PAUL
CRITTENDEN
Great
Philosophers -- Their Legacy to Us
ARISTOTLE
Talk
delivered to the Blackheath Philosophy Forum on
SATURDAY 3RD MAY 2008
Paul Crittenden answering questions at the Forum
Precis
of talk on Aristotle by Emeritus Professor Paul Crittenden (University
of Sydney)
Page 1 Lecture
Notes (Précis of Lecture)
Page 9 Handout
- Guide
Page 11
Additional notes & quotes
Page 15
Further references
Aristotle's Legacy
A) Life: 1) 384-367: in Macedonia
2) 367-347: in Plato's Academy in Athens
3) 347-335: Aegean coast & Macedonia
4) 335-323: In Athens: the Lyceum 323: death of Alexander
5) 322 d. Euboea, aged 62
Writings: immense scope. Metaphysics: the desire to know
3 main
classes of knowledge: - theoretical, practical, productive sciences
A's contributions: Theoretical: Logic, Metaphysics, Physics,
Psychology,
Biology, zoology, Botany
Practical: Ethics (N & E), Politics …Economics etc
Productive: Rhetoric Poetics lost works
B) Aristotle's
Ethics: the good for human beings & how to achieve it
Nicomachean Ethics: cf. Guide - key terms, Bks I - X.
1 Focus
on the nature of a thing & its development to maturity cf.
Pol. 1,2
-'What each thing is when fully developed we call its nature,
whether we are speaking of a human being, a horse, or a family'.
The realisation
of what is best in its regard - a thing at its full pitch, Cf.
biological & developmental focus - attention to young children
and how they achieve excellence, virtue.
Common nature
of humanity: BUT with prejudices of the time:
Women relegated inferior status … Slavery … Greek superiority
… an air on occasions of aristocratic complacency
NE 1,1:
Every activity, every inquiry, every practice aims at some good
.. 'the good as 'that at which all things aim'. Many ends, and
goods… ordered? Enough to yield the qn of an overarching good,
highest good, what we aim at above all.
The good life for a human being. the concern of Political Science.
The common answer:
2 The highest
good: Eudaimonia BUT what constitutes happiness?
* lots of money * celebrity/fame * power * pleasure
* honour code (cf. Homer) * pract wisdom/ virtuous activity
* 'theoria'
Conditions (ruling out some)
complete in comparison with other ends, for its own sake, self-sufficient
Arist.: phronesis+ virtue theoria??? + enjoyment
Approach: what is characteristic of h. beings: the kind of beings
we are -
Animal species with powers of sensation, memory, imagination,
curiosity, & reason; social beings, subject to emotions,
apt at learning, living by art & reasoning. Åbove
all: capacity for theoretical reasoning and acting for reasons
Two basic
features of a good human life: * an active life of one with
logos (power of reason); * h.beings as naturally social (1097b11),
hence a life shared with others.
NE I, 7
(p.15/16)
Characteristic activity/ function: ERGON - Reasoning - leading
to focus on virtues or excellences (connected with ergon) .
[SEE GUIDE]
1095a15-8: 'If this is so, the human good turns out to be …Activity
of soul … excellence/virtue. Excellence of a thing lies in capacity
to perform its characteristic activity well cf. the excellence
of an eye, an axe …
To reason well, to act well on the basis of reasons
Cf. Guide: SOUL as FORM of Body - the body qua living: 'the
actuality of a body that has life'
Faculties/ Powers of the Soul: See NE I, 13 (1102aff): need
in ethical inquiry to study the human soul & its several
faculties …cf De Anima
Rational part: Mind or reason (Nous):
epistemic part : thought, understanding (universals)
cf. sense perception, imagination,memory
deliberative part: action
Non-rational part: appetitive element - desire & emotions:
open to reason
(cf. the WILL: voluntariness, purposive judgment, practical
reasoning).
3 Virtues:
To perform the ergon: need for excellences of character (moral
virtues) and of mind (intellectual virtues esp. phronesis) …
Virtues as conditions of the good life, not just as means. Constitutive
elements of a
good life:
a life of activity .. expressive of human powers in acc. with
reason & virtues
Note: eudaimonia depends on other things, one's time, degree
of luck (cf. Plato).
NE 2,5 (1106b6ff..):
Definition of Virtue: their field: actions and feelings, pleasures
and pains Virtue as a state involving rational choice … lying
in a mean … as determined by those with phronesis
Choice: genus- voluntary action + deliberate appetition of things
in our power … Conditions for a good choice: the reasoning must
be true and the desire right NE 3, 3 (1113a9)/ 6, 2: 1139a25
'lying in
a mean': as specific difference of virtue
Excellence concerned with (a) emotions as well as actions; (b)
likes and dislikes (pleasures and pains). NOT: a disposition
towards mean or intermediate emotions and actions - the Greek
doctrine of moderation (to which Arist subscribed in general)
but a mean or intermediate disposition: the settled state of
character as lying in a mean .. acting & feeling towards
such people, for such reasons, in such ways as proper.
Emotion
displaying Action … Choice …
displaying mean state
Excell char. Yes Yes Yes
Self-controlled NO Yes Yes
Lacking self-control NO NO (Yes)
Bad char. NO NO NO
4 Getting things right in Ethics…. (objectivity, truth …)
Aristotle NE 2,6 (1107a9-18):
'But not every action or feeling admits of a mean; because some
have names that directly connote badness, such as spite, shamelessness
and envy, and in the case of actions adultery, theft and murder.
All these, and more like them, are so called as being bad in
themselves, and not the excesses or deficiencies of them. In
their case, then, it is impossible to act rightly; one is always
in the wrong. Nor does acting rightly or wrongly in such cases
depend on circumstances - whether a man commits adultery with
the right woman or at the right time or in the right way - because
any such actions or feelings are simply wrong.'
Ethics: not an exact science like Mathematics, but more like
medicine or navigation Cf. NE II, 2 1104a: general rules only,
holding 'for the most part'.
BUT: SOME actions & feelings are always wrong, wrong tout
court.
Also: it's
the task of PHRONESIS to get to the TRUTH in matters of action:
'the truth that corresponds to right appetition' (6,2: 1139,
30).
Virtue: a disposition regulated by practical wisdom
NE 6, 13:
[Consideration shows] that it is not possible to be good in
the true sense of the word without practical wisdom, or to be
practically wise without moral virtue
Virtue:
conforms to right principle AND co-operates with it …
Cases in
which no general formula applies: 'kata ton orthon logon' ?
in acc. with the right rule: in keeping with good sense (in
the situation)
Cf. No universal
code bearing on action, how to live. Hence focus on virtue:
being a person of this kind, in a position to assess, deliberate,
choose.
5 PASSIONS: Feelings/ Emotions : as central to moral agency:
NE II, 4 (1105b25)
the virtues are states/dispositions by which we act and stand
well with reference to the passions, and hence in regard to
pleasures and pains [likes and dislikes]
A life
of virtue: under the guidance of logos or reason 'acc. to reason'
Vs. 'living by the passions' viz. in defiance of reason. BUT
the passions in his psychology as integral parts of the human
psyche: NE 3, 1(1111b):
'the irrational
passions are thought not less human than reason is, and therefore
also the actions that arise from anger or appetite are actions
of a human agent'.
Aristotle's
account of virtue: the ideal, morally mature person, Cf. 'ordinary
excellence' - most fall short: NE 2, 9:
'it is no easy task to be good … goodness is both rare and laudable
and noble'.
Favourite
image: the appetitive element 'listens to and follows' reason
as we speak of 'paying heed to a wiuse father of friend'.
But note that reason too is shaped by the emotions, shaping
the way we see situations & respond:
Practical wisdom as engaged reason. Intelligent choice: 'deliberative
desire' and 'desiderative thinking' Cf 3, 3: 1113a9 & 1139a23;b4-5
(6,.
6 HABIT-FORMATION and TEACHING: moral education/ development
NE 2, 1 (1103a15-17):
Intellectual
virtue owes both its inception and growth chiefly to teaching,
for which reason it needs time and experience, while virtue
of character (ethos) comes about as the result of habit (ethos).
The nature
vs nurture issue: moral virtues engendered neither by or contrary
to nature: we are constituted by nature to receive them, but
their full development is due to habit …
On the
other hand: in the absence of a good upbringing we will be drawn
to take pleasure in the wrong things POL 1337a1-2: art &
education seek to fill up the deficiencies of nature.
Everything depends on early education: NE 2, 1:
It makes
no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind
or another from our earliest years - it makes a vast difference,
or rather all the difference in the world (1103b23-25).
Practice
as basic to habit-formation, being got to act… :
Excellences we get by first exercising them, as happens also
in the case of the arts. For the things we have to learn before
we can do, we learn by doing; e.g. people become builders by
building and lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become
just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts,
brave by performing brave acts (1103a31ff.)
There is
an affective dimension: getting the right feelings: from carers;
But + need for a scheme of public education: 'the training in
things which are of common interest should be the same for all'
(Pol 1337a26-7).
Habit-formation:
NOT a mindless drill exercise. ALSO: teaching and guidance from
an early age … learning to make choices.
Emphasis on MUSIC in moral education, including poetry and story-telling,
as having the power to form our minds, develop our emotions,
and habituate us to true pleasures (Pol 1339a22-4).
But teaching alone:won't make a person good:
'just as
soil has to be prepared beforehand if it is to nourish the seed,
so the soul of the student has to be prepared in its habits
to enjoy right things and dislike the bad'; the person not formed
in this way won't listen to the argument or see its point. So,
'the character must somehow be there already with an affinity
to virtue, loving what is good and noble, rejecting what is
base' (1179b5-30).
7 Other
topics: Pleasure … Friendship .,. Weakness of Will … Contemplation
(theoria).
C) Contemporary
Aristotelian Ethics
1 Survey of reception of Aristotle over the centuries … neglect?
" Logic - Organon
" Metaphysics & ethics taken up by Neoplatonists: Arist.
as Platonist & Augustine
" Islamic ph'ers esp Ibn Sina from 10 C., Moses Maimonides,
12 C, then the Faculty of Arts & Theology at Paris &
Oxford. Thomas Aquinas
" Attack on Aristotle at time of reformation - Luther,
then in 17 C in science and philosophy: Copernicus, Galileo,
Descartes. Arist hegemony over: but considerable influence remained
esp in Germany and Oxford.
" Re-emergence in 19 C with Hegel, then Marx e3sp in Practical
Philosophy
" Aristotole as fundamental for Heidegger in 20 C: Gadamer,
Arendt.
2 Focus
on Aristotle's ethics in the English-speaking world:
1958: Elizabeth Anscombe "Modern Moral Philosophy' - attack
on Kantianism, Utilitarianism, emotivism broadly from a Aristotelian-Xian
standpoint. Anscombe opened up space for active thinking in
the Greek tradition … 'Virtue Ethics'
Philippa
Foot: Oxford/USA: writing on ethics since '60s: articles, book
(2001)…
Alasdair MacIntyre moral, social, pol philosophy, Marxism..
then 1981 After Virtue: critique of modern moral phil in the
Anscombe spirit as confused; & attempt to recover 'an Aristot
conception of morality & politics'
John McDowell: articles in Mind, Value & Reality (1998).
Others: Nussbaum, Hursthouse, etc etc.
3 MacIntyre's
After Virtue: moral philosophy from 18 C a failure, following
rejection of Arist tradition.
Key Qn: 'Can Arist's ethics, or something v like it .. be vindicated?'(p111)
- Arist without the blind spots of his time + an enlarged &
amended list of virtues.
2 particular concerns:
" how to keep the teleology without the metaphysical biology?
" Arist ethics as tied to the Polis - a social order vastly
different from our world.
Much of
his later writing related to these concerns - along with argument
for an important range of virtues:
TRUTH commitment as central to human wellbeing,
An enlarged conception of JUSTICE beyond market capitalism
INTEGRITY & CONSTANCY as components of every virtue.
MacIntyre:
perhaps there is no place for Arist moral and polit phil in
contemporary world? - an inclination to call for a tactical
retreat.
In this
situation what is most urgently needed is a politics of self-defence
for all those local societies that aspire to achieve some relatively
self-sufficient and independent form of participatory practice-based
community and that therefore need to protect themselves from
the corrosive effects of capitalism and the depradations of
state power. (Ethics and Politics: Selected Essays, vol. II).
Jonathan Lear in criticism of this:
If Aristotelian ethics is to remain a live tradition, one should
be able to locate it in political structures radically different
from anything Aristotle experienced or imagined (LRB, 2 Nov
2006).
What is needed: a focus on 'first' nature: 'What is about human
beings just insofar as they are human beings that makes them
excellent?' Lear points to Foot, Hursthouse & others, and
regrets that MacIntyre has not moved this way.
The criticism
fails to take account of MacIntyre's Dependent Rational Animals
.. Cf. the sub-title: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues
4 Framework around two large topics:
a) what human beings have in common with other intelligent animal
species; and
b) (b) the importance of taking account of vulnerability and
dependence.
Return to Arist view of ethics grounded in biology & develop
context.
Basic Qn:
what is needed for beings of this kind to do well, what is good
for them? Plants, animal species.. In re hum beings, Arist stressed
two things
I. A life
of activity of one with logos. 2. We are by nature social beings
Taken up
and developed by MacIntyre.
Argument:
(1) we begin in infancy 'at the beck and call of desire and
appetite
(2) to assume responsibility for our lives we need to become
independent practical reasoners - always in dependence on a
social context in which we are first cared for and taught ….
More generally,
he explores two sets of virtues or excellences as involved in
the task of becoming independent practical reasoners…
(a) Virtues
of indep practical reasoners cf. phronesis + good habits…
(b) Virtues
of acknowledged dependence: domain of giving and receiving…
p,8-9: 'both
sets of virtues are needed in order to actualize the distinctive
potentialities that are specific to the human rational animal'.
An indep
practical reasoner: one who can stand back from immed desires
and evaluate reasons for action in the light of:
A degree
of self-knowledge, knowledge of others, and the conditions for
ensuring that things go well:
This calls
for a range of intell and moral virtues: in short, practical
wisdom in conjunction with virtues such as
self-control
courage patience honesty truthfuless about ourselves
In addition,
an impt condition for becoming an indep agent with logos is
the recognition of our dependence on others:
original
dependence in childhood,
dependence on others in the complex practices of giving and
receiving
dependence in illness or disability
dependence in old age
What we
need here: the virtues of acknowledged dependence - virtues
associated with giving and receiving, with being reliable and
trustworthy
'Giving'
virtues: love generosity and justice friendliness decency sympathetic
concern esp in re distress: misericordia
'Receiving':
gratitude courtesy truthful acknowl'mt of dependence
Intellectual
virtue - practical wisdom: in general, the virtues that go with
being a good learner and reading situations.
Also: the
willingness to discuss issues with others and take advice, recognising
that may have more wisdom or insight (cf Creon in Antigone)
Arist (1112b10):
On important questions we call on others to help us in deliberation,
distrusting ourselves as not equal to deciding'.
Importance of friendship (and proper self-esteem): 'if we are
good we stand to ourselses, just as we stand to our friends,
and vice versaq (1166a1-1166b29).
Finally: what sort of social and political order would best
support the two sets of virtues?
Aristotle:
a small city-state (polis) - writing at time that Alexander
was carving out an empire and changing the world forever, without
recognising that the days of the polis were numbered.
MacIntyre's
response (as expressed in this text) is: (a) not to retreat,
but to engage in critique of the current social and political
order; and (b) to encourage developments which would strengthen
a wide variety of local communities specifically in relation
to the virtues of acknowledged dependence.
_________________________________________________________
ARISTOTLE'S LEGACY (Handout)
(a) Life & Writings: scope of his inquiries; (b) Aristotle's
Ethics; (c) Contemporary Aristotelian Ethics.
Some references:
Aristotle: Categories; On Interpretation; Prior Analytics; Metaphysics;
Physics; The Soul; On Generation & Corruption; Parts of
Animals; The Heavens; Nicomachean Ethics; Politics; Rhetoric;
Poetics; etc, etc
Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford
University Press, 2000)
Christopher Shields, Aristotle (Routledge, 2007); Philippa Foot,
Natural Goodness (Clarendon Press, 2001)
John McDowell, Mind, Value, & Reality (Harvard University
Press, 1998)
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, 1981); Dependent
Rational Animals (Duckworth, 1999)
From Parts
of Animals I, 5: Having already treated of the celestial world
as far as our conjectures could reach, we proceed to treat of
animals, without omitting, to the best of our ability, any member
of the kingdom… Even if some have no graces to charm the sense,
yet nature, which fashioned them, gives amazing pleasure in
their study to all who can trace links of causation, and are
inclined to philosophy. …Every realm of nature is marvellous;
and as Heraclitus, warming himself by the kitchen fire, reportedly
bade his hesitant visitors to enter, as even in that kitchen
divinities were present, so we should venture on the study of
every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will
reveal to us something natural and something beautiful…
Some general
terms in Aristotle's philosophy: arche: first principle (in
a body of knowledge); also: a starting point in inquiry… ; aitia:
cause/ explanatory factor; causes as fourfold: material, formal,
efficient, & (in some cases) final. (Consider a chair: made
of wood, arranged in a certain design by the carpenter, to be
sat upon …). Phusis: Nature as the sphere of change (kinesis,
genesis); see also Essence. Categories: ways of being, or: ways
of talking about being: (a) Substance; (b) properties … Substance
(ousia): (1) an individual something: a this -&-a what-it-is:
this human being, this gum tree…'The what it is': substance
in a secondary sense, viz. substance as Form: species, genus,
type, kind, sort of thing (animal, vegetable, mineral..). 'Non-substance'
categories: qualities (of things), quantities…
Essence: 'the-what-it-is-to-be X': what is stated in the definition
of a thing
Matter &
Form (hule & morphe: hylemorphism). In analysing change,
Aristotle notes that material bodies (substances) are composite
in the sense of consisting of matter organised or structured
in some way: a table consists of timber shaped thus-and-thus,
a statue is made eg, of marble in the form of a horse, an animal
consists of flesh and blood etc organised in a characteristic
way. There are thus two aspects or 'parts' of things, stuff
and structure - matter-and-form - in a logical rather than a
physical sense, hence not as separable 'bits', but as (real)
aspects of the unitary physical thing. Matter always takes some
form or other (and the form it takes may change over time).
The idea of matter in an abstract sense is: not-form, not-anything-determinate,
but what is able to take this-or-that form: matter as potentiality.
Form, in general, connotes determination, specificity, actuality
(but forms exist in things, not separately from them). In the
case of living things, the form is described as the soul (psuche).
Actuality:
energeia/ entelecheia : actuality, activity, actualisation …
Potentiality: dunamis: capacity (to do/to undergo). What a substance
is or is doing constitute its actualities, what it can be, or
can have are its potentialities. Energeia is the actualisation/exercise
of a capacity. In addition to the capacity to undergo change,
there is the capacity to effect change in oneself or in other
things: active potentiality, which is itself an actuality. In
ethical contexts energeia is also sometimes contrasted with
change or process (kinesis), indicating an activity complete
in itself: seeing is complete, cooking is a process (praxis
vs. poiesis). The actuality/potentiality couple run across just
about every every of inquiry; eg, the mind has no nature of
its own other than being a capacity of the human organism (covering
a wide range of capacities and abilities): to be speaking Mandarin
is an activity, to know Mandarin an ability, to be able to learn
Mandarin a capacity (a second-order ability: an ability to acquire
abilities). To speak of soul is to speak of a living body with
a certain range of capacities: to move, grow, reproduce, feel,
perceive, imagine, think… all psycho-logical phenomena are essentially
psycho-physical. What marks out human beings especially, Aristotle
holds, is the ability to engage in practical and theoretical
reasoning (allowing that other animals exhibit practical reasoning).
Key terms
in Aristotle's Ethics
agathos: good; arete: excellence, virtue; autarkes: self-sufficient,
independent; akrasia: lack of self-control; boulesis: deliberation;
dikaiosune: justice, integrity; epithumia: desire, appetite;
ergon: function, deed, characteristic activity; ethos: habit,
custom; ethos: character; eudaimonía: happiness, acting
well-going well, flourishing …; hedone: pleasure, delight, enjoyment;
hexis: settled state or habit; kakia: badness; kalos: fine,
noble; logos: reason; reasoning; rationality; an account; pathos:
feeling, emotion, passion poiesis: making, production; praxis:
action, conduct (purposive); sophia: wisdom; sophrosune: temperance,
self-control; techne: art, craft, skill; teleios: complete;
theoria: contemplation; phronesis: practical wisdom; prohairesis:
(intelligent) choice; psuche: soul, life-power, breath.
Outline
of Nichomachean Ethics
Book I: The good for human beings Book II: Moral goodness, moral
inquiry, virtue
Book III: Responsibility. Courage & temperance Book IV:
More moral virtues
Book V: Justice and injustice Book VI: Intellectual virtues,
esp. practical wisdom
Book VII: Weakness of Will, Pleasure Book VIII: Kinds of Friendship
Book IX: Grounds of Friendship Book X: Pleasure. The best life.
The overall
argument (= principles in ethics)
1. The supreme good for human beings (the end to be aimed at)
is eudaimonia.
2. Eudaimonia consists in a life of activity in keeping with
reason and virtue.
3. There are two basic kinds of virtue: virtues of character
(moral) and virtues of intellect.
4. Moral virtues are fixed dispositions to act and feel in the
right way …
5. The relevant intellectual virtues are (a) phronesis (practical
wisdom); (b) sophia …
6. The task of practical wisdom is to determine what to do to
achieve eudaimonia.
7. One acquires moral virtue (mainly) by habit-formation, intellectual
virtue by teaching & experience.
8. The supreme human good is as in (2) above, or (?) a contemplative
life (theoretical wisdom, sophia).
The human good (1098a15-18)
'[Given what is characteristic of human beings] the human good
turns out to be activity of the soul in accordance with virtue,
and if there are several virtues, in accordance with the best
and most complete. Again, this must be over a complete life.
For one swallow does not make a summer, nor one day.'
Moral virtue (1106b16-17; 1107a1-3, 9)
'By virtue here I mean moral virtue since it is this that is
concerned with feelings and actions …So virtue is a purposive
disposition [a state involving choice], lying in a mean relative
to us, determined by reason in the way people with practical
reason would determine it. It is a mean between two vices, one
of excess, one of deficiency … But not every action or feeling
admits of a mean …'.
Virtue as 'lying in a mean': examples
Sphere of Action
or feeling Excess Mean Deficiency
fear & confidence rashness courage cowardice
pleasure & pain licentiousnes self-control insensibility
getting and spending prodigality liberality illiberality
anger irascibility patience lack of spirit
self-expression boastfulness truthfulness understatement
social conduct obsequiousness friendliness cantankerousness
….
Six states of character (NE 7,1): heroic excellence (ordinary)
excellence self-controlled
brutish/inhumane badness (given to vice) lacking self-control
(weak)
Practical Wisdom (phronesis): ' a true and practical state involving
reason, concerned with what is good and bad for a human being
… directed to acting well. … concerned with what we can deliberate
about. … deliberating well is what characterises the practically
wise person … this is to aim at the best of goods for a human
being that are achievable in action. Nor is practical wisdom
concerned only with universals [general considerations]. An
understanding of particulars is also required, since it is practical,
& action is concerned with particulars'(Bk 6, ch5).
Phronesis is an intellectual virtue but cannot exist in separation
from the moral virtues (else it would be mere cleverness); moral
virtues at the same time need practical wisdom. Practical wisdom
involves (a) cognitive capacity bearing on general truths about
good and harm together with an eye for appreciating particular
situations and getting things right occasion by occasion (Aristotle
speaks of it as a perceptual capacity); this also incorporates
(b) having the right motivational orientation: a critical element
in 'reading' situations: 'having the right conception of the
end is, at least, a state of one's motivational propensities'
(McDowell, p.28). General knowledge in the field includes recognition
of a range of absolute prohibitions relating to behaviour incompatible
with moral virtue, but this does not yield a universal code
or set of rules. Practical wisdom is like medical skill or navigation:
there are general guidelines and things that should definitely
be done or avoided, but judgment is needed in re particular
situations.
Pleasure
(see NE Book 10 in particular). Aristotle's basic contention
is that pleasure is intrinsic to eudaimonia. So he rejects the
view that pleasure is completely bad; at the same time he criticises
the view that pleasure is precisely what the good is. Pleasure,
in his analysis, is not a process (kinesis) but activity (energeia);
more precisely, pleasure consists in a certain perfecting of
activity, the consciousness of unimpeded activity. Different
activities are differently enjoyable: 'pleasures are as diverse
as their activities'. The worth of the pleasure turns on the
activity: 'since activities differ in goodness and badness,
and some are to be chosen, some to be avoided and some neutral,
their pleasures can be classed similarly, because each activity
has a pleasure proper to it'(1175b25-8). Moral maturity involves
coming to love, enjoy, find pleasure in activity in keeping
with virtue.
(Paul Crittenden <paul.crittenden@arts.usyd.edu.au>)
Additional notes and quotes
Jonathan
Barnes, Aristotle p.1:
Aristotle died in the autumn of 322 BC. He was sixty-two and
at the height of his powers: a tireless scholar, whose scientific
explorations were as wide-ranging as his philosophical speculations
were profound; a teacher who inspired - and who continues to
inspire - generations of pupils; a controversial figure who
lived a turbulent life in a turbulent world. He bestrode antiquity
like an intellectual colossus. No-one before him had contributed
so much to learning. No- one after him could hope to rival his
achievements.
A. Kenny
on Aristotle's legacy, A New History of Western Philosophy,
vol. 1, 2004, p. 91. Summary:
- the first person whose surviving works show detailed observation
of nat phenomena in re theory
- he developed the idea of a discipline and identified and classified
different scientific disciplines ..
- the first (?) teacher to organise his lectures into courses
and place them in a syllabus
- the Lyceum is the first research institute of which we have
detailed knowledge, with investigators engaged in collaborative
inquiry and documentation
- the first to build up a research library, a systematic collection
for colleagues and posterity.
Aristotle : Background
Son of Nicomachus,
a physician, in court of King Amytas of Macedon. Died when Aristotle
was still young.
Born in Chalcide, Northern Greece, at Stagira
Married Pythias, daughter (sister?) of Hermeais 'tyrant' of
Assos c. 345(?). Daughter: Pythias.
347: Candidates for headship of the Academy: Aristotle, Speusippus,
Xenocrates…
347-343: Assos, Asian Minor, Lesbos
343: return to Macedonia, at request of King Philip. Tutor to
Alexander 2-3 years.
After death of Pythias, mid 330s?, lived with/married Herpyllis.
Son: Nicomachus
335 Return to Athens. Establishes Lyceum - his own school
Lyceum: grove of Apollo. Formally established as a 'religious'
association under Theophrastos.
323: Aristotle left Athens: a charge of impiety pending?
Writings: according Cicero: Aristotle's literary style: 'a flowing
river of gold' ….
20th Century Philosophers and Aristotelian Topics:
Heidegger,
Gadamer, Arendt ….
J.L. Austin,
'A Plea for Excuses' : Aristotle, NE, Bk3: on responsibility…
Donald Davidson
Actions and events reasons and causes akrasia: acting vs. own
own best judgment
Phil. of
Science: Physics: Time, space, motion, continuity,
Teleology
in Biology (cf. Darwin)
Natural
necessity, essences: Hilary Putnam, Saul Kripke
Categories:
Gilbert Ryle
NE &
Pol. Passages
NE 1.1
Every art and every investigation, and similarly every action
and practice, is considered to aim at some good. Hence the good
has been rightly defined as 'that at which all things aim'.
2. 6
Virtue, then, is a state/disposition involving choice, lying
in a mean relative to us, this being determined by reason in
the way in which people with practical wisdom would determine
it. It is a mean between two vices, one of excess, one of deficiency
[but not in every case…] (1106b35-1107a3)
Pol. 1.
2
What each thing is when fully developed we call its nature,
whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. (1252b32f).
NE 1. 7
If this is so, the human good turns out to be activity of the
soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are several virtues,
in accordance with the best and most complete. Again, this must
be over a complete life. For one swallow does not make a summer,
nor one day (1098a15-18).
2. 6
Let us assert then that any kind of excellence renders that
of which it is the excellence good, and makes it perform its
function well. For example, the excleence of the eye makes both
the eye and tbhe function good (because it is through the excellence
of the eye that we see well). Similarly the excellence of a
horse makes him both a fine horse and good at running and carrying
his rider and facing the enemy. If this rule holds good for
all cases, then human excellence will be the disposition that
makes one a good human being and causes one to perform one's
function well.
But not every action or feeling admits of a mean; because some
have names that directly connote badness, such as spite, shamelessness
and envy, and in the case of actions adultery, theft and murder.
All these, and more like them, are so called as being bad in
themselves, and not the excesses or deficiencies of them. In
their case, then, it is impossible to act rightly; one is always
in the wrong. Nor does acting rightly or wrongly in such cases
depend on circumstances - whether a man commits adultery with
the right woman or at the right time or in the right way - because
any such actions or feelings are simply wrong.
SOUL
For Aristotle, 'soul is the form of a natural body having life
potentially within it' (412a20-1); or as realised: 'soul is
the actuality of a body that has life' (plant or animal life).
Soul stands to body as form to matter, hence as a unity:
we do not
need to ask whether body and soul are one thing any more than
we need to ask that question about the wax and the seal imprinted
on it, or the matter of anything and that of which it is the
matter'(412b6-7).
To say that
the soul is angry is as if we were to say that it is the soul
that weaves or builds houses. It is doubtless better to avoid
saying that the soul pities or learns or thinks, and rather
say that it is the human being who does this with his soul'
(412b11-13).
The mind
can have no nature of its own, other than that of having a certain
capacity. Thus that in the soul which is called thought .. is,
before it thinks, not actually any real thing.
6.5
Practical Wisdom (phronesis): ' a true and practical state involving
reason, concerned with what is good and bad for a human being
… directed to acting well. … concerned with what we can deliberate
about. … deliberating well is what characterises the practically
wise person … this is to aim at the best of goods for a human
being that are achievable in action. Nor is practical wisdom
concerned only with universals [general considerations]. An
understanding of particulars is also required, since it is practical,
& action is concerned with particulars'(Bk 6, ch 5).
6.13: [Consideration
shows] that it is not possible to be good in the true sense
of the word without practical wisdom, or to be practically wise
without moral virtue.
3.1
the irrational passions are thought not less human than reason
is, and therefore also the actions that arise from anger or
appetite are actions of a human agent.
2.5
By dispositions I mean conditions in virtue of which we are
well or ill-disposed in respect of the feelings concerned. We
have, for instance, a bad disposition towards anger if ouur
tendency is too strong or too weak, and a good one if our tendencyt
is moderate. Similarly with other feelings.
2.9
.. it is a difficult business to be good; because in any given
case it is difficult to find the mid-point…. So too it is easy
to get angry - anyone can do that - or to give and spend money;
but to feel or act towards the right person to the right extent
at the right time for the right reason in the right way - that
is not easy, and it is not everyone can do it. Hence to do these
things well is a rare, laudable and fine achievement.
2.1
Intellectual virtue owes both its inception and growth chiefly
to teaching, for which reason it needs time and experience,
while virtue of character (ethos) comes about as the result
of habit (ethos) … (1103a15-17).
they are
engendered in us neither by or contrary to nature; we are fitted
by nature to receive them, but their full development in us
is due to habit' (1103a23-4).
'the deficiencies
of nature are what art and education seek to fill up' (Pol 1337a1-2).
It makes
no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind
or another from our earliest years - it makes a vast difference,
or rather all the difference in the world (1103b23-25).
Excellences
we get by first exercising them, as happens also in the case
of the arts. For the things we have to learn before we can do,
we learn by doing; e.g. people become builders by building and
lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing
just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by performing
brave acts (1103a31ff.)
10.8
Just as soil has to be prepared beforehand if it is to nourish
the seed, so the soul of the student has to be prepared in its
habits to enjoy right things and dislike the bad'; [the person
not formed in this way won't listen to the argument or see its
point. So,] 'the character must somehow be there already with
an affinity to virtue, loving what is good and noble, rejecting
what is base' (1179b5-30).
Further
References
Aristotle: Complete Works, translation: W.D.Ross & J. Barnes,
Oxford
Nicomachean
Ethics:
Penguin Classics: translation by J. Thompson; Introduction:
Jonathan Barnes (2004)
Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy: edited by Roger
Crisp (2006)
Greek text with English translation by H.Rackham, Wm Heinemann;
London, 1`962
The Politics
Penguin Classics: translated by T. Sinclair/ revised T. Saunders
(1992)
J.O. Urmson, 'Aristotle on Pleasure' in J.Moravcsik (ed.) Aristotle:
A Collection of Essays, MacMillan (1968)
J.O.Urmson,
'Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean', in A.O.Rorty (ed.) Essays
on Aristotle's Ethics, U. Cal Press , 1980
G.E.R. Lloyd,
Aristotelian Explorations, CUP 1996
Jonathan
Lear, Aristotle: the Desire to Understand, CUP 1988
Paul Crittenden: publications related to Aristotle ethics
Paul Crittenden,
Learning to be Moral: Philosophical Thoughts about Moral Development,
Humanities Press, New Jersey/London, 1990: see in particular
Chapter 4 'Aristotle: Reason and the Passions'
'Ethics
and Aesthetics in Aristotle's Poetics', Literature and Aesthetics,
vol. 1, 1991, pp. 15-27
'Aristotle
and the Idea of Competing Forms of Life', in Philosophical Inquiry,
International Quarterly, vol. XVIII, Winter-Spring 1996, No.1-2,
pp.88-100
'Seeking
Common Ground in Ethics', in Culture and Enlightenment: Essays
for György Markus, ed. John Grumley, Paul Crittenden, and
Pauline Johnson, Ashgate, Aldershot UK, pp.223-242, 2002
'Philosophy
and Metaphor: The Philosopher's Ambivalence' in Literature and
Aesthetics, vol. 12, July 2003, pp.27-42
'Responding
to Tragedy with Feeling', in Literature and Aesthetics, vol.
15, Number 2, 2005, 153-165
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3 May, 2008