Obviously many of Aquinas’ writings are unintelligible without Aristotle. Since the modern student has great difficulty reading and understanding Aristotle, I recommend that the beginner in philosophy start by reading Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy, by Mortimer J. Adler.
Adler, a leading 20th century philosopher and educator, says, “Almost all of the philosophical truths that I have come to know and understand I have learned from Aristotle.” Adler continues to state in his Introduction to Aristotle for Everybody:
“Why Aristotle?
“Why for everybody?
“And why is an exposition of Aristotle for everybody an introduction to common sense?
“I can answer these three questions better after I have answered one other. Why philosophy? Why should everyone learn how to thing philosophically—how to ask the kind of searching questions that children and philosophers ask and that philosophers sometimes answer?
“I have long been of the opinion that philosophy is everybody’s business—but not in order to get more information about the world, our society, and ourselves. For that purpose, it would be better to turn to the natural and social sciences and to history. It is in another way that philosophy is useful—to help us to understand things we already know, understand them better than we now understand them. That is why I think everyone should learn how to think philosophically.”
See this book at Amazon • Aristotle for Everybody
