Author: Ranganatha Sitaram
It is said that genius does not arise out of vacuum. Most geniuses have somebody else to inspire them: parents, teachers, relatives or people whose books and teachings influenced them.
Aristotle was Plato’s student, and with Plato and Socrates formed a chain or sequence of the most famous teacher-student philosophers. Quite interestingly, the three were quite different in their approach to philosophy and had very different ideas. Socrates was an interesting and enquiring speaker, Plato a lucid and thought provoking writer, and Aristotle all rolled in one and interested in many things.
Aristotle was very interested in the details of the real world while Socrates and Plato (like other, later idealists) thought that the world was not a true reflection of reality and could be deduced by abstract and logical thought.
Aristotle was interested in zoology, politics, history, drama and astronomy. He had a writing style that suffused his work with many detailed and intricate drawings. Unfortunately, only few of those notes and drawing are remaining and the rest are lost to us.
Aristotle was born in Macedonia in 384 BC, and studied under Plato, and later was a teacher to Alexander the great with whom he travelled on his conquests. He setup a school in Athens called the Lyceum, which became one of the greatest centers of learning. The Lyceum was similar to a modern university in that it had researchers who went out to look and collect data to understand the world, under different topics, such as, biology, political and social systems, astronomy and geology, to produce detailed information about the world. In contrast to Plato who talked about the Theory of Form, Aristotle was very interested in the actual details of the real world. This contradiction was particularly well captured by Renaissance painter Raphael in his painting titled “The school of Athens” in which he depicted Plato as painting the skies in allusion of the Forms, while Aristotle is reaching out to the real world in front of him. Aristotle collected worldly data from researchers in the Lyceum and setup a famous library to gather the different works.
Aristotle was against Plato’s Theory of Forms and said that the way we should understand the reality was to examine the particular details and not to remain at the level of ideal and general categories. So to understand life forms one would not just stay with abstract ideas but to go into details of particular categories and their features, properties and differences.
Aristotle also thought deeply about one major question of philosophy that is subsumed under the topic ‘Ethics’ is the question: “how should we live”? He said that our main aim in life should be happiness. However, his idea of happiness was quite different from the conventional notions of happiness, which includes pleasures such as eating an ice cream, going to movies or holidays, being with friends or family, winning prizes or awards, etc. Aristotle termed happiness as “Eudaimonia”, a Greek word that gives a general meaning of success or overall accomplishment.
He believed that humans differ from animals and plants in that they can think and decide what to do. He believed that only humans are able reason out. Neuroscience research has now shown that this notion is rather false, and even animals can think and reason. Nevertheless, Aristotle believed that the acquisition and maintenance of right character and habits leading to right pattern of thought and action result in greater success and happiness in life.
Perplexingly enough, Aristotle thought that things occurring even after one’s life could affect one’s happiness. For instance, he considered that one’s happiness included wellbeing of one’s children. Hence, misfortunes occurring to them may affect a person even after his death. The larger point about this example was the notion luck plays a part in one’s happiness as events and happenings outside oneself and even one’s lifetime can affect the overall success of a human being. In other words, happiness is not just a feeling of subjective wellbeing and bliss, but also an objective notion of one’s life patterns. Hence, Aristotle said that one should develop the right kind of character. As characters are developed from childhood by good habits and patterns of living, Aristotle considered good habits as virtues and bad habits as vices.
But then, what are good and bad habits precisely? To explain this Aristotle developed the idea of the “Golden Mean”. A golden mean is represents the balance or middle path between two extreme ways of behavior. For example, let us consider the virtue of courage. The word courage brings to mind the idea of fearlessness and action in the face of danger. For instance, a courageous soldier may risk his life for his country, or a firefighter may risk his life to rescue people and property from fires. A foolhardy person on the other hand may rush to do things without proper thought even when it is not necessary and even when it might risk his life. A cowardly person may not act at all out of paralysis inflicted by fear. A courageous person, on the other hand, is not completely devoid of fear; however, he overcomes it and works towards a good goal (of saving lives, for example) in a reasoned and calculated manner.
Many modern philosophers do agree with Aristotle’s view of ethics; that happiness is not just about increasing pleasures, but actually developing good life habits and mental attitudes to become “better people” and doing the “right things”. Aristotle not only thought about personal and individual development but also individual’s interaction with the society at large. He said and wrote that happiness and good living need to be placed in the context of an individual’s interaction with society. He considered various issues related to how an individual’s happiness and conduct is related to society’s status.
One setback of Aristotle’s brilliance and intelligence was that many people too his writings and sayings to be necessarily true. This is called “Truth by Authority”, which is quite in contradiction to the principles of philosophy and scientific temperament.
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Eclectic Musings by Ranga Sitaram 