Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics


I am pleased to announce that Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics, an anthology I have edited for Palgrave Macmillan’s Philosophers in Depth series, will be out this August. 

Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics is a collection of new and cutting-edge essays by prominent Aristotle scholars and Aristotelian philosophers on themes in ontology, causation, modality, essentialism, the metaphysics of life, natural theology, and scientific and philosophical methodology.  Though grounded in careful exegesis of Aristotle's writings, the volume aims to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Aristotelian ideas to contemporary philosophical debate.

The contributors are Robert Bolton, Stephen Boulter, David Charles, Edward Feser, Lloyd Gerson, Gyula Klima, Kathrin Koslicki, E. J. Lowe, Fred D. Miller, Jr., David S. Oderberg, Christopher Shields, Allan Silverman, Tuomas Tahko, and Stephen Williams.  The table of contents and other information can be found at the book’s page at Palgrave Macmillan’s website.

18 comments:

  1. How accessible is this for those who have read your books and a few relevant others?

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  2. I think that I'll have to add another book to my reading list!

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  3. Greatly anticipated! Thanks for putting the volume together. Any idea about the cover art yet?

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  4. The philosophy geek in me is already salivating.

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  5. Good stuff! It's available for pre-order on Amazon everybody.

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  6. 85 bucks!!! I hope the good Doctor has a few more popular(cheaper) books in the works.

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  7. I look forward to reading this. Any other book projects coming out this year Dr. Feser?

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  8. That's quite a list of contributors. Hope I can afford it! At any rate, congratulations.

    (The editor in me wants to strike the word "though" from that blurb so that it reads, "Grounded in careful exegesis of Aristotle's writings, the volume aims to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Aristotelian ideas to contemporary philosophical debate." The word "though" seems to imply a contrast that just isn't there—or at least shouldn't be.)

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  9. Yes, Scott, that "though" is an error.

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  10. That's an interesting title for Allan Silverman's essay: "Grounding, Analogy and Aristotle's Critique of Plato's Idea of the Good."

    I wonder if he'll deal with G.E.L. Owen's article "Logic and Metaphysics in Some Early Works of Aristotle," or Ralph McInerny's response to Owen in "Aquinas and Analogy"

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  11. Scott said...

    That's quite a list of contributors. Hope I can afford it! At any rate, congratulations.

    (The editor in me wants to strike the word "though" from that blurb so that it reads, "Grounded in careful exegesis of Aristotle's writings, the volume aims to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Aristotelian ideas to contemporary philosophical debate." The word "though" seems to imply a contrast that just isn't there—or at least shouldn't be.)
    April 11, 2013 at 2:56 PM


    I agree; unless we suppose that Feser is implying the resolution of an implied contrast: between a collected content consisting of professional level scholarship suitable for a specialist audience, and a presentation that nonetheless renders it accessible and relevant for a wider, if philosophically literate, audience.

    Sound reasonable?

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  12. Hi Tuomas,

    Yes, the cover illustration has been determined but I would guess that the cover hasn't reached the stage in production where they're ready to post it on the Palgrave Macmillan site.

    Hi Joe and Christian,

    Several books are in the works, but the next one won't appear until next year.

    Hi Scott, Gene, and DNW,

    The reason for the "though" is that books of this sort tend either to be primarily exegetical -- where the subject (in this case, Aristotle) is treated essentially as a museum piece, with little in the way of contemporary application -- or to go to the other extreme of focusing entirely on contemporary relevance but doing little in the way of exegesis of the relevant thinker (in this case, that would mean being "Aristotelian" in a broad sense but not really saying much about Aristotle himself).

    The aim of this volume is to do both. Hence I was trying to indicate that "though" you'll find a lot of exegesis in the book, it does not treat Aristotle as a museum piece. Some of the essays tend to go more in the contemporary application direction and some in the more exegetical direction, but overall the aim is to do justice to both considerations.

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  13. For sure you have given Aristotle an application to modern thinking, though much is still to be done. Cheers.

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  14. Ed, David Bently Hart chose to single out and critique your response to his anti-natural law article in the May issue of First Things: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/05/nature-loves-to-hide

    His new article completely bewilders me. If I read it right, he is claiming that he was merely arguing against New Natural Law the whole time, though he gave no indication of that in the initial article. The rest of what he says is pretty predictable, but that first part- come on!

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  15. It's probably a good book, but I have no intention of buying it, not at that price (£60)! Why is it so overpriced? I know that it is probably a more scholarly work, but why a price that no student can afford? £60 for a 288 pages long book!?

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  16. £60 for a 288 pages long book!?

    Nay.

    'tis £60 for the expertise (packaged in a book (which happens to be 288 pages long)).

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  17. It is still too expensive, which means that few student can actually afford it. Why not go for a price that will actually get the book sold, and not only to libraries and professors?

    Well at least it wasn't published by Brill. Then it would probably cost three times as much.

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