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Stephen Halliwell makes newly accessible one of the most influential and widely cited works in the history of literary theory and criticism. Aristotle's Poetics contains his treatment of Greek tragedy: its history, nature, and conventions, with details on poetic diction. This is the only edition of this central work in which readers can find, side by side, a reliable Greek text, a translation that is both accurate and readable, and notes that explain allusions and key ideas. Halliwell's Introduction traces the work's debt to earlier theorists (especially Plato), its distinctive argument, and the reasons behind its enduring relevance.

Also included in the volume are two central post-Aristotelian treatises on literary style: On the Sublime, a discussion of distinguished style (with illustrative passages) probably written in the 1st century A.D.; and On Style, a valuable guide to the Greek theory of styles that dates perhaps as early as the 2nd century B.C. For this new version of Volume XXIII of the Loeb Classical Library Aristotle edition, Fyfe's translation of On the Sublime has been retained but judiciously revised by Donald Russell. Doreen C. Innes' fresh reading of On Style is based on the earlier translation by Roberts. The new Introductions and notes by Russell and Innes reflect today's scholarship. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Tragedy Teaches Us Something About Life
I read these works for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.
Poetry appeals to human passions and emotions.Powerful beautiful language and metaphor really appeal to emotion.This idea really disturbed Plato, who takes on Homer in the Republic.Plato thought that early Greek poetry portrays a dark world; humans are checked by negative limits like death.Tragedy has in it a character of high status brought down through no fault of his own.Plato says this is unjust.Republic is about ethical life and justice.It starts with the premises that might makes right and then moves onto the idea much like modern religions that justice comes in the afterlife.Plato hates the idea that in tragedy bad things can happen to good people.He wanted to ban tragedy because he found it demoralizing.

Aristotle's Poetics is a defense against Plato's appeal to ban tragedy.Tragedy was very popular in Greek world so Aristotle asks can it be wrong to ban it?Yes, it is wrong thus he decides to study it.Plato says Poetry is not a technç because the poets are divinely inspired.Aristotle disagrees Poetics is a handbook for playwrights.Mimçsis= "representation or imitation."Plato uses it in speaking of painting, thus art is imitation.Another meaning is to mimic, like actors mimicking another person.Plato and Aristotle use it to mean psychological identification like how we get absorbed in a movie as if the action were real, eliciting emotions from us.We suspend reality for a while.Aristotle says this is natural in humans; we do this as children, we mimic.If imitation is important for humans then tragic poetry is worthwhile for Aristotle to study.

Definition of tragedy- "Through pity and fear it achieves purification from such feelings.This is a famous controversial line.Katharsis= "pity and fear" thus the purpose of tragedy is to purge katharsis.Katharsis can also mean purification or clean.There is a debate if it means clarification, through which we can come to understand katharsis.Aristotle thinks tragedy teaches us something about life.Tragedy is an elaboration on Aristotle's idea that good or virtuous people sometimes get unlucky and in the end, they get screwed.Tragedy shows this so we can learn to get by when life screws us.The whole point of tragedy is action over character.Action is the full story of the poem like the Iliad.Character is only part of the action.
Aristotle distinguishes between poetry and history.Poetry is concerned with universals, history is concerned with particulars.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy.Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

EXCELLENT TRANSLATION - EXCELLENT STUDY GUIDE
I certainly refuse to be presumptuous enough to write a critique addressing the works of Aristotle, but do give this particular translation and particular publication five stars.It is an excellent study guide.It is quite superior to the Classics Club Edition. Recommend it highly.The cross references to the orginal greek are wonderful and quite useful.You need to add this one to your library if your interest points in this direction. ... Read more

Product Description

Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there (367–347); subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias's relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 343–2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son Alexander. After Philip's death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school (of 'Peripatetics'), the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexander's death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322.

Nearly all the works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as follows: I Practical: Nicomachean Ethics; Great Ethics (Magna Moralia); Eudemian Ethics; Politics; Economics (on the good of the family); On Virtues and Vices. II Logical: Categories; Analytics (Prior and Posterior); Interpretation; Refutations used by Sophists; Topica. III Physical: Twenty-six works (some suspect) including astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, facts about animals, etc. IV Metaphysics: on being as being. V Art: Rhetoric and Poetics. VI Other works including the Constitution of Athens; more works also of doubtful authorship. VII Fragments of various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes.

Customer Reviews (1)

Not the best translation
If you're not familiar with the Loeb's, this wonderful series aims to make accessible all important Greek and Latin literature in bilingual editions - English translations with the original text on the opposite page. These books can be of great value to students of classics as well as to professionals in other fields, e.g. philosophers that are not fluent in Greek, but need an accurate and dependable translation of the works of Plato or Aristotle. And in my experience, the Loeb's rarely fail to meet expectations.

This volume contains Harold P. Cooke's translation of the Categories and De Interpretatione as well as Hugh Tredennick's translation of the Prior Analytics. I found Cooke's translations to be a little bit disapointing. The English translation often merely paraphrases Aristotle. This doesn't automatically make the translation a bad one, of course, for sometimes paraphrase is needed. But there are other translations available of these works, and, in my oppinion, Cooke's translation is inferior to J.L. Ackrill's translation of the Categories and De Interpretatione, which is both more accurate and relatively easy to read.

Now, I assume that no one would buy a Loeb primarily for the Greek or Latin text - for that you would turn to the Oxford Classical Texts or other critical text editions. So if you're buying a Loeb it's either for the translation or to be able to compare an English translation with the original. If you need to compare an English translation of these particular works with the Greek text, then this volume will be useful to you. However, if you just want to read these works in translation, you might very well be satisfied with this one, but I still recommend other translations such as J.L. Ackrill's excellent translation of the Categories and De Interpretatione. ... Read more

Product Description
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theatre, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. He was the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics. Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by modern physics. In the biological sciences, some of his observations were only confirmed to be accurate in the nineteenth century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which were incorporated in the late nineteenth century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially Eastern Orthodox theology, and the scholastic tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. ... Read more

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Aristotle is widely regarded as the greatest of all philosophers; indeed, he is traditionally referred to simply as `the philosopher'. Today, after more than two millennia, his arguments and ideas continue to stimulate philosophers and provoke them to controversy.In this book J.L. Ackrill conveys the force and excitement of Aristotle's philosophical investigations, thereby showing why contemporary philosophers still draw from him and return to him.He quotes extensively from Aristotle's works in his own notably clear English translation, and a picture emerges of a lucid, lively, subtle and tough-minded thinker of astonishing range and penetration. Professor Ackrill identifies many striking connections between Aristotle's ideas and ideas in recent philosophy; he also raises philosophical questions of his own, and exemplifies the way in which Aristotle can still be argued with and learned from. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Aristotle by Ackrill
This book is an excellent secondary read.I am reading original text from Aristotle and having this book in conjunction with the original text is very helpful.Ackrill is accurate with the the analysis of Aristotle's text.I would recommend this book for either undergraduate studies or someone who is interested in the classics.

Good, basic primer
Introduction



J. L. Ackrill undertakes to examine the highlights of Aristotle's thought and use them to springboard into philosophical inquiry.Ackrill begins the book with a brief biography of Aristotle and an introduction to his thought. Ackrill aims to clear up misconceptions concerning Aristotle's methodology and to see that criticisms that are raised against Aristotle should actually be leveled against his followers who had different interests, and less ability, than Aristotle (81).The major themes of Aristotle that are presented in this book are the analysis of change, formal logic, the mind-body problem, metaphysics, ethics, and philosophical logic.

An Examination of Aristotelian Themes

The Analysis of Change.Ackrill begins illustrating Aristotle's thought on matter and change by referring to Aristotle's response to the problem raised by Parmeninedes and his school, the Eleatics; namely, "What is, is one and unchangeable"-making predication and distinctions in thought and communication impossible.Aristotle deals with this as an absurdity based on deliberate misunderstanding.He makes two simple points:he attacks the Eleatics' central thesis by showing their equivocation of the verb "to be."Aristotle deals with this problem by stating that all logical communication assumes the qualifications of its terms.Secondly, he attacks their unwarranted dismal of ascribing characteristics or saying that things cannot change (25).Ackrill then outlines the three important aspects of Aristotle's analysis of change-"x comes to be by y," "y comes to be from x," and "y comes into being" (27, 28).

Explanation of the Natural Sciences.In the previous chapter Ackrill used the analysis of change to show that in any changeable object matter and form can be distinguished.In the same way he shows that changes of life in nature depend upon its material make-up; namely, a thing in nature's behavior will be determined by what it is made of and how it is put together.This would seem to present a problem for Aristotle were it not for his asking the nature of the thing being changed (35).Ackrill then begins to examine Aristotle's inquiry into the nature of causation.Aristotle notes four types of causality for gaining knowledge, all of which may contribute to the "cause" of a thing.In doing so, Aristotle is seeking to ask the "why" of a thing, not just the "what."Ackrill first notes the material cause, that from which a constituent thing come to be.He then notes the formal cause; the form or mode is the cause.Ackrill locates the source of the change in the efficient cause.The end result of an action is its final cause (37).

Logic.Ackrill's chapter on logic is the most difficult to comprehend in the book.One does not suggest that Ackrill's material his factually wrong, nor that he does not understand Aristotelian logic, but he does not go to great lengths to communicate the material clearly.In speaking of Aristotelian logic Ackrill means formal logic manifested primarily in the syllogism (an argument containing two premises and a conclusion).This is where Ackrill begins to lose his audience.Traditional logic textbooks state, for example, "All men are mortal;" Ackrill, going upon the natural reading of the Greek, turns it around saying, "Mortal belongs to every man" (82).[1] He proceeds to justify his unique formation of syllogistic reasoning by saying that it has certain advantages, although he never says what they are.He then spends five pages describing moods, forms, and figures-much to the confusion of the reader.He notes, correctly I believe, that syllogistic logic has its limits and would fall under heavy criticism by the philosophers John Locke and Immanuel Kant (80, 87).

Ironically, one of the most interesting chapters is the one on scientific analysis.ALthough Aristotle has been discredited in the realms of science, many scientists operate on the same basic epistemological framework that Aristotle does (ie, sensory perception is the root of knowledge).It makes one wonder if thirty years from now they too will be embarrassed, their dogmatic claimsnotwithstanding.Ackrill did a good job on this claim.

An excellent introduction
This book is an excellent introduction to Aristotle. It is so easy to make Aristotle confusing, but Ackrill writes very clearly, even on copmlicated and difficult matters. In only 155 pages he admirably achieves his aim in bringing to light the remarkable range and depth of Aristotle's thought.

The book will be of use to beginners as a first introduction to Aristotle's philosophy as well as to those already acquainted with Aristotle. For those thirsty for more discussion about Aristotle, there are suggestions for further readings in the book.

This might be the best short introduction to Aristotle around and I recommend it to anyone wanting to get to know Aristotle better. ... Read more

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Following the conviction that Aristotle's works are themselves the best introduction to what Aristotle thought and meant, Richard McKeon has skillfully compiled and edited this collection of texts from the treatises.An important tool for instructors and students alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A useful and comprehensive introduction.
It's been said somewhere, don't remember by whom, that all of western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato and Aristotle. This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but the fact remains that these two seminal figures of western thought have left at least an indirect mark on all of the subsequent thinkers. And yet, it's been my experience that Plato ismuch more widely read and studied, in college courses and otherwise, than his equally famous erstwhile disciple. This probably has to do a lot with the style: Plato's "Socratic dialogs" have been written in a form that makes them instantly accessible to readers of all ages, and tends to belie the complexities and subtleties of the underlying ideas. Aristotle's style is much more pedantic and scholarly. One could easily see his writings appearing in peer-reviewed journals.

In part due to the above considerations, it took me a while to finally pick up a book of Aristotle's writings and try to go through at least some of them. This volume brings a few of his works in their entirety, but for most part only more important excerpts are given. Reading it requires some effort on the part of the reader, especially if you are not used to the style and substance of ancient Greek thought. However, the effort was worthwhile, and I've come away from reading this work with renewed and deepened appreciation for Aristotle. In terms of the sheer breadth of his inquiry, there has not been anyone quite like him before or since. ... Read more

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A most important text, over 2,000 years old, holds true even today. Aristotle's ethical system insists that there are no known absolute moral standards and that any ethical theory must be based in part on an understanding of psychology and grounded in the realities of daily life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Aristotle
The cliff notes are ok but could be better organized and written a little clearer.

Save's time and understanding
Really help me so I didn't have to read to whole books since my time is limited. ... Read more

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The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics illuminates Aristotle’s ethics for both academics and students new to the work, with sixteen newly commissioned essays by distinguished international scholars.

• The structure of the book mirrors the organization of the Nichomachean Ethics itself.
  
• Discusses the human good, the general nature of virtue, the distinctive characteristics of particular virtues, voluntariness, self-control, and pleasure.

Customer Reviews (1)

We Reach Our Complete Perfection Through Habit
I read this book for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.I think Aristotle's ethics is his most seminal work in philosophy.In the early 1960's virtue ethics came to fore.It is a retrieval of Aristotle.It has very close parallels to the ancient Chinese philosophy of Confucius and the modern philosophy espoused in the 1970's called Communitarianism.

For Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, (EN) is about human life in an embodied state.Area of inquirery for EN is "good" this is his phenomenology.What does "good" mean?He suggests good means "a desired end."Something desirable.Means towards these ends.Such as money is good, so one can buy food to eat because "eating is good."In moral philosophy distinction between "intrinsic good" vs. "instrumental good."Instrumental good towards a desire is "instrumental good" like money.Thus, money is an "instrumental good" for another purpose because it produces something beyond itself.Instrumental good means because it further produces a good, "intrinsic good" is a good for itself, "for the sake of" an object like money."Intrinsic good" for him is "Eudemonia=happiness."This is what ethics and virtues are for the sake of the organizing principle.Eudemonia=happiness.Today we think of happiness as a feeling.It is not a feeling for Aristotle.Best translation for eudaimonia is "flourishing" or "living well."It is an active term and way of living for him thus, "excellence."Ultimate "intrinsic good" of "for the sake of."Eudaimonia is the last word for Aristotle.Can also mean fulfillment.Idea of nature was thought to be fixed in Greece convention is a variation.What he means is ethics is loose like "wealth is good but some people are ruined by wealth."EN isn't formula but a rough outline.Ethics is not precise; the nature of subject won't allow it.When you become a "good person" you don't think it out, you just do it out of habit!

You can have ethics without religion for Aristotle.Nothing in his EN is about the afterlife.He doesn't believe in the universal good for all people at all times like Plato and Socrates.The way he thought about character of agent, "thinking about the good."In addition, Aristotle talked about character traits.Good qualities of a person who would act well.Difference between benevolent acts and a benevolent person.If you have good character, you don't need to follow rules.Aretç=virtue, in Greek not religious connotation but anything across the board meaning "excellence" high level of functioning, a peak.Like a musical virtuoso.Ethical virtue is ethical excellence, which is the "good like."In Plato, ethics has to do with quality of soul defining what to do instead of body like desires and reason.For Aristotle these are not two separate entities.

To be good is how we live with other people, not just focus on one individual.Virtue can't be a separate or individual trait.Socrates said same the thing.Important concept for Aristotle, good upbringing for children is paramount if you don't have it, you are a lost cause.Being raised well is "good fortune" a child can't choose their upbringing.Happenstance is a matter of chance.

Pleasure cannot be an ultimate good.Part of the "good life" involves external goods like money, one can't attain "good life" if one is poor and always working.Socrates said material goods don't matter, then he always mooched off of his friends!Aristotle surmises that the highest form of happiness is contemplation.In Aristotle's Rhetoric, he lists several ingredients for attaining eudaimonia.Prosperity, self-sufficiency, etc., is important, thus, if you are not subject to other, competing needs.A long interesting list.It is common for the hoi polloi to say pleasure=happiness.Aristotle does not deny pleasure is good; however, it is part of a package of goods.Pleasure is a condition of the soul.In the animal world, biological beings react to pleasure and pain as usual.Humans as reasoning beings must pursue knowledge to fulfill human nature.It must be pleasurable to seek knowledge and other virtues and if it is not there is something wrong according to Aristotle.These are the higher pleasures and so you may have to put off lower pleasures for the sake of attaining "higher pleasures."

Phronçsis= "intelligence," really better to say "practical wisdom."The word practical helps here because the word Phronçsis for Aristotle is a term having to do with ethics, the choices that are made for the good.As a human being, you have to face choices about what to do and not to do.Phronçsis is going to be that capacity that power of the soul that when it is operating well will enable us to turn out well and that is why it is called practical wisdom.The practically wise person is somebody who knows how to live in such a way so that their life will turn out well, in a full package of "goods."For Aristotle, Phronçsis is not deductive or inductive knowledge like episteme; Phronçsis is not a kind of rational knowledge where you operate in either deduction or induction, you don't go thru "steps" to arrive at the conclusion.Therefore, Phronçsis is a special kind of capacity that Aristotle thinks operates in ethics.Only if you understand what Aristotle means by phronesis do you get a hold on the concept.My way of organizing it, it is Phronçsis that is a capacity that enables the virtues to manifest themselves.

What are the virtues?Phronçsis is the capacity of the soul that will enable the virtues to fulfill themselves.Virtue ethics is the characteristics of a person that will bring about a certain kind of moral living, and that is exactly what the virtues are.The virtues are capacities of a person to act well.All of the virtues can be organized by way of this basic power of the soul called Phronçsis.There are different virtues, but it is the capacity of Phronçsis that enables these virtues to become activated.Basic issue is to find the "mean" between extremes; this is how Aristotle defines virtues.

Humans are not born with the virtues; we learn them and practice them habitually."We reach our complete perfection through habit."Aristotle says we have a natural potential to be virtuous and through learning and habit, we attain them.Learn by doing according to Aristotle and John Dewey.Then it becomes habitual like playing a harp.Learning by doing is important for Aristotle.Hexis= "state," "having possession."Theoria= "study."The idea is not to know what virtue is but to become "good."Emphasis on finding the balance of the mean.Each virtue involves four basic points.

1. Action or circumstance.Such as risk of losing one's life.
2. Relevant emotion or capacity.Such as fear and pain.
3. Vices of excess and vices of deficiency in the emotions or the capacities.Such as cowardice is the excess vice of fear, recklessness is the excess deficiency.
4. Virtue as a "mean" between the vices and deficiencies.Such as courage as the "mean."

No formal rule or "mean" it depends on the situation and is different for different people as well.For example--one should eat 3,000 calories a day.Well depends on the health and girth of the person, and what activity they are engaged in.It is relative to us individually.
All Aristotle's qualifications are based on individual situations and done with knowledge of experience.Some things are not able to have a "mean" like murder and adultery because these are not "goods."
Akrasia= "incontinence" really "weakness of the will.Socrates thought that all virtues are instances of intelligence or Phronçsis.Aristotle criticizes Socrates idea of virtue, virtue is not caused by state of knowledge it is more complicated.Aristotle does not think you have to have a reasoned principle in the mind and then do what is right, they go together.

The distinctions between continent and incontinent persons, and moderate (virtue) and immoderate (not virtuous) persons is as follows:

1. Virtue.Truly virtuous people do not struggle to be virtuous, they do it effortlessly, very few people in this category, and most are in #2 and #3.
2. Ethical strength.Continence.We know what is right thing to do but struggle with our desires.
3. Ethical weakness.This is akrasia incontinence.Happens in real life.
4. Vice.The person acts without regret of his bad actions.

What does Aristotle mean by "fully virtuous"?Ethical strength is not virtue in the full sense of the term.Ethical weakness is not a full vice either.This is the critique against Socrates idea that "Knowledge equals virtue."No one can knowingly do the wrong thing.Thus, Socrates denies appetites and desires.Aristotle understands that people do things that they know are wrong, Socrates denies this.Socrates says if you know the right thing you will do it, Aristotle disagrees.The law is the social mechanism for numbers 2, 3, 4.A truly virtuous person is their own moral compass.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy.Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Masterpiece. Exhaustive and Complete!
If you enjoy Aristotle and Aquinas and would like to gain a better understanding on Aristotle's work titled "Physics," then this is definitely a book you need to own. While there are literally hundreds of titles in print and out of print (but able to be found) on Aristotle'sphysics, there is no book that matches this one. This is yet anotherexample of the "dumb ox" rising to the occasion again. Aquinastakes Aristotle's "Physics"lecture by lecture (i.e. passage bypassage) and comments on what Aristotle is espousing. This is 638 pages ofgreat detail, philosophy, and comments by one of the greatest philosophersin philosophical history (Aquinas), about one of the greatest philosopher'swork. The work is translated by Blackwell, Spath, and Thirlkel, and has aforward written by one of the most renown Thomistic scholars of our day,namely, Ralph McInerny. The translators have done a wonderful job of takinga difficult topic and language and making it easy to read and simple tofollow. Aquinas breaks down all of Aristotle's arguments, writings,comments, etc. into helpful and easy to understand comments. Furthermore,Aquinas takes words/phrases that are used by Aristotle and explains theircontext, intent, and meaning. Anybody who is familiar with Aquinas knowsthatAquinas can say more in less than most if not all of the greatestphilosophers. Therefore, if you want a commentary that will exhaustivelyexplain Aristotle's "Physics" then look no further. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Decent Translation, Abominable Aesthetics
Mr. Joe Sachs is somewhat of a controversial figure in scholarly circles. He has translated the principal theoretical works of the Aristotelian Corpus, and has declared that traditional translation (i.e. those employing Latin cognates) are insufficient at best and misleading at worst.

His translation is decent (that is, mostly literal) until one reaches the key technical terms: ousia, energeia, to ti enai,archai, entelekeia, etc. Sachs wishes to translate these into clear, immediately comprehensible everyday English. Unfortunately, this is precisely what I believe he often fails to do. His translations are but sometimes immediately clear, but (to take three examples) "energeia" is rendered "being-at-work", its mate, "entelecheia", "being-at-work-staying-itself", and "ousia" is "thinghood": phrases which, to the uninitiated, remain as much, if not more obscure than their Latin competitors: "activity" and "actuality". In fact, I could not decipher them without the aid of my professors and a lexicon to return to the Greek.

None of this is much different in other translations nor makes Sachs worse than the other competitors: Aristotle uses unexplained technical terms in his theoretical works and the reader will struggle regardless of translation. But to this end of comprehension, to assert Mr. Sachs's translation as the clearest is mistaken. His translation runs the risk of creating an entirely new technical jargon, the very thing he wished to avoid.

Further, this edition was not seemingly made for serious study: the Bekker numbers are embedded in the text and unbolded, making them almost impossible to find quickly and there is running commentary which is easily confused at first sight for the text itself. These two factors make this edition unsuitable for serious study. Far superior, in aesthetics and in translation, is Glen Coughlin's translation of the Physics, which (appropriately enough) strikes the mean between the Latin cognates and Sachsian terminology.

Best Translation Out There
This translation of Aristotle's Physics is really the best one available - and not simply because the others are terrible (some of them are not terrible), but because this one is extraordinary.As some of the other reviewers may have suggested, it can be hard to read at times because of the unfamiliar phrasings.However, I think this is irrelevant because (a) other translation are not easy reading either, (b) other translations are not as good at capturing Aristotle's meaning so that even if they were much easier to read they just make it that much easier for you to misunderstand Aristotle, (c) in fact the efforts required to follow the unfamiliar phrasings in this translation are themselves part of what makes this translation the most useful for anyone who wants to understand Aristotle, and (d) its really not all that hard to read.(And the same points go for the other translations by Sachs.)Sachs unpacks the richness of the Greek terms in his translation rather than covering it over with English terms that give you the illusion of understanding or force you to constantly adjust your thought about what the English words are supposed to mean in the context of Aristotle's philosophy.For example, Sachs' translation of energeia as "being-at-work" as opposed to "activity," and entelecheia as "being-at-work-staying-itself" as opposed to "actualization."Sachs' translations here really put the nuances of the Greek terms to the forefront, and they give you the opportunity to think through (and to think hard about) what Aristotle must mean in a beautiful way that makes reading this translation a real learning, eye-opening, awakening experience.Also Sachs provides very useful glossary, introduction, and commentary. If you're just starting Aristotle or have been studying him for years, this translation is sure to do you right.I've been studying Aristotle for about a decade and a half and I never cease to very greatly appreciate Sachs' translations.--Michael Russo

What is The Meaning Of Being?
I read this book for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.

PHYSICS--Aristotle addresses the "why" questions.Aetia= causes, there are 4 causes.Only 1 cause actually sounds what like we call a cause today.A better translation is "explanation."4 ways to explanations.Arche=origins/principles, something that is 1st, or rule, or, commanding, or beginning.Thus 1st thought that leads us to understand something and how we proceed.Begin how we think and rule or govern how we think.Phusis= "nature," like physics.He understands nature differently than we do today.For Aristotle the planets orbits never change so not part of nature.Everything below the moon, "lunar," is nature.Thus everything below lunar is not perfect and goes through change.Phusis root= to grow or bloom.Thus, emerging like birth.This term has to do with movement and change.Also connected to "coming to light."Also, connected to "being."

Physics (nature) is an arche (rule) of motion and change.Concept of physics (nature) has to do with motion and change.Paramedes denies change.Aristotle takes umbrage with this.Plato says change is a deficient condition; Aristotle is against both men's notion of change.
IMPORTANT--Aristotle talks about how we talk about how we talk about change all the time.Aristotle says no such things as "being" itself.For Aristotle there is change we always talk about it.

Potentiality and actuality- 2 terms that dominate Aristotle's thinking.Change is potentiality to actuality.Potentiality is a "not yet."He criticizes premises of philosophers for denying or denigrating change.His physics is his thought to explain change.Ousia can't mean something unchanging, it is always a changing phenomena.For Aristotle and the Greeks the "world" has no beginning or end it is always here.No God or creator.Big and small are opposites, but are only conceptual.Small things become big Aristotle sees this.Our language is the guide here.The fact that there is change doesn't mean it is chaotic, you plant a seed, and it grows from small to big, this is normal change.

3 senses Aristotle uses phusis or nature.IMPORTANT- 1."Always or for the most part."2.Telos-end, purposes.3.Movement is self-generated toward something.When a seed falls to the ground it grows and moves towards growing.Contrast Phusis with techne="produce something by humans."Both have to do with change and movement.1 is self-moving, 1 is moved by us.Trees are not brought into being by themselves; beds out of trees are made by us.What is a bed?For Aristotle it has no nature or physics, it can have an essence.Everything other than Techne "things of production" are physics, nature.It is natural that humans have productive capacity and skills.Techne and physics are distinguished to understand change.Aristotle is important in philosophy and science because he uses language of science.He sees that change is internal within phusis in their own nature, not from myth or storytelling.

His phenomenology says our primary access to things is the "whole" like a dog, once we analyze them we can break them down.This is different from the premises of philosophers who believed in "inarticulate wholes."This is a dramatic difference from Platonists and atomists ideas.Atomist says all things made up of individual stuff like atoms.Aristotle is against atomist doesn't accept describing atoms as real.Like atomist the "whole" or dog is real for him.He isn't a Darwinist because the earth is always the way it was, is and will be.He talks about elements earth, fire, water, air.

IMPORTANT- For Aristotle, "being" of a thing comes 1st, knowledge 2nd.He says knowledge comes to rest in the soul.The soul is calmed by knowledge.When the soul or the mind comes to rest this is out of a natural turbulence of the mind.When he says "by nature" it is intrinsic in us we are by nature turbulent like children, this is part of us.Knowledge achieves calming it emerges out of the turbulence like "wonder."

Techne and physics are not opposites they are distinct different ways to explain movement.Both parts of our world can illuminate each other.He doesn't have idea of a creator God but understands if their were nature it would come by way of god.He says nature is self-manifesting.Techne completes nature (physics) Art doesn't quite imitate nature but talking about shapes like a bed or cave like a house.More like impersonates nature.Craft or Techne our natural capacity to make things, we are elated by being able to craft we do have to be taught to produce things.When we build houses, we are completing something nature can't do.Today, modern science rejects idea "nature" has a purpose.Thus, Aristotle doesn't see physics, nature and techne craft as that different.

Aitia=Causes better definition is "explanation."

1. Material Cause, answers question "out of what"
2. Formal Cause, answers question "into what"
3. Efficient Cause, answers question "from what"
4. Final Cause, answers question "for what, or toward what"

Qua= Latin for "as."We understand something by questions we ask.He uses ordinary language.This arms us with information to look at whatever phenomena by deduction.Fill in the 4 causes and categories and then you have knowledge.

IMPORTANT- Most important is #2 the Formal cause.Efficient and Final cause fall under it.Usually he uses artifacts crafted by man to explain this.Example of a house:

1.Material Cause, answers question "out of what" Wood
2.Formal Cause, answers question "into what"A certain shape of house
3.Efficient Cause, answers question "from what" the builder
4.Final Cause, answers question "for what, or toward what" to provide shelter

Things of phusis can be explained by 4 causes a little tricky.Form isn't just shape for Aristotle.
He uses different works for form, like logos = ordering, or pattern, or structure, in this case, organization in living things it is richer our bodies are our being cause.A corpse is no longer organized for a functioning body.Same with material cause.Aristotle distinguishes between wood or real matter and less tangible, he uses idea of material cause thus doesn't just mean stuff like matter.Thus, in his book Politics, what is the material of the polis?The citizens.Material is just a way to explain it.The word matter works like "What subject matter are you taking"?Thus, Aristotle uses matter in the rich and varied linguistic way.Thus, he provides guides and 4 categories and causes to gain knowledge.He thinks his approach is an improvement over Plato and pre-Socratics like materialists.

IMPORTANT- Everything is what it is in combination of matter and form in the world except God.There is a difference between dogs and beds, thus he is against the atomists.If you don't know what a cake is ahead of time you don't ever get to the molecular structure to get you there.To talk about matter without form is to miss something.Any 4 causes alone doesn't work, all together give an apt account of how things are.Modern science breaks with him on #4 the Final cause; scientists say this doesn't exist in nature.

For Aristotle, if it is evident and real in nature it must be real.The Telos shouldn't be understood as "push pull."Understanding can shift based on different issues and topics so Aristotle is a "pluralist."Never think of telos, or end, or purpose as "design."Not all forms of telos are "conscious design" for Aristotle.There is no intelligent design of nature for Aristotle.(No God).He rejects it, no beginning, or end of nature.However, he believes nature has purposeful elements to it, so it is mind like.Therefore, when we think purposefully we are not violating nature.We are rational animals.There is no mind before or behind nature.For Aristotle idea of telos is built into nature.Aristotle's idea of an unmoved, mover is archaic.He believes that movement in nature must ultimately come to stop, can't go to infinity, thus unmoved mover.This is his idea of God.Doesn't mean first cause or creator but more a "draw" not a "push" like draw of a lover.Thus, he doesn't believe in universal laws of motion.This is a limitation in his philosophy.

IMPORTANT-Basic distinction between matter and form, form has efficient and final cause as subsets.Matter and form are separable in analysis but not in reality.Two sides of the same coin, always present together.You can't have a sculpture without matter like clay.Aristotle criticizes Plato and others for delinking form and matter.Form isn't just shape, form is structure and organization.Corpse has same shape as a human but Aristotle says, "The form is gone in the corpse" so form is more than shape.Matter is unknowable; form gives us something that we can gain knowledge with, example a hunk of clay vs. a bowl.

Bottom line of modern physics and science is math, Newton, Kant, etc. said this.Thus, H2O is proportions of elements.A "towards which" is not a phenomena to examine.Here he is saying math is legitimate form of knowledge but it is not primary way or status of understanding how things are.Natural motion has nothing to do with line and math, etc. for Aristotle.One can't explain natural motion with math.We never come across geometric shapes in nature.Form is natural phenomena but different from mathematical form.Thus, you can't understand nature by math, as primary knowledge only secondary.For Plato, math is real for Aristotle they only help explain nature.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy.Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

The only good translation
Aristotle's Physics is one of the least studied "great books"--physics has come to mean something entirely different than Aristotle's inquiry into nature, and stereotyped Medieval interpretations have buried the original text. Sach's translation is really the only one that I know of that attempts to take the reader back to the text itself.

I do have a few quibbles, mostly with the presentation. The line numbers are buried in the text, rather than set off in the margins, which is annoying. The typeface is difficult and too closely packed. The cover is one of the ugliest ever produced. The book is too expensive, given the quality.

If you are going to study or teach the Physics in English, however, this is absolutely the edition you should use.

Line Number Problem
I have used Sachs' translation of the Nichomachean ethics and found it helpful, so I will not criticize Sachs' translation technique here. Unfortunately though I could not use this edition of the physics for one simple reason. The line numbers are not in the margines but imbeded in the text, and not bolded. This made it very difficult to use in the semenar style discussions of St. John's College (ironically the college that Sach's is a professor at). So I stopped using it emediately and opted for the complete works version so I could participate in semenar discussions. I would like to give Sachs' translation of the physics a chance but the lack of clear line numbers in this edition is a serious problem for me.
... Read more

Product Description
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics deals with character and its proper development in the acquisition of thoughtful habits directed toward appropriate ends. The articles in this unique collection, many new or not readily available, form a continuos commentary on the Ethics. Philosophers and classicists alike will welcome them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

a classic scholarly collection, still perfectly relevant
This collection is by some of the major figures in ancient philosophy scholarship for the last few decades. It is not light reading, the interested non-philosopher intellectual can find something here but depending on what you do you might find parts of this collection tough.Enough of it is perfectly accessible to the well-educated curious layperson, however.

This book is more for professionals - who don't bother reading this review when looking to order this book.Advanced students and those interested in focusing on ancient and Aristotle must have this for their library.Advanced undergrads and graduate students taking courses on the Ethics need look no further for a great resource for writing papers.

If you are looking for something more introductory try one of those philosophy guidebooks and introductions all the various scholarly presses have EXCEPT the Cambridge book by Michael Pakaluk - it's garbage.

Keep an eye out for the Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Nico-Ethics edited by R. Polansky.It should be quite good whenever it comes out.

Getting Back to Aristotle
In this collection of 21 essays, most written during the 1970s, Amelie Rorty has pulled together some penetrating and diverse analyses of the Nicomachean Ethics (and related works) of Aristotle.One of the valuable features of the book is its arrangement: the essays are grouped according to the books of the Ethics of which they treat.Thus, the essays on *akrasia* are grouped together. The two best essays in the book, in my humble opinion, are John M. Cooper's "Aristotle on Friendship," and Martha Craven Nussbaum's "Shame, Separateness, and Political Unity: Aristotle's Criticism of Plato."Both lead one to pursue further reading in these interesting topics.Nussbaum, for example, not only provides a critique of Plato's concept of self-respect, particularly in The Republic, and compares it to Aristotle's presentation in the Ethics and the Politics; she also brings in John Rawls' A Theory of Justice, and two novels by Henry James. For those looking for some guidance, and some analytic tools, in reading Aristotle's ethical works, this is a great resource. ... Read more

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A CLASSIC NEVER BECOMES OLD OR USELESS
Whe could say that with this book, the politic acquires a "science" status.

After analyse the constitutions of more than 120 countries, aristotle discuss about the origin and contents of thedifferent models of government,( democracy, aristocracy, reign) andsomething really interesting in our times: the relation between ethic andpolitic, in other words, how the customes of a society mark the way inwich the goverment and his purposesworks?. ... Read more

Product Description

Peter Evans's biography of Aristotle Onassis, Ari, met with great acclaim when it was published in 1986. Ari provided the world with an unprecedented glimpse of the Greek shipping magnate's orbit of dizzying wealth, twisted intrigues, and questionable mores. Not long after the book appeared, however, Onassis's daughter Christina and his longtime business partner Yannis Georgakis hinted to Evans that he had missed the "real story" -- one that proved Onassis's intrigues had deadly results. "I must begin," Georgakis said, "with the premise that, for Onassis, Bobby Kennedy was unfinished business from way back..."

Customer Reviews (51)

Enlightening
If only the press had not been surpressed, then.The facts reported in
Nemesis would have been eye-opening if the public had been aware of the
many actions of these "players".

WOW

Book in excellent condition.Larger than a paperback. GREAT read. Could not put down. A MUST if you are a Kennedy fan.

"Jackie, Ari and All of Their Dirty Laundry"
"Nemesis: The True Story of Aristotle Onassis, Jackie O. and The Love Triangle That Brought Down The Kennedys" is quite the page-turner. Peter Evans (the author) has gone "where no man has gone before" and exposes quite a bit of the private lives of the glamorous and controversial union that was the Onassis-Jackie Kennedy marriage. No one is spared; Not Jackie, who fares slightly better than her sister Lee, and certainly not Onassis, who knew what sort of a man he was and was not shy to tell anyone who would care to listen about it. There are some pretty heady theories floating around the book and it will be up to the reader to decide whether to take the entire thing seriously or not. At any rate, the story is a fascinating one and reads more like a Greek tragedy about a dysfunctional billionaire and the women he used along the way. Not recommended for Jacqueline Kennedy fans! By the time he got around to writing this little bedtime story Peter Evans had already written an authorized biography of Onassis, so he was up to date on where the bodies were buried; in this book he goes much deeper and comes up with a sinister tale of greed, sex, politics, and enough scandals per page to tantalize the most jaded. The Onassis-Jackie story was not a particularly pretty one; the sad part is that most people may not believe what Peter Evans writes about in this fascinating account of one of the most publicized and documented couples in recent history.

Shattered some images


This book was a great read.It reads like a pulpy soap opera beach read type book. Yet, I learned so much at the same time!Books like this are extremely rare.

The one thing I can say is that it totally shattered my image of Jackie O.We all know how both of her husbands cheated on her, and what immoral men they were, yet everyone and there mother is always talking about how "classy" Jackie is, and what "calm dignity" she had at Jack's funeral, and how she "taught a nation how to mourn..."Um.There apparently was a reason for that.Perhaps that she wasn't all that upset by her husbands death?This is a woman who brought her lover to stay with her after the assasination?

And class?Stealing her sister's lover?She cheated all the time apparently! Yes, the woman wore nice clothes, but who wouldn't when one lover is keeping you in tens of thousands of dollars, you are getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the government since you are a widow, and your husbands brother who you are sleeping with is also throwing money at you?I'm not trying to be judgemental, but it was hilarious to read about this icon of class was really no better then a piece of poor white trash on Jerry Springer, just with a better income, better "breeding" and better clothes.

Anyway, I loved this book, even though I was sickened by the actions of all the people in it.It was entertaining.I got confused as to who some of the people were after awhile, because there are sooo many people who keep popping up.

Read this book, you will learn a ton about people you only thought you knew about.

This Book Is a JOKE!
This book is just ludicrous. It's filled with factual errors and rehashed gossip that have no basis in reality. C. David Heymann actually recycled some of this garbage in his Jackie and Bobby book, he didn't bother doing his research either. The William Holden story is a total fabrication, the man had a vasectomy in the late 1940's, and Jackie had just given birth to Patrick by her fourth cesarean section a few weeks before she went on the Onassis cruise, I highly doubt she was getting it on with Ari when she was still recovering from surgery and mourning her dead baby. Most of the sources that are quoted weren't even eyewitnesses to any of these events, it's just people who speculated that these things happened, if that was the only criteria to get into this book, Mr. Evans should have contacted me too! Anyone can invent a juicy story to make their contribution sound more interesting. It's a good thing that families can't sue after someone dies, because Mr. Evans would be paying huge settlements to the Kennedy and Onassis families. This book was just a lurid mess, it wasn't even fun to read as fiction, it was just too unbelievable and over the top. Mr. Evans obviously wanted to write the book in the most sensationalistic manner possible, it just comes off as cheap and shoddy. JFK, Jackie, Bobby and Onassis are portrayed as tabloid caricatures, and the only place any of these events occurred are in Mr. Evans imagination. A disgusting, depressing waste that will pollute your trash bin. ... Read more

Product Description

Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there (367–347); subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias's relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 343–2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son Alexander. After Philip's death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school (of 'Peripatetics'), the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexander's death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322.

Nearly all the works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as follows: I Practical: Nicomachean Ethics; Great Ethics (Magna Moralia); Eudemian Ethics; Politics; Economics (on the good of the family); On Virtues and Vices. II Logical: Categories; Analytics (Prior and Posterior); Interpretation; Refutations used by Sophists; Topica. III Physical: Twenty-six works (some suspect) including astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, facts about animals, etc. IV Metaphysics: on being as being. V Art: Rhetoric and Poetics. VI Other works including the Constitution of Athens; more works also of doubtful authorship. VII Fragments of various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes.

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In this excellent introduction, Christopher Shields introduces and assesses the whole of Aristotle’s philosophy, showing how his powerful conception of human nature shaped much of his thinking on the nature of the soul and the mind, ethics, politics and the arts.

Beginning with a brief biography, Christopher Shields carefully explains the fundamental elements of Aristotle’s thought: his explanatory framework, his philosophical methodology and his four-causal explanatory scheme. Subsequently he discusses Aristotle’s metaphysics and the theory of categories and logical theory and his conception of the human being and soul and body.

In the last part, he concentrates on Aristotle’s value theory as applied to ethics and politics, and assesses his approach to happiness, virtues and the best life for human beings. He concludes with an appraisal of Aristotelianism today.

Customer Reviews (2)

Best Introduction to Aristotle
This is without a doubt the best introduction to Aristotle that I've come across. Shields has succeeded in presenting the thought of Aristotle in the most digestible, clear and highly readable manner, which is a significant achievement considering the breadth of Aristotle's thought that Shields covers. I agree with D. Frank's comment about Shield's skill in situating Aristotle's views within the wider context of his philosophy in general.

What is unusual in philosophy is good, clear writing, and Shields is an exceptional writer. This I cannot stress enough. Here is one example: 'To work through the details of his [Aristotle's] account of modal syllogistic is to witness the flowering of a mind of logical dexterity manifesting staggering originality and acumen' (p.125). What is more, Shields manages to bring great humour to his writing; some of his comments and examples are really hilarious. I suspect that he thoroughly enjoyed writing this introduction.

Wonderful introduction!
Having read the Darwin and Liebniz editions of the Routledge Philosophers series I thought it was the appropriate time to tackle one of the early giants.I'll leave it to the Aristotle scholars to discuss how well Shields has interpreted Aristotle's body of work, relative to other introductory books.But as a philosophical novice, I have thoroughly enjoyed this introduction to Aristotle's life and thought.Shields has done a masterful job of situating Aristotle's various writings with respect to his overall body of work.I was surprised to learn how much of Aristotle's thinking was informed by the natural sciences, especially Biology.Modern taxonomists, especially those, like myself, who use genetic methods to explore biological diversity are still grappling with issues that Aristotle contemplated (what is species?).We would all do well to approach these problems with the sophistication of Aristotle and the clarity of Shields.

My only quibble is that the editing is somewhat sloppy.There is nothing like being confused by an argument only to realize that a word or phrase has been poorly edited! ... Read more

Product Description
This annotated collection of the influential philosopher's most famous works includes: Metaphysics, Logic, Physics, Psychology, Ethics, Politics, and Poetics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Drawbacks and disadvantages of this edition
This edition of Aristotle cuts quite severely from the complete books. There are very few complete books. In Nichomachean Ethics, for example, the chapters on friendship are omitted. This is so frustrating that I don't use it.

I'd suggest getting complete works as led by your interest primarily. Get the Ethics, Politics, Poetics, Physics.

The other problem is that the large amount of explaining before and between the actual texts in this edition doesn't actually explain anything. In fact, it makes it more confusing in many cases. You just can't out-clarify Aristotle, and the high-school-ese of the introductions is a bit patronizing to him and us. Better to have a personal response to the work or nothing than this faux objectivity.

Finally, as with other reviews I agree it's broad and fairly well translated, especially compared to the past translations, but I find older translations have a spirit and nobility which this frankly lacks.

I much anticipated this book's arrival. It was good to carry round - portability is fine. But it takes more than a convenient format to present Aristotle in a popular format.

I suggest trying the Penguin editions.

Perfect one-volume selection of "The Philsopher."
Two things make this book great: its selection and its translation.

For a pocket size selection of Aristotle, this book is tops.It has sections from all of his major works, so it is useful for survey classes, or personal study.Of fundamental import is Metaphysics, which is the meta-basis for his thought.Also included are selections from his more popular Ethics and Politics, and lesser known Poetics.

What drew me to this book was the translation.Most translations are really crude transliterations. Yes, it is important to be as faithful to the text as humanly possible.But the "ivory tower academeese" sucks the life out of vibrant philosophies.

Creed and Wardmen avoid this problem entirely. This text was readable, and therefore enjoyable.It reminds me of the smooth prose of J. B Phillips or Edgar J. Goodspeed.It was like talking to a good friends, rather than a Latinized statue.

For a more comprehensive selection, I would recommend "Basic Works of Aristotle" (ISBN: 0375757996), or getting the books individually.

I love the cover! ... Read more

Product Description
Logic is an indispensable tool of a philosophy of reason. That tool and that philosophy came from Aristotle around 330 BC. How did they reach us through all that time?

The Aristotle Adventure answers that question by providing a guide tothe individuals who published, studied, explained, taught, andextended Aristotle's greatest achievement--logic, a tool forunderstanding this world. This reader-friendly account covers 2,000years, 10,000 miles, and four cultures (Greek-Pagan, Greek-Christian,Arabic-Islamic, and Latin-Christian).

The Aristotle Adventure is for:
*General readers seeking a clearly written intellectual adventure.
*Students of the history of ideas, philosophy, Western Civilization, or theology.
*Scholars who want an overview of this wide-ranging story.

The author explains each new philosophical concept as it appears inthe story. (A combined index-glossary allows readers to easily reviewkey concepts and individuals.) Secondary information, set into tablesand charts, allows readers to focus on the main story in the maintext, with little distraction. Extensive end-notes and bibliographyopen avenues to further reading. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great illustration of the power of good ideas!
Just finished reading this superb book. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in the power and the history of ideas--and the fragility of good ones.

The Desire To Understand Is Intrinsic in Humans
I read these works for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.
The desire to understand is intrinsic in human beings, it is in our nature.Philosophy is ultimate consequence of desire.Our desires have many aspects such as, food, sex, etc.Curiosity is natural in humans, we see it especially in small kids, and it comes from within us.Philosophy caps off curiosity and wonder.Aporia = "blocking," something is blocking our wondering as a disturbance and then we struggle to break through with wonder to find the answer.Breaking through aporia can't just be forced but must come from things known.Aristotle always begins his inquiries with the familiar.Difference between Plato and Aristotle, dialogues use aporia but leave unanswered questions, Aristotle says if you try hard you can break thru aporia and get at an answer.

Pursuit of knowledge begins with wonder, breaks thru aporia and satisfies the mind getting to a position of achievement, the goal of knowledge is to eliminate wonder.Faculty of nous is that part of the mind that grasps first principles "First Principles- nous=understanding, demonstration = episteme Dialectic, arche =beginning or rule.Aristotle has a preference for discovering first principles.For Aristotle, one has to start with first principles to proceed to knowledge.These first principles are not just the beginning, but that they govern or rule the procedure for gaining knowledge.Aristotle does not believe humans have these first principles of knowledge innately as Plato believed.Plato thinks knowledge is in the "soul" and innate in humans we just need to find a way to re-learn it.

Potential-Actual Aristotle says we have potential like kids having the capacity to learn language at a young age.For Aristotle, potential for knowledge is innate prior to achieving knowledge.
The "innately" is a swipe at Plato who is similar to Descartes and Liebnitz.Aristotle denies this, nothing is known, it is learned.Even animals have memory.Memory retains perceptions.However, only humans have Logos="reason" and "language."Experience occurs after perception and memory.From our experiences, we get a principle of science.The process of experience arises into the "soul" which then becomes a principle.This all leads to what we know by "induction."

Induction=out of a particular experiences we get a universal.Example, gravity = apple "always" falls.The "always" is the universal principle like Newton's laws.However, sometimes inductions are questionable.Nous=understanding and first principles."Necessary Knowledge" like 2+2=4."Contingent knowledge" is of experiences, which might go through variations.Example, how many dogs are in the backyard?Answer, it actually depends on time of day you ask.It means it can change.The goal is to satisfy our desire to know.

The difference of induction for Plato and Aristotle is "this is a horse.""This" is the particular horse is the universal.Plato believed that basic principles and concepts were already in the mind, humans just have to simply access them.Aristotle disagrees he argues that the concept of horse is an organizing principle that humans can use to understand horses when they confront them; he agrees they will be abstract and different from the particular from the horses they actually encounter.What he disagrees with Plato on is how we get the concept.Aristotle says we have to build the concept of "horse" with a classification system; it is not innate in us, as Plato would argue.

Aristotle came up with up with a classification system.Classification=a name for an object.To get a name you look at composition=what makes things the same, division=how things are different (legs, scales).Aristotle says we do this from experience and observation, memory etc.Concept of "horse" is an organizing principle.This is all induction!Therefore, nous doesn't name anything, it is an arbitrary tag.Aristotle wants a universal concept of knowledge that holds this is a difference with Plato.Key concept- Aristotle says language and reality is two sides of the same coin.Logos originally meant speech.Humans access the world through language according to Aristotle.He believes we were built for speech.

A typical deductive syllogism is "If Socrates is human, and all humans are mortal, then Socrates is mortal."Thus if A=B and B=C, then A=C.Deduction begins with a general principle and move to a specific.Induction leads us to general principle then we use deduction to get to answer or deductive claims.Dialectic=finding first principles through testing them out or using dialogue or debate as in Plato.Thus, we contend with differing beliefs to arrive at first principle.

Important idea--Aristotle and distinction between the "many and the wise."This is subject matter of inquiry or dialectic.The "wise" means people with certain understanding.The "many" means we all understand or know such as, "common sense."Aristotle thinks it is important that when we inquirer we start from the many and then move to the wise in our search for answers.We must always consult both.Plato and Socrates never look to the many.Aristotle says whatever the truth is it can't be so unusual as to leave the rest of human beliefs behind.Example is he doesn't buy Zeno's paradox.In addition, the truth can't be so common as to be able to only have to survey the masses.Sometimes, what most people believe needs help.Example, we all think the best sort of life for us is pleasure; we need the wise to guide us and show it is contemplation.

We begin with questions; knowledge seeks to answer these questions.If we want to know what something is, we already have a sense of the difference of what Plato gave.In a nutshell, what Plato said was that the horse that we encounter is an image of an eternal form "horseness."This is a top down concept.Aristotle's answer is that the particular horse we experience is understood by way of organizing and classifying our perceptions and experiences into a whole.This bottom up approach is a classic distinction that finds itself in many different traditions of philosophy.Aristotle does not have Plato's dualistic two worlds.The eternal world of the forms and then the world of material experience.Whatever the universal is, it is found directly in things through experience, not by rising above to the eternal world of the forms.

Unity-every form of knowledge has some kind of unification, this is how we gather our experiences.If we couldn't gather our experiences into some kind of unity that would hold, then every time we would seek to understand something we would have to start over.We would have to continually deal with differences and variations.Therefore, when we know that, that is a horse, that idea, concept of horse has organized our experiences in a way that it gathers it together.Then the term horse names that unity and then rests in the soul and enables us to go out into the world already armed with some gathered sense of things.Therefore, the next time we confront a horse we already know what it is.

There are different levels of unity for Aristotle, such as, Numerical unity things identical to itself, i.e. two apples and two dogs are equally two.Our experiences teach us this.Therefore, "this" horse is a unity and a singular phenomena.Then, there is unity that would occupy the same genus and same species.Classic definition of humans for Aristotle is- "rational animal."Animal =genus, rational=species.Unity by analogy- a difference that brings something together, like "war on drugs."Aristotle preferred things that were unified in a very exact comprehensive way.So, to classify humans as rational animals is decisive because it captures a general feature and a specific feature in such a way that you are always going to know what humans are by way of that classification.

Aristotle recognizes analogies are looser but sometimes performs the function of unifying our experience by bringing things together in some way, however that unification is not going to be exact, decisive full or complete.He prefers demonstration like deduction; it is amore precise form of knowledge and provides so much knowledge.When he talks about logic, which he invented, and he gets into particular investigations like biology he had to confess things are not always exact in nature.Thus, few things are really universal.However, more often in the world we use unity by analogy than unity by numerical, or genus, etc.Remember the "this" is a horse, for Plato, the true object of knowledge was "horseness" not the "this."The "this is a particular limited perceived instance of the super form of horseness.Therefore, what has true being for Plato is the eternal form of horse.The particular horse the "this" does not have absolute true being because it is limited, it is particular, and it comes and goes.Aristotle turns the tables.The true meaning of "being" the question of what does it mean to be something is always a "this."It is not some transcendent form in eternal realm; it is always the particular thing you encounter.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy.Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

A Fascinating Work on Western Intellectual History
Burgess Laughlin's *The Aristotle Adventure* provides an interesting and enlightening account of the transmission of Aristotle's treatises on logic.From ancient Greece, to the Arabian Peninsula and the European Continent, this book details the philosophical transmission of Aristotle's Organon, which laid the foundations for western intellectual and scientific thinking.The writing style is clear and concise, provides impressive detail and is extremely well referenced for further study.This book is a gem for anyone interested in the transmission of the fundamental ideas which gave rise to western civilization. ... Read more

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Interprets Heidegger’s phenomenological reading of Aristotle’s philosophy. ... Read more

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Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there (367–347); subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias's relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 343–2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son Alexander. After Philip's death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school (of 'Peripatetics'), the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexander's death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322.

Nearly all the works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as follows: I Practical: Nicomachean Ethics; Great Ethics (Magna Moralia); Eudemian Ethics; Politics; Economics (on the good of the family); On Virtues and Vices. II Logical: Categories; Analytics (Prior and Posterior); Interpretation; Refutations used by Sophists; Topica. III Physical: Twenty-six works (some suspect) including astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, facts about animals, etc. IV Metaphysics: on being as being. V Art: Rhetoric and Poetics. VI Other works including the Constitution of Athens; more works also of doubtful authorship. VII Fragments of various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes.

Customer Reviews (6)

Cheap copy; overrated work
I don't speak Greek so I can't comment on the accuracy of the translation, but it was reasonable English.
You probably want precisely this text if you're looking at it, but if you're looking for personal enlightenment I'd recommend either Plato (I found Plato's Republic much superior in terms of the philosophy) or one of Aristotle's other works -- I haven't read them, but the philosophical discussion here is so relatively poor that I can only presume his fame comes from his mathematical lectures.
The book itself is very cheaply made; it feels possible to just flip the spine over on itself (although actually doing this would probably send a number of pages flying).

Poor Binding
If you are considering this volume for its parallel Greek and English, then it is your only choice.I am not reviewing the Greek or English, as you know what you're in for with a Loeb.The one star is the result of a poorly produced volume.The newer Loeb volumes are very poorly bound.My copy of Nichomachean Ethics has a number of pages stuck together by binding glue to a point beyond the center margins and all the way into the text.Most new Loebs I've examined have this same problem, and I've seen them fall out of the binding in less than a semester of use.Older Loebs that I have seen in libraries seem to be bound much better, and I've known professors with Loeb volumes from the seventies that are holding up all right relative to their use and age.I'll avoid buying these new.

We Reach Our Complete Perfection Through Habit
I read this book for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.I think Aristotle's ethics is his most seminal work in philosophy.In the early 1960's virtue ethics came to fore.It is a retrieval of Aristotle.It has very close parallels to the ancient Chinese philosophy of Confucius and the modern philosophy espoused in the 1970's called Communitarianism.

For Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, (EN) is about human life in an embodied state.Area of inquirery for EN is "good" this is his phenomenology.What does "good" mean?He suggests good means "a desired end."Something desirable.Means towards these ends.Such as money is good, so one can buy food to eat because "eating is good."In moral philosophy distinction between "intrinsic good" vs. "instrumental good."Instrumental good towards a desire is "instrumental good" like money.Thus, money is an "instrumental good" for another purpose because it produces something beyond itself.Instrumental good means because it further produces a good, "intrinsic good" is a good for itself, "for the sake of" an object like money."Intrinsic good" for him is "Eudemonia=happiness."This is what ethics and virtues are for the sake of the organizing principle.Eudemonia=happiness.Today we think of happiness as a feeling.It is not a feeling for Aristotle.Best translation for eudaimonia is "flourishing" or "living well."It is an active term and way of living for him thus, "excellence."Ultimate "intrinsic good" of "for the sake of."Eudaimonia is the last word for Aristotle.Can also mean fulfillment.Idea of nature was thought to be fixed in Greece convention is a variation.What he means is ethics is loose like "wealth is good but some people are ruined by wealth."EN isn't formula but a rough outline.Ethics is not precise; the nature of subject won't allow it.When you become a "good person" you don't think it out, you just do it out of habit!

You can have ethics without religion for Aristotle.Nothing in his EN is about the afterlife.He doesn't believe in the universal good for all people at all times like Plato and Socrates.The way he thought about character of agent, "thinking about the good."In addition, Aristotle talked about character traits.Good qualities of a person who would act well.Difference between benevolent acts and a benevolent person.If you have good character, you don't need to follow rules.Aretç=virtue, in Greek not religious connotation but anything across the board meaning "excellence" high level of functioning, a peak.Like a musical virtuoso.Ethical virtue is ethical excellence, which is the "good like."In Plato, ethics has to do with quality of soul defining what to do instead of body like desires and reason.For Aristotle these are not two separate entities.

To be good is how we live with other people, not just focus on one individual.Virtue can't be a separate or individual trait.Socrates said same the thing.Important concept for Aristotle, good upbringing for children is paramount if you don't have it, you are a lost cause.Being raised well is "good fortune" a child can't choose their upbringing.Happenstance is a matter of chance.

Pleasure cannot be an ultimate good.Part of the "good life" involves external goods like money, one can't attain "good life" if one is poor and always working.Socrates said material goods don't matter, then he always mooched off of his friends!Aristotle surmises that the highest form of happiness is contemplation.In Aristotle's Rhetoric, he lists several ingredients for attaining eudaimonia.Prosperity, self-sufficiency, etc., is important, thus, if you are not subject to other, competing needs.A long interesting list.It is common for the hoi polloi to say pleasure=happiness.Aristotle does not deny pleasure is good; however, it is part of a package of goods.Pleasure is a condition of the soul.In the animal world, biological beings react to pleasure and pain as usual.Humans as reasoning beings must pursue knowledge to fulfill human nature.It must be pleasurable to seek knowledge and other virtues and if it is not there is something wrong according to Aristotle.These are the higher pleasures and so you may have to put off lower pleasures for the sake of attaining "higher pleasures."

Phronçsis= "intelligence," really better to say "practical wisdom."The word practical helps here because the word Phronçsis for Aristotle is a term having to do with ethics, the choices that are made for the good.As a human being, you have to face choices about what to do and not to do.Phronçsis is going to be that capacity that power of the soul that when it is operating well will enable us to turn out well and that is why it is called practical wisdom.The practically wise person is somebody who knows how to live in such a way so that their life will turn out well, in a full package of "goods."For Aristotle, Phronçsis is not deductive or inductive knowledge like episteme; Phronçsis is not a kind of rational knowledge where you operate in either deduction or induction, you don't go thru "steps" to arrive at the conclusion.Therefore, Phronçsis is a special kind of capacity that Aristotle thinks operates in ethics.Only if you understand what Aristotle means by phronesis do you get a hold on the concept.My way of organizing it, it is Phronçsis that is a capacity that enables the virtues to manifest themselves.

What are the virtues?Phronçsis is the capacity of the soul that will enable the virtues to fulfill themselves.Virtue ethics is the characteristics of a person that will bring about a certain kind of moral living, and that is exactly what the virtues are.The virtues are capacities of a person to act well.All of the virtues can be organized by way of this basic power of the soul called Phronçsis.There are different virtues, but it is the capacity of Phronçsis that enables these virtues to become activated.Basic issue is to find the "mean" between extremes; this is how Aristotle defines virtues.

Humans are not born with the virtues; we learn them and practice them habitually."We reach our complete perfection through habit."Aristotle says we have a natural potential to be virtuous and through learning and habit, we attain them.Learn by doing according to Aristotle and John Dewey.Then it becomes habitual like playing a harp.Learning by doing is important for Aristotle.Hexis= "state," "having possession."Theoria= "study."The idea is not to know what virtue is but to become "good."Emphasis on finding the balance of the mean.Each virtue involves four basic points.

1. Action or circumstance.Such as risk of losing one's life.
2. Relevant emotion or capacity.Such as fear and pain.
3. Vices of excess and vices of deficiency in the emotions or the capacities.Such as cowardice is the excess vice of fear, recklessness is the excess deficiency.
4. Virtue as a "mean" between the vices and deficiencies.Such as courage as the "mean."

No formal rule or "mean" it depends on the situation and is different for different people as well.For example--one should eat 3,000 calories a day.Well depends on the health and girth of the person, and what activity they are engaged in.It is relative to us individually.
All Aristotle's qualifications are based on individual situations and done with knowledge of experience.Some things are not able to have a "mean" like murder and adultery because these are not "goods."
Akrasia= "incontinence" really "weakness of the will.Socrates thought that all virtues are instances of intelligence or Phronçsis.Aristotle criticizes Socrates idea of virtue, virtue is not caused by state of knowledge it is more complicated.Aristotle does not think you have to have a reasoned principle in the mind and then do what is right, they go together.

The distinctions between continent and incontinent persons, and moderate (virtue) and immoderate (not virtuous) persons is as follows:

1. Virtue.Truly virtuous people do not struggle to be virtuous, they do it effortlessly, very few people in this category, and most are in #2 and #3.
2. Ethical strength.Continence.We know what is right thing to do but struggle with our desires.
3. Ethical weakness.This is akrasia incontinence.Happens in real life.
4. Vice.The person acts without regret of his bad actions.

What does Aristotle mean by "fully virtuous"?Ethical strength is not virtue in the full sense of the term.Ethical weakness is not a full vice either.This is the critique against Socrates idea that "Knowledge equals virtue."No one can knowingly do the wrong thing.Thus, Socrates denies appetites and desires.Aristotle understands that people do things that they know are wrong, Socrates denies this.Socrates says if you know the right thing you will do it, Aristotle disagrees.The law is the social mechanism for numbers 2, 3, 4.A truly virtuous person is their own moral compass.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy.Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

about halfway through it.
this book is beautiful for context when reading kierkegaard or thomas aquinas. for instance, take patience; where on the scale between passivity and wrath does turning the other cheek fit in? it is necessary to understand this in order to understand the teleological suspension of the ethical or to understand the theological virtues, faith, hope and charity, as departures from ethics. btw, father messick in an earlier review writes that the writers of the declaration of independence had an aristotelian mindset and i will not argue that point. i would just like to point out that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is commandeered, so to speak, from the writings of adam smith, i.e., life, liberty and the pursuit of property. also that thomas jefferson much preferred continental philosophers, such as locke and rousseau, to the ancient greeks as is evident in his letters. loeb library is the right choice for poor students of greek such as myself. i also have homer and hesiod.

Doing the right thing
Aristotle was a philosopher in search of the chief good for human beings. This chief good is eudaimonia, which is often translated as 'happiness' (but can also be translated as 'thriving' or 'flourishing'). Aristotle sees pleasure, honour and virtue as significant 'wants' for people, and then argues that virtue is the most important of these.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes the claim that happiness is something which is both precious and final. This seems to be so because it is a first principle or ultimate starting point. For, it is for the sake of happiness that we do everything else, and we regard the cause of all good things to be precious and divine. Moreover, since happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with complete and perfect virtue, it is necessary to consider virtue, as this will be the best way of studying happiness.

How many of us today speak of happiness and virtue in the same breath? Aristotle's work in the Nicomachean Ethics is considered one of his greatest achievements, and by extension, one of the greatest pieces of philosophy from the ancient world. When the framers of the American Declaration of Independence were thinking of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, there is little doubt they had an acquaintance with Aristotle's work connecting happiness, virtue, and ethics together.

When one thinks of ethical ideas such as an avoidance of extremes, of taking the tolerant or middle ground, or of taking all things in moderation, one is tapping into Aristotle's ideas. It is in the Nicomachean Ethics that Aristotle proposes the Doctrine of the Mean - he states that virtue is a 'mean state', that is, it aims for the mean or middle ground. However, Aristotle is often misquoted and misinterpreted here, for he very quickly in the text disallows the idea of the mean to be applied in all cases. There are things, actions and emotions, that do not allow the mean state. Thus, Aristotle tends to view virtue as a relative state, making the analogy with food - for some, two pounds of meat might be too much food, but for others, it might be too little. The mean exists between the state of deficiency, too little, and excessiveness, too much.

Aristotle proposes many different examples of virtues and vices, together with their mean states. With regard to money, being stingy and being illiberal with generosity are the extremes, the one deficient and the other excessive. The mean state here would be liberality and generosity, a willingness to buy and to give, but not to extremes. Anger, too, is highlighted as having a deficient state (too much passivity), an excessive state (too much passion) and a mean state (a gentleness but firmness with regard to emotions).

Aristotle states that one of the difficulties with leading a virtuous life is that it takes a person of science to find the mean between the extremes (or, in some cases, Aristotle uses the image of a circle, the scientist finding the centre). Many of us, being imperfect humans, err on one side or the other, choosing in Aristotle's words, the lesser of two evils. Aristotle's wording here, that a scientist is the only one fully capable of virtue, has a different meaning for scientist - this is a pre-modern, pre-Enlightenment view; for Aristotle, the person of science is one who is capable of observation and calculation, and this can take many different forms.

Aristotle uses different kinds of argumentation in the Nicomachean Ethics. He uses a dialectical method, as well as a functional method. In the dialectical method, there are opposing ideas held in tension, whose interactions against each other yield a result - this is often how the mean between extremes is derived. However, there are other times that Aristotle seems to prefer a more direct, functional approach. Both of these methods lead to the same understanding for Aristotle's sense of the rational - that humanity's highest or final good is happiness.

There is a discussion of the human soul (for this is where virtue and happiness reside). Aristotle argues that virtue is not a natural state; we are not born with nor do we acquire through any natural processes virtue, but rather through 'habitation', an embedding process or enculturation that makes these a part of our soul. However, it is not sufficient for Aristotle's virtue that one merely function as a virtuous person or that virtuous things be done. This is not a skill, but rather an art, and to be virtuous, one must live virtuously and act virtuously with intention as well as form.

Of course, one of the implications here is that virtue is a quantifiable thing, that periodically resurfaces in later philosophies. How do we calculate virtue?

This is a difficult question, and not one that Aristotle answers in any definitive way. However, more important than this is the key difference that Aristotle displayed setting himself apart from his tutor Plato; rather than seeing the possession of 'the good' or 'virtue' as the highest ideal, Aristotle is concerned with the practical aspects, the ethics of this. Based on Aristotle's lectures in Athens in the fourth century BCE, this remains one of the most important works on ethical and moral philosophy in history.
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Darwin's theory of evolution remains controversial, even though most scientists, philosophers, and even theologians accept it, in some form, as a well-attested explanation for the variety of organisms. The controversy erupts when the theory is used to try to explain everything, including every aspect of human life, and to deny the role of a Creator or a purpose to life. It is then that philosophers and theologians cry, "Foul!"

The overreaching of many scientists into fields beyond their competence is perhaps explained in part by the loss of an important idea in modern thinking-final causality or purpose. Scientists understandably bracket the idea out of their scientific thinking because they seek natural explanations and other kinds of causes. Yet many of them wrongly conclude from their selective study of the world that final causes do not exist at all and that they have no place in the rational study of life. Likewise, many erroneously assume that philosophy cannot draw upon scientific findings, in light of final causality, to better understand the world and man.

The great philosopher and historian of philosophy Etienne Gilson sets out in this book to show that final causality or purposiveness is an inevitable idea for those who think hard and carefully about the world, including the world of biology. Gilson insists that a completely rational understanding of organisms and biological systems requires the philosophical notion of teleology, the idea that certain kinds of things exist and have ends or purposes the fulfillment of which is linked to their natures. In other words, final causes. His approach relies on philosophical reflection on the facts of science, not upon theology or an appeal to religious authorities such as the Church or the Bible. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Good book philosophy, though mostly a historical examination.
I've always been interested in biology. It is my absolute favorite natural science. When I saw this book by Etienne Gilson relating the thought of Aristotle to evolutionary theory I bought it as soon as I could.

The preface by Cardinal Schonborn is good. He basically contrasts materialistic philosophy with genuine metaphysics, and exposes some of the assumptions upon which an entirely naturalistic and scientific worldview is based. While certainly not disparaging science, he does show that it is not the "be all and end all" of truth.

The first chapter basically describes the Aristotelian understanding of biology and how final causality fits into this. Chapter 2, "The Mechanist Objection" shows from whence comes the usual mechanistic understanding of all things, especially biological organisms. Chapter 3 is by far the largest chapter. Here Gilson talks about the "fixist" understanding of biology, that all species are fixed. He goes on to talk about early theories of evolution, evolutionary theories that are not necessarily concerned with simple biology, and finally Darwin's thought and the thought of his successors. Throughout all this, Gilson shows what people thought of teleology and how it fit into their theories. The author then talks about Bergson, a famous philosopher in the stream of vitalist thought. He shows where this is similar to the teleology of Aristotle, and where it is different. In the last two chapters, we are told why mechanism cannot account for everything and why teleology is an indispensable part of understanding the facts of biology and the facts of life.

With that rather long summary of the book, I have to say that while I was really looking forward to this book, I was slightly disappointed. I thought that the book would mainly apply Aristotelian thought to current biology, with examples, explanations, etc. While it may be partly the fault of the translator, it seems that the author is not entirely clear in describing what teleology is, what final causality is, how it relates to evolution and natural selection, and to what end all organisms point. In short, this is not exactly an in-depth look at what finality is with lots of examples in biology, but rather a history of the thought and a short argument against the opposite position.

While it seems I'm only being critical, still, it's wonderful for history, and for somebody willing to take the time to read through it all it is worth it. There is some genuine argument against mechanistic interpretation and for teleology, I only think that the definitions and conclusions we should come off with from this discovery are not entirely stated. This book deserves four stars.

Harmonizing Teleology and Evolution?
This book is both brilliant and difficult.

The most glaring issue seems to stem from the translation.The work does not flow well, and the wordings are often obtuse, when more common philosophical terms could have been used for an easier read.

Translation aside, there are three things that I dislike about the book:

1.Originally written at the onset of our current post-secular age, Gilson was still required to write according to a mythical neutrality and with even a notion of scorn towards his fellow Christian scholars.Forty years later, the secularists remain among the loudest in the public square, but few academics continue to persist in the old myth of a secular neutrality, nor that we should hide our most cherished values in order to play according to unproven rules of this equally biased perspective.Thus, many words are wasted in arguing that teleology does not necessarily imply theism so as to appease the arbitrarily enforced secular worldview of the academy in his day.

2.As Christoph Schornborn mentions in the foreword, Gilson has an awkward relationship with formal causes.Unfortunately, due to my previous point, it is difficult to tell whether this is due to a philosophical reason or simply as a means to appease the secular worldview and appear more "neutral."

3.Gilson furthers the myth that Darwin lost his faith as a direct result of his scientific findings.Historians of Darwin continue to argue against this myth, although some have championed the propogation of this myth in order to further their own metaphysical perspectives.Nick Spencer's Darwin and God has shown the complexity of Darwins move from a deistic Christian position to an adamant agnosticism.

Despite these three negatives, I still give the book a worthy five stars.

It should be noted from the onset that this book is not arguing against evolution, or the "limits" of evolutionary science or anything similar.The author intends to show instead that current evolutionary thinking lends itself naturally to Aristotelean philosophy.

The book begins with a basic introduction to Aristotle's thinking in regards to mechanism and finalism.It then proceeds into an analysis of the key figures leading up to Darwin's theory.He discusses Lamarck, Wallace, Gray and especially Spencer as well as others.He also discusses how F. Darwin and Huxley continued a variation of Darwin's argument after his death.His concern was not the science, but the underlying metaphysical assumptions of each of these contributors to the discussion.Gilson's concern is to show that they had radically different metaphysical assumptions that led to conflicts in telling the story of evolution.Instead of resolving the difficulties, evolutionary thinking simply tried to exclude the metaphysical from the discussion and continue to progress based on the usefulness of its ideas in hopes that the distinct metaphysical disjunction could be hidden under the rug.Gilson quips, "The root of the difficulties is the fundamental indetermination of the notion of evolution.The notion signified something supposedly enveloped, but Spencer popularized the word in another sense which no one could exactly define."

For many of these scientists of a previous age, the observation of clear teleology means they are now in the realm of physics and teleology may lead to theology and scientists are not equipped to adequately discuss either of these fields.Somehow this admitted humility in regards to other spheres of knowledge led to an exclusion of other forms of knowledge, and as the scientific world rapidly progressed through the functionality and usefulness of their products, they began to present themselves as the only sphere of actual knowledge.Unfortunately, this move happened only as the result of a willful exclusion (in partiality as we will see) of the teleological and not as a result of scientific endeavor.

Gilson, after discussing this progression and showing along the way the constant reliance on teleological thinking says, "The long detour in which we have been involved with evolutionism will not have been useless.It allows us to see in the first place that the problem of final causality is just as unavoidable in the perspective of the evolution of species as in that of their creation" (i.e. Creationism).Strangely enough, Darwin and many of his contemporaries were thrilled by the fact that he had reunited teleology with their mechanistic view of the world.For instance, when Asa Gray thanked Darwin for restoring the role of the teleological to scientific thinking, Darwin responded, "What you say about teleology pleases me especially."It is no surprise that even after the neo-Darwinian synthesis, today many scientists constantly rely on teleological language and processes in order to make their determinations.Any time a scientist mentions the evolutionary "struggle" for survival they are inevitably resorting to an idea that species intentionally move toward and end.Any time they discuss the evolutionary "purpose" of some feature of a species they are likewise invoking teleology.

It would be fair to note at this point that Gilson would have no time for Intelligent Design (ID).Unsurprisingly, he reserves harsh criticism for some of the ideas underlying the grandfather of ID, William Paley.Whether correct or incorrect, he would see ID theorists as embracing the mechanistic worldview that he resists.

The final two chapters of Gilson's work are on the limits of mechanism and the constants of biophilosophy.This is where his argument takes off and shows that despite the desire of Bacon to separate certain philosophical notions in order to promote utility, these notions cannot be excluded.In a discussion of quantum realities and more contemporary biology, he comes back to Aristotle.As he says, "The facts that Aristotle's biology wished to explain are still there...up to the present no one has explained them any better.Mechanist interpretations of these facts, which Aristotle formerly said had failed, have not ever been satisfactory; they have only displayed more and more the inevitability of the notions of organization and teleology...in order to explain the existence of mechanistic structures of which science is the study."He makes the brilliant distinction early on in these chapters between how a mechanistic philosophy must exclude final causes a priori, often against common sense and empirical reasons, yet how a finalist philosophy can completely embrace the very mechanism at the heart of the other philosophy while giving a more complete explanation for things that mechanistic philosophy cannot per definition.He even suggests that whereas science may have no need for final causes to progress in its utilitarian endeavor for knowledge, they still exist in reality.There is a distinct difference between a methodological abstraction (or exclusion) and a real elimination and the constant reliance of science upon teleological language and methods only proves this point.

This review is already long, but gives the underlying ideas in this work.Whereas my explanation thus far is surely inadequate, if one takes the time to work through this book giving ample thought to what is being said, one will be rewarded with seeing the inevitability of complete explanations resorting to teleology.As Gilson concludes, if teleology so annoyingly continues to refuse to go away from the sciences, simply excluding it a prior only leaves it as an unexplained fact of nature.Let us instead seek to pursue knowledge from every angle, even if it means that we once again take up Aristotle and consider that after all these years, it may have been we who went astray.

Ancient Work too Often Left Behind
How have modern Darwinian scientists handled Aristotle's rational achievements? Largely by ignoring his notions on causality and teleology. Etienne Gilson, as a philosopher, reveals the weakness of the theory of evolution's explanatory power regarding teleology.

The back cover notes: "The overreaching of many scientists into matters beyond self-imposed limits of scientific method is perhaps explained in part by the loss of two important ideas in modern thinking: final causality or purpose and formal causality."

This historian of philosophy in this volume provides chapters on:

- Aristotle
- The Mechanistic Objection
- Finality and Evolution
- The Constants of Biophilosophy

Christoph Schonborn writes a thought-provoking foreword. 240 pages.

The author proves that "organization and teleology invoked by Aristotle in order to explain the existence of mechanistic structures" remain satisfying and convincing.
Letter to an Atheist Nation: Presupositional Apologetics Responds To: Letter to a Christian ... Read more