Customer Reviews

Aristotle in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Strathern has done a wonderful, a masterful, job in selecting the words of Aristotle himself that illuminate the mind and intent of this great thinker. What keeps this book from a 5 star rating is Strathern's postmodern axe that he annoyingly grinds via Thomas Kuhn and Nietzsche.

Strathern's book on Aristotle is a great little book. He manages to capture the main elements of Aristotle's work in just a few pages and adds personal information about Aristotle's life and times, which brings the book to life. For someone who doesn't have much time to read philosophy but who wants to learn something about Aristotle, this book is a great introduction.

This book is a delightful addition to Paul Strathern's Philosophers in 90 Minute series. Though the title might seem a trifle flippant, don't underestimate this short but potent book.

Strathern himself is a truly remarkable individual, a polymath, widely travelled, with award winning fictional and non-fictional books. He knows his stuff, and speaks with an enthusiasm and fluidity that clearly illustrates Strathern's love of his subject matter. He approaches philosophy with a perspective far broader and (to me) more interesting than can anyone whose home base is limited to philosophy alone.

In a two part approach that mirrors other books in the 90 Minute series, Strathern presents a sparkling biography of Aristotle, including his family life, his rise to fame, and his near brush with execution late in life. Concluding Aristotle's life story, Strathern moves on to examine the enormous impact that Aristotle's thinking, for better or for worse, had on Western civilization. Aristotle's key concepts are discussed with lucidity, and cogent criticisms of Aristotelian limitations are presented respectfully and clearly.

In proof of the concept that pursuit of knowledge need not be dreary, Strathern's Aristotle in 90 Minutes is permeated by dry and excellent British wit. No pre-requisite knowledge of philosophy is required to fully enjoy this wonderful review of the life and thoughts of one of the West's most influential thinkers. Both fascinating and funny, it's a definite two thumbs up!

Strathern is a master at this kind of work, which mixes biography, critical analysis, historical context and humor all in a concise, informative & entertaining package. He lists a time line for the philosopher, his place in world/philosophic history & a selection of works for furthur reading. This series of books by Strathern is a wonderful course in Philosophy 101 without ever having to go to college!

There are several points of keep in mind while reading any of Strathern's '90 Minutes' works:
1. Where possible, Strathern loves to attach psychological typologies to his subjects, and then weaves his analysis into the philosopher's known, objective biography.
2. Strathern's works are highly biographical, and should not be seen as an introduction to philosophical doctrines, at least not in their primary capacity.
3. Strathern does not mind using flimsy sources if their information suits his psychological theories.
4. Some of Strathern's '90 Minutes' are terrible, others bearable.

All of Strathern's books include the following:
30-60 pages of biographical information, introducting some philosophical ideas
10-20 pages of quotes from the philosophers works or about the philosopher

This is a bearable '90 Minutes.' It does an excellent job of introducing Aristotle, and covers all of the major periods of his life. Like all of Stratern's writings, this piece is readable and lightly humorous. Stratern's bias is tolerable hardly noticeable in this volume; he is generally objective. Finally, there is a nice afterword discussing Aristotelianism after Aristotle's death.

I recommend 'this' Strathern piece in accordance with other writings on Aristotle, or, best of all, with Aristotle himself.

I enjoyed this 90-minute romp through the world of Aristotle. Starting with a discussion of his obscure birthplace in Macedonia through his involvement with Plato's Symposium and the estiablishment of his own rival Lyceum, the book gave shape to the world Aristotle inhabited. One will hear of personalities, politics and marriage. But one cannot do justice in under 2 hours to the subtlety of Aristotle's thought. Instead, author Paul Strathern focuses on the effect of Artistotle on Arab philossophers like Avicenna and Averroes and on the medieval Christian Church, notably Thomas Aquinas's effort to intergate Aristotle with Church teaching. The major shortcoming of the book is that it slights Aristotle's actual teaching -- you do not hear much Aristotle. This is unfortunate but probably necessary -- it's not possible for the lay reader to understand the subtelty of the arguments without much cogitation and effort.

Strathern does a decent job of describing both Aristotle's contributions (logic, categorization, the focus on the world being real) as well as his errors (the flatness of the Earth, the theory of the humors, etc.) and his biases (democracy bad, tyranny OK). While his book does not succeed in transmitting detailed knowledge of Aristotelian thought, it does succeed in making Aristotle a real person whose inquisitiveness and openness to new ideas, unfortunately, was not always practiced by those who spoke in his name.

'All men by their nature desire to know, but a few men desire to know everything". As Strathern says at the outset Aristotle is one the great polymaths of all time, and he investigated every subject that he met. 'The master of all those who know'made the Universe his subject, adding both much to human knowledge and much to human error and misconception.
Strathern tells Aristotle's story , his studying at the Academy under the teacher who gave him the basis of his thought, Plato, his tutoring of the world- conqueror who almost had him done away with , his effort after Plato's passing to become head of the Academy, and his having to settle with establishing his own Lyceum, his two marriages and his apparent decency as a human being. But most importantly of course his work, his being the real founding father of Logic, his metaphysics, his epistemology, his way of seeing purposes in physical nature that led real investigation of it to be held back for centuries, his researches in many areas of botany and biology, his aesthetics, his theory of drama, his Ethics , his much more empirical and realistic political work than that of his mentor Plato.
For Strathern Aristotle is despite the Scholasticism that came out of him one of the great benefactors of Mankind. And the fact that Science went nowhere for close to two thousand years because in part it followed Aristotelian conceptions is not strongly held against him.
Aristotle is not the literary stylist Plato was. And what we have of his work is not any of his completed works, but rather lecture notes of his students. They are not ordinarily easy or pleasant reading. But they are profound reading in ethics, politics, aesthetics metphysics.
Aristotle believed the ideal life was in contemplation. He believed that the selected few reach in this contemplation the truest of all happiness.
At the end of his days exiled from Athens, driven from his own Lyceum, on a bit of land inherited from his father on the Greek Island of Chalcis Eubea , without the beat of drums or the applause of the crowds , in disappointment he took his leave .
Posterity would grant him a degree of honor and attention his own contemporaries could not manage.

First I must say that it is impossible to understand Aristotle in 90 minutes. Also, most of the book is history/biography, and not enough goes into his actual philosophy. However bad these may be, my real problem with this short little book is that the author uses up too much space discussing where Aristotle supposedly went wrong.

List of attacks/criticisms:

A brief discussion of Aristotle's take on happiness turns into:
"This is very much an innocent professorial view of happiness: hedonism as a purely theoretical pursuit."

The author on several pages of this tiny read relates Aristotle's axioms to the Medieval Christian approach, and in the afterword finally reveals a dichotomy between Aristotle's reason, and the Medievalists' faith. This seems to be a contradiction.

The author becomes very biased in the afterword:
"Viewing the world in this way, they were bound to arrive at a number of wrongheaded conclusions, such as those which marred even Aristotle's thought."

The author reveals his own personal belief in modern philosophy:
"The conclusion we reach simply depend on the paradigms we adopt: the way we decide to think about the world. In other words, there is not such thing as absolute truth."

Conclusion:
This book was nothing but 87 pages of attacks and criticisms. For an objective presentation of Aristotle, find another source.

I found this short introduction to be an enjoyable and fun read. As covered by other reviewers, it tends to be more of a historical/biographical account of Aristotle, though does include some of his chief ideas and what he is remembered for. I don't believe too many readers would take this as a serious study into Aristotle, though for some light "waiting room" reading, this book was fun, concise, and gives one a general (and likely accurate) feeling for the times and person of Aristotle.

Strathern briefly gives a background of Aristotle's life and teaching. Strathern uses his search for evidence of Aristotle at his birthplace in Stagira, Greece as a vehicle for pointing out the continued poignancy of Aristotle. The inclusion of quotes from Thomas Kuhn and Nietzsche, (whether you agree with their viewpoints or not), highlight that Aristotle is still a relevant topic of discussion. The importance of the rediscovery of Aristotle by Islamic Spain was welcome. I was glad also to see a quote from Aristotle where he didn't get it right: "people who have sharp-ended noses are easily angered, much like dogs".