Aristotle's Prime Mover

 

Aristotle, marble portrait bust, Roman copy of a Greek original (c. 325 BC) in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome, Italy.

This is for all who love to explore Aristotle's cosmology and his understanding of the Divine. The Prime Mover is above all other movers. The notion of an immaterial High Deity was not uncommon among populations of the Ancient World. 

Excerpt:

In On The Heavens, Aristotle describes ether as the nearest element to the divine due to its perfect and eternal natural motion. Unlike the rectilinear motion of the sublunar elements, the natural motion of ether is circular.

Circular motion is continuous and eternal because a circle, unlike a line, has neither a beginning nor an end. Hence, everything in the supralunary region is eternal, changeless, ungenerated, and imperishable. For all these reasons, Aristotle considered the supralunary region more perfect than the sublunar domain.

The question yet to be answered is what causes the motion of the supralunary region? Given that every movement needs a mover and the Aristotelian cosmos is spatially finite, the series of movers-moved cannot indefinitely extend. As a result, all the series of motion must start with a first mover that is itself unmoved. The Prime Mover is the divine, metaphysical, and immaterial unmoved mover that is the original source of motion in the entire cosmos.

Aristotle argues, however, that the intricate motion of the celestial spheres cannot all be explained by the movement of the sphere of the fixed stars. Hence, in Metaphysics, he proposes that, in addition to the Prime Mover, there are multiple unmoved movers that cause each motion in the supralunary region that the motion of the fixed stars doesn’t account for. As Botteri and Casazza explain in The Astronomical System of Aristotle, these unmoved movers are finite in number, each associated with a celestial sphere. Like the Prime Mover, the unmoved movers are divine, metaphysical, and immaterial. However, they are subordinate to the Prime Mover because they are not responsible for the motion of the entire cosmos, but only partially responsible for the motion of the celestial spheres.

 

Read more here: What Is Aristotle’s Divine Blueprint for the Cosmos? | TheCollector

UK Prisoners Learn the Good Life from Aristotle

 

According to the Guardian, a small number of prisoners in the UK are given the opportunity to learn life skills from ancient Greek philosophers.

The teaching team, led by two classics professors from Durham University and supported by the prison education charity Novus, has so far completed courses in two men’s prisons, where inmates are serving long life-sentences -including life- for offences including serious violence and drugs to murder.

“Our course is designed to help prison learners use ancient philosophical wisdom to inform contemporary life,” Arlene Holmes-Henderson, a professor of classics education and public policy at Durham University told the Guardian.

Aristotle and his work on ethics and rhetoric are the main focus of the classical education in UK prisons. Prisoners seeking a new start in life can learn about communication, happiness, friendship, decision-making, and recreation. The topics are selected to provide them with that can help them achieve better lives in prison and when they are released.

The inmates appear to be thrilled to learn about classical philosophy. They wonder "Why didn’t we get this at school?"

Read more here: How Aristotle, Ancient Greek Philosophy Are Changing Inmates' Lives Inside UK Prisons - GreekReporter.com; Ethics Forum: Aristotle's Understanding of the Chief Good; Philosophers' Corner: Getting Acquainted with Aristotle

Aristotle's Final Resting Place

Part of the ancient wall of Stagira

The Greek archaeologist Konstantinos Sismanidis excavated Aristotle's birthplace in northern Greece in the 1990s. He believes that a ruined structure he found may have been the final resting place of Aristotle. Sismanidis admitted that he has no solid evidence, but he quoted medieval references that speak of Aristotle’s remains (ashes or bones?) being interred in his hometown of Stagira.

Stagira is located in central Macedonia, near the eastern coast of the peninsula of Chalkidice.

Sismanidis notes that the vault, with its marble floor, dates from classical Hellenistic times, as do the coins and ceramics found there. He envisions it as a stone mausoleum with an altar outside the entrance, as show above. (Read more here.)

Another theory is that Aristotle's ashes were transferred to Stagira from Chalcis on the island of Euboea (Chalkida on Evia) where it is believed he died.

Some sources assume that Aristotle was cremated and that his ashes were brought to Stagira. Others speak of secondary burial, which means that his bones were reburied in Stagira. 

It is possible that Aristotle was first buried near Athens. He asked to be buried with his wife Pythias, a woman of the nobility. Pythias died in 335 BC and was buried near Athens. Aristotle died near Athens in 322. 

In his last years, Aristotle had a relationship with his concubine Herpyllis, who bore him Nicomachus, the son for whom his great treatise on Ethics is named. 

In his will, Aristotle made provisions for Herpyllis, and directed that Pythias' bones be moved to his grave. If that happened, it can be assumed that the remains of husband and wife rest together. But where? 

Related reading: Aristotle's Understanding of the Chief Good; Getting Acquainted With Aristotle

We Should Read "Pagan" Writings

Jason Baxter explores how the treasures of old writings can illumine the banality of our time.

At the end of each semester, I inevitably have one or two well-meaning students who are still unsure why they were asked to devote so much time and care to reading, annotating, and discussing archaic Greek literature. They enjoyed reading Homer. They liked our conversations in class, but, at the end of the course, lacking theoretical reasons, they still worry about why they spent so much time on pagan, non-Christian authors. Over the past few semesters, I have thought about how to best answer that question: Why read old (pagan) books? To do so, I would like to begin with an image from a myth.

At the beginning of his Timaeus, Plato retells the well-known myth of Atlantis. There was, once upon a time, a flourishing civilization, which excelled in the arts and sciences. They built a beautiful city, which blended perfectly into its natural environs. But one day, the city was lost. An earthquake caused it to be buried under an ocean of water. And there, at the floor of the ocean, this magnificent civilization rests, in silence.

I like the image of the luxuriously wealthy city at the bottom of the ocean because the metaphor of archaeology brilliantly captures the goals of a student of the humanities. What if, along with the physical ruins of buildings, there were certain ideas, certain ways of life, certain ways of thinking which have been buried under the rubble of time? What if some truth from antiquity, which used to be obvious to everyone else, had only begun to seem bizarre to modern man? As everyone knows, Hesiod’s Theogony is a very bizarre piece of writing by our standards. But what if the truth is, it is not so much this book which is weird, but we who have become strange? What if we moderns are the ones out of step with everyone else, not the ancients who are backwards and behind the times, but we who are out of tune? It is for this reason, with these questions in mind, that I encourage my students, every time they bump into a passage (or book) particularly strange and bizarre, to slow down, re-read, and think more deeply. You might have hit a cultural blind spot.

Read it all here.

Heidegger and Aristotle

Martin Heidegger 1960

Here is an excellent paper that explores the relationship between Martin Heidegger and the thought of Aristotle. The writer points out that Heidegger's work with Aristotle had "a significant
impact on Aristotle scholarship in Germany in the early part of the twentieth century."


Related reading: The Challenge of Heidegger's Terms; George Pattison on Martin Heidegger; Heidegger's Lectures on Aristotle

Yahya ibn Adi

Abū Zakarīyā’ Yaḥyá ibn ʿAdī (John, father of Zachary, son of Adi) known as Yahya ibn Adi (893–974) was a Syriac Jacobite Christian philosopher, theologian and translator working in Arabic.

Peter Adamson, professor of philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, has contributed a fascinating blog post at the APA Website. Here are some excerpts:

Who was Yahya ibn Adi? He’s not a household name now, but in his own day he had great renown as the foremost Aristotelian philosopher in the capital of the Islamic empire, Baghdad. This is a sign of the ecumenical nature of intellectual life in the period. Ibn Adi was a Christian, who studied with and taught other Christian philosophers, associated with the famous Muslim thinker al-Farabi, and engaged in an epistolary exchange on philosophical topics with a Jewish scholar.

Thanks to Ibn Adi and his colleagues, tenth century Baghdad rivalled fifth century Alexandria, thirteenth century Paris, and twentieth century Oxford when it comes to Aristotelian scholarship.

Read it all here. 

Angry Birds and Aristotle

From Aristotle's Rhetoric, Book II, Chapter 2

It will be plain by now, from what has been said, (1) in what frame of mind, (2) with what persons, and (3) on what grounds people grow angry. (1) The frame of mind is that of one in which any pain is being felt. In that condition, a man is always aiming at something. Whether, then, another man opposes him either directly in any way, as by preventing him from drinking when he is thirsty, or indirectly, the act appears to him just the same; whether some one works against him, or fails to work with him, or otherwise vexes him while he is in this mood, he is equally angry in all these cases.

Hence people who are afflicted by sickness or poverty or love or thirst or any other unsatisfied desires are prone to anger and easily roused: especially against those who slight their present distress. Thus a sick man is angered by disregard of his illness, a poor man by disregard of his poverty, a man aging war by disregard of the war he is waging, a lover by disregard of his love, and so throughout, any other sort of slight being enough if special slights are wanting. Each man is predisposed, by the emotion now controlling him, to his own particular anger. Further, we are angered if we happen to be expecting a contrary result: for a quite unexpected evil is specially painful, just as the quite unexpected fulfilment of our wishes is specially pleasant. Hence it is plain what seasons, times, conditions, and periods of life tend to stir men easily to anger, and where and when this will happen; and it is plain that the more we are under these conditions the more easily we are stirred.

Does this explain the Angry Birds video game plot; if there is a plot? Christopher Hooton is hooting about this in his Independent column.

When a Quora user asked ‘What are the Angry Birds angry about and why are they so angry?’ this week, they probably weren’t expecting such a thorough answer.
The Angry Birds Movie directors Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly provided an answer, first giving a little detail on the plot of the video game adaptation that I for one still can’t believe is actually happening.

“The Birds as a community actually aren’t angry in the beginning,” they write. “They are comically naive, having lived their whole lives on Bird Island in peace, protected by the legendary Mighty Eagle, a hero no one has seen for decades. When the Pigs show up and steal the Birds’ eggs, there’s plenty to be angry about.”

The directors then tried to add a little more nuance to the Birds’ anger, linking them, surely for the first time ever, to the thought of Greek philosopher Aristotle.

I agree with Hooton that the creators of the Angry Birds video game deserve kudos for "for making the best use of their scant source material." That said, it isn't a stretch to link the birds' anger at the pigs for stealing their eggs with Aristotle's discourse on anger as a feeling of pain.

Ancient Philosophers Portrayed on Byzantine Frescoes

Fresco of Hippocrates dates to 1342
National Library of France

John Sanidopoulos has posted images of ancient Byzantine frescoes that pay homage to Thales, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle and Sophocles, among other wise ones.  This is well worth a look.  Go here.

Related reading: Ancient Seats of Wisdom; Who Laid the Foundations of Science?; Wisdom Seeks to Understand; Paul's Application of Greek Philosophy; Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt

Pioneers of Logic

Alice C. Linsley


Ancient logic

Plato’s view of reality was based on his belief that pattern can be seen in the order of nature and that we recognize pattern because it reflects the pattern intuitively grasped by the soul or inner person. The observable patterns in nature include the binary sets uniformly applied in the logic of the ancient world.

In mathematical terms, a binary set would be 1a+1b = {1} (binary set) in which the two entities are not equal. An example is male + female = human, but the male is larger and stronger than the female. The paradoxical nature of this is evident. This paradox was rejected as logical by modern pioneers in logic who, like Frege, insisted that 1+1 = a set of 2 and 2 = 1+1, a set of equals.

The anthropologist Levi-Strauss has demonstrated how binary logic is reflected in the thought of primitive peoples, and Jacques Derrida has shown how binary thinking is inescapable even in modern logic. This is because in a binary set we have more than one thing. Through disclosure or deconstruction, we find there are sets within sets.

Derrida saw the middle as a function by which binary opposites acquire extended meaning as merisms and reversals. These thinkers discovered in analysis of primitive myths that there are some universal ideas related to the most fundamental of human experiences such as birth, the Sun, and nourishment. This suggests weakness in nominalism, the view that there are no universal essences; that no abstract entities, essences, classes, or propositions have real existence.


Syllogistic reasoning

Aristotle (384-322 BC) is often credited with being the "father" of logic. He taught his students syllogistic logic. A syllogism attempts inference of one proposition from two premises. Each premise has one term in common with the conclusion. If (1)A = B, and (2)B = C, then (3)A = C. A standard-form categorical syllogism meets the following four conditions:

1. All three statements are categorical propositions.
2. The two occurrences of each term are identical.
3. Each term is used in the same sense throughout the argument.
4. The major premise is listed first, the minor premise second, and the conclusion is last.

Aristotle also deserves credit for modal logic because his evaluation of involves concepts like possibility, necessity, belief and doubt. He also identified several common fallacies

Aristotle dealt with the logical constants and, or, if ... then ..., not, and some and all. This is referred to as Naïve Set Theory because it relies on natural language to describe sets and the words and, or, if ... then, not, for some, for every are not subject to rigorous definition. Syllogisms may be useful in training young minds to reason according to a pattern, but they do not lead to discovery of anything new.

Naive sets are common in informal logic, but the 19th and 20th centuries saw the rise and refinement of formal logic, initiated by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and the brilliant mathematician Gottlob Frege (1848–1925).

John Stuart Mill

Mill was a British empiricist who formulated five principles of inductive reasoning in his A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (1843). These are 1 Direct method of agreement; 2 Method of difference; 3 Joint method of agreement and difference; 4 Method of residue and 5 Method of concomitant variations.

John Stuart Mill

As an empiricist, Mill insisted that there is no metaphysical necessity. All necessity is conveyed in language and a matter of propositions. The world we describe propositionally is the world of our ordinary experience and observation. The ontology of the world is reflected in the language we use. Knowing the meaning of terms enables us to evaluate the importance of propositions.


Mill's Nominalism

Mill believed that the early versions of nominalism held that "there is nothing general except names." He was mistaken in this, as anthropologists subsequently demonstrated.

The earliest nominalism, as reflected in ancient lexemes, involved general names and complex related experiences including attributes and related ideas. Lexemes are the basis for early scripts such as Thamudic. A solar lexeme such as Y or T or O represented a deified or divinely appointed ruler, his territory, his people, and all his resources such as water and gold. The Horite rulers are identified with the solar symbol Y: Yaqtan, Yishmael, Yitzak, Yisbak, Yacob, Yosef, Yeshua, etc. Other ancient lexemes include V, W and X.

Mill was correct that names of entities (nouns) have levels of meaning, or connotative variables. He showed that names denote either individuals or the attributes of individuals. A general name - white, for example - connotes an attribute and denotes all individuals that have that attribute. White connotes the attribute whiteness, and denotes all things that have that attribute.

Mill explored the variability of names through analysis of syllogisms. Here is one he used to illustrate that there is a connection between attributes connoted by terms, but the attributes are logically independent.

Consider the syllogism:

Man is mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Ergo, Socrates is mortal.

In the syllogism "man" and "mortal" are attributes. Given Mill's claim that attributes are logically independent, the major premise - Man is mortal - adds nothing to the truth of the propositions concerning Socrates. What matters is the particulars - Socrates and the attributes man and mortal. In other words, deductive inference cannot advance knowledge. There is nothing new discovered by the syllogism.

George Boole

George Boole (1815-1864) was an English mathematician and philosopher who developed some of Leibniz's ideas about the relationship between mathematics and logic in his book The Mathematical Analysis of Logic (1847). His later work An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on Which Are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic (1854) presents a more complete system of symbolic reasoning.

Boolean logic is easy to understand. Begin with the idea that some statement (P) is either true or false. (He applies the law of the excluded middle). Then other statements can be formed, which are true or false, by combining these initial statements together using the fundamental operators And, Or and Not.

Boole's syllogistic reasoning did not place importance on the existential question, as happened with Aristotle. For Aristotle any proposition involving unicorns or satyrs, for example, would render an argument invalid. In Boole's view, anything named in a proposition does not imply that it in fact exists.

Consider the difference in their views:

Aristotle
All men are humans.  This implies the existence of men.
No maple trees are oaks.  This implies the existence of maple trees.
All unicorns are grand creatures.  This does not imply the existence of unicorns.

Boole
All men are humans.  This does not imply the existence of men. (Heidegger would love this!)
No maple trees are oaks.  This does not imply the existence of maple trees.
All unicorns/satyrs are grand creatures.  This does not imply the existence of unicorns/satyrs.

Gottlob Frege

Gottlob Frege

Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege is considered another founder of modern logic and the father of analytic philosophy. Frege's logic is now known as second-order logic.

His first major work was Begriffsschrift, published in 1879. In 1884, The Foundations of Arithmetic appeared, and this was followed by two volumes known by the German title Grundgesetze.

Frege's writings were largely ignored when first published, partly because the English philosophers were not capable of reading the original German. That would change with Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), whose knowledge of German made it possible for him to understand Frege and even to refute him.

Russell was introduced to the significance of Frege's work in logic through Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932), who he met at a conference in Paris in and both of whom saw the merit of his work.

In 1903, Russell wrote an appendix to The Principles of Mathematics in which he presented deficiencies in the assumptions that Frege made in Grundgesetze, which Russell recognized led to paradox or contradiction. Russell communicated this to Frege by letter and Frege's response was to accuse Russell of undermining the whole of mathematics.

Others influenced by Frege's work include Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), Willard van Orman Quine (1908-2000), and the Logical Positivist Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970). In his Der logische Aufbau der Welt, Carnap attempted to apply the concepts of Principia Mathematica to his discourse about sense data, the external world and logic. Quine would go beyond the Vienna Circle’s position that philosophy is properly defined as the philosophic study of the language of science. Though Quine was not a scientist, he saw his philosophy as science.


Proper Names and Cognitive Value

Leibniz developed an approach to questions of necessity, possibility, contingency that served an important function within his metaphysics and epistemology. This is called modal metaphysics and it has important implications for logic. Carnap thought one could give a possible world semantics for the modalities of necessity and possibility by giving the valuation function a parameter that ranges over Leibniz's possible worlds. We will explore this under "Modal Logic."

Frege agreed with Leibniz that natural language is unsuited to formal logic. This led Frege to create a symbolic language in which logical relations and possible inferences would be clear and unambiguous.

Frege’s term for such a language -“Begriffsschrift” - may have been borrowed from a paper on Leibniz written by Adolf Trendelenburg, considered by Søren Kierkegaard "one of the most sober philosophical philologists I know."

Leibniz’s Problem: Why doesn’t ‘2+3 = 5’ reduce to ‘5 = 5’? Frege does not address this problem, but instead recasts it. Frege’s Puzzle is about the semantics of proper names.

(1) Hesperus is Hesperus. (Hesperus is a proper name for the planet Venus.)
(2) Hesperus is Phosphorus. (Phosphorus is a personification of the planet Venus.)

Each of these sentences is true. 'Hesperus' refers to the same object as 'Phosphorus' (the planet Venus). Nonetheless, (1) and (2), though synonymous, differ in what Frege called "cognitive value." Frege thus rejects John Stuart Mill's view that a proper name has no meaning above and beyond the object to which it refers. Frege develops this in his book Sense and Reference.

David Kaplan demonstrates how it is rationally possible to believe one while denying the other with this:


"I am David Kaplan", spoken by David Kaplan.
"He is David Kaplan", spoken by someone pointing at David Kaplan.
"David Kaplan is David Kaplan", spoken by anyone.

All express the same content and refer to the same individual. Yet each has a different cognitive value. Kaplan explains this by associating cognitive value with character rather than content, thus providing what seems a remedy to Frege's problem.

Frege's Concept-Writing

Frege's most famous work is Begriffsschrift (Concept-Writing: A Formal Language for Pure Thought Modeled on that of Arithmetic). It marked a turning point in logic. Here Frege demonstrates that true contents do not follow directly from other true contents. This requires a mediating system or what has come to be called axiomatic predicate logic. The book includes a rigorous treatment of functions and variables.

Frege declared nine of his propositions to be axioms, and justified them by arguing informally that, given their intended meanings, they express self-evident truths. In contemporary notation, these axioms are:

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 


Frege wanted to show that mathematics grows out of logic, and devised techniques that took him beyond syllogistic and propositional logic to symbolic or formal logic. He accomplished this through his invention of quantified variables, which solved the problem of multiple generality.

Frege's symbolic logic was able to move beyond the logical constants and, or, if ... then ..., not, and some and all to more complex inferences. He prepared the way for the analysis of logical concepts by  Bertrand Russell (theory of descriptions), Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorems, and to Alfred Tarski's (1901–1983) theory of truth. All owe a great debt to Frege's work.

Other philosophers who have responded to Frege's work include Saul Kripe (Naming and Necessity, 1980), David Kaplan, Ruth Barcan Marcus, and Hilary Putnam. (We will look closer at Kripe's contribution when we study Modal Logic.)

Frege's Intention

In his work Frege intended to set forth a system to isolate logical principles of inference. He perceived the need for this because he saw that only formalized logic could be applied to the sciences. No longer would an intuitive element be permitted as an assumption/premise. It would be isolated and represented separately as an axiom. The proof was to be logical and without gaps.

Frege was an important influence on Russell who influenced Quine. Russell's work inspired Quine to pursue logic. Quine wrote, “Russell’s name is inseparable from mathematical logic, which owes him much, and it was above all Russell that made that subject an inspiration to philosophers.” In 1962, Quine wrote to Russell that “Principia Mathematica was what, of all books, has influenced me the most.”

Wittgenstein also studied Frege's work and in 1911, he wrote to Frege concerning his solution to Russell’s paradox (see below). Frege invited him to Jena to discuss his views. The two engaged in a philosophical debate, and Wittgenstein reported that Frege “wiped the floor” with him. However, Frege was impressed with Wittgenstein and suggested that he study with Russell at Cambridge.

Russell's Paradox and Wittgenstein's solution

Russell's paradox Z = {x : x is not a member of x}

If Z is a member of Z how can it not be a member of Z?

Is Z a member of Z? If yes, then by the defining quality of Z, Z is not a member of itself. This forces us to declare that Z is not a member of Z. Then Z is not a member of itself and so, again by definition of Z, Z is a member of Z. What we have here is the following contradiction: Z is a member of Z if and only if Z is not a member of Z.

In 1923, Ludwig Wittgenstein proposed to "dispose" of Russell's paradox as follows:

The reason why a function cannot be its own argument is that the sign for a function already contains the prototype of its argument, and it cannot contain itself. For let us suppose that the function F(fx) could be its own argument: in that case there would be a proposition 'F(F(fx))', in which the outer function F and the inner function F must have different meanings, since the inner one has the form O(f(x)) and the outer one has the form Y(O(fx)). Only the letter 'F' is common to the two functions, but the letter by itself signifies nothing. This immediately becomes clear if instead of 'F(Fu)' we write '(do): F(Ou). Ou = Fu'. That disposes of Russell's paradox. (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 3.333)

Related reading: Student Graphics Illustrate Fallacies; Modal Logic, Introduction to Logic (Fallacies); A Pragmatic Approach to Knowledge; Modal Logic: On the Lighter Side; Naive and Axiomatic Set Theory; Russell's Reasons for Ramification

Heidegger's Lectures on Aristotle

Alice C. Linsley

Martin Heidegger's early morning lectures at the University of Freiburg focused on the writings of Aristotle. The lectures became known as the "Aristotle breakfast club" and Heidegger's scholarly approach to Aristotle, which was philological, historical and phenomenological, influenced many of his students. Some became scholars of classical and pre-Socratic Greek philosophy; among them were Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hannah Arendt, and Leo Strauss. Strauss once wrote that Martin Heidegger impressed him as no other contemporary thinker had.

The influence of Aristotle on Heidegger's work should not be underestimated. He wanted to understand how Aristotle renders a practical understanding of being. In books IV, VI and XI of the Metaphysics, Aristotle defined ontology as the science or theory of being qua being (ὂν ἢ ὀν). It is significant that he expresses it this way and Heidegger took this as his cue to explore being qua being.

Another significant influence on Heidegger's thought was Edmund Husserl. Heidegger pointed out the weaknesses in Husserl's conception of consciousness and cognition, and in developing his thoughts he came to recognize that he was once again dealing with Plato and Aristotle. He wrote, "Phenomenology radicalized in its ownmost possibility is nothing but the questioning of Plato and Aristotle brought back to life: the repetition, the retaking of the beginning of our scientific philosophy." (History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena, p. 136)

As Heidegger read long passages of Aristotle in Greek to his students, he explored the texts in a scholarly manner, drawing on philology, history, and literary criticism. He found that ontological research is essentially historical. It requires looking behind the text; being conscious of what can be seen through the text. He wrote, "It is necessary to surpass Aristotle - not in a forward direction in the sense of a progression, but rather backwards in the direction of a more original unveiling of what is comprehended by him." (Aristotle's Metaphysics [theta] 1-3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force, p. 69)


Related reading: Crash Course on Phenomenology; Learning to Question Narratives; Dreyfus on Metaphysics and Phenomenology; George Pattison on Martin Heidegger

Theories of Knowledge - Part 1

"It is owing to their wonder that men now begin, and first began, to philosophize."-- Aristotle

"This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin."-- Plato


Alice C. Linsley

In archaic communities - between 50,000 and 20,000 years ago - knowledge was gathered from observation of fixed patterns in nature. The sun's rising and setting; the facts of human and animal reproduction; the signs of coming storms; the solidity of rock, the softness of moss and rich humus, etc.

Binary distinctions were observed such as male-female, night-day, and dry-wet. The observation of distinctions in the patterns of nature suggested a fixed order which archaic people attributed to the Creator. The moral law of archaic communities discouraged behaviors and practices that violate the fixed order in creation in order that the Creator might not be offended.

Blood and water were regarded as the fundamental substances of life because it was evident that all creatures needed these to survive. The shedding of blood was regarded as a serious matter and the blood guilt was mediated by priests and shamans, the two oldest religious offices. These offices served similar functions within their communities but represent distinct worldviews.

As early as 100,000 years ago, humans observed certain rituals surrounding the burial of their death. These practices included burial in red ochre and the inclusion of personal articles. An example is the double burial at Qafzeh in Israel, believed to be a double burial of a mother and child. The bones have been stained with red ochre.

From very early times, the soul has been viewed as a essential part of the human and one that has an eternal existence. There are different views as to how the soul continues to exist after the body dies: Sheol (a holding place until the Last Day); reincarnation, and transmigration of a limited number of souls. Plato held the latter view.

Plato believed that Truth is immutable and eternal and therefore considered knowledge of Truth to reside in the eternal Soul. He held that the trained mind could 'recollect' or 're-cognize' the true Forms and thereby "know' what is true and real. Aristotle built upon Plato's thought, but took it in a different direction. According to Aristotle, animate beings can move only because they have a soul. He thought that knowledge came through interaction with the external world. The soul takes on the imprint of sensations. When I press the soft tissue of my finger tip against a hard object, for example, an impression is made on my finger tip. Likewise, impressions are made on the soul and this results in knowledge. (On the Soul II 5)

For Aristotle all knowledge, even the imagination, must begin with information acquired through the senses. However, to grasp the relationships among abstract forms the soul reasons logically. (On the Soul III 4) Although experience is a key to all demonstrative knowledge for Aristotle, he also understood that the metaphysical study of "being qua being" must attempt to understand why things happen the way they do. For Plato, the soul is the reservoir of what exists truly. For Aristotle, the soul's what can only be understood by the mind's why.


Related reading: Overview of Afterlife Beliefs Through History; Theories of Knowledge - Part 2; Ethical Concerns of Archaic Communities; Early Metaphysics: Primal Substance, Theories of Knowledge - Part 3; Theories of Knowledge - Part 4; Lloyd Gerson, Goodness, Unity and Creation in the Platonic Tradition

The School of Athens

Rafael's The School of Athens hangs in the Pope's private library in the Vatican.

In this famous painting, Aristotle points down, and Plato points up. Here we have the great philosophical tension between the natural and the supernatural. This creative tension has largely been lost in modern philosophy, especially in the West. Jacques Derrida believed that the overthrow of Plato in the West has brought the philosophical project to a dead end, and he urged a recovery of Plato and the tension between Plato and Aristotle.

Aristotle seeks answers to questions by studying the natural world. He wrote:

"Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of unprovable starting-points (concepts and truth) and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them."

"The first philosophy (Metaphysics) is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. ... And here we will have the science to study that which is just as that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which, just as a thing that is, it has."

Plato seeks answers to questions by pondering the innate knowledge of the eternal soul. Plato seeks answers by considering the things above or beyond the natural world, as did Thales of Miletus. Thales attempted to explain natural phenomena without reference to the gods.  His interest in astronomy was such that he reportedly fell into a ditch while contemplating the stars. Plato wrote of how he was similarly mocked by a servant. Just like Thales … while star gazing and looking up he fell in a well, and some gracefully witty Thracian servant girl is said to have made a jest at his expense—that in his eagerness to know the things in heaven he was unaware of the things in front of him and at his feet. The same jest suffices for all those who engage in philosophy. (Plato,Theaetetus 174a, Seth Benardete translation)

In reality, both philosophers were interested in the natural and the spiritual aspects of reality and to portray them more accurately, each should be pointing up and down.


Related reading: Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt; Getting Acquainted with Aristotle; Ethics of Ancient Greece

Religious Debate Influences Political Events

Alice C. Linsley

The religious and political events of the fourth century are extremely important in understanding subsequent church-state tensions in Europe.

Early Christian writers such as John Chrysostom and Basil the Great sought to distance Christianity from the pagan philosophies of Plato and Aristotle and from the Gnostics. Church Fathers also distanced Christianity and Christian interpretation of the Bible from the teachings of the rabbis. They were writing at a time when the old state religion of Rome was fading as a result of the conversion of Constantine I, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. After gaining control of the empire, Constantine established his capital at the site of ancient Byzantium in 330 AD. This was a time of doctrinal debates, some of which would find ecumenical resolution and state approval at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

By the 4th century, Plato’s thought began to exercise influence in the Latin Church through the writings of the neo-Platonist bishop, St. Augustine.

St. Augustine did not believe that God created everything in six consecutive 24-hour days, but he did believe that Adam and Eve’s disobedience had consequences for all of humanity. Their sin brought about the Fall of Man and the Fall can only be undone by an act of divine grace. Clearly, Augustine’s view of human nature is that something that was originally good has gone bad.  Yet this bad has no objective reality.  It is merely the absence of the Good. Augustine believed that God is present in human moral reasoning, but he did not conclude that humans can know the moral Good through fallen human reasoning, only through divine illumination.

From the 4th century there was great interest in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, although the Greek-speaking East interested Aristotle’s writings differently than the Latin-speaking West. The East saw continuity between Plato and his student Aristotle on the question of virtue, whereas the West saw discrepancies. In the East Aristotle was interpreted metaphysically, but in the West, Aristotle’s writings became the basis for early scientific approaches to knowledge (empiricism).

The tension between Plato’s idealism and Aristotle’s empiricism expressed itself during the Medieval Period in various propositions about the relationship of Faith and Reason. Augustine's idea was that human reason and philosophy are useful only to those who already have faith. He wrote, “Credo ut intellegiam” (“I believe in order that I may understand”). 

Anselm believed that faith is necessary to lead us to the right use of reason. He approached Christianity as a belief system that we are capable of understanding through the exercise of human reason based on faith. He wrote, “For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this I believe -- that unless I believe, I should not understand.” Here we shift from Augustine’s idea of divine illumination to Anslem’s idea of the necessity of faith and reason. However, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Aristotle believed that a man is good when he exercises reason as a political creature, seeking personal happiness in both private and public life.  For Aristotle, this is what humans exist to do. Aquinas borrowed Aristotle’s notion of the good as fulfilling our final end, but claims that humanity’s end is not rational activity, but instead the contemplation of God (the “beatific vision”).

Erasmus believed that a good teacher could instill virtue in the student because the seeds of the good are in humans by nature.  Martin Luther argued that the Fall left the human will in bondage to sin and that there is nothing that humanity can do to save itself.

In the area of politics, most medieval writers believed that citizens had a moral authority to obey the ruler because God vested authority in the ruler. This is sometimes termed "divine right of kings." This is a continuation of the archaic idea of the monarch as an earthly representative of the Deity. However, conflicts arose when a Catholic ruler tried to impose Catholicism on Lutherans or when a Lutheran ruler tried to impose Lutheranism on Catholics. When this happened, Luther denied that the State has authority to dictate matters of faith. Luther also consistently maintained that rulers were to be obeyed.

During the late Middle Ages bloody religious and territorial battles tore Europe apart and this raised questions about the ethics of war. Most thinkers believed that the only person who could legitimately declare war was the head of State, but in the feudal system petty lords went to war against each other without regard to the King’s wishes.  Theories of war became a topic of discussion among scholars, clergy and statesmen.  The just war theory was further refined and divided into related ideas. Jus ad bellum addresses what justifies going to war and jus in bello addresses what may justly be done in war.

Related reading: Luther Was Wrong About the Priesthood; Ethical Concerns of the Middle Ages; What Constitutes Just War?

Getting Acquainted with Aristotle

Alice C. Linsley

Aristotle was influenced by the thought of Plato, probably the greatest philosopher of ancient Greece. Plato borrowed ideas from the ancient Egyptians and Kushites. He studied in Egypt for 13 years. Nevertheless, Plato put his own touch on the ideas. Likewise, Aristotle borrowed and adapted ideas from Plato. Aristotle also questioned Plato's thought and it was in his questioning of Plato that we find many of Aristotle's most interesting ideas.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was brought up at the Court of Macedonia. He became a student at Plato's Academy in Athens at age seventeen. At the time that Aristotle joined the Academy it had been operating for twenty years. Aristotle became a teacher at the Academy and remained there for twenty years. Diogenes Laertius, writing in the second century AD, says that Aristotle taught rhetoric and dialectic.

All Aristotle's writings of this time strongly support Plato's views, but he later took issue with Plato on the questions of censorship and the nature of happiness. He developed political ideas quite distinct from Plato who had said the kings should be philosophers. In On Kingship Aristotle wrote that it is, "... not merely unnecessary for a king to be a philosopher, but even a disadvantage. Rather a king should take the advice of true philosophers. Then he would fill his reign with good deeds, not with good words."

Aristotle, like Plato, believed in the existence of the soul. At the beginning of De Anima II.1, he says that there are three sorts of substance:

1. Matter (potentiality)

2. Form (actuality)

3. The compound of matter and form

Aristotle was interested in compounds that are alive. These are animated, that is, "de anima."  Living things have this vital spark or what is often called the "soul." The soul is what makes alive. Since form is what makes matter a “this,” the soul is the form of a living thing. The soul is that in virtue of which a living entity is the kind of living thing that it is. The soul is the essence of the entity.

Aristotle considered three ways of cognition or knowing: the first based on existence (matter) as a human being. The second based on form as when we recognize structure (form) such as grammar. The last way of cognition is based on action (actuality); that is, attending to something, involvement with something. This is consistent with his belief that a good king is not a philosopher alone, but also a doer of good deeds.

He makes a distinction between potential and actual. As humans we have potential to achieve happiness (the Good for Aristotle), but unless we recognize form/structures and act virtuously, we cannot achieve the highest cognitive being. We must aspire to more than mere existence. Perhaps Borges has this in mind when he said, "My father was very intelligent, and like all intelligent men, very kind."--Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)


Quotes:

It is clear, then, that wisdom is knowledge having to do with certain principles and causes. But now, since it is this knowledge that we are seeking, we must consider the following point: of what kind of principles and of what kind of causes is wisdom the knowledge? (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 340BC)

Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of unprovable starting-points (concepts and truth) and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them.

The first philosophy (Metaphysics) is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. ... And here we will have the science to study that which is just as that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which, just as a thing that is, it has.

The entire preoccupation of the physicist is with things that contain within themselves a principle of movement and rest. And to seek for this is to seek for the second kind of principle, that from which comes the beginning of the change.

There must then be a principle of such a kind that its substance is activity.

... it is impossible that the primary existent, being eternal, should be destroyed.

... that among entities there must be some cause which moves and combines things.

..about its coming into being and its doings and about all its alterations we think that we have knowledge when we know the source of its movement. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 340 BC)


Related reading:  Aristotle's Understanding of the Chief Good; Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt; Ethics and Ancient Cosmology; What Makes a Good Society?

Ethics of Ancient Greece

Alice C. Linsley

Timeline

Thales             624 BC - 546 BC
Heraclitus        535 BC - 475 BC
Gorgias           483 BC - 375 BC
Protagoras      480 BC - 411 BC
Socrates         469 BC - 399 BC
Democritus     460 BC - 370 BC
Plato               428 BC - 347 BC
Aristotle          384 BC - 322 BC
Zeno               333 BC - 264 BC

The Pre-Socratic Philosophers

Aristotle regarded Thales of Miletus as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition.  Bertrand Russell believed that "Western philosophy begins with Thales." Thales attempted to explain natural phenomena without reference to mythology, an approach that was not typical of his time. His interest in astronomy was such that he reportedly fell into a ditch or well while contemplating the stars. Plato wrote of how he was mocked for this by a servant. "Just like Thales … while star gazing and looking up he fell in a well, and some gracefully witty Thracian servant girl is said to have made a jest at his expense—that in his eagerness to know the things in heaven he was unaware of the things in front of him and at his feet. The same jest suffices for all those who engage in philosophy.” (Plato,Theaetetus 174a, Seth Benardete translation)

The philosophers before Socrates were largely concerned with discovering universal principles which would explain the whole of nature. Thales believed that all things derive from a single first cause or source which he called arche or archai. Anaximander (c. 611-546 BC) held that the basic substance of the universe is an eternal and imperishable apeiron from which all things are born and to which all things return. Heraclitus, who believed that all things are in a state of change, used the word logos. We might regard these views as metaphysical attempts at a “unified field theory.”

The Greek City State

The Greeks were organized politically by principal cities which had oversight of the surrounded region. Each city state (polis) was autonomous and self-governing. This corresponded to a similar system of organization along the Nile called "nomes." There were no nations as we know them today. There were dominions or empires under the control of great kingdom builders such as Darius the Great. Often the conqueror permitted the ruler of the city state to remain in power after swearing an oath of loyalty and agreeing to pay tribute.

The Greeks were proud of their culture and were suspicious of outsiders (xenophobia). Although they shared a common language and culture, each city state had its own customs, deities, money and army. A citizen’s first loyalty was to his city state and to the deity to whom the local temple was dedicated. Many of the festivals of the city states were religious in nature. The populace enjoyed processions through the streets much as Americans enjoy Fourth of July parades. Temples were the centers of much daily activity, with priests offering sacrifices and libations, and people coming and going to fulfill their sacred duties. Life was generally good since everyone knew his or her place in the hierarchical social order, and the communities were small enough to sustain economic prosperity in spite of Greece's rocky farm land.

The primary foods sources were lamb, fish, bread, cheeses, yogurt, grapes, figs, dates, olives, olive oil, and wine.

The Influence of Nilotic Thought

Much of the wisdom of the ancient Greeks was received from the priests of the Nile Valley. The four most famous temple universities were Onn (Heliopolis), Inbu Hedj (Memphis), Ipet Isut (Karnak) and Waset (Thebes). The Greeks recognized the wisdom of these places to be very ancient and venerable.

Cultural contact between the Greeks and the Egyptians on the island of Crete has been verified from at least 2600 BC. There was artistic and iconographic exchange between Minoans and Egyptians around 1700 BC.

Thales visited Egypt and calculated the height of the pyramids from the length of their shadows. Hippocrates, called the father of medicine, studied the healing arts in Egypt. Democritus visited Egypt and wrote on ancient Nubia or Kemet. He praised the Egyptian mathematicians.

According to Iamblichus, Thales insisted that Pythagorus study in Egyptbecause the priests there were esteemed for their knowledge and wisdom. Plato studied in Egypt for thirteen years under the priest Sechnuphis. It is likely that Plato’s conception of the eternal Forms was based on Horite Hebrew binary metaphysics.

Priests and Oracles

Temple priests and oracles were part of the Greco-Roman ethical heritage and continued to exercise influence even after the emergence of Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum. Those devoted to the local temple supported the priests through their offerings of food, money, oil and wine. Priests responded by seeking the deity’s favor upon their supporters. Priestly practice in the ancient world was more cultic than pastoral. Priests sacrificed animals, offered libations of wine or oil to the deity, and performed rites of purification. While it is likely that they also provided advice to individuals, it was not their primary responsibility to provide guidance about specific situations.  For this, people turned to the sibyls or oracles. Sibyls were seers who consulted animal entrails, fire pits, and pools of water for answers to questions. The sibyl at Delphi was called “Pythia” and she was consulted by rulers and priests.

While priests and oracles provided guidance and influenced ethical decision making, they did not fully satisfy human curiosity about the nature of the world. Nor did they offer a satisfying response to those who thought that the gods seemed too human and fallible, as did Democritus and Socrates.

The Pre-Socratic Worldview

To grasp the significance of Socrates’ contribution to ethics it is necessary to understand how the ancient Greeks viewed their world. We gain insight into their worldview by reading Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad. This bloody account of the battles between the Trojans and the Greeks seems a strange tale to modern readers because it weaves together history, religion and mythology. Yet this was an aspect of the Greek worldview in Homer’s time.  People believed in a world in which the gods regularly intervened in human affairs, sometimes whisking away heroic warriors in their chariots and often joining in the battle themselves.  Some heroes were regarded as semi-divine beings.  Priests sacrificed animals and made other offerings in the temples to gain the favor of the gods, and oracles were consulted for the most auspicious days on which to wage war or make peace. People did not choose who they would marry. They married within their social class or caste.  Nor did people select their line of work. They inherited the work they did from their fathers.  If one’s father was a metal smith, his sons would be smiths also. This was especially the case with firstborn sons.

Before Socrates, people were losing confidence in the old order of gods and in their leaders. The social order was changing from one in which each person’s social status and line of work were fixed according to a rigid caste system to one in which nobility of character or special gifts sometimes opened opportunities that were not available to earlier generations of Greeks.  In the old order, a good citizen was someone who fulfilled his role in the caste system. A street sweeper was a good sweeper if he rose early and efficiently cleaned the streets assigned to him. A nobleman was a good ruler if he ordered his household well, spoke persuasively in public, and participated in the forums. As the old social order began to break down, it became necessary to re-think what it meant to be a good citizen and what constituted a good life. Social change and political disruption stimulated ethical conversations and began to lay the foundation for philosophy and ethics in Western Civilization.

Transition to the Classical Period

Before the time of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Greek citizens were defined by their place in the hierarchical caste system that was typical of the ancient Mediterranean world. Because one did not marry outside one’s caste and continued in the same work as one’s father, the pre-classical social order was stable and Greek citizens shared common ideas of good and evil, and right and wrong.

With the emergence of the Greek city-states, Athens being an example, the social order began to change. Each city-state developed a social and political order independent of outside political authority. Each established foreign trade that brought an influx of non-Greeks into the cities, introducing different customs, ways of life and moral attitudes.What was acceptable in one city might be offensive in the next. Law codes differed from city to city, and traditional Greek values and beliefs were found to be incompatible with those of other cultures. In this new order the Greek citizen was presented with many conflicting truth claims. It was a social landscape ripe for the proliferation of many ethical philosophies.

The Sophists

The period of the Sophists was one in which people had doubts about whether the social order of their fathers should to be regarded as the best order and divinely appointed. People believed that attempts to rise above one’s caste would bring the wrath of the gods upon them, since the social order was regarded as having been established by the gods. This is one reason that the lower classes didn’t rebel against their rulers. If the hierarchical castes of the ancient Mediterranean world were not divinely appointed, then how was one to live as a good citizen in this new world? The Sophists attempted to provide practical answers to this question.

The Sophists came to prominence in the 5th century, B.C. Unlike Socrates and Plato, they were not philosophers, but teachers of “rhetoric” which is the art of public speaking and persuasion. Sophistry was a school of thought that emphasized how to be successful in the new order. The Sophists did not claim to be philosophers, but teachers of socially useful skills such as how to order one’s household, how to keep good accounts, how to speak persuasively and how to dress for success.

A Sophist about whom we know a good deal through Plato’s writings is Protagoras (480-411 BC). He said that, “Man is the measure of all things.” By this he intended that everyone should “measure” or decide matters according to his own nature and needs. When applied to ethics and morality, this idea leads to “moral relativism.”  Relativism doubts the possibility of discovering absolute truth. If there is no absolute truth for all people, at all times, and in all places, why waste time trying to teach truth?  Instead Sophists trained students for worldly success. You might say that Protagoras was the head of the school of “how to make a good impression.” Students who studied Sophistry gained social, political and economic power in Athens, because they were trained to win oral arguments and to conduct their personal affairs so as to achieve status. Many Sophists claimed they could teach anything and its opposite (thesis and antithesis) and could win debates by making the weaker argument the stronger.

Another Sophist was Gorgias (483-375 BC), a great cynic. He said, “Nothing exists, and if it did, no one could know it, and if they knew it, they could not communicate it.” Gorgias’ view is called “nihilism,” from the Greek word “nihil” which means nothing. Nihilism denies that there is any truth and therefore rejects all truth claims. When a person claims to have discovered something that is true, they also claim that truth as an authority for themselves. However, if no truth exists, there is no ground for authority. When applied to ethics and morality, nihilism leads to a philosophical dead end. If, in the end, there is really nothing, there is nothing to discuss. When applied to politics, nihilism leads to anarchy. If, in the end, there is no authority, there is no basis for trust in government.

Socrates questions morality of the art of persuasion

The Sophists believed that moral goodness consists of public recognition and success. They were not especially interested in questions of Good and Evil. Instead, they sought to prepare young men to become successful in Athenian society by knowing how to conduct their affairs, dress as a ruler, and speak eloquently.  They sought to perfect the art of rhetoric. By becoming a persuasive public speaker, an individual could impress audiences and sway opinion in the public forums held in the Greek city-states.  Many aristocratic young men were attracted to Sophistry, hoping to gain recognition and status.

Socrates viewed Sophistry with suspicion. He believed that it wasn’t enough to teach a man how to dress for success and how to persuade people to your side. In fact, Socrates thought this was quite dangerous. What if the most successful and persuasive man were to lead the people unwisely, being ignorant of how to life a good life?

Although Socrates lived before Zeno, he anticipated the danger of apathy among the citizens of Athens. His method was to ask well-formed questions that placed a burden on people to think about their actions and attitudes. Socrates left no writings, so we cannot consult primary sources to discover exactly what he taught.  What we do know comes from three sources: the historian Xenophan, his student Plato, and Plato’s student Aristotle.

Xenophan portrays Socrates as an ordinary man interested in developing good citizens.  In his writings Memorabilia and Symposium, he characterizes Socrates as a popular ethical teacher who had little interest in logic or metaphysics. Plato portrays Socrates as more complex. He presents him as a teacher who denies having disciples, as a lover of beauty who disdains sensual pleasures, and as a man of reason who listens to the divine.

For ethics, Socrates’ greatest legacy is his consistent and steadfast belief in the importance of good citizenship. This is exemplified in the events surrounding his last days.  He had made enemies in Athens by pointing out the hypocrisy of various prominent figures. Eventually he was falsely accused of morally corrupting the youth. He was brought to trial and found guilty. What is known of these final events comes from Plato’s Dialogues, and from his Apology, a record of the speeches that Socrates delivered at his trial. According to Plato, Socrates admitted that he could have avoided trial by abandoning philosophy and minding his own business. After his conviction, he could have avoided death by escaping with the help of friends, but to Socrates this would have been a denial of everything he had tried to teach. He cooperated with the State because this is what a good citizen does. The people of Athens believed that Socrates was unjustly condemned and this created a problem for Socrates. If he allowed the State to take his life unjustly, it would undermine the people’s confidence in government, so rather than permit the State to execute him, he chose to take his own life. Plato describes as a first hand witness how Socrates drank a cup of deadly hemlock and laid down and died.

Plato (428 BC - 347 BC)

When Socrates died in 399, Plato gave up all political ambitions and left Athens, traveling to Italy and Sicily. Soon after his return to Athens, he established his Academy outside the city. It is often stated that the western university system is based on Plato’s Academy, but that is to overlook Plato's experience in Egypt. The Nile shrine-cities were recognized by the Greeks as great center of learning.

Plato was a prolific writer who kept Socrates ideas alive in over 24 writings called “dialogues.” The dialogues range from 20 to 300 pages and their titles are usually the names of the interlocutor who Socrates questions.  Plato focused Socrates’ moral arguments in the early dialogues and built on his ideas in the later dialogues.

It is evident from Plato’s writings that he shared Socrates’ preoccupation with clear and precise definition of ethical concepts, and with knowing how one should live. Plato’s main disagreement with Socrates has to do with the definition of virtue as knowledge. Socrates insisted that before we can say anything about justice we must first answer the question “What is justice?”  Plato recognized that asking what justice is only leads to considering examples of justice and examples of the opposite of justice. Socrates’ approach never seems to bring us to a substantial definition of justice. Plato wondered how we are able to recognize justice when we are unable to define it.  He came to the conclusion that an unambiguous example of justice must exist in the metaphysical (non-material) sense, and that we must once have known justice as an eternal and unchanging “Form” or we would not be able to recognize examples of it.

Plato’s Theory of Forms is based upon his belief that we are born into this material world from an ideal world where our soul was acquainted with the Forms of Justice, Goodness, Beauty and Love.  We are able to recognize justice, goodness, beauty and love because our souls have innate knowledge of these non-material entities.  Plato goes on to explain that the examples we see are only reflections of the Forms, not the Forms themselves. In other words, justice and goodness are eternal Ideas that exist whether or not humans recognize them.

What does this mean for ethics?  It means that philosophy’s main objective is to seek knowledge of the true Forms. Plato said that not everyone would do this. He used the allegory of the cave to explain that some would always be locked in darkness where they are able to see only shadows. Others will escape to the world of sunlight where they will see the true form of things. 

According to Plato, societal evil is the absence of Good and can be averted only by enlightened rulers or “Guardians.” The ideal society requires censorship by the Guardians to protect the weak minded cave dwellers who are unable to discern the difference between shadow and Form. Plato maintained that a man cannot do Good unless he recognizes the Good through his soul. The ethical person judges justice by the measurement of justice known in the eternal soul.

Plato taught that the soul, like the ideal society, has three parts or levels. The good person is one who ascends from the lowest level of the soul governed by appetites (what we want and feel) to the rational level governed by the intellect. The middle level is the “spirited” level which undertakes whatever the intellect determines to be best. These levels of the soul correspond to the levels of Plato’s ideal social order. The workers provide all the material needs, the soldiers ensure that the rulers’ dictates are carried out, and the rulers discern wisdom and justice through philosophical conversation and inward contemplation.

In the empirical age, Plato’s metaphysics are largely rejected and with this comes the rejection of the possibility of a soul as a reservoir of innate knowledge.  Through the writings of Thomas Aquinas, the West has been more influenced by the thought of Plato’s student, Aristotle.

Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

Aristotle produced a large number of writings and from these we are able to recognize his important contribution to Ethics. His contributions are evident in his understanding of the human as a political creature, and in his understanding that the chief good is “eudaimonia” (“you-DYE-mon-ee-ah”). The Greek word Eudaimonia (Eudaemonism) refers to a state of having a good indwelling spirit or daemon. This Greek word has been translated as happiness, pleasure, and prosperity, but is better understood as the flourishing of the individual in every area of life. Aristotle regarded individual happiness as the highest good, and eudaimonism continues throughout the history of ethics, with some philosophers building on Aristotle’s idea and some arguing against it.

The Human as Political Creature

Aristotle regarded Man is the only creature capable of abstract reasoning. Man can be said to resemble the Unmoved Mover and higher reasoning should be a first priority for humankind. The exercise of intellectual and moral capacities is essential in order for mankind to flourish as a species. However, capacities such as just action cannot be exercised outside the context of the state. The state provides everything necessary for the good life and it exists in nature exactly for this purpose. Aristotle teaches that the state accords with human nature. He writes that “that the state belongs to the class of objects which exist by nature” (Politics I. 2). For Aristotle, humans will always live in relationship to the state because human beings are essentially political creatures.

This leads Aristotle to speak of the state as something supremely superior to the individual, as an entity with individual parts that are in themselves of little worth. He even says that the citizen belongs to the state (Politics VIII.1.) This has led to charges that Aristotle advocates totalitarianism, but that would be to miss the larger picture. Aristotle is not speaking of the restriction of citizen’s rights, but of the ontological relationship of citizen and state.  We know this is the case because, unlike Plato, he opposes censorship. Aristotle's view of the state cannot be isolated from his understanding of the human as a political creature.

Personal Happiness as the Highest Good

In Nicomachean Ethics, his chief work on ethics, Aristotle defines happiness as “an activity of the soul in accord with perfect Virtue.” For Aristotle, happiness is not a Form, but a process involving decisions about many goods.  He argues that we are motivated to pursue the good life in order to find personal happiness. Happiness is not something we arrive at, but something which accompanies certain activities and choices. Since happiness means something different for every person, there can’t be a single true Form of happiness. Aristotle’s primary argument with his teacher Plato is over this question of Forms. Aristotle doubts their existence.

For Aristotle a flourishing life consists in pleasure, honor, and virtue.  Aristotle argues that it is virtue that corrects our superficial attraction to pleasure.  He also argues that when we want honor what we really want is to deserve honor. He regards personal happiness or flourishing as worth pursuing for its own sake. Anything else that we might regard as “good” will ultimately bring us back to the goal of happiness. Aristotle believes that it is meaningless to speak of having a good life when one is unhappy or not flourishing. He is not suggesting that we behave selfishly.  In fact, achieving happiness in our lives may involve personal sacrifice at times, but if we must constantly sacrifice, we are not going to be happy.  This is what Aristotle intends by his famous statement: “No man can be happy on the rack.”

Aristotle’s “Golden Mean”

If everyone is capable of living the good life, why do we fail to do so?  Aristotle tells us that the good life requires balance, and balance is different of each person.  For example, if eating brings me happiness, I must discover through experience how eating makes me happy.  If I eat too much and become sick or uncomfortable, I have actually caused myself unhappiness. This is why Aristotle says, “People ought to behave so as to achieve happiness.”  No one can tell me exactly how to achieve personal happiness.  A 125 pound office worker and a 200 pound farmer will not find happiness by eating the same amount of food each day, because their physical needs are different.  To us this seems like common sense.  That is why Aristotle is regarded as the first great philosopher with a common sense approach to ethics.

Aristotle’s “Golden Mean” is not only about avoiding extremes, it involves discovering what is morally neutral.  We might agree that moderate drinking of alcohol and only when one intends not to drive is morally neutral.  None would agree that drinking alcohol to excess and driving drunk is morally neutral. For alcohol consumption to contribute to personal happiness a person must discover exactly how much and under what circumstances he or she can consume it. Consuming too much alcohol could leave one feeling sick, which is not a state of happiness or pleasure. Aristotle’s Golden Mean is about taking personal responsibility for one’s life and actions.

Implications of Aristotle’s Mean

In The Republic, Plato proposes that all citizens’ fundamental needs can be met by having people specialize in the kind of work for which they are naturally gifted, rather than requiring them to continue in the profession of their fathers.  He believes that the grouping of citizens into specialized functions and the prudent leadership of philosopher kings will produce a just society.  This view of justice requires that I bring my personal happiness into harmony with the best interests of others.  This involves some sacrifice.  It is difficult to achieve the golden mean for my life when I must subordinate my happiness to the general welfare of the state.  Further, since the options of a worker would be much more limited than the options of a ruler, workers would have less freedom to discover what brings them happiness.  In other words, in Plato’s ideal society it would be difficult to discover one’s golden mean because some activities would not be lawful.

Here is where we encounter one of the most significant implications of Aristotle’s golden mean for social ethics.  Plato requires that the ideal society impose censorship to protect the weak minded, and Aristotle believes that censorship hinders moral decisions by limiting people’s lawful choices.  This is consistent with Aristotle’s view that well-being consists in virtuous actions that stem from a virtuous character. A virtuous character can only be developed by making wise choices.

Plato and Aristotle hold irreconcilable views on censorship, and the question of censorship continues to be a point of disagreement even today. As we will learn in a later lesson, John Stuart Mill’s view of liberty will be closer to Aristotle’s and Thomas Hobbes’ view will be closer to Plato’s.

Stoicism

Before concluding this lesson, we must consider the influence of Zeno (333 BC - 264 BC), a student of the great Cynic Crates, and founder of Stoic philosophy. He was persuaded to the philosophical life by reading Xenophan’s description of Socrates in Memorabilia.

Zeno proposed an answer to doubts about the gods and concerns about the growing instability.  He did not accept the Cynics view that the world is fundamentally evil and that the only virtue is to find peace within oneself by rejecting worldly things. Instead he taught that everything is determined by God’s good order in the universe and that we have no power to change what happens.  Therefore whatever happens to the individual, whether good or bad, should be accepted without desire or strong emotions.  Zeno said that “man conquers the world by conquering himself.”

In the most often quoted explanation of his stoic viewpoint, Zeno wrote: “God is not separate from the world; He is the soul of the world, and each of us contains a part of the Divine Fire. All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature. In one sense, every life is in harmony with Nature, since it is such as Nature’s laws have caused it to be; but in another sense a human life is only in harmony with Nature when the individual will is directed to ends which are among those of Nature. Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature. The wicked, though perforce they obey God’s law, do so involuntarily; in the simile of Cleanthes, they are like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes. In the life of an individual man, virtue is the sole good; such things as health, happiness, possessions, are of no account. Since virtue resides in the will, everything really good or bad in a man’s life depends only upon himself. He may be poor, but what of it? He can still be virtuous. He may be sentenced to death, but he can die nobly, like Socrates. Other men have power only over externals; virtue, which alone is truly good, rests entirely with the individual. Therefore every man has perfect freedom, provided he emancipates himself from mundane desires.”

This is the basis of Stoicism, a philosophical viewpoint that had profound influence even to the first century of Christianity.

The problem with Stoicism is that it encourages indifferent acceptance of injustice by making the one true Virtue detachment from the fortunes of the world.  While it is wise to control strong emotions and to intellectually detach so as to evaluate more objectively, Stoicism does not stir one to act against injustice and to attempt to right social wrongs.

Summary

As philosophers debate the differences between Plato and Aristotle through the centuries, those differences come into focus.  Today we see Plato as the “father” of Platonism and Idealism, and Aristotle as the “father” of Empiricism, which defines reality on the basis of what can be verified through the senses, observation or experience. Here we can see the contrast between the viewpoints of Plato and Aristotle:

Plato regards evil as the lack of knowledge of the Good.

Aristotle regards evil as something people do in violation of their happiness.

Plato regards morality as intellectual discovery, similar to mathematics.

Aristotle regards morality as a dynamic exploration of what brings happiness.

Plato maintains that there is but one Good for all people at all times (Absolutism).

Aristotle says that the good life will have different expressions, since what brings happiness is different for all people (Relativism).

Plato believes that only the leisure classes who receive training in intellectual and moral virtues are capable of knowing the Good.

Aristotle believes that all people have a responsibility to discover what constitutes the good for them.

Plato believes that the ideal society requires censorship to protect the weak.

Aristotle believes that censorship hinders the individual’s moral decision making.

Plato’s ideal king is a ruler who philosophically contemplates the Forms.

Aristotle’s ideal king is one who seeks the Golden Mean in both personal and public life.

Plato doubted Socrates definition of virtue as knowledge. Socrates insisted that before we can say anything about justice we must first answer the question “What is justice?”  Plato recognized that asking what justice is only leads to considering examples of justice and examples of injustice, but examples are not the same as the justice itself. Plato wondered how we are able to recognize justice when we are unable to define it.  He concluded that an unambiguous Justice must exist in the metaphysical (non-material idea) sense, and that we must once have known justice as an unchanging “Form” or we would not be able to recognize examples of it.

Plato’s theory of Forms is based upon his belief that we are born into the material world from an ideal immaterial world where our souls were acquainted with Justice, Goodness, Beauty and Love. We are able to recognize justice, goodness, beauty and love because our souls have innate knowledge of these non-material entities. This being so, none is justified in claiming that they do not know or cannot recognize justice, goodness, beauty and love. For Plato the good life requires philosophical reflection on these Forms and taking responsibility for fulfilling one’s proper role in accordance with one's potential and nature.  He supported censorship in society because he believed that the citizen’s preoccupation with the trivial and mundane posed obstacles to philosophical contemplation of the Forms. In other words, Plato believed that there are pursuits and behaviors that can cause us to miss the good life. One such action was gossip or being a busybody. Plato wrote, “To do one’s own business and not to be a busybody is justice.” (Republic 433b.)

Aristotle rejected Plato’s definition of the good life as contemplation of the eternal Forms.  He was not convinced that Forms have a real existence. Instead he argued that what is to be known can be discovered from the study of nature. Our powers of observation and critical reasoning can bring us reliable knowledge upon which to base ethical decisions.

Aristotle did agree with Plato’s definition of virtue as knowledge, but the knowledge that mattered to Aristotle was not the knowledge of Forms, but self-knowledge of what brings one happiness or what causes one to thrive.  This is the basis for eudaimonism, an ethical approach that holds personal happiness as the highest good. This view will find different expressions in the centuries that follow, most especially in the hedonism of Renaissance humanism.

Related reading: Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt; Ethics and Archaic Communities; Plato's Just State