Life, the Universe, and Everything: An Aristotelian Philosophy for a Scientific Age

by Ric Machuga

Overview

No philosophical idea, no matter how small, can live alone. Ideas always gain their force, power, and life from their surroundings - their ecosystem. The ecosystem of ideas defended in this book comes from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and his medieval interpreter, Thomas Aquinas. The ongoing relevance of their philosophical thought to twenty-first century issues is opened up in fascinating ways in this book. Life, the Universe, and Everything is the product of thirty years of teaching introductory courses in philosophy. Assuming no prior background, it only requires of readers an enquiring mind and a willingness to think carefully. An ideal guide to the big questions we face.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621890096
Publisher:	Cascade Books
Publication date:	01/01/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	324
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Ric Machuga has taught philosophy and in the Honor Program at Butte College for thirty years. He is the author of In Defense of the Soul (2002) and numerous pieces for Books and Culture.
Ric Machuga has taught philosophy and in the Honor Program at Butte College for thirty-five years. He is the author of In Defense of the Soul (2002), Life, the Universe, and Everything (2011), and numerous pieces for Books&Culture.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"'Ideas always exist in an ecosystem.' Patiently unpacking this simple but powerful truth with the skill of a master teacher, Ric Machuga has written a book as wise as it is winsomely modest."
—John Wilson
Editor, Books & Culture

"This is a clearly written, wonderfully engaging account of Aristotelianism for our contemporary world. It is, in short, a defense of ‘first philosophy,' the idea that philosophy and philosophical reflection is the starting point of, and that which illuminates and clarifies, all that we believe that we know in the other disciplines in the university, especially the hard sciences. I applaud Professor Machuga for this outstanding book."
—Francis J. Beckwith
Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies
Baylor University

"Modestly but engagingly written, and yet ambitious in scope, this 'Aristotelian' tour of the great loci of philosophy is a tour de force. It is the fruit, not of quickly-written 'research', but of many years' teaching of primary, classic texts, and it shows. A careful reading will provide a philosophical education, in the old-fashioned sense of that word. The reader will put the book down both better informed, and wiser."
—Paul Helm
Regent College, Vancouver, BC

Editorial Reviews

"Has modern science made philosophy obsolete? According to Ric Machuga, a thread of answer exists, coming from Aristotle and reinterpreted by Thomas Aquinas. He converses with modern thinkers such as Newton, Darwin and Galileo to show that faith and reason can coexist. What does it mean to be human? Is language relevant for our sense of reality? Is there a God, and if so, how is that He allows the existence of evil? Machuga undertakes to answer these fundamental questions with a deliberately synthetic approximation. He tackles the problems with the Aristotelian method, treating them with logic and reason, and draws a philosophical line of thought from Plato and Socrates to Descartes and Nietzsche. In a book that is the result of years directing introduction to philosophy classes, he demonstrates that Newton's and Darwin's reasoning was not fundamentally different from that of the classical philosophers. To study the universe in a scientific way does not mean that we have to endorse the narrow conception of science as positivism upheld it. "Dialogo Filosofico, May/August 2012'The book's text is refreshingly nontechnical, and it would make an excellent companion for undergraduate teaching ... And those who hold that metaphysics is a bunch of illogical non-sense are unlikely to accept that the ecumenical system-building on display here is a valid form of reasoning. Yet then again, one can hold either of these positions position and still value Machuga's efforts as a heuristic. And on that front the book is given the highest recommendation.'Gary Slater, The Expository Times, Volume 125, Number 11, August 2014"Life, the Universe, and Everything presumes no prior knowledge in his defence of Aristotelian theory and its interpretation by Aquinas." Church Times, (5 September 2014)

From the Publisher