Reddit reviews Aristotle's Metaphysics

>By pairing translations of Gorgias and Rhetoric, along with an outstanding introductory essay, Joe Sachs demonstrates Aristotle's response to Plato. If in the Gorgias Plato probes the question of what is problematic in rhetoric, in Rhetoric, Aristotle continues the thread by looking at what makes rhetoric useful. By juxtaposing the two texts, an interesting conversation is illuminated one which students of philosophy and rhetoric will find key in their analytical pursuits.

>Joe Sachs taught for thirty years at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. He has translated Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics and On the Soul and, for the Focus Philosophical Library, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Poetics as well as Plato's Theaetetus.

Joe Sachs has arguably done more to reinvigorate and make accessible the works of Aristotle than anyone else in the last decade. He has done this by eliminating a lot of the 'kruft' that has accumulated through the Latin -> Christian -> English tradition that has enveloped many of Aristotle's surviving works.

I have read his version of the 'Metaphysics' and Sach's elimination of many of the latinate words helps to both clarify, and possibly confuse, the texts because he uses unidiomatic english equivalents such as "coming-into-being-staying-itself" to try and catch the broad range of the original Greek. This can be formidable, but I think the effort is worthwhile because it forces you to think through the text, and also because his translations make Aristotle far more lively and engaging than most other common translations (e.g. the Library of Liberal Arts edition of the Nicomachean Ethics is impenetrable in its tedium and terse prose - I want to consult Sach's edition and actually try to get through it).

If you are unfamiliar both with Joe Sachs and Focus Philosophical Library they appear to the best source for classical Greek texts. The Focus editions, along with the Agora Series from Cornell University Press (a 'Straussian project', but certainly an admirable one), are the two best translation imprints I am currently aware of.

I am Greekless, but I have it on several authorities who have mastered Greek and used Sach's translations for many of their courses.

Honourable mention should also go to Green Lion Press which has a lot of cool titles from the history of science - Apollonious, Euclid, Faraday - along with two of Sach's translations of Aristotle.

No. Things do not "need a reason" to exist. As you have pointed out, the assumption that "everything must have a reason/cause" leads to an infinite regression -- a state of affairs that (to my knowledge) is always rejected by logic.

The solution then comes in two flavors. 1) The universe "just happened" -- the creation of the universe was entirely arbitrary. 2) The universe was caused to come into existence by some entity whose existence is a necessary fact -- this entity couldn't not exist. This necessary entity is what Aristotle called the "uncaused causer". Catholic theologians say that that thing is God.

This is all examined in Aristotle's Metaphysics. I highly recommend you check it out. If you do decide to read it, I suggest you get this translation.


Also, because this is really bothering me, you say that a truly logical universe would be empty. So if you were to have your "empty universe", then in what way would that universe be empty? Is it empty of physical entities? If so, would the universe contain the fact that there are no physical entities? Would it still be the case, within that universe, that 2+2=4?

The trouble with this thinking is that logic has nothing to do with physical entities. Logic deals only with ideas. If you think we get logic from the physical world, then tell me where you last saw a wild √2 running around.

You say that a logical world would be empty "so that there isn't anything to prove" -- why do you think that? Logic doesn't have preferences. Logic is simply a set of rules for attaching ideas together. (To the best of my knowledge) Logic operates entirely on hypotheticals. It says "If you have p, and you have q or r, then you have p and q or r."

You should read Joe Sachs' translation: https://www.amazon.ca/Aristotles-Metaphysics-Aristotle/dp/1888009039

He provides an explanation about his style and the way he decided to interpret Aristotle. It's in a very fluid style that is meant to be accessible to students in philosophy while at the same time retaining the technical terms. It's a very reputable translation and I used it many times in my courses.

His biggest point is translating ousia by thinghood rather than substance, since the translation to substance was a mistake committed by the Scholastics in the Middle-Ages.

The book in itself is wonderfully edited too. It's big and the margins are wide so you can take notes on the side. He provides a glossary and a summary of each section too.

It's in my opinion way more superior than Penguin or Oxford.