The Story of Aristotle's Philosophy: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Story of Aristotle's Philosophy, credited to Will Durant, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Story of Aristotle's Philosophy by Will Durant. Read in English by Pamela Nagami This little Blue Book No. 39, by Will Durant, deals with Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.), a Macedonian pupil of Plato, who became the teacher of Prince Alexander. While his pupil went off to conquer the world, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded his school, the Lyceum. There he amassed the first great collection of plants and animals and laid the foundations of biology, logic, literary theory, ethics, and political science. Departing from abstract Platonic universals, Aristotle described such natural processes as the developing embryo of the chick. He saw the universe as matter in motion with God as its first impulsive force. Aristotle was skeptical of Utopias. Social evils do not "arise out of the possession of private property," he wrote, but "from quite another source--the wickedness of human nature." At the theater he said we enjoy tragedies which elicit pity and terror, but in everyday life Aristotle counseled balance, reason, dignity and the golden mean in all things. (Pamela Nagami, M.D.)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Story of Aristotle's Philosophy
• Author credits: Will Durant
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 12
• Listed recording duration: 2:06:47

Catalogue topics

• ethics
• logic
• plato
• democracy
• metaphysics
• aristotle
• greek tragedy
• alexander the great

Track guide

1. 00 - A Word to the Reader — 1:46
2. 01 - Ch. 1: The Historical Background — 12:50
3. 02 - Ch. 2: The Work of Aristotle — 12:16
4. 03 - Ch. 3: The Foundation of Logic — 13:22
5. 04 - Ch. 4: The Organization of Science — 19:47
6. 05 - Ch. 5: Metaphysics and the Nature of God — 7:37
7. 06 - Ch. 6: Psychology and the Nature of Art — 6:34
8. 07 - Ch. 7: Ethics and the Nature of Happiness — 13:17
9. 08 - Ch. 8: Politics, Pt. 1 — 8:56
10. 09 - Ch. 8: Politics, Pt. 2 — 15:24
11. 10 - Ch. 9: Criticism — 10:30
12. 11 - Ch. 10: Later Life and Death — 4:28

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.