Metaphysics

Aristotle is painfully pedantic. It was very hard to keep my mind focused on the endless digressions he took in order to refute other philosophers in mind numbing detail. He spent very little time actually laying out his own system in much needed detail. Specifics on his own system were lacking in this work. One element that was noticeably absent was his approach to time. If time is uncreated, then his first mover is in a dualistic relationship with time; if it is created, then he faces the consequence that time itself is an ideal form; and all of his digressions in order to point out the contradictions of idealist philosophers become moot at that point. Time must be eternal, if the contradictions of ideal forms in regards to time, be show more valid. If time is eternal, there are many problems Aristotle has to address that are just as contradictory as those he points out in the idealist philosophers. This work didn't cover any of that. Maybe his other works do.
I will have to read more of him later, but it won't be anytime soon. I admit I tried to read through this quickly. I will read his Physics next, whenever I get around to it. There are too many questions I have that this book didn't address. It more or less was a refutation of other Greek philosophers and little else.
I am not a fan of Aristotle. Reading this work hasn't changed that. I do think there is some good exercises in logic in this book, but I see very little value in anything else here. His system is flawed I believe. I still remain more of a Platonist. show less

This translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics by Hippocrates G. Apostle is apparently now out of print. When I read it in 1969, I was impressed with the accuracy of the translation as well as with Hippocrates Apostle's Glossary and editorial commentary. Equally serviceable translations are doubtlessly available today, though I have not consulted them.

The term "metaphysics" should not mislead the twenty-first-century reader. Unlike Plato, Aristotle exhibited no trace of mysticism in his surviving works, including this one. In this treatise Aristotle explored the fundamentals of being and of the logic of being. He approached these questions from a philosophical rather than from what we would now call a scientific perspective. Aristotle show more addressed scientific matters in many other treatises, including his Physics (which is properly translated as "physical nature" rather than that branch of science that is now called "physics"). Metaphysics, for Aristotle, was the study of first principles, of being qua being. Although modern science makes Aristotle's concepts unfamiliar to us, this work sets forth some of the architectonic principles of scientific thinking, including Aristotle's famous principle of contradiction (or noncontradiction): A thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. show less

The Green Lion edition, translated by Sachs, is a marvelously done book. The phenomenal introduction to the translation is the best critique I've read of Latinized Aristotle translations (which are just about every other translation out there). Plus tons of space to annotate around the edges and excellent footnotes that don't give away Aristotle's meaning.

the thing about Aristotle, is i always get the impression the value is on labeling ideas and organizing them rather than the ideas themselves.still good stuff of course.

Again, he starts each section with a review of the extant literature. I found his commentary on Thales interesting, the latter having said that water was the fundamental element, being found even in seeds. He most frequently references Anaxagous. In every instance, he gets to the cause and then brings in the early bases of logic to make his point. He again goes straight for the reality of any concept, criticizing the Pythagoreans who found mathematics in everything and made numbers the basis of substance. (Their 10 principles in "two columns of cognates": limit and unlimited, odd and even, one and plurality, right and left, straight and curved, light and darkness, good and bad, square and oblong.) He observes that Plato first began show more exploring the philosophy of nature and substance upon learning it from Cratylus and Heraclitean doctrines, while Socrates was mostly concerned of ethical matters. The last section concerns a variety of topics, including the primary movement, the one vs. the many, substance and actuality, and implications of all of the above. show less

Todos los hombres tienen por naturaleza el deseo de saber . Con estas palabras se inicia el libro primero de la Metafísica de Aristóteles. Ese deseo de saber culmina en la adquisición de la sabiduría que consiste, para Aristóteles, en el conocimiento de las causas y los principios del ser.

A pivotal, and important, Aristotelian text.