Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction

The important thing to keep in mind when evaluating this book is that it is intended to be "A Very Short Introduction" to Aristotle, not an in-depth scholarly analysis of everything that Aristotle ever wrote. In other words, the purpose of this book is to provide the reader with the basic information that he or she needs to know about Aristotle before beginning a serious study of Aristotle's work, nothing more. So, if you are looking for a book that will explain Aristotle's philosophy in detail, you'll have to look elsewhere. But if you are looking for a book that will give you a good start in learning about who Aristotle was and what he wrote about, then this is definitely the book you're looking for. In my estimation, this book strikes a good balance between biography, survey, and apologia, providing the reader with a sound grasp of who Aristotle was, what he wrote, and why he is still worth reading today. It also strikes a good balance between covering Aristotle the philosopher and Aristotle the naturalist -- between his musings about abstract matters of logic, ethics, and metaphysics, on the one hand, and his empirical observations about biology, physics, and the natural world, on the other. All in all, this book paints a well-rounded picture of Aristotle's contributions to the intellectual history of the world.Much of this book is devoted to defending Aristotle from his modern-day critics. While the author is not at all shy about pointing out where Aristotle got it wrong (and Aristotle did get a lot of things wrong), he is quick to quash any criticism of Aristotle that he feels to be unfair -- in particular, criticism from "men who did not read Aristotle's own works with sufficient attention and who criticized him for the faults of his successors" (p. 137). Some may find the apologia woven throughout the pages of this book to be excessive; but I feel that it is justified, given the stridency of some of Aristotle's detractors. Aristotle is still important, even today. But, if you listen to his critics, you might come to the false conclusion that there is no value in studying Aristotle. So, any introduction to Aristotle has to dispel this unfortunate popular misconception right from the outset. Students need to know that they're not wasting their time reading Aristotle. Most of Aristotle's science, and much of his philosophy, has been overtaken by more recent discoveries; but there are still many things of value in Aristotle's writings -- not only in terms of our understanding of the history of ideas, where the contributions of Aristotle can scarcely be overestimated, but also in terms of our understanding of many fundamental philosophical issues that are still relevant today. So I, for one, have no problem with the author's defense of Aristotle. After all, any "very short introduction" to the work of an important thinker has to make a case to the reader why that thinker is worth studying in the first place. If you're a devout anti-Aristotelian, you may feel that this book is pure apologia, bordering on hagiography. But, personally, I feel that the apologetic aspects of this book are fully warranted, and not at all excessive, given the amount of misdirected criticism that Aristotle so often receives. As far as I'm concerned, the author's obvious love and respect for Aristotle never detracts from his ability to paint an accurate picture of Aristotle's life and work, warts and all. He doesn't try to portray Aristotle as perfect, only as misunderstood and misjudged. He even offers his own criticisms of Aristotle when those criticisms are due. He simply wants to correct some of the misperceptions that many people seem to have about Aristotle; and I can't fault him for that.

In reading most any non-fiction book, it's awfully easy to end up critiquing the material presented rather than the book itself. In this instance, that would be easier than most; for much of that which is presented was written over two thousand years ago. But this book's author critiques it for us; and that's not what we should be doing anyway. So we're left to critique only the book and how its material is imparted to the reader. In my case, that presents a ticklish problem for in reading the book I almost concluded that it should never even have been proposed or written in the first place.I say that because there is no way that the works of Aristotle could possibly be captured in such a brief enterprise; a book of only 141 pages. He simply did too much, wrote too much, and theorized and hypothesized too much about too many subjects over too long a time to even begin to capture him in this way; unless, of course, the book is intended for those who already know and understand his many works. There is simply too much material presented here for the uninitiated to even begin to grasp it at such a pace --- including works on logic and language; the arts; ethics, politics and law; constitutional and intellectual history; psychology and physiology; zoology, biology, and botany; chemistry; astronomy; mechanics, and mathematics, metaphysics and the theory of knowledge; and the philosophy of science and the nature of motion, space and time.All this isn't to say that this book's author didn't produce a meaningful volume. He certainly did, and I'm sure he did as well as anyone else could possibly have done considering the scope of his undertaking. But, still, it's difficult to discern who the intended audience for such a book as this might be. The uninitiated couldn't possibly grasp it and the initiated wouldn't be the ones to read it. The best the average reader can hope for is to get some understanding of just how great a theoretician, philosopher and teacher Aristotle was and marvel at the scope of his life's work. Perhaps that's enough.

I wanted the book to focus more on Aristotle’s philosophy, logic, and other more complex works. It seemed to give all areas of his studies the same amount of pages. I felt some of those areas, such as the zoology chapter, couldn’t have been reduced to allow for more room on other topics.

This volume of the Very Short Introduction series, written by an Aristotle's scholar, provides a good overview of his works and describes the position he has in the history of philosophy. Jonathan Barnes exposed the main concepts of Aristotle's thought and his most importants works. Some interpretations of Aristotle's assertions are rebutted in favor of rival conceptions. The author himself gave his understandings about Aristotle's works. Reading this small book, one has a pretty decent view about aristotelian thought and can, if wanted, submerges in his philosophy.

Barnes tries to give a unified presentation of Aristotle's work, but his method of quoting often from Aristotle's work makes the writing seem choppy. The reader does understand that reading Aristotle's work is even more unpleasant than reading this book. A better example of a short introduction that is done successfully is "Plato" by R.M. Hare, also from Oxford U. Press. I have no quarrel with the quality of the content in the book by Jonathan Barnes, just the organization that makes Aristotle's work seem disjointed and the presentation that makes the book dull.So many philosophy books only touch the mind, not our lives. For books that touch your life I recommend "Socrates Cafe" by Christopher Phillips, although it was written to follow contemporary publishers formulas. "Achieve Lasting Happiness" by Robert Canright does not follow formulas. It is unique, but it does not follow the Greek traditions. It follows Chinese traditions, but Canright shows the Ancient Chinese had much in common with Aristotle.

Uma excelente introdução à obra aristotélica, ordenada segundo um ponto de vista orgânico.É preciso esclarecer de começo, quando começamos a ler Aristóteles, como sua obra é estruturada, como foi criada e posteriormente manipulada por alunos, discípulos e comentadores. Também como compreender certos termos e como lidar com passagens obscuras. Este livro faz tudo isso e muito mais, proporcionando uma visão de cima e uma metodologia de leitura de escritos fascinantes, mas nem sempre claros.

This book does exactly what it sets out to do. Barnes methodically paints a broad picture of Aristotle's thought and connects seemingly different aspects of it to a single thread. Readers will not only learn information, but will also cultivate a level of respect for Aristotle the man.

細かいチャプターに分かれているので、ちょっとした休み時間に少しずつ読み進められます。アリストテレスは信じられないほど広い範囲に渡る著作を残しています。自分の興味あるところだけ拾うのもいいし、全体図を見渡すこともできて、お勧めの入門書です。アリストテレスがよくこんなにコンパクトにまとまっているな、という感じです。

A good introduction of Aristotle philosophy.

I rate this book at only three stars out of five, because though it makes a good effort to describe the (admittedly difficult) fact and nature of Aristotle's double achievement - in the fields of both the 'natural sciences' (especially biology) and the 'rational' sciences of logic, philosophy and theology - there is needed, and lacking, a discussion of the ongoing significance of Aristotle from the time of his life in the Greek world of the fourth century BC, through the great Christian centuries in early and medieval and Renaissance history, to the present day.While I am fully aware of the great present-day issues of climate change and the effects of the technological revolution and the value of medical and scientific advances, the most significant debate today is between:(A) on the one hand, the experts in the 'natural' sciences (cosmology, biology, chemistry, mathematics, neurology and so on) who claim explicitly that ''there is nothing more than matter'', and that the universe ''created itself out of nothing according to non-existent laws of non-existent nature'', that there is no essential difference between the brute beast and human beings, and that 'human beings' have no free will, and that there is no such thing as morality. Leaders in this misguided belief are Stephen Hawking and Richad Dawkins - and one of my present targets, the neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow, interviewed in the Daily Telegraph under the heading (which Critchlow incrediby defends with a 'yes' answer): ''Is our fate decided the moment we're born?'' Of course our genetic inheritance influences our free human behaviour; but Critchlow preaches that it TOTALLY predetermines our every action throughout our lives;and (B) on the other hand those who believe that human beings are 'more than matter', and that the world around us demands the prior existence of a creator-God, who made human beings to be something special, with a wealth of human activities and human values which are simply not deducible from the blind brute atoms preached by tha atheists. Of course the religious believer has no difficulty about accepting the general results of the purely 'natural' physical sciences too.And the viewpoint which I will develop is that Aristotle is, solidly, not only on the side of the more-than-matter school, but is one of the two fundamental rational, theological and philosophical sources which establish, over the past 2,400 years, the reality of the God-made world and God-made mankind, the other source being the self-revelation of God through the Old Testament and in Jesus Christ in the New Testament.To briefly summarize here, the philosophical and theological views of Aristotle back up the teachings of Jesus as given in the gospel of Matthew (chapter 22, verses as shown):[34] But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.[35] Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,[36] Master, which is the great commandment in the law?[37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.[38] This is the first and great commandment.[39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.[40] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.On these two great commandments, detailed as the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament and their explanation and development by Jesus and his apostles in the New Testament, depend all the specifically human virtues by which all human beings exist and strrive to live - including atheists who claim to live by these values, yet, in total self-contradiction, deny that there is any foundation for them.There has to be an explanation, different from the atheism of Hawking and Dawkins, for what ought to be, what must be, the central feature of any Grand Design: explaining the self-conscious, rational, scientific, mathematical, cosmological, biological, psychological, logical, philosophizing, theologizing, artistic, musical, poetic, literary, remembering, planning, loving, hating, altruistic, selfish, sexual, racial, moral, immoral, believing, hoping, God-fearing, peak-of-creation human being. In his book ''The Grand Design - New Answers to the Ultimate Questions of Life''. Hawking confesses abjectly on page 171'':''The laws of nature tell us HOW the universe behaves, but they don't answer the WHY? questions that we posed at the start of this book:Why is there something rather than nothing?Why do we exist?Why this particular set of laws and not some other?'' (HOW and WHY and the last three questions are in italics in Hawking).In her interesting book, ''The Map of Knowledge - How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found: A History in Seven Cities'' [Alexandria, Baghdad, Cordoba, Toledo, Salerno, Palermo, Venice], Violet Moller (Picador, 2019) shows how every scholar, and every centre of civilization, in the whole Mediterranean world, in its eastern and western and northern and southern, European and African homelands, from Aristotle's own day (about 380 BC) to the Renaissance (say to about 1600 AD) and on to the present day - all these civilizations, for 2,000 years and more, copied and studied and translated the works of Aristotle into Latin and Arabic and Italian and German and Spanish and English, as an essential part of what they saved from every dying civilization and introduced into every new centre of human scholarship. Aristotle is the key rational foundation for the philosophical/theological defence of the case for a Creator-God, and specifically for the God of Christianity. A very interesting emphasis in Moller's book is that the Muslim/Arabs who conquered much of the Mediterranean/Christian world, from Baghdad to Alexandria to Constantinople to Morocco, to southern Italy and the Mediterranean islands, and Spain, between 650 AD and 1500 AD, also enthusiastically embraced and handed on the teachings of Aristotle.