Critique of Religion and Philosophy
Walter Kaufmann
Princeton University Press, 1978

"If a philosopher argues in some detail that ultimate reality is will, or matter, or spirit, he is honored as the protagonist of a major metaphysic; and if he claims that the meaning of an idea consists in its practical effects, or that only what is verifiable is meaningful, or that the meaning of a word or expression must be gleaned from its use, he is hailed as a revolutionary. But if he gives limited credit to each suggestion, he is plainly eclectic and not really important. Aristotle alone has escaped this odium, owing to uniquely favorable circumstances. The views he integrated are known to us for the most part only through him: as we read him, therefore, we experience the excitement of the many radical views which he rejects as one-sided. And coming so near the beginning of Western philosophy, he was the first to map out the whole field with systematic vision. Ever since, it may seem at this point, the question has been one of becoming either an Aristotelian, adding a few footnotes, or a heretic -- radical, one-sided, unsound." (KAUFMANN, p. 8)

END