Aristotle

Hey Veeky Forums, I'm slowly making my way through the Greeks, where's a good place to start with Aristotle?

Why does Fagles say in Iliad's introduction "Pope, whose translation is the finest ever made..."

If it's the best version why is this Fagles dude doing his own translation?

I am also needing guidance, is the republic by plato a good starting point¿

Don't derail my thread with nonsense. However, on the off chance this is a genuine question, if you are starting with Plato, don't start with the Republic, start with Euthyphro, then the Apology, then, Crito, then Phaedo, then Meno, then The Republic.

Thank you for the advice, why did you think my question was nonsense?

>Hey Veeky Forums, I'm slowly making my way through the Greeks, where's a good place to start with Aristotle?
i don't know

I thought you were trying to derail my thread by bringing up Plato when we are talking about Aristotle. Anyways, it appears you were not, I'm always happy to help someone in need. Cheers, user.

Archaic bullshit and everyone knew it except for faggy Fagles

finest as in the grandest and most impressive, but ultimately maybe insincere

Me neither, that's why I made this thread. Cheers, user.

Whats the rationale in reading those works first? Ive already read Republic and was wondering what id get out of reading those and then going back to reread republic.

Start with the organon.

Autism. Some dialogues require previous knowledge, but that basically means "yo some stuff requires the phaedo and the crito". People tell you to start with Eutyphiro because it's light and is not one of those which are bettered by the Phaedo and Crito.
Republic is tho.

Thanks, user.

Wrong, Euthyphro is the proper start for the trial and death of Socrates, that's why people say start there. As in hey Euthyphro, I'm about to be tried for disrespecting the gods, can you give me advice? Then the Apology, where Socrates is on trial, then Crito, where Socrates is defending his decision not to escape, and then Phaedo where Socrates dies. There is a logical order.

You don't need to know Socrates's life story to get Plato's points, idjit. Eutyphiro, Cratylus and Protagoras are recommended as starts because they're really really easy.

Read John Rist's book on him, to get an idea of the whole before you start sorting through the parts.

Ethics is a comfy place to start.

When I asked this question months ago I got two detailed responses. One recommended starting with the Organon, and another recommended Ethics and Poetics. I started with the organon because I saw similar suggestions elsewhere, but three books in I stopped because it really is fucking dry. Not that it's not noteworthy and influential and absolutely outstanding, but it's so dry, man. It's logic. I plan on finishing prior and posterior analytics and then revisiting Physics and Metaphysics, but Aristotle's tough.

Well then, perhaps, you have no business reading Plato if you are going do do so in such an incomplete manner.

Well then good sir, I shall take your word for it and start with Nico's Ethics.

This. Read categories/de int. and at least get some cursory knowledge of the prior/post. analytics. Cat/De Int. are absolutely crucial to understand pretty much anything Aristotle says later, and the syllogisms in the analytics recur throughout his work (from what I can tell so far), although not explicitly; you'll be able to follow along his deductions in later works even without reading the analytics, hence I don't think it's absolutely necessary to really dig into the analytics, but personally I'm glad I did. Keep in mind that his structures aren't perfect and his modal logic is apparently just not quite worked out and remains somewhat puzzling even to scholars.

Topics/soph. elench. are kind of interesting but IMO not nearly as important as the prior 4 parts of the organon. From there you can and probably should read Physics, especially if you plan to read the metaphysics. The smaller physical treatises are more specialized than the physics, but rather than therefore being irrelevant, are more minute or revisited investigations of stuff that maybe got mentioned in Physics but wasn't worked out.

If you don't care about the metaphysics you can probably jump to ethics/politics/whatever you want.

Yeah the organon is dry, but Aristotle is dry. This isn't Plato; the training wheels are coming off. There is no literary element to act as vehicle for what Aristotle is trying to explain.

Well, now I'm convinced that you are correct. I shall start with Organon. Cheer, user.

after doing a good search I have come to this conclusion

Aristotle:
Ethic - 271
Politic - 355
On Poetry - 20
The Organon - 359
Physics - 384
On the Soul - 66
Metaphysics - 368
Rhetoric – 300
2123

on the side it is the ESTIMATIVE number of pages for each book, got from goodreads so it obviously depends on the edition. on the bottom, the total number of pages.

Shit page counts. My complete Aristotle is

>ESTIMATIVE
>got from goodreads
>depends on the edition

>xd ~shit page count
oh, tell me about it mate.

I'd say the best overview is Metaphysics -> Ethics -> Politics

>starting with metaphysics

"how to not understand a word aristotle is saying, in one easy step"

What's the best format for reading his complete works? And I guess Plato too. They each have tons of mini books that combine into these 2000+ pages. Is there a standard translation to read? Is it better to read it on an ereader than lugging around a huge book? Is there some cool collector set that comes with all of them individually bound and aesthetic? I own the 4 intro dialogues and the republic as two separate books, but then I'm supposed to read all of Plato right? I would hate to fucking carry around a huge volume of that whenever I want to read.

Cooper's Plato and Barnes' Aristotle are the "standard" English complete editions, although there are alternates (at least for Plato). Translations vary in quality in the complete works but are usually very solid. Some sold individually may be particularly famous (Alan Bloom's "Republic" I think has this kind of reputation) but IMO the differences will likely be minuscule for a casual, especially first time, reader.

Cooper has some notes in the Plato works, but not too many. Might want to get some companion pieces to read afterwards (I can rec a few if you want; I spent 3-4 months reading basically only Plato commentaries last year).

Barnes has basically zero notes in his Aristotle. The Loeb edition will have lots of notes and diagrams, but is waaay more expensive (2 volume Barnes is ~$90, 23 vol Loeb is ~$600). You can find ebooks of the loebs pretty easily, but I would heavily recommend a hardcopy just because you need to be annotating if you want to really know what's going on. May want to pick up commentaries to read ALONGSIDE Aristotle (whereas the Plato commentaries you can largely leave until after you're done, even with the complete works if you want). You will literally need a commentary for the first Aristotelian text you read. Telford's commentary on the categories/de int. was a godsend for me. Can rec a few more specifics if you want; in general heavily consider Aquinas' commentaries (readily available for an. post., physics, politics, metaphysics, de anima).

The big volumes aren't that annoying. It takes getting used to but is actually nice having everything on hand in one volume. Also if you don't plan on reading Aristotle's bio works (about 1/4 the total of his writings) you can probably just get the modern library "basic writings of aristotle" (paperback is like $15).

I have screenshotted your post. And I would love some Plato supplement recs, and because I don't want to completely jack OPs thread like everyone seems to be doing, I think you should def post your Aristotle recs.

I'm not quite to Aristotle yet, my mom keeps yelling at me saying "we can't have a discussion about the Greeks til you read Aristotle, Socrates was an autistic car salesmen"

You don't. You start and end with Plato.

Aristotle was the downfall of western civilisation.

Skip over him, go to Hume, Descartes and Kant.

Enjoy your time while it lasts, start with the Pre-Socratics.

Ethics like some have said is a good starting point, and it's probably one of his most vigent treatises thanks to the contemporary resurgence of vitrue ethics.

I feel like I did not fully understand what Aristotle was on about until I read On the Soul and the Metaphysics. It is not a great place to start, but the metaphysics and categories permeate his whole work and are key for a good understanding of him.

Dont you need to have a small basic grasp of Aristotle to even start with them?
genuine question.

No. Will it help? Some. Do you need it? No.

Hell yeah you should read him. Don't listen to that other idiot saying you don't need to. Follow the chart, not some user shitposter.

Money, and making and easy to read translation for plebs

Seriously, there is no reason to read fagles (over than the one stated above) over anyone else. His translation isn't literal enough, so you have more accurate translations, and it doesn't even read as good poetry, so you have better poetic translations. It's a middle of the road translation that accomplishes nothing

Should you read Aristotle is different from do you need to read him in order to read Descartes, Hume and later, Kant.

Hume and Kant are extremely dense, though Hume is more readable because his ideas were hugely influential on empiricists and analytics and other ideas we take for granted nowadays. Both are hard to read though because of how dense they are, and cos you sort of need to know the contexts in which they were written.

Descartes is incredibly easy and self-contained. His entire philosophy is to begin from a logically certain starting point (cogito ergo sum) and go from there, so it's fairly easy to jump into his works without much prior knowledge. Read meditations; it's small and easy.