I am wondering how difficult Aristotle really. I have heard from a few people now that Aristotle is quite difficult, and a complete other level than Plato, for example. - If this is true, I wonder why that is?
I have just bought a copy of De Anima and after having read the first page I was quite confused as to why people think Aristotle is so difficult, as (this very first page) seemed much easier than some of Plato. The sentences seemed to be much shorter, and it all kind of made sense to me.
Of course, this is not a valid impression, especially as a beginner. But when people say that Aristotle is difficult, do they refer to the difficulty of text alone, or are they talking about interpretative questions etc.? The latter I completely understand, for the former I know neither enough Greek nor enough of Aristotle to decide for myself. Let me know what you think!
Hi Dominic. Decades ago I took a graduate seminar in Aristotle. The purpose of the seminar was in fact ‘how to read Aristotle’; Aristotle had the reputation of being difficult to read, and it seemed so in the seminar, though I don’t recall any details. Many of Aristotle’s writings are thought to be basically teaching notes. What you call “short sentences” reflects this. But in the recent past I’ve read the Poetics and parts of the Historia Animalium, and I didn’t find the Greek per se difficult, just the usual challenges of interpretation, as you say.
Plato - complex and carefully wrought jewel-box sentences of great beauty expressing profound ideas. He is, after all, considered one of the greatest Attic prose stylists.
Aristotle - gnarly, mostly simple sentences bristling with basic terms that people are still arguing over what the hell they’re supposed to mean.
Reading Aristotle (his philosophical works at least) mostly means studying the interpretive tradition over the last 2000+ years. It is great stuff to read in greek if you find philosophy interesting.
I think this summarizes it well. Syntactically, Aristotle is not all that difficult, but one can get through a section, and wonder “What exactly did I just read?” Personally, I loved the Nicomachaean Ethics, probably the fruit of studying with a professor who really liked that text.