Aristotle: the desire to understand

Описание

Preface
I wrote this book as a way of saying goodbye. I first went to Cambridge on a Mellon Fellowship when I graduated from Yale in
1970, and with occasional excursions back to the United States I
ended up staying there for almost twelve of the next fifteen years.
Cambridge is in many ways my intellectual and emotional home: I
had never seen before such a warm, supportive, yet challenging
intellectual environment. Perhaps that is why I stayed so long.
When I decided to return to the U.S. in 1985,1 wanted somehow to
mark, intellectually if not emotionally, the time I had spent in
Cambridge. Most of my research on Aristotle was done while I was
first a student and later a Fellow at Clare College, so I decided to
write an introduction to his philosophy. I liked the idea of an introduction, first, because I thought it would force me to work on a
broad canvas: to elucidate the thoughts of years rather than detail
a single argument. Second, I wanted to write a book that was
accessible to my friends who are not Aristotelian scholars — friends
who would ask me in countless casual conversations, 'What do
you think Aristotle would have thought about this?' I am not going
to mention my many Cambridge friends by name: if you are one of
them and are reading this, suffice it to say that you are very much
in my heart and mind. I would, however, like to mention those
who helped me in my study of Aristotle. First, I would like to thank
that part of my Cambridge life which accompanied me back to
America: my wife, Cynthia Farrar. I won't indulge in the usual
cliche, '... without whose support...', in part because it is a
cliche, in part because I am not sure it is true: even if Cynthia had
not been supportive I think I still would have written this book. I
mention her here solely because she helped me to understand what
is involved in Aristotle's claim that man is by nature a political
animal. It was in attending her lectures on Thucydides in Cambridge and watching her live her life tharl learned how theorizing
about politics and actively living the life of a citizen in a polis might

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