The Relevance of Aristotle

What is it that Aristotle has to say philosophically that is so decidedly worth listening to, and particularly now? The answer is so elementary as to seem, initially, either question-begging or implausible. It is simply that, on the basis of our common sense, most of us would take to be the case what Aristotle in his philosophy straightforwardly affirms actually is the case. To put it another way, Aristotle is, par excellence, the philosopher of common sense. Unfortunately, the term common sense has become so hackneyed as to be comparatively uninformative. In an Aristotelian context it could even be misleading, since there the expression common sense has become a standard translation of one of Aristotle's own technical terms in his psychology. Perhaps, then one might do better to fall back upon one of Abraham Lincoln's oft-quoted pronouncements that accurately sums up what is both the consistent and persistent thrust of Aristotle's philosophy. It is Lincoln's remark that while you can perhaps fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, you can't fool all of the people all of the time. So it is for Aristotle: what to all men everywhere in their saner moments is known to be the truth is, indeed, really the truth....

In brief, then, our human common sense--or if one would prefer a more old-fashioned term, our natural light of reason--tends not either generally or in the long run to be deceived between dream and reality. However, what goes for our common sense seems not always to go for our scientific or philosophical sense. In those realms, it sometimes seems that almost anything goes. After all, surrealism is not just an art form but a philosophy as well; some would even say a serious philosophy.  

--Henry B. Veatch, Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation