Aristotle's Two Systems

Daniel W. Graham

A Clarendon Press Publication

Aristotle's Two Systems

Daniel W. Graham

A Clarendon Press Publication

Description

Each of the two major approaches to Aristotle--the unitarian, which understands his work as forming a single, unified system, and the developmentalist, which seeks a sequence of developing ideas--has inherent limitations. This book proposes a synthetic view of Aristotle that sees development as a change between systematic theories. Setting theories of the so-called logical works beside theories of the physical and metaphysical treatises, Graham shows that Aristotle's doctrines fall into two distinct systems of philosophies that are genetically related.

Aristotle's Two Systems

Daniel W. Graham

A Clarendon Press Publication

Reviews and Awards

"An important book. Graham argues, in much greater detail than any previous scholar, that Aristotle's early logical treatises (the Organon) are incompatible, indeed, incommensurable with his later physical-metaphysical works....Aristotle's Two Systems is one title with which every researcher in the field will have to deal. Highly recommended for graduate students and faculty."--Choice

"A sustained and remarkably thorough argument....A valuable resource rich with clear-headed and scholarly, yet accessible readings of many important and difficult passages, as well as many helpful summaries of Aristotle's views on a wide range of issues."--The Philosophical Review

"This persuasive view of Aristotle has not previously been developed in anything like such a careful and wide-ranging way. It is written with the clarity which one has come to expect in the best Aristotelian scholarship and is an important contribution to ancient philosophy."--Times Higher Education Supplement

"The book has considerable merit and deserves to be read....Graham invites scholars to reexamine the set of beliefs they attribute to Aristotle. Such reassessment could prove highly constructive."--Review of Metaphysics