Customer Reviews

Aristotle's Physics: A Guided Study (Masterworks of Discovery)

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Sachs' translations of Aristotle (I have read his Physics, Metaphysics, and On the Soul) are wonderful in a number of ways: he eschews traditional translations of key words for more descriptive ones (case in point: "entelecheia" is often translated as "actuality," but his "being-at-work-staying-itself" gets to the heart of Aristotle's meaning), he provides plenty of helpful features, such as a large glossary and commentaries, and the books are well-organized and geared toward the student who needs to be able to find a place in the text quickly.

Unfortunately, one of the great benefits of Sachs' translation method is also one of its downfalls: "Being-at-work-staying-itself" may get the idea across, but it just doesn't read well in English. Reading Aristotle in Sachs' translation is rewarding, but cumbersome. I would recommend reading Sachs alongside Apostle or the Loeb edition to get an addditional perpective on the text, and also to alert you to the terms that, although misleading, form the framework of later Aristotelian thought.

Aristotle's Physics is one of the least studied "great books"--physics has come to mean something entirely different than Aristotle's inquiry into nature, and stereotyped Medieval interpretations have buried the original text. Sach's translation is really the only one that I know of that attempts to take the reader back to the text itself.

I do have a few quibbles, mostly with the presentation. The line numbers are buried in the text, rather than set off in the margins, which is annoying. The typeface is difficult and too closely packed. The cover is one of the ugliest ever produced. The book is too expensive, given the quality.

If you are going to study or teach the Physics in English, however, this is absolutely the edition you should use.

If you think you could never understand Aristotle's Physics because yet existing translations of the greek text have made it very difficult to understand, you could try to read it closer to the originality of the aristotelian language itself. This new version could provide it to you! For example, if you think that «ousía» means something different from, or not exactly «substance», think now of «thinghood» and try to read all the treatise under the new perspective given by Professor Joe Sachs' superb translation, helpful for any forthcoming research in Ancient Philosophy.

Dr. Francisco Chorão (Lisbon, European Community

If you think you could never understand Aristotle's Physics because yet existing translations of the greek text have made it very difficult to understand, you could try to read it in the originality of the aristotelian language itself. For example, if you think that «ousia» means something different from, or not exactly «substance», think now of «thinghood» and try to read all the treatise under the new perspective given by this superb translation by Professor Joe Sachs, helpful for any new research in Ancient Philosophy.

Dr. Francisco Chorão (Lisbon, European Community

This is a solid translation with valuable introductory material and glossary. We also hope to see Mr. Sachs' "Metaphysics" and "De anima" in print soon.

Mr. Joe Sachs is somewhat of a controversial figure in scholarly circles. He has translated the principal theoretical works of the Aristotelian Corpus, and has declared that traditional translation (i.e. those employing Latin cognates) are insufficient at best and misleading at worst.

His translation is decent (that is, mostly literal) until one reaches the key technical terms: ousia, energeia, to ti en einai, archai, entelekeia, etc. Sachs wishes to translate these into clear, immediately comprehensible everyday English. Unfortunately, this is precisely what I believe he often fails to do. His translations are but sometimes immediately clear, but (to take three examples) "energeia" is rendered "being-at-work", its mate, "entelecheia", "being-at-work-staying-itself", and "ousia" is "thinghood": phrases which, to the uninitiated, remain as much, if not more obscure than their Latin competitors: "activity" and "actuality". In fact, I could not decipher them without the aid of my professors and a lexicon to return to the Greek.

None of this is much different in other translations nor makes Sachs worse than the other competitors: Aristotle uses unexplained technical terms in his theoretical works and the reader will struggle regardless of translation. But to this end of comprehension, to assert Mr. Sachs's translation as the clearest is mistaken. His translation runs the risk of creating an entirely new technical jargon, the very thing he wished to avoid.

Further, this edition was not seemingly made for serious study: the Bekker numbers are embedded in the text and unbolded, making them almost impossible to find quickly and there is running commentary which is easily confused at first sight for the text itself. These two factors make this edition unsuitable for serious study. Far superior, in aesthetics and in translation, is Glen Coughlin's translation of the Physics, which (appropriately enough) strikes the mean between the Latin cognates and Sachsian terminology.

Sachs is king. When will other translators realize that their writing is not better than masters like Aristotle. Sachs is going to run those hacks out of business. There is interpretation here (it's very good) but Sachs has the decency to keep his thoughts to the side and out of Aristotle's way. Thank you for introducing this genius to the English speaking world, Mr. Sachs.

Wanting to read Aristotle's "Physics", I started off with the translation in Richard McKeon's collection "Basic Works of Aristotle", I don't remember the translator, but it is easy to find out, it was one of the standard old-time British classicists. Finding it stilted, and having read about the supposed virtues of Joe Sachs' "authentic" translation, I bought the book. I used it for a while, but found his bizarre literalism to be be far more opaque and clumsy than the older effort in the McKeon book. If Joe Sachs' Aristotle is the real thing, why bother?

Finally, I got ahold of the Wicksteed/Cornford translation in the Harvard "Loeb Classics" series. I found this to be a nice literary effort, with real grace, and also a lot of notes on difficult or ambiguous passages. It's not true that the old-timers had buried the real Aristotle under layers of maladapted Latinisms, and that Joe Sachs has recovered the "real" Aristotle. To the contrary: his bizarre malapropisms make it very difficult to follow what Aristotle was saying -- which is hard enough in a lot of places, probably in part because these were lecture notes, not a finished literary work, and probably corrupted over time in various places. So, try the Joe Sachs translation, if you like it, fine. To me, it's a cult item, even if it has some interest. I haven't tried every translation, I don't pretend to be any kind of Aristotle scholar, but for my money, the Loeb edition is the best.

Having several translations available certainly helps, there are plenty of places in Aristotle's Physics that should leave you scratching your head, a look at another translation sometimes helps clear things up.

This translation of Aristotle's Physics is really the best one available - and not simply because the others are terrible (some of them are not terrible), but because this one is extraordinary. As some of the other reviewers may have suggested, it can be hard to read at times because of the unfamiliar phrasings. However, I think this is irrelevant because (a) other translation are not easy reading either, (b) other translations are not as good at capturing Aristotle's meaning so that even if they were much easier to read they just make it that much easier for you to misunderstand Aristotle, (c) in fact the efforts required to follow the unfamiliar phrasings in this translation are themselves part of what makes this translation the most useful for anyone who wants to understand Aristotle, and (d) its really not all that hard to read. (And the same points go for the other translations by Sachs.) Sachs unpacks the richness of the Greek terms in his translation rather than covering it over with English terms that give you the illusion of understanding or force you to constantly adjust your thought about what the English words are supposed to mean in the context of Aristotle's philosophy. For example, Sachs' translation of energeia as "being-at-work" as opposed to "activity," and entelecheia as "being-at-work-staying-itself" as opposed to "actualization." Sachs' translations here really put the nuances of the Greek terms to the forefront, and they give you the opportunity to think through (and to think hard about) what Aristotle must mean in a beautiful way that makes reading this translation a real learning, eye-opening, awakening experience. Also Sachs provides very useful glossary, introduction, and commentary. If you're just starting Aristotle or have been studying him for years, this translation is sure to do you right. I've been studying Aristotle for about a decade and a half and I never cease to very greatly appreciate Sachs' translations. --Michael Russo

I have used Sachs' translation of the Nichomachean ethics and found it helpful, so I will not criticize Sachs' translation technique here. Unfortunately though I could not use this edition of the physics for one simple reason. The line numbers are not in the margines but imbeded in the text, and not bolded. This made it very difficult to use in the semenar style discussions of St. John's College (ironically the college that Sach's is a professor at). So I stopped using it emediately and opted for the complete works version so I could participate in semenar discussions. I would like to give Sachs' translation of the physics a chance but the lack of clear line numbers in this edition is a serious problem for me.