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The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, Volume 1
The Oxford Translation of Aristotle was originally published in 12 volumes between 1912 and 1954. It is universally recognized as the standard English version of Aristotle. This revised edition contains the substance of the original Translation, slightly emended in light of recent scholarship; three of the original versions have been replaced by new translations; and a new and enlarged selection of Fragments has been added. The aim of the translation remains the same: to make the surviving works of Aristotle readily accessible to English speaking readers.
1264 pages, Hardcover
Published September 1, 1984
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About the author
Aristotle
4,324 books5,590 followersAristotle (Greek: Αριστοτέλης; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science.
Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical period. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At 17 or 18, he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of 37 (c. 347 BC). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored his son Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BC. He established a library in the Lyceum, which helped him to produce many of his hundreds of books on papyrus scrolls.
Though Aristotle wrote many treatises and dialogues for publication, only around a third of his original output has survived, none of it intended for publication. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. His teachings and methods of inquiry have had a significant impact across the world, and remain a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion.
Aristotle's views profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. The influence of his physical science extended from late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and was not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics were developed. He influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophies during the Middle Ages, as well as Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church.
Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as "The First Teacher", and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply "The Philosopher", while the poet Dante Alighieri called him "the master of those who know". His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, and were studied by medieval scholars such as Pierre Abélard and Jean Buridan. Aristotle's influence on logic continued well into the 19th century. In addition, his ethics, although always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics.
Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical period. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At 17 or 18, he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of 37 (c. 347 BC). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored his son Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BC. He established a library in the Lyceum, which helped him to produce many of his hundreds of books on papyrus scrolls.
Though Aristotle wrote many treatises and dialogues for publication, only around a third of his original output has survived, none of it intended for publication. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. His teachings and methods of inquiry have had a significant impact across the world, and remain a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion.
Aristotle's views profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. The influence of his physical science extended from late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and was not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics were developed. He influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophies during the Middle Ages, as well as Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church.
Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as "The First Teacher", and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply "The Philosopher", while the poet Dante Alighieri called him "the master of those who know". His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, and were studied by medieval scholars such as Pierre Abélard and Jean Buridan. Aristotle's influence on logic continued well into the 19th century. In addition, his ethics, although always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics.
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June 21, 2017I bought this in college so I could read On the Heavens, Aristotle's early attempt at a cosmology (which he was to refine slightly in other books). I figured I might as well get the two-volume set since I was interested and had nothing better to do at the time.
The two books together weight about ten or fifteen pounds. It should be a testament to my devotion to Aristotle that when I got all my books out of storage last weekend and had to pick which ones to load in my massive backpack so as not to go over US Airways' fascistic luggage weight allowance, I picked these (as well as Gotham and a bunch of others).
I don't want to rate this because I haven't slogged through, for example, all of the Logic (Categories and its kin put me to sleep), but it's hard not to be completely bowled over by the sheer observatory power that must have been involved in collecting this much knowledge in one place. Why would you ever think to? It's hard to fathom Aristotle sometimes.
Anyway, I appreciate the perspective in Nicomachean Ethics much more than anything Plato ever wrote even though I'm fond of Timaeus and Gorgias, and the skeptical spirit that infuses Aristotle - plus his assumption that reality, physis, is infinitely granular - is worth taking in and then emulating.
The two books together weight about ten or fifteen pounds. It should be a testament to my devotion to Aristotle that when I got all my books out of storage last weekend and had to pick which ones to load in my massive backpack so as not to go over US Airways' fascistic luggage weight allowance, I picked these (as well as Gotham and a bunch of others).
I don't want to rate this because I haven't slogged through, for example, all of the Logic (Categories and its kin put me to sleep), but it's hard not to be completely bowled over by the sheer observatory power that must have been involved in collecting this much knowledge in one place. Why would you ever think to? It's hard to fathom Aristotle sometimes.
Anyway, I appreciate the perspective in Nicomachean Ethics much more than anything Plato ever wrote even though I'm fond of Timaeus and Gorgias, and the skeptical spirit that infuses Aristotle - plus his assumption that reality, physis, is infinitely granular - is worth taking in and then emulating.
November 9, 2019
Decent publication for someone who would like to have an overview of Aristotle's work, but I wouldn't recommend this to a classicist or a demanding reader. The translation from ancient Greek to English is not completely accurate regarding some philosophical terms, something that might be quite confusing considering Aristotle's nominalism.
For example, personally I found irritating author's choice to translate the ancient word 'cosmos' to 'universe', especially due to the fact that the same word applies in modern English. This unreasonable need of changing every single word from the original text is the main reason why this translation is a little bit far away from Aristotle's himself preferences. Apart from the above, it's a good effort.
For example, personally I found irritating author's choice to translate the ancient word 'cosmos' to 'universe', especially due to the fact that the same word applies in modern English. This unreasonable need of changing every single word from the original text is the main reason why this translation is a little bit far away from Aristotle's himself preferences. Apart from the above, it's a good effort.
December 5, 2023
“Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? Morons.”
With due respect to Vizzini’s dizzying intellect, I must demur: Aristotle might be more intimidating even than the Cliffs of Insanity, but a moron he was not. For myself, after powering through 1200 pages of the first volume of his complete works, I think it’s arguable that no single figure is more responsible for our world today than Aristotle.
I mean this specifically with respect to the physical sciences, since the first of this two-volume set comprises his work on logic, the heavens, the animal kingdom, and so forth. That’s not to say his theories still prevail: I don’t know anyone who thinks insects generate spontaneously from putrefying garbage, and only online cranks preach that Earth is the stationary center of the universe.
Further, Aristotle is not that different from his contemporaries and predecessors in terms of theorizing about nature from abstract starting principles. In truth, some of the theories he dismissed were closer to what we would recognize as reality. For their own esoteric reasons, Pythagoreans taught that Earth circles a sacred fire at the heart of the universe. Atomists envisioned a world built from indivisible, infinitesimal units. Aristotle rejected these in favor of theories that today sound quaint and antiquated.
What distinguished Aristotle was less the content of his thought and more his starting point: that nature does nothing superfluous or in vain. He hammers this so often that I would call it his first and greatest commandment. While others debated mental models of the universe, Aristotle began with careful observation of a natural order that works in reliably predictable ways. From this he drew the principle that everything nature does tends toward the best possible ends in the best possible ways, and he sought by abundant observation and rigorous logic to describe universal physical laws on that basis.
Aristotle also urged a self-correcting science that tests theory against fact, rather than carving up fact to fit theory. For example, in an excursus on the habits of bees, he wrote, “Credit must be given rather to observation than to theories, and to theories only if what they affirm agree with the observed facts.” He argued that theories which claim to be comprehensive must account for all phenomena, criticizing Democritus for “speaking generally without examining what happens in all cases” and asserting that “any one who makes any general statement must speak of all the particular cases.”
These principles, including the assumption common to Greek thinkers that existence lies within the grasp of the properly-trained human intellect, is easy to overlook because it’s so baked into the way we think today. One example, I think, illustrates how far ahead of his time he ran. Within Aristotle’s lifetime, the temple at Ephesus burned. One would expect a Greek of his time to wrestle with the meaning of such a desecration. Aristotle, by contrast, found it useful merely as an example of how wind, smoke, and fire interact with each other. This is so modern that it’s easy to miss how strange it is for a man steeped in a culture of gods to ignore the gods so utterly in his investigation of physical law.
I’m not an expert on the history of Aristotle’s transmission through the hands of Greek monks, Arabic scholars, the medieval Roman Church, and Renaissance Europeans. But having read his works on logic and the laws of nature, I see that his method of thinking about nature laid the foundations for the modern world. The blossoming of science and the scientific method left his natural theories far in the dust, but the way billions of us conceptualize the world — orderly, rational, mechanistic, deterministic, predictable, and knowable — is thoroughly Aristotelian. If he was a moron, he is unparalleled as one of the most influential morons in history.
With due respect to Vizzini’s dizzying intellect, I must demur: Aristotle might be more intimidating even than the Cliffs of Insanity, but a moron he was not. For myself, after powering through 1200 pages of the first volume of his complete works, I think it’s arguable that no single figure is more responsible for our world today than Aristotle.
I mean this specifically with respect to the physical sciences, since the first of this two-volume set comprises his work on logic, the heavens, the animal kingdom, and so forth. That’s not to say his theories still prevail: I don’t know anyone who thinks insects generate spontaneously from putrefying garbage, and only online cranks preach that Earth is the stationary center of the universe.
Further, Aristotle is not that different from his contemporaries and predecessors in terms of theorizing about nature from abstract starting principles. In truth, some of the theories he dismissed were closer to what we would recognize as reality. For their own esoteric reasons, Pythagoreans taught that Earth circles a sacred fire at the heart of the universe. Atomists envisioned a world built from indivisible, infinitesimal units. Aristotle rejected these in favor of theories that today sound quaint and antiquated.
What distinguished Aristotle was less the content of his thought and more his starting point: that nature does nothing superfluous or in vain. He hammers this so often that I would call it his first and greatest commandment. While others debated mental models of the universe, Aristotle began with careful observation of a natural order that works in reliably predictable ways. From this he drew the principle that everything nature does tends toward the best possible ends in the best possible ways, and he sought by abundant observation and rigorous logic to describe universal physical laws on that basis.
Aristotle also urged a self-correcting science that tests theory against fact, rather than carving up fact to fit theory. For example, in an excursus on the habits of bees, he wrote, “Credit must be given rather to observation than to theories, and to theories only if what they affirm agree with the observed facts.” He argued that theories which claim to be comprehensive must account for all phenomena, criticizing Democritus for “speaking generally without examining what happens in all cases” and asserting that “any one who makes any general statement must speak of all the particular cases.”
These principles, including the assumption common to Greek thinkers that existence lies within the grasp of the properly-trained human intellect, is easy to overlook because it’s so baked into the way we think today. One example, I think, illustrates how far ahead of his time he ran. Within Aristotle’s lifetime, the temple at Ephesus burned. One would expect a Greek of his time to wrestle with the meaning of such a desecration. Aristotle, by contrast, found it useful merely as an example of how wind, smoke, and fire interact with each other. This is so modern that it’s easy to miss how strange it is for a man steeped in a culture of gods to ignore the gods so utterly in his investigation of physical law.
I’m not an expert on the history of Aristotle’s transmission through the hands of Greek monks, Arabic scholars, the medieval Roman Church, and Renaissance Europeans. But having read his works on logic and the laws of nature, I see that his method of thinking about nature laid the foundations for the modern world. The blossoming of science and the scientific method left his natural theories far in the dust, but the way billions of us conceptualize the world — orderly, rational, mechanistic, deterministic, predictable, and knowable — is thoroughly Aristotelian. If he was a moron, he is unparalleled as one of the most influential morons in history.
July 31, 2012
I will not be giving a philosophical review of the writings of Aristotle for want of a focused topic. However, it is my belief that an understanding of Aristotle is fundamental to an understanding of our circumstances - he should, must be read. The scholar who wishes to make use of an index would do well to consult "Bonitz's Index Aristotelicus (Greek) or Organ's Index to Aristotle (English)" (2467 V2) for reasons indicated by the editor Jonathan Barnes and my own experiece using the provided index.
December 12, 2013
“He dared to ask and he thought over it, he questioned existence and sought enlightenment in its truest form. Till date most of the pages hold true because human nature is still the same. Its his lifetime of thoughts encapsulated in these volumes, one cannot just read and put it down. To comprehend the whole text will take this lifetime. Will keep coming back to it always for reference and guidance. ”
March 5, 2010
When approaching this collection of works it is important to keep in mind the fact that many of the books enclosed, have prerequisites. For example, it is expected you have read "Logic", and hopefully "Ethics" when you approach "Rhetoric".
December 8, 2020
Prior analytics was the worse thing I ever read. On the other hand for a guy so smart he sure got a lot of stuff wrong but this reading has helped me understand the basis for things. Hoping volume two is a bit more relevant and intriguing.
November 3, 2009
this is very heavy dialectic. not for a feeble intellect.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews