''Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy'' is a 1978 book by the philosopher

Mortimer J. Adler Mortimer Jerome Adler (; December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001) was an American philosopher, educator, encyclopedist, popular author and lay theologian. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He taught at ...

. It serves as an "''introduction to common sense''" and philosophic thinking, for which there is "''no better teacher than

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

''," and which is "''everybody's business,''" in his opinion.pp. ix-xx

Summary

Aristotle was a "common sense" philosopher whose depth and uniqueness of thought made his common sense "uncommon, according to Adler's thesis, in contrast to his teacher

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

, whose ideas may be considered more abstract and

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...

. While Adler criticizes Aristotle for accepting the conventional views of his day regarding the supposed inferiority of women, and greek slavery, he nonetheless asserts that Aristotle is the best introduction to philosophical thinking and a philosopher with insights that are still relevant and useful today. Adler acknowledges that Aristotle's own writings are difficult for a layperson, and so the author decided to create a more accessible introduction to Aristotle's thought. " Man the Maker" focuses on the use of "productive reason", Aristotle's views on excellence in craftsmanship (the ancient Greek concept of

techne In Ancient Greek philosophy, techne (; , ) is a philosophical concept that refers to making or doing. Today, while the Ancient Greek definition of techne is similar to the modern definition and use of " practical knowledge", techne can include var ...

). " Man the Doer" on "practical reason", Aristotle's

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

and his concept of

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

virtue A virtue () is a trait of excellence, including traits that may be morality, moral, social, or intellectual. The cultivation and refinement of virtue is held to be the "good of humanity" and thus is Value (ethics), valued as an Telos, end purpos ...

(both personal and political), and " Man the Knower" on "theoretical reason", knowledge (

epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...

) and

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

. The final part of the book is called "Difficult Philosophical Questions", and in it Adler tries to apply Aristotle's views to

infinity Infinity is something which is boundless, endless, or larger than any natural number. It is denoted by \infty, called the infinity symbol. From the time of the Ancient Greek mathematics, ancient Greeks, the Infinity (philosophy), philosophic ...

eternity Eternity, in common parlance, is an Infinity, infinite amount of time that never ends or the quality, condition or fact of being everlasting or eternal. Classical philosophy, however, defines eternity as what is timeless or exists outside tim ...

, the immateriality of the

mind The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...

, and the Gods (the Greeks believed in many gods). The book concludes with an

epilogue An epilogue or epilog (from Greek ἐπίλογος ''epílogos'', "conclusion" from ἐπί ''epi'', "in addition" and λόγος ''logos'', "word") is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the ...

listing the specific writings of Aristotle that Adler drew upon for his book so that interested readers can consult those works directly. This is given in the section below.

Part I: Aristotle's Universe of Discourse: His Categories and his Taxonomy an the Philosophical Animal

Adler explains that according to Aristotle human beings are distinguished from all other animals by having the ability to ask philosophical questions. Adler also explains how Aristotle excelled at classification, and that identifying distinctive features of phenomena (what makes something uniquely itself and not something else) was a key characteristic of Aristotle's thought.

1. Aristotle's Fourfold Classification of Sensible, Material Substances: Inorganic Bodies, Plants, Animals, Men. hilosophical Games

Metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...

I.1 *

On the Soul ''On the Soul'' ( Greek: , ''Peri Psychēs''; Latin: ) is a major treatise written by Aristotle . His discussion centres on the kinds of souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different operations. Thus pla ...

I.1 I.5; II.1-3,5,9; III.3,12 *

History of Animals ''History of Animals'' (, ''Ton peri ta zoia historion'', "Inquiries on Animals"; , "History of Animals") is one of the major texts on biology by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. It was written in sometime between the mid-fourth centur ...

VIII.1 X.1 *

Generation of Animals The ''Generation of Animals'' (or ''On the Generation of Animals''; Greek: ''Περὶ ζῴων γενέσεως'' (''Peri Zoion Geneseos''); Latin: ''De Generatione Animalium'') is one of the biological works of the Corpus Aristotelicum, the col ...

I.1-9 IV.4-6 *

Parts of Animals ''Parts of Animals'' (or ''On the Parts of Animals''; Greek Περὶ ζῴων μορίων; Latin ''De Partibus Animalium'') is one of Aristotle's major texts on biology. It was written around 350 BC. The whole work is roughly a study in animal ...

I.4-5 The difference between

essence Essence () has various meanings and uses for different thinkers and in different contexts. It is used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property (philosophy), property or set of properties or attributes that make an entity the ...

and accident. * Categories V *

V.4,11; IX.8

2. The Range of Beings: The Ten Categories he Great Divide

3. Productive, Practical, and Theoretic Reason or Mind an's Three Dimensions

Aristotle's classification of three activities of a human being: making, doing, and knowing, corresponding to the three types of reason: productive, practical, and theoretical. Adler titles these sections "Man the Maker", "Man the Doer", and "Man the Knower", respectively. Ethics VI.2-4 On the Soul, III.7

Part II: Aristotle's philosophy of Nature and of Art. an the Maker

In response to the errors and partial truths of: *

Parmenides Parmenides of Elea (; ; fl. late sixth or early fifth century BC) was a Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic ancient Greece, Greek philosopher from Velia, Elea in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy). Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Veli ...

and his disciple

Zeno Zeno may refer to: People * Zeno (name), including a list of people and characters with the given name * Zeno (surname) Philosophers * Zeno of Elea (), philosopher, follower of Parmenides, known for his paradoxes * Zeno of Citium (333 – 264 B ...

Heraclitus Heraclitus (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Achaemenid Empire, Persian Empire. He exerts a wide influence on Western philosophy, ...

and his disciple Cratylus Aristotle developed his theory of change. It involves distinction between

rest REST (Representational State Transfer) is a software architectural style that was created to describe the design and guide the development of the architecture for the World Wide Web. REST defines a set of constraints for how the architecture of ...

and movement. In local motion, there is a distinction between natural movement and violent movement. There is also change in quality, such as when a green tomato ripens and becomes red. This type of change can be either natural or artificial, for example a green chair can be painted red. There can be a change in quantity. There can also be generation and corruption - coming to be and passing away. Aristotle takes note of what we now call conservation of matter. 4. Nature as artist and the human artist as imitator of nature 5. Three main modes of accidental change: change of place, change of quality, change of quantity 6. Aristotle's doctrine of the

four causes The four causes or four explanations are, in Aristotelianism, Aristotelian thought, categories of questions that explain "the why's" of something that exists or changes in nature. The four causes are the: #Material, material cause, the #Formal, f ...

: efficient, material, formal, and final. Physics
II.3-9
Metaphysics I.3-10, V.3, VI.2-3, VII.17, VIII.2-4, IX.8, XII.4-5 7. Further developments in the theory of

Potentiality and Actuality In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are a pair of closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his ''Physics'', ''Metaphysics'', '' Nicomachean Ethics'', and '' De Anima''. Th ...

, and Matter and Form, especially with respect to substantial change, or Generation and Corruption. o Be or Not to Be 8. Aristotle's analysis of the intellectual factors in artistic production and his classification of the arts roductive ideas and know-how

Part III: Man the Doer

Part IV: Man the Knower

Part V: Difficult Philosophical Questions

References

* * * {{Cite book, last=Barnes, first=Jonathan, author-link=Jonathan Barnes, title=Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction, publisher=Oxford University Press, year=2000, isbn=978-0-19-285408-7

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1978 non-fiction books Books by Mortimer J. Adler English-language non-fiction books Books about philosophers Works about Aristotle Macmillan Publishers books