CH. 5 Aristotle: Reason and Nature

Question 1

Aristotle: Reason and Nature

Answer 1

Chapter Objectives:

Life of Aristotle:

• Connections to Plato, Alexander, and the Lyceum.

Logic, Knowledge, and Truth:

• Explain how Aristotle and Plato differ in their views on sense experience, the everyday world, and the acquisition of knowledge.
• Define deductive argument, valid, invalid, syllogism, demonstration, and necessary truth.
• How the primary premises or axioms of science can be known.

Physics and Metaphysics:

• Understand Aristotle’s concepts of substance, change, and cause.
• Form, material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause.
• Notion of purpose and teleology in nature.
• Aristotle’s reasoning that leads him to believe in an Unmoved Mover.​

Happiness, Virtue, and the Good:

• Virtue, instrumental good, and intrinsic good.
• Explain Aristotle’s line of reasoning in determining the highest good for a human being.
• How Aristotle defines happiness and the good life.
• Aristotle identifies specific virtues and vices.
• Aristotle’s concept of soul and how it differs from Plato’s.

Aristotle’s soaring achievements in numerous fields, his massive output of philosophical masterpieces, and his immense influence down through the ages do seem to verge on the incredible. Fortunately, it’s all real.

• He laid the foundation stones for several disciplines that now make up the curriculum of the modern university
• He wrote treatises on zoology, biology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, anatomy, music, theology, mathematics, sociology, history of thought, law, ethics, politics, language, rhetoric, and the arts.
  
  • For many of these, he produced the first systematic analysis and exposition, and in some subject areas, his writings are still the best introduction available.

Aristotle also invented formal logic.

• The influence of his logic can be traced to modern applications, the most important being computer science.
• Aristotle’s philosophical and literary output seems all the more astonishing when we consider that most of his works are now lost, with only thirty-one surviving, and these alone are impressively voluminous.

Most valuable in Aristotle’s works:

• His systematic and logical ways of clarifying, analyzing, and answering philosophical questions.
• His arguments, even when they arrive at wrong conclusions, are often provocative and revealing.

Question 2

The Life of Aristotle

Answer 2

THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE – In 384 BCE Aristotle was born in the small town of Stagira in Macedonia (now northeastern Greece), the son of a physician, Nicomachus, who served the Macedonian king.

• At age seventeen or eighteen, he entered Plato’s famous Academy in Athens and remained there for twenty years.
• Aristotle loved and admired Plato, but during his career he also sometimes departed from the master’s doctrines, putting forth his own theories and critiquing Plato’s. On this point he is thought to have said that he cherishes Plato but cherishes the truth more.
• In 343 or 342 BCE, Philip, the king of Macedonia, offered Aristotle a tutoring job in Pella, the capital of the Macedonian kingdom. The student was none other than the king’s son, thirteen-year-old Alexander, later known as Alexander the Great. This position probably lasted two or three years.
  
  • Within six or seven years Alexander was crowned ruler, and he began his quest to conquer the known world.
• In 335 BCE, after being away from Athens for twelve years, Aristotle returned to found a school of philosophy and science called the LYCEUM.
• His wife, Pythias, died and Aristotle formed a relationship with another woman, Herpyllis, who gave him a son, NICOMACHUS.
• Under Alexander’s leadership Macedonia was exerting considerable influence over Athens, a trend that many Athenians resented. In 323 BCE, after the death of Alexander, Athens revolted against Macedonian domination, and Aristotle became an object of suspicion because of his ties to Macedonia. Athenians soon charged him with impiety, as they had Socrates, but Aristotle left Athens before they could act against him. Aristotle, being well aware of what Athenians had done to Socrates, is supposed to have said that he would not allow Athens to “sin twice against philosophy.” So he went into exile in the town of Chalcis on the Aegean island of Euboea. A year later, at the age of sixty-two, he died there.

Question 3

Logic, Knowledge, and Truth

Answer 3

LOGIC, KNOWLEDGE, and TRUTH:

How do Aristotle and Plato differ in their attitudes toward SENSE EXPERIENCE?:

• PLATO declares the truly real is the independently existing Forms, and these eternal objects are more real than anything detected by our senses.
  
  • Plato is the original, through-and-through RATIONALIST.
• ARISTOTLE, however, is not. He believes that knowledge is possible, that we can grasp objective truths about reality, but that our knowing begins with sense experience.
• For PLATO, everything in the everyday world fell far short of the standards set by the ideal Forms.
  
  • The philosopher’s job was to convince people of this and persuade them to transcend this world and embrace the Forms.
• ARISTOTLE, by contrast, was an optimist. Here is Aristotle explaining that our sense experience gives us the raw materials for reliable knowledge:
  
  • ​ARISTOTLE: METAPHYSICS – All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves.…the human race lives also by art [practical and creative action] and reasonings. And from memory, experience is produced in men; for many memories of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a single experience.… [S]cience and art come to men through experience.… Again, we do not regard any of the senses as wisdom; yet surely these give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars.

​But how exactly do the raw data of our senses lead to knowledge?:

• Both Plato and Aristotle believed that we possess knowledge when we have a true belief supported by reasons.
• But Aristotle went one step further, inventing LOGIC – the study of correct reasoning – to clarify and systematize our acquisition of knowledge.
  
  • Specifically, he creates the first system of DEDUCTIVE INFERENCE – or argument.
    
    • ARGUMENT – a group of statements in which one of them (the conclusion) is supported by the others (the premises).
• DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENT – Is intended to provide logically conclusive support for its conclusion so that if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.
  
  • If a DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENT succeeds in providing logically conclusive support then it is VALID.
    
    • If it fails to give such support, then it is INVALID.
• NOTE: Though Aristotle developed principles of logic to facilitate the search for knowledge in the sciences, Modern logicians have shown that it does not go far enough – that there are more forms of deductive inference than Aristotle realized.

ARISTOTLE’S LOGIC:

• ​SYLLOGISM – A form of DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENT comprised of three statements in which two premises support a conclusion.
  
  • Takes the form:
    
    • All A are B.
    • All B are C.
    • Therefore, all A are C.
      
      • ​EX:
        
        1. All dogs are animals.
        2. All animals are mortal.
        3. Therefore, all dogs are mortal.
• Each statement has both a subject term and a predicate term.
  
  • SUBJECT TERM – is what the statement is about
    
    • EX: the SUBJECT TERM in “all dogs are animals” is dogs.
  • PREDICATE TERM – refers back to the subject.
    
    • EX: the PREDICATE TERM in “all dogs are animals” is animals.
• TERMS – Words that name classes, or categories.
  
  • ​EX:“Dogs” is a term that names the thing we know as a dog.
• Aristotle realized that it is an argument’s inner structure that determines whether it is valid.
• Notice that the above syllogism is VALID because if all A are B, and all B are C, it must be the case that all A are C.
  
  • The form of the argument requires the conclusion to follow inexorably from the premises, otherwise, it is INVALID.

What is the relationship between truth and validity in a deductive argument? Can a valid argument have false premises?:

• But the TRUTH of the premises is entirely UNRELATED to VALIDITY.
  
  • We can plug any terms we want into our syllogism, and insert either true or false statements—and the argument would remain VALID as long as the structure A => B, and B=>C, so A=>C.
    
    • ​EX:
      
      • ​All shirts are blue
      • All things blue are fish
      • All shirts are fish
    • This is a VALID, though false, argument.

Aristotle thought all the important statements found in science could be reduced to just FOUR PATTERNS—usually written like this:

1. All S are P
2. No S are P
3. Some S are P
4. Some S are not P.

• By inserting various combinations of these four statements into syllogistic form, we get 256 distinct valid and invalid arguments (only fourteen are valid).
  
  • Together they constitute the entirety of possible arguments to use or avoid. With the syllogism and these four statement patterns, Aristotle believes he has found the tools he needs to acquire and systematize all scientific knowledge.
• But the truth of the premises is entirely unrelated to validity. We can plug any terms we want into our syllogism, and insert either true or false statements—and the argument would remain valid.
• To him, SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE (what he calls EPISTEME) is not so much knowing that something is true, but knowing WHY it is true – knowing the explanation for a phenomenon.
• He holds that the perfect vehicle for acquiring such knowledge is the SYLLOGISM because its premises provide the explanation or reason for the conclusion.
  
  • If the premises are TRUE, AND the form is VALID, the conclusion will state a scientific truth.
    
    • Thus Aristotle’s logic allows us to evaluate whether a proposed explanation for a phenomenon is correct.
    • EX:
      
      1. ​​The planets are near (to the Earth).
      2. Near celestial bodies do not twinkle (as the stars do).
      3. Therefore, the planets do not twinkle.
• The SYLLOGISM is a PROOF, much like a proof in mathematics – where the conclusion is derived from the premises.
  
  • Such a proof is called a DEMONSTRATION because it shows what the conclusion is based on (true premises) and that the conclusion follows deductively.
    • To say a statement is DEMONSTRABLE (can be DEMONSTRATED) is to say it is derived logically from legitimate starting points.
      
      • To say it is not demonstrable is to say it cannot be derived that way.
• Aristotle also insists that all the statements in his syllogism be NECESSAROLY TRUE – that is, they must be the kind of statements that could not have been false.
• Science is made up of logical sequences of necessarily true explanations from which are derived necessarily true claims about the world.

Is “George is taller than Mary” necessarily true? Why or why not?:

• NOTE – It’s not “necessarily true” because there are other possible outcomes that could be true. – TB
• Not every statement is demonstrable.
• The issue is that we know that necessarily true conclusions are supposed to be based on necessarily true premises.
  
  • But how do we know that the premises are necessarily true without presenting a proof, something that would require a proof of its own, and on and on forever – what gives us reason to believe that the premises are true?
  • The conclusion, in other words, is the result of a proof. That gives us reason to believe it. But what are the premises based on? Where is their proof?
    
    • It won’t do to say a premise must be deduced from other premises, from another proof. If that’s the case, the sequence of deductions would go on forever.
• To solve this problem, Aristotle admits that it’s not possible to supply a proof for everything – that the primary premises or axioms of science can be known intuitively by an immediate apprehension of the mind.
  
  • These axioms are fundamental and grasped directly without the help of intervening statements and inferences.

ARISTTOTLE LAID THE FOUNDATION OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

• His most important contributions to contemporary science.
• Terminology of the Lyceum provided the medium within which philosophy and science developed.
  
  • SCIENTIFIC EMPIRICISM—the idea that abstract argument must be subordinate to factual evidence,
    
    • it is largely due to Aristotle that we understand science to be an empirical pursuit.

Question 4

Physics and Metaphysics

Answer 4

PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS:

• The first philosophers tried to plumb the deepest waters of METAPHYSICS (the study of reality in the broadest sense).
• Aristotle was well aware of their thinking and set out to critically examine their theories, which he mostly found wanting. He also countered their views with theories of his own—clearer, more insightful, more sophisticated theories.

SUBSTANCE:

• The most important question in metaphysics is:
  
  • What is being?:
    
    • ​What is real? What fundamental realities exist? What is it that underlies everything that is? What basic existing things do all other things depend on for their existence?
    • To Aristotle, the answer that all these questions are looking for is substance.
• Aristotle: Metaphysics:
  
  • ​To ‘BE’ – In one sense the ‘being’ meant is ‘what a thing is’
    
    • EX: NOTE – A bee or a chair. TJB
  • In another sense it means a quality or quantity:
    
    • EX: NOTE – Angry or numerous. An example of what it means “to be” combined.
      
      • “The bee is angry”
      • Tne bee is a “bee” (what a thing is)
      • The bee is also angry (a quality)
      • So the bee is BOTH a “bee” and also “angry” –TJB
  • While ‘being’ has all these senses, obviously that which ‘is’ PRIMARILY is the ‘WHAT’, which indicates the SUBSTANCE of the thing.
    
    • In other words, the most important sense of “IS” (The PRIMARY “IS”) is the sense that answers the question of “WHAT is it?”.
  • And so, if something IS walking or IS healthy or IS sitting – this sense of IS depends on the PRIMARY IS – the thing it refers to – an existing thing. And it is only this PRIMARY IS that exists on its own and refers to nothing else, and needs nothing else to have meaning. And so this PRIMARY IS = SUBSTANCE.
• NOTE – So the PRIMARY way of “BEING” refers to “WHAT A THING IS” (EX: a God, a person, a book), while the 2^nd sense of the word “to be” is really a description or quality of a thing that is “being”.
  
  • And the Quality sense of “being” ​cannot exist** **independently from the thing that is “being”.
    
    • So it is the PRIMARY** way of being that is the **SUBSTANCE! – TJB
• The PRIMARY IS is seen to be more real because there is something definite which underlies it (i.e. the SUBSTANCE or individual).
  
  • Therefore that which is PRIMARILY (i.e. not in a qualified sense but without qualification), must be SUBSTANCE.
• In the definition of any term, the definition of its substance must be present.
  
  • We think we know a thing most fully, when we know what it is, e.g. what man is or what fire is, rather than when we know its quality, its quantity, or its place.
    
    • NOTE –In essence, when looking at the who, what, where, when, how – all those are dependent on WHAT.
    • We must know WHAT before any of the other questions of “being” make any sense. – TJB
• Aristotle wondered what would a scientist study if she thinks reality consists of nothing but numbers, or prime matter without any characteristics, or Plato’s transcendent Forms?
  • NOTE – This is a primary difference between Plato, who believed that true knowledge can only be gained independent of the senses (and outside the physical world), and Aristotle, who believed that knowledge at least, begins with sensory input.– TJB
  • NOTE–Aristotle seemed to believe that knowledge might be something that could show us that the world we sense is not a delusion. – TJB

ARISTOTLE: METAPHYSICS:

• Plato posited three kinds of substance 1)Forms, the Objects of mathematics, and Substance of sensible bodies (bodies that can sense their surroundings).
• Speusippus made still more kinds of substance, The One,** One for **numbers**, for **spatial magnitudes**, and for the **soul.
• PROPOSITIONS (things you propose) state something about a subject, indicating that it is of a certain quality, quantity, size, shape, or some other characteristic.
  
  • These characterizations, or PREDICATES, tell us about the subject – but they are meaningless unless we know WHAT subject is being referred to.
    
    • What we most need to know is an answer to this question: What is it? The answer to this question is what identifies the substance.
• SUBSTANCE – “is that which is not predicated of a subject, but of which all else is predicated.” SUBSTANCE is that which fundamentally is; everything else is reliant upon it.

Why does Aristotle reject the “pincushion” view of substance?

• Does this mean substance is like a pincushion, a blank substratum that is merely the bearer of properties (pins)?
• Aristotle says absolutely not. What happens when all the pins are taken out of the pincushion when all the properties are removed? If anything remains at all, it would be without any features and entirely beyond meaning.

“PRIME MATTER”

• Aristotle asserts that a nebulous nothing cannot be substance, and he rejects the notion that we can have no knowledge of the fundamental underlayment of reality.
  
  • If featureless matter cannot constitute substance, perhaps FORM (meaning the shape) can (not to be confused with Plato’s Forms). –
    
    • When Aristotle talks about FORM in this sense, he is NOT talking about PLATO’s FORMS, he is referring to the shape, pattern, or function of material stuff.
• EX: The matter of a bronze statue is the bronze; the form is the shape imparted to the bronze by the sculptor.
  
  • But FORM alone cannot alone be substance, the primary being of the world.
  • Instead, a COMBINATION of FORM and MATTER can constitute SUBSTANCE with form being the essential element that makes matter more than amorphous stuff.
    
    • Matter without form and form without matter (like Plato’s Forms) are equally improbable.
• The sort of FORM Aristotle has in mind, however, goes deeper than mere shape or pattern. His kind of form is the essence of a thing. ESSENCE is its nature—the features without which it could not be what it is.
  
  • A dog’s features can vary in many ways (hair color, breed, weight, etc.), and he will still be a dog as long as his ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS (the features that make him a dog) remain.
  • For Aristotle, then, MATTER plus FORM-AS-ESSENCE equals SUBSTANCE:
    
    • EX: Why are these materials a house? Because that which was the essence of a house is present.
• Therefore what we seek is the CAUSE, that is, the form, by reason of which the matter is some definite thing; and this is the substance of the thing.
  
  • In other words, what is the CAUSE of the matter being a definite thing because the matter is non substance on its own.

CHANGE:

• Early philosophers held that apparent changes in the world are illusions. Aristotle disagreed. He said that if those who deny the possibility of change are right, there can be no need and no reason for science, the empirical enterprise that Aristotle tries so hard to establish.
• Change deniers backed their position with a simple argument: Either change is (1) a transition from something to that same something or (2) a transition from nothing to something. If (1), then no real change takes place. If (2), then the something would arise out of nothing, which is absurd. Change, therefore, is not possible.
  
  • Aristotle debunks this view and sets out to show that change is not only possible but commonplace. In the process, he produced the West’s first plausible analysis of change.
• He begins: When a thing changes, there is always something that continues, that persists through the process. Something is different, and something is not.
  
  • Three components to every change:
    
    1. subject of change (that which persists through the change);
    2. pre-change situation (before modification); and
    3. post-change situation (after modification).
• It’s the SUBJECT OF CHANGE that is the key to explaining how an object of change can change while not changing.
  
  • Aristotle says that whether the change is an alteration of a thing’s properties or the coming to be of a new thing, “there must be something underlying” the process. There is either a persisting thing whose properties change or a thing out of which a new thing arises.
• Matter and Form, Aristotle says, change works like this: When a new thing arises (as when gold is shaped into a statue), the persisting element is the matter (the gold) from which the statue is fashioned. Substance comes into being, a new blend of matter and form.
  
  • When a thing undergoes a change of minor properties (as when a man dyes his hair red), the persisting element is the substance man, which experiences a change in nonessential properties, an alteration in matter but not in form.

CAUSE:

• THEORY OF CAUSAL EXPLANATION – Aristotle thinks any science should be able to search for and find answers to this question: “On account of what?”
  
  • What is the explanation for a phenomenon’s characteristics?
  • Why? Why is something the way it is?
  • Aristotle insists there are FOUR kinds of explanations, or FOUR CAUSES:
• ​ MATERIAL CAUSE – An explanation that cites material composition.
  
  • EX: Why is this earthen jar the way it is? Because it’s made of clay.
• FORMAL CAUSE – Explains why something is the way it is by citing its form, that is, the structure and properties that make it what it is.
  
  • EX: Why is this animal a horse? Because it has the properties that constitute the form of a horse.
• EFFICIENT CAUSE – Explains the main source or initiator of a change.
  
  • EX: What has produced this result, sparked this sequence of events, or instigated this state of affairs? This type of explanation is akin to what most people think of as a cause of something.
• FINAL CAUSE – Explains what a thing is for or for what purpose it exists.
  
  • EX: For what purpose was this statue sculpted? To honor a fallen hero. For what reason was this bridge built? To span the gorge. We, humans, have purposes, and we manipulate nature with those purposes in mind.

What is a FINAL CAUSE? Does it make sense to ask what a human being’s final cause is? Why or why not?:

• NOTE – Humans can never truly know their purpose (nor can any natural thing have its true purpose known) – TJB

PURPOSE:

• Aristotle says there is a “final cause” for humans.
  
  • ​He rejects the mechanistic view that every natural event happens by chance and without purpose. He offers:
    
    • The physical features of animals provide benefits to them (to help them eat, hunt, avoid danger, etc.); they enable functions that are useful to the animals. These beneficial functions arise with regularity, not haphazardly or randomly. If this is true, then the mechanistic view must be false—the features of animals can develop toward inherent ends or goals. Eyes develop for seeing; claws for hunting or digging; teeth for killing and eating.
    • The development of such features is, as Aristotle says, “for something.”

ARISTOTLE: PHYSICS – There is a PRIMARY SOURCE for change or for staying unchanged – and this primaary source is neither of luck or coincidence. It is the reason “for something”, which all things have.

• EX: The man who has deliberated is a cause, the father is a cause of the child, and in general that which makes something of that which is made, and that which changes something of that which is changed.
• EX: We do not think that it is the outcome of luck or coincidence that there is a lot of rain in winter, but only if there is a lot of rain in August; nor that there are heatwaves in August, but only if there is a heatwave in winter.
• If, then, things seem to be either a coincidental outcome or for something, and the things we are discussing cannot be either a coincidental or an automatic outcome, they must be for something. They must have a PURPOSE.
• But all such things are due to nature. The ‘for something,’ then, is present in things which are and come to be due to nature.

According to Aristotle, do living things (trees, cats, tulips) have intentions? Do they have purpose? – Yes

• For Aristotle, the primary explanation (the final cause) for the development of all living things is TELEOLOGY—the existence of purpose or ends inherent in persons or things.
  
  • The development of living things is directed toward a natural goal or objective (TELOS), toward the realization of the form inherent in them.
    
    • Development is pointed toward particular outcomes, and in this way, it unfolds according to a PURPOSE as an internal goal toward which nature strives.
• FINAL CAUSE explanations are accounts of living things developing or growing toward “the good”—the particular good for the things themselves.
  
  • EX: Since wolves have sharp teeth “for the sake of” killing prey—that is, sharp teeth are good for wolves—it is good for wolves to have sharp teeth. And what’s good for a creature is that which is essential to them, the properties that make them the kind of thing they are. Thus FINAL CAUSES are about a thing’s form. Sharp teeth are not only good for a wolf; they are part of what makes a wolf a wolf.

TELEOLOGY – the existence of purpose or ends inherent in persons or things – says everything has a purpose.

ARISTOTLE’s GOD – would think the term “God” misleading as a label for his notion of the divine.

• He thinks his way, argument by argument, to a divinity who is essentially an “UNMOVED MOVER” – a being that is the source of motion and change in the universe but does not itself move or change.
• Aristotle begins with what he thinks are reasonable premises:
  
  • the universe is ETERNAL (it has always existed)
  • everything that moves (or changes) is moved (or changed) by something.
    
    • So what has caused the movement (and change) that we see all around us?
• Aristotle reasons that movement could not have been started by a first cause, because there can be no first cause in a universe that has always existed.
  
  • NOTE– In other words, there is no ORIGIN.
  • But there has to be some sort of ultimate cause of movement or else nothing would be moving now, which is absurd.
  • And this ultimate mover must itself be unmoved or else something would have to move it, and something would have to move that, and on and on to infinity—another absurdity.
    
    • CONCLUSION: Thus, things move because an ultimate, Unmoved Mover makes it so.
• To Aristotle, the UNMOVING MOVER is a living, eternal, single substance, unchanging, indestructible, without shape or size, and perfecta FINAL CAUSE OF EVERYTHING.
  
  • As a final cause, it compels movement through a TELEOLOGICAL relationship—by being the object of desire (or love) of things in the world; the end that everything else ultimately aims at or strives for. By being such an object, it causes movement in the universe without itself moving.
    
    • ​[The Unmoved Mover] produces motion by being loved, and it moves the other moving things.… The first mover, then, of necessity exists; and in so far as it is necessary, it is good, and in this sense a first principle.… On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. – Aristote

​​Do you think Aristotle’s God is plausible? Are Aristotle’s starting assumptions true? Explain.

• ​NOTE – His God is as plausible as any other description, perhaps more so because he refrains from personifying this God and instead characterizes it as a progenitor of all things, giving no particular preference to one being or another.
  
  • There is no way that we can know if Aristotle’s God is real, but the underlying reasoning makes sense IF you accept the premises as TRUE. The problem here is that we have no particular reason to accept that his premises are true.
• The lack of origin makes sense given the assumption that eternity exists because that would lead to the necessity of infinite creators. The assumption here is that infinite arrays do not exist, but who is to say that infinite arrays are not possible? Though he rejects the idea of INFINITY, he embraces the idea of “ETERNITY”, which, itself would be an infinite array of moments.
  
  • Alas, just because infinity doesn’t make sense to our human minds, that doesn’t mean that infinity does not exist.
• Infinities appear often in math, but we exclude them from possible solutions because they make no sense to us. And yet, there are infinite series all around us, FRACTALS that represent forever, numbers that can grow or shrink + or - infinitely, and repeating patterns that can go on forever. – TJB

Question 5

Happiness, Virtue, and the Good

Answer 5

HAPPINESS, VIRTUE, and the GOOD:

• TELEOLOGY – that all things have a purpose – is the heart not only of Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics but of his ethics as well.
  
  • Whatever we do, he says, we do for a purpose – we aim at some end or object, and this goal is something good, otherwise, we would not strive for it.
    
    • EX: In gardening, our aim is the healthy growth of plants. In medicine, our aim is the cure or prevention of disease. In each case, our objective is to obtain some good.
• INSTRUMENTAL GOOD – Some things are good because they are a means to other goods.
• INTRINSIC GOOD – Some things are good in themselves, for their own sake.
  
  • Like the idea of the PRIMARY IS, which is what all other senses of being point toward, INTRINSIC GOOD is the higher good because it is what all our actions are ultimately pointed toward, it is the highest goods.
• Aristotle believes this is the foundational question of ethics: What is the highest good for a human being?
• Aristotle: Nicomachean ETHICS:
  
  • ​Aristotle explains that PRIMARY pursuits, those worthy of pursuit on their own merits – the INTRINSIC GOOD – are the most important
    
    • “We call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more complete than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else.”
    • We call complete without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else.
  • NOTE – This INTRINSIC GOOD is the higher good. ANd the highest intrinsic good is “HAPPINESS”!

To Aristotle, is happiness subjective (something only in one’s mind) or objective (something that has characteristics regardless of how one feels)?

• Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else, but honour, pleasure, reason, and every excellence we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that through them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself.…
  
  • HAPPINESS, then, is something complete and self-sufficient, and is the end of action.…

According to Aristotle, what is the good for humans? Through what line of reasoning does he arrive at the answer?

• We are seeking what is peculiar to man.
• Let us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and growth.
• Next there would be a life of perception, but it also seems to be common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal.
• There remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational principle.…
• Now if the function of man is an activity of soul in accordance with, or not without, rational principle, and if we say a so-and-so and a good so-and-so have a function which is the same in kind, e.g. a lyre-player and a good lyre-player, and so without qualification in all cases, eminence in respect of excellence being added to the function (for the function of a lyre player is to play the lyre, and that of a good lyre-player is to do so well):
  
  • If this is the case, and
  • we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and
  • this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and
  • the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and
  • if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence:
  • if this is the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul in conformity with excellence.

What does Aristotle mean by “human good turns out to be activity of soul in conformity with excellence”?

• Aristotle argues that the good life—a life attaining the highest good—is one lived according to the light of reason and is therefore marked by true happiness.
• It is to live rationally and to do so excellently; an achievement that results in a rich and satisfying life.
  
  • To live this way is to possess the moral and intellectual VIRTUES in full.
• VIRTUE is a disposition to behave in line with a standard of excellence.
  
  • EX: honesty, compassion, loyalty, benevolence, temperance, fairness, excellence of character.
  • They are a choice for which we can be praised or blamed.
  • There are also EXCELLENCES that we learn through PRACTICE.
• Aristotle holds that VIRTUE is the midpoint (the “GOLDEN MEAN”) between the extremes of excess and deficit, and the extremes are the VICES.
  
  • EX: Courage is the virtue that comes midway between the vices of cowardice (too much fear) and rashness (too little fear).

Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics:

• By abstaining from pleasures (PRACTICE) we become temperate [behaving in moderation] (VIRTUES or EXCELLENCES), and it is when we become so that we are most able to abstain from them;
  
  • and similarly too in the case of courage; for by being habituated (PRACTICE) to despise things that are terrible and to stand our ground against them we become brave (VIRTUE), and it is when we have become so that we shall be most able to stand our ground against them.
    
    • Here, Aristotle is saying that it is through PRACTICE that we bring ourselves to a level of VIRTUE (or EXCELLENCE) that allows us to more competently and easily behave VIRTUOUSLY.
• NOTE – Aristotle says that ‘VIRTUE’ is the same for all men ( objective, not subjective) – TJB
• Say of good works of the art that it is not possible either to take away or to add anything (It is at the GOLDEN MEAN), implying that excess and defect (VICES) destroy the goodness of works of art, while the mean preserves it; and good artists, as we say, look to this in their work), and if, further, excellence is more exact and better than any art, as nature also is, then it must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate.
• I mean MORAL EXCELLENCE; for it is this that is concerned with passions and actions, and in these there is excess, defect (VICES), and the intermediate (VIRTUE).
  
  • For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right aim, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of excellence
  • Therefore excellence is a kind of mean, since it aims at what is intermediate.…

Is Aristotle’s notion of virtue (the mean between two extremes) coherent? Can all virtues be considered a mean?

• We must, however, not only make this general statement but also apply it to the individual facts.… With regard to feelings of fear and confidence courage is the mean; of the people who exceed, he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (many of the states have no name), while the man who exceeds in confidence is rash, and he who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward.
  
  • With regard to pleasures and pains—not all of them, and not so much with regard to the pains—the mean is temperance, the excess self-indulgence.
• Aristotle’s doctrine is aspirational. It asks us to do much more than just observe minimal moral rules—it insists that we aspire to moral excellence, that we cultivate the virtues that will make us better persons.
  
  • In this sense, his theory is goal-directed, not rule-guided.
• In Aristotle’s view, we can become more virtuous by reflecting on our lives and those of others and practicing virtuous behavior.

ARISTOTLE’S SOUL:

• Plato has an otherworldly view of the soul: the soul is the immaterial essence of a human being, a separate entity, existing before it is imprisoned in the body and living on after the body dies.
• Aristotle, however, rejects this view, arguing instead for a thoroughly naturalistic soul. In his most general account of the concept, he says the soul is the form of the body—the characteristic way the body functions. One scholar expresses Aristotle’s view like this:
  
  • Aristotle’s souls are not pieces of living things, nor are they bits of spiritual stuff placed inside physical bodies; rather, they are sets of powers, sets of capacities, or faculties.
  • Possessing a soul is like possessing a skill. A carpenter’s skill is not some part of him, responsible for his skilled acts; similarly, a living creature’s animator or soul is not part of it, responsible for its living activities.
• Accordingly, we needn’t ask if the soul and body are one, just as we needn’t ask if ears and hearing are one, or (to use Aristotle’s example) if a piece of wax and the wax’s shape are one. And the perennial philosophical question of how the body and soul interact is moot.

Question 6

Review Notes

Answer 6

REVIEW NOTES:

Logic, Knowledge, and Truth:

• Aristotle believes that knowledge is possible and that we can grasp objective truths about reality, but unlike Plato he thinks knowing begins with sense experience.
• With the invention of logic, Aristotle tries to clarify and systematize our acquisition of knowledge, and the heart of his deductive system is a precisely stated form of argument called the SYLLOGISM.
  
  • To aid the analysis of arguments, he devised a way to lay bare the logical structure of a syllogism by using letters (variables) to stand for the terms.
• Scientific knowledge is not so much knowing that something is true, but knowing why it is true.
  
  • He says the perfect vehicle for acquiring such knowledge is the syllogism because its premises (axioms) provide the explanation or reason for the state of affairs described in the conclusion.
  • Aristotle’s logic helps us evaluate whether a proposed explanation for a phenomenon is correct.

Physics and Metaphysics:

• For Aristotle, the most important question in metaphysics is, What basic existing things do all other things depend on for their existence? To him, the answer must be SUBSTANCE.
• ​He asserts that a nebulous nothing cannot be substance, and he refutes the notion that we can have no knowledge of the fundamental underlayment of reality.
  
  • Ultimately, he accepts that a composite of form and matter can constitute substance, with form being the essential element that makes matter more than amorphous stuff.
  • His kind of form is the essence of a thing.
• Aristotle argues that change is not only possible but commonplace.
  
  • He says that whether change is an alteration of a thing’s properties or the coming to be of a new thing, “there must be something underlying” the process. There is either a persisting thing whose properties change, or a thing out of which a new thing arises.
• Four kinds of causes:
  
  1. MATERIAL CAUSE – (A thing’s material composition).
  2. FORMAL CAUSE – (A thing’s properties that make it what it is).
  3. EFFICIENT CAUSE – (The main source or initiator of a change).
  4. FINAL CAUSE – (What a thing is for or for what purpose it exists).
• For Aristotle, the primary explanation (the final cause) for the development of all living things is TELEOLOGICAL—that is, the development is directed toward a natural goal or objective.
  
  • Development is pointed toward particular outcomes, and in this way it unfolds according to a purpose—not as an internal goal toward which nature strives.

Happiness, Virtue, and the Good:

• ​Aristotle argues that the good life is one lived according to the light of reason and is therefore marked by true happiness. It is to live rationally and to do so excellently.
  
  • To live this way, he says, is to possess the moral and intellectual virtues in full.
  • VIRTUE disposition to behave in line with a standard of excellence; it is a choice for which we can be praised or blamed.
• He holds that a virtue is the midpoint (the “golden mean”) between the extremes of excess and deficit, and the extremes are the vices.
  
  • Courage, for example, is the virtue that comes midway between the vices of cowardice (too much fear) and rashness (too little fear).