Exotic Journeys: A Tourist's Guide to Philosophy

brought to you by Ron Yezzi

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy

Minnesota State University, Mankato

Return to Start Page

Return to History of Philosophy

© Copyright 2003, 2015, 2020 by Ron Yezzi

Aristotle 1 - Introduction, Plato and Aristotle, Reading Aristotle, Savory Info

Aristotle 2 - Aristotle's System, Ethics, Politics

Aristotle's Philosophical System

Topics

Primary Rules for Understanding Knowledge

Division of Sciences

Classification and Definition

Nature of Substances

Causes

Truth and Demonstration

God

Ethics

Politics

Primary Rules for Understanding Knowledge

1. Begin provisionally with the recognition that some things are known.

There is no way to begin from the beginning or to begin with nothing. Accordingly, some facts should be assumed; and, if the assumption is a mistake, further experience will show this. A good starting-point consists in finding out what we mean by what we already claim to know.

2. Do not seek more knowledge than the subject matter admits.

Not all subjects produce certainties. To seek more certainty than a subject matter admits is the mark of an uneducated person.

3. Attend to the three basic questions of inquiry:

a. Determining that something is, or exists, often a matter of sense perception;

b. Determining what something is, largely a matter of classification and hence definition;

c. Determining why something is, or exists, largely a matter of finding causes.

Division of Sciences

Nature of Substances

1. Primary substances (with one exception) are composed of matter and form, where matter is associated with potentiality and form with actuality.

a. Matter is undifferentiated material existence, and thus a potentiality, that takes on a form.

1) We do not encounter pure matter; so there are no purely material substances.

2) Physical bodies are enmattered forms.

3) The form actualizes the potentiality previously existing in the matter.

b. Motion is actualization of the potential, qua (as) potential.

1) That is, when a physical body moves, it takes on a new form in some way—so that an actualization of the potential of the physical body in its previous state is realized.

2) For example, a slab of marble consists of both marble as matter and the slab-shape as form; through the motion of the sculptor, that is, through the actualization of the potential in the marble, the slab takes on the form of Martin Luther King, Jr.

2. Mathematical objects--point, lines, circles, etc.--are treated in thought as if they exist separately through abstraction, although they have no separate existence in reality apart from their presence in bodies within the physical world.

3. God (the one exception) is a primary substance consisting of pure form, for God is fully actualized.

Causes (Answers to Why Questions)

1. Additional modes with respect to causes:

a. Proper (proximate) and incidental (remote) - While the sculptor chiseling is the proximate efficient cause of the statue, the sculptor's parents are a remote efficient cause of the statue.

b. Actual and potential - Before actually working on the slab of marble, the sculptor is a potential efficient cause of the statue.

2. The Proper answer (explanation) to a why question varies varies with the context in which the question is asked. So one type or mode may be more appropriate than another in different situations.

a. For example, in asking for the cause of someone's death, one appropriate answer might be "Poison" (the material cause), whereas another might be "the son's desire to inherit the estate" (the final cause).

3. All events in the world are explainable with reference to all four types of cause; so, for example, every happening has a final cause.

a. Becoming a chicken is the final cause of the egg; but that does not mean that the egg has becoming a chicken as a conscious aim. In any regular process of biological development, changes occur to realize a final result; and hence there is a final cause directing development. The egg does not develop randomly but develops toward the state of being a chicken. ― A Teleological Explanation-Yes. But, as the example shows, one has to be careful in not assigning a conscious final cause for everything.

Truth and Demonstration

1. The ideal model of theoretical knowledge consists in demonstrations--that is, syllogistic reasoning from true premisses.

a. You do not find actual demonstrations in Arisotle's theoretical sciences however.

b. So Aristotle settles for much less than the ideal nearly all the time.

2. According to the ideal model, truth with certainty can be acquired through the following process: One has immediate sensations that come to be held together through memories, which then become experiences, until we just intuit that things are a certain way--e.g. that all human beings are rational animals.

3. In the syllogism, the premises are the formal cause of the statement in the conclusion.

God

1. God is pure actuality, or form; so God is not striving to become something else.

2. God thinks on thinking, the pure actuality or form that God is, rather than being concerned with the material world and human actions.

3. God's existence as a prime mover is necessary to explain the universe although Aristotle does not see God as being the creator of the universe or as having existed at some time prior to creation of the universe. It is just that God is necessary to explain motion in the universe.

a. God is the final cause of the universe, but not in the sense of some sort of divine providence operating.

b. In so far as motions occur in the universe, they are actualizations developing toward the pure actuality, or form, that is God; so the motions of the universe are striving toward a realization of God. In that sense, God is the final cause of the universe.

4. Although God is the highest and best thing that can be known, what God is is not entirely clear from Aristotle's writings and there is some disagreement about his views.

a. God doesn’t seem to get the attention “the highest and best thing” would deserve (in terms of Christian thought).

b. One can pretty much understand Aristotle without grasping God’s existence.

Ethics

(Note: Most of the account below is taken from Ron Yezzi, Philosophical Problems: The Good Life.)

Topics

Happiness

The Good Life

The Contemplative Life

Brief Study Guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Happiness As the General Goal of the Good Life

Everyone, according to Aristotle, agrees that happiness is the goal of the good life; but they disagree about the nature of happiness. So happiness is variously associated with pleasure or wealth or fame or honor or some other goal. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he relates happiness to virtue.

The Good Life As Activity in Accordance with Virtue

1. Definition of Good in Terms of Function

To determine what good is, Aristotle asks us to consider what are the special functions of a human being. Just as we have a good carpenter when someone performs well the functions of carpentry and just as we have a good violinist when someone performs well the function of playing a violin, we have a good human being when someone performs well the functions of a human being

a. Aristotle does not dwell upon the reasons why we should determine what good is in this way; but he does point out that the association of "good" with "functioning well" is quite common in our experience and he is confident that further experience will show whether or not the association is correct.

b. When he examines the functions of a human being, Aristotle fixes upon reason as the single, differentiating function that sets human beings apart from other living things and thereby concludes that a good human being is one who uses reason well.

2. Thus human beings live a good life by achieving self-realization, that is, by actualizing their potential to reason well―a process related to both moral and intellectual virtue.

3. Intellectual Virtue

a. Activity in accordance with intellectual virtue consists in exercising reason to acquire knowledge, for example, scientific knowledge and philosophic wisdom. Although any claim that we exhibit virtue by studying physics may seem rather strange to most contemporary college students, it was not an unusual theme in ancient Greek philosophy. Aristotle has reasons for the claim―both in terms of reasoning as the proper function of a human being and in his justification of a contemplative life (to be considered later).

b. There are five intellectual virtues. Aristotle awards philosophic wisdom the highest place because it deals with what is necessarily true, never changes, and is most "divine."

1) Scientific Knowledge - a state of capacity to demonstrate through syllogisms, for example,

All human beings are rational animals

All Greeks are human beings

All Greeks are rational animals.

2) Art - a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning for example, being a good architect

3) Practical wisdom - a true and reasoned state of capacity to act with respect to what is good or bad for human beings

4) Intuitive Reason - a state of capacity to grasp the truth of first principles, for example, that all human beings are rational animals

5) Philosophic Wisdom - scientific knowledge combined with intuitive reason of the things that are "highest" by nature, for example, God's existence.

4. Moral Virtue

a. Activity in accordance with moral virtue consists in obeying a rational principle, for example, in exhibiting courage or temperance.

b. Technically, moral virtue is a state of character, concerned with choice, lying in a mean, that is, a mean relative to us, determined by a rational principle and by that rational principle that a person of practical wisdom would use

c. To explain: Moral virtues include courage, proper pride, liberality, and temperance among others. Each lies in a mean between two extremes, a vice of excess and a vice of defect. For example, courage lies between rashness and cowardice. Note that virtue lies in a mean for each feeling or action. Where the mean lies can vary with the circumstances of the situation―that is, the mean does not always lie precisely in the middle between the extremes. For example, good-temper may require that we lean toward irascibility in some cases, and extreme mildness in others. So, on the one hand, we may be quite mild toward an elderly woman who carelessly causes an auto accident and is obviously emotionally upset; on the other hand, we may act irascibly toward a twenty-year old college student who aggressively "runs a stop sign" and then becomes belligerent about taking blame for the subsequent accident. In any situation, there is one best way to act. To know what this one best way is, however―in other words, to know precisely where the mean lies―requires a rational principle, that is, a principle determined by reasoning. According to Aristotle, this rational principle should be the one that a "person of practical wisdom" would use.

d. Aristotle presumes that some persons of practical wisdom usually exist and that we can recognize them. (See the definition of practical wisdom among the intellectual virtues.) It is the mark of persons of practical wisdom that they make the right decision in the right place at the right time, for the right reason, and with the right character.

e. Note that it is not enough to make the right decision. One must also do it for the right reason and with the right character in order to exhibit practical wisdom and act virtuously. Thus, for example, the person who is temperate out of fear of what other people will say is acting rightly, but not virtuously.

f. Since persons of practical wisdom are able to make judgments in many different situations, they must have a considerable amount of experience first. For this reason, Aristotle is skeptical about claims to practical wisdom by young people―although he grants that experience is not simply a matter of age. So he does not assert that an older person is always more experienced than a younger person. When it comes to matters of sound judgment, Aristotle prefers someone in middle age.

Moral Virtue

5. Moral Virtue As a Mean: A Qualification

Although moral virtue lies as a mean between extremes, there is not a mean for every action because some actions are simply wrong. Aristotle says,

But it is not all actions nor all passions that admit of moderation [a mean]; there are some whose very names imply badness, as malevolence, shamelessness, envy, and among acts, adultery, theft, murder. These and all other like things are blamed as being bad in themselves, and not merely in their excess or deficiency. It is impossible therefore ever to go right in them; they are always wrong: rightness and wrongness in such things (e.g. in adultery) does not depend upon whether it is the right person and occasion and manner, but he mere doing of any one of them is wrong.

It would be equally absurd to look for moderation [a mean] or excess or deficiency in unjust cowardly or profligate conduct; . . . (Nicomachean Ethics, Bk II, Ch. 6)

The Contemplative Life

A life in accordance with moral virtue is quite appropriate to the human condition, since we are so often concerned with emotions and actions. For Aristotle, however, the most satisfactory life comes through contemplation. Human beings are too variable and imperfect for the highest virtue to be achieved in dealing with human emotions and actions. According to Aristotle, we associate a supremely happy person with nobility, greatness, self-sufficiency, and leisureliness. But what can be more noble or greater than contemplation of the highest truths? What can be greater or more noble or more self-sufficient than knowledge loved for its own sake, apart from the practical uses to which it may be put? What can be more self--sufficient than contemplation, which we can engage in even while alone? And what can be a more leisurely activity than the pursuit of knowledge? By these measures, intellectual virtue is superior to moral virtue. (And the study of physics or astronomy can be a virtuous activity.)

1. A Noteworthy Qualification

This stress on intellectual virtue should not blind us, however, to the practical side of Aristotle's position, which includes a wealth of commonsense wisdom.

a. His insistence upon moral virtue as a mean between extremes leads to rejection of extreme asceticism and self-effacement regardless whether they occur as insensibility, undue humility, inirascibility, mock-modesty, or bashfulness.

b. Where the mean lies varies to some degree according to particular circumstances. And some actions are simply wrong without there being a mean for them.

c. Moral virtues do not spring up within us suddenly or through study; rather, they develop gradually through the formation of good habits of action.

d. For an action to be truly virtuous, it must be done with the right character and for the right reason.

e. Living well stands in need of both friendship and justice.

f. We cannot be completely happy without some amount of good fortune-such as prosperity, physical attractiveness, friends, birth into a good family, and good children.

g. Happiness is achieved "in a complete life," not in a day or a short period of time.

h. Since we cannot work continuously, we need relaxation and we often get it through pleasant amusements.

i. The good person seeks out the right pleasures, whereas the bad person seeks out the wrong ones.

j. Aristotle insists that it is foolish to expect the same certainty in ethics that is achievable in mathematics.

k. Moreover, we cannot expect to make everyone virtuous through intellectual arguments, since most people govern themselves more by fear than intellectual argument. "Surely it is impossible, or at least very difficult, to remove by any argument what has long been ingrained in the character. For my part, I think we must be well content if we can get some modicum [tincture] of virtue when all the circumstances are present that seem to make men good" (Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, Ch. 9). Given this situation of human imperfection, a society, in Aristotle's view, needs good laws that habituate its members to act rightly when possible and force them to act rightly when necessary.

Brief Study Guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

sgnicomacheanethics1a.pdf

Politics

(Note: Most of the account below is taken from Ron Yezzi, Directing Human Actions: Five Basic Ethical Issues.)

Topics

Justice

The State

Revolutions

Moderation, Compromise, and Accommodation

Justice

1. Differences with Plato

a. In contrast with Plato who interweaves the issue of justice with a grand design for the integration of knowledge, the individual, and society, Aristotle takes a typically more particular, more mundane approach to the issue. This is not to say that Aristotle regards justice as being unimportant for, in some sense, justice is the most complete among the virtues. Moreover, “justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society” (Politics, 1253a37-39)— at least in any political society organized to serve the common interest.

b. But Aristotle does not locate justice within the grand design of Plato's ideal state. For example, Plato's identification of the rulers' happiness with the best interests of the state is contrary to a human being's natural inclination toward self-interest, according to Aristotle, and the attempt to suppress or deny this natural inclination very likely leads to a lessening in interest or commitment by a person. Aristotle thinks that political society must rest on some common or “middle” ground between excessive self--interest, that is, selfishness, and excessive unity or harmony based upon the sharing of everything for the good of the whole.

2. Justice as Fairness and Lawfulness

Aristotle associates justice with “fairness” and “lawfulness,” with fairness being the more basic term. What is fair is always lawful; but what is lawful is not always fair. For example, a law may be stated so generally that it leads to unfair treatment in a particular set of circumstances―in which case, hopefully, an equitable person steps in to rectify the injustice.

a. Consider this case: As generally stated, a law guarantees persons the right to transfer their estate after their deaths through a legally constituted will: it happens, however, that a particular person, through a family misunderstanding, wills an entire estate to one favored child; although the transfer of the estate is lawful, it may well be unfair—in which case, hopefully, the favored child is an equitable person who shares the estate voluntarily with the other children.

b. The association of justice with lawfulness may seem highly questionable to those who have witnessed the legal excesses of a state such as Nazi Germany. We should remember however that Aristotle makes this association with the presumption that law must be the basis for order in a political society and that service to the common interest can be its underlying principle of organization. From this standpoint, the lesson of Nazi Germany is the need to establish a society serving the common interest rather than a dissociation of justice from lawfulness.

3. Types of Justice

Given that the just is the lawful and fair, it applies to three spheres—the distribution of honors and material goods in a society, judgments in civil and criminal cases, and exchange in business transactions.

a. Distributive justice requires that honors, material goods, or any other limited resources in a society be distributed proportionately according to merit. Its jurisdiction includes, for example, the distribution of political power, public offices, government services, tax burdens, wealth, and awards—although Aristotle grants that differences may well arise over what constitutes merit.

b. Remedial justice requires that any unfair inequality in transactions among persons be restored to a state of equilibrium. Depending upon circumstances, the transactions can be voluntary or involuntary.

1) Voluntary transactions include sales, loans, puchases, deposits of money or securities, rentals, and hiring. Deceit, for example, in these transactions would

require restoration of equilibrium.

2) Involuntary transactions may be done secretly or violently.

a) Secret actions include, for example, theft, adultery, poisoning, bearing false witness behind someone's back.

b) Violent actions include, for example, assault, imprisonment, murder, violent robbery, public defamation or character-smearing.

4. Rejection of "An Eye for An Eye, A Tooth for a Tooth"

Aristotle rejects the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” in achieving remedial justice. What constitutes a restoration of equilibrium is more complicated than that and requires a judge to determine the proper rectification according to the particular circumstances.

a. We might consider the following example: Suppose that a wealthy, single man, seventy years old, murders a thirty-year old mother raising three children; according to the the principle, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” execution of the murderer would accomplish remedial justice; but we would not really believe that a restoration of equilibrium truly occurred.

b. Although such a principle of reciprocity is inadequate with respect to remedial justice, Aristotle does think that proportionate reciprocity, using money as the standard of measurement, should be the underlying principle in mutual business exchanges. For example, farmers have surplus food but need clothing; they want an exchange where the worth of clothing received is equal to the worth of food given; and they rely upon money as a measurement of what constitutes a fair exchange. The task of determining what constitutes a fair exchange is a matter of proportionately reciprocal justice. The relative need for goods and services, not simply supply and demand, should determine monetary worth, according to Aristotle.

5. Justice and Equality

Besides fairness and lawfulness, Aristotle also associates justice with equality, in either of two senses. Justice may mean (1) strict numerical equality, for example, “one person, one vote;” or it may mean (2) equal opportunity to be judged according to merit or deserts, for example, the best qualified person holding office.

a. With respect to political power, Aristotle prefers sense (2), in theory; however, he accepts a combination of (1) and (2) as a reasonable compromise, in practice. Why this is so becomes clear in his treatment of different forms of government.

The State

1. Nature of the State

a. For Aristotle, a political society or state is not merely an aggregate of individuals; rather it is a largely self-sufficient community arising because of the bare necessities of life and continuing for the sake of a good life, common to all its members.

b. In so far as the state is a proper extension of simpler social relationships, such as the family, for the purpose of providing necessities and achieving a good life, it is a natural, not an artificial, entity; and in so far as individual persons are not entirely self-sufficient in themselves, human beings are by nature political animals.

2. The State and the Individual

To achieve the good life or happiness or a life in accordance with virtue, individuals need the support' of the state. Hence, for Aristotle, there is no necessary antagonism between the individual and the state. Antagonism only arises when the state is organized to serve private interests rather than the common interest. Indeed, the distinction between common and private interests separates true forms of government from perverted ones.

3. Forms of Government

a. True forms of government are organized to serve the common interest and are characterized by the presence of just laws as well as by obedience to, and respect for, the laws. Broadly speaking, Aristotle lists three true forms: (1) Monarchy, or rule by one best person; (2) Aristocracy, or rule by the few best persons; and (3) Polity, or rule by the many with the few best persons holding the highest offices.

Aristotle's Forms of Government

b. According to circumstances, a particular form will be most appropriate.

c. In theory, Aristotle prefers monarchy and aristocracy as the best forms of government since the best persons possess the ruling power; in practice however, he recommends polity as being most appropriate to most states.

1) The attractiveness of a polity consists in its preserving key features of aristocracy while also achieving greater harmony by allowing participation in government by greater numbers of people, for example, by allowing them to vote for officeholders or to serve on juries. Since average persons lack the wisdom and virtue of a truly aristocratic person, comparatively speaking, Aristotle has much less confidence in the judgment of the average person; accordingly, he wants to reserve the highest political offices for superior persons. He has, however, much greater confidence in the collective judgment

of a large number of average persons--which provides the justification for the compromise that constitutes a polity.

2) Two requirements, in particular, are crucial for a polity: (1) a sizable middle class and (2) respect for, and obedience to, laws. A state dominated by classes at the extremes, whether the wealthy or the poor, tends to be unstable with constant plotting by one class against the other and with the placing of class interests over the common interest. The wealthy tend to be arrogant, overly ambitious for political power, and unwilling to submit to authority; the poor tend to be envious, covetous of their neighbor's goods, and overcome by feelings of inferiority. As an antidote to these extremes so likely to produ

a perverted form of government, Aristotle favors dominance by a large middle class—whose members are equal and similar enough to cooperate together in friendship and harmony, while avoiding the uglier tendencies of the very wealthy and the very poor. With respect to laws, Aristotle is convinced that just laws, that is, ones designed to serve the common interest, are essential to any true form of government “for man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all” (Politics, 1253a31-33). It is a lack of respect for, and obedience to, just laws that leads to concern with private interests and perverted forms of government. For example, the worst form of democracy occurs when the people place themselves above the law and change the laws at will in popular assemblies. Although Aristotle grants the need to alter the laws at times, he advocates caution because too frequent changes in the laws lower people's respect and obedience. It may even be advisable to retain a law

with minor imperfections than to improve it at the expense of lessening people's obedience and respect.

d. Each true form of government has a corresponding perverted form: for monarchy, it is tyranny; for aristocracy, oligarchy; and for polity, democracy. Perverted forms of government are organized to serve private interests—whether the tyrant, the wealthy, or the poor—and are characterized by unjust laws unlikely, in themselves, to command respect or obedience. Of the perverted forms, tyranny is the worst, and democracy the most tolerable.

1) We should note, in passing, that Aristotle's use of the term “democracy” does not entirely coincide with present-day terminology, since we may well regard polity as a form of democracy.

2) While Aristotle clearly favors the true forms of government, he is realistic enough to recognize that we must sometimes do the best we can within one of the perverted forms.

e. Aristotle does not use his analysis of true forms of government as a starting-point for advocating overthrow of the perverted forms. He is much more concerned with preserving political stability than causing revolutions. Accordingly, with respect to perverted forms of government, he advises more moderation on the part of those in political power so as to serve the common interest better and to institute more just laws. Since he regards a sense of injustice to be the root of revolutions, Aristotle analyzes the causes of this sense of injustice as a warning to those holding political power.

Revolutions

The foremost general cause of revolutions is claimed injustice because of inequality. The masses demand a strict numerical equality with everyone else, while the privileged demand equal opportunity to hold superior positions to the masses by reason of their greater merit. The sense of injustice becomes especially exaggerated when the democratically-minded presume that they should be equal with everyone else in everything because they are born free persons or when the oligarchically-minded presume that they should be superior to the masses in everything because they possess greater wealth. A sizable middle class is probably the best protection against these exaggerated senses of injustice.

Moderation, Compromise, and Accommodation

In general, moderation, compromise, and accommodation are the “touchstones” of Aristotle's political philosophy, because they provide the means by which we can serve the common interest and achieve justice. Excess is the common enemy whether the issue is wealth, poverty, self-interest, altruism, equality, inequality, or power. His confidence in a sizable middle class as well as his distaste for revolutions serve to etch more deeply his interest in the avoidance of excess.

Some of My Sources

Classes of Prof. G.K. Plochmann at Southern Illinois University, 1961-1965

Richard McKeon, ed. The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random House, 1941.

Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Greece & Rome (New York: Image Books, 1962), Pts. I & II.

Newton P. Stallknecht and Robert S. Brumbaugh, The Spirit of Western Philosophy (New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1950).

W. D. Ross, Aristotle's Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924), 2 vols.

_______, Aristotle's Physicss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936).

_______, Aristotle: A Complete Exposition of His Works and Thought (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1959).

John Herman Randall, Jr., Aristotle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960).

Ronald Yezzi, The Application of Mathematics to Physics: Four Theories (Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation, 1968).

Return to Start Page