Intro to Philosophy

Today we reviewed some of the text from the beginning to emphasize the importance of the material we have been reviewing. Since I usually lecture about the text or ideas developed in the text most of the onus is on the student to follow the text and read ahead to follow this connection but today we spent time going over the highlights to make those connections. Then we continued on with Aristotle to discuss the conception of the soul as the activity of the body. This being the case, the nature of ethics changes to be that of how to live the good life while the body has life. While Aristotle follows his teacher Plato's psychology in most respects dividing the classes of people up into three main groups, it would be easier to find nurture much more important for Aristotle than nature so that quality of life is best for those who are born in a good family in a good society than Plato's position that each person is essentially born with the character they will have. I mentioned Maslow's hierarchy of needs and it is easy to see how this ties in with Aristotle. Moving on to the Ethics a first quiz question was who was Nicomachus? I consider this a trick question since as you will see there are two individuals of that name in Aristotle's life and it makes me wonder which might be so honored. Most consider his father as the honoree, but it makes more sense to me if it is both or his son, since we may think of the book as written to instruct the young. Since there is a lack of physical things if you love physical pleasures then your happiness is not under your control and you will most likely often be unhappy. The same situation applies to social pleasures since social status, honor, and love are not really easy to come by! But knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone is something that you can gain and keep and there is plenty to go around if you have the wealth to spend the time learning. With the death of Alexander the Great Aristotle famously had to flee lest Athens sin twice against philosophy. But two years later he died and following that much of his thought ended up being lost to the west (saved in the east until the reintroduction about the time of the Crusades and the rebirth of Western interest in Greek culture - the Renaissance.) (You know, the very brief way I describe all of this is easily so shallow that digging deeper can lead someone to finding it is misleading or even false!) The Post-Aristotelians are next and I like to put the various choices across the board starting with the Cynics on the right, (no special reason) followed by the Epicureans, then the Skeptics, then the Stoics, and then the Neo-Platonists. The Cynics prime example is Diogenes and I told several stories about him. Living a homeless carefree life is the main characteristic of the Dog philosophy. In the text we have Epicurus who gives us the answer that the best life is one of avoiding stresses up to a point, self sufficiency is his aim. I suggest that the Bush life style fits this philosophy pretty well. The Skeptics are not represented in the text but is the position that arguing over these issues itself is a source of great stress and that the questions can never be answered due to the nature of the questions, so accepting the apoiretic nature of these issues is a best way to avoid the stress and have a good life. Epictetus is our example of a stoic and the duty of a stoic is to the society. If you want to live the good life, someone has to make sure the society is good and functioning. But how do you remain happy while doing so many things for the good of other people? You maintain an internal intellectual removal from the stress so that in your heart you are at peace regardless of what is going on around you. The second quiz question of the day was which of these philosophical positions best fits your own thinking today? Next week we will look at the Neoplatonists and the success of the Christian philosophy / theology.