Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Thomas Aquinas's Aristotelian Commentaries Series)

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Summary: Another Great Text from Dumb Ox
Review: As with the other commentaries from Dumb Ox Books, this text contains both the original text from Aristotle, and Aquinas' comments. These two texts are nicely distinguishable for the lay reader (or beginning reader) since Dumb Ox has put Aristotle's work in italics and Aquinas' commentary in normal typed text.

This is a very helpful text in understanding two things. First, what Aquinas thought of Aristotle's work and second, how Aristotle's work affected one of the greatest mind in philosophical history. However, Aquinas is not always as detailed as I would have liked him to be. Sometimes he merely describes what Aristotle is saying and this is often times obvious just by merely reading Aristotle. At other times, Aquinas gives great detail as to why he thinks Aristotle is saying or teaching certain things and this helps to bring Aristotle's text to life. There are other places in Aquinas' commentary where I question whether that is really Aristotle's thought or Aquinas' ideas imposed on Aristotle's thought. However, overall, the text is quite helpful in gaininga better grasp of Aristotle and Aquinas' thoughts.

There are several difficulties in reading Aquinas' commentaries to Aristotle. First, Aquinas did not know the Greek language and thus he is translating the Latin texts of Aristotle written probably by the Arabic philosophers of the medieval period (the philosophers of that time who actually "revived" Aristotle). Secondly, that being the case there are some interpretative discrepancies in the text. However, overall the text is quite helpful in gaining a little better grasp on Aristotle's ethics.

This text needs to be kept in print if for no other reason than future generations of philosophy students should have the privilege of being able to read a text which contains two of the greatest minds in philosophical history. You can make that possible by purchasing this text from Amazon.

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Summary: A Classic and Accurate Interpretation of the Ethics
Review: Thomas Aquinas was introduced to the "new" Aristotle at the University of Naples and, after becoming a Dominican, studied under Albert the Great at Cologne and edited Albert's commentary on the Ethics of Aristotle. Throughout his career, Thomas exhibits a more-than-ordinary interest in the philosophy of Aristotle and an ever-deeper appreciation of it. Nonetheless, it was relatively late in his short life that he composed a dozen commentaries on Aristotelian works, spurred on, doubtless, by the controversial uses to which Aristotle was put by those in the Faculty of Arts at Paris who are variously called Latin Averroists of Heterodox Aristotelians. These commentaries are among the most careful, helpful, and insightful ever written on the text of Aristotle. It is sometimes mistakenly thought that in them Thomas was somehow "baptizing" Aristotle, wrenching his thought into conformity with Christian doctrine. No one who reads the commentaries could long entertain this libelous view of them. The English translation of the text of Aristotle was made from the Cathala-Spiazzi Latin edition. Some inaccuracies exist; for instance, "ithos" is more correctly translated as "character" and "ethos" should be rendered as simply "habit." Students of Greek should probably have another translation close at hand. At any rate, Aquinas did not impose his own worldview on the Ethics; he used Aristotle to interpret Aristotle (he makes references only to other parts of the Ethics and to other Aristotelian works). His achievement stood as the standard commentary for centuries, and scholars such as Paul Shorey say that it is the least likely "to mislead and confuse the student."