Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Telford's translations and commentaries on Greek philosophy form a rare and significant reassessment of ancient thought. For his discoveries, about Greek language generally, and Greek philosophers specifically, are so basic and so important as to change drastically the significance of almost everything they said. The discoveries were in two disciplines, Greek linguistics and philosophic or scientific procedure. Until both could be understood by one man, their impacts upon each other would never be noticed. For Telford discovered that Greek writings have been obscured and confused by translators and scholars projecting onto Greek language and writings, precisely the reductive way of thinking that their philosophies were designed to correct. The Greek well understood the dependency of all science on procedure, while today few are even aware of its relevance, much less its nature. It took centuries for them to grasp procedure completely, that it is far more important than the scientific conclusions it makes possible. The understanding of procedure is not only their greatest contribution, but that from which modern science can most sensibly profit. Aristotle completed the search by finally grasping the basis of procedure, what makes its variation possible, and why every aspect of our formulation and establishment of fact is dependent upon it. By avoidance of the pitfalls of translation, and by noting Aristotle's own guidance to the subtleties of his argument, Telford has made the long lost Greek insight into procedure available to the profit of our won science.