aristotle is perceived by some to be different from Plato in that Plato attempted to get behind what appears to be reality.
Plato therefore assumed a sort of transcendent "backdrop" to what is taking place within the external world.
Aristotle argued two things. First, he argued that experience is the object of wonder and beauty and, second, he also argued that we could never coherently go beyond our experience.
