Republic of the Philippines
ACLC COLLEGE OF ORMOC CITY, INC.
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
Lilia Ave., Cogon, Ormoc City
In Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the subject PHILOSOPHY
HUMAN FREEDOM
ACCORDING TO
ARISTOTLE
Submitted by:
Edrianne G. Rivera
STEM 12-Copper
Submitted to:
Jose Emannuel Calag
Instructor
1ST Semester | S.Y. 2022-202
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page………………………………………………………………………….………. 1
Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………………. 2
Introduction to Aristotle …………………………………………………………………... 3
Writings …………………………………………………………………………… 4
Lost Works ………………………………………………………………………… 4
Extant Works ……………………………………………………………………… 4
Aristotle’s Conception of Freedom ………………………………………………………. 5
Freedom and Slavery ……………………………………………………………… 6
Freedom as a Rational Self-Direction …………………………………………….. 7
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………… 8
References ………………………………………………………………………………… 8
HUMAN FREEDOM ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE
Introduction to Aristotle
Aristotle,
322, Chalcis,
Greek Aristoteles,
Euboea),
ancient
(born
Greek
384 BCE,
Stagira, Chalcidice,
philosopher
and
scientist,
Greece—died
one
of
the
greatest intellectual figures of Western history. He was the author of a philosophical and
scientific
system
that
became
the
framework
and
vehicle
for
both
Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy. Even after the intellectual revolutions
of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, Aristotelian concepts remained
embedded in Western thinking.
Aristotle’s intellectual range was vast, covering most of the sciences and many of the
arts,
including biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy of
mind, philosophy of science, physics, poetics, political theory, psychology, and zoology. He was
the founder of formal logic, devising for it a finished system that for centuries was regarded as
the sum of the discipline; and he pioneered the study of zoology, both observational and
theoretical, in which some of his work remained unsurpassed until the 19th century. But he is, of
course, most outstanding as a philosopher. His writings in ethics and political theory as well as
in metaphysics and the philosophy of science continue to be studied, and his work remains a
powerful current in contemporary philosophical debate.
This paper deals with Aristotle’s life and thought. For the later development of
Aristotelian philosophy, see Aristotelianism.
For
treatment
full context of Western philosophy, see philosophy, Western.
of
Aristotelianism
in
the
Writings
Aristotle’s writings fall into two groups: those that were published by him but are now
almost entirely lost, and those that were not intended for publication but were collected and
preserved by others. The first group consists mainly of popular works; the second
group comprises treatises that Aristotle used in his teaching.
Lost works
The lost works include poetry, letters, and essays as well as dialogues in
the Platonic manner. To judge by surviving fragments, their content often differed widely from
the doctrines of the surviving treatises. The commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias suggested
that Aristotle’s works may express two truths: an “exoteric” truth for public consumption and an
“esoteric” truth reserved for students in the Lyceum. Most contemporary scholars, however,
believe that the popular writings reflect not Aristotle’s public views but rather an early stage of
his intellectual development.
Extant works
The works that have been preserved derive from manuscripts left by Aristotle on his
death. According to ancient tradition passed on by Plutarch and Strabo, the writings of Aristotle
and Theophrastus were bequeathed to Neleus of Scepsis, whose heirs hid them in a cellar to
prevent their being confiscated for the library of the kings of Pergamum (in present-day Turkey).
Later, according to this tradition, the books were purchased by a collector and taken to Athens,
where they were commandeered by the Roman commander Sulla when he conquered the city in
86 BCE. Taken to Rome, they were edited and published there about 60 BCE by Andronicus of
Rhodes, the last head of the Lyceum. Although many elements of this story are implausible, it is
still widely accepted that Andronicus edited Aristotle’s texts and published them with the titles
and in the form and order that are familiar today.
Aristotle’s Conception of Freedom
There is no place in the Nicomachean Ethics, or the Politics, where Aristotle provides us
with an explicit definition of freedom. Nevertheless, it is possible to glean Aristotle’s notion of
freedom from a series of passages in the Politics, in which Aristotle discusses such matters as the
existence of the natural slave, and the understanding of freedom underlying certain forms of
democracy. This effort is useful insofar as it not only helps us to understand Aristotle, but also
presents us with a conception of freedom interestingly different from many contemporary
versions and perhaps worth our consideration. I will focus in this paper on Aristotle’s use of the
term eleutheria, and its cognates. Eleutheria, usually translated as ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom,’ is
conceived by Aristotle in terms more moral and political than metaphysical, i.e., he considers
tyranny and slavery, rather than determinism, to be its principal contraries. Self-direction, rather
than bare spontaneity, is the crucial characteristic of the free person. In this respect, Aristotle is
similar to many political philosophers of our time. As we will see, however, there is an important
difference: while many contemporary theorists think of freedom as simply the capacity to guide
one’s own actions, without reference to the object or objects sought through action, Aristotle
conceives of freedom as the capacity to direct oneself to those ends which one’s reason rightly
recognizes as choiceworthy. This concept of freedom as rational self-direction can be found
underlying Aristotle’s discussions of natural slavery and democracy.
Freedom and Slavery
Book I of the Politics contains an analysis of the relationships among the individual, the
household, and the polis. In Chapters 2 and 5 of this book, Aristotle presents an interpretation of
one of the relations within the household, namely, that of master and slave. He there makes a
distinction between the political status of slavery, and the naturally slavish condition which alone
can make this political status legitimate. Aristotle’s discussion of the difference between the man
who is naturally suited for slavery and the man naturally suited for freedom gives us a basis upon
which we may build a definition of freedom as a condition of soul, rather than as a
conventionally granted civil status. Our first clue is found in Chapter 2, in which the masterslave relationship is first discussed: “For that which can foresee with the mind is the naturally
ruling and naturally mastering element, while that which can do these things with the body is the
naturally ruled and slave”.
The naturally ruling man has a certain intellectual capacity that the natural slave lacks: he
is able to “foresee with the mind.” Aristotle does not tell us precisely what it is that he is able to
foresee. Perhaps he is able to predict the results of certain actions and events, for this would give
him the knowledge of what tasks he must command in order to achieve his purposes. This
capacity, the capacity to see which means will lead to given ends, is part of the excellence of the
deliberative faculty. Aristotle claims that the slave is “wholly lacking the deliberative element”,
which would seem to make him incapable of cleverness as well as that form of deliberation
particular to phronesis. Alternatively, and, given that Aristotle seems to admit that there can be
clever slaves, perhaps more plausibly, it could be that the naturally free man is able to foresee
with the mind which ends he objectively ought to pursue; this is the feature that differentiates the
deliberation of cleverness from that of phronesis.
In either case, from these texts we have already learned something about the free man: he
has foresight and a capacity for deliberation. He is capable of attaining cleverness, i.e., skill in
choosing means to given ends. Once we consider the fact that deliberation is one of the
characteristic tasks of the free man or eleutheros, we can better understand Aristotle’s remark
that a people without any deliberative responsibilities in the polis would be “enslaved and an
enemy to the constitution”
Freedom as Rational Self-Direction
As we have seen, Aristotle’s notion of freedom is intimately connected with his notion of
rationality. Indeed, it is difficult to find a significant difference between his conceptions of what
it is to be an eleutheros and what it is to be a rational animal. Rationality in the system of
Aristotle is not merely the instrumental deliberative capacity of discovering means to ends, but
also is the capacity to apprehend ends, including both intermediate ends and the final end of
human happiness, where the ends in question are demanded by one’s own essential nature and
accidental circumstances. Freedom, in turn, is not just the capacity to move oneself towards
whatever ends one wishes, but the capacity to order one’s life by right reason, i.e., to move
oneself towards the telos that one’s reason has discovered. The human being who has achieved
the fullest expression of his rational and free human nature is the one who has the most
developed capacity to apprehend reality, including the reality of his own inherent telos, and of
the particular circumstances of his situation affecting the range of actions which may be seen as
means to the fulfillment of this telos. The free man’s rational apprehension of reality must be
confirmed and made effective in his practice, through his developed habit of bringing his
passions and desires to embrace that which his reason apprehends as good. His freedom is thus
not the democratic freedom of doing whatever he likes, but rather of living his life in accordance
with his accurate apprehension of the highest good, or rather in some way from this
apprehension.
Freedom requires the intellectual virtues needed for seeing what the good life demands,
and the moral virtues that lead one to desire and to act in accordance with this vision. In its most
perfect state, this will include activity on behalf of the polis as a whole. It remains only to state
an obvious fact: this sort of freedom is something that we can possess in greater or lesser
degrees, according to the level of development of our rational faculties, the strength of the habit
of bringing our passions and desires into cooperation with our reason, and the richness of our
experience.
Conclusion
Freedom is something that I feel differs from person to person. Freedom in my own
opinion is being able to live the life that you want and be happy. I feel that in my own life I express
my freedom through my free speech and also through my decisions. I consider myself to be an
open minded person and I feel that I am able to express my opinions freely, although sometimes
there is backlash involved with this. Freedom means to just be able to grow into your own person
and not have to worry about the societal constraints and social norms that impose pressure on
individuality in today’s society, because according to Aristotle “freedom requires the intellectual
virtues needed for seeing what the good life demands, and the moral virtues that lead one to
desire and to act in accordance with this vision”.
References
https://philotech119334246.wordpress.com/2018/10/08/aristotles-conception-of-freedom/