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Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation
Under the guidance of Professor Veatch, Aristotle stands forth again as the philosopher who, above all, speaks simply and directly to the common sense of all mankind. Today, Professor Veatch believes, the time may be ripe for a belated recognition that Aristotle is "a truly live option in philosophy."
The discussion begins with the Physics ―for Aristotle, the discipline embracing all aspects of the natural world―and examines Aristotle's doctrine of categories and his celebrated "four causes." Turning to the De Anima , Professor Veatch casts aside many errors of interpretation which have come about because of mistaken readings of the term soul and gives an intelligible account of Aristotle's psychology, seen within the context of his system as a whole. Next, the varieties of human achievement are surveyed in Aristotelian terms, with introductory discussions of the Ethics , Politics , and the Poetics . Turning to the Metaphysics , the author demonstrates that the question of the unity of subject matter in Aristotle's metaphysics does not warrant the great difficulty that has been made of it. Finally―reversing to good effect the traditional order―Aristotelian logic is presented with superb clarity and ease.
The discussion begins with the Physics ―for Aristotle, the discipline embracing all aspects of the natural world―and examines Aristotle's doctrine of categories and his celebrated "four causes." Turning to the De Anima , Professor Veatch casts aside many errors of interpretation which have come about because of mistaken readings of the term soul and gives an intelligible account of Aristotle's psychology, seen within the context of his system as a whole. Next, the varieties of human achievement are surveyed in Aristotelian terms, with introductory discussions of the Ethics , Politics , and the Poetics . Turning to the Metaphysics , the author demonstrates that the question of the unity of subject matter in Aristotle's metaphysics does not warrant the great difficulty that has been made of it. Finally―reversing to good effect the traditional order―Aristotelian logic is presented with superb clarity and ease.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
214 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1974
About the author
Henry Babcock Veatch
19 books8 followersVeatch was born in Evansville, Indiana. He obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1937 and spent his career at Indiana University (1937–1965), Northwestern University (1965–1973), and Georgetown University (1973–1983) where he was Philosophy Department Chair from 1973 to 1976. He also had visiting professorships at Colby College, Haverford College and St. Thomas University.
Veatch was active in the Episcopal Church and served as president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. He served as president of the Metaphysical Society of America in 1961. In 1970–71 he served as president of the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association. He was a member of the Guild of Scholars of The Episcopal Church.
Henry Veatch died in Bloomington, Indiana. Indiana University maintains the archive of his collected papers (1941–1997).
Veatch was active in the Episcopal Church and served as president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. He served as president of the Metaphysical Society of America in 1961. In 1970–71 he served as president of the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association. He was a member of the Guild of Scholars of The Episcopal Church.
Henry Veatch died in Bloomington, Indiana. Indiana University maintains the archive of his collected papers (1941–1997).
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May 30, 2026
Veatch’s goal is to resurrect Aristotle, to bring him back from the dead so to say and make him relevant as “a contemporary philosopher,” a philosopher of “common sense.” I think he does a good job with this book. This is also the clearest exposition of Aristotle’s systematic philosophy I’ve read, which is particularly appreciated since Aristotle I find to be notoriously hard to read.*
While the Veatch book covers Aristotle’s physics, metaphysics, ethic, poetics, ontology and theology, I will highlight just a few of the points that caught my attention.
In making a distinction between animate and inanimate life, Aristotle says that the former is filled with soul. The soul is the “animating principle” of living things. At this point, this is nothing more than the evolutionary life force as articulated by the Darwinians. The soul performs certain life functions such as nutrition, growth and reproduction.
While life expresses its animating principle through development (changing form over time), it is nevertheless something that doesn’t change. Change is part of the unchanging essence. In this case, survival-development to adult form occurs because there is change. This is species adaptation; this is also the individual learning. The principle of development - the acorn to the tree example - is intrinsic within the life form itself. While Veatch says that modern science treats the “final cause” with scorn, such an attitude contradicts common sense: Life clearly has an end result embedded within itself.
Modern philosophy doesn’t help either. It hops on the bandwagon and to separate normative values from factual ones. One cannot, it is said, derive a normative value from a fact. Thus, to say that life’s end is such and such cannot mean to be taken as that ought to be life’s end. These are two separate realms. But here too, Veatch argues that this contradicts common sense. Life seeks to survive and a full-suite of life activities are associated, deductively, from that biological fact. It is utter nonsense (my characterization, but this is what Veatch is saying) to argue, for logical consistency purposes, that life ought not to do what it is designed to do: To live and, in Aristotelian terms, to develop into the form it was meant to be.
Aristotle then extends his notion of final cause to humans in general. As opposed to plants (stationary in space), and animals (movement in space), the distinguishing characteristic of humans is their rationality, which is in effect, movement that transcends (physical) space. This for Aristotle, is the “telos” or goal and end of human life. That rationality applies to how to live the good life, which involves (from Nicomachean Ethics) the “pursuit and avoidance in the sphere of desire.” The rational capacity involves “right desire,” that, as far as how individuals conduct themselves, means abiding by the golden mean. Most desires per se are neither good nor bad, but an excess (or deficiency) is bad, which seems like it has some Buddhist and Stoic elements.
So far, so good. This is no different than what evolutionary science tells us: Rationality is a tool for not only living, but living well, though I suppose whether to follow the golden mean is up for debate. Aristotle also makes this distinction between Practical Knowledge, which involves free choice that comes with making-doing-creating, and theoretical knowledge (mathematics, physics and metaphysics) that involve the universal laws of necessity that cannot be otherwise. But now we run into a problem because Aristotle moves into the ethical realm which is to tell us how humans, writ large, are to conduct themselves in association with others. Here, Aristotle needs a law that applies universally.
And what might that be? Veatch’s take on Aristotle, which he endorses, is to transcend the world of subjectivity into the world of universality and objectivity. It is to subject the personal and particular to what is objective and universal. This is pre-Kantian. This is Kant’s formula way before Kant. This is what the intellectuals of today mean when they use the word “rational.” There’s a universal and objective standard out there and the task for rationality is to access it and to follow it (per the formula to know the good is to do the good).
If the biological goal of life - what is factual and what, arguably, is normative - how does one transform that necessary imperative to set aside one’s subjective interest, in the interest of the whole? In other words, why would one do the good of the whole thing if one is not motivated to do so?
As a general rule, there’s an answer, but it lies within, and not without as for Aristotle, per Veatch, or Kant. Variability is the raw material of evolution and a good part of human evolution has involved breeding individuals to be other-regarding group members because that is the way the self survives. The group provides mutual benefits as well as security. For this part of humankind, Aristotle’s formula works. But for those who are motivated by self-interest only without regard to the good of the whole, the prescriptions of Aristotle and Kant fall on deaf ears for they, as self-only regarding individuals, could care less about restricting themselves at the expense of the whole. This is why conflict is built into human nature. This is why there is no magic wand to create a friction free, perfect world.
There is another problem with what Veatch puts forward when explicating Aristotle’s comprehensive philosophy. For Aristotle, life’s natural movement is really Newton’s first law: a body in motion stays in motion, or a body at rest stays at rest, unless it is deviated by a “violent motion,” which is Newton’s accelerating force. This is “inertial motion” that applies to life (for political philosophy, think Hobbes; for common sense, think of life as seeking and defending beings moved by life’s force to survive long enough to reproduce). But, Veatch argues, modern science has stripped agency from such movement. Life and non-life just move and that’s good enough without speculating why Newton’s first law pertains to anything.
I suppose in cosmology the argument might be, though it is not made in this explicit way, that Newton’s first law was set in motion by the big bang and by exploding supernovas and such whereby matter an energy flow outward in straight lines unless acted upon by a counterforce, which is straight line movement that is curved by a large gravitational mass ( “acceleration”). Veatch alludes that this view was foretold by Aristotle who, in explaining his theory about “natural motion” and “violent motion,” says that heavy bodies move toward the center of the earth whereas mass and light bodies move upward into the air.** But science and philosophy these days reject agency. They just go with motion and call it good.
For Aristotle’s philosophy, Veatch says that motion cannot be described this way. Motion needs an agency. In Aristotle’s ontology, being needs to come into being, and an effect needs a cause. Ultimately, a First Cause is required. Ontology, the study of being, cannot make sense without importing theology. This is the study of pure cause, the unmoved mover, which, for Aristotle, is God. It is not a God of materiality, for something material requires change, and begs the question about who or what causes change. So, deductively I suppose, Aristotle concludes that the primal principle must be immaterial, and from here he says that the divine is pure thought and eternal. It is causeless causation.
In making his case for Aristotle’s relevance to today as a philosopher of common sense, Veatch endorses this perspective as well.*** There must be a first mover in the cosmos. But this is to proffer an explanatory principle for cosmic being that slips into the realm of faith. Even if it were to exist, there’s no way of establishing its existence, as opposed to there being nothing out there in the way of agency at all. A little humility - even common sense - would be appropriate here. As Spencer said, this is an utterly unanswerable question: Who or what began it all, or was there even a beginning at all. For now, we just have to content ourselves with movement and countermovement, for non-life (inertial motion in the presence of gravitational curvature), just as we do the same for life’s animating principle (despite its religious “soul” overtones).
*Veatch says that the body of Aristotle’s thought suffers from “a largely literary and linguistic disability” in part because “all of Aristotle’s formal writings have been lost,” and were instead captured by students taking lecture notes and exercises…”to be abbreviated, crabbed, often disconnected and at times [were] downright unintelligible.”
**“For example, a heavy body, if it is forcibly moved upwards, is being subjected to a counter-natural or violent motion; on the other hand, its downward motion toward the center of the universe is natural.” In the introduction, it is expressed as “a world of final causes where light bodies would tend toward the periphery and heavy bodies toward the center.”
***In discussing the preservation of Aristotle’s writings through the centuries, Veatch’s own position becomes clear when he states that the corpus of Aristotle’s writings have survived “by the merest chance, if not actually through divine providence.”
While the Veatch book covers Aristotle’s physics, metaphysics, ethic, poetics, ontology and theology, I will highlight just a few of the points that caught my attention.
In making a distinction between animate and inanimate life, Aristotle says that the former is filled with soul. The soul is the “animating principle” of living things. At this point, this is nothing more than the evolutionary life force as articulated by the Darwinians. The soul performs certain life functions such as nutrition, growth and reproduction.
While life expresses its animating principle through development (changing form over time), it is nevertheless something that doesn’t change. Change is part of the unchanging essence. In this case, survival-development to adult form occurs because there is change. This is species adaptation; this is also the individual learning. The principle of development - the acorn to the tree example - is intrinsic within the life form itself. While Veatch says that modern science treats the “final cause” with scorn, such an attitude contradicts common sense: Life clearly has an end result embedded within itself.
Modern philosophy doesn’t help either. It hops on the bandwagon and to separate normative values from factual ones. One cannot, it is said, derive a normative value from a fact. Thus, to say that life’s end is such and such cannot mean to be taken as that ought to be life’s end. These are two separate realms. But here too, Veatch argues that this contradicts common sense. Life seeks to survive and a full-suite of life activities are associated, deductively, from that biological fact. It is utter nonsense (my characterization, but this is what Veatch is saying) to argue, for logical consistency purposes, that life ought not to do what it is designed to do: To live and, in Aristotelian terms, to develop into the form it was meant to be.
Aristotle then extends his notion of final cause to humans in general. As opposed to plants (stationary in space), and animals (movement in space), the distinguishing characteristic of humans is their rationality, which is in effect, movement that transcends (physical) space. This for Aristotle, is the “telos” or goal and end of human life. That rationality applies to how to live the good life, which involves (from Nicomachean Ethics) the “pursuit and avoidance in the sphere of desire.” The rational capacity involves “right desire,” that, as far as how individuals conduct themselves, means abiding by the golden mean. Most desires per se are neither good nor bad, but an excess (or deficiency) is bad, which seems like it has some Buddhist and Stoic elements.
So far, so good. This is no different than what evolutionary science tells us: Rationality is a tool for not only living, but living well, though I suppose whether to follow the golden mean is up for debate. Aristotle also makes this distinction between Practical Knowledge, which involves free choice that comes with making-doing-creating, and theoretical knowledge (mathematics, physics and metaphysics) that involve the universal laws of necessity that cannot be otherwise. But now we run into a problem because Aristotle moves into the ethical realm which is to tell us how humans, writ large, are to conduct themselves in association with others. Here, Aristotle needs a law that applies universally.
And what might that be? Veatch’s take on Aristotle, which he endorses, is to transcend the world of subjectivity into the world of universality and objectivity. It is to subject the personal and particular to what is objective and universal. This is pre-Kantian. This is Kant’s formula way before Kant. This is what the intellectuals of today mean when they use the word “rational.” There’s a universal and objective standard out there and the task for rationality is to access it and to follow it (per the formula to know the good is to do the good).
If the biological goal of life - what is factual and what, arguably, is normative - how does one transform that necessary imperative to set aside one’s subjective interest, in the interest of the whole? In other words, why would one do the good of the whole thing if one is not motivated to do so?
As a general rule, there’s an answer, but it lies within, and not without as for Aristotle, per Veatch, or Kant. Variability is the raw material of evolution and a good part of human evolution has involved breeding individuals to be other-regarding group members because that is the way the self survives. The group provides mutual benefits as well as security. For this part of humankind, Aristotle’s formula works. But for those who are motivated by self-interest only without regard to the good of the whole, the prescriptions of Aristotle and Kant fall on deaf ears for they, as self-only regarding individuals, could care less about restricting themselves at the expense of the whole. This is why conflict is built into human nature. This is why there is no magic wand to create a friction free, perfect world.
There is another problem with what Veatch puts forward when explicating Aristotle’s comprehensive philosophy. For Aristotle, life’s natural movement is really Newton’s first law: a body in motion stays in motion, or a body at rest stays at rest, unless it is deviated by a “violent motion,” which is Newton’s accelerating force. This is “inertial motion” that applies to life (for political philosophy, think Hobbes; for common sense, think of life as seeking and defending beings moved by life’s force to survive long enough to reproduce). But, Veatch argues, modern science has stripped agency from such movement. Life and non-life just move and that’s good enough without speculating why Newton’s first law pertains to anything.
I suppose in cosmology the argument might be, though it is not made in this explicit way, that Newton’s first law was set in motion by the big bang and by exploding supernovas and such whereby matter an energy flow outward in straight lines unless acted upon by a counterforce, which is straight line movement that is curved by a large gravitational mass ( “acceleration”). Veatch alludes that this view was foretold by Aristotle who, in explaining his theory about “natural motion” and “violent motion,” says that heavy bodies move toward the center of the earth whereas mass and light bodies move upward into the air.** But science and philosophy these days reject agency. They just go with motion and call it good.
For Aristotle’s philosophy, Veatch says that motion cannot be described this way. Motion needs an agency. In Aristotle’s ontology, being needs to come into being, and an effect needs a cause. Ultimately, a First Cause is required. Ontology, the study of being, cannot make sense without importing theology. This is the study of pure cause, the unmoved mover, which, for Aristotle, is God. It is not a God of materiality, for something material requires change, and begs the question about who or what causes change. So, deductively I suppose, Aristotle concludes that the primal principle must be immaterial, and from here he says that the divine is pure thought and eternal. It is causeless causation.
In making his case for Aristotle’s relevance to today as a philosopher of common sense, Veatch endorses this perspective as well.*** There must be a first mover in the cosmos. But this is to proffer an explanatory principle for cosmic being that slips into the realm of faith. Even if it were to exist, there’s no way of establishing its existence, as opposed to there being nothing out there in the way of agency at all. A little humility - even common sense - would be appropriate here. As Spencer said, this is an utterly unanswerable question: Who or what began it all, or was there even a beginning at all. For now, we just have to content ourselves with movement and countermovement, for non-life (inertial motion in the presence of gravitational curvature), just as we do the same for life’s animating principle (despite its religious “soul” overtones).
*Veatch says that the body of Aristotle’s thought suffers from “a largely literary and linguistic disability” in part because “all of Aristotle’s formal writings have been lost,” and were instead captured by students taking lecture notes and exercises…”to be abbreviated, crabbed, often disconnected and at times [were] downright unintelligible.”
**“For example, a heavy body, if it is forcibly moved upwards, is being subjected to a counter-natural or violent motion; on the other hand, its downward motion toward the center of the universe is natural.” In the introduction, it is expressed as “a world of final causes where light bodies would tend toward the periphery and heavy bodies toward the center.”
***In discussing the preservation of Aristotle’s writings through the centuries, Veatch’s own position becomes clear when he states that the corpus of Aristotle’s writings have survived “by the merest chance, if not actually through divine providence.”
June 3, 2012
This is a great little book on Aristotle. I think you would find this most useful if you already had some exposure to philosophy and already have grappled a bit with questions about realism, and what are things, objects, essences, etc. and whether are they real or not and have been wondering if modern and postmodern thinking went wrong somewhere along the way.
Whether or not you agree with Aristotle or Veatch, it is good to put the material presented in this book alongside your study of modern philosophers. I, for one, think that much of modern philosophy can be mad more useful if it is some how mapped to or checked against Aristotle's philosophy. Aristotle is the philosopher of common sense so it is always comforting if, after exploring the hall of mirrors of modern and postmodern philosophy to return to some sense that the way we see the world is pretty much the way it is. I think that modern philosophy and the sciences have in some ways revealed some errors in Aristotle's philosophy, but in my view what they have done is shed light on specific subtleties rather than completely overthrown Aristotle's philosophy. After all we have to start with common sense philosophy to even begin to do modern philosophy and science. And in the end we still have to live out our day to day lives with the furniture of the universe that is at our scale. The commentary here is mine, not a summary of Veatch's, but I would not be surprised is some readers come away with perspectives similar to mine. I have to confess that I am somewhat of a Kantian "realist" myself, with a great deal of respect for Aristotle's philosophy, which I think continues to be relevant. Veatch's book is one that I plan on returning to for re-reads in the future after pondering some other philosophers.
Whether or not you agree with Aristotle or Veatch, it is good to put the material presented in this book alongside your study of modern philosophers. I, for one, think that much of modern philosophy can be mad more useful if it is some how mapped to or checked against Aristotle's philosophy. Aristotle is the philosopher of common sense so it is always comforting if, after exploring the hall of mirrors of modern and postmodern philosophy to return to some sense that the way we see the world is pretty much the way it is. I think that modern philosophy and the sciences have in some ways revealed some errors in Aristotle's philosophy, but in my view what they have done is shed light on specific subtleties rather than completely overthrown Aristotle's philosophy. After all we have to start with common sense philosophy to even begin to do modern philosophy and science. And in the end we still have to live out our day to day lives with the furniture of the universe that is at our scale. The commentary here is mine, not a summary of Veatch's, but I would not be surprised is some readers come away with perspectives similar to mine. I have to confess that I am somewhat of a Kantian "realist" myself, with a great deal of respect for Aristotle's philosophy, which I think continues to be relevant. Veatch's book is one that I plan on returning to for re-reads in the future after pondering some other philosophers.
April 15, 2022
Although originally published nearly fifty years ago (1974), Henry B. Veatch’s concise account of Aristotle’s philosophy still stands out as one of the most lucid and engaging available. It is a pity that it is no longer in print. The clarity and straightforward style of his writing is testament to his reputation as a popular and plain speaking teacher. Aristotle, on the other hand, perhaps undeservedly given that only his unpolished lecture notes have survived, has a reputation for being difficult to read and challenging to understand. But Veatch’s little book which emphasises the common sense approach that Aristotle takes to understanding the world is a masterpiece of exegesis. His chapter on Aristotle’s metaphysics, and his explanation of how Aristotle’s logical and categorical system should be understood, are particularly well done. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a better understanding of why Aristotle’s philosophy remains relevant to current issues in philosophy and especially to the metaphysical background to the physical and biological sciences.
August 15, 2023
I'm sold. Reject modernity, embrace Ἀριστοτέλης.
Want to Read
December 7, 2009Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 7, as one of several books to quietly read to stir thoughts of the highest things.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 13, as one of Four Other Books by Henry Veatch.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 17, as one of Ten Books on Grace and Thought.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 13, as one of Four Other Books by Henry Veatch.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 17, as one of Ten Books on Grace and Thought.
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