The Basic Works of Aristotle by Aristotle

The Basic Works of Aristotle Reviews

• 
  Corinne

  I read this book to understand the meaning of 'Soul', from a Western point of view, after I've read quite a few books on this subject from the East.
  The chapter 'De Anima' in this book does a great job in illuminating this, if one takes the patience to read through it, and if one remembers that it was Aristotle who developed the notion of rhetorics in the first place.
  
  It's a dense but complete read, not only one the subject of soul, but also on everything, from Physics to Medicine to Politics!! It's amazing how a man can be so versatile, and can have insight into so many truths.
  
• 
  AC

  The best, standard, one-volume edition of Aristotle's works in translation. It has, for example, complete, W.D. Ross' Metaphysics.
  
  That said, I have not seen this reissue, and I don't know whether or not Reeve left the actual translations alone, and restricted his "contribution" to mucking around in the introduction. I sure as hell hope he did. McKeon's own comments in the Introduction are worthless -- and can also be safely ignored by serious students of Aristotle.
  
• 
  Morgan

  Finally finished this monster of a book. For people interested in philosophy, Aristotle is a must read. I only read one of his works beforehand. I'm glad I got this edition. Kind of lacked notes though. Doesn't have some full books, but at the same time I'm not sure I want the full books.
• 
  Nathan

  In my freshman year at University I took a course on Aristotle. I remember having this book in my bag everywhere I went, and chatting with all my friends about the cool and fascinating concepts found in here. Aristotle was probably the singular, most important influence on my philosophical development. It laid the foundation for all subsequent thinking and approach.
  
  Aristotle is extremely important, and should be read by, really, everyone. Many think he is outdated and obsolete - I assure you this is not the case. While contemporary science and metaphysics has moved far beyond Aristotle, there are deep-truths to be found here. Namely, his approach to living a happy and virtuous life, I think is beyond is dispute. His concept of friendship has never been challenged by anyone aside from Montaigne. He was not only the first thinker to investigate everything he encountered, but his influence served as the basis for subsequent investigation for over 2000 years. His metaphysics and physics provide one of the first rigorous studies of ontology, and many of his notions we still think according to - whether or not we realize it. When you read Aristotle, his notions feel very basic and 'common-sense' - this is because much of our thinking has its roots in Aristotle.
  
  Even if you don't buy into his Ontology, understanding it is an absolute necessary prerequisite for understanding all subsequent metaphysics. Most importantly, I think the PHYSICS and METAPHYSICS are the singular most important philosophical texts, next to Marx' Das Kapital. Many people regard the Republic as the most important philosophical text of all time (and antiquity at the very least), I believe those two texts are far more important (that is not to undermine the importance of the Republic or the works of Plato). The reason being is: for Aristotle, and all subsequent philosophy until the rise of Catholicism and the Scientific Revolution (namely, Galileo) science and philosophy were one and the same. The two were not separate; and nowhere is this more evident in the Physics and Metaphysics, as well as in De Anima. Rarely, especially now, do philosophers or scientists take this approach. There is a schism between disciplines now, reinforcing our categorical and mode of thinking - thinking in the manner of verstand. Usually, this is only overcome when there is a philosophical critique of science; but this is not a unity of science and philosophy proper. What we need is a resurrection of the unity of science and philosophy, rather than propagating animosity between the two subjects; an animosity grounded in not only method, but ideology. Merleau-Ponty is someone we can all learn from, who made attempts to not simply synchronize the two, but see them as one and the same. Philosophy and Science are one and the same; and depending on the telos of your investigation, both fields are striving for something fundamentally the same. Anyway, I digress...
  
  This is a very good compilation of Aristotle's essential works. Ideally, you want the complete works of Aristotle, but many of the works included in the complete works which are not in this edition are those which aren't read by most casual and lay-readers. This text, however, provides a nice, well-rounded, comprehensive collection of Aristotle's most widely-read works: namely the organon, de anima, physics, metaphysics, rhetoric, poetics, politics, and of course the nicomachean ethics. There are little excerpts from history of animals, parts of animals, on generation and corruption, on the heavens, on dreams, and others. Usually, this text is also sold for a reasonable price, in which case you can't go wrong. It has a nice, flexible binding, and is easy to navigate through.
  
  Good text for anyone interested in Aristotle. I would actually recommend getting this edition before the complete works if you are just getting a taste for Aristotle.
  
  Regarding the content: well, it's Aristotle!
• 
  Russell

  I only read Ethics and Politics from this book. If you want to understand Western thought, read him, Plato and Socrates. Aristotle is the least exciting to read out of the three (some would uncharitably call him 'boring'), but where Socrates set the stage, Plato started the ball rolling, Aristotle hammered out details like only a scientist can, and with as much charm as a white paper. I don't give this a 5 stars because it had me on the edge of my seat, entertained until the last word, but rather because it is so important to understand where we have come from and how Western Civilization as evolved and why. Aristotle had a powerful mind, getting acquainted with one of the foremost thinkers in history is well worth your time.
• 
  Harry Cai

  If I knew nothing about modern science then I would’ve believed him when he said all motion were originated from floaty spheres that were also gods
• 
  Peter Crouse

  Took me three months to finish but, while at times it certainly wasn't easy, I'd have to say that it was time well spent, if only for the fact that it helped me gain a deeper appreciation for the revolutionary synthesis that Aristotle introduced into ancient Greek thought (a fact that is only glimpsed when reading his works individually). In this respect, understanding his logic and epistemology was the key. In practice that meant slogging through the Organon, including the extremely dry but here thankfully truncated Prior Analytics. The last two books of the Metaphysics were also no treat. Apart from that, while not exactly a literary "river of gold", as thought-provoking as one would expect from the western world's most influential philosopher. The De Anima was for me a new-found gem, along with its non-individuated interpretation of the human soul.
  
  Despite the fact that the shorter selections aren't really necissary, for those who are already familiar with Aristotle and are looking for a comprehensive collection of his core works this 1500-page brick of an edition really is the best bang for your buck. Newcomers should start with his individual works though, as he can be quite daunting to the uninitiated. Time and effort are required not only to understand his thought but also the form that this thought has reached us in. The results can be astounding.
• 
  Rick Sam

  One of my all time favorite works
  
  Why?
  
  1. Aristotle, comma Western Civilization
  
  2. Aristotle, was first genuine scientist
  
  3. Islamic writers absorbed Aristotle
  
  4. Christian writers absorbed Aristotle
  
  5. He is the, Father of Fathers for most writers, scientists of all types
  
  6. Aristotle invented formal logic et al
  
  Few years ago -- In Tirunelveli, I would carry this every where.
  
  Each day, I would visit this historical church.
  
  Inside the church, there were many historical cemeteries.
  
  I'd sit near one of them, reading Aristotle's writings.
  
  I would recommend this to everyone
  
  Deus Vult
  Gottfried
• 
  Heatherblakely

  I thiiiink I used this for my grad treatise and not my undergrad thesis, but I'm not 100% sure. But hey! Aristotle!
• 
  Alexander

  Honestly, not as dry as I expected. Interesting to see how much of our common thought today that we don’t even question derived from Aristotle.
• 
  Brett

  Disclaimer: I am not assigning a star rating to Aristotle's work, which is really above my pay grade, but just to this specific volume. It has a useful introductory preface and, at 1500 pages, is the best one-volume compendium you are likely to find. It includes many of Aristotle's essays (if this is really an accurate term) in full, and good selections of many others. What it lacks is much for useful footnotes in any of the sections, providing little context to help a lay reader.
  
  To paraphrase the old 1960s tune, I don't know much about philosophy. I always wanted to take some classes as an undergrad, but never squeezed it in and I still occasionally feel pangs of guilt over my lack of understanding. This leads me to impulse purchase things like this volume, and fight my way through them, hoping to establish some baseline knowledge. In all honesty, I don't think it did me much good.
  
  This volume will look (I hope) impressive on my shelf, next to the other philosophic texts that I have only vaguely understood, but if you are going it alone without the benefit of a professor or other knowledgeable person that can help you through it, I would not recommend starting with the primary text. I'm going to reform my approach in the future and just buy some philosophy 101 textbooks.
• 
  L

  Good without God
  
  I read this book in order to counter an idea I often hear from Christians -- that it is impossible for an atheist to be a good person. There are three main arguments presented. The first is that a "Good person" *by definition* must have faith in God. The second is that it is impossible to know good from evil unless you RTFM: you need a higher authority to tell you which is which. And the third is that the only possible reason anyone could have to be good is fear of Hell. The first argument is vacuous. As for the third: people who are honest and kind only because they fear an afterlife of everlasting torment are not good people -- their opinions should be ignored. Argument 2 is just wrong, and this book shows it. In it
  Aristotle sets out to systematically explore good. He was not a Christian, having lived hundred of years before Christianity got off the ground. In fact, religion plays no important role in the book.
  Aristotle shows that it is possible to think about good without a God to tell you what it is.
  
  So, I read it. Aside from proving that it is possible to think about good without God, I do not find it a useful guide to action. In this regard
  Plato is more convincing. Even though
  Plato does not systematically survey the subject of ethics in one place, the questions of what is good, what is virtue, and how should a good person act arise frequently in
  Plato, and the views presented there are clearer and more convincing than
  Aristotle's. So, in that regard Ethics is disappointing.
  
  Why is this? There are a few reasons. First, it should be noted that there is a hugely important technical difficulty in reading Ethics: vocabulary and translation. A good illustration of this is
  Aristotle's discussion of courage. It became obvious immediately when I began to read the chapter on the subject that what
  Aristotle means by (the word translated as) courage is not at all what I and most English speakers mean by it.
  Aristotle's concept is much narrower, really covering only physical courage in war. In fact, the word
  Aristotle uses is ανδρεία (andreia), which is derived from άνδρας (andros -- man). So what
  Aristotle here discusses is something like "manliness", and even of that he has a narrow concept. (Google translate informs me that modern Greek has two other words for courage that correspond more closely to the modern concept: θάρρος (tharros) and κουράγιο (couragio)). I don't know if those words were in use in
  Aristotle's time, but I can tell you that his discussion of courage is seriously flawed from my point of view since it has little to do with anything that I would recognize as courage. It is barely even possible to imagine a courageous woman in
  Aristotle's views. (Chinese has a similar vocabulary problem: here is brave: 勇, and here is male: 男. The English word "courage" is derived from the Latin for heart, and is thus free of sexual etymology.)
  
  This points towards another problem with Aristotle: he considers man superior to non-man, to the point of incomparability. Non-man includes women, children, and animals. Women and children are barely mentioned in Ethics. For instance, he has this to say about animals and boys: "It is natural, then, that we call neither ox nor horse nor any other of the animals happy; for none of them is capable of sharing in such activity. For this reason also a boy is not happy; for he is not yet capable of such acts, owing to his age." He does seem to consider the possibility that there might be such things as womanly virtues, although they are clearly far inferior to those available to men.
  
  Another problem I find with
  Aristotle is the view that a man's will is unitary. (This he shares with
  Plato and
  Socrates.) It is the idea that what one wants is what one wants, i.e. that there is no such thing as internal conflict -- the very idea makes no sense.
  Aristotle, unlike
  Plato and
  Socrates, does admit a limited exception, which he calls incontinence, where, under certain circumstances a less-than-perfectly virtuous person may give in to temptation even though he knows he should not.
  
  This error (for so, I maintain, it is) also infects his discussion of courage.
  Aristotle thinks a courageous man does not fear death in battle. In fact, I believe, as I think most people do, that without fear there is no courage. Courage is doing the thing you fear when it is right.
  Aristotle cannot fully conceive the idea that a man fears dying in battle yet does so voluntarily.
  
  Who the Hell am I, who thinks he has the standing to find fault with
  Aristotle? I am an educated 21st-century human. I am somewhat familiar with 2300 years of history that had not yet happened when
  Aristotle lived. I am aware of real governments, constitutions, movements, and nations of which he could barely conceive. I am infected by the liberal values of my time, which hold that humans are far more alike than they are different. For instance, except for sexual physiology, men and women are mostly alike. Humans are animals (
  Aristotle knew that) and are not discontinuously different from other animals. I am also, as it happens, a retired neuroscientist. Thus I know that we reason and philosophize with our brains. This was not generally appreciated in
  Aristotle's time.
  Aristotle himself, believed that the brain was a kind of radiator whose purpose was to cool the heart, which he, like most people of his time, believed to be the seat of reason. (It was not until Harvey's description of the circulation of the blood in 1628 that anyone correctly understood the purpose of the heart.) I know that the brain is a complicated organ of many parts, and that these parts may act in opposition, so that a human is almost constantly in a state of internal conflict. There is nothing logically incoherent in the idea of a person overcoming his/her fear.
  
  I bought
  The Basic Works of Aristotle intending to read Ethics and Politics, and then perhaps others of
  Aristotle's works. However, I am sufficiently disappointed in Ethics that I do not intend to read Politics. As I already said,
  Plato is better.
• 
  James Henderson

  This text was my introduction to Aristotle during my college years. I read from this work alongside readings from the dialogues of Plato. Then I decided I was at heart an Aristotelian. That means among other things that I "desire to know" as Aristotle puts it in his Metaphysics. It also means that I am interested in the real world and that there is such a world that exists independent of my mind. Aristotle's works have been part of my reading life ever since. This is one of the best one volume collections of his work. I would recommend it to all who are interested in philosophy and have the desire to know.
• 
  Chris Maguire

  I accept that this is regarded as a major milestone in human understanding but it's very hard to follow. A picture here and there would be illuminating. An edition with pictures or "Cole's Notes" explaining what the heck Aristotle is talking about would be nice.
  
  I'm mostly reading this to dispel the mystery of what it's about and to check it off the list so I'm not taking the time to try and understand the content based on the content itself; I'd go to Khan Academy or a similar resource if I actually wanted to learn the content. Maybe learning from an ancient text alone would strengthen my reading comprehension and academic conviction but I'm not passionate about either of those.
• 
  Christopher

  I recently returned to the biological works to clarify a few points recounted in the book
  HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Method: A natural approach to a safe, easier, more comfortable birthing If your interested in this, there is a good summarizing article by P. M. Dunn located here
  Perinatal Lessons from the Past
• 
  Garrett McMahon

  Slavery is fine
• 
  Brent Jones

  Aristotle focus in “The Basic Works of Aristotle” is that “all men suppose what is called wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things.” These causes and principles are the subject matters referred to as “first philosophy.” Considered to be one of the first true scientists, he created an early version of the scientific method to observe and draw conclusions. The approach begins with reviewing the opinions of others and even the history of thought.
  
  He drew distinctions between things that are “better known to us” and things that are “better known in themselves,”. He said we start with what is best known to us and then move to things better known in themselves.
  
  Aristotle’s said “the study of being qua “is frequently and easily misunderstood, because it seems to suggest that there is a single subject matter—being qua being. The subject matter of “being” included within it three things: (1) a study, (2) a subject matter (being), and (3) a way the subject matter is studied (qua being).
  
  Much of Aristotle’s teachings were preserved by Arabic mathematicians and canonized by Christian scholars. His works have shaped Western thought, science, and religion for nearly two thousand years. Richard McKeon’s The Basic Works of Aristotle is the one-volume source for understanding this scholar.
  
  The books approach is especially useful in comparing him to Plato. Plato's world was one of changeless things assigned for lofty contemplation and for Aristotle, as we are told in the introduction, it was a world for empirical investigation. Aristotle had a fascination with living things.
  
  The contents list a Preface, Introduction, Bibliography, Organon (logical treatises), Physica, DeCaelo, De Generatione, Parva Naturalia, Historia Animalium, De Partibus, De Generatione, Metaphysica, Ethica Nicomachea, Politica, Rhetorica, and De Poetica.
  
  In the preface it tells us that this book is an aid to understanding the man and his thoughts. A study of an ancient writer. The re-discovery and assemblage of useful items of information and knowledge and inquiry into truths whose specifications do not change with time. “The Basic Works of Aristotle by Richard McKeon” is a must-have book to understand and have a useful reference for understanding this important scholar. For more on this book see web site at
  www.connectedeventsmatter.com
  
• 
  Sandro Valery Gvaramia

  A prolonged sojourn in The works of Aristotle
  
  Prior to taking this up, I had only read Poetics and Nichomachean Ethics but was informed about how inscrutable some of the texts in here might be. Nonetheless I wanted to appraise that myself and while i like to think i understood and enjoyed reading them- or at least the tenor of it all-inscrutable they were.
  Then, to my great astonishment, I came across a course on Metaphysics at my University and was overjoyed before I was told it might not run again. Now that leaves me without any succour in an endeavor to study Metaphysics- probably the most recondite of the texts written by Aristotle.
  All that aside, I was delighted by Aristotle's proclivity to impugn what was at the time or long before him (he addresses Pre-socratics as ''Ancients'') accepted to be the truth by so many thinkers. And he does not flagrantly discard all those views, but displays an almost inhuman ability to analyze the reality, the existence, the coming to be and a multitude of other things. Actually it would be more accurate to say that Aristotle is privy to everything that is at work in the universe, from the motion of the celestial bodies to the inexplicable realm of dreams, which happens to be one of my favorite treatesies written. Although at times it did become a humdrum and a toil to keep reading, especially when compounded by the ever-growing veil that was concomittant(a word which i learned while reading this mammoth) with the ideas set forth.
  Finally, all 1470 pages are fully read and I think I will no longer be racked with the guilt of not having read Aristotle in entirety. literally nobody but me cares about this, but like Fiona apple's lyrics go:
  he said : ''it's all in your head,''/ And I said, ''So's everything'', but he didn't get it.
• 
  Bradley

  It would be a little weird to say that I 'read' this. I did not read this from start to finish, but more like how Christians tend to read the Bible starting with the Gospels and branching out, I too started on some of the more notable bits of Aristotle and left the other pages barren. I will not rate the work and I'm marking it as read now because I've owned this book for a long time and it's been a random, constant companion throughout the years. Aristotle always strikes me as one of the deepest wells in thought. I've found him to be the most well-rounded and brilliant among...anyone, haha! I've been attracted to his works for the longest time and cannot connect the dots to when or how that came to be.
  
  Al-Ghazali recognized Aristotle's genius even whilst procaliming him a heretic. There's something about him that can't be measured and so I will leave this ratingless. And words will fall short. He took thought, its many forms, and breathed it new. As the cover says, "The master of those who know." ~Dante
  
  
• 
  Sinan Öner

  Aristoteles lived in the ancient Greece (around the Aegean Sea) in 5. Century B.C. Aristoteles' works spread in the different social, natural sciences, arts. Aristoteles founded "Lise" ("High School") for educate students with his methodology, philosophy and understanding the world. Aristoteles worked with ancient city states, one of the sources of Aristoteles' knowledge is his work with political ruling classes of his age in the different countries. In "The Basic Works of Aristotle", we see the most of his books in the one volume, Aristoteles is living in his book although the changes of world since his writing.
• 
  William

  Wow. Incredible. Aristotle had an incredible mind, and he astounds me with his brilliance. I did not read all of the writings in this book (in fact, I only read his Nichomean Ethics and his Politics), but, I know I will come back and read many of his other writings as I continue reading from those who cite him. There is much to be said about Aristotle, but I favor him to his teacher, Plato. I've learned a lot.
• 
  Bruno Dal Molin

  Does not contain all of A's works, but perhaps the main ones, mostly complete, only a few are excerpted. A middle point between
  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... and
  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7.... What can I say? A must have for philosophy fans... I sort of regret not getting The Complete Works as he is such an incredible author. His ideas really seem fundamental to an understanding of reality.
• 
  zara

  only read a few things but still wanted to log it:
  De Anima
  Physics
  Metaphysics
  Nicomachean Ethics
• 
  Jeff Cliff

  one of the driest things I've ever read
• 
  Gabrielle Huston

  Read for HUMS2000 at Carleton University. Read parts of Categories, Physics, Metaphysics, and Ethics.
• 
  cait

  we will see how i feel about this after i write my essays
• 
  Alex Stephenson

  "Baby's First Aristotle", as some might view this collection, is in actuality a 1400 page monolith, containing more than enough excerpts to keep the non-devotee satiated. Definitely an affordable way of exploring his work, although the lack of annotations and the occasionally significant omissions from certain works ensure that anyone interested in Aristotle will explore other editions of his work following this.
• 
  Robert Geer

  On 'Rhetoric:'
  
  Pg 1326: "As to whether a thing is important or unimportant, just or unjust, the judge must surely refuse to take his instructions from to litigants: he must decide for himself all such points as the law-giver has not already defined for him.
  
  (On the judges): "They will often have allowed themselves to be so much influenced by feeling of friendship or hatred or self-interest that they lose any clear vision of the truth and have their judgement obscured by considerations of personal pleasure or pain.
  
  Pg 1327: "The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities.
  
  Pg 1327: "[I:]f the decisions of the judges are not what they ought to be, the defeat must be done to the speakers themselves, and they must be blamed accordingly."
  
  Pg 1328: " [T:]hings that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, practically always easier to believe in."
  
  "For example, it is not the function of medicine to simply make a man quite healthy, but to put him as far as may be on the road to health; it is possible to give excellent treatment even to those who can never enjoy sound health."
  
  Pg 1329: 3 Kinds of Persuasion
  "The first kind depend on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the 3rd on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of speech itself."
  
  "[H:]is character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses."
  
  On Generation & Corruption:
  Pg 494: "Nevertheless it is commonly supposed that 'touching' must be reciprocal. The reason of this belief is that 'movers' which belong to the same kind as the 'moved' impact motion by being moved. Hince if anything imparts motion without itself being moved, it may touch the 'moved' and yet itself by touched by nothing-for we say sometimes that the man who grieves us 'touches' us, but not that we 'touch' him.
  The account just give may serve to distinguish and define th 'contact' which occurs in the things of Nature.
  
  Pg 497: "The active power is a 'cause' in the sense of that from which the process originates: but the end, for the sake of which it takes place, is not 'active.' (That is why health is not 'active,' except metaphorically.)
  
  "Now fire contains 'the hot' embodied in matter: but a 'hot' separate from matter (if such a thing existed) could not suffer any action. Perhaps, indeed, it is impossible that 'the hot' should exist in separation from matter" but if there are any entities thus separable, what we are saying would be true of them."
  
  Pg 498: For if it is divisible through and through, there is no 'one,' and therefore no 'many' either, but the Whole is void' while to maintain that it is divisible at some points, but not at others, looks like an arbitrary fiction. For up to what limit is it divisible? And for what reason is part of the Whole indivisible, i.e. a plenum, and part divided? Further, they maintain, it is equally necessary to deny the existence of motion.
  Reasoning in this way, therefore, they were led to transcend sense-perception, and to disregard it on the ground that 'one ought' to follow the argument: and so they assert that the universe is 'one' and immovable. Some of them add it is 'infinite,' since the limit (if it had one) would be a limit against the void.
  There were, then, certain thinkers who, for the reasons we have stated, enunciate views of this kind as their theory of "The Truth."
  ...Moreover, although these opinions appear to follow logically in a dialectical discussion, yet to believe them seems next door to madness when one considers the facts. For indeed no lunatic seems to be so far out of his senses as to suppose that fire and ice are 'one' it is only between what is right, and what seems right from habit, that some people are mad enough to see no difference.
  
  Response to Leucippus: (On the other hand), he conceded to the Monists that there could be no motion without a void. The result is a theory which he states as follows: "The void is a "not-being," and no part of "what is" is a "not-being," for what "is" in the strict sense of the term is an absolute plenum. This plenum, however, is not "one:" on the contrary, it is a "many" infinite in number and invisible owing to the minuteness of their bulk. The "many" move in the void (for there is a void): and by coming together they produce "coming-to-be," while by separating they produce "passing-away."
• 
  Shawn

  I admit that I skimmed through a lot of this book.
  Physics? Metaphysics? Rhetoric? How to give speeches? Poetics? That's OK. I'll pass.
  I did try to read some and had no idea what the heck I was reading. It was unreadable.
  
  The early part of the book dealt more with observational writing than philosophical writing. And much of this was in the category of "duh, master of the obvious" writing.
  Example: A mountain can be both small and large at the same time. When compared to a larger mountain, it is small. When compared to a smaller mountain, it is large.
  Wow, I never thought of that before.
  As a co-worker who knows a great deal about history told me, "Perhaps 2,000 years ago people were in awe of this discovery because maybe they hadn't thought of that before."
  OK, maybe so.
  
  I read almost all of his views on morality, human interaction and the human psyche and enjoyed this a great deal. This was pretty easy to read.
  
  I also enjoyed his view on politics, even though I didn't agree with much.
  Surprisingly, as Greece was the birthplace of democracy, he seemed extremely anti-democracy.
  He was very anti-poor and pro-wealthy.
  He was pro-slavery as well. Although back then I know it was commonplace and I believe most of them were prisoners of war really.
  All of this surprised me as it didn't appear to be in line with his predecessors, Socrates and Plato.
  As a matter of fact, many times he said Socrates was flat out wrong "when he said this" or "when he said that."
  Hmmmm, maybe he should have been nicknamed "Aristotle the Arrogant."
  This is a far cry from Socrates (who I enjoyed much more) who said, "The only thing I know is that I know nothing" and who also was known for asking more questions of others in order to learn other people's points of view rather than preach and make sermons.
  Still, the writing in this area was decent so I can't criticize this part of the book just because I didn't agree with some of his philosophies.
  
  However, out of 1500 pages, I could really only easily handle about 500 pages. The other 1,000 were absolutely either unreadable or a waste of time.
  2 stars.