Aristotle, Oedipus, and Greek Religion

In Aristotle, Oedipus, and Greek Religion, the author shows how an exegetical perspective open to and respectful of Greek Pagan religion will lead readers to discover a remarkably different Aristotle than the one to which we have grown accustomed.


To begin with, one has to discover what Aristotle (and his school) taught, not by regarding isolated passages, but by getting a sense of his philosophy as a whole. One has to make sense of the circumstantial evidence and carefully piece together a coherent technical case for the overall argument.

The author goes on to show that Aristotle valued religious practice on a personal and social level, that his metaphysics is brimming over with intimations of the divine, that he leaves epistemological room for both science and religion, that his account of Greek tragedy has an inalienable moral and religious side, and that his account of the origins of cognition is not so far removed from religious Scripture.

Aristotle, Oedipus, and Greek Religion is an adventure in the history of ideas, analyzing universal themes from the viewpoint of an enormously influential ancient thinker.