Aristotle
The Works: Volume V

£27.00

Description

The Metaphysics of Aristotle With his Treatises Against the Dogmas of Xenphanes, Zeno, and Gorgias and The Mechanical Problems, On Audibles, On the World, On the Virtues and Vices

Volume V of the Works Aristotle

Translated from the Greek by Thomas Taylor

The design of Aristotle in his Metaphysics is to lead us from forms merged in, or inseparable from matter, to those forms which are entirely immaterial, and which, in his own words, are the most luminous of all things. But he considers these forms so far only as they are beings; or, in other words, so far as they are the progeny of one first being, and are characterised by essence. Nothing, therefore, is discussed in this work pertaining to will or appetite, or any thing of this kind, because these are vital powers; nor to sensation, the discursive energy of reason and intelligence, because these are the properties of gnostic natures. Hence, we shall find that the Metaphysics of Aristotle unfold all that is comprehended in the great orb of being, so far as every thing which this orb contains is stamped as it were with the characteristic of its source. The same thing is likewise effected by Plato in his Parmenides; but more theologically conformably to the genius of his philosophy, which always considers nature so far as she is suspended from divinity. The Metaphysics of Aristotle are, therefore, the same with the most scientific dialectic of Plato, of which the Parmenides of that philosopher is a most beautiful specimen, with this difference only, that in the former the physical, and in the latter the theological, character predominates.

The Works of Aristotle: Volume V, Thomas Taylor, The Prometheus Trust, 2003

Hardback. Decimo. Purple cloth binding. New. 583 pp.