Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "THERE ARE FEW stories more appealing than tales of ancient knowledge long lost, then astonishingly found..." (more)
Key Phrases: teaching friars, radical masters, secular masters, University of Paris, Thomas Aquinas, Holy Spirit (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 12th-century Toledo, in Spain, a group of Christian monks, Jewish sages and Muslim teachers gathered to study a new translation of Aristotle's De Anima (On the Soul). In Rubenstein's dazzling historical narrative, this moment represents both the tremendous influence of Aristotle on these three religions and the culmination of the medieval rediscovery of his writings. In the fourth century B.C., Aristotle fashioned a new system of philosophy, focusing on the material world, whose operations he explained by a series of causes. As Rubenstein (When Jesus Became God) explains, in the second and third centuries A.D., Western Christian scholars suppressed Aristotle's teachings, believing that his emphasis on reason and the physical world challenged their doctrines of faith and God's supernatural power. By the seventh century, Muslims had begun to discover Aristotle's writings. Islamic thinkers such as Avicenna and Averroes, in the 11th and 12 centuries, embraced Aristotle's rationalist philosophy and principles of logic. Christian theologians rediscovered Aristotle through the commentaries of the monk Boethius, who argued in the sixth century that reason and understanding were essential elements of faith. There resulted a tremendous ferment in the study of Aristotle in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, culminating in the work of Thomas Aquinas, who used Aristotle's notion of an Unmoved Mover and First Cause to construct his arguments for God's existence. Aquinas, too, argued that reason was a necessary component of faith's ability to understand God and the world. Although the book purports to trace Aristotle's influence on Christianity, Islam and Judaism, it devotes more attention to Christianity. Even so, Rubenstein's lively prose, his lucid insights and his crystal-clear historical analyses make this a first-rate study in the history of ideas.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School--This is a challenging, intricate book for mature students who are fascinated by the paradox of the Middle Ages: How was the knowledge of Greece and Rome lost, and how was it found again? To set the scene, Rubenstein provides an introduction to the lives and works of Plato and Aristotle, and to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West. He then shifts his focus to the year 1136, when a group of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars working together in Toledo began translating the philosopher's forgotten works. The dissemination of those translations sent shock waves through Europe as religious leaders tried to reconcile Aristotle's scientific theories with Church doctrine. The struggles between secular rulers and the Church hierarchy, and the development of the medieval universities, are presented with rich detail and feeling. The author shows readers the similarities between those conflicts and the Darwinist/creationist clashes. Students researching topics on the Middle Ages will find this title a useful reference source. Multiple pages are devoted to the lives and works of important figures, such as Abelard, Aquinas, and Innocent II, but the author does not neglect the less well known, such as William of Ockham or Siger de Brambant. Religious orders, heretical movements, and philosophical works are equally well covered. This is a compelling account of how the rediscovery of the writings of Aristotle changed the way the Western world looked at humans, God, and nature.--Kathy Tewell, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt; 1 edition (October 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151007209
• ISBN-13: 978-1402568725
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #664,670 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, but no "road map" to conflict resolution., February 2, 2004

By	Thomas H. Lynch (Oceanside, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book covers an enormous amount of intellectual history and is worth reading for its summary of thinkers from Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Avicenna, Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, to William of Ockham. The book sets out the theme that the intellectual turn that led to scientific understanding actually started, not with Copernicus and Galileo, but much earlier, at least by the 12th Century as Aristotelean works on natural phenomena began to flood the libraries of Europe's scholars. Aristotle's work on logic had been long known, thanks to Boethius' 6th Century translations. But this was all the West had until the Christian gradual retaking of the Iberian Peninsula made possible rediscovery of his other works. The libraries of the Muslims and Jewish scholars there had Aristotle's works, and Latin scholars eagerly translated them with help of the Jews and the Muslims.
The impact of Aristotle's natural philosophy derived from his outlook that human reason, not tradition, revelation or sentiment, is the road to uncover objective truths about the universe. This outlook regularly leads to conflicts with a faith-based outlook. So what were the Muslims doing with these time-bombs? Rubenstein traces the route that preserved Aristotle's work. The Nestorians translated much of Greek philosophy, not only Aristotle, into Syriac, and these got further translated to Persian, and therefore they fell into the hands of the Arabs with their 7th Century conquest of Persia. These treasuries, at least initially they were seen this way, resulted in the arabic translations and Muslim philosophy flourished. However, by the 11th Century the Muslim religious establishment banished Aristotle from the universities concluding his outlook was inimical to their faith, just before Aristotle was rediscovered in the West. Many religious scholars, both Muslim and Christian, were so fascinated with Aristotle's knowledge of the natural world that they tried hard to spiritualize or "correct" Aristotle's outlook in the hope that then it would not endanger faith. Both Muslim and Christian religious authorities were wary of Aristotle's outlook and in the long run both concluded his outlook could not be papered over. The Muslims were both quicker and more vigilant, the Christians more dilatory and divided and at the same time enthralled by Aristotle's knowledge. Attempts to ban his thought in the West were made in the 13th Century, but it was too late. Modern secular thought was let out of the bottle in the West; even though it still struggles to emerge for many Muslims and well as Christians. In the West, there are still many who would like faith to dominate reason. Currently, only 23 percent of Americans, for example, believe biological evolution to be correct. The story is far from over.
Another theme Rubenstein pursues is how Plato and Aristotle differ, even though they agree on many things. The Aristotelian Stance is one of "...unabashed admiration for the material and a distaste for mystical explanations of natural phenomenon..." plus an "optimism about human nature" (page 8). The Platonic attitude is that the "really real" are abstractions such as Beauty, Goodness, Justice -- Eternal Forms or Ideas. The sensate natural world Aristotle rejoiced in only reminded Plato "of a much better place" (page 29). Mystery was Plato's meat. Rubenstein feels some periods of history favor one stance over the other. In times of economic growth, political expansion, optimism and the like, the Aristotelian stance fits in. In times of discomfort and longing, where personal and social conflicts seen all but unresolvable, the Platonic stance kicks in. Plato, with mystery and supernaturalism, may be where many will cling to now. Rubenstein would like to go beyond these tendencies. He would like to restore a creative, rather than destructive, tension between reason and faith. They cannot be fused, but perhaps there can be a integration in which technology, using reason, is guided by a new, global morality based on a "mature and expanded" faith, a faith not threatened by reason. However he offers no road map for such startling developments, let alone any evidence that those of faith see any need to "mature." On the other hand we can see many road maps and much evidence for the outcome he fears, namely, that powerful elites will use both faith and reason for keeping and extending their power.

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intellectual history that reads like an adventure novel, October 6, 2003

By A Customer

This book is a knockout. As hard as it may be to imagine a book about the "Aristotelian Revolution" of the Middle Ages being a page-turner, I could not put this one down.

To begin with, the story itself is incredibly interesting and important. When Aristotle's complete works, lost to the West for 700 years, were rediscovered in "reconquered" Spain, European thinking was changed forever. As Rubenstein says, it was as if some document discovered in our own time were found to contain the science of the future -- the secret of time travel, or a cure for AIDS.

Catholic officials were therefore forced to decide whether to ban the new learning, which contained all sorts of ideas at odds with traditional Christian thought, or to try to reconcile faith with reason. Surprisingly, after a ferocious struggle involving "superstars" of Christian learning like Peter Abelard, Saint Bernard, Bonaventure, Aquinas, and William of Ockham, they opted for reconciliation. The result was Europe's first Scientific Revolution -- and a creative dialogue between reason and religion that, Rubenstein suggests, might serve as a model for us modern folk.

What makes this book so appealing is the author's ability to make complex debates crystal-clear to ordinary readers, and his gift for vivid historical narrative. We are there when Peter Abelard goes on trial before his nemesis, Saint Bernard;
when Pope Innocent III calls down the fires of Crusade upon the heretical Cathars; and when Aquinas fights it out with enemies to his left and right at the tumultuous University of Paris.
You don't have to know much about medieval history to enjoy this story, but reading it made me want to learn more about the origins of modern Western thinking -- and about ways of healing the split between what Rubenstein calls "the culture of the heart" and "the culture of the head."

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Civilizations clashed before-- Dark Ages Illumined, January 7, 2004

By	"mindwalkor" (Cody, Wyoming, U.S. of A.) - See all my reviews

Aristotle's Children is one of those rare books dealing with potentially dry historical narratives that electrifies the dust of the past and brings vividly to life intellectual and human struggles of antiquity through the efflorescence of Christian and scientific Europe. Surfing waves of pagan philosophies through their translations and migrations within the orthodoxies and heresies of Christian, Jewish and Muslim contexts, Rubenstein renders accessible and gripping such diverse subjects as epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge), the origins of Christian theology as a discipline, and many other threads of human thought crisscrossing landscapes of time, cultures, religions and thinkers. He commands the voice of a lively yet neutral narrator throughout, making this an excellent read for people of any or no faith tradition. While historical, this page turner naturally calls us to reflect on our own struggles with reconciling Faith and Reason, and our own troubled times, with deeper understanding. Contrary to some whacky interpretations of this solid work, there is no hatred or minimization of Catholicism, Europe, or Jewish scholars in this book, subconscious or otherwise, but a real appreciation of scholasticism at its best, and a fabulously true story with important implications for constructively engaging today's world.