A. E. Taylor - Aristotle [A. E. 테일러 - 아리스토텔레스]

*A. E. Taylor, Aristotle, Dover(060601)

플라톤을 건너서 아리스토텔레스로 가는 길은 멀고도 험난하다. 그 중간에 그리스 비극이 있었다. 보다 중요한 것은 죽이 되든 밥이 되든 달라붙어서 헤매이는 것인지도 모르겠다. 영어는 언제나 지지부진하고, 생각의 좁음은 나를 벽에 가둔다.

그럼에도, 몸부림은 필요하다. 사실, 노력을 많이 쏟아 부은 것은 아니다.

이 책은 세 번의 시도 만에 드디어 끝냈다. 이제 아리스토텔레스를 공부할 준비가 된 모양이다. 물리학의 분야에서 아리스토텔레스는 많은 부분 큰 실수들을 저질렀고, 대신 신학이나, 정치학, theory of knowledge 분야에서는 나름대로의 업적을, 그리고, 논리학과, 윤리학, 생물학 등에서는 탁월한 성취를 이루어 내었다.

이제 아리스토텔레스라는 문을 연 셈이다.

철학은 내 생애의 업이기 때문에, 서두를 필요는 없다.(현재 논문이 시급한 과제이기 때문에.) 그렇다고, 마냥 미루어 둘 수도 없다.(삶을 무지 속에서 보낼 수는 없으니까.)

내가 해야 할 일 중의 하나이고, 끈기 있게 해나가는 와중에 조금이나마 진전이 있을 것이다.

 

*Aristotle is quite aware that his "induction" does not establish its conclusion unless all the cases have been included in the examination. (29)

*The questions which we may raise in science may all be reduced to four heads: 1) Does this thing exist? 2) Does this event occur? 3) If the thing exists, precisely what is it? and 4) If the event occurs, why does it occur? and science has not completed its task unless it can advance from the solution of the first two questions to that of the latter two. (35)

*the distinction between Matter and Form may also be expressed by saying that the Matter is the persistent underlying substratum in which the development of the Form takes place, or that the individual when finally determined by the Form is the Actuality of which the undeveloped Matter was the Potentiality. (49)

*He neither thinks of the soul as a thing acting on the body, and acted on by it, nor yet as a series of "states of mind" concomitant with certain "states of body." From his point of view to ask whether soul and body interact, or whether they exhibit "parallelism," would be much the same thing as to ask whether life interacts with the body, or whether there is a "parallelism" between vital processes and bodily processes. We must not ask at all how the body and soul are united. The are one thing, as the matter and the form of a copper globe are one. Thus they are in actual fact inseparable. The soul is the soul of its body and the body the body of its soul. We can only distinguish them by logical analysis, as we can distinguish the copper from the sphericity in the copper globe. (77)

*Aristotle's political ideal is that of a small but leisured and highly cultivated aristocracy, without large fortunes or any remarkable differences in material wealth, free from the spirit of adventure and enterprise, pursuing the arts and sciences quietly while its material needs are supplied by the labour of a class excluded from citzenship, kindly treated but without prospects. (104)