Reading & the Good Life
Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST, Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life (Register here), a casual space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living.
Who is Aristotle?
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) is among the most significant philosophers ever. Judged solely in terms of his philosophical influence, only Plato is his peer: Aristotle’s works shaped centuries of philosophy from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance and, even today, continue to be studied with keen, non-antiquarian interest. A prodigious researcher and writer, Aristotle left a significant body of work, perhaps numbering as many as two hundred treatises, from which approximately thirty-one survive. His extant writings span a wide range of disciplines, from logic, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind through ethics, political theory, aesthetics, and rhetoric, and into such primarily non-philosophical fields as empirical biology, where he excelled at detailed plant and animal observation and description. In all these areas, Aristotle’s theories have provided illumination, met with resistance, sparked debate, and generally stimulated the sustained interest of an abiding readership. …
Aristotle’s philosophy defies easy encapsulation because of its wide range and its remoteness in time. The long history of interpretation and appropriation of Aristotelian texts and themes—spanning over two millennia and comprising philosophers working within various religious and secular traditions—has rendered even basic points of interpretation controversial. […]
Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Dear Readers,
This Friday, we conclude our exploration of Mortimer Adler’s classic book Aristotle for Everybody, discussing the final chapter (‘God’). We will take next week off (27 Dec) and then meet after the new year (3 Jan) to have a casual look back at the previous year’s reading. Our upcoming book is The Art of Happiness, a collection of writing by the Greek philosopher Epicurus.
At this week’s meetup, we'll discuss the passages below (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on the following questions:
(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the good life?
Aristotle’s view of the universe as eternal—as everlastingly undergoing change—leads him to question the cause of everlasting change. …
Given infinite time, one might go back from effect to cause in an infinite series and never reach a first cause—a mover in motion that is not itself moved by something else in motion. A prime mover that moves everything that is in motion without moving and without being moved must cause motion by being attractive rather than propulsive. The bat that hits the ball and propels it is the efficient or active cause of the ball’s motion. […]
— Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody (Ch. 23)
