John Sellars, Aristotle: Understanding the World’s Greatest Philosopher

Excerpt

This readable overview of Aristotle’s philosophical achievements is an excellent guide for those approaching the philosopher for the first time. “The World’s Greatest Philosopher” he may have been, but that subtitle overstates Sellars’s admiration. He is “one of the greatest thinkers who ever lived,” as the author puts it in his introductory chapter (p. 2). Few who have made a study of his writings would dissent. Sellars’s aim is to lead the reader through the thickets of Aristotle’s complex and subtle theories about a wide range of topics: metaphysics, the scientific study of nature, the basic elements of reasoning and logic, ethics and politics, the construction and appreciation of poetry, music, and drama. In all these areas, Sellars writes not just as an interpreter of Aristotle, but a fan: we are urged (almost) always to see the good sense of Aristotle’s main ideas. Admittedly, Aristotle was terribly wrong about some important things—slavery and women chief among them. Sellars has a good discussion of Aristotle’s shockingly complacent acceptance of prevailing opinion about these matters; we have nothing to learn from Aristotle here, but Sellars notes that even his views on these topics are not as crude as we might have thought. …