Aristotle: Understanding the World's Greatest Philosopher

Aristotle: Understanding the World's Greatest Philosopher - John Sellars ****

You wait ages for a good book on Ancient Greek philosopher, and two come along in a matter of weeks. Hot on the heels of Rovelli's Anaximander comes Aristotle from John Sellars.

For me, this is the ideal way to get an introduction to one of the great philosophers (I find it hard to truly support Sellars' superlative) - like most people, I suspect, I had heard of Aristotle but didn't know much about him. I'd read bits of his books on logic, physics and natural history and all his surviving Poetics, but had no overview. This is a proper introduction to the topic, not a watered-down text book - not too long at around 100 pages, and aimed at those with very little existing knowledge, presenting Aristotle's life, work and impact in an approachable fashion.

As was the case with Anaximander, one of the impressive things about Aristotle was that his work covered such a wide range of topics. Sellars introduces us to, amongst other things, Aristotle on the nature of being, logic (establishing some aspects of the field), nature, politics, literature and plays (sadly without knowing the content of his book on comedy) and what makes a good life. I'd have liked a bit more from his Physics, notably his thoughts on infinity, but in an introduction of this length, you can't pack everything in.

Until recently, scientists have been hard on Aristotle, pointing out the way that his theories on matter and cosmology held back science, while often highlighting his unscientific approach in the way that he apparently stated women had fewer teeth than men while never bothering to actually check. If I have one criticism of Sellars is the extent to which he presents Aristotle's philosophy and proto-science without going into its limitations - he often states Aristotle's view without criticism. Several times, Sellars emphasises the way that (in his natural history work), Aristotle demonstrates a stress on observation rather than pure philosophical argument - but this perhaps overplays the degree to which Aristotle truly took a scientific viewpoint (not something that we would particularly expect in this period).

Did Aristotle have a huge impact on the development of thought and on the eventual birth of real science? Absolutely. We can't truly understand science without putting it into context - and having a better understanding of Aristotle is an excellent contribution to this requirement.

Hardback:

Kindle:
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...

Ctrl+Alt+Chaos - Joe Tidy ****

Anyone like me with a background in programming is likely to be fascinated (if horrified) by books that present stories of hacking and other destructive work mostly by young males, some of whom have remarkable abilities with code, but use it for unpleasant purposes. I remember reading Clifford Stoll's 1990 book The Cuckoo's Egg about the first ever network worm (the 1988 ARPANet worm, which accidentally did more damage than was intended) - the book is so engraved in my mind I could still remember who the author was decades later. This is very much in the same vein, but brings the story into the true internet age. Joe Tidy gives us real insights into the often-teen hacking gangs, many with members from the US and UK, who have caused online chaos and real harm. These attacks seem to have mostly started as pranks, but have moved into financial extortion and attempts to destroy others' lives through doxing, swatting (sending false messages to the police resulting in a SWAT te...

Search This Blog