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A review by scottacorbin
Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall
2.0
I've been reading *Pagans and Christians in the City* by Steven Smith lately and one of the central premises of the book is that paganism, far from being finally subjected with the rise of Christendom, instead was pressed underground but occasionally reared its head at various times and places. Thus, following TS Eliot, the future will either be a revival of something like a Christian society or "modern paganism."
The book is certainly interesting in the way in which it challenges the dominant secularization thesis popularized by Charles Taylor, et al. But I found it to be especially illuminating when reading Edith Hall's recent book *Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life*.
Some parts popularization of Aristotle, some parts pop psychology, Hall writes about how Aristotelian ethics—in opposition to various other recently popularized ancient ethical systems like stoicism or epicureanism—is a way to live a good, whole life.
This is fine as far as it goes. The fascinating thing is the way in which Hall uses Aristotle's ethical wisdom for contemporary use. For instance, Hall confusingly uses Aristotle's potentiality-act distinction to argue for abortion (pitting the fetus's potentiality *against* the mother's potentiality, and talking about the fetus as "potential human"). She also makes various unnecessary digs at Christianity when her book may have been more interesting if she had explored the reception and transmission of Aristotle through the Christian tradition. Instead, she laments the loss of Aristotle's work on comedy in his *Poetics* through an illusion to Umberto Eco's *The Name of the Rose* and a dour medieval monk who hates fun.
The chief value of this book for me as a Christian who appreciates Aristotle, is the beauty and wisdom of the Christian tradition in taking pagan wisdom and "perfecting" it by grace. Aristotle is of some benefit, but the Scriptures are all the more. The additional, parallel value of this book is just what a truly pagan ethics might like look with the continued diminishment of the "Christian canopy" over Western society. I was intrigued by Smith's thesis in *Pagans and Christians in the City* at first, but after reading Hall's *Aristotle's Way* I'm more convinced that it might actually be true.
The book is certainly interesting in the way in which it challenges the dominant secularization thesis popularized by Charles Taylor, et al. But I found it to be especially illuminating when reading Edith Hall's recent book *Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life*.
Some parts popularization of Aristotle, some parts pop psychology, Hall writes about how Aristotelian ethics—in opposition to various other recently popularized ancient ethical systems like stoicism or epicureanism—is a way to live a good, whole life.
This is fine as far as it goes. The fascinating thing is the way in which Hall uses Aristotle's ethical wisdom for contemporary use. For instance, Hall confusingly uses Aristotle's potentiality-act distinction to argue for abortion (pitting the fetus's potentiality *against* the mother's potentiality, and talking about the fetus as "potential human"). She also makes various unnecessary digs at Christianity when her book may have been more interesting if she had explored the reception and transmission of Aristotle through the Christian tradition. Instead, she laments the loss of Aristotle's work on comedy in his *Poetics* through an illusion to Umberto Eco's *The Name of the Rose* and a dour medieval monk who hates fun.
The chief value of this book for me as a Christian who appreciates Aristotle, is the beauty and wisdom of the Christian tradition in taking pagan wisdom and "perfecting" it by grace. Aristotle is of some benefit, but the Scriptures are all the more. The additional, parallel value of this book is just what a truly pagan ethics might like look with the continued diminishment of the "Christian canopy" over Western society. I was intrigued by Smith's thesis in *Pagans and Christians in the City* at first, but after reading Hall's *Aristotle's Way* I'm more convinced that it might actually be true.