Disclaimer: I am not assigning a star rating to Aristotle's work, which is really above my pay grade, but just to this specific volume. It has a useful introductory preface and, at 1500 pages, is the best one-volume compendium you are likely to find. It includes many of Aristotle's essays (if this is really an accurate term) in full, and good selections of many others. What it lacks is much for useful footnotes in any of the sections, providing little context to help a lay reader.

To paraphrase the old 1960s tune, I don't know much about philosophy. I always wanted to take some classes as an undergrad, but never squeezed it in and I still occasionally feel pangs of guilt over my lack of understanding. This leads me to impulse purchase things like this volume, and fight my way through them, hoping to establish some baseline knowledge. In all honesty, I don't think it did me much good.

This volume will look (I hope) impressive on my shelf, next to the other philosophic texts that I have only vaguely understood, but if you are going it alone without the benefit of a professor or other knowledgeable person that can help you through it, I would not recommend starting with the primary text. I'm going to reform my approach in the future and just buy some philosophy 101 textbooks.

Good without God

I read this book in order to counter an idea I often hear from Christians -- that it is impossible for an atheist to be a good person. There are three main arguments presented. The first is that a "Good person" *by definition* must have faith in God. The second is that it is impossible to know good from evil unless you RTFM: you need a higher authority to tell you which is which. And the third is that the only possible reason anyone could have to be good is fear of Hell. The first argument is vacuous. As for the third: people who are honest and kind only because they fear an afterlife of everlasting torment are not good people -- their opinions should be ignored. Argument 2 is just wrong, and this book shows it. In it Aristotle sets out to systematically explore good. He was not a Christian, having lived hundred of years before Christianity got off the ground. In fact, religion plays no important role in the book. Aristotle shows that it is possible to think about good without a God to tell you what it is.

So, I read it. Aside from proving that it is possible to think about good without God, I do not find it a useful guide to action. In this regard Plato is more convincing. Even though Plato does not systematically survey the subject of ethics in one place, the questions of what is good, what is virtue, and how should a good person act arise frequently in Plato, and the views presented there are clearer and more convincing than Aristotle's. So, in that regard Ethics is disappointing.

Why is this? There are a few reasons. First, it should be noted that there is a hugely important technical difficulty in reading Ethics: vocabulary and translation. A good illustration of this is Aristotle's discussion of courage. It became obvious immediately when I began to read the chapter on the subject that what Aristotle means by (the word translated as) courage is not at all what I and most English speakers mean by it. Aristotle's concept is much narrower, really covering only physical courage in war. In fact, the word Aristotle uses is ανδρεία (andreia), which is derived from άνδρας (andros -- man). So what Aristotle here discusses is something like "manliness", and even of that he has a narrow concept. (Google translate informs me that modern Greek has two other words for courage that correspond more closely to the modern concept: θάρρος (tharros) and κουράγιο (couragio)). I don't know if those words were in use in Aristotle's time, but I can tell you that his discussion of courage is seriously flawed from my point of view since it has little to do with anything that I would recognize as courage. It is barely even possible to imagine a courageous woman in Aristotle's views. (Chinese has a similar vocabulary problem: here is brave: 勇, and here is male: 男. The English word "courage" is derived from the Latin for heart, and is thus free of sexual etymology.)

This points towards another problem with Aristotle: he considers man superior to non-man, to the point of incomparability. Non-man includes women, children, and animals. Women and children are barely mentioned in Ethics. For instance, he has this to say about animals and boys: "It is natural, then, that we call neither ox nor horse nor any other of the animals happy; for none of them is capable of sharing in such activity. For this reason also a boy is not happy; for he is not yet capable of such acts, owing to his age." He does seem to consider the possibility that there might be such things as womanly virtues, although they are clearly far inferior to those available to men.

Another problem I find with Aristotle is the view that a man's will is unitary. (This he shares with Plato and Socrates.) It is the idea that what one wants is what one wants, i.e. that there is no such thing as internal conflict -- the very idea makes no sense. Aristotle, unlike Plato and Socrates, does admit a limited exception, which he calls incontinence, where, under certain circumstances a less-than-perfectly virtuous person may give in to temptation even though he knows he should not.

This error (for so, I maintain, it is) also infects his discussion of courage. Aristotle thinks a courageous man does not fear death in battle. In fact, I believe, as I think most people do, that without fear there is no courage. Courage is doing the thing you fear when it is right. Aristotle cannot fully conceive the idea that a man fears dying in battle yet does so voluntarily.

Who the Hell am I, who thinks he has the standing to find fault with Aristotle? I am an educated 21st-century human. I am somewhat familiar with 2300 years of history that had not yet happened when Aristotle lived. I am aware of real governments, constitutions, movements, and nations of which he could barely conceive. I am infected by the liberal values of my time, which hold that humans are far more alike than they are different. For instance, except for sexual physiology, men and women are mostly alike. Humans are animals (Aristotle knew that) and are not discontinuously different from other animals. I am also, as it happens, a retired neuroscientist. Thus I know that we reason and philosophize with our brains. This was not generally appreciated in Aristotle's time. Aristotle himself, believed that the brain was a kind of radiator whose purpose was to cool the heart, which he, like most people of his time, believed to be the seat of reason. (It was not until Harvey's description of the circulation of the blood in 1628 that anyone correctly understood the purpose of the heart.) I know that the brain is a complicated organ of many parts, and that these parts may act in opposition, so that a human is almost constantly in a state of internal conflict. There is nothing logically incoherent in the idea of a person overcoming his/her fear.

I bought The Basic Works of Aristotle intending to read Ethics and Politics, and then perhaps others of Aristotle's works. However, I am sufficiently disappointed in Ethics that I do not intend to read Politics. As I already said, Plato is better.

aristotle is the most based greek philosopher, except the animal abuse stuff

Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Bibliography.

Wow. Incredible. Aristotle had an incredible mind, and he astounds me with his brilliance. I did not read all of the writings in this book (in fact, I only read his Nichomean Ethics and his Politics), but, I know I will come back and read many of his other writings as I continue reading from those who cite him. There is much to be said about Aristotle, but I favor him to his teacher, Plato. I've learned a lot.

The best, standard, one-volume edition of Aristotle's works in translation. It has, for example, complete, W.D. Ross' Metaphysics.

That said, I have not seen this reissue, and I don't know whether or not Reeve left the actual translations alone, and restricted his "contribution" to mucking around in the introduction. I sure as hell hope he did. McKeon's own comments in the Introduction are worthless -- and can also be safely ignored by serious students of Aristotle.

Arguably the best single volume of Aristotle's most meaningful works.

only read a few things but still wanted to log it:
De Anima
Physics
Metaphysics
Nicomachean Ethics

In my freshman year at University I took a course on Aristotle. I remember having this book in my bag everywhere I went, and chatting with all my friends about the cool and fascinating concepts found in here. Aristotle was probably the singular, most important influence on my philosophical development. It laid the foundation for all subsequent thinking and approach.

Aristotle is extremely important, and should be read by, really, everyone. Many think he is outdated and obsolete - I assure you this is not the case. While contemporary science and metaphysics has moved far beyond Aristotle, there are deep-truths to be found here. Namely, his approach to living a happy and virtuous life, I think is beyond is dispute. His concept of friendship has never been challenged by anyone aside from Montaigne. He was not only the first thinker to investigate everything he encountered, but his influence served as the basis for subsequent investigation for over 2000 years. His metaphysics and physics provide one of the first rigorous studies of ontology, and many of his notions we still think according to - whether or not we realize it. When you read Aristotle, his notions feel very basic and 'common-sense' - this is because much of our thinking has its roots in Aristotle.

Even if you don't buy into his Ontology, understanding it is an absolute necessary prerequisite for understanding all subsequent metaphysics. Most importantly, I think the PHYSICS and METAPHYSICS are the singular most important philosophical texts, next to Marx' Das Kapital. Many people regard the Republic as the most important philosophical text of all time (and antiquity at the very least), I believe those two texts are far more important (that is not to undermine the importance of the Republic or the works of Plato). The reason being is: for Aristotle, and all subsequent philosophy until the rise of Catholicism and the Scientific Revolution (namely, Galileo) science and philosophy were one and the same. The two were not separate; and nowhere is this more evident in the Physics and Metaphysics, as well as in De Anima. Rarely, especially now, do philosophers or scientists take this approach. There is a schism between disciplines now, reinforcing our categorical and mode of thinking - thinking in the manner of verstand. Usually, this is only overcome when there is a philosophical critique of science; but this is not a unity of science and philosophy proper. What we need is a resurrection of the unity of science and philosophy, rather than propagating animosity between the two subjects; an animosity grounded in not only method, but ideology. Merleau-Ponty is someone we can all learn from, who made attempts to not simply synchronize the two, but see them as one and the same. Philosophy and Science are one and the same; and depending on the telos of your investigation, both fields are striving for something fundamentally the same. Anyway, I digress...

This is a very good compilation of Aristotle's essential works. Ideally, you want the complete works of Aristotle, but many of the works included in the complete works which are not in this edition are those which aren't read by most casual and lay-readers. This text, however, provides a nice, well-rounded, comprehensive collection of Aristotle's most widely-read works: namely the organon, de anima, physics, metaphysics, rhetoric, poetics, politics, and of course the nicomachean ethics. There are little excerpts from history of animals, parts of animals, on generation and corruption, on the heavens, on dreams, and others. Usually, this text is also sold for a reasonable price, in which case you can't go wrong. It has a nice, flexible binding, and is easy to navigate through.

Good text for anyone interested in Aristotle. I would actually recommend getting this edition before the complete works if you are just getting a taste for Aristotle.

Regarding the content: well, it's Aristotle!

Does not contain all of A's works, but perhaps the main ones, mostly complete, only a few are excerpted. A middle point between https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7.... What can I say? A must have for philosophy fans... I sort of regret not getting The Complete Works as he is such an incredible author. His ideas really seem fundamental to an understanding of reality.

One of the good things about this book is that it is self contained and you can pretty much read topics on their own. The not so good thing is that some of the language is a little difficult to get your head around. But certainly ideas expressed in here, for instance in the Nichomachean ethics section on emotions, are still valid today and continue to form the foundations of research on emotions.

Barely understandable, simply egregious use of the word 'qua' beyond all reasonable requirement