Reviews for Aristotle's Physics

The average rating for Aristotle's Physics based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-08-03 00:00:00 Adam Walkover I am reading this in conjunction with a book about Aristotle's thought -- I need help and direction to approach and understand it. But, with a little bit of preparation, and a lot of effort up front, to get used to the way he's thinking, I'm finding it interesting and rewarding to read Aristotle. His science is outdated, but philosophy doesn't seem to make progress in the same way that science does, and so his philosophical questions, and his answers to them are worth studying...if you're into that sort of thing, that is!

Review # 2 was written on 2016-12-01 00:00:00 Paul Walsh While this book helped me appreciate Aristotle's philosophical merit, it hasn't changed my opinion that Aristotle is tedious and pedantic. Aristotle does explore fascinating topics in this collection of lectures: infinity, time, change, place, movement/motion, space, etc, but Aristotle can make even topics that should be otherwise fascinating incredibly dry. Many of his arguments would seemingly require a diagrammatic approach, but, unfortunately, the reader is left to schematize Aristotle's logical constructions unaided. I personally did not labor over this aspect of his thought. Usually his points are understood intuitively without engaging in Aristotle's elaborate proofs. He does make some very salient points through out this book though and that made it worth reading. After reading his Metaphysics, I was curious as to Aristotle's approach to time and whether he considered it to be eternal; that he does indeed is made evident in this book. And as I said in my review to the Metaphysics, his prime mover has a rather perplexing relationship with time. While Aristotle denies infinity in most actual circumstances, he does consider time to be infinite. How a first mover can ever be reconciled to an infinite time is not at all clear. If he is within time, how could he have ever been the progenitor of a prime movement? It seems, as Aristotle declares, movement always existed in infinite time. If his prime mover exists outside of time, he must certainly be an ideal prime mover, but it still doesn't explain how he generates movement within infinite real time. Aristotle doesn't address these ambiguities here or in the Metaphysics. I had intended to go through more of Aristotle's writings after this, but as with what happened after reading his Metaphysics, I have had my fill of Aristotle for the time being.