What Would Aristotle Do?: Self-Control Through the Power of Reason

by Elliot D. Cohen

Book Overview

Do you get upset easily, even about small things, or have trouble getting along with others? Do you feel down most of the time? Are you plagued by loneliness, grief, guilt, or a gnawing feeling of life's futility? Does fear, anxiety, or worry often overwhelm you? In this uplifting, user-friendly guide, philosopher Elliot D. Cohen offers an uncommonly commonsense approach to these and many other problems of living. Cohen, one of the principal founders...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591020700
• ISBN13: 9781591020707
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

What Would Aristotle Do?

Elliot D. Cohen's personal insight on how to think and use reasoning in your everyday life is a useful tool to anyone. He shows us how to logically and rationally approach our inner struggles of life. He shows by changing the way one thinks and looks at life then one can successfully deal with their negative outlooks. He helps you tackle your behavioral and emotional problems through rules and reports (how you should think about things). He also shows that there are fallacies in reasoning, and he provides you antidotes to over come these fallacies. This book is a fantastic guide to helping someone think in the approved manner. Cohen's logic and personal experiences gives you a ray of hope. He turns on a light and shows you that you do not have to live a life in the dark. You do not have to be a philosopher or psychologist to have good reasoning.

Short term therapy for long term results.

I am taking the liberty of quoting Dr. Albert Ellis. Albert Ellis wrote A Guide to Rational Living almost fifty years ago. Arguably one of the best self help books ever writen. In "What Would Aristotle do", Mr. Cohen builds upon the brilliant revelations and keen insight of "Rational Living". Mr. Cohen adds to the science of self help with humor and simplicity. You can't go wrong with this one. I expect most everyone's life will be a little happier for taking the time to read a couple hundred pages.

Excellent REBT Therapy for Neurosis and Depression

The field of psychology is in disarray. What began in the late nineteenth-century as an exploration into the dynamics of the mind (i.e., psyche) and human behavior has been torn asunder by the variant "schools" of psycho-dynamics. After years of psychoanalysis, more people found "relief" in Wayne Dyer's "Your Erogenous Zones" than benefitted from twenty years of Freudian or Jungian psychoanalysis. With the advent of TCAs and SSRIs, even more people found relief in a little pill than in two centuries of talk therapy. What we know or don't know about psychiatry and psychology is more baffling now than ever will. For whatever it is worth, the human psyche is more evasive than tangible, and I'm not sure more damage than good has been done under its various mentors. I have come to believe that three aspects of human behavior are unquestionable: (1) What we learned as children plays a more significant role in human dynamics than we'll ever know; (2) no matter what era one lives in, there's always a degree of alienation, anger, and angst; and (3) that certain chemical imbalances in the brain play an important, if not vital, role in how we adapt to life in general, and to change in particular. Treatment of neurosis and affective disorders usually requires that we adapt better than we have, and "traditional" psychoanalysis has been found seriously wanting. That having been said, I want to evaluate two books outside that domain and within the domain of "self help" that appear to be of enormous benefit. They are: (i) Albert Ellis' and Robert Harper's "A Guide to Rational Living, and (ii) Elliot Cohen's "What Would Aristotle Do?" Both books are in the domain of Cognitive, or Rational-Emotive, Behavioral Therapy. The more I've studied the historical, intellectual, and hermeneutic influences from the Hellenistic Period, the more I am convinced that the cognitive "therapy of desire" and the cognitive "treatment of upheavals of thought" play a significant role in how we adapt to our daily lives than anything approaching Freud or Jung will ever do. Simply by changing our attitudes, reactions, and plights against our most basic emotions, the more we are adept at, and adapt to, leading more successful, healthy, and balanced lives. Both "A Guide to Rational Living" and "What Would Aristotle Do?" are in this latter venue. Both books are invaluable in teaching the reader how to overcome obstacles in one's life in a way that is both realistic and therapeutic. The first misconception to get over is that the passions (i.e., emotions) are somehow separate and distinct from our ratiocinative faculties of the mind. Both cognitive and evolutionary psychology have demonstrated, without argument, that the two function occur within the same mental framework (cf., Daniel Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence," which locates all emotions in the amygdala). The second misconception to overcome is that emotions, qua emotions, are generally unhealthy, e.g., the Stoics. Take one exam

How to Think, Not What to Think

Cohen's "What Would Aristotle Do?" is an important and welcome contribution not just to the fields of talk therapy in general and philosophical counseling in particular, but also to the long forgotten field of common sense and for this very simple reason: he teaches you how to think and not what to think. For over 2000 years people have been taught, to the demise of independent thought, what to think and not how to think. To quote a master on the subject, Paul Thyry, Baron D'Holbach, wrote in the preface to his book "Le Bons Sens" that "When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon, than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths, or to reject absurdities, and palpable contradictions." Cohen's book offers people not only the conceptual tools they need but the conceptual tooks they must have to extricate themselves from the "lives of quiet despiration" they lead to the life they would lead if they only knew how. He does this, as only a philosopher can, by first distinguishing "thinking about things" from "thinking about one's own thinking." He then goes on to offer examples of how thinking about one's own thinking can lead a person from faulty and/or gratuitous assumptions to sound reasoning about the true nature of the problems people face. He identifies common fallacies in reasoning, demonstrates their fallaciousness, and illuminates, using his own logic-based REBT (Rational Emotion Behavior Therapy), how to think correctly. Unlike most books on talk therapy, as Thoreau said about newspapers, Cohen's book offers more than a change of names and dates; the content, as well as the approach, is decidedly and refreshingly different. For those people who have not yet learned how to think -- and if you do not understand what the phrase "how to think" means -- then this book will teach you how to think about the life you would lead if you only could.Kenneth Cust RPN, Ph.D.Central Missouri State University

What Would Aristotle Do? A Review.

There are so many virtues about Cohen's book, it is difficult to know where to begin. I will start off with some overall general comments and then I will give some specific remarks. First, what jumps out immediately is the clarity of Cohen's writing. His style is clear and engaging. The clarity is also enhanced by the numerous cases and examples that are used to illustrate his points. Next, what a reader will discover is the breadth of the topics Cohen covers. The issues range from abuse and anger, depression, Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy, to suicide and weakness of the will. Finally, Cohen's book reveals a remarkably acute dissection and meticulously careful discrimination of the central issues in philosophical counseling.The last point is really the strength of Cohen's book. His fine analysis of the issues in philosophical counseling are brought about by tying together the ancient wisdom of Aristotle, the penetrating insights of Rational Emotion Behavior Therapy, critical thinking, and Cohen's own special brand of logic-based REBT. What this means is that people generally decide to feel a certain way or to behave in a certain way by logically deducing them from premises harbored within their belief system. His underlying strategy, then, is this. Under his strict and precise supervision, Cohen show us how every belief a person may possess can be weighed and checked against the pitfalls of faulty thinking. Not only that, Cohen demonstrates persuasively how it is possible to identify inappropriate emotions and, after submitting them to the same conceptual framework, i.e., his logic-based REBT, apply antidotes to counteract the poison of badly chosen emotions and replace them with emotions that are rational and that lead to well-being.In my opinion, this is the very best "how to" book written on philosophical counseling.Samuel Zinaich, Jr.Purdue University Calumet