Aristotle's Metaphysics

By Aristotle

Metaphysics is one of the principle works of Aristotle and the first major work of the branch of philosophy with the same name. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Pomona Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Apr 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781447486237

Aristotle

Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist whose works have profoundly influenced philosophical discourse and scientific investigation from the later Greek period through to modern times. A student of Plato, Aristotle’s writings cover such disparate topics as physics, zoology, logic, aesthetics, and politics, and as one of the earliest proponents of empiricism, Aristotle advanced the belief that people’s knowledge is based on their perceptions. In addition to his own research and writings, Aristotle served as tutor to Alexander the Great, and established a library at the Lyceum. Although it is believed that only a small fraction of his original writings have survived, works such as The Art of Rhetoric, Nicomachean Ethics, Poetics, and Metaphysics have preserved Aristotle’s legacy and influence through the ages.

Reviews for Aristotle's Metaphysics

[danielstj · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A pivotal, and important, Aristotelian text.

[alanejohnson-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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 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.

[eroot_7 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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.

[jpsnow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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 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.