Books about Aristotle from Amazon.com

Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, authors of the national bestseller Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, aren’t falling for any election year claptrap—and they don’t want their readers to either! In Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington, our two favorite philosopher-comedians return just in time to save us from the double-speak, flim-flam, and alternate reality of politics in America.

Deploying jokes and cartoon as well as the occasional insight from Aristotle and his peers, Cathcart and Klein explain what politicos are up to when they state: “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.” (Donald Rumsfeld), “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” (Bill Clinton), or even, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” (Thomas Jefferson, et al).

Drawing from the pronouncements of everyone from Caesar to Condoleeza Rice, Genghis Kahn to Hillary Clinton, and Adolf Hitler to Al Sharpton. Cathcart and Klein help us learn to identify tricks such as “The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy” (non causa pro causa) and the “The Fallacy Fallacy” (argumentum and logicam). Aristotle and an Aardvark is for anyone who ever felt like the politicos and pundits were speaking Greek. At least Cathcart and Klein provide the Latin name for it (raudatio publica)!

Intellectually stimulating work describes the ideal state and ponders how it can bring about the most desirable life for its citizens Both heavily influenced by and critical of Plato's Republic and Laws, Politics is the distillation of a lifetime of thought and observation. The great Benjamin Jowett translation.

Vatican Inspector Domenico Conti is called to St. Paul's Basilica in Rome the morning after a break-in that leaves the sarcophagus empty and its guard dead. Conti is told to find the perpetrators but, more importantly, to recover the contents of the tomb. Dr. Dana McCarter, newly appointed director of the Advanced Institute for the Study of Antiquity at NYU, has her own secrets. Her groundbreaking work on the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was cause for her appointment to head the billion dollar initiative to unearth the secret roots of Western civilization. 

      What no one suspects is that her success is based on an addiction to illegal trafficking in black market manuscripts. When a mysterious stranger gives Dana a tantalizing glimpse of a truly surprising scroll, she becomes obsessed with tracking down its source. Conti follows the trail of deceit to Dana's doorstep and the two form an unlikely team, each with their own motives for recovering the scrolls, which turn out to be five of Aristotle's lost dialogues.

      In their batle for the scrolls, Conti and Dana must confront their own demons as well as two powerfully evil forces:the Dionysian cultists who want to keep the scrolls hidden and the Muslim jihadists who want to reveal them in order to discredit Chritianity once and for all.

Harry Potter has put a spell on millions of readers, and they all want to find out more about the deeper meaning of his adventures. In Harry Potter and Philosophy, 17 experts in the field of philosophy unlock some of Hogwarts' secret panels, uncovering surprising insights that are enlightening both for wizards and for the most discerning muggles. Individual chapters look at such topics as life revealed in the Mirror of Erised; the ethics of magic; Moaning Myrtle, Nearly Headless Nick, and the relation of the mind to the brain; and the character of Hermione as a case of "sublimated feminism." Also examined in this witty collection are how Aristotle would have run a school for wizards; whether the Potter stories undermine religion and morality; how to tell good people from evil ones through the characters in these novels; and what dementors and boggarts can teach readers about happiness, fear, and the soul.