The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle, edited by Christopher Shields (Oxford University Press, 2015), 732 pages.
Among the philosophers, only Plato has made as large an impact as Aristotle. The latter a student of the former, Aristotle moved in slightly different directions and was not awarded the ownership of Plato’s academy. These two therefore made their own unique contributions, but they are inextricably tied together.
In the Christian tradition, the two ancient giants, Augustine and Aquinas, borrowed heavily from Plato and Aristotle, respectively. In fact, Aquinas utilizes Aristotle so heavily he calls him “The Philosopher,” and it is nearly impossible to understand his writings without a prior understanding of Aristotle. This handbook is therefore a useful asset of any theologian’s or biblical scholar’s library.
As do most handbooks, this one begins with Aristotle’s historical and social milieu. The editor, Shields, gives an overview of Aristotle’s philosophical life and writings. Hussey surveys Aristotle’s study of earlier natural science (and of course, Aristotle was a top-rate scientist of his day), and Bolton covers science and scientific inquiry in Aristotle, including his Platonic provenance.
The chapters are written accessibly for students or those beginning study in Aristotle. However, the abundance of footnotes do showcase the authors’ familiarity with the critical issues and secondary sources, so even advanced students can gain from these essays. Some are brief, around 15 (large) pages, while others span up to 40 pages on more complex issues such as Aristotle’s ontology. One unfortunate feature is that the footnotes are included as endnotes to conclude each chapter, which only exacerbates the reader as he or she must keep a finger or a marker in the page with the notes and constantly flip back and forth.
Continuing on from the introduction are six more parts. The first examines Aristotle’s framework for doing philosophy, topics such as his categories, his logic, his philosophical method, etc. Part three covers explanation and nature, which includes important topics for Aristotle’s system such as teleological causation and form and matter in the Physics and De Generatione et Corruptione. I highly commend David Charles’s essay on teleological causation as one of the most important in the book, given the importance of the idea for Aristotle’s system and for contemporary philosophy (which, by the time of Hume, had rejected all causation; some may now see one of Aristotle’s four causes).
Part four covers first philosophy, metaphysics and ontology. Shields takes the foundational topic of being qua being in 30 pages, which is necessary for understanding Aristotle’s ontology. Part five examines Aristotle’s ethics and politics, which includes the typical topics of eudaimonia (happiness) in the Nichomachean Ethics, becoming good by habituation, reflection, and perception, and Aristotle’s Politics. Parts 6 and 7 are briefer, covering rhetoric and the arts and Aristotle’s legacy.
Overall, this work stands as a monument to Aristotle’s legacy and makes the study of his philosophy much more accessible. Many handbooks contain essays that are on the fringe of being relevant, but every essay in this handbook deserves its place. That is in part because Aristotle wrote so much and his works have been so influential, that even in 700 pages there are more foundational topics that could have been examined. But Shields has succeeded in pulling together an extremely helpful volume for students of classical philosophy. Of course those in biblical studies will benefit from the introductory nature of these essays. If there is one book on Aristotle you would have on you shelf in addition to the primary texts, I would currently suggest this one.
As one last note, I would commend Robert Pasnau’s essay “The Latin Aristotle” to all Christian theologians. This essay details the loss and recovery of Aristotle’s works in the Latin world and the dominance of Aristotle’s philosophy through the middle ages. This knowledge is a prerequisite for understanding much about Aquinas, who has been so influential throughout the centuries in Christian thought.
Find the handbook here on Amazon.
