Aristotle: The Desire to UnderstandThis is a 1988 philosophical introduction to Aristotle, and Professor Lear starts where Aristotle himself starts. The first sentence of the Metaphysics states that all human beings by their nature desire to know. But what is it for us to be animated by this desire in this world? What is it for a creature to have a nature; what is our human nature; what must the world be like to be intelligible; and what must we be like to understand it systematically? Through a consideration of these questions Professor Lear introduces us to the essence of Aristotle's philosophy and guides us through the central Aristotelian texts - selected from the Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics and from the biological and logical works. The book is written in a direct, lucid style which engages the reader with the themes in an active, participatory manner. |
Contents
The desire to understand | 1 |
Nature | 15 |
2 Understanding and the why | 26 |
3 Four fashions | 28 |
4 The hearts of animals | 43 |
Change | 55 |
2 The analysis of change | 60 |
the infinite | 65 |
2 Happiness and mans nature | 160 |
3 Virtue | 164 |
4 Incontinence | 174 |
5 Freedom and virtue | 186 |
6 The masterslave dialectic | 192 |
Understanding the broad structure of reality | 209 |
2 Aristotles philosophy of mathematics | 231 |
the inquiry into being as being | 247 |
the infinity of time | 74 |
Zenos arrow | 83 |
Mans nature | 96 |
2 Perception | 101 |
3 Mind | 116 |
4 Active mind | 135 |
5 Mind in action | 141 |
Ethics and the organization of desire | 152 |
4 The most certain principle of being | 249 |
5 What is substance? | 265 |
6 A tourists guide to Metaphysics VII | 273 |
7 Minds place outside of nature | 293 |
8 Mans place outside of nature | 309 |
| 321 | |
| 327 | |
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Common terms and phrases
ability able action Active Mind actively contemplating argues Aris Aristotelian Aristotle says Aristotle thinks Aristotle's world arrow artefact awareness basic believe Bernard Williams biped cause composite of form conception consider constitute definition deliberation depends desire to understand distinct divine embodied essence example existence flesh form and matter frog soul G. E. L. Owen geometrical God's Greek Heraclitus human soul incontinence indivisible infinite infinitely divisible inquiry instant intelligible knowledge level of actuality living logos man's manifestation mathematical Metaphysics VII motion moving Nicomachean Ethics noûs object of thought occur one's ontologically Oxford translation Parmenides particular perceiver perceptible form perspective philosophy physical objects physical world Plato political possible Posterior Analytics potentiality predication premisses primary substance principle of non-contradiction Prior Analytics prohairesis proof properties realize reason sense faculty sensible form signifies Socrates species species-form structure of reality syllogism theory things totle triangle true truth valid inferences virtuous Zeno's Zeno's paradox