ARISTOTLE
ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.)
 Founder of every science or domain of study
known to humans






Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Metaphysics
Metereology
Logic
Literary Criticism
Anthropology
Ethics
Political science
Psychology
Original contributions to
philosophy after Aristotle
Augustine – Theory of the Will
Thomas d’Aquino – Phil. of Human Nature
Hegel – Dialectic, elaboration of Aristotle
Marx – Political Economy & Social Psychology
– first major advance beyond Aristotle
- but based on Aristotle,
- called «the Aristotle of the 19th century»
Heidegger – Phenomenology – Aristotelian
psychology
Modernists reject Aristotle
 Descartes – his skepticism became basis of
individualistic exploitation of community
 Locke – skepticism leads to theory of
property rejecting Aristotle’s
understanding of individual within
community
 Smith – complete rejection of Aristotle’s
theory of moral economy – Bush-style
free enterprise
ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.)
 born Macedonia 15 yrs after d. of Socrates
 student at Plato’s Academy at age 17
 Collaborates with Plato on dialogues


- disagreed over essential realities of our world
- Forms vs. Substances (living organisms)
 Leaves Academy after Plato’s death
 pursues research in biology
 Tutor of Alexander
 Founds Lyceum in Athens (334 BC)
Raphael, The School at Athens.
Vatican museums.
Nicomachean Ethics
 Reading next 2 weeks
The complete ‘good’
(NE i.7—key chapter)
 - ‘what is intrinsically worth pursuing is more
complete than what is worth pursuing for
something else’
 - the ‘intrinsically choiceworthy’

‘most chiceworthy of all things’
 - ‘self-sufficient’
 = Happiness (eudaimonia), but this is
‘commonplace’—what does it mean?
Happiness (eudaimonia)
 Eudaimonia

‘living well,’ ‘doing well’
 ‘Not a state’ of mind (EN x.6), ‘an activity
rather than a state’

So Aristotle doesn’t mean the way you feel
eating ice cream or going shopping
 Aristotle: Maybe, we can understand
happiness if we understand function of
human
Aristotle on function (ergon) in
general
 ‘Everything is defined by its ergon and
capacity’ (Politics, Bk.i, ch. 2.1253a23)
 Ergon = function, work, product

Homonymous
 E.g., function (ergon) of house builder is to
build houses (product= ergon) for other
members of the community: this is her/his
work (ergon).
Aristotle on function (ergon)—
cont.
 E.g., a doctor is the ergon he actualizes:

it is easy, Aristotle says, to know various
remedies for illness, but how to dispense them
and to whom and when, ‘that much a function
(ergon) is what it is to be a doctor’ (NE
v.9.1137a16).
 If something loses its function, ceases to be.

An eye that loses capacity to see no longer an
eye, except homonymously
What is function of human being?
(NE i.7)

Functions of craftsmen

Flute player, carpenter, doctor
 Not function of individual parts, or function(s)
we share with animals or plants
 Function of living thing involves activity
(energeia), the actuality of living
 = activity of the soul or life-principal (psuche)
 Since reason distinctive of humans, ‘function
of human involves activity in accord w.
reason’
 Function performed well if performed in
accordance with virtue of the thing

E.g., knife, goat
 Conclusion about happiness
 ‘the human good turns out to be activity of
soul in accord with virtue’

Let’s examine the parts of this statement:


‘Soul’ (Psuche)
‘Virtue’ (arete)
Psuche = ‘soul’ or ‘life-force’
 Nothing to do with religion
 Greek belief that all living things possess
some life principal or force
 Plants, animals, humans – all have soul, but
differ in capacities
 Ensouled things are substances.
 Psuche is form of the thing
 What does it mean to say soul is ‘form’?
Form and matter
 Aristotle says everything that exists in our
world is a composite of form and matter
 Form is nature or whatness of a thing
 Example of bronze sphere, as teaching tool
to introduce more advanced case of form as
soul.
Form & matter II
 The form sphere provides shape for bronze
scrap to be worked into bronze sphere.
 Sphere is whatness of bronze sphere.
 Soul understood by its capacities, i.e., what
organism can do.
Capacities of psuche
 Nutritive – shared with plants & animals
 Perceptual & locomotive – shared w animals
 Intellective/rational – distinctly human
 For happiness to be human, must involve
exercise of intellective/rational capacity

Aristotle says people who do not live by
intellect cannot be happy (EN x.9)
Intellective capacity
 Activity (energeia) of Intellective capacity is form-
generating & form-perceiving.
 Same forms that are nature or whatness of things
are forms in intellect by which we perceive those
things.
 We acquire forms through experience with things
that embody them.
 E.g., bronze sphere embodies form ‘sphere’.
Aristotle rejects skepticism
 So, Aristotle argues that knowledge is based
on an identity between the knower and the
known.

That is one result of his theory that all things
are composites of form and matter.
 Ergo, Aristotle rejects skepticism of
Descartes.
Virtue
 Remember Aristotle’s definition of happiness:
‘activity/actuality of soul in accord with virtue’
 He adds:


‘and if there are more virtues than one, then in
accord with best and most complete virtue’
(i.7)
Cf. list of virtues, right column last table
 Best and most complete virtue is JUSTICE.
Justice
 “Justice is the only virtue that seems to be
another person’s good, for it is related to
another, for it does what benefits another”
(EN 1130a3-4).
 Justice not a matter of fairness, but rather of
helping another.
Justice in economic relations
 Primary example of justice in Aristotle’s
theory of exchange:

a person wealthier or more powerful helps
another in their mutual exchange of goods,
s/he loses money to the other in the
transaction.
Conclusion: what is happiness?
 Happiness is fulfillment of the human function
of activity of soul in accordance with the virtue
of justice to benefit others as much as I am
able.