Customer Reviews

The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (Bollingen Series, No. 71, Part 2) (2 Volume Set)

5 star:		(4)
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2 star:		(1)
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It is both an intellectual treasure and a (working) pleasure to have the collected works of Aristotle assembled in a package such as this. Although a social scientist, rather than a classics scholar, I have over the past few years rather intensively been examining early Greek social thought with the objective of tracing (and comparing) theoretical developments involving theory and action over the millennia to the present. While I have come to greatly appreciate the rich and diverse contributions of other early Greek scholars (especially Plato) to the entire corpus of Western thought, it is Aristotle whose works have most singularly encouraged, focused, and enabled the study of human knowing and acting. There is, as well, no substitute (i.e., as with commentators) for examining Aristotle's highly remarkable works in more direct and comprehensive terms. Quite directly, if you are interested in the study of the human condition, you would likely find it most instructive to have ready access to a reasonably complete set of Aristotle's works in your library. This (2 volume) set is clearly one of the most valuable purchases I have made as an academic. As you might gather, I am very grateful to Princeton U. Press for making this package available. It has been a most valuable resource!

This is a two-volume edition of all the known works ascribed to Aristotle -- both genuine and those that are generally agreed to be spurious. They are presented in the traditional ordering with no commentary or annotation of any kind (other than a few notes about variant readings), and no introductions. If you know that this is what you need or want, then the set will work well for you.

However, the lack of annotation and introduction will likely make the works overwhelming to a reader who is not well versed in philosophy, and even some who are. I realize that this was necessary to keep the size of the set down, but it still presents a problem. The writing style of Aristotle (or his students) is very terse and complex -- even specialist scholars often have trouble understanding what the texts say. This is particularly acute in the case of the Organon (the logical works), but is true in some sense of every work in the corpus. Not just the actual sentences but even the overall ideas can be difficult -- issues that were extremely important to Greek philosophers, such as the number of elements or the nature of numbers, are not just unimportant but sometimes incomprehensible to a modern reader who is not familiar with Greek philosophical dialogue.

A number of the more famous works (De Anima, Poetics, Rhetoric, Politics, and the Nicomachean Ethics, for example) are available in annotated editions with good introductions from the Penguin Classics or Oxford World Classics. If you have access to a good library (or a lot of money), the Clarendon Press (Oxford) editions of the works offer very detailed commentary and annotation of a number of the works, including most of the Organon. These editions are likely to prove of more value to the beginning reader. I also recommend reading a general introduction to Aristotle and his philosophy before diving into his actual works; I think that only the Poetics is more or less comprehensible to a modern reader with no grounding in general Greek philosophy and Aristotelian philosophy.

However, if your goal is to eventually read all of Aristotle, you will need a complete edition at some point, since not everything is available in these other editions (this is particularly true of the spurious works), and this is probably the best one you can get. However, there are online editions of Aristotle's works in English -- printing those out will be cheaper than paying almost $100 for this set, and may fit the bill just as well.

In the end, I find the lack of annotation to be a serious flaw of this set, and I give it two stars because I think this set will be of use primarily to people who already have a good grounding in Aristotle and have a specific need for a compact edition of his complete works.

This is the standard scholarly English translation of Aristotle. Scholars of Aristotle use it. I own it and have read most of it. However, this book is good for your library or for reading at a desk, but if you like to read in a chair, in bed, or at the beach or a lake, or want to take copious notes in the margins and underline, etc. - you should also purchase cheaper - but still good - versions of Aristotle's work (say from Penguin) - in addition to this set.

Nevertheless, there is technically no better English version of Aristotle other than this two-volume set.

For readers seeking the greatest affiliation with the works of Aristotle, one need not look any further than to the two-volume set presented here by Princeton U. in the classic Oxford translation, revised by Jonathan Barnes. In these two stellar volumes, the entire Aristotelian Corpus is made available to the English speaking world; and also contained here are the various treatises considered to be doubtful or spurious, which nonetheless belong to the Aristotelian tradition regardless of their authenticity. Furthermore, it must be noted that the English is smooth and exceedingly direct, making this edition very readable and illuminating. In short, it may be said that this two-volume set is for readers striving to go beyond the basics [see, Mckeon's Basic Works of Aristotle] to embrace a much more comprehensive command of Aristotle's philosophy.

Aristotle is known as THE philosopher for a reason. The Complete Works of Aristotle is a two volume set that contains great translations of Aristotle. He covered almost any topic you can imagine and it is worth your time to read what he had to say.