Aristotle himself, son of the physician to the king of Macedonia and an avid, organized thinker, was attempting to systematize knowledge. The persistence of writing made it possible to impose structure on what was known about the world and, then, on what was known about knowing. As soon as one could set words down, examine them, look at them anew the next day, and consider their meaning, one became a philosopher, and the philosopher began with a clean slate and a vast project of definition to undertake. Knowledge could begin to pull itself up by the bootstraps.
