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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
The Nicomachean Ethics is an essential early text for anyone interested in classical studies and moral philosophy. Early being the key word, as someone with about ten years' education in Classics now, I'm shocked and appalled that I've never been assigned this before. [I think the crucial gap in my reading arose when an Ancient Philosophy module clashed with some Irish Legal Systems lectures I had to do in my first year, back when gaining respectable employment still seemed interesting to me.] Aristotle is a very good educational writer, as I believe I wrote about in my review of the Poetics. When one is learning about something unintuitive or novel, his systematic thinking allows anyone to understand.
However, the Nicomachean Ethics is more of an anthropological text than a philosophical one - its historical value somewhat supercedes the depths of its insight. It provides an impeccable picture into the moral thought of Ancient Greece. Since Aristotle's view of happiness as obtainable by the virtuous is quite firmly tied into the mores of his culture, it's unlikely you'll read this and suddenly understand the path towards honest, noble living. There's too much different now for Aristotle's thought to be applicable without serious contemplative revision. (There is one major exception to this, however.)
Aristotle is generally a speaker of his time - the sensibility of a people can be broadly grasped by his thought alone. Perhaps the only time Aristotle isn't speaking in regards to the broad enlightened sensibility of Greekness is a curious aside on pedarasty. What is a pedarast, you ask? To some people, it's complicated, to others, like Norm Macdonald it isn't. Surprisingly, Aristotle is more on Norm's side than on Socrates' in Phaedrus or Symposium, and suggests that paederasty arises 'as in those who have been the victim of lust from childhood, from habit. Do onto others what was done onto you? I'm not sure if I'm reading this with modern sensibilities or not, but it interests me.
Though a decent chunk of the book didn't majorly interest me, the books on friendship are brilliant and genuinely timeless. I feel a little hypocritical, not enjoying some parts of the book I felt elaborated on overly-simplistic concepts, yet enjoying things like 'we are generally friends with people who are pleasurable to be around', but Aristotle's academic construction of friendship could probably explain the concept to an alien without much of a loss of human feeling. It made me think a lot about how many friends I really have, and how many friendships have gone by the wayside, and if that was okay or not. No point in going into ruminating detail here, as it would interest nobody including myself, but it I'll say that if you read nothing else in this book you should read Aristotle on friendship.
I actually have a book by Jacques Derrida, The Politics of Friendship, a book I bought back when I thought reading philosophy was as simple as turning to page 1, which it never can be when it comes to post-structuralists. I have a feeling the book might not match up to the intrigues of its premise, but hopefully understanding Aristotle to some small extent will help.
However, the Nicomachean Ethics is more of an anthropological text than a philosophical one - its historical value somewhat supercedes the depths of its insight. It provides an impeccable picture into the moral thought of Ancient Greece. Since Aristotle's view of happiness as obtainable by the virtuous is quite firmly tied into the mores of his culture, it's unlikely you'll read this and suddenly understand the path towards honest, noble living. There's too much different now for Aristotle's thought to be applicable without serious contemplative revision. (There is one major exception to this, however.)
Aristotle is generally a speaker of his time - the sensibility of a people can be broadly grasped by his thought alone. Perhaps the only time Aristotle isn't speaking in regards to the broad enlightened sensibility of Greekness is a curious aside on pedarasty. What is a pedarast, you ask? To some people, it's complicated, to others, like Norm Macdonald it isn't. Surprisingly, Aristotle is more on Norm's side than on Socrates' in Phaedrus or Symposium, and suggests that paederasty arises 'as in those who have been the victim of lust from childhood, from habit. Do onto others what was done onto you? I'm not sure if I'm reading this with modern sensibilities or not, but it interests me.
Though a decent chunk of the book didn't majorly interest me, the books on friendship are brilliant and genuinely timeless. I feel a little hypocritical, not enjoying some parts of the book I felt elaborated on overly-simplistic concepts, yet enjoying things like 'we are generally friends with people who are pleasurable to be around', but Aristotle's academic construction of friendship could probably explain the concept to an alien without much of a loss of human feeling. It made me think a lot about how many friends I really have, and how many friendships have gone by the wayside, and if that was okay or not. No point in going into ruminating detail here, as it would interest nobody including myself, but it I'll say that if you read nothing else in this book you should read Aristotle on friendship.
I actually have a book by Jacques Derrida, The Politics of Friendship, a book I bought back when I thought reading philosophy was as simple as turning to page 1, which it never can be when it comes to post-structuralists. I have a feeling the book might not match up to the intrigues of its premise, but hopefully understanding Aristotle to some small extent will help.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Brilliant dissections. It's up to the reader to reassemble Aristotle's divisions and live nobly.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced