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Greek
Philosophyand Ethics
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Western modernculture is
basically
Aristotelian
ARISTOTLE
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- born at Stagira, in
Thrace, in 384 B.C.
- His father was a
physician to the king of
Macedon
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At the age of seventeen, he
went to Athens and joined
Plato's school, where he
stayed until Plato's death in
347.
A few years later, he became
the tutor to the young prince
of Macedon, Alexander the
Great
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Aristotle returned to
Athens and foundedhis own school, the
Lyceum, and taught
and studied there fortwelve years
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Fundamentally
disagreed with his
teacher Plato:
Abstract vs. Empirical
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Plato: Abstract (The world
ofForms)
Aristotle: Empirical
The world could be
understood through thedetailed observation and
cataloging of phenomena
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knowledge (which is what the
word science means) is
fundamentally empirical.
Aristotle literally wrote about
everything: poetics, rhetoric,
ethics, politics, meteorology,
embryology, physics,mathematics, metaphysics,
anatomy, physiology, logic,
dreams, and so forth
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Aristotle on the problem of
evidence.
When he approached a problem,he would examine:
a.) what people had previously
written or said on the subject,
b.) the general consensus of
opinion on the subject,
c.) and a systematic study of
everything else that is part of or
related to the subject
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In his treatise on animals, he
studied over 500 species
In studying government, he
collected and read 158
individual constitutions of
Greek states as his
fundamental data
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This is called inductive
reasoning:
observing as many examplesas possible and then working
out the underlying principles.
Inductive reasoning is thefoundationof the Western
scientific method.
ARISTOTLE
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Outside of the empiricalmethod, three characteristics
stand out in Aristotle's
thought:
1. the schematization of
knowledge
2. the four causes
3. the ethical doctrine of the
mean.
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The Classificationof
Knowledge
The most fundamental
aspect of Aristoteleanism
is the classificationof
knowledge accordingthe objects of that
knowledge
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The Greeks for some time
had been concernedabout the nature of human
knowledge called
epistemology, or the
"study of knowledge
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Greek philosophy dealt
with questions of
certainty
How could one be certain
of knowledge? Suppose
everything was an
illusion?
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Aristotle resolved the
question by categorizingknowledge based on their
objects and the relative
certainty with which you
could know those objects
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CERTAIN AND PRECISE
KNOWLEDGE
For instance, certainobjects (such as in
mathematics or logic)
permit you to have a
knowledge that is true
all the time (two plus two
always equals four).
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PROBABLE
KNOWLEDGE
Other objects such ashuman behavior don't
permit certain knowledge
(if you insult somebody
you may not make them
angry or you may make
them angry).
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PROBABLE KNOWLEDGE
These types of knowledge arecharacterized by probability
and imprecise explanations
Knowledge that would fall intothis category would include
ethics, psychology, or politics
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CERTAINTY DEPENDS ON
THE NATURE OF THE
OBJECT OF STUDY
Unlike Plato and Socrates,
Aristotle did not demand
certainty in everything. One
cannot expect the same levelof certainty in politics or ethics
that one can demand in
geometry or logic
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InE
thics I.3, Aristotle defines thedifference in the following way:
"we must be satisfied to indicate
the truth with a rough and generalsketch: when the subject and the
basis of a discussion consist of
matters which hold good only as a
general rule, but not always, the
conclusions reached must be of
the same order. . . .
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In Ethics I.3, Aristotle defines thedifference in the following way:
For a well-schooled man is one
who searches for that degree of
precision in each kind of study
which the nature of the subject at
hand admits: it is obviously just as
foolish to accept arguments ofprobability from a mathematician
as to demand strict demonstrations
from an orator."
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THE FOUR CAUSES
Aristotle's "four causes" stand at
the heart ofWestern rationality andWestern science.
In order to know a thing, anything
at all, Aristotle says that one mustbe able to answer four questions
(Physics ).
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PLATO VS. ARISTOTLE:DIFFERENCES IN APPROACH
Plato looked at the world and saw
nothing but change. He wondered
how we can know anything at allwhen everything is in motion and
change.
Plato solved the problem by
postulating an unchanging world of
intelligible Forms or Ideas of
which our world is but an imperfect
copy.
ARISTOTLE
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PLATO VS. ARISTOTLE:
DIFFERENCES IN APPROACH
Aristotle embraced the visible
world of change and motion and
sought all his life to describe the
principles which bring about
change and motion
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PLATO VS. ARISTOTLE:
DIFFERENCES IN APPROACH
Therefore, the question thatdominated his thought at all points
was: what is the cause (in Greek,
aitia , which also means
"responsible factor" of this
particular change or motion thatI'm observing?
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PLATO VS. ARISTOTLE:DIFFERENCES IN APPROACH
W
hat causes this thing to comeinto existence? What causes it to
pass out of existence
Aristotle was the first major thinker
to base his thought and scienceentirely on the idea that everything
that moves or changes is caused
to move or change by some other
thing.
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PLATO VS. ARISTOTLE:
DIFFERENCES IN APPROACH
What causes motion and change
in the universe?
The four causes
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THE FOUR CAUSES
a.) the material cause: the matter
out of which a thing is made (clayis the material cause of a bowl)
b.) the formal cause: the pattern,
model, or structure upon which a
thing is made (the formal cause ofa bowl is "bowl-shaped"; the formal
cause of a human is "human-
shaped
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THE FOUR CAUSES
c.) the efficient cause: the means
or agency by which a thing comesinto existence (a potter is the
efficient cause of a bowl)
d.) the final (in Greek,telos )
cause: the goal or purpose of athing, its function or potential
(holding cereal and milk is the final
cause of a bowl)
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THE FOUR CAUSES
The final cause is the most
unscientific, but is far and away the
most important "cause" of a thing
as far as Aristotle was concerned.Aristotle's analysis of phenomenon
and change, then, is fundamentally
TELEOLOGICAL
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THE FOUR CAUSES
Aristotle's thought is consistently
teleological:
everything is always changing and
moving, and has some aim, goal, orpurpose (telos ).
To borrow from a Newtonian physics, we
might say that everything has potential
which may be actualized (an acorn ispotentially an oak tree; the process of
change and motion which the acorn
undertakes is directed at realizing this
potential).
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THE DOCTRINE OF THE
MEAN
The Four Causes are universally
applicable.
Ethics is a science that admits of a
high degree of uncertainty becauseof the infinite variety of human
actions and motivations.
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THE DOCTRINE OF THE
MEAN
He works out an entire system ofethics based on the "mean" to
serve as a guideline to human
behavior.
There is no proper definition of anymoral virtue, but rather every moral
virtue stands in relationship to two
opposing vices.
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THE DOCTRINE OF THEMEAN
Therefore, every action needs to
be judged according to all the
relevant circumstances and
situation.
Aristotle called judging actions in
this manner, "equity," and equity isthe foundation of modern law and
justice, and is absolutely critical in
understanding foundational
Christianity.
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a dialogue which discusses the
education necessary to produce
such a society. It is an
EDUCATION he called it paideia.
Paideia refers to the process
whereby the physical, mental and
spiritual development of the
individual is of paramount
importance.
It is the educationof the total
individual
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discusses a number of topics
including the nature of justice,
statesmanship, ethics and the
nature of politics.
For Plato, the citizens are theleast desirable participants in
government.
Instead, a philosopher-king or
guardianshould hold the reigns ofpower. An aristocracy if you will
an aristocracy of the very best
the best of the aristoi.
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Plato's Republicalso embodies
one of the clearest expressions of
his theory of knowledge.
In The Republic, Plato asks what
is knowledge? what is illusion?
what is reality? how do we know?
what makes a thing, a thing? whatcan we know?
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These are epistemologicalquestions
that is, they are questions about
knowledge itself.
He distinguishes between the reality
presented to us by our senses sight,touch, taste, sound and smell and the
essence orForm of that reality.
In other words, reality is always
changing knowledge of reality is
individual, it is particular, it is knowledge
only to the individual knower, it is not
universal.
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Plato argued that reality is known
only through the mind.
There is a higher world,independent of the world we may
experience through our senses.
Because the senses may deceive
us, it is necessary that this higherworld exist, a world of Ideas or
Forms
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The world of Ideas or Forms -- of what
is unchanging, absolute and universal.
In other words, although there may be
something from the phenomenal world
which we consider beautiful or good or
just, Plato postulates that there is a higher
unchanging reality of the beautiful,
goodness or justice.
To live in accordance with these universalstandards is the good life -- to grasp the
Forms is to grasp ultimate truth.
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The unphilosophical man that is,all of us is at the mercy of sense
impressions and unfortunately, our
sense impressions oftentimes fail
us. Our senses deceive us. But
because we trust our senses, weare like prisoners in a cave we
mistake shadows on a wall for
reality.
This is the central argument of
Plato's ALLEGORY OF THE
CAVE in Book VII ofThe Republic.
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Plato realized that the Athenian
state, and along with it, Athenian
direct democracy, had failed torealize its lofty ideals.
Instead, the citizens sent Socrates
to his death and direct democracyhad failed.
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The purpose ofThe Republic
was something ofa warning
to all Athenians that without
respect for law, leadership
and a sound education for the
young, their city wouldcontinue to decay
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Plato wanted to rescue Athens from
degeneration by reviving that sense of
community that had at one time made the
polis great. The only way to do this, Plato
argued, was to give control over to the
Philosopher-Kings, men who had
philosophical knowledge, and to give little
more than "noble lies" to everyone else.
The problem as Plato saw it was that
power and wisdom had traveled divergentpaths -- his solutionwas to unite them
in the guise of the Philosopher-King.
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