First, a story. Many ages ago, when I was a graduate student at Cornell, I remember sitting with my friend, Tom, at one of those Greek restaurants that were all over what was called “Collegetown.” We were talking about Aristotle and the difficulty we both had in understanding what he was getting at. The waitress standing nearby perked up and said, “Do you people know Aristotle?!”
“Well,” Tom said, “I sure wish we knew him better. He can be difficult at times.” “Difficult,” the young woman responded, “I’ll say. He was in here the other day giving me a real hard time, and then he pinched me.”
I’ve thought about this episode off and on over the years as I have tried to come to terms with Aristotle. But “coming to terms” with Aristotle meant reading, asking him
Get access to this article, plus the entire archive, by subscribing.