Aristotle Christopher Shields, Routledge, 2007, xvi+ 456pp

Christopher Shields’ Aristotle in Routledge Philosopher series is one of the most recent introductions to Aristotle’s philosophy in general. Shields’ intention in this book is not to be comprehensive in dealing with Aristotle’s views in every field. Rather, he believes that Aristotle is a highly systematic philosopher with an explanatory framework to employ in different fields of theoretical, practical and productive sciences. Hence, Shield’s main concern is first to explicate this explanatory framework and then to show how Aristotle uses it in the above mentioned sciences. Also, in each chapter Shields tries to clearly reveal how Aristotle’s metaphysics is based on his views in physics, and his views in psychology on those in physics and metaphysics, his views in ethics and politics on those in his main theoretical sciences, and finally his views in rhetoric and arts on those on both theoretical and practical science, thereby showing his system of thought. Furthermore, instead of locating Aristotle in his historical and philosophical background, Shields tries to present him from a modern perspective, justifying why Aristotle thought the way he thought about change, matter and form, substance, existence.