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To: ComtedeMaistre; KC Burke
He's not exactly my favorite or much fun, but lately the importance of Aristotle has really been brought home to me. Aristotle provides the base-line philosophy for a rational, coherent, and purposeful universe. That is why he was so influential in the Middle Ages and later. Like Plato, he tries to find order in the universe, but he starts with nature and works up, in contrast to Plato who starts with ideas and works down to the real and actual. We can certainly disagree with Aristotle, but we can't wholly get away from his influence or out of his shadow. And in disagreeing with him, we move closer to an irrational, chaotic and purposeless cosmos.

Aristotle's follower and explainer, Mortimer Adler, isn't my favorite, either. He's too much the "philosopher for the common man," too much the village explainer and too little the poet or prophet, too much the "little guy," but his works are an interesting and accessible introduction to philosophy.

What's most admirable about Adler is his rare passion -- not so much for ideas or theories, since that's not so rare a passion -- but for arguments and reason. For too many other writers on philosophy, the criteria for judgement are one's own political views or personal subjective preferences, but Adler is really concerned with where thinking and arguing actually take us.

It often looks like both Aristotle and his disciple Adler try to tie the world firmly down too much and make it look logical or rational and explained. It's natural that we rebel against such an overly logical and thoroughly explained view of the universe and natural to want to break up established systems to let in more air, but when we come to Aristotle and his disciple in a calmer mood, we'll find much in them that is valuable and truly wise.

89 posted on 06/25/2003 7:34:06 PM PDT by x
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To: x
Would you guess Aristotle was a conservative and Plato a liberal? It seems to me the two major branches of thought have been with us for a long time, probably in similar percentages.
109 posted on 06/25/2003 8:01:29 PM PDT by Reeses
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