Where do I start with Aristotle?

if you read the real classic, zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, you would realize you start with the SOPHISTS

There's also Poetics if you're interested in the subject matter.

What could I learn from Poetics?

Does anyone read Eudemian ethics? Never see it mentioned, and there are basically no commentaries on it out there, while there are countless ones for NE.

I read the first two pages of Nicomachian Ethics yesterday and could understand it.

What do?

if you think you understand it, it means you don't

Greek philosophy is for children. They are given far too much gravity and mystique, and that is all the depth they have to them: imposed gravity and mystique.

What should one read instead?

Later philosophy. Neoplatonists are better than Plato, and the students of Aristotle either directly or by his writings are better than Aristotle.
Aristotle's philosophy in a modern context essentially amounts to: the best fate for a chicken is to become a juicy McNugget.

His fanboys fail to understand that one must accept the axioms underpinning science to accept ANY of his philosophy. and later science reduces his popular philosophy (his ethics) into jack.
One is much better off reading contemporary commentaries on their philosophy. Anybody claiming to have gained something from Plato's tedious dialogues is either lying, a pseud, or an ideologue. Aristotle's writing is even less pleasant.

Ancients-worship is a meme nearly as old as said ancients. Don't fall into the trap.

This phrase captures so much of Aristotle proper: the useless taxonomy, the invalid science and reasoning, the autistic and wrong assumptions about animals which regrettably carried through history.

The ancients are good for historical context and for raising certain questions, but these are better handled later once time has passed and better people have had more time to think about them.

Ethics, Organon, Politics, Poetics.

kys

If you read nothing else, read Nicomachean Ethics.

Logic

Organon
1a
Categories
Categoriae
16a
On Interpretation
De Interpretatione
24a
Prior Analytics
Analytica Priora
71a
Posterior Analytics
Analytica Posteriora
100a
Topics
Topica
164a
Sophistical Refutations
De Sophisticis Elenchis

Physics (natural philosophy)
184a
Physics
Physica
268a
On the Heavens
De Caelo
314a
On Generation and Corruption
De Generatione et Corruptione
338a
Meteorology
Meteorologica
391a
On the Universe
De Mundo
402a
On the Soul
De Anima

Parva Naturalia ("Little Physical Treatises")
436a
Sense and Sensibilia
De Sensu et Sensibilibus
449b
On Memory
De Memoria et Reminiscentia
453b
On Sleep
De Somno et Vigilia
458a
On Dreams
De Insomniis
462b
On Divination in Sleep
De Divinatione per Somnum
464b
On Length and Shortness
of Life
De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae
467b
On Youth, Old Age, Life
and Death, and Respiration
De Juventute et Senectute, De
Vita et Morte, De Respiratione

481a
On Breath
De Spiritu

486a
History of Animals
Historia Animalium
639a
Parts of Animals
De Partibus Animalium
698a
Movement of Animals
De Motu Animalium
704a
Progression of Animals
De Incessu Animalium
715a
Generation of Animals
De Generatione Animalium

791a
On Colors
De Coloribus
800a
On Things Heard
De audibilibus
805a
Physiognomonics
Physiognomonica
815a
On Plants
De Plantis
830a
On Marvellous Things Heard
De mirabilibus auscultationibus
847a
Mechanics
Mechanica
859a
[?] Problems
[?] Problemata
968a
On Indivisible Lines
De Lineis Insecabilibus
973a
The Situations and Names
of Winds
Ventorum Situs
974a
On Melissus, Xenophanes,
and Gorgias

Metaphysics
980a
Metaphysics
Metaphysica
Ethics and politics
1094a
Nicomachean Ethics
Ethica Nicomachea
1181a
[?] Great Ethics
[?] Magna Moralia
1214a
Eudemian Ethics
Ethica Eudemia
1249a
On Virtues and Vices
De Virtutibus et Vitiis Libellus
1252a
Politics
Politica
1343a
[?] Economics
[?] Oeconomica
Rhetoric and poetics
1354a
Rhetoric
Ars Rhetorica
1420a
Rhetoric to Alexander
Rhetorica ad Alexandrum
1447a
Poetics
Ars Poetica

garbage post, find a new hobby

...

Having read both Aristotle and Plato, I'd say I haven't "learned" any new information, since most of it is outdated or so ingrained in our society at this point that we know it almost from birth.

However, reading them is necessary to develop your mind and train it to think in a certain manner. Certainly, reading Aristotle is difficult, but it teaches you to think critically and follow another person's logic. Reading Plato may seem shallow at first, but you learn to discern deeper meaning in works of art by reading him.

Really, the best advice I can give someone considering reading the Greeks is: do it if you are interested in improving your mind and self, but don't do it if you are looking for tonnes of information in encyclopedic format. When I first picked up Plato several years ago I remember thinking it was a waste of time, because I expected something mind-blowing written boldfaced on the page. But you have to dig for it

You don't need to learn all Aristotle unless for specific purposes.

In philosophy school the only mandatory texts are Categories, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics and Poetics.

>Where do I start with Aristotle?

Organon, first with the Categories
After the Organon you can read Metaphysics, and maybe NE, after that stop. The rest will not be worth it.

>What have you learnt from reading Aristotle?

Basically helped me wrap up how I think of philosophy. It's interesting to see how he relates to Plato, or how logic all the way back to Aristotle has always been about if you can ascribe or deny a predicate to a subject.

The main thing Aristotle goes on about is to take the path that goes between two extremes.

> aristotle is difficult and unorganized

do not reproduce this image on Veeky Forums ever again

Categories, senpai

>I disagree with Aristotle scholars

I normally don't want people to be banned out of disagreeing with them, but the people shitting on Plato and Aristotle are testing my patience.

>defending Plato by calling for his detractors to be banned
Why am I not surprised?

>all aristotle scholars say the same thing

There is even disagreement about the "undoubtable" lecture notes theory

I've learned that flies have 4 legs and that the sex of goats is determined by the direction of the wind.

Thanks Aristote.

telegony. see relevant thread in /pol/

>spend 3 hours reading his Prior Analytics and drawing diagrams relating predication and subject
>realize that I'm just making logical deductions that have been intuitive since I was a child

There is literally no point to reading Aristotle outside of historical context and the fact that he is referenced in later, worthwhile philosophers.

i love plato but aristotle is trash

invented writing

Is Artistotle his metaphysics worth learning?

Interested as well, especially since eudaimon ethics was written after NE so should theoretically include some of his more developed thoughts on the matter.

Poetics?

Poetics is worth a read. It's mandatory reading for many university classes pertaining to story and he discusses comedy, drama, his thoughts on structure--stuff you would already know or would seem somewhat arbitrary (beginning, middle, end have to take place in a single day, things like that).

>Where do I start with Aristotle?
The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists (Oxford)

Plato's Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito, Phaedo, Meno, Symposium, Phaedrus, Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Poetics, Organon, Physics, On the Soul, Metaphysics, Rhetoric, from his easier works to his harder works.

>What have you learnt from reading Aristotle?
Later philosophers tend to write as if the reader was already familiar with words defined, or at least used, in Plato and Aristotle's works, especially the latter. For example the Organon is the foundational text for logic.

Say, C.S. Peirce begins his project of fucking inventing semiotics by writing On A New List of Categories. Having a clue about substance and categories thanks to reading Aristotle's Categories helped me quite a lot to understand Peirce since he uses his 3 new categories for the rest of his life. (Substance metaphysics isn't particularly intuitive if you're into process philosophy like Heraclitus)

Since Anscombe's Modern Moral Philosophy, writers on (virtue) ethics have been treating Aristotle almost as if he and his ideas were contemporary to theirs, no other ancient philosopher gets such treatment.