542. Aristotle for Everybody by Mortimer Adler -Aristotle spent his life examining children and adults interacting. He spent his life observing animals. He studied all aspect of life available to him. He applied his mind to the animate and inanimate world with equal zeal. He thought deeply about motion and its relation to time, change and permanence. He also is not dogmatic. In fact he studied old philosophical systems because he found that they had elements of truth in them. He did not possess that arrogance which lead him to think that he was the only one worth studying. He sought a system of thought which could be used to treat any question with clarity and good sense. To do so he set up categories: There is man the thinker, man the doer and man the knower. These correspond to productive thinking, practical thinking and theoretical thinking. He pondered the difference between thinking which we should do and thinking which is up to us. He laid the foundation for the concept of happiness as appears in our Declaration of Independence.
He maintains that the pursuit of happiness is not a solitary affair. Consequently he thought about that government which is best to promote happiness. He thought about why justice is needed. Justice is needed wherever love fails. Justice compels us to act for the benefit of the whole. He asserted that there are certain rights to which we are entitled. He is a philosopher through and through, yet his wisdom is always based on what Mortimer Adler calls an uncommon common sense. I have read this book several times. I still do not understand it all, but each time I read it, my understanding of life is enhanced.
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