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Original Title:	τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά
ISBN:	1888009039 (ISBN13: 9781888009033)

Metaphysics

Aristotle

Paperback | Pages: 368 pages

Rating: 4.04 | 12728 Users | 180 Reviews

Details Regarding Books Metaphysics

Title	:	Metaphysics
Author	:	Aristotle
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 368 pages
Published	:	March 1st 1999 by Green Lion Press (first published -330)
Categories	:	Philosophy. Classics. Nonfiction. Metaphysics

Interpretation To Books Metaphysics

I have very mixed feelings about Aristotle.

On the one hand, he's so tedious and uninspiring. This is only partially his fault: everything we have of his are lecture notes, and so it is no surprise that they are stylistically wanting. Many scholars think that Metaphysics contains many sections written at different times and for different purposes, which Aristotle never intended to be read together. There is even one section which may not have been written by him at all. This makes his work (particularly this book) often difficult and confusing.

That being said, his ideas are not poetic either. His Ethics contains ingredients to live a well-balanced life, but a life curiously devoid of great passion or excitement. His Rhetoric reads like a handbook for lawyers. His interest in biology pervades his thinking: he loves to catalog, to systematize masses of details. He was the original stamp collector.

On top of this, Aristotle's ideas often take the form of common sense pedantically expressed (to paraphrase Bertrand Russell). His temper was the opposite of Plato's, who seemed to deliberately try to draw counter-intuitive conclusions. One often gets the feeling that Aristotle found Plato a bit excitable, and longed to make philosophy into a more respectable, hard-headed enterprise. When engaging with his mentor's ideas, Aristotle is either (1) opposing them, or (2) trying to reconcile them with common sense. The result of the latter is a strange admixture of the mundane and the mystic.

But his positive qualities are equally compelling. Compare Aristotle's careful claims, his scrupulous definitions, and systematic procedure to Plato's more artistic style. Plato was the master of the straw man. Compelling as the dialogue form is, it allowed Plato to caricature his opponents' positions and get away with some pretty sloppy thinking. Aristotle will have none of this. Plato sought to banish all poets from his Republic, and maybe he himself would have been barred entry. Aristotle would have waltzed right in.

It is hard to evaluate the argument of this book, if only because it is so disorganized and wordy. Aristotle does do a good job in pointing out the logical absurdities of Plato's theory of Ideas. However, his own theory of Form and Substance is curiously similar, and is liable to some of the same criticisms. To me, this shows just how much Aristotle was under the influence of his old teacher—even though he tried to wrest himself free, he gets sucked back in.

[An Afterthought: Plato and Aristotle are perfect antidotes for different places and times. When emotion, superstition, fanaticism, and sophism reign, Aristotle is where it's at. But, for me, our world is sometimes too systematic, too commonsensical, and too averse to abstract argument. Plato is like a glass of cool water.]

Rating Regarding Books Metaphysics

Ratings: 4.04 From 12728 Users | 180 Reviews

Evaluate Regarding Books Metaphysics

Seeing your reviews on all the pages for the main works of Aristotle, I've even more respect for your stamina in reading so much of him if you find

I went to school where Joe Sachs teaches, and his translations are excellently faithful, even if that does mean a little initial adjustment on the part of the reader; compound Greek words are often translated as hyphenated English phrases, ie, "entelecheia" is "being-at-work-staying-itself," if I recall.

Don't even think you can understand this by reading it on your own. Perhaps the greatest work in philosophy of all-time.

Aristotles Metaphysics is a difficult and painful book. This review will describe my subjective experience as a reader and will not assist you in any way to understand the work itself. I will forgive anyone who stops reading my review at this point. Through good luck I chose the French translation by J. Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire published in 1879. While I do not think that I understood a single thing from what Aristotle wrote, Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaires excellent introduction provided number of

What is the being of that thing which underlies any phenomenon? The central question of metaphysics is an intriguing one, and it must be said for the benefit of all the atheists on here who might think that this is a religious question, it is a perfectly scientific query, for it is in fact the question of, how can we say a person is the same person even though all of her organs have been shed and renewed, or, in the case of an artefact, how is a house the same house after it has been renovated?

I have very mixed feelings about Aristotle.On the one hand, he's so tedious and uninspiring. This is only partially his fault: everything we have of his are lecture notes, and so it is no surprise that they are stylistically wanting. Many scholars think that Metaphysics contains many sections written at different times and for different purposes, which Aristotle never intended to be read together. There is even one section which may not have been written by him at all. This makes his work

"Aristotle - the original stamp collector ...Plato - the master of the straw man" ...I'm dying!