HUMS 200012/09/2011

Reason and Revelation

Exam:◦ Short answer – describe key terms (typically latin and greek). ◦ Short answer – explain what's going on in a particular passage◦ Essay – topic will be given ahead of time

Cosmos – completely connected and complete whole◦ Each thing is by nature suited to a task, each thing has a place in the universe.◦ This place is pre-appointed for it.

Mythos vs. Logos

Mythical thinking requires a figure (be it a person or a text) which explains how you think. Why? Because he said so.

Logos – a way of thinking which exists within philosophy. Why? Because it can be proven based on a premise that everyone can agree on, and be deduced

and inferred from these universal premises. Anyone in principle, of sound mind, can consent to a philosophical proposition – philosophy is

democratic and universal. However, philosophical thinking is open to criticism and open ended thinking. Philosophy can be a source of freedom, however.

How is it that we can know the universe? Why is it that the logos in our mind reflects or corresponds to reality? Why is the order accessible to us? The fundamental assumption of philosophers is that the universe is not alien to us, it has a

connection to us, and so, we can know it. All things were made through our mind.

◦ Therefore the principles of all things are the same as the principles in our mind◦ Our minds are reflections of a mind that did create all things, and that's why there is an

affinity between our minds and objects.

14/09/2011

In 399 BC, Socrates went around curropting the youth with all sorts of philosophical questions Many people became his students Often these inquiries revealed that the rhetoricians and sophists exposed themselves as knowing

nothing, and unable to justify their positions Though Socrates didn't intend to riddicule, but that's how it came off to his followers When he asked a question, a simple answer was never enough

◦ “Because it was how it was done in the past” was not good enough When he asked to justify their opinions, they often could not, looking foolish in front of ther

peers.

It also became apparent that Socrates had more questions than answers, and his unrelenting questions tended to break down the city brick by brick

His questions made him seem as someone currpot and dangerous, and undermining the order of the city

Plato wants us to be aware that philosophy is dangerous, because it opposes anything limited or finite, which includes the city wihtout which there is no life...

Many of the tentions in Athens had been underground This is what constituted the threat of the city – Socrates created no tensions, but he did inflame

them Socrates often speaks of eros such as the eros of the soul.

◦ Just as the body seeks wholeness, so does the soul.◦ In dialectic, Socrates brought forth little speeches, the speeches of philosophy, just as the

body brings forth babies.◦ It's eros has the same hunt for satisfaction and pleasure as does the body

Says that there is a parallell to the body and the soul◦ We search for what is beautiful and good, and when we find it, want it to be forever◦ Death, however, takes away such things

We overcome mortality of the body by producing babies, and the mortality of the soul is overcome by speeches

Authorities of the city, saw Socrates as a threat to the city, (wounded pride?) Socrates – out of sync from his fellow citizens, a currptor of the city, a 'holier than thou' person. A city must assure law and justice, show homage to the gods that protect the city, and the city

concerns itself by encouraging freedom, and the love of honour, things important to the fucntion of the city

A tension between the city and philosopher, that the philosopher tells noble lies, ensuring that the city is stable so that they can think within it.

On the outside, the philosopher speaks for the city, but on the inside is the search for knowledge and the progression of their own agenda. (Freemasons?)

Socrates has a kind of 'esoteric' teaching, because he realizes how important philosophy is, but it can have a terrible corrupting existence, because the love of wisdom can never be actualized.

Socrates hides things. The wisdom he teaches turns out to be that you can proceed toward wisdom, you can get pieces

of it, but you can never completely grasp Truth. There are the wise and unwise, and nothing is going to change it. For Socrates, what is all important is to find peace and openness so that he can philosophize.

◦ But all he has is the city.◦ Socrates also doesn't think he is wise.

From the perspective of the city he was seen as strange, subversive. The city needs to provide law, justice, protection, homage to the gods The philosopher cannot be an accomplice, spokesperson of the city, without having to compete

with the city, and particularly those people who have taken on authoritative roles in the city, and see Socrates as a threat, and a madman.

The relationship with the city is complicated. Socrates also needs to use rhetoric to support his arguments, which makes him ironic...and that

pisses people off, because we want sincerity. Because of the risk to the philosopher and the risk to the city, he does not tell the complete truth

◦ Fundamental distinction between the many and the one

Philosopher needs the city because of the requirements of everyday life, and people who he can teach and mould.

Plato in all of his 26 dialogues does not portray Socrates talking with another philosopher.◦ Role is reserved to the very few◦ Rival to religion because it replaces beliefs with knowledge

Socrates and Euthephro (sp?) Socrates has been charged with curopting the young, and not believing in the city's gods, and

making up his own ones. Euthyphro claims he has some kind of knowledge. It makes one sense that E could be an

accuser of Socrates, because he himself is not famous for his piety. For E, only revelation reveals humans as they truly are. Without revealed knowledge, life is incomplete E is about 50yrs old, bringing a charge against his father about an event that took place 5yrs

earrlier. One of his servants had become drunk and killed a slave. His father had him bound, and he as

neglected and died. E had only recently become a seer, and had all the enthusiasm of a convert. He gives no sense that he has any sense of politics Obsessed/preoccupied with the impiety of killing, so much so that he's taking his father to court. E doesn't know that Socrates has been charged. E is a Zealous person, and he seems unsure of what exactly he is prosecuting his father for. He may have had an entirely personal motive for his actions He claims to know something, which enables him to go against certain things....like going

against his father. Socrates proposes to become E's student. Socrates is made visible, remaining still, immobile, whereas E is very mobile, and says that his

words are the 'statue of Deadalus'. Socrates compares E to Proteus who continually changes his shape. Socrates is driven by a practical intent – a demonstration of philosophy at work.

◦ A love of wisdom (zetesus), of searching....◦ Unwilling to accept solutions that produce political agitation

Socrates attempts to use philosophy to order E's soul. Socrates in action is coming up against these young agitators who could very easily subvert the

city, and he attempts to silence them, often with confusion Life is in constant motion

Section 5D 10-11 Offers a definition of piety – following the law, immitating the gods. Zeus who punished his

guity father◦ Socrates goes – what I want is one idea of piety, not examples and illistrations, he wants an

argument, a rational account of what piety is. Wants the essence of piety◦ What makes a thing pious?

E is very literal, so for him, the above is true piety. In platonic dialogues, we are often asked whether Socrates is charged correctly in corrupting the

young...well, he does. Revelation relies on human judgement, insight, and so on....

God's commandments, there is disagreement between god's commandments. Philosophy is the only alternative to reveelation.

We can acquire knowledge of the good through reason alone – Socrates The pious believer thinks that philosophy is vicious The philosopher says that the religious believer chooses to conform to the gods in blind

decision. Socrates draws E into a discussion about piety in a philosophical manner to try and prove to

him otherwise. Socrates goes on to correct E's opinion, acknowledges that piety conflicts with filial piety, and

this is why revelation has to be super-seeded with philosophy All piety can be measured and corrected through knowledge E's expectations are an expression of his selfishness and self interest. True piety lies in not following the gods, but sitting in quiet contemplation and understanding? Maybe philosophizing is the truest form of piety. What is dear to the gods seems arbitrary to humans The action that he's embarked upon is impious. Justice is not merely enforcing the law, following the gods. Piety is not simply expecting the love and care of the gods for our use...

Origin of the good things – whether things are good and holy because they are commanded by the gods, or they are holy and good because they are commanded?

There is an order which only philosophy can provide, can let us know what is higher.

What does piety demand? The obligation of perusing justice has expanded, and the pursuit of piety has been absorbed into

justice. In E he shows how much Socrates really does corrupt the young Socrates will claim he did not corrupt the young, but the young are corrupted by the city by

leaving citizens too low, or too high with no need for laws and constitutions The judgement that you need to develop to be a good citizen is within yourself, and not within

the rules or the gods.◦ Discover this through the language of philosophy, and discover good from bad, truth from

untruth.

Pity = orthopraxy

Aristophanes' Clouds Phidippiddes – knows Socrates

◦ Arrogant son who gambles Father wants to go to Socrates' think-tank, and his students begin to reveal things. Strepsiddies joins into the art of geomoetry and astronomy Socrates above, must have airy thoughts to discover things how they are. Clouds are goddesses who can take on any appearance and morph They woship the vortex who is king Pleased that there are no costs to crime? Strepsidies is captivated Zeus has been expelled by Vortex The clouds bribe the judges bringing lawlessness to everything

◦ descent into shamelessness

In the last violation of the mother, who is beaten,

Socrates had a thinkery in Aristophanes, a person who had great concern about Socrates There was a view that Socrates taught something occult, and somehow engaged 'cathonic'

forces, deep dark forces, which he somehow was able to employ and use. The thinkery is shown to be an extremist group of paganists. People think that Socrates is up to magic, and up to impious means to live a life of completel

self indulgence. In this thinkery, these forces that Socrates live by, are all efforts to overcome law, regulation,

moral restraint, political order◦ This is the main theme of the Clouds

If you are going to look for religious life, it becomes confusing whether this life praises the void, the vortex, infinite power...how does that click with the notion of a well-ordered soul that is part of a larger cosmos? Microcosm of the cosmos? That is maintained and educated through the virtues.

The point of time is where Athens is getting bored....◦ Athens is wanting to stir the pot, break outside the barriers of convention, to indulge vices

more. Tyranny is wanted almost.◦ They wanted to explore the deepest mysteries that conjoined violence and radical

trancendance and deep disorder.... Socrates and Aristotle both have to fight this phenomenon For the ancient greeks, the big problem was the emergence of tyrants, who wanted to assume

that there is no cosmic order.◦ We can recreate the conditions of reality and the soul, what constitutes happiness,

This play provides a startling insight into what is the boredom in Athens, the boredom with orthodoxy and tradition◦ Expressed through a love of tyranny and a regection of the cosmic order

MY NOTES ON EUTHYPHRO

Euthyphro and Socrates meet in front of the 'agora', the central marketplace of Athens, in front of what seems to be a courthouse of sorts.

They get to talking, and E learns that Socrates has been charged with corrupting the young, and Socrates learns that E has filed a case against his father for the (accidental) murder (murder by neglect) of a slave, who in turn is a murderer himself, having killed a servant in the household.

Euthryphro seems to see himself and Socrates in the same level◦ Both in receipt of divine intuition, and both at the ridicule of the public

E is very adamant on his position, thinking that his 'pious justice' must be carried out regardless of whom the offender is◦ The sin is all the worse when it's your own family. He seems to think that he is purifying

himself by prosecuting his father. Socrates comes to the conclusion that because E is going so far as to prosecute his father, then

his knowledge of 'piety', and what it means to be pious, must truly be a good and accurate one E agrees saying: “I should be of no use, Socrates, and Euthyphro would not be superior to the

majority of men if I did not have accurate knowledge of all such things” Socrates wants to become his pupil to learn what piety is

◦ Thinks that by learning the true definition of piety, it will help him win his own case wherein he is accused of creating his own gods

◦ Again, a demonstration of how Socrates does not consider himself wise◦ In this case, unlike other dialogues, he seems genuinely willing to listen to E, and to learn

what the other man has to say – he is not testing out one of his own arguments/ideas which he has already thought out in advance▪ Sincerity in his speaking

“Tell me then, what is the pious and what the impious, do you say?”

Euthyphro's Definition of Piety To prosecute the wrongdoer, despite the fact that said wrongdoer may be related to you

◦ To not prosecute is impious◦ Uses the example of Zeus, the highest of gods, who killed his father as a form of

punishment

Socrates' Examination Seems to disregard E's example of Zeus, because one cannot know the gods Asks his question again, because E's answer was limited only to his own situation

◦ “...you did not teach me adequately when I asked you what the pious was, but you told me what you are doing now, in prosecuting your father for murder, is pious.”

◦ Makes the point that there are different kinds of pious actions that are not taken into account in E's first definition▪ Needs a broader, more universal definition of piety, one not limited, and justifying only

one person's actions Says that he didn't ask E what one or two pious actions are, but the form which makes all pious

actions pious, and all impious actions impious

Euthryphro's Second Definition What is dear to the gods is pious, what is not, is impious

Socrates' Second Examination Says that E has now answered in the way that he wanted (in a more universal way), but is

unsure of whether his words are true or not. E must now justify his definition

◦ “...show me that what you say is true.” Makes the point that the God's are at odds with each other. If men were at odds with one another on say the subject of numbers (which number is bigger),

they would count to see which was bigger, and so the problem will be solved◦ Similarly, if men differed about which was bigger, and which was smaller, they would resort

to measurement to give them an answer◦ If two men were arguing about which thing was heavier, they would resort to weighing to

give them the true answer◦ The above topics can all be resolved with something universal, something that cannot be

argued with. ▪ But what about something more subjective such as beauty vs. ugly? Just vs. unjust?

Good vs. Bad? Since 'little' problems such as heavy vs. light can be solved with something universal, the gods

can't possibly be fighting about that◦ “...for they would not be at odds with one another unless they differed about these subjects,

would they?”◦ Therefore, the gods must be differing over subjective things such as beauty vs. ugly.

▪ What is seen as beautiful to one, may be seen as ugly to another Therefore, what is piety to one god may be seen as impious by another

◦ “The same things then are loved by the gods and hated by the gods, and would be both god-loved and god-hated...And the same things would be both pious and impious according to this argument”▪ E concedes to this point

Thus, 'doing what is dear to the gods' cannot be piety, because what is dear to one god, may not be to another.

Euthyphro responds by saying that that gods wouldn't disagree with one another on the matter of unjust killing. ◦ “...that whoever has killed anyone unjustly should pay the penalty.”

Socrates mentions that a killer would not think his actions unjust, and would try to avoid punishment/trying to pay the penalty for his actions◦ There is dispute then in man not between punishing the wrongdoer, “...but as to who the

wrongdoer is, what he did, and when”.◦ Gods do the same thing – while one might say one has wronged the other, the other says that

it was done justly. Socrates asks for proof

◦ What proof does E have to consider that he is correct on the matter of his lawsuit against his father?

Socrates' goes on to postulate that perhaps, what all gods love is consider to be pious, and what all gods hate is considered impious, and what some love and others hate (or vice versa), is neither pious nor impious. (9-c)◦ E agrees.◦ Words cannot be taken at their face value, so they must examine the above statement to

determine whether or not it is true.

What all Gods Love is Pious, What All Gods Hate is ImpiousAn Examination

Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?◦ In other words, are things pious from their own virtue, or are they pious because the gods

deemed it to be?◦ The two statements are different in the same sense that 'led' is different from 'leading' and

'carried' is different from 'carrying', and 'seen' is different from 'seeing'.▪ Therefore there is something 'loved' and something 'loving'.

◦ The thing being led is led because it is led, and not for any other reason beyond that▪ The thing being seen is seen because it is seen, and not the other way around▪ It is something carried because it is being carried, not because it is a thing carried.

◦ “...if anything is being changed or is being affected in any way, it is not being changed because it is something changed, but rather it is something changed because it is being changed.”▪ Socrates is arguing that outside influence defines these things as what they are. External

forces define things to be what they are, not internal.▪ Something is loved because it is being loved by something.

Someone has to love a thing for it to be a loved thing. Therefore, back on the matter of piety...

◦ Is it being loved because it is pious, or for some other reason? Euthyphro says that it is loved for no other reason Piety is being loved then because it is pious, but it is not because it is loved.

◦ Something is god-loved because it is loved by the gods Therefore being loved by the gods is not the same as being pious, because if it were, then piety

is loved by the gods because it is god-loved, and not because of itself, it's own virtue, and this has already been proven not to be the case.

Therefore the pious being loved by the gods is only an aspect of being pious, not it's true nature.◦ Not the thing that makes piety what it is.

By this time E is getting frustrated because each time he puts out an answer to “What is pious”, it is getting shot down.

Socrates is compared to Daedalus, his mentor, who did similar things to him as Socrates is doing to Euthyphro

Socrates claims to be clever without wanting to be, because he would actually prefer for E's words to remain as they are◦ He wants an answer, wants the truth, but because of his desire for truth, he has to examine

E's words, effectively proving them to be false and not well thought out.

Back to the Argument

Socrates postulates - “Is all that is pious is of necessity just?”◦ In other words, is all things pious, just as well?

Euthyphro agrees Socrates: “And is then is that is just pious? [I.e. Does justice = piety?] Or is all that is pious just

[I.e. Are all things pious, just as well?], but not all that is just pious [not all things that are just are pious], but some if it is, and some is not?”◦ Euthyphro: Mind = blown

Socrates tries to explain himself, in his usual roundabout way. He starts off by quoting a poem:“You do not wish to name Zeus, who had done it, and who made all things grow, for where there is fear, there is also shame.”◦ Socrates says he disagrees with the above:

▪ Being afraid of poverty and disease is not shameful▪ On the other hand, being ashamed of something also makes you afraid

[For instance, if you do something shameful, you're scared of people finding out. Say you have sex before marriage, which is considered shameful in most religious families. You are then afraid of your parents finding out.]

He uses the above to prove that one thing is not necessarily a part of the other in one set way. Fear is not necessarily a part of shame, but more often that not, shame is a part of fear

To relate this back to the piety argument:◦ Socrates argues that where there is justice, there is not always piety, for the pious is a part

of justice.◦ [Justice is all-encompassing, and piety is a part of justice. Therefore, by being pious, you

are being just, but by being just, you are not necessarily being pious]. So, if piety is a part of justice, we need to know which part of justice it is.

◦ For instance, if you ask someone what an even number is, they would be correct in saying that an even number is a number divisible by two, while an odd number cannot be divided into two equal parts

Socrates wants to apply the above logic to justice and piety, so what part of justice is piety?◦ Euthyphro responds by saying that the part dedicated to the care of the gods is piety, while

the part concerned with the care of men is the remaining part of justice▪ What does he mean by care? --Socrates

Not everyone knows how to care for horses, but a breeder does◦ Therefore horse breeding is the care of horses

Not everyone knows how to care for dogs, but the hunter does◦ Therefore hunting is the care of dogs

Similarly cattle raising would be the care of cattle, and so on and so forth Following the above logic, to 'care' for something is to make it better. “...it aims for the good of

the object being cared for.”◦ Horses being cared by horse breeders become better, as to dogs who are cared by hunters

So, piety, which is the care of the gods, be making gods better?◦ By doing something pious are you making one of the gods better?

▪ No! So, then, what kind of 'care' was E talking about? “The kind of care, Socrates, that slaves take of their masters.”

Therefore, 'care' would mean 'service' to the gods◦ The service of a doctor achieves health◦ The service of a shipbuilder is the building of a ship ◦ The service of a housebuilder is to the building of a house ◦ What is the achievement then, or service to the gods?

▪ What is it then that the Gods achieve by using humans as their servants? “Many fine things”

◦ Bad answer! Generals get that too, but their main ahcievement is victory in war, n'est pas?▪ Farmers also achieve many fine things, but their main aim is to produce food

from the earth◦ E claims that pious actions such as knowing what to say and do what is pleasing to the gods

at prayer and sacrifice are good for both the house and the state, but impious actions which are the opposite to the above can destroy everything▪ So then, is piety simply the knowledge of how to sacrifice and pray?

Since sacrificing is gifting the gods, and praying is begging the gods, piety, therefore is knowing how to give to, and beg from the gods.◦ But then, what is this service to the gods?

▪ To beg is to ask for things we need, and to sacrifice is to give things that they need from us

▪ Piety then, is a trading skill between gods and men.▪ But then, what benefit to the gods get from the sacrifices of man?

We get good things from them, but how do our sacrifices help the gods?▪ E claims that the gifts we give them are honour, reverence▪ Therefore the pious would be pleasing to the gods.

WE'RE BACK TO THE SAME ARGUMENT! The definition of piety is once again 'what is dear to the gods'.◦ But that was already disproved

▪ Lame Socrates asks him again what piety and impiety is, and poor Euthyphro with his mind

completely blown to bits, escapes by saying that he's late for something and has to go.

MY NOTES ON PLATO'S APOLOGY

Apology = apologia = defence◦ Plato is defending himself, not apologizing for anything.

19/09/2011

Aristophanes' Clouds

Is the character Socrates in the Clouds historically accurate? Or is he a composite of a whole bunch of philosophers and a satirical stretch?

It is clearly a personal attack, despite the reasoning. It is one of the big factors behind his being brought to trial, and may lead to his death. Even thought Aristophanes isn't a philosopher, the play does raise some questions/themes that

we'll be looking at in this class: what is justice/nature/the state◦ Are the state's laws grounded in nature or are they purely conventional?

We know little about Aristophanes' biography◦ He appears to be rather conservative in his views on religion and Greek culture in general.

Political and Historical Background of Aristophanes The age of Pericles

◦ Athens' golden age▪ From the end of the persian wars, to the pelopenissian

Pericles was the most prominent political figure of the day◦ Rose to power with his wit and oratorical prowess◦ Surrounded himself with the brightest stars of all fields◦ Carried out a beautification campaign of Athens, funded from tribute paid to Athens by the

Delion League▪ Delion Leage was a league that Athens was a part of as protection against Persia ▪ Athens quickly rose to power and demanded things from the others, ruling mercilessly

the members of the Delion League▪ It crushed any sort of insurrection against it

◦ Power was taken from the magistrate to the assembly comprised of Athenian citizens.◦ Athens was a radical democracy

▪ If you were a citizen, you were allowed to vote on legislation, and speak in the assembly Citizen = adult male who have undergone the necessary military training

◦ All major matters of the state were debated in the assembly and settled by a vote◦ Everyone (in principle) had a right to vote, but not everybody showed up◦ Moreover, even among those who did show up there were those capable of judging a piece

of legislation, and those capable of formulating it – Pericles◦ If you were an effective speaker, you could gain a lot of power

▪ If you could persuade your fellow assembly members of things, you could effectively gain control of Athens

Peloponnesian War ◦ Starts in 431, pitting Athens and his allies against Sparta◦ Escalated into the worst bloodbath the Greeks had ever seen◦ Proved extremely costly for Athens◦ Athens would eventually regain some of it's power and prestige, but never to the levels that

it was before

◦ Plague broke out in 430, killing thousands.▪ Everyone had to be brought into the security of the city walls, and made the outbreak

worse The Play is staged in 423, where the catastrophic consequences aren't apparent yet, but it is

clear that the fate of Athenian society hangs in the balance. The play hangs in the balance between the conservative, traditional forces and the martial forces

The Pre-Socratics One group within the pre-socratics, the cosmologists, who emerged and proliferated in the 6th

century Cosmologists on one hand, and on the other, the Sophists The bulk of the pre-socratic theories were cosmological in nature, meaning that they offered

reflections concerning the ultimate nature of reality.◦ Reduce what you see in the world to some kind of fundamental principle ◦ They looked for something permanent which underlay and persisted through the chaos

which existed in nature◦ The term that they used to refer to this fundamental principle is arche.

▪ To ask for an arche (or archai)is to ask for an answer to one of the following questions: What is the universe made up of? What is it's fundamental principles? What makes them be the way they are? Why are they not otherwise?

The cosmologists answered this question in the following sort of way:◦ Thales believed that the universe was made up of water. Heraclitus thought it was made of

fire. Anaxymines said it was air. Materialism. ▪ Pointed to matter, and the void.▪ The whole of the universe can be reduced to the movement of atoms (indivisible

entities), which are indistinguishable from each other, and can only be determined from the structure they form together.

▪ They also had a naturalistic account (looking within the forces of nature) to explain the genesis of nature All there were was atoms falling in the void, and due to a completely random and

chance swerving of one of the atoms, it produced a trainwreck, domino effect, and atoms started forming composite wholes which finally created the universe

◦ Leucippus and Democritus ◦ Anaxymander – at first all that there was was an apeiron out of which emerged fundamental

opposites (hot/cold, wet/dry)▪ Creates a cosmogony to describe the genesis of the universe▪ It doesn't just assert one thing from another, he tries to account for one thing emerging

one another. Tries to give the arche for it. Why Y had to come from X and that it was natural and couldn't be avoided

The pre-socratics were cosmologists and naturalists, and were important factors in a process of demytholization

Responsible for the troubling waning of belief in the Olympian gods, and the traditional explanation of the creation of the world, and the basis of political order

The Pre-socratics replaced traditional mythological accounts with accounts that rely exclusively on natural causes◦ As determined by exclusively rational investigation

▪ The sun isn't Apollo's chariot, the sun is a red-hot stone, or a burning gaseous cloud

The humanistic turn of the thinkers in 5th century BC

An examination of human nature – anthropological, ethical, and political questions are asked Studied in the same way – relying exclusively on reason Turn isn't the best way to describe this, because what some of these thinkers did was draw out

the implications of the naturalists But some of them denied the thinking of the naturalist thinkers

◦ The cosmos is logos, and so can be comprehended The two major initiators of this are the Sophists and Socrates

The Sophists Why the turn? Two reasons:

◦ They thought that the way of thinking of the naturalists were too extreme▪ Parminades denied motion entirely, and the change of time

◦ You need experts on matters of the state, people who know what a human being is, and what makes a good human being, and what a state is, and how you make a great state – charitable view

◦ Cynical view – assembly members realized that their power was completely predicated on their power to sway the assembly.▪ You need oratorical skills

Sophist wasn't originally a pejorative term, it just meant a wise person◦ Eventually it turned into disrepute because they charged fees for what they taught, and some

became extremely wealthy▪ Intelectual harlots

Travelled the land and taught a wide range of topics such as grammar, forensic rhetoric, and they flocked to Athens◦ Why? Athens was totally obsessed with litigation – frivolous lawsuits, and a democracy

What did the sophists teach, philosophically speaking?◦ The nomos / physis debate◦ A debate which raged in 5th century BC, reflecting a larger spiritual crisis (putting into

question all of the spiritual beliefs involving justice)◦ Nomos – convention, useage, what is customary. Also means law.

▪ Kata nomos – according to law ▪ Nomos thetes – legislate

◦ Physis – Nature, in two sense. Both the entities in nature, also nature as a matrix of generation (the primal source out of all things emerge, and back to where they go).▪ Kata physein - according to the rightful order of nature

To the sophists there was a dichotomy between natural right, and civil right.◦ Civil right being what is the case by custom, positive law, that someone decreed at a

particular time and place◦ Natural right is what is according to nature, what is prescribed by nature

Their account of physis was as follows:◦ Everything emerges out of chance and necessity◦ Nothing is pre-intended by any sort of god, not meant to happen, it happens, but everything

else happens out of necessity (clinamen the original swerving atom)◦ The universe as we know it is an accident ◦ Good and evil, and every sort of moral categories, are not applicable to nature◦ Nature of itself is devoid of inherinet will

▪ There is nothing we are supposed to be doing by nature, laws grounded in nature◦ Right and wrong, wisdom, justice, are all just names, purely convention, arbitrary and

contingent.▪ Established by men, not divinely ordained▪ Established by men with nothing to guide them because good and evil are not inherent

by nature▪ The will has no transcendent nature

This is why laws different from place to place and time to time. Moral relativists Drew further implications

◦ Asked themselves: if nature is devoid of all moral values, if it is beyond good and evil, then what is there to guide us?

◦ What is to orient our will?◦ What is our basis for decision? What is our standard?

They made natural inclinations for food, for sex, etc., the standard for their decisions. Following your passions and instincts is viewed by them as the only thing that is kata physein

and right. Hence, Sophists, were accused of being debauched, immoralists, or at least of inciting the

Athenian youth to this sort of debauchery Their view of positive law, as it is decreed by someone was:

◦ An instrument by which the legislator furthers his/her/their interests ◦ A tool they use to promote their agenda◦ Law is the means by whcih the weak get together and protect themsleves against the

strong/ambitious, who they would otherwise fall prey to◦ Other Sophists think that Law is a means of controlling the weak *◦ Still others thought of law, as convention

▪ Following your impulses, passions, desires, is what is according to nature ▪ Unfourtunately, if everyone does this, and nature is just law of the jungle, and your right

extends as far as your power, that is an impossible, unlivable situation▪ Even if you're the strongest person on the block, you have to sleep, and while you sleep,

you could be killed As a kind of second-best, they agree to relinquish their power to do whatever they want, on

condition that everyone else do the same. In that way, at least they keep some of their stuff, and satisfy some of their desires Religion is just a tool, similarly, to govern the masses. Fear of retribution in the afterlife keeps people in check The sophists were also relativists when it came to knowledge, and the possibility of knowledge

◦ Man is the measure of all things ◦ In that context, there are no facts, just interpretations, perspectives on things which can be

mutually exclusive◦ All is just in the eyes of the beholder

This, when coupled with their views on moral values, gets you to a place where you can understand Clouds ◦ On every issue, there is the possibility of two sides, perfectly compelling and favourable

speeches on both sides of an organization Conclusion: sophists are both the continuation and ending of the cosmological theories

◦ Continuing the view of 'god is dead'◦ On the other hand, there was never escaping doxa – opinion

Aristophanes' Clouds The play is about the spiritual crisis in Athens at the time of the play, which was a clash

between traditional customs and formal education, and the new education of the philosophers Socrates, somehow, compared to the socrates in the platonic dialgoues, is portrayed as an

emblematic figure for all of these new age figures. Aristophanes makes him the embodiment of everything he hates in the new intellectuals The play opens in the way that all Aristophanes's plays do.

◦ The main character is wracked by a problem◦ Strepsiddes is faced with enormous debts the can't pay (well, his sson has ammased debts)

A plan is put forward to solve this problem ◦ He's going to escape his creditors by sending his son to Socrates' thinkery

Strepsiddes has heard how Socrates has made the weaker (worse) argument the better. I.e. How to win any sort of legal debt.

With his son's help, he can get out of his debt trouble S identifies that the traditional forms of education are obsolete, and won't get you what you

want. Also knows that the new form of power is rhetoric – you need to be able to outspeak your

opponent Also knows that the educators who teach this new form of knowledge is Socrates and his

associates at the thinkery S's wife and son cling to the old values, are a part of the traditional values

◦ S is a bumpkin – Bush! S goes to the thinkery, and is greeted by a sickly looking student who tells him how Socrates

has discovered many things (useless things). Uselessness confirmed by how they have no adequate food or shelter Enter Socrates swining from some sort of crane thing.

◦ Contemplating the mysteries of the universe which is misinterpreted by S to be “attacking the mysteries of the gods”

◦ S implores Socrates to make him a great orator so he can get out of debt◦ Swears by the gods◦ The Socrates of the play rebukes him and says that the gods are no longer useful here, they

have been debunked▪ Zeus doesn't cause rain or thunder. Socrates says they are caused by the clouds, whcih

he introduces as his patron saints Socrates draws the same sort of implications that the sophists do

◦ There is no justice or divine retribution in nature◦ “Zeus' lightning hits the wicked and the good equally”◦ The clouds are moved by the vortex.

S partially understands and says: “Zeus is dead and Vortex has taken his place on the throne”. The clouds as the phenomenon of nature (ironic because they are transient and shapeshifters,

which were exactly what the sophists were) Third god is the tongue. What the sophists used to gain advantage over others. The clouds promise S that he'll be the best orater in town so long as he sticks to the regime

◦ Too obtuse to remember anything, and is kicked out of the thinkery Goes back home and convinces his son to take his place.

21/09/2011

Aristophanes' Clouds

Naturalists Endeavouring to develop a purely rational account of the universe Reduce the multiplicity of the universe we observe to one common element They're called cosmologists because to them, cosmos = logos

◦ Nature as a whole is structured according to rational principles, and that order is accessible to the logos of the mind

Contributed heavily to a disenchantment of nature ◦ Rain is no longer caused by Poseidon/Zeus, it is caused by fundamental natural reasons

Sophists Taught, for a fee, the linguistic skills that would persuade others Sophists were skeptics when it comes to the possibility of acquiring knowledge

◦ The sphere of the mind, the finite perspectives of gaining access to things as they are Language isn't a neutral medium like it was for the cosmologists, for the thoughts in our mind,

which themselves reflect the order of the universe◦ Cosmos = logos (both speech and reason) for the cosmologists ◦ Logos indiathetos and logos piophorikos

Sophists didn't believe in this They thought that language shaped your thoughts, it determined what you can think Language influences your thought Distorting influence and intereferes with our ability There are no facts, meerly interpretations, which are rooted in our finite perspectives of things

◦ Therefore it is possible to defend any position, and to create a persuasive argument to argue anything

◦ No objective reality, only conflicting interpretations No Truth, but prevailing in arguments

◦ Truth is universal, and it doesn't make sense in trying to outdo someone in it.◦ Martial, bellicose

Moral relativists Took over the position of the materialists like Leucippus and Democritus

◦ In nature, there is no pull of purpose, or something nature wills, just the push of atom bumping into atom, etc. Etc.▪ Clinomen

◦ In terms of nomos for the sophists moral laws have no basis in nature ◦ Nature doesn't support or ground moral laws ◦ That's why laws vary from place to place, and from one period to the next

If this is your view of nomos then what's left to base your decisions on? Nature as it's expressed in our will, understood as brute passions and desires We should follow our desires, that is what is in accordance with nature They're hedonists, pleasure should be maximized, and that should be it. Therefore they were accused of licentiousness and debauchery and being corruptors

THE CLOUUUUUUDS (finally)

Streppsiades forces his son Phidippides to go to the thinkery in his place Socrates is being cast as an athiest, someone who dismisses the traditional accounts of the gods

and natural phenomenon S and P arrive at the thinkery

S implores Socrates to teach his son the wrong argument so that he can pull one on all his creditors

He wants his son to be taught in the new linguistic rherotical education Socrates retires and ushers in the wrong and the right argument who would carry out the debate

The Debate At first they hurl mindless insults at each other There is one telling exchange at the beginning

◦ Right boasts that he'll win when he puts forth the idea of justice ◦ Wrong says there is no justice ◦ Right: justice lies with the gods◦ Well, if justice lies with the gods, why was Zeus not punished for chaining his father and

taking power?◦ The only reply from the right argument is 'you make me want to puke'

▪ Significant, why?▪ The point is that as soon as right engages in this dispute, as soon as they right argument

agrees to dispute, he's lost from the get-go, because he's seeded his proper terrain The right argument can't possibly have any rational argument for itself, why?

◦ Within it's own paradigm (according to it's own standards) for what could for justifying and validating, it's authority

◦ It's appeal to the authority of our ancestors, the priests who tell us what the gods want and what the gods are

◦ Right argument is indifferent to reason◦ Right can only rely on abuse, on physical disgust and intolerance◦ Right argument operates on the level of opinion, doxa. ◦ Within its own standard, within it's own framework, that's fine.

Right stands for traditional views of education The debate is between traditional learning, and the new education After this preliminary debate, they are asked to present their views on education, and

Phiddipides is asked to choose which one his prefers Right is dressed proper, while Wrong argument is projected to have an impish grin, insolent,

and has tongues embroidered on his clothing

According to the right argument, the old education produced, modesty, piety, self control, respect for authority, and bodily vigour.◦ Praises chastity and modesty◦ Praises it in a way that shows that he's pedophile

By contrast, the new education makes the effeminate, flabby, and lets the body atrophy (because some sophists looked on the body with contempt), and others let it go bad by persuing their basest desires

By contrast, the flabby new educated youth, the men who won in marathons were strong◦ Implication being that if athens goes down, the new education will be to blame

This time the wrong argument takes over and uses typical tricks to win◦ The baths of Heracles were hot baths, and so hot baths can't be a bad thing

Wrong argument's first major, important claim was that the old education is useless ◦ It doesn't bring you happiness in terms of the satisfaction of bodily pleasures

Right's belief and praise of nomos and law is groundless

Nomos has no foundation in physis Proof of this is the fact that vice is not punished, and virtue is not rewarded

◦ Lightning strikes the wicked and the perfectly just (by the old scheme of values) Another way of putting this is that the universe is not a cosmos

◦ It may have a rational structure/order insofar as the behaviour of atoms and matter is functioning rational law

◦ But we humans don't have a place in the cosmos, we fall outside of it ◦ We don't have a law that governs us◦ We can't look at a cosmic order to tell us what to do

If that is the case, what's to be done? He praises unbridled physis

◦ Enjoines everyone to persue the promptings of nature – natural desires ◦ Whatever their passions tell them to do, because that is the only way in which human beings

are rooted in the cosmos You should seek to maximize your pleasure Wrong urges the youth to cultivate the tongue

◦ It is through the use of language that they will obtain what they by nature desire ◦ Manipulate others through rhetoric ◦ That way you can satisfy all the desires that traditional education will deprive you of

Wrong argument's claim is that it is in accordance with nature Wrong argument is the argument that allows you to pursue your desires and fulfil them in an

uninhibited fashion The laws are for chumps, you obey it if you're a fool Nomos is important to sophists only as a check to the weak The argument ends with Right defecting to Wrong

◦ Why? Aristophanes doesn't tell us▪ The fact that he defects shows that all along his praise of virtue, his embracing the

traditional education, his arguments for that has been utilitarian He wasn't praising virtue or embracing it for their own sake **Crucial in the

Republic◦ In the Republic, Socrates argues that you need to pursue virtue for its own

reward Wasn't praising traditional virtues in themselves regardless of their consequences He was being virtuous only because it was getting him something, and making

himself look good, high position, and the money that goes with it At this point the Clouds utter a dire warning Phiddipides emerges pale faced from the thinkery, pale and scrawny Strepsiddes is overjoyed at the appearance of his son. Yay! He became a philosopher

◦ Totally misunderstood the corrosiveness of this teaching, and how it threatens to undermine the social order

Phiddipides is able to send away some of the creditors Clouds predict his downfall Phiddipides has understood the sophist education, better than his father

◦ Understands that through of this education, is beyond good and evil◦ There are no boundary markers for his actions now◦ Phiddipides has come to recognize how arbitrary and contingent the nomoi are, the civil

laws ▪ They were made by men, and human beings, and so can be undeone and changed by

human beings

◦ P starts beating his father, and his justification: every law was made by a human, so why can't he make a new one?

Step curses the clouds ◦ When the inversion of the social order suited him, everything was good◦ But now that new education has ceased to benefit him, it's at that point he turns back to the

real gods, and curses the new gods, the clouds Aristophanes' conclusion is ambiguous

◦ Not sure if he is an upholder of the old laws, because he is fundamentally selfish ◦ And that proves the new education

SETUP TO THE APOLOGY Socrates' defence against the charges against him

◦ Against the accusations that have been levelled against him for a while now, and the new charges that have been put forward to him

The text was made public shortly after the trial It wouldn't have served its purpose of vindication if it was a fabrication This is the closest thing we have to Socrates speaking in his own voice, Socrates reflecting on

his own life and the purpose of his own life Defending and asserting the goodness of his philosophical vocation Apologia – reasoned defence What we're getting here isn't really a rational argument against the philosophical way of life It's not a reasoned argument, that we get in the Republic It's the boldest possible declaration of the goodness of the philosophical vocation The unexamined way of life is not worth living To not examine your way of life, your beliefs that form the core of who you are and your

identity, is a life of death

Historical Background to the Trial 399 BC Things have gone down the drain for Athens

◦ Gone from bad to worse The slander that Aristophanes put forward in his play, why they would be something closer to a

mere joke in 423 than in 399. ◦ Even if Aristophanes couldn't stand Socrates, his intention was not to get him killed

421 is the signing of the truce in the way through a signing The period from then to 399 is basically the end of Athens' glory Athens dispatches a fleet against Sicily

26/09/2011

The Apology

Opinion = doxa Knowledge = episteme What defines opinion isn't it being true or false, but it's being succeptable to being either true or

false ◦ It's a proposition

◦ Justice/virture is x ◦ Liable to be either true or false

What we get in this dialogue is a true opinion regarding the value of the philosophical enterprise Why are we still at the level of opinion?

◦ Because we still don't know◦ Still subject to doubt◦ Hasn't been tied down

Knowledge, however, is more substancial, more concrete Knowledge can give you the why

◦ Why should you believe x?◦ Gives you a proof, relying on premises that everyone can agree on◦ Self evident◦ Derives from those premises a proof for the opinion in question

The satirical Socrates in the Clouds portrays him as a natural philosopher and a sophist – likely a joke◦ Socrates calls these slanders, and claims that they are largely responsible for the accusations

Between 423-399 is tumultous Things go from bad to worse in the Peoloppinsian wars Athens suffer a string of defeats Things get worse when Sparta allies itself with Persia, and together they form all sorts of revolts

against Athens' colonies The naval battle in 405 BCE marked the end of the war The reprocussions were widespread poverty and famine, against the backdrop of heavy war, and

a plague Sparta sets up a puppet regieme in Athens called the 30 Tyrants The enemies of this puppet regime are sent into exile or executed Appx 1500 pro-democrats were murdered under the 30 The regime was overthrown by an exiled General in 403 BCE Point? The vibe in Athens was not the same as it was in 423 Athens is a shadow of what it once was In 399, democracy was only recently restored, and those who restored it are very anxious to

safeguard it. As in any other period of national crisis, there is a kind of conservative movement Heightened concern for traditional values, conservatism, and conformity Specific backlash against those perceived to be anti-democratic, people who have colluded with

the 30.◦ Amnesty had been granted to people involved with the 30, outside of the 30 themselves

Athenians in general are now looking for a scapegoat for their increasing sense that Athenian society is in decline

Democrats in particular, and those who suffered under the 30, are looking for revenge Plato's uncle, and Socrates' friend – Critas

◦ One of the most violent tyrants Alcibiades – Soctates' beloved protogee

◦ Well born, had tremendous potencial as a political figure◦ Tasked with a naval expedition to Sicily ◦ The night before the fleet is to set sail, statues are desecrated and Alcibiades is blamed◦ He defects to Sparta's side when he learns that he was called to trial, and gives up military

secrets Therefore, the fact that Socates is associated with other shady (from the perspective of the

democrats) people, doesn't help his case The jury was huge by our standards, 501 people

◦ Thought to represent the will of the people because it was so large◦ Importance of the trial dictated the number of jurors

Athenian court seemed to be unruly, with no formal judge◦ The jury could speak up at any point, etc.

Most importantly, the legal question for Athenians was different for what we understand it to be◦ Purpose wasn't so much to figure out whether the defendant had actually carried out the

supposed accusations, but is the defendant a net benefactor for the city. ▪ Given the situation as it stands, what course of action is likely to have the most positive

consequences for the community as a whole?▪ They cared if you did the crime or not, but it was much more secondary compared to a

modern day trial

Plato picks up Socrates' account right after the prosecution finishes reading their enditement against him

Socates starts with a disclaimer◦ Unfamiliar with the court, and forensic rhetoric, and the tools and tricks◦ The stock elements that will make a good defence◦ Says he will speak in my customary manner, the way I talk with people in the marketplace

▪ Not condemning rhetoric, per say Condemning the subordination of truth to rhetoric He has no problem with being called a clever speaker, so long as it is in the context

of speaking the truth◦ Some people believe that he is being insincere here (claiming not to know is a tool of the

rhetorician) Claims that the new accusations against him are derivatives of the old ones, and that they are

comparatively benign◦ Pretty confident that he'd be able to get off if it were just the new ones◦ Worried about the older ones. Why? They're older, and thus, deep-seated.

▪ The jury members have heard about them since their youth, and it'll be harder to remove them from the minds of the jurors.

◦ Because they're the real danger, Socates is going to start with them, and spend little time on the new accusations

◦ Another diffulty he cites with the old accusations is that they are anonymous, nameless and faceless▪ Will have to fight against shadows...with one major exception – Aristophanes

Doesn't explicit cite him, but it's pretty clear that he means Aristophanes and the Clouds◦ Cites him as the source of the slanders against him

Guily of wrongdoing and studying things in the sky and below the earth, makes stronger the worse argument, and that he teaches how to do this in the others – we see all of this in the clouds◦ Note, when he re:states these slanders against him, he adds a fourth, which is implicit in the

first – that he doesn't believe in the gods.▪ If you accuse someone of being a natural philosopher, you are accusing them of being

an atheist, the two were synonymous. Given that these are the three original accusations, it makes sense to cite Aristophanes

Socrates' first target is therefore going to be the claim (decades old by now) that he is a natural philosopher◦ Socrates vehemently denies that he has anything to do with it, that he has any part within it◦ Doesn't have contempt for it, but doesn't practice it◦ Defies the jury to produce any defence of it

▪ Many believe that his is another case in which Socrates is being insincere Phaedo – Socrates admits to being an natural philosopher

◦ Passage from the Phaedo doesn't support this, because he doesn't say that he has never studied it, he just doesn't any more.

◦ Ever since he strikes up taking with the Athenians, he has ignored it▪ Said he didn't have the brains/talent for it, and he was disappointed in it,

because it didn't teach him anything◦ Socrates' humanist turn is due

Apology – Socrates makes it clear that he is very much familiar with the works of Anaxagoras, who was a famous natural philosopher ◦ Got interested in him only because of his idea of nous that nature was ordered by

the mind, and so he thought that it must be ordered for the best and the good▪ Therefore the study of nature would be able to tell us how best to do things▪ But, Anaxagoras didn't make the use of mind, and mentioned for the causes

air, ether, water, and other strange things They dwelt on 'efficient' causes Explained things by looking at preceding causes, as opposed to

identifying the purpose of it happening, what is the aim of it?◦ By focusing on the efficient causes, he looses sight of the good in

nature◦ This dissatisfaction accounts for Socrate's humanistic turn.

He realizes that natural science can't teach us how to live \ Now attacks the claim that he is a sophist (made the worse argument the better)

◦ Doesn't explicitly address this◦ Defies anyone to attest to the fact that he takes money for his teachings◦ Sophists were given money for their teachings because they (or their sons) wanted to be

made better ◦ If the sophists are to be trusted teachers of virtue or human excellence, they have to be

posessors of expert knowledge as to what a good human being is, and how to make a human being good, and how to educate one properly

◦ Socrates emphatically denies having such expert knowledge◦ He does not know how to educate one to be a good human being, and so cannot, in good

conscience, charge anyone for this Have to examine Socrates' accounts for the origins of these slanders this original negative portrayal is when he says the first controversial (and seemingly

impious)thing◦ Knows he's going to be cast as impous for this

Chirophon asking the Delphic Oracle : “Is there anyone wiser than socrates?” Socrates is puzzled by this, because he knows that he doesn't know very much

◦ So sets out to investigate the meaning of this oracle◦ Examines those reputed to be wise, find people known to be wise to refute the oracle

▪ Some commentators say that this is impious behaviour, because he says from the start that it would not be legitimate for the oracle to lie

▪ Speaks for a desire to prove the oracle irrefutable

Goes out to knock down possible interpretations of the oracle the Oracle was notoriously cryptic, and often chastised people for assuming that their initial

interpretation of their answer According to Socrates, it is his pious duty, consistent with the Oracle, to set out and find it's true

meaning◦ In his own mind, he is on a mission from God

Socrates sets out to question everyone who is wise to figure out what the Delphic oracle might mean ◦ Starts with the politicians who claim to know what justice and a good human being is◦ Socrates sets upon them and asks them questions like what is virtue/justice, with his

favourite method – elenchus (rational enquiry)▪ Using this, he exposes their ignorace▪ While they appear to be wise, they are not

What the elenchus assumes, is that to know something is to be able to define it◦ Capture the invariable thing that makes the thing the sort of thing that it is.◦ What is it about the thing that makes it the type of thing that it is? To make it belong to the

class of things that it belongs to?▪ To give a reasoned account for what it is▪ To verbally capture the essence of what it is

Aperia – impasse ◦ They have exhausted all possible definitions without producing any sort of knowledge in the

end – knowledge as in universal definition

Socratic Method The Means and the Ends of Philosophy, According to Socrates

Elenchus is the first part of the means to the end he has in mind What is the aim of philosophy? Help his interlocutors turn the eyes of their souls to the truth Turn the eyes of their souls to the knowledge that they already have access to, along as they

attend to it In other words, his aim is to help his interlocutors give birth/actualize/produce the truth that

already lies dormant within them, that they possess without knowing◦ They're pregnant with this truth, and his method is that of a midwife (maieutic method).◦ Assists the birth of the knowledge that the interlocutor is pregnant with◦ Socrates' doctrine of recollection

▪ To come to know knowledge is a process of recollecting the knowledge you already have within you, but you are not aware of.

Each of Socrates' interlocutors have to think it through themselves, Socrates can't simply pour the knowledge into them

First step is that Socrates must meet his interlocutors where they are in terms of knowledge Has to help them identify and remove their false knowledge, or their true opinions with

knowledge Has to start by dispelling his interlocutors double ignorance

◦ They most often don't know, and don't know that they don't know Because they don't know that they don't know, they can't even get the process of developing

knowledge within them, going. They can't come to desire knowledge because they don't know that they lack knowledge The elenchus shows Socrates' interlocutors that they don't know The elenchus isn't an end in itself

◦ His purpose isn't to go around refuting people, he wants to help them develop knowledge Positive flip side to the elenchus

◦ It doesn't always have to lead to an aporia – knowledge◦ Therefore another definition for elenchus is dialectic

To tie it all together – if you don't on some level already know what you're looking for in searching for something, then how will you know that you've found it

If knowledge isn't something that you in some way already posses, how can you desire to look for it in the first place?◦ How can you know you want it if you don't already know that you want it?◦ On some level you need to have an unconscious knowledge of it, coupled with the fact that

you don't have it.

28/09/2011

The Apology, ctd

The elenchus is definitely Plato's version of the Socratic method Some believe that all of the dialogues than end in an impasse that is the historical socrates'

method◦ He's just a radical sceptic◦ These dialogues are earlier, because he's still under the influence of his master ◦ He then later develops a broader method

▪ Step 1: Dispel false opinion in order to rebuild

Socrates started to investigate those who thought to know◦ Polticians

▪ Because they uphold the traditional notion of justice ◦ Poets

▪ Because they teach the traditional accounts of justice◦ Craftsmen

▪ Because they claim to (and do seem to be able to know) how to produce things ▪ Can give you an account of why what they do works ▪ Incidentally, also claim to know where justice and virtue come from

First Socrates tells us that the polticians and the poets fall short They're exposed not to have known what they claim to have known This is important because their functions depend on them having this kind of knowledge Polticians need to know what justice is to conduct it Socrates' brand of wisdom is not doubly ignorant

◦ At least he knows that he does not know It turns out that the elenchus demonstrates that they do know a few things

◦ Can explain why they do some of the things they do◦ They can provide a theory to provide why they do what they do◦ Because they know the theory behind what it is they do, they can also teach it to others ◦ The tradespeople have expert knowledge, craft knowledge, which is certain, explanitory,

and teachable ◦ Stands up to the acid bath of reason (the elenchus)◦ But, they also claim to know what justice/virtue is

▪ But knowing how to build a house is not relevant to their claim ▪ Knowledge of these human things are most important

Why, we don't know yet Opinion = conclusion without premises (not tied down)

◦ assertion of a conclusion without the premises to support it ◦ If we assume this is the most important kind of knowledge, then Socrates' wisdom is still

superior What is Socrates' explanation for the origins of the original slanders said of him First: He's pissed a lot of people off

◦ If you go around exposing people to be ignorant, and if their position depends on them not looking ignorant, it's rather embarrassing for them

◦ In demolishing people's beliefs, it's the natural inference to believe that Socrates must know about the kind of things he's just deconstructed the beliefs of others about

He knows that the leisurely aristocratic youth took pleasure in watching him◦ They began to imitate him, further pissing people off◦ And the people that they've PO'ed, blame Socrates, the model for their behaviour

Socrates' interlocutors frequently don't care for their souls, just their reputations The elenchus can have two effects:

◦ Dispels the interlocutors double ignorance, and then desires to complete himself/herself through the accusation of knowledge▪ Can lead to the acquisition of true knowledge

◦ Or it can backfire, and just piss the person off, and cause them to hate the person who has just exposed their ignorance

It is on behalf of those numerous ambitious violent people that Soctates have offended that Meletus (on behalf of the poets, apparently he was a religious fanatic and was thought to have brought other ppl on trial for impierty), Anytus (on behalf of the politicians, pro democrat, exiled, and lost all his wealth when the Spartans took over [used to own a factory, so represents the craftsmen to some degree as well],) and Lycon (orator) has brought forth the formal charges against him

Meletus' sworn deposition:◦ Socrates corrupts the youth◦ Socrates does not believe in the gods that the city believes in ◦ That he believes rather in other spiritual things/activities

Socrates' countercharge:◦ Meletus is frivolous, irresponsible, without ever having really thought of the meaning of the

words that he's using in his accusation Socrates deals with the first part first – corruption

◦ Basically says that if Meletus knows who corrupts the youth, then he knows who benefits him

◦ Meletus says that only Socrates is corrupting them ◦ Meletus hasn't thought about this stuff before, and rather reckless in bringing such a serious

accusation forward Socrates gets Meletus to agree to the following two premises

◦ No one willingly harms himself ◦ It's better to live surrounded by good people

▪ Bad people will harm you So, given the two premises, he comes to the conclusion that he can't be deliberately be making

the youth bad◦ Why? He has to be living among the youth◦ So, if he is corrupting the youth he lives with, then he's willingly harming himself, which is

bad

Based on that conclusion, he sets up a disjunction◦ Then either he doesn't corrupt the youth◦ Or, I don't do it willingly/unintentionally◦ Either way, Meletus, you're lying.

▪ Why? The charge is that he willingly corrupts the youth, deliberately does it Given this disjunction, should he be punished?

◦ No.◦ Instead, he should be instructed, taught to know better such so that he doesn't corrupt ◦ He doesn't have the intent for the crime◦ Crime has to be committed behind a moral agent, otherwise it isn't a crime, it is an accident

Proves that he believes in the gods, and makes Meletus say that he thinks that Socrates doesn't believe in the gods at all ◦ Well, if the formal deposition says he believes in spiritual things, then he must be believing

in either gods, or the children of the gods, therefore, he must believe in gods

Socrates goes on to give a speech for the value of the philosophical vocation The sovereignty of virtue He is about to explain how his philosophical vocation is a pious activity

The Sovereignty of Virtue The claim made by Socrates that all other things are secondary in value to virtue Virtue in itself is an absolute good All other good things are meerly subordinate goods

◦ Wealth◦ Reputation◦ Sensual pleasures◦ They're good only in relation to virtue as the absolute good◦ There's two ways in which they relate is by enabling the absolute good of virtue, insofar as

they enable the absolute good, then they are good themselves◦ If they are exercised by or used by a person of virtue

▪ Wealth, in itself is neutral, neither good nor bad ▪ Life itself is a secondary good

If it means comprimising your virtue, you should die It is better to face death than to live wrongly

The whole point of the Republic is to demonstrate the above rationally In that sense, the Republic can be seen as the continuation/fulfillment of the apology – the real

philosophical vindication for the philosophy of virtue What the Republic is going to prove, is that the happy person is the just person, even if they are

reputed to be completely unjust, and persecuted even because of that false opinion Secondly, is Socrates' philosophical vocation pious? Virtuous?

◦ In battle, he obayed the order of his superiors◦ Therefore, it would be shameful for him to not obey the gods, Apollo, who has tasked him

with this philosophical mission to interrogate his citizens and expose their ignorance◦ Not doing so would be impious

The oracle declared him wisest among humans because he alone recognizes that he is not wise How does that square with the doctrine that he puts forth about the Sovereignty of Virtue?

◦ He seems to think that disobedience is unjust and wrong, etc.◦ Well, Socrates isn't claiming that human's can't know, period

◦ He may just be claiming that human wisdom, as valued by Apollo is a perpetual humility, about one's truth claims

◦ Always subject to doubt, and we can err, because we are human ◦ Our knowledge is nothing compared to the infinity of things we don't know

Socrates' conclusion is that Oracle is making a deflationary comment about human wisdom◦ Our capacity to achieve knowledge is very limited indeed

Socrates claims that the god has bid him to continue pestering the citizens even though he has deciphered his meaning◦ So why does he continue?◦ How can Socrates claim to receive this mandate from the Gods?

Inscriptions on the walls of the Delphic oracle◦ Hate hubris◦ Know thyself◦ Fear authority◦ Bow to the divine◦ They were all directed to humility

'''''''''''''''''''''””””””'''''””””””'''''''””””””””””””””””””””””””””””'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''”''”””''”''”] In saying that Socrates is the wisest person on the planet, the Oracle is making a value

judgement ◦ Closet imperatives

Often when asked who was great, the Oracle would point to some low level person, not great achievers◦ It is better to be humble

Socrates is helping to bring about what the god Apollo commends ◦ Exposing ingorance in order to bring humility

Pious service to the gods That's why once he understood the oracle, he took it as a mission from god, and to continue Socrates hasn't demonstrated the ultimate value of his vocation

◦ He simply appeals to traditional authority, even though he is seemingly supporting the new education

Socrates claims that he is a gadfly sent by the god to rouse his city and fellow citizens from their slumber◦ Out our their unconscious vices, make them realize that they have neglected to search for

what is most important◦ They've taken the traditional values at face value, and that's that

Socrates believes that far from being a blight for the city, he is a gift from the gods to the city He doesn't subvert or undermine it, he improves it, he benefits the city The care of the self, what Socrates as a gadfly is doing, that kind of care of the soul is vital to

the care of the state The only healthy state is when the rulers are virtuous, and the citizens are just (have tended to

their souls)◦ non virtuous rulers will set up laws for their own benefit ◦ a state in which a city is unjust, then they won't last very long.

▪ They'll fear death more than vice Socrates is exalting himself as the model for citizens Therefore if the city chooses to kill him, they will be doing themselves great harm This brings up Socrates' political engagement

◦ If all of this is true, then why haven't you addressed the assembly?◦ Why have you lived an apolitical life?

His daimon, his personal consciousness, has told him that he shouldn't do that◦ Because if he speaks truth to power, he's going to get killed◦ If you chastise the masses and try to keep them from doing bad things, he'd be killed

Proves that Socrates doesn't have a death wish Doesn't do because he thinks theres another way where he can be of service to the state

◦ A political life in private He's been politically engaged when necessary

◦ Gone to war◦ Stood up against the Thirty Tyrants

He didn't do that because the elenchus, the philosophical life, doesn't work against the masses, against a collective

It works only against individual souls Perpetually engaging in rationally scrutinizing conversation Helping the city by helping individual citizens by recognizing their soul That they don't know what virtue is but they should come to know

Socrates is proven guilty by only 30 votes Socrates' answer: you should give me free hero's meals in the big house (city hall) If he honestly believes that he's of supreme benefit to the city, he won't say that he should be

killed More people vote to have him killed than they did to exonerate him Prophesies that Athens is going to hell in a handbasket

03/10/2011

The Republic Book 1

Opening scene supposed to symbolize the entire book Socrates has come down to the Piraeus from the heights of Athens proper (special emphasis on

down) Piraeus is a port town connected to Athens with a wall and pathway You can satisfy any desire for a price here at this rowdy port down Town begame associated with political subversion

◦ Passions run amuck ◦ Diversity of opinions ◦ And the transgression of established order

You go her to paaartay and leave behind your inhibitions Strange place to have a philosophical conversation This discussions in the Republic are all going to distance themselves from traditional Athenian

beliefs Comes down to observe the introduction of a new god to the place Foreshadowing, because Socrates is going to introduce a new 'god' as well, the Good

◦ For which he was accused of aetheism Also a kind of foreshadowing because he praises both the Thracian procession and the Athenian

procession◦ Symbolizes the perspective that Socrates is going to introduce into the city◦ You don't praise things simply because of some blind attachment to blood and soil, to

custom and what's your own◦ He's going to introduce the perspective of Reason◦ You embrace, love, and praise that which is in accordance with Reason, and for no other

reason than that Socrates start making his way back up towards Athens with Glaucon and he's pulled by a

slaveboy from behind and orders him to stop◦ A threat of force, a command◦ Stay because my master Polemarchus and his entourage is coming up behind, and they want

him to stay Polemarchus is being cast as someone who operates on opnion, and Socrates is being cast as

someone being able to discern between good and bad opinion What's going on in book one is an examination of athenian beliefs on Justice

◦ Athenian moral values are rotten to the core Socrates, prove physically stronger than us, or you have to stay Polemarchus again is being cast from the start as someone with opinions and someone with

desires, and will resort to force to get these desires Socrates replies – what if we can persuade you to let us go? Polemarchus goes – what if we don't listen?

◦ How can you persuade us if you don't listen◦ Joke – they're friends, but meaningful

▪ Symbolic representation of what this book is about This book is about making the city safe for philosophy, making it respective for philosophy What does that mean?

◦ The Piraeus is the key◦ Image of the cave which is the image itself, which is there to explain the process in which

we escape from the realm of opinion and gain knowledge of true reality. ◦ Piraeus – realm of opinion, and a place where corporal desires are the sole motive for action ◦ The realm in which force is used to satisfy the desires, which are themselves a function of

opinion◦ As a result, a realm in which human relations take the form of an all out war◦ Ruthless competition of material goods ◦ If the philosopher comes down into the cave, he's unlikely to be listened to ◦ What's more, he's very likely to be killed, because he'll be perceived as a nuisance

Socrates, who has gone down into the Piraeus, has been threatened physically, and he's been told that he will not be listened to◦ Symbolic of the basic political problem that it addresses◦ To create a true politics, one which isn't just war waged by other means

Polemarchus, Adeamantus, Glaucon, each of them are either wealthy medics, or aristocrats The medics move in the circles of the upper crust Typically people like this seek to acquire as much money and power as possible to satisfy their

bodily needs This is a form of competition between them How do you make people like that listen to philosophy Some of Socrates' interlocutors are too old to be reeducated and to allow their opinions to be

questioned There are others whose education is at stake, whose opinions haven’t been fixed irrevocably

(Glaucon, Polemarchus, Adeamanus) Socrates' burden is to convert them to philosophy But this book is about more than that

What is possible to know? And what is the human soul/nature?◦ If you consider the first question – if everything is just a matter of popinion, and there is no

universal truth, then you're stuck in the cave◦ If that's the case, then we better just scramble and fight tooth and nail to be top dog in the

cave, which is what the sophists believe◦ In the second question – if all that's in the soul is base appetites, for sensual pleasures, then

again, there's no escaping the cave, and again, we'd better fight tooth and nail to get our desires▪ Or! We better arbitrarily, artificially, set up a system of justice which will allow us to

satisfy some desires, and keep the chaos under control Some sophists said the above too This is what's at stake in this dialogue

Socrates is tempted to stay with a cool torch race on horseback in the dark, and second, there are people who'll listen to you

Socrates is a lover of conversation and so he stays The elenchus is the first step of the mieutic method to turn the soul's eyes inward If he holds false opinions then Socrates must refute them If they have true opinions, then Socrates' job is to help them get to the true knowledge within

them This is exactly what Socrates is doing in book one of the Republic We'll see a wholesale condemnation of Athenian beliefs They're widespread beliefs, and that's why its significant that Socrates is refuting them

◦ These rules are also Cephalus is an old but rich man who is a resident alien who makes shields (Athens is still at war

at this point) Polemarchus – C's son, and they move in the same circles as the high-born aristocrats

Celphaus says that he's too weak to go up to the city Philosopher must come down because the ignorant are too weak to get out of the cave Eveything he says isn't true because as soon as they start having a conversation, they leave Asks C how he likes being old

◦ Says he doesn't really mind, because his desires have calmed down, and that his desire for logoi have increased

◦ Alluded to a tug of war between passions and reason More importantly, Cephalus also says that he doesn't mind it, but his friends do, because they

can't physically cater to their passions anymore Old age isn't a burden to Cephalus Socrates points out that perhaps C is okay with it because he's rich C's reply is that yes, old age without riches is rotten, but they're not a sufficient condition to

make it bearable ◦ Riches in themselves are neutral, and because he has a good character, he uses his riches

well They allow him to, in his old age, not worry about the afterlife, because he'll be going there

knowing that's he's repaid all of his debts to both the humans and the gods◦ Allows him to be just and pious◦ Moreover it allows him to be honest, because he doesn't have to cheat people out of money

in order to pay off his debts Cephalus acts virtuously according to the traditional conception of justice

Importantly, he doesn't actually know what justice is ◦ He does have a true opinion of the proper value of subordiante goods, and the true opinion

of hierarchical relations from passion to reason, and he does have a true opinion of justice as well

◦ But he's gotten these true opinions where? From myths, the accounts of the gods, the afterlife, what you have to do to avoid a really shitty one, and his ancestors ▪ He's able to act well wiithout knowing what virtue is▪ He can only continue to act well if he doesn't place this true opinion he has into

question, if he doesn't rationally examine it Because as soon as Socrates challenges his defintion, he leaves and goes to sacrifice to the god Celphalus' accidental definition of justice – giving to each what is owed to them Socrates pounces on this as though it were a definition that Cephalus wanted to put forward as a

true definition Counter example – if you borrowed a weapon from a friend and he goes postal, you shouldn't

give it back ◦ Conflicts the idea that one must always return what is owed to them

His son Polemarchus intervenes, and he 'inherits' the argument ◦ Comes in to try and defend his father's definition of justice

Significant – Cephalus is satisfied with opinion, not interested in seeking truth with reason What happens when the rational justifications don't satisfy them?

◦ All that he'll have left are his passions to govern him – dangerous ◦ The only hope for Polemarchus and the young ones are for the Socratic method to succeed

and enable them to come to a rational argument as to what justice is, and why one should be just

Polemarchus appeals to a traditional authority – poet Simonides Appealing to the traditional foundation for traditional Greek culture Socrates points out that the meaning of the poem is not self evident, and reason must be used to

tell us what the gods mean to tell us from the mouthpiece of the Poets Reason is being elevated to the standard Nothing is revealed truth unless it is consistent with reason

◦ Polemarchus concedes this Polemarchus' reinterpretation is that justice is helping friends and harming enemies

◦ Reflects traditional Athenian beliefs about justice, especially among the elite They conceive the world as a perpetual struggle over the finite scarce material goods that

everyone wants, but not everyone can get◦ Your friends are those people who help you get stuff ◦ Enemies are then all people who stand in your way

Criticism of Polemarchus' Position What emerges out of this interrogation is to make Polemarchus realize that we need to know

what exactly is due to people What the good of a human being is. What a human being is and what a human being needs He hasn't thought at all about whom you should benefit, and why you should benefit some, and

harm others The criticism operates through a parallism between the arts (techne – craftsmen know a

particular type of operation to make the thing well)◦ A doctor knows what bodies are, and what a thing needs◦

If justice conforms to this craft idea, then it is correct

The question has become – what expert knowledge is justice? The problem is that justice doesn't seem to be any of the crafts Doesn't seem to have any particular sphere of operation

◦ You go to a doctor have your body healed not because the doctor is just that he benefits your body, but it is because he is a doctor

Doesn't seem that justice has any particular sphere of operation Polemarchus comes up with a lame sphere of operation to explain justice – wars and alliances

◦ Just person won't betray you◦ This conflicts with another opinion because justice is still useful in peacetime

Polemarchus tries again A just person is good with money – just person will keep your money safe Problem – we also have this opinion according to which is that it benefits you when you want to

act well, not inactivity So, if it's good when you want to keep it, then its useless when you want to act on it, conficts

with the opinion that justice is to act well Polemarchus doesn't know what he's talking about! Doesn't even know what benefiting means

◦ You need to know what that thing is, and what it needs◦ And so he hasn't thought of what a human being is, and what it needs, how you make a

human being better Techne then, is neutral

◦ If a doctor knows what is best for bodies, then he'll know what's bad for them too◦ So, if a just person knows how to guard money, then the just man could also be a really

good robber/theif, because if you know how to keep it safe, you know how to steal it▪ Point – show that Polemarchus doesn't know why you should be just ▪ Why the just person shouldn't be a thief

Polemarchus hasn't thought of to whom you give benefit either ◦ Well, we don't always know who our friends and enemies are

So is justice harming your enemies even if they turn out to be enemies? And help your friends even if they turn out to be enemies?◦ Polemarchus insists upon his initial definition and modifies it only slightly – justice is

helping actual friends and harming actual enemies◦ Good people are your friends, and bad people are your enemies◦ Therefore, you should do good to good people, and bad to bad people

Friends are actually good people, which may include actually good people who you think are your enemies, and justice is harming enemies (understood as bad people), including those you may think are your friends◦ Point – who are good people? We don't know, no criterion for determining this ◦ Polemarchus should care about this, but doesn't.

Concluding criticism – if justice is giving what is due to all (good to the good to actual friends, and bad to the bad, ones actual enemies)◦ But, does the just person ever harm anyone?◦ Once again this is answered by looking to the crafts, because if justice is a craft, then it must

have the general structure as a craft Insofar as a doctor is a doctor, does he or she ever hurt anyone?

◦ So, is your doctor really being a doctor if he's hurting you? No!◦ By definition, a doctor is someone who heals bodies, who benefits bodies, by knowing what

they are, and what they need ◦ Therefore anyone harming bodies doesn't conform to the definition of being a doctor. The

moment a doctor starts harming they stop being a doctor All arts do good to the objects over which they are set If you want to harm something within the specific operation within the arts, its by not practicing

the art If you want to make someone unmusical, you do it by not practising the art of music So, if justice is assumed to be an art, can it ever be the case that a just person harms someone? No! Because it has to conform to the idea of benefactor and beneficiary

◦ All arts benefit that over which it applies Therefore Polemarchus' position doesn't hold up, because he's defined justice as harming

enemies How do you benefit someone? How do you make a human being good? It turns out at the end of this conversation that you make someone better (virtuous – a good

example of whatever it is that you are) by making that person just. If justice is an art and thus conforms to the general structure that arts exhibit, then it can't be the

case that justice makes people less just, and therefore harms them But, if the analogy of the arts hold up, it is by doing the opposite of justice that you make

people unjust and harm them

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05/10/2011

The Republic Book 1Part 2

Enter Thrasymachus Name means 'fierce in battle' Portrayed as a kind of animal (wolf) Calls Socrates a cheat because he knows that it's easier to poke holes in arguments than defend

one rationally◦ He doesn't really mean this, he just wants Socrates to put forward and argument so he can

put one forward and win what he sees to be a battle▪ It's a battle, not a conversation that is mutually beneficial▪ Perfectly consistent with his definition of justice – he employs force

Uses sophistical tricks – subtle force, violence Thracymachus is a sophist – relies on speeches and resists the elenchus being performed on him

◦ Tries to leave as soon as Socrates tries to refute him Thracymachus – justice is the advantage of the strong Socrates immediately asks: physically stronger?

◦ Disgusts T who says that Socrates is attacking his argument in the weakest point (accuses him of being a sophist )▪ That wasn't what he was doing, he was simply trying to clarify the terms

T means stronger as in politically stronger – rulers, the regime in power His claim is that every regime passes laws that are in their best interest

◦ A democratic government passes democratic laws, an oligarchic government passes oligarchic laws

◦ Rulers rule with their interest in mind and the laws that they establish further their interest, not of those whom they rule over

What is the problem with this? Are your rulers infallible

◦ T says no, they can make mistakes What's a mistake?

◦ For a ruler to pass a law that isn't in their interest, that isn't to their advantage What happens when they do make a mistake?

◦ A contradiction arises – T says it's just to obey the laws (to advantage of the stronger)◦ What happens when the citizens obey laws that are mistaken? And don't serve the interest of

the ruling class?◦ Then it's both just and unjust to obey the laws.

Resolve dilemma by using the term ruler in the strict sense◦ Reintroducing the analogy of the crafts ◦ Ruling is a craft (expert knowledge/art)◦ He's basically shot himself in the foot here

What is an art?◦ A body of knowledge involving the benefit of a particular sphere of operation◦ As such, a craftsman, by definition, never makes a mistake ◦ The moment he does, he stops being a craftsman

▪ e.g. If a doctor fails to benefit the body, then they cease to conform to the definition of their art, and if they fail, they can't be called 'doctor'. Becomes a doctor in name only

Likewise, ruling is the knowledge of having what laws to pass such as to benefit themselves◦ Therefore, a ruler that fails to do that isn't actually a ruler in the strict sense of the term

▪ Ruler in name only It will always be just to obey the laws that rulers put forward, because they'll always be to the

advantage of the ruling class ◦ Because by definition, they don't make mistakes about these things

The Refutation T's definition has been 'salvaged' or so he thinks We start by determining what is essential to each craft

◦ By divesting from the crafts all that is external to them, that doesn't constitute their essence◦ All that is accidental

In the case of the art of medicine we have the person who conducts the art, and the one over which the art is set◦ In this case, which one befits?

▪ The patient, the object of the art Though the doctor may benefit through the money he gets for his services, it doesn't count

because it isn't integral for a doctor to be paid◦ A doctor can still practice art without getting paid – money fringe benefit

Or, in sailing a ship, you have the captian, and the sailors to which the art applies ◦ Captaining is the art in which the captain helps the crew get back to safety◦ Insofar as he's a sailor, he benefits, but if the captain is remote controlling from the shore.

Then he's still a captain, and so any benefits he accrues it is accidental

Therefore, in a craft relationship, it is the thing over which it controls it what benefits Now, which one is stronger? The art or the artist? Socrates says that art in itself, in theory, is the complete body of knowledge regarding how best

to benefit the object in its particular sphere of operation Self sufficient – independent of any other art, and is not in need of anything So, what about the bodies being healed? They're in need of healing – deficient, not self

sufficient◦ In need of something external◦ So which is stronger, the art or the object upon which it is being applied? The art, because

the object is sick The sense of stronger has to be the same as the sense T is using it in In what sense do we mean that the art is stronger than the object to which it applies Stronger in the sense of ruling over – same sense T is using How does the practitioner of the art as the possessor of the art rule over the object?

◦ Doctor – prescription, a command, body will be healed if it allows itself to be ruled The sailors are benefited in the sense that they are being ruled and that's why they make it

safely to shore T's definition is effectively knocked down

◦ If justice is art, it has to conform to the structure of arts, and therefore it has to benefit the object over which they rule▪ Therefore the citizens benefit over the rulers

Thracymachus gets pissed◦ 343b-344d

Haven't you heard of the shepherd and the sheep? Claims that Socrates is a fool for thinking that shephers are thinking of doing anything other

than fattening their sheep for eating Justice is harmful for one who obeys and serves The just don't do what is to their advantage, but do what is to the advantage of the ruler A just man gets screwed, and the just person gets good stuff

◦ In a contract, the just one gets screwed◦ Taxes – a just man gets screwed because the unjust evade the tax

=p Those who reproach injustice do it because they're afraid, but because they're weaklings There's no reason to be just, and it is good to be unjust, and best to go all the way in the

injustice◦ Happiness is to fulfil your nature whatever it must be

By justice T means the advantage of another, the unjust person, not the just one

At this point Socrates tells him that insofar as a shepherd is a shepherd, he takes care of his sheep and makes sure they're safe and so on ◦ It's the butcher that kills the sheep

He wants to drive home the point that has become clear in T's speech You shouldn't practice the art of ruling, you don't want to benefit your citizens, you want to rule

as to benefit yourself You want to grasp, acquire power, gain it and exercise control

◦ You don't want to rule in the strict sense Implication

◦ Well, rulers want to rule right? They do so willingly?

◦ T – yeah, of course This is where they go over the thing of moneymaking Rulers in the strict sense don't want to rule, they do so unwillingly

◦ Rulers practicing the art of ruling that we've seen benefit the rulers◦ Precisely why they need to be paid – compensated for practising the art, because insofar as

they rule they're not benefiting themselves Good rulers wouldn't want your money so you have to threaten them to take it What is the worst threat? What is that compels them to rule?

◦ The thought of being ruled by someone else, someone worse than them Thracymachus at this point is not convinced

◦ What is best in life is siezing power and acting unjustly as to get power yourself◦ Injustice is virtue

T's conception of human nature is that we are solely guided by out appetites, and virtue, which is our nature, is fouled by injustice◦ At the most we have an instrumental calculation reason, but it is subordinate

▪ Tells the appitites how to get what they want▪ that's why he's portrayed as an animal!

Nothing else distinguishes us from animals without reason

The second Refutation Justice is a kind of virtue of knowledge plaenexia – surpassing

◦ What T thinks is best in life Outdoing is what it's all about

◦ Screw and kill Socrates asks T – will a just person seek to outdo an unjust person

◦ Well yes, the just person thinks that things are unfair ◦ The just person will seek to get more than unjust people, but the just person will not seek to

get more than an unjust person▪ Proportional equality

The unjust person, on the other hand, he seeks to outdo just people because that's the point! Obviously, the unjust person will seek to outdo other unjust people, because once again, the

whole axis of evaluation is: can I get more than everybody? We're trying to figure out whether the just person or the unjust person is wise? So, what kind of person does a wise man correspond to? A just or unjust person? As outlined by

this notion of outdoing others

Do people who have expert knowledge try to outdo people who have other expert knowledge?◦ No◦ Two doctors with complete knowledge looking at a patient would likely have the same

answer and so wouldn't be competing with one another◦ Or, insofar as you're a mathematician (if you know that 2+2 = 4), we don't try to outdo one

another in your understanding of 2+2 So, a wise person will not try to do better than another wise person

◦ But, a doctor will try to do better than an unwise persno (one who isn't a doctor) So, what about the unwise person? One who doesn't have expert knowledge?

◦ Will seek to outo both wise and unwise people, because the unwise persno whom he's trying to beat will not know

◦ Will seek to beat everyone

So how does his map onto out defenition of just and unjust people? A just man seeks to be the same as other just men, and seeks to outdo other unjust men A just person that corresponds most closely to the wise person Therefore, it makes more sense to claim that it is a just person who is wise, and injustice is

actually a form of ignorance

T is still not convinced The only thing you should listen to is the voice of your appetites

◦ Appetites it's the only thing that is really essential to us And they go on

Opening to Book 2

Glaucon comes into the scene Doesn't believe in the account of justice he's heard from T, but nor is he persuaded by Socrates'

defence of it He finds that it relies too much on weaknesses in his opponents position, and hasn't put forward

a positive claim He thinks justice is better than injustice, but doesn't know why Asks Socrates – what kind of good do you think justice is?

◦ Three types – things that are good in themselves (joy)▪ Things that are both good in themselves and bring good things▪ Things that are not good in themselves, but good in what they give you (instrumental

goods) Aren't desired for themselves, but desired for what they give you Going to a dentist

The third is is what most people think justice is like◦ an onerous burden, only good for its reward, in itself it is of no value◦ If you can get those great things wihtout being just, then there is not reason to be just, it

would be stupid to be just ◦ So why be just?

Glaucon tells us that he'll do three thinks◦ Tell us the nature and the origins of justice◦ Based on that notion of justice, no one is just willingly◦ And defend his opinion with the

Glaucon's account of justice To satisfy as many of your bodily appetites as possible Why?

◦ Because this conception of justice relies solely on appetite Maximal injustice is what is according to nature There's a catch - we all desire to be maximally unjust by nature to get stuff we want

◦ Whatever we acquire in this competition is precarious, in danger of being lost◦ We need to sleep, and then someone weaker than us can come along and kill us and take our

stuff And so, we comprimise what would be 'best' – to be the top dog We see that it would be in our interest to set up an artificial system of justice – I'll stay away

from your stuff if you stay away from us We transfer unlimited rights to a third party that we designate the soverign, someone to rule

over us◦ Keep in check out passions which are boundless and lead to conflict and war

This artificial system is just that – contrary to nature We're imposing shackles upon ourselves, stuff that we've acquired lawfully But, many of our desires are going to go unfulfilled, as so we chafe at our shakles Proof of second best – the ring that makes you invisible Even the most just person will not be able to resist the temptation to carry out injust acts with

impunity

12/10/2011

rawwwwr im in a rage

Dikaiosyne – justice Justice percieved around Glaucon's lines are contrary to nature

◦ Justice is not something you do willingly◦ It is good only instrumentally – good because of something it yields (e.g. going to the

dentist) What Glaucon's challenge to Socrates is to show that justice is good in itself, an absolute good,

not a relative good ◦ Unconditionally good

How is Socrates going to do this? Let's strip justice of everything that it yields

◦ Imagine someone who is supremely just, but this person unfourtunately has a reputation of supreme injustice ▪ Tortured, exiled, etc. Etc.▪ And that person is finally executed▪ This is how you make sure that justice isn't good for its own good ▪ Prove that even this person is actually happy

To answer this challenge Socrates must demonstrate that you're happy when your nature is satisfied◦ If it turns out to be the case that you are essentially appetite, then happiness will be the

acquisition of power to satisfy bodily desires◦ Socrates has to refute their account of human nature ◦ Does that by showing that there's more to us than appetite ◦ We are not repetitive creatures

Glaucon has given the account of the nature of justice by building a city Socrates must do the same thing Why? He needs to demonstrate that there's more to us than mere appetite He needs to examine human nature and what's in the soul How does he do that? Fundamental presupposition that all the parties agree on – the city as a whole is an image, it

corresponds to, is a reflection of the soul Therefore justice in the city is justice in the soul

Only it will be written in 'larger letters', bigger in the city, and easier to discern in the larger thing ◦ this is why the conversation of justice veers off into the establishment of a city in logos

The guiding principle of the city/what's the purpose of a city – to satisfy our needs ◦ Specifically needs for necessary things that we cannot go without◦ Things that every human being desires out of necessity

▪ Food, safety, clothing --> what the city needs to provide He's going to be guided by nature – built according to nature Socrates is going to follow human nature in the building of his city He is going to look to what humans are and what they need The city is going to be built such as to cater to those needs The first thing we have to figure out:

◦ Should everyone make all the things that they need?◦ Well, that's not efficient◦ More efficient if the labour is divided, and some tasks won't wait at your leisure ◦ Second reason is that by nature we are not all equally suited for the same tasks

▪ Different aptitudes in human beings ▪ If our city is going to be according to nature and work with it, it better respect the

diversity of aptitudes that you display One person, one art Each person will do what they are suited to do Some people are going to be cobblers, others labourers, etc... Socrates calls it the true city All basic needs are catered to

◦ So why doesn't the book end here? What's missing?▪ Luxury

Glaucon, who is portrayed as a person who desires (also a courageous person), an erotic person, points out that there are no luxuries,◦ By nature we also desire things that are by definition, superfluous and unnecessary ◦ By things in qualitative terms and quanitiatively ◦ We desire more of things which are necessary than are in fact necessary, and things that are

unnecessary So if this city is built by our nature, it better satisfy our desire for superfluous things This desire for unnecessary things is boundless and limitless To cater to these desires we need to introduce a whole bunch of other people to cater to them:

◦ WHORES!◦ And doctors?

▪ Because you're going to have a lot of unhealthy people now By nature we can desire things that don't agree with our nature/that are bad for us, and so you

need people who can compensate for that You're also going to need soldiers, why? People will want other people's things and their land

◦ You'll need to conquer other people's lands because your superfluous desires are boundless, and our resources are finite

Can the citizens who have other occupations (such as craftspeople) can they also be soldiers?◦ The principle of nature which has guided the establishment of the city so far is that your role

in the city is what you are naturally made to fulfil◦ One thing

The primary reason that the soldiers constitute a separate class is that what makes a soldier a soldier is something unique to them

◦ The special thing that soldiers need is quite different from desire◦ They have this other special thing that allows them to cater to the cities desires, not a special

desire that makes them uniquely qualified to be soldiers So what to soldiers have?

◦ Spirit = thymos \\\\\\\\poop///////// Spirit:

◦ Your fortitude, your bravery, what makes you stand fast in the force of danger, and righteousness indignation

◦ What makes you feel shame in the face of defeat◦ It is not desire for material goods, because it does not affect your capacity to acquire

material goods◦ What is getting upset in you when someone beats you is your thymos, your spirit

Right away you've shown that Glaucon and Co.'s account of human nature is false because there is something more to humans

Farmers and craftsmen don't need this, but soldiers do Soldiers are like dogs, and therefore like philosophers Just like dogs, they have to be both fierce and gentle

◦ Seemingly paradoxical in nature ◦ Just like dogs they're going to be fierce to enemies, but gentle to those they know (precisely

because they know them) ◦ Therefore they are like Philosophers, because they know, and love what they know.

If they were just fierce, they could turn their ferocity on their own people, and if they were just gentle they would suck as soldiers

Soldiers have to see the city as something to guard and protect It's seemingly impossible but it is not against in nature, it exists in dogs and other animals, and

thus it can exist in human beings as well It is possible to make soldiers protectors and guardians rather than tyrants So, to create this class, you have to identify those who are really fast and strong, and those who

have high spirit, and those who are philosophers But nature alone doesn't suffice There must be education of the guardians, becuase that is what makes them guardians by taking

their natural disposition and turning them to defend the city A people who see the good of the city as their own good An attempt to educate people to identify with the city, and establish a rationally ordered city, a

model of a good city Therefore we are bringing them up to identitfy with reason Train their thymos to put it to the command of reason

◦ Thymos is channelled in support of things that benefit the city ◦ Enforce the actions that are consistent with the city

We achieve this by telling them stories and by singing these stories in the appropriate rhythms and modes (consistent with the content of the stories that we're telling them) ◦ Medium is part of the message

Epithumia – desire, and thymos are nonrational in the sense that they're capable of developing an argument for a particular action and they are not capable of rationally grasping arguments in favour or against particular actions ◦ Thus you have to induce desire and spirit to lend its force to rational means ◦ You are not reasoning with it, instead you're surrounding the individuals that you want to

educate, you want to surround them with images of reason

◦ Images of the types of behaviour that you want them to carry out ▪ Images can either be visual or auditory, anything ▪ The stories and the rhythems and the modes that the songs are sung in, and the physical

exercies that they're going to do The rulers of the city are going to set down patterns or models of all the crafts, and all of them

have to conform to the models◦ They can't just build things any way they want◦ Models will make the result harmonious

Why? You want children to be surrounded by these products, which are images of reason, and so make their own souls reasonable and harmonious, such that they'll be receptive to reason◦ Reason being what establishes this order◦ Even if they are not understanding of reason, they will at least be receptive to reason

Even our architecture has to convey a certain message Censorship of the stories that are to be told to children:

◦ About the gods◦ Censorship of music◦ Physical exercise, the regime that will correspond to the stories we want to tell them

Cencorship of the stories and poems Stories we want children to hear such as they become good guardians Such as they have the virtues necessary to have the function of a guardian They're going to be hearing these stories from their youngest ages

◦ Deeply entrenched So you have to be careful because you want the message in these stories to be the beliefs that

they hold as adults so, if that means we have to lie to them, then that's okay Falsehood as such is not that big of a deal, so long as it is of the type of nobility and use

◦ Produce a story that on the surface is literally false, but the core of the story is good and true So, what do you want kids to think about the gods?

◦ The gods are going to be models to the children and must be portrayed as exemplars of virtue, so can't be debauched or licentious or hating each other

◦ The gods are good and therefore they can't be the cause of anything bad ◦ If they are the cause of anything bad we'll say that those bad things that the gods caused are

actually rightful punishment for wickedness◦ Those t hat the gods punish are not made wretched through the punishment but its for their

own good, and they know that◦ And so, since the gods are by definition good, they can't change, because if they change

they'll change for the worse ▪ Therefore they are unchanging and immutable, and so can't be shapeshifters and using

disguises to seduce humans, etc. The principle of it – what we want to create in them is a sympathy for orderliness and limits

◦ A sense of rightful limits and boundaries and a resolve (willingness, desire) to respect and enforce limits

◦ What this class is going to be called upon to do is to impose limits upon boundless desire ▪ Keep in check the class of the craftsmen who are ruled by boundless appetites

And we don't want to raise our soldiers so that they obey for the sake of obeying The art of ruling – ability to pass laws that impose the best possible order in a state/city

(maximally empowering for its citizens)◦ A good ruler knows how to do this, whereas a tyrant is a person who doesn't practice the art

of ruling▪ Rules just by decree

Tyranny is a disordered place because a tyrant is ruled by his appetites which are in turn unreliable and disorderly

The education in music and poetry and gym are meant to inculcate a sense of order and a love of order in the soldier class◦ So when the rulers say something is good, they'll obey and enforce that decree

The important thing that Socrates stresses is that music and poetry goes hand in hand with gymnastics, because it alone over cultivates the thymos and if you're just educated in music and poetry, you're going to be soft

The question now arises: who is to rule?◦ Right now you have an army, and an army of craftsmen

Who's to rule the solider class? The best of the Guardians So what set of critera are we going to establish to determine who the best are? We have to look at the essential function of a solder and thus we'll determine which ones are

good A guardian's essential function is to regard the city's good as their good

◦ Completely embrace and identify with the order of the whole, and don't see their own good and their own needs as separate

And it makes sense to test them accordingly Which ones best preserve this belief? Which ones maintain this identification with the city in

the face of death and danger and temptation? Which ones never betray the city, never choose their own interests over the city Those who unfailingly preserve this are best to rule Now the soldiers are split into two: Guardians and Auxiliaries (don't do best in these exams as

the Guardians do) This is when we tell them a noble lie

◦ Socrates doesn't really explain why though ◦ So what is the lie that is told to auxiliaries craftsmen and guardians?

They have just now sprung up from the soil of the city and all their memories are just implanted in you ◦ The myth is telling these people that they are literally born of the soil of the city and will

have the most powerful identification with the city as possible (mother, and brother-sister relationship between the citizens)

But they have different metals in their souls The Guardians have gold mixed in their souls

◦ Auxiliaries have silver, and the craftsmen have copper/iron What is the purpose of this lie?

◦ We want them to believe that their function is what they're naturally suited for ◦ They can and should be nothing else than what they are

It is a noble lie in one sense because literally speaking it is not true, but metaphorically speaking it is true, because the city is established according to nature and each person is going to fulfill the role in the city that they are meant to fill

But the lie must be told◦ Some people would make really bad guardians, but they would make bad guardians because

they're too stupid to recognize that they would be bad guardians◦ So we have to tell them the story which convinces them at their level

Noble lie because it serves a good purpose by preventing class envy ◦ Don't want people to pity themselves because they're bronze, etc.◦ Don't want the craftspeople to envy the guardians, etc. ◦ We want them to identify with their respective roles and find fulfilment in them ◦ We also don't want the craftspeople for thinking that the guardians are usuprers and that

they could do just as well

Living Conditions of the Guardians ◦ Military barracks, no private property, wives and children in common◦ They are portrayed as having no appetites, which makes sense since the craftspeople are the

ones with appetites If the auxiliaries and guardians' appetites weren't controlled, they would become tyrants

◦ Their thymos would becomes subservient to their appetites We don't want the craftspeople to envy the Guardians, to think that they benefit from them

being rulers in the sense that the craftspeople understand benefit ◦ Acquiring goods

Book 4 Everyone complains

◦ That's the shittiest city I've ever heard of You've given the city to the guardians because they've got the guns and they don't get anything

out of it – preposterous You've deprived them of goods Accusation that Socrates hasn't made these people happy Socrates' reply – primary concern is not making each class happy, but the whole city happy

◦ We've constructed a theoretical city that it is a bigger image of the soul◦ Ultimately you want to determine the nature of justice to see if it in itself will make itself

happy If the city as a whole is happy, then the human being are going to be happy But Socrates also says that the Guardians will be happy too

◦ Because they are following their natures The Guardians are not primarily appetitive In theory, the ideal city has been established, and now the point is to find justice in it Find the four cardinal virtures

◦ Justice ◦ Wisdom◦ Moderation/temperance◦ Courage/fortitude

We assume that they're all in the city somehow because they've agreed that it is a good city and if the good city mirrors the soul, it'll have all the virtues that the human soul has

Wisdom is in the ruling class◦ They're the ones who know the good of each class is and what the good of the whole is◦ They make judgements regardling the good of the whole and the parts ◦ And these judgements have to be grounded in knowledge

Courage is found in the auxiliaries ◦ The ruling class issue commands, and the auxiliaries enforce it ◦ Courage/fortitude is what allows you to stand your ground and not back down in the face of

adversity ◦ Holding onto the convictions you know is right regardless of the situations you find yourself

in◦ In the city courage is going to be found in the upholding of the commands of the rulers by

the auxiliaries◦ Rulers say this is just, and the auxiliaries obey and enforce that edict◦ That's what the physical and musical training is supposed to achieve ◦ To make them receptive to the commands of the rulers and uphold them

Moderation/Temperance◦ Immoderation is characteristic of appetite that is ungoverned, and insatiable ◦ Temperance is a limit, a check on desires ◦ Appetite in itself is limitless, and cannot supply its own limits ◦ Therefore temperance has to be the recognition on the part of appetite, the acceptance of the

limit supplied from elsewhere (reason)◦ Intemperance is a subversion of the natural hierarchy that exists in the city and in the soul◦ In the soul, it is when desire places spirit and reason at its command ◦ It supplies the aims and makes reason calculate how best to achieve those things ◦ Likewise in the city, intemperance is a subversion of the natural hierarchy (when those who

try the rule, who aren't supposed to) Justice – everyone following their own natures as they are supposed to

◦ The principle that the city has been founded on

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End of Book 4/ Beginning of Book 5

Assumption – city on the whole is a bigger image of the soul as a whole◦ Therefore if we look to the bigger thing, we'll understand justice in the whole◦ If the city on the whole is happy, then the soul is happy when you are just

Cardinal virtues:◦ Wisdom – Guardians

▪ They're the ones who know the natures of all things and therefore know what the good of each class is and of the city as a whole as well

▪ In the soul it is located in reason ▪ Wisdom is the virtue of reason ▪ The rational part of the soul▪ True knowledge

◦ Courage – standing fast in the face of danger because of the conviction that it is best ▪ Unwavering preservation in a belief ▪ Auxiliaries – not rational, per say, they don't formulate the laws, but they're the ones

who, when told that it is the law, they obey it (the rational commands), and uphold and enforce them

▪ Preserve convictions and beliefs and enforce them on the craftsmen▪ True belief

◦ Temperance – appetite and bodily desires being limited ▪ Limited by reason, and upheld and imposed by thymos ▪ Agreement/harmony between all the parts of the soul

Not located in one particular part of the soul/city ▪ Agreement according to which that the rulers rule, and those who are ruled, obey.

▪ Intemperance in the city is a subversion of the natural order/agreement, such that the lower classes try to usurp the ruling role and become rulers themselves

▪ In the soul, it means that reason and thymos will be made subservient to desires Reason becomes instrumental reason – desire orders, and reason calculates just how

best to go about it◦ Justice – doing what you are suited by nature to do

▪ It is in fact the principle of nature which had governed the construction of the city ▪ The principle of a city ▪ Justice is for each person to occupy the station and fulfill the role that each is naturally

suited to fulfill ▪ In the soul it means that every part of the soul carries out the parts they are supposed to

carry ▪ Thymos embraces the commands of Reason, and Appetite is docile, and is in accordance

to the limits imposed upon it by Thymos and directed by Reason Justice is the highest good and what makes you happy, how is that?

◦ All the interlocutors agree to the fact that you are happy when you are fulfilling your nature Justice is doing what you are naturally suited to do and satisfying your nature, such that the just

person is a happy person, and vice versa Everything hinges now on the nature of human nature - good, bad, etc... We have been revealed to be rational creatures We have come to know that the better part of us that is meant to rule over thymos is reason Reason is what we are most essentially, and happiness will consist in fulfilling that part of our

nature The just person is a person for whom their rational faculty is actualized to its greatest possible

extent Note that this has completely overturned the distinction that was explicit in Glaucon's account

◦ A dichotomy and tension between nomos and physis ◦ Justice is an artificial check on our desires to control them

▪ Contrary to nature, impeeds our nature, if our nature is appetite Socrates concept of justice is nature itself – nothing is more natural than Justice, and since we ar

most integrally rational, justice is fulfilling our rational capacities True laws, good laws that rulers pass are not completely arbitrary, they are grounded in an

understanding of nature They have to be in line with our nature Have to cohere with the laws of our nature The laws of the best city will be connected to the laws of our nature We have a nature, we are something, and good laws aught to agree with it What is the nature of reason?

◦ What is that we know when we know?◦ How is possible for us to know?◦ How is it possible to make someone rational?

Book 5

The perfect city has been established in speech, and justice and happiness have been established...so why isn't the book done?

Well, now we look at how things get corrupted Polemarchus and Aedeimantus pipe in

◦ Wants to know about the odd laws of wives in common and shared property

Though Socrates doesn't want to talk about them, he is compelled to

Outline of Books 5-7 The Three Waves (of laughter):

◦ Women shall have the same education and the same jobs as men ◦ Wives and children will be in common ◦ Philosophers will rule

After that we get a description of what philosophers know◦ Three analogies: sun, line and cave

Lengthy description on how to make a philosopher You're happy when you're nature is fulfilled and we are most essentially by nature rational

beings along with being somewhat apetitive and thymonic A philosopher is a rational person – a person whose rational power is fully actualized A philosopher is more natural than any other person A philosopher is a person who actualized that which we are by nature A philosopher fulfills his nature by knowing the nature of things For this reason, because the philosopher is more natural and has the greatest insight into nature,

it isn't so much a digression to examine philosophers and what exactly they know The first two waves is a movement from what is contrary to nature to what is natural and

according to nature Also a movement from becoming to being Same as the movement from what is contrary to nature to what is natural

The Three Waves Three policy proposals Tested according to two criteria:

◦ Are they possible?◦ Are they good?

The First Wave/Policy Proposal Women will have the same education and jobs as men The principle of justice states that if you have the same nature then you aught to do the same

job If that's the case then it's going to be just for women to have the same jobs as men if they have

the same nature ◦ At least in the respect of the jobs considered, because each calls for something of a

particular nature What are the relevant natural traits for being an Auxiliary and a Guardian?

◦ Auxiliaries – spirit ▪ Are women spirited? Yeee. :P ▪ It is not contrary to nature that women should be auxiliaries and therefore it is also just ▪ It is just for you to occupy the station in the city that is suited to you

◦ Guardian – Reason/Wisdom ▪ Are women rational? ...sometimes...>.> ▪ Similarly, it is not going to be contrary to nature for women to be guardians, because

what qualifies you is being rational They can and should also have the same education

◦ Why?▪ Education aught to be suited to the particular nature it is supplied to

▪ You change your education according to the nature of the person you are educating Therefore, if you have the same nature, you must be consistent and they should be taught to be

the same Biological differences are irrelevant But, this is greeted with a peal of laughter because it defies traditional Athenian customs

◦ Whatever defies social norms is usually greeted with laughter It is against social norms, but is it against nature? No, because current Athenian customs for gender norms are not grounded in nature, and are

therefore arbitrary and backward Gym – part of education, and people have to be naked Conclusion – possible, yes, good, yes because you want the best candidates for each job, and it

will turn out that some of the women are better at reasoning than men, and likewise for the auxiliaries

This first wave has purified what is contrary to nature in respect to education and gender norms

The Second Wave Communal women and children First, is this proposal good? The structure of this section is a little hard to see First, he asks to be allowed like a dreamer and talk about how it's good, not so much how it's

possible yet Eugenics! A campaign to have the best people breed with the best people and the worst people not breed at

all...but if they have to, then toss the baby Only the children of the best parents are going to be raised The children will not know their biological parents, and likewise their biological parents will

not know their children In the auxiliary and guardian class will regard all children born after their copulation as their

children, and likewise the children will regard all parents as their parents and see the people born at the same time as them and be their brothers and sisters◦ One tightly knit family

That's how it's going to look, so is it good? It is ultimately the same thing to say something is a good chair and it is a true chair

◦ Why is that? ◦ It is fulfilling its nature ◦ Goodness is predicated on its essential function

The definition of what it is to be a good something is the same as the definition for what it is The greatest good for a city is that which binds a city together and make it one

◦ To be a good is to realize its nature and truly exist as its type of thing If that's what it means then good is also synonymous with unity To be good is to be (exist) and to be unified (to be one)

◦ X is X and not not X◦ The chair is a chair and not not a chair◦ Self identical, selfsame

If you chop it in two and it looses its identity, it ceases to be. Therefore, a city's good, what makes it be a city, is its own specific defining unity So what is the defining unity?

◦ Community In the best of the good, the ideal city, all citizens identify with one another, they are as one

They see each other as parts of a larger organism They see their good as intrinsically linked to the good of all others in the community (they are

one)◦ What affects one negatively affects all

If a city becomes many, if there are factions in the city and warfare, it ceases to be a city, it becomes many and not a city

So, is this proposal good by the criteria put forward? Yes, because family is the most essential part of community, and they'll regard themselves as

members of the same family, and this is the tightest form you can imagine In a good family, injury to one is a personal slight Biological bonds are dissolved and removed everything that is external to the definition of a

family (which is defined by community and nothing else) Biological ties are stripped in order for a greater unity Now, it is determined to be good, but is it possible? Socrates keeps rambling and Glaucon points out that he hasn't answered the question The answer is in the ....

...Third Wave! Philosophers should rule Step back, is it possible?

◦ We needed to establish the essense of justice by creating a city in speech ◦ Theoretical model, rational blueprint of the best possible city ◦ The just soul is a happy soul ◦ Established that to the extent that a flesh and blood concrete city approximates the

theoretical model, to that extent it will be happy◦ To the extent that humans conform to the theoretical model, they will be happy ◦ None of this was meant to show that it is possible ever to filly realize that theoretical model

Part of Socrates' answer was that he's asking a nonsensical question Socrates casts the difference between the model and its reality as the difference between theory

and practice The city will be possible when philosophers rule and rulers philosophize Philosophers are those who know the natures of things and thus will pass true laws which are

consistent with our natures What more does the philosopher know in knowing this? The philosopher is the lover of knowledge What is knowledge? Knowledge in this dialogue is a capacity, a faculty, the power to do something

◦ It is defined by what it does and what it is set over ▪ What is the object of knowledge which it is set over? ▪ Being

The object is being, the object of knowledge is what is, what is the case So, what is being? What things may be truly said to be? Beauty is opposed to ugliness, and therefore they are two, and each is one

◦ Beauty is one thing, and ugliness is a second thing Beauty manifests itself, and appears as many, as many beautiful things, and so does ugliness But we've shown that beauty and ugliness itself are one So what is this one? The essence of nature which is instantiated in the many beautiful things which participate in this

nature ◦ The manifestations of the essence of beauty

So the One is the form of beauty, the rational archetype of beauty, the ideal of beauty Eidos – idea, form The many beautiful things, the many, for example, instantiations (manifestations) of beauty are

◦ relative (imperfect, ambiguious)▪ The many things which can be said to be beautiful, are never solely beautiful▪ They're beautiful from a certain perspective, in relation to certain things, but not in

comparison to others◦ Fleeting, perishable or everchanging

▪ They come to be and they pass away▪ Sometimes grow more beautiful and sometimes less

◦ Particular▪ By definition ▪ There can be many of them

◦ Sensible ▪ You can grasp them with your senses

whereas, the Form, the essence, the archetype that they manifest in the sensible world (in varying degrees) are◦ Absolute, perfect

▪ The form of beauty is beauty in itself, not a beautiful thing, but the very nature of beautiy itself, what it means to be a beautiful thing

▪ It is self predicated▪ In itself it is beauty ▪ It is absolute, since it is beauty, while other things are only relatively speaking

◦ Timeless, unchanging ▪ The nature of what it is to be a beautiful thing does not come to be and pass away

◦ Universal ▪ The nature/essence that the many things of a particular type share or have in common

makes them things that make it what it is ▪ The form of beauty is the intelligible essence that makes the many beautiful things we

see, beautiful ◦ Intelligible (understandable, can be understood as opposed to sensed)

▪ Aren't grasped through the senses ▪ All the senses deliver to you are a sensory manifold of colours, or pure pointillism▪ You don't literally see a cat, you see a field of colours and it is your mind is what allows

you to distinguish it to be a cat

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Book 5 Since we are rational creatures, it stands to reason that the person to whom reason is expressed

most fully (ie. The philosopher), should rule ◦ The philosopher is a human being in the fullest possible sense

At the end of book four, Socrates wants to get into the ways cities can be corrupted Polemarchus, paralleling how he forcefully forces Socrates to stay in the beginning, compels

him to dwell on a few intriguing things he's said in passing Before Socrates can get to where he wants to, he has to embark on this long digression to

seemingly please Polymarchus and Aediamantus

◦ But, not so much a digression because it describes what a philosopher is and what he knows ◦ Makes sense to investigate what reason is, and what exactly a philosopher knows

That's what goes on from the third wave all the way until the end of book 7 The first two waves are not unrelated to the third Movement from what is contrary to nature to what is natural (according to nature)

◦ Also a movement from becoming to being Prepare socrates' interlocutors to accepting the notion and thus preparing the readers to

accepting that there's something beyond the sensible material world ◦ Beyond what you can grasp with your senses

▪ This is actually what is most real It will turn out that that is what the philosopher must know The first wave is the proposal that women shall have the same jobs as men

◦ that supporting the proposal relies on determining whether women have the same abilities as men, in terms of the natures required for auxiliaries and guardians

◦ Our senses report biological differences Our senses provide us with a manifold of data (eg. colours)

◦ Even going about your daily business in the world, you need to appeal to something beyond your senses

You need to grasp what 'same' and 'different' are, because we don't literally see them ◦ Grasp the concept ◦ Also, you don't see souls, so you have to think about it

The second wave proposing that women and children be held in common ◦ Abolishing the biological family ◦ Extending such that the whole of the auxiliary and guardian classes will regard themselves

as one whole, tightly knit family Ridding the family of all that's accidental to it, and allowing the essence of family to express

itself in such a way that auxiliaries and guardians will more closely correspond to what it is to be a family ◦ Community – unity which belongs to both a city and a family

Traditional family unit (mother, father, siblings) falls outside of the definition of family Third wave – philosophers should rule on the basis that they know the types of things that were

stated in the first two waves◦ They know the essence of things

But what is it to know? What is knowledge?◦ Knowledge is a capacity, power, faculty which are defined by what they do, what they're set

over and what their objects are◦ What knowledge does as a power/capacity is to know

What is the object of knowledge?◦ What is

▪ You can't know what is not because what is not is nothing, and not knowing is ignorance Philosophers know being in other words Beauty and ugly are opposed to one another and are therefore two separate things, and therefore

they are opposed, and are two ones, two individual things Beauty is one. Ugly is one.

◦ But we see many beautiful and ugly things The One Thing is the Form of beauty

◦ What it is for beautiful things to be beautiful, the essence of beauty itself◦ Meanwhile, all other beautiful things are only so for the virtue of participating in what it

means to be beautiful, for participating in the form

On the basis of analysis of attributes, whcih one can be truly said to be? The many or the one The many are:

◦ Relative, imperfect, ambiguous▪ The things we see are beautiful in comparison to other things, or from a certain

perspective▪ Ambiguous – they are never fully one thing as opposed to the opposite

The things we call 'straight' are never perfectly straight, it also participates in its opposite 'curved'.

▪ So beautiful things can be ugly as well◦ Fleeting, ever-changing

▪ Subject to change, they come to be and pass away▪ At some points they're beautiful, then not, and maybe they are again

◦ Particular▪ One of many

◦ Sensible▪ Material▪ We grasp them with our bodily senses

Whereas the One, the Forms are◦ Perfect, absolute

▪ Self predicating▪ The Form of Beauty is beauty itself and so self predicating

◦ Timeless▪ Eternal aspect of the universe▪ As long as there will be a reality of some sort, there will be the form of beauty, same,

and different ▪ The forms don't depend on being known

◦ juujube yummm◦ headache grrroooooooossss :( >_< :D | D:

T_T nope Alex disagrees. All chars ar red. And are pirates, apparently....;P The forms are intelligible, you don't grasp them with your eyes, you grasp them with your mind

The things we see in the bodily material world are less real than the Forms which are the exemplars of the materials

Why? Because they are ever-changing, and are already other than what they are All things are in flux – Heraclitus

◦ You can never step in the same river twice◦ plato accepts this only when it is applied to the sensible material world ◦ The river itself can't ever be said to be, because it already is something other than it is, then

it a sense, it never really is , it is always becoming. The instantiations are relative and imperfect because they are instantiations of the forms

◦ The Forms are what they are, the Forms are their identity ◦ A chair only is because it gets its being from the Form 'chair'.

As an instantiation, it can never completely, perfectly correspond to the essence of chair ◦ Like straight things

If any straight thing could evert fully realize the form of straight, you could only ever have one

straight thing in the world, because we have already said that there is only One Straight thing. To be whatever they are, is to instantiate the form Straight things are less than the form of straight itself The Forms are being, and the sensible world is the world of becoming. Being is the forms and therefore philosophers know the forms, that is their object

◦ To know is to know the forms That is opposed to the lovers of opinion

◦ Philsophers – lovers of knowledge Those who believe that all there is in reality are particular sensible objects are lovers of opinion,

and is an intermediary between being and non being... The lovers of opinion may take delight in particular examples of a form, but fail to grasp what it

is that makes particular beautiful thing be beautiful, or be just, etc. Deny a particular reality other than a sensible reality Opinion – failure to grasp a form Knowledge of the natures (forms) is that which allows a philosopher to rule The philosopher also knows the good which allows each thing to truly be what it is The philosopher must know the good of all things, however, if the good for each thing is

defined as each thing fulfilling its nature, notice that there are many different things in naure The good then will manifest itself in many ways The many good things in this world are instantiations of the Form of Good The good for each thing is for each thing to be what it is Therefore the form of the good is the principle for all things to be what they are

◦ This is what philosophers know – the good Three images describing what the Good is

◦ Ultimately they describe what the good is and the relation to all of the things it is the principle of, what the philosophers know, and how the philosopher knows these things

In addition to knowing the good philosophers need to be temperate, virtuous, have good memory, etc..

The Three Images The question comes up is that if the philosophers have all of the virtues, why is the third wave

one of laughter? Why is it so absurd?◦ It goes contrary to custom, the prevailing popular opinion◦ Glaucon – people are gonna fuck you up for this

Prevailing opinion◦ Philosophers are useless and◦ vicious

Image of the Ship of State The ship's captain is the whole of the city Crowding around the captain and trying to gain power from him are sophists who don't think

the art of ruling are of any sort of knowledg◦ If you drug him, use your powers of persuasion and rhetoric, then they can rule

▪ But they'll be ruling for themselves, drive the ship wherever they can drive it to maximize their own desires

If that's how you conceive of ruling, if someone who comes along and tells you about maps and stars is going to look like an idiot, and the sophists are going to want to shut him up

Why most philosophers are vicious◦ Philosophers have the greatest natural aptitudes, but they're like the powerful natures in

nature, are potencially the worst examples of their species

◦ They most depend on a proper rearing/education/cultivation/environment to grow in ◦ If they don't get that, they turn into the worst kinds of people◦ If they're taught that all that exists are sensible things, and no such thing as absolute norms

(justice in itself) and that what is most in life is to satisfy bodily desires, then they will satisfy the part of their soul geared to material things▪ They'll circumvent norms and such to get them ▪ They'll become sophists

Sophistry is how they gain power to obtain these bodily goods What people understand as a philosopher is a bad philosopher, a sophist and a charlatan Good philosophers will be the saviours First Socrates is going to tell us what philosophers know and how they know it What is the most important thing to know?

◦ The form of the Good Why? The knowledge of the good is the fundamental condition for knowledge period

◦ You cannot know anything else in certainty without knowing the good Secondly, we desire everything we desire under the auspices of the good

◦ Because we think that the things we desire are good Rulers need to know the good because knowing what is absolutely good is the only way they'll

discover (theoretically and experiential) that there's something better than ruling ◦ Exploiting people is not the highest good

People who think that they don't think ruling is the highest good will be the best rulers because they'll rule with the people in mind, not themselves

The Image of the Sun Point to the fact that there is a difference between becoming and being Conditions for the possibility of seeing:

◦ You need a faculty of sight (eye)◦ you need something to see (item, lets say its a person)◦ you need a medium in and through which the visible things are actually visible, and the

seeing things come to see ▪ This medium is light which is provided by the sun

The sun is not depleted by providing light, it is eternally the same This scenario is supposed to be perfectly analogous to what the good plays in the world of the

intelligible In the world of the intelligible you need

◦ a knower, someone who comes to know, a rational soul◦ Intelligible objects (a triangle, also truth) ◦ We need an intelligible light here (truth) is the medium through which intelligible things are

intelligible and a knowing thing comes to know Plato is telling us the nature of the good by telling us the role it plays for the possibility of

knowledge, (of knowing) It also involves in explaining the role it plays in the generation of all things (the cause of all

things) The sun enables us to see by supplying light

◦ It is also the ultimate cause of life, the source of the generation and the sustaining of all living things, and the source of all energy in the visible realm

?????????????? <-- Alex The form of the Good gives the truth of things known, and the power to know to the knower.

The good is the ultimate cause of both the intelligible objects truly existing, appearing in their truth as they are◦ Good – ultimate source of things being what they are

Also the cause of the things that understand these intelligible objects The good is the cause of both the forms and the soul (rational soul, the knower, actualized in

coming to know)◦ Only when they realize their good, actualize their good

Its the fact that the good is both the source of intelligible being, and our mind (the things that know the things), are the conditions for the source of knowledge

If they weren't ultimately from the same source, we couldn't have access to beings ◦ Metaphorical darkness ◦ How can we have trust/confidence that the logos in our minds reflects the logos in reality?

If being and that which grasps being were not ultimately from the same source, then what would ensure that they mirror each other?

The intelligible light of the good is the fact that being, and that which knows being, is proof that both are offspring of the good◦ the knowinger actualizes his potential, and thus realizes the good by knowing the intelligible

things, which realize their intelligible things by realizing what they are (by being accessible to knowledge, to the knower)

You have to know that both things are from the same good source to know for certain that reality reflects the mind

Since the good is the source of all being, it must itself be superior to, or be beyond being.◦ The same way the sun is the source of all light, and yet beyond it.

24/10/2011

November 23, 2011 CLASS CANCELLEDMAKE UP CLASS December 7, 2011

Image of the Line Two sides of the Line

◦ Left side – Degrees of Being◦ Right side – Increasing degrees of knowledge/clarity

Right Side is the Thinking side◦ Divided into Opinion, (doxa) and intellect

At the very bottom, on the thinking side, you have imagination On the side of being, you have images (eikones)

◦ In the material world, these are images of things in closed packed surfaces, pools of water, mirrors, etc.

◦ On the one hand, what you're dealing with at this level, what corresponds to imagination are illusions, myths, prejudices, lies, in the strictest sense

◦ Things seeming to be what they are not ▪ If you look at yourself in a mirror, it isn't he true you▪ Also equivalent to propaganda and false myths, etc.

PR campaigns (Like the brown napkins that say you're saving the planet) The next level, higher on the line, on the thinking side, you have belief/trust (pistis) and on the

other side obtainable things (to doxaston)◦ These too are images, of the forms they participate in◦ What distinquishes it from the images of the images (the lowest rung of this line), is that

they're not lying images◦ These things appear to be what they are ◦ These things in the material world, chairs, ducks, etc, are to the extent that they are

imperfect copies of the forms However, as images, they're still some falsity, or line

◦ Difference between the thing that instantiates the form, and the Form On the Political level, it would be the political reality in the material world

◦ The actual state of affairs that the ideology masks Everything on the first two rungs of the ladder corresponds to appearance and becoming

◦ Particular things, which are relative/imperfect/fleeting/corruptible/material Why does it make sense to say that on this level, in terms of the thinking that corresponds to

these images,that there's a kind of faith/confidence?◦ At this level, we simply have a faith, that the things that we grasp with our senses are (in the

strictest sense), what they seem ◦ A tree, is the sensible material thing that you sense before you, is what it is, because you see

it ◦ The being of this as is their being by material, sensible things

Things that become are in a certain sense, what they are, insofar as they are instantiations of the form

Opinion isn't synonymous with ignorance ◦ Opinion still works on some sort of grasp on intelligible things ◦ You cannot orient yourself in the world, merely in terms of your senses ◦ Because they simply provide you with a manifold of colours ◦ We live in a meaningful world where there are discreet objects, but those aren't grasped with

the senses at all, they're grasped with the mind◦ If you live solely on opinion, you live with only an unconscious grasp on things ◦ You haven't tested it, haven't exposed the knowledge to any tacit form, haven't exposed it to

the elenchus We are now ascending up the ladder of knowledge and being and into to the first rung of the

intelligible world which is grasped solely by the mind On the being side of the line, you have they hypothetical forms, used as the first principles of

argumentation On the other side you have discursive reason One way you can make sense of it is the reasoning that goes in the imperical science

◦ Biologists, etc They treat the phenomena that they observe as images, instantiations of the laws that they hope

to grasp in investigating this phenomena They do recognize the existance of intelligible essences, the laws of our respective natures

(flower, whale, etc.)◦ But, they infer (grasp) these laws on the basis of repeated observations of the phenomena in

question ▪ Heat water to 100 degrees, it boils, and they do it a whole bunch of times, and in this

process determine that there is a causal law, part of the definition of water But, their insight into the form of water remains, and always must remain, purely hypothetical

◦ Because you can never gain certainly of a causal relation on the basis of your senses alone ▪ No matter how many times you see that water boils when heated to 100 degrees, it will

still be hypothetical and uncertain▪ Certain knowledge is that x is the case, and it is impossible for it not to be the place

Russel's Chicken

◦ Farmer feeds the chicken every morning, and one morning he comes and kills it You don't see the causal relation between the heat and water boiling, or between the chicken or

the farmer This is what dianoia means

◦ Not something that exists materially Stipulate definitions/hypotheses concerning things Set up by convention, a slew of hypotheses, conventional definitions, and use those as axioms,

as premisises, to see what follows ◦ From the fact that one thing is defined one way, and another is another, then lets see what

followes If we can assume that the premises we are hypothesizing are true, then you can see what follows But the whole time you're assuming the hypotheses

◦ Purely stipulated convention Your reasoning from a presupposed principle/premises (definitions decided on by convention)

to see what follows◦ If you can make it true, then it will be the case that x equals y and z. ◦ Still following hypotheses though, and therefore, isn't knowledge◦ A kind of knowledge, because you're figuring out what will follow from a set of premises if

they were assumed to be true, but still not true knowledge Nous or episteme vs. The Forms (not as hypothetical first principles, but the Truth) On top, there is the unhypothetical first principle (the good) On this level, through dialectic , we work our way up, testing our hypotheses, until we get to the

unhypothetical first principle, then we go back down, deriving the forms from the unhypothetical first principle, and it is only then our knowledge becomes true

What Is Dialectic Applies the elenchus to the hypotheses (definitions) themselves with the aim of either

confirming their truth (accuracy of true being), or disproving them◦ Looks for the conditions, for your hypotheses to be true◦ Goes up until it reaches an unconditioned cause for all things, something whcih isn't

grounded in presuppositions Once it gets to the Unhypothetical First Principle, it shows moving from form to form to form,

how all the forms are derived from the UFP There is one most general principle/form, (The Good), which encompasses all other, less

specific Forms ◦ Those Forms follow from/derived from, the UFP

Larger Forms are broken down into smaller things, so once you grasp the UFP, you can see how they all follow from them

In so doing, you have converged your hypothetical grasp of the forms into true knowledge lol hi wtf

How can Knowing the Good apply to knowing everything? How can we know that reality is ordered, and ordered such that it is rational and accessible to

our reason? That the world is intelligible and that the cosmos mirrors logos? To Plato, we think in terms of universals To know things is to know universals We go around making sense of the world in terms of understanding that it is an instantiation of a

universal thing

◦ An instance of tree (a tree), etc. To do Science, it is to look for the universal laws that obtain between things It makes no sense to claim that you have any knowledge if you're not looking into universal

laws◦ If it a one-off thing and you can't explain it

Why would reality reflect the way we think? \ Why isn't there a kind of metaphorical darkness between our mind and reality? We can have faith that cosmos mirrors logos (that being is accessible to the knower) is that they

both arise from the same Good source, and both only are the things that they are (the things on the being side, the forms) insofar as they participate in the Good, and the soul is the thing that it is, insofar as it participates in the very same Good principle, each in its own way

Bridge between reality and the mind – they both are what they are in that they realize the Good ◦ The ineligible light in terms of the sun

The way Plato explains it, its as though you need to have God's understanding of the Good, and how things come from the good, etc, to know how things come from anything ◦ A rather tall order, and for dialectic to achieve

Another way of understanding the Good which dialectic culimnates in, which allows UFP to be converted into something understandable

Look at the Republic itself as an exercise in Dialectic Something presupposed: you're happy when your nature is fulfilled Glaucon, working on what Persimachus and Co are working on, puts forward that our nature is

purely appetite, and uses discoursive reasoning to show what follows from that ◦ Happy when you gain power to satisfy as many bodily appetites as possible

What does Socrates do? He applies the elenchus, engages in dialectic in this hypothesis ◦ Desire is broken down into necessary and unnecessary things◦ Follows from the fact that we have unnecessary appetites, that we have to engage in war,

and you need thymos to engage in war, and therefore his argument is invalid: we are more than just appetite

Then the elenchus is applied to the reasoning that we are just appetite and thymos and there we realize that we are rational – have grasped our Good, and is an approximate UFP, not The Good◦ But in light of this, we can understand what we were thinking about before about a city

governed by just appetite or thymos, because we didn't know about the good yet, or being We can go in in Books 8 and 9, to see how human beings fall short in their nature if they're still

just governed by appetite or thymos

The Third ImageThe Cave (Dun dun duuuuun)

An ascent from the bottom of the cave to the contemplation of the sun outside the cave (ascent up the divided line), and the sun in the cave allegory is the form of the Good in the image of the sun ◦ The Sun image is present in the Cave allegory through the Fire

People in a cave looking at the back of a cave (strapped in) Behind them there is a fire, and a little mound, and people walking with various objects

◦ Mound, such that the shadow projected on the back of the wall is only the shadow of the objects and not the people

They talk and they make sounds There is an echo, such that the people strapped in hear the sound of the people, and think that it

is coming from the shadows In terms of the divided line this represents seen images

The shadows there represent the images of images at the lowest rung of the divided line Cave should be thought of in political terms to (ideology) So, what happens when you remove the shackles and let them see what is going on, see the

people transporting the objects and the fire◦ At first they are blinded and utterly confused

All they have ever been exposed to are the shadows which are images of the real things So how can they grasp that the items are the real images that they were exposed to? Power of propaganda – when the ideology goggles are removed, you can still fail to see what's

actually going on in your state ◦ Ideology makes things clearer than what's really going on materially ◦ To these people, the shadows seem much clearer, because it's like a nice story

So much for the sensible realm So, now image that the cave dweller is made to ascend up the cave into the sunlight They'd be unable to make anything out once they made their way out of the cave

◦ Once again completely dazzled and blinded That's because the cave dwellers are accustomed to apprehending the world through the senses

and think of it only in material terms◦ That's what the cave represents – material world, and that knowledge can only be gained

through the senses ◦ What you can sense is knowledge, and is what is most real ◦ What truly exists are particular changable things

But the outside of the cave is different, it is universal, it is atemporal rather than fleeting, it is immaterial

Requires an utter paradigm shift If the cave dweller is to get his bearings in the outside world (outside of the material world), he

must undergo a slow process of re-education

The Purpose of Education (of Philosophers, specifically) Education is not the transfer of info from one soul to another Rather, education is a slow conversion process, (epistrophe), a turning of the eye of the soul

away from the fixation with the sensible everchanging toward the intelligible, the universal, and therefore what truly is.

Therefore, this turning can't take place unless in a certain sense you have sight within you So all this education is meant to do is turn the eye of your soul in the right direction and attend

to the things that are already within you, but which you are failing to attend to with your fixation with the sensible

What is being assumed here is that the rational soul cannot be utterly foreign to, to the forms in the ineligible realm, that they are made to see

How can the soul be made to want something if it doesn't already know on some level that it needs it and desires to seek it?

Soul the child of penya and poros Soul recognizes that it lacks something, and this recognition is what drives you to stride toward

it It is only because the soul is divine and already akin to the forms and on some level communing

in them, or maybe even is the forms, that it can be made to seek them and recognize them when it sees them

The soul has forgotten its kinship with the forms because it ceased to attent to these things

Back to the Cave

This process of education is depicted metaphorically◦ All you would see would be shadows in the realm of the intelligible, then images in pools of

water, then you'd look at the stars at night, and then finally at the sun The steps that the philosopher will be made to go through Reasoning with the mathematical and imperical sciences (accustoms you to think in terms of

intelligible objects, even if they are not known but hypothesize) You would ultimately come to study dialectic, and you would go from the hypotheses to the

conditions, to the conditions of the conditions, until you reach the UFP, the Good (the sun), the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in all things and provides truth and understanding

The knowledge of the good, which the philosopher will be made to achieve is the highest good, the highest object of knowledge

Knowledge – What enables us to fulfil the highest good Because knowledge of the good is the highest good, and the philosophers know this, directly

and experientially in contemplating the good, that they don't want to do anything but contemplate the good once they've realized their quest for knowledge

Because they know that this is the highest good, they don't want to rule ◦ What Plato's getting is at is that the concemplation of absolute things makes the

contemplator eternal, absolute and unchanging, the plentitiude of being ◦ The people who attend to much to the fleeting become curruptable, imperfect and fleeting

Clearly, if the contemplation of the good allows you to become eternal, you're not going to want to do anything else◦ Precisely the person you want ruling your city◦ Because anyone else will thing it is a good thing to be fleecing the city for money, or that

sensual pleasures are the highest good, or if you're thymonic, to be honoured is the higher good

◦ Will do other things because they don't know the higher good ◦ Philosophers will agree to rule, not because they want money, but because they're just, and

they owe it to the city ◦ The good city is such which enables them (philosophers) to flourish ◦ If they arise in any other city it is due to a pure miracle ◦ And because they are what they are because of the city, they pay it back through ruling it

fairly ◦ And when their time is up, the retreat to the isles of the blessed

Contemplation of the Good is the experience, personally and directly

Principle of Education They will study the various sciences that turns people from becoming to being. Education is a turning of the eye of the soul This is what aritmathic does, because the study of number turns your eye to being, to the

intelligible, because you don't ever see 1 or 2 +2 Your senses are confused because you can see many, but not the concept of the number itself Numeracy is a rational study through which you apprehend the various natures that a hand

holding up one figer is participating in Each has its own distinct definition And keep studying each thing until you reach dialectic At the age of 35 you go back itnot he cave to hold offices At the age of 50 you go and concemplate Then once you have completed contemplation, you reenter the cave and take up the throne One eye on the intelligible, and one eye on the curroptable form you have been made to govern

Books 8 and 9 The various ways in which the regimes can fall short of the best Sequence Aristocracy from Theocracy to oligarchy to democracy to tyranny The important thing to realize is the various ways that cities can fall short of the Good of a city Seen that the Good is synonymous with being, so in a sense, these are ways in which cities can

fail to be cities There is no form for each of these cities, because theses are only ways in which they depart

from being a city These are corrupt cities insofar as they fail to be cities Evil is interchangeable with nonbeing Typical ways in which cities can fail to instantiate the form of a city, by being divided

◦ Unity is synonymous with the good and with being We keep only the stories of the poets which are in accordance with the forms

◦ Myth of Er, parallels Cephalus' account in the beginning Whole book is pyramid

26/10/2011

poopie3 <--- Erika, fail.

Aristotle

t'Agathos – the Good Born in Stagera Macedonia 384 BCE

◦ Wasn't even born when Socrates was executed ◦ Plato 487 BCE -- ???BCE

Stagerite, or Parapetetic, or The Philosopher = Aristotle His father was a court doctor to the king of Macedonia (Phillip)

◦ Aristotle might have had some initiation in medicine ◦ His father would have imparted to Aristotle a love of all things biological

Moves to Athens when he's 18, with the express purpose of studying with Plato in his Academny◦ Don't know whether he read Plato, or was just seeking the best education he could get◦ Spent 20yrs in Plato's academny◦ Referred to as the Mind of the School by Plato, and as the Reader◦ He would have given classes also at a certain point ◦ Said to have composed dialogues (Platonically composed)

▪ Apparently were quite beautiful and cites Aristotle as an example of eloquence Plato suceeded by Speucifis at 348BCE

◦ Aristotle now leaves Athens either because of hostility to the Macedonians, or didn't like the direction the school was going

Leaves to modern day turkey and works in the court of Hermaeus Hermeus is disposed soon after, and Aristotle is deposed to Lesbos

◦ from here we get his biological writings ▪ Anatomy of animals, reproduction, etc...

343 BC, Philip of Macedon calls upon Aristotle to become the tutor of soon to be Alexander the Great

As payment for the tutoring, Philip of Macedon released the citizens of Stagera and rebuilt the city

Aristotle returns to Athens in 335, and opens a school, Lyceum◦ Known to stroll as he taught, and hence the Parapetetic (means the school as well)

Aristotle flees Athens to not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy Dies in a Macedonian stronghold in 339 BCE

Aristotle's Classifications of Sciences Threefold division

◦ Theoretical▪ Seek knowledge for its own sake

◦ Practical ▪ Seek knowledge for the sake of good actions▪ Subdivided into

Ethics Economics (household management) Politics

◦ Kind of the master science in one sense◦ Productive

▪ Seek knowledge in order to produce things Techne – crafts

Theoretical Sciences Three of them

◦ Physics ▪ Study of nature ▪ Natural objects can be characterized as 'material' and 'changing/subject to change'▪ Objects of physics are self subsistant

Capable of independent existence◦ Mathematics

▪ Studies those things which are material (in one sense) but it studies them insofar as it extracts its objects from the material

▪ Studies things in matter, but is mentally abstracted from matter ▪ Studies things which are unchanging as well▪ Studies properties of material things

Properties that can't exist outside of material things Specifically quantities, whcih are always of things, yet at the same time are

abstracted▪ Studies things which are unchanging

Nature of 2 stays the same◦ Metaphysics

▪ Studies that whcih is unchanging and immaterial and capable of independent existance (self subsistant)

▪ Word 'metaphysics' coined by Aristotle's editors, (meta physics = after Physics) But this also applies since it is beyond physics

Logic – subserves the sciences

◦ Establishes the correct methodology to employ in science◦ Aristotle's works on logic are often referred to as the organon which means tool

Aristotle's PhysicsScience of Nature

Knowledge of Nature

What does Aristotle mean by Knowledge? Knowledge of principles

◦ Causes◦ Elements

To know what something is, to know why it is what it is, and not something else, is to know the principles/causes that make it what it is, and not otherwise

To know its constituents◦ To know what is x , you ask what kind of thing is it (what class of things does it belong to)◦ Also asking what it is for, it's purpose ◦ By whom, and how, is it made?◦ What is it made of? (Elements, what are its constituents)◦ All of these are questions about its causes and principles

Coming to the answer involves analyzing the thing and determining its ultimate constituents Physics specifically is the attempt to achieve knowledge of nature

◦ What are the principles/causes that govern the phenomena of nature and what is nature ultimately made of?

◦ How do you define it?▪ What is nature in its essence?

◦ What is nature's structure?▪ How do it's parts relate to each other?

Book 1 – What is Nature?◦ Establish the fundamental principles of nature ◦ Most basic, most common

Book 2 – What distinguishes natural things from artificial things?

Book 1 At least part of what defines nature/natural objects is the capacity to change

◦ Natural things are which are, if not presently changing, are susceptible to it Everything in nature is either in motion, or capable of it What we're doing here, because we're looking to establish what nature is, what we're going to

be doing is to study the principles/conditions for the possibility of change◦ Theoretical conditions for the possibility of change

Change can be said in many ways◦ Kinesis (change)◦ Substantial change – generation (something coming into being and passing away)◦ Quantitative change – increasing/decreasing in change◦ Qualitative – something can be hot/cold◦ Locomotive change

The Fundamental Puzzle Fundamental to the thoughts of Zeno and Parmenides

◦ Denied the possibility of motion and change

Zeno's paradox – Denies the possibility of change of place ◦ To travel any distance (A ------ B) you have to travel half of the distance, but then half of the

half, to the half to infinity◦ If you proceed to infinity, you don't get from A to B, hence motion is impossible

▪ Idiot Lapse of time – same thing applies

◦ Ergo, time can never pass▪ Again, he's an idiot

Parmenides – there is a way of being and a way of becoming, which is not ◦ Way of being is the way of reason ◦ Way of becoming is opinion?

Can being as a whole come to be?◦ No, why?◦ If it came to be, what does it come from? If it comes from being, it really didn't come to be,

it already was◦ If it comes from not being, it is nothing, because it's not being ◦ If being were to come from nothing then nothing would be being from which it came◦ but nothing is nothing therefore nothing comes from nothing

Not only denies being as a whole does not become, it just is, permanently, he denies internal differentiation in the one that is being ◦ To Parmenides, to be something is to be determinate

▪ This, rather than that◦ If that's the case, every determination is a negation as well (x is x, and not y)◦ But if being is divided in this way, only nonbeing can divide it, but nonbeing is nothing,

therefore nothing divided anything from anything else◦ All is one

Theoretical solution to these paradoxes ◦ Define principles of change

Aristotle doesn't favour reason over the data of the senses Refutes the two claims

◦ Principle of nature is not One (Parmenides)◦ Also refutes the claim that the principles of nature must be innumerable

Chapter 5, Book 1 Begins by summarizing what he's done in 3 and 4, in which he goes over all of what he's

predecessors have claimed, and salvages what he can All of his predecessors, appealed to contraries as fundamental principles

◦ Plenum and the Void◦ Rare and Dense ◦ Hot and Cold

Aristotle applauds them for doing this ◦ One is not reducible to the other◦ In nature, nothing comes to exist randomly

▪ There is an order to nature and causality in nature ◦ Rational order / rationally accessible order

▪ If there weren't the scientific endeavour would be futile Rational Order being involved in the notion of contraries are the principles we appeal to

◦ Whenever anything comes to be, it comes to be out of its contrary, or some intermediate state

◦ In other words, strictly speaking, changes occur from one determinate state or condition, to another determinate state or condition which can be described as points which can be placed along the same continuum, or the same spectrum

Change only occurs from one point of the spectrum to another point on the spectrum◦ Spectrum – within one type of thing, or one family of things (one genus)◦ Encompassed by one definition

For example, hot comes from cold, because hot and cold can be placed along the same spectrum of temperature

Can Hot come from Pale? No, because they don't belong on the same continuum, or the same genus, or are encompassed from the same definition ◦ Hot can only come from pale accidentally◦ Something which is pale is also cold, and becomes hot

When you say the Pale thing became hot, it is shorthand for the Pale Cold thing becomes a Hot Pale thing.

Law holding for all natural thing, everything that comes to be or passes away, comes from or passes into its contrary or intermediate state ◦ 188B 23

Musical comes from the unmusical, not just anything unmusical thing By the end of chapter five we've established that the principles which account for change have

to include contraries

Chapter 6 Recaps argument so far Do they have to be two in number?

◦ No◦ Contraries themselves don't affect or change into each other◦ Hot itself doesn't become cold itself◦ Hot by definition is not cold◦ At minimum, we need a third term that the contraries can act upon or affect

Something has to underly/undergo the change from one contrary to another A black thing has to become white, not black itself to white

Concept of Substance acting as Subject ousia – substance

◦ Third principle ◦ Substance acting as the hypokeimenon (the thing that undergoes the change and persists in

and survives the change [subject?]) in one type of change A substance, or ousia is, to Aristotle, that which is capable of self standing existance

◦ Concrete particular material things in the material world ◦ Things we encounter in the world◦ Chairs, lectures, human beings

Everything else is predicated of, or said of, a substance Qualities or quantities do not have independent existence

◦ Red is a quality, or determination of a substance in an object Aristotle has this famous list of ten categories

◦ Substance, in the strictest sense, is the only thing that exists. Everything else is predicated upon it

The contraries have to be predicated on a substance acting as the subject in a change The contraries can't suffice, they're not enough to account for change

◦ You need something that undergoes the change▪ What undergoes the change is the subject▪ And in one kind of change, the subject is the substance

There wouldn't be a change if something didn't support/undergo the change between one contrary to another

For change to occur, something must change Something that is not changed in the change, but undergoes the change

◦ Chair that goes from black to white is still a chair, but is changed Three Principles

◦ Two contraries and a substratum that underlies the change in attributes

Chapter 7 Confirmation in the way we speak about things One case of change still seems to conflict with this account

◦ When, instead of accidental changes, you have substantial change In and accidental change, a substance acts as the subject (that which undergoes the change)

from one contrary to another◦ It remains the type of thing it is, the substance that it is

Qualities which can be said of someone which are not part of the essence of something/something ◦ A red chair painted black retains its nature qua that it is a chair

In an accidental change, the subject that which underlies the change from one state to another, is a substance

But, what about when a substance comes into being and perishes?◦ A toaster broken beyond repair which can no longer be said to be a toaster (cannot perform

its essential function) But even in the case where a pile of wood becomes a ship, (something with independent

existance something becomes into being)◦ Things still don't spontaneously come out of nothing (comes out of wood, in the above case)

All things come to be out of something else The analysis of change and accidental attributes also applies to the case of substantial change In an accidental change, you have three principles

◦ Prevation/negation of an attribute ◦ Having of a form/attribute ◦ That which underlies the change (substance acting like the subject)

▪ Stands under the change in attributes This qualification/determination is always of something

◦ In an accidental change, it is the substance acting as subject In a substantial change, you've got three principles

◦ Absence of substantial form (absence of the form ship)◦ Presence of a substantial form (essential form of the substance)◦ Matter as subject

In a substantial change, the subject undergoes and survives the change ◦ hyle

In both types of change, you have three pinciples◦ Prevation/negation◦ Form/attribute and ◦ Substratum/subject

Privation is something which aught to be part of a substance but isn't there

Negation is any quality which isn't part of your essence Aristotle's account allows for change

◦ Removed the diffuculty that early philosophers got into The first thinkers were misled because they thought that nothing comes to be or passes away

because they thought of change in absolute terms Aristotle's solution is that nothing comes to be in an absolute sense

◦ To come to be so and so from not being means qua not being Things come to be only in a qualified sense (precise/limited sense) They come from something which lacks a particular quality, but is something Ship comes to be from a pile of timber A musical man comes to be not absolutely speaking, but from an unmusical man (who lacks

that particular attribute) If you fail to make this distinction between absolute generation, and generation in a qualified

sense, you produce Zeno's and Parmenides' nonsense (aka BULLSHIT)

Equate the Not Having of an Attribute/Form with Potency Dynamis The having of the form/attribute with actually – energeia In the case of a substantial change, you're going from a pile of wood which lacks the form of

ship, but having the potential for ship Wood has potenical for recieving the form if it is worked on in an appropriate way by a

craftsman An unmusical man has the potencial to recieve the determination of music (to actualize

potenical) Potenciality isn't just any kind of negation/prevation

◦ Whatever is not musical or not ship has the potential of becoming musical or ship◦ It must have certain properties

Why is this important? It gives Aristotle another way of phrasing his solution/paradox of change Potenciality is not nothing, it is a kind of nonbeing which actually becomes something Change takes place out of something Potenicality isn't just something we describe to things in reality, it is there The not having which is involved in all change (from one state to another), exists in something

which exists Not being is the potencial to be something Potenciality is something Non being (absolutely speaking), doesn't exist, yeah, but when we're talking about something

not being something and then becoming it, we're talking about potentiality, we have something

Potenciality and Actuality and Zeno's Paradox of Motion So how can you get to A and B? A line is not actually an infinity of points, it has the potencial to be, and therefore you can

traverse it

31/10/2011

Aristotle Continued Types of change in generation and destruction Distinction between natural objects and artificial objects

Motion – part of the definition of a natural object To come to know something is to seek its causes Seeking to know nature

◦ Makes sense to try and determine the principles and causes for motion Identifying the principles that allow for motion A rational account/explaination of motion involved three principles

◦ Two contraries ◦ Substratum – hypokeimenon

Usia (sp?) – substance◦ that which exists in the strictest sense

Red doesn't exist as free floating, it only exists in the colour of a chair ◦ Place, or all the other categories

Three principles can be analyzed fully by not having a form/attribute, having the form/attribute, and the hypokeimenon that which undergoes the change

Something either comes into existence or passes away If something is coming into being you have

◦ Absence of the substantial form◦ Presence of the substantial form◦ and the underlying subject (matter or hyle)

In an accidental change (change in nonessential attributes of a substance)◦ Chair going from black to white ◦ So, black, white, and chair as the three attributes

What Are Nature's Principles/Causes/Elements? Nature is a realm of kinesis or change, or at least things capable of change The problem is that not all things which are capable of changing (changeable) exist by nature

◦ Not all changeable things can be said to be, in the strictest sense, to have a nature◦ Artificial objects, for example

Natural objects exist within nature, nature being understood as the realm of all changeable things

Not natural in the strict sense, because they don't arise/exist by nature Definition of Nature in last class is too broad

◦ Not enough necessary or sufficient conditions Determine how we distinguish between natural and artificial objects Not just a question of movement, because both natural and artificia objects are capable of

movement So it has to be a special type of movement specific to natural objects

What exists by nature? Plants, animals, and the things that make them up Simple elements make up inanimate and animate objects What is common between all these things? To be a natural thing is to have an internal principle of motion/change or of rest/stasis,

nonchange Self contained force/principle in virtue of being the kind of things they are that makes them do

the kind of things that they do The simplest elements such as fire and earth, etc, naturally strive to be in a certain place in the

universe Aristotle's universe is hierarchical

◦ Centre of the universe that rocks strive to be in, and fire (the rarest/least dense) strives to be on top, on the outermost edge of the circle

Natural things have the ability to move in a certain direction or be in a certain state Animate objects strive to persevere in being, and if you injure them in some way, say cutting off

a limb, by nature, the animal tries to heal itself and reestablish the harmony of its parts that is consistent with its nature/definition

Does it on its own initiative◦ Not due to the work upon it by an external agent◦ Internal drive to reconstitute itself according to nature◦ Example – growth, maturation of a natural creature (trees, animals, etc.)

▪ Acorn trying to realize its potencial as an oak tree The growth and development of an oak tree out of an acorn is related to the factors of the

environment, but there is something in an acorn that makes it strive to be the type of thing it is A natural thing has an internal principle of motion and rest

◦ Rest – cessation of motion/change due to a natural thing having achieved its natural state Once it has arrived in its natural place, it rests When a natural thing like an acorn has grown into an oak tree, it rests, so to speak Compared to an Artifact – pencil

◦ If you drop a pencil, it falls, but it is not in virtue of being a pencil, it is in virtue of being made up of natural things

◦ Its elements are natural and they have internal motion◦ Wood and lead are heavy and they strive to move in a certain direction◦ Strictly speaking, a pencil doesn't exist by nature◦ A pencil, insofar as it is a pencil, doesn't strive to do anything by itself ◦ An external agent/force is needed to move the pencil so it can even fulfil its own

function/virtue In a way, a pencil has a kind of nature (essence/definition) But, it does not have a nature in the strict sense here, because it doesn't have an internal

principle of motion/rest◦ Doesn't exist by nature, but it may have natural parts

How about a car?◦ Structure, order, and it is only a car insofar as it has the order ◦ But the movement is only due to the structure harnessing the natural motions of the natural

materials ◦ Making them do a certain thing (channelling them to a certain end – definition of a car)

Chapter 1, Book 2What is in each individual thing that is its nature?

The examples he uses to illustrate his point are all artificial ◦ Reason for this: the nature of something is going to be clearer looking for artificial objects ◦ What constitutes the nature of something by nature?

Thinks that there is a kind of analogy between artifical things and natural things Natural and artificial objects mirror one another

◦ You can look to one to define another Aristotle considers two contenders:

◦ Matter◦ Form

Many of the presocratics were materialists, and claimed that the nature of something is the sum

of the constituents which make it up Antiphon – if you bury a bed, what comes out is a shoot, not a bed, therefor the nature must be

wood, not bed. ◦ Idiot

Matter is the nature of all things, because its that which persists through the destruction of objects◦ The arrangement of wood which goes from bed to ship is an accidental change

Wood itself is made up of other things (water, air, fire, etc) So the ultimate nature of things must be the ultimate elements of all things

◦ Earth, or fire, or something like that Aristotle thought this was bullshit Another definition: The nature of something is its form

◦ When you want to state the difference between a potential ship (pile of wood) and real ship, you describe the form of the ship

◦ The material substratum alone can't account for what a ship is◦ It is more accurate to state its form

Also, it is more important to give the form when you are defining something, and you are closer to capturing the nature of something, because the same type of thing, having the same nature, can be composed of different materials ◦ Ship can be made of wood or steel

So it might be more accurate to cite the form not the matter◦ So it is more accurate, in that case, to cite the form because it does not change when the

material does The form is more closer to the real thing because it strives to be that thing

◦ Form of Tree is tree and acorn tries to be a tree? Mathematics studies properties which are always properties of physical, material, changable

things, but considers them in abstraction of material changeable things ◦ Things = line, point, triangle

Not capable of existance outside of matter The abstract concept 2 doesn't change, even though in reality, these concepts exist only in

material changable things The natural philosopher studies things which can'[t be defined in abstraction from matter

◦ Definition contains a necessary connection to matter Objects of physics are not capable of immaterial existance,

◦ Cant extract them from matter even in thought◦ And studies changable things

Chapter 3 Recaps what he's done so far Examined some candidates for what nature means. Examined the hypotheses of matter, and form Both are integral to the study of physics The physicist has to know both, up to a point, because natural objects are like 'snub nosed' as

opposed to 'curve' (mathematics) The matter of things are known up to a point To know what a knife is, you need to know what kind of materials you make a knife out of It is at this point that Aristotle gives you his fullest account of the essential conditions for

change

Four Causes of Natural Things Accounts for the being of natural things in the strictest sense When we want to know what something is, we're looking for why x is x and not x.

◦ Why a chair is a chair, and not a donkey We're looking for that without which that chair would not be Four different types of questions you ask when you ask the question:why The necessary and sufficient conditions for the thing to be the thing it is Lectern – have a blueprint, made of a certain material, someone made it, and it serves a purpose All of the factors form why the lectern is what it is, and not something else The Four Causes:

◦ Formal Cause▪ Form of the Chair▪ What is its definition/essence?▪ Literaly, what shape does it have to have to correspond to the definition and function as

a chair?◦ Material Cause

▪ Matter ▪ Chair can't be a chair with some sort of matter

◦ Efficient Cause▪ Cite the maker, agent▪ Someone made it a chair▪ Efficient cause of a statue is the sculptor

Why does the sculptor exist?◦ Final Cause (telos)

▪ What is it for?▪ The end that you're seeking to realize when you build a statue/chair ▪ Final cause of a chair is to sit on it

Only four types of causes, to Aristotle Each type o cause is a necessary condition for the things existance When you've cited all four, you've provided the sufficient conditions for it to exist Citing one is not sufficient

Modalities of Causality The ways that the causes can be known The first is simply that there are multiplicity of causes for any particular thing/object/event The Key us that independently, they're necessary conditions, but not independently sufficient

◦ Together they are sufficient for accounting for an explaining the existance of something Precision is another modality of causality

◦ Levels of precision that you can achieve in descrbing a cause Why does the sculpture exist?

◦ A human being made it◦ But more precisely, you can state the individual who made it (Michelangelo)◦ Less preciecely would be: Who makes a sculpture? A sculptor.

The more precise you are, the more power of explaination your explainination ha Parrallelism between the level of explanation and the level of generality in your explaination

◦ Sculptors build what? Sculptures.◦ A particular sculptor built this sculptor

Causes can also be reciprocal◦ Stephenson is having hot flashes

▪ Now, back to lecture◦ Jogging leads to health in the jogger (efficient cause), but it is not in the same sense that

health causes jogging ◦ Health is a final cause of jogging

▪ Purpose of jogging Hierarchy

◦ Which cause is most important?◦ Most fundamental in the sense that it dictates the shape of/identical to, the other cause of

something◦ FINAL!

The final cause is the most fundamental because, for one thing, the final cause is what dictates/determines the character of the matter that makes up the particular thing you are trying to explain, and that the final cause is a cause of◦ The purpose of a knife is to cut

▪ Final cause: to cut◦ Therefore, that dictates the kind of materials that go into constitute the knife

▪ have to make it out of metal ◦ Purpose of house is to provide shelter, therefore, don't build it out of straw or sticks, make it

out of bricks! Final cause also determines the form

◦ If the purpose of a knife is to cut, it shouldn't be shaped like a trombone\ Otherwise it won't fulfil its functioning The purpose of the instrument, the final cause, determines the character of the efficient cause

◦ You know who to hire to make it◦ You need a contractor to build a house, but you only know this after the final cause

In nature, in objects that exist by nature, is even clearer The telos is more pronounced, because the other causes tend to collapse into it

◦ In either definition they become indistinguishable in definition or in number The final cause of an acorn, is what? To realize its nature, which is its form

◦ Final cause, and the formal cause, are almost identical in this way The purpose of a tree is to realize its form, and engender other trees of the same form

◦ Part of realizing your nature is engendering other things of the same nature The efficient cause is the same in natural objects, is the same in form/essence, as the thing it

gives rise to, but it is not one, numerically◦ The tree gives rise to tree, but not itself, another tree of the same form/essence, but not

identical to it in number Only the matter doesn't coincide with the final cause, but it too is at least subservient to the

final cause◦ Even in natural objects, it is to realize its nature, essential form◦ It can only do so with a certain matter, using a certain set of components/elements ◦ Tree has to be made of a particular type of material – necessity there

Final cause as realization of the Form (tree), dictates the nature/character of the material cause of the tree

Chance and Spontaneity The question that we are seeking to answer is: are all of the causes in nature?

◦ Such that once you cite them all, you have together provided all the necessary and efficient causes for whatever it is that you are accounting for?

Many people argued that chance was a type of cause

It might be plausible to say that chance is an explanation◦ “It happened by chance”

So, what types of things happen in nature by chance? Things that happen invariably, all the time, unfailingly

◦ Necessarily So, does it make sense to cite chance to explain things that happen all the time?

◦ No, because that which is necessary, cannot be otherwise Whereas things by chance can be otherwise, they are not necessary So, what about things that don't happen unfailingly, but happen most of the time

◦ So, when it snows in the winter, and its warm in the summer, can chance be cited?◦ No, because something other than chance has to be cited to explain for the regularity

The only thing that might possibly be accountable through chance are freak occurrences◦ Aristotle says that, of things that come about, some lead to some good, and others, not ◦ Some are intentional, and some are unintentional

Chance is a question of things that happen unintentionally, but for the sake of something◦ Benefit one of the actors in the chance occurrence

Chance, for Aristotle, is another word for coincidence◦ Ultimately grounded in someone's choice◦ The chance thing is the coincidence of two causal sequences interacting

So, accidentally running into someone who owes you money, and they pay you back ◦ Two independent actions, one coincidence

Is chance doing any sort of explanitory work? Can chance be cited to explain the coinciding?◦ No, because you can simply explain that one guy was going somewhere, and the other was

going another, and then you ran into one another◦ It suffices to explain why you'd bump into them

Chance is like saying the pale man built a statue◦ Pale, there, is incidental, and irrelevant to the building of the statue◦ What is relevant is that the person was a sculptor

Citing chance is simply a confession of your ignorance, by using what is to be explained, as an explaination◦ Why did it happen? By chance = well, because it just happened.

Aristotle distinguishes between chance and spontaneity◦ No choice

▪ Tripping, not by choice, and missing something that was about to hit and kill you Again, coinciding of two independent causal sequences, both of which can be explained without

recourse to the notion of chance

01/11/2011

Nichomichean Ethics Separate science from the science of physics Aims, method, and its audience, according to Aristotle

Book 1, Chapter 3 Description of the aims, method and audience of Ethics as a science At the beignning of Aristotle, Ethics is a science, and falls under practical sciences, meaning

that, opposed to theoretical sciences (which seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge), seeks knowledge for the sake of good action

◦ Supposed to be conducive to good action in its students Ethics is about what can be done Concerned with things which are changable

◦ Actions involve change Contingent – things that, if they are, could have been otherwise Ethical action – if it is not dealing with things that can be other than they turn out to be, then

deliberation will not be applicable◦ You don't deliberate over what is necessarily so and cannot be otherwise◦ But you can deliberate on whether or not something should be allowed to be in a certain

way About things which are changing/changable, and things which are contingent Its principles are fixed, unchanging

◦ This is why it can be a science Since ethics is a practical science, it is concerned with actions, which are always particular, and

good actions are good only in specific circumstances/condititions, and the specific manner in which they are undertaken

Deals with what is particular, and what is variable there are still universal and unchanging principles which underly and account for goodness of

actions◦ there is not sheer multiplicity in the world of ethics

Still things which need to be ascertained Ethics wouldn't be a science otherwise

◦ If it is a science it can't be concerned with singular things, by definitions◦ A science concerned with singular things, all it is doing is reporting singular occurances

Explain them in terms of unchanging universal principle Similarly, what we're looking for in Ethics are the unchanging and common principles which

account for the goodness of certain actions regardless of the circumstances What makes them all instances of good actions?

◦ Universal and unchanging principles Not all sciences admit the same level of precicion/clarity

◦ Mark of an intelligent person to look for the precision of all things Different sciences involve different levels of clarity and precision The science of ethics (even though it involves unchanging principles), it doesn't allow for the

same degree of clarity as something like mathematics or physics There is, according to Aristotle, one right way to behave in every context

◦ Determining that one right way is not an exact science There is a right answer in every moral context, but give or take a little bit

◦ Leeway◦ Acceptable range of behaviour in its particular condition

The Nichomichean Ethics, or Aristotle's science of ethics, is not a rule-based ethics◦ Rule-based ethics – starts with universal principle (rule or law), and deduces good conduct

based on, or from that first principle To Aristotle, that won't work, since you cannot derive the good from some sort of algorithm

which will churn out an answer in any situation ◦ Good in a particular context is not determined from a single thing◦ Rule-based ethics don't work since you need a rule for the application, and a rule for that,

and a rule for thaaat..... Eventually we will see what kind of rules/laws can be identified, and will identify the kind of

conginition is involved in moral action

Book 1 Book 1 is introductory, the most fundamental principles Ethical conduct involve variety and fluctuation

◦ What is good in one situation is not good in another Never have an exact answer when asking ethical questions, or at least not as exact as math that doesn’t mean that moral laws are purely convention

◦ Their application is not as precise as other sciences

Right Audience for Ethics Not young, or at least not young in character, but the two things go hand in hand What does young in character mean?

◦ Someone who is governed specifically by the passions◦ Someone who follows passion indiscriminately

Why is that not good for an audience for ethics? What is ethics?

◦ If you are governed by your passions, you won't be able to impliment the moral conduct that you learned

◦ An audeince can't be young, period, because the young are inexperienced, and you need experience to think about ethics properly▪ Why?▪ We don't start with a first principle and work from that, it is the other way around,

bottom up▪ Start with concrete instances of virtuous good behaviour, and study these examples of

good behaviour, and try to deduce/infer, on the basis of our analysis of these examples, what it is in these which makes them good?

Ethics investigates true opinions/traditional beliefs involving good moral conduct He's going to hold them up to the scrutiny of reason, because they turn out not to be rationally

justifiable, but the rest are going to have their rational things shown explicitly The study of ethics is good because it is making explicit that makes virtuous conduct, virtuous The lucidity will help them in morally ambiguous situations

◦ Solidify the true opinions they hold and help them resolve moral dilemmas with the implicit knowledge now made explicit through scientific analysis of good conduct

What is Best in Life? What Is the Good? Book 1, is a first attempt at identifying and analyzing the highest human good Three stages to Aristotle argument:

◦ 1-3 – establishment that there is a highest good◦ 4-7 – the highest good is happiness ◦ What is happiness?

▪ An activity that is done in accordance with the excellence/virtue that is specifically human, and imply/involve a rational principle/exercise of reason

Two fundamental modes of virtue

There is a Highest Good Chapters 1 and 2 Human beings can study things We can act/make decisions We can make things

All of the above activities can be called projects Every project is for the sake of a goal/aim Everything we do in life has a purpose The aim of any of our projects is the good that we hope to achieve thereby

◦ Through that particular project◦ The aim of medicine = health

To Aristotle, we need to analyze what kinds of ends there are◦ Some ends are ends in themselves

▪ Goods in the strictest sense, sought not for anything else▪ Activities which don't give rise to any further end/good

◦ Ends which are both ends in themselves to a degree, and means to further ends▪ Pursued for themselves, and for the sake of some other end that they give rise to▪ Jogging for health, but some people find pleasure in it, so it is an end in itself▪ Not as good a thing as something that is pursued for its own sake▪ Not as complete an end, not as final/ultimate an end which is sought only for its own

sake, and not for some further thing that it gives rise to◦ Not ends in themselves, but are pursued bcause they are means for the sake of some further

end▪ Plowing and toiling in the fields are not pursued for the sake of it, it is done to harvest

fruits and veggies, and is only good (and end), insofar as it serves as a means for the obtainment of the further end (to eat)

▪ Means is good only on the condition that it yield the further end that you want it to yeild,

▪ Further end is superior to instrumentally valued means Distinction of things which are good in and of themselves, and things which are good only

insofar as as they give rise to something else Subordinate goods, instrumental goods, and goods in and of themselves

Chapter 2 Is there one end that is pursued strictly in and of itself, and so is absolutely good, and such that

all other goods will only be good insofar as they give rise to, or enable you to realize the thing that is the absolute good

If there is no highest good, life is utterly futile and purposeless All of your desires would be instrumental

◦ I like A because it gives me B which gets me C, which allows me to get D.... All goods would be relative, not one better than the other, and so there would be no real

direction in life◦ Life would be futile

Hobbs – the highest good is desiring one thing after another, and the highest good is fulfilling whatever desires come to you

Want to establish that there is a highest good, and what end qualifies it Have to establish the highest good by looking at the hierarchy of the sciences

◦ Subordinate sciences and master sciences which control and govern the lower ones◦ This reflects a hierarchy of ends◦ The master end encompass the highest end◦ Higher sciences include an end which encompass all other ends, and the other ends are good

only insofar as they help establish the ends of the higher science Saddle Making, Horseshoe making and horse food making The end of bridle making is the making of good bridles, the end of horshoes is to make a good

horse shoe and the food is for food --> all equal The end is for horsemanship and the art of riding

◦ Governs the subordinate sciences with their ends and their principles Riding is like this, and horses are like this, and therefore, this is what they need

◦ The lesser scientists need to figure out how to produce them Riding is the principle given to the lower scientists which match the principles The end of the art of riding, is what?

◦ Good horse riding◦ The saddle, bridle and hay are only good insofar as they're good for good horse riding, and

for a good horse But, what dictates what a good rider is? Strategy!

◦ The art of achieving victory in battle (end) Once again, strategy tells the rider what a good rider is, insofar as a rider is a rider in battle The stragey tells the rider, and the rider figures out how to do that The good of horse riding is subordinate to the end of victory in battle

◦ Want to be good at horse riding so to be victorious in battle The highest science is political science

◦ The politician determines what sciences should be studied in the city (legislation), and to what extend they should be studied, and perhaps by whom

◦ By looking to the end of the science of politics, the politician determines what things aught to be striven for in the city, and what sciences are needed to produce those goods

The political scientists determine the value of all the sciences He/she will know whether they give rise to, and are therefore good, the end that the

politician/statesman has in ruler, qua ruler The ruler, in the strict sense, determines whether/ to what extent, all the other sciences are good,

and all the ends which are sought by the other sciences are good, insofar as they enable the achievement of the ruler qua ruler, looks towards and seeks to realize, whatever it is◦ It turns out that it is the good of all the citizens, and therefore the happiness of all the

citizens

What is the Highest Human Good? Happiness! =) In a very typical way, Aristotle starts off by examining the views of the many and the few The opinions of the masses, and the opinions of the wise Tries to salvage what he can from these Points out that event the many and the few all agree on one general thing: happiness is the

highest good Happiness = eudaimonia (eu = good, daimon = spirit) For Aristotle, happiness is not a subjective state/feeling

◦ To many of us, we moderns think of it as a feeling, which is not what it is for Aristotle◦ It has to do with flourishing, or actualizing your potencial

Can't be mistaken about a feeling, but to Aristotle, you can be mistaken about being happy or not, because you can be mistaken about what is making you flourish or not

The many and wise don't agree on the nature of happiness

Chapter 5 Aristotle examines traditional contenders for the highest human good Life of Sensual Pleasure

◦ Aristotle doesn't have much of an argument at this specific point against it◦ He just says that it is slavish and well born people think of it as beastly, even though it is

popularized◦ There will be an argument later why it can't be the highest good, because it involves what

specifically defines us as human beings◦ Because appetitie isn't what defines us as human beings (we share this with the animals), it

cannot be the highest, specifically human, good Life of Honour

◦ Life of politics understood as a life of seeking honour◦ It can't be, because it is too superficial and dependent on externalities◦ Makes the happiness of the honoured individual dependent on something external from

him/her◦ Makes him depend on how other people happen to see him at that particular time, whcih he

can't control ◦ Whereas the highest good, should be something that is your posession, and can't easily be

lost◦ If it can be lost, then it can't be the highest good, and depends on the whims of the people

you interact with◦ To seek honour for its own sake is another perversion of natural order ◦ Pointing to the fact that true rulers don't desire honour just for the sake of honour

▪ Desire to be honoured by those who are capable to judge by those who are vitued and excellent

▪ To those who are true rulers, they don't desire honour if it is not honour for its excellence

▪ They don't just desire honour, they desire virtue and want to be honoured on the basis of their virtue

▪ Not a complete, self sufficient good◦ Want to be honoured for something, mainly virtue

Life of Contemplation Life of Moneymaking

◦ Doesn't get off the ground, because money is a means, an instrument that allows people to obtain other goods

◦ People who suffer from aboris, are perverts, because the invert the natural order of ends and means

◦ Treat as ends what is naturally a mean ◦ If it is naturally something only good insofar as it gets you something else, it cannot be the

highest good

Virtue Doesn't depend on externalities, doesn't depend on what other people think of you, and other

people can't make you virtuous Notion is still vague

Chapter 6 Digression on the theory of the forms, and on the form of the good

Chapter 7 * Aristotle confirms the wisdom of the few and the many that the highest good is happiness Two criteria for something to meet for it to be the highest good

◦ Needs to be complete, in the sense of most final (teleion)◦ and needs to be self sufficient (self-sufficient)

Not all goods are as as equally final◦ Some are desired both for their own sake and for the sake of an end which is beyond them

and that they give rise to◦ Both for themselves, and beyond them

Some are desired for their own sake, and not for something beyond them Something desired for its own sake is more final than something that is desired for something

beyond it Only happiness fits the first criteria

◦ You might pursue sensual pleasure, and might also pursue honour as an end in itself, but you also pursue these things for the sake of being happy

◦ You want honour and bodily desires to be happy.◦ You don't desire happiness for the sake of honour, or happiness for bodily desires....

Happiness is the only thing that is for its own sake and not for the sake of something else Self-sufficiency

◦ Not all ends are equally self-sufficient ◦ Makes life desirable and lacking in nothing

Happiness is the whole nature of the good◦ Adding something to it will not make it better

The first criterion is that there is nothing beyond the highest good, and the second is that there is no good besides the highest good

Only happiness fits this as well Happiness isn't made better with the addition of more good All other goods are good only insofar as they give rise to happiness

◦ Happiness must be the highest goods to which all other goods are subordinate◦ All other goods are only parts of happiness

Confirmed the opinions of the many and the few

Final StageWhat is Happiness? Poop <--Erika

What is it for a human being to fluourish as a human being? To fulfil his/her nature as a human being Have to look to the function of a human being The good of anything is for that thing to fulfill its nature The good will be fulfilling their essential function, and human beings have a particular function

(ergon) What defines a toaster?

◦ Toasting the bread Virtue or arete is always said of, predicated of, or lies in, a function

◦ The function of a toaster is to toast, and a good virtuous toaster toasts bread well Our virtue is be performing the function that makes us good humans, well The function of humans

◦ It can't have to do with nutrition, or growth, or reproduction, because that is something we share with all living things

◦ Can't be the life of sensation, because we share this with all animals What is the remaining thing? Life of Reason

◦ Activity that shares in a rational principle

◦ Active life of the element that has a rational principle Happiness will be the exercise of reason that is either implicit in or expressed in action, or the

exercise of reason, period.

Highest Human GoodChapter 8

Goes over the views of the many again Incidental things to be said about happiness

◦ First – happiness is an activity▪ Not a disposition/state (hexis)

◦ To be excellent, to be virtuous in the fullest sense, you have to actually act virtuously▪ First vs. second actuality

Virtue/excellence, is, in the fullest sense, a human being actually performing their function of a human being, in accordance with virtue ◦ Not just having a potential through habituation◦ Not just having the first actuality for acting virtuously, but actually acting virtuously

That, over the whole course of ones life◦ To answer if someone is happy, you can't just isolate one segment of their life, you have to

take a large expanse of time, the whole of someones life even The life of excellence/virtue, aught to be pleasurable for the virtuous person The virtuous person has to love virtue

◦ If you give money, but do it grudgingly, you are not actually good, and are doing it for the sake of something else that it yeilds

Habituation – supposed to make individuals by proper education, desire the right things, and take pleasure in them

What is virtuous is naturally pleasurable◦ True pleasure, and what is noble/best, all coincide

Only a conflict if you act against nature Last inccidence – a happy life requires external goods

◦ Necessary, but not a sufficient condition To Aristotle, you need health, good looks, good offspring, good birth, etc.

◦ Especially money, because some of the moral virtues involve giving it away Elements of good fourtune is involved in excellence in happiness Element of moral luck to Aristotle's moral theory Happiness, is a kind of flourishing, and thought of on the analogy of the flourishing of a plant Plants need a proper hospitable environment to flourish Similarly, good birth, and luck in getting money, etc, are like the fertile soil that a human is born

in, and the isolation from which, it is difficult to live a morally virtuous life The virtuous person will make do with very little, and harmed less by adversity

◦ Adversity – an opportunity for nobility to shine through Virtuous person makes the best of all circumstances and is not easily swayed from it

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Happiness is the Highest Good Meets the two criteria that the highest good has to meet

◦ Complete/absolute◦ Self-sufficient

No goods beyond the highest good

◦ And no good besides the highest good Next question: if the highest good is happiness, what is happiness? Answer: have to look to the good of a human being

◦ Aristotle's most detailed account (and therefore the good of a human), comes in chapter 13 To Aristotle, some thing is good if it fulfils its nature

◦ What is our nature?◦ What is our specific good?

Some things, are defined by a specific or essential function ◦ Not all, like 'triangles', (nature, not function)

Human beings do have a function ◦ Excellence/goodness (arete), is predicated of something's function

Plants have souls, animals have souls, and we are an animal and therefore we have souls as well We have to look to the soul (psychology), to find the essential function

Human Soul Soul = internal principle of motion and rest in all human beings What are the parts of the human soul? We share, with all living things, a vegetative, reproductive, nutritive soul

◦ Converting food into energy, reproduction (Aristotle things that you turn food into semen), ◦ Not where human excellence lies though...

Next part: Appetitive soul◦ Sensitive soul◦ The faculty that allows us to sense and have appetities◦ Strictly speaking, insofar as it is just a desiring element, then we share it with animals, and it

is not where our specific excellence or virtue lies What is exclusively human in all the animals?

◦ Rational soul

Appetitive vs Rational Strictly speaking, the appetitive soul is irrational The appetitive soul is irrational because it does not, of its own, produce a rational principle

◦ Cannot come up with, on its own, a means of reasoning its own behaviour It is, an aught to be considered, rational in a sense

◦ It can actually be made to heed/listen to reason ▪ Can take advice from reason, in the very same way that a child can take advice from an

adult Child is not 'reasonable' since it cannot produce arguments in favour to one thing or

another, but can be made to see the rationality in other arguments Can recognize rationality when it sees it

◦ Rational in the sense that it can be trained/educated/habituated/compelled to act in accordance to reason ▪ In line with the dictates of reason ▪ Can be made to obey reason because it sees the rational behind a dictation, or because it

has been trained to do so The Rational Soul

◦ The part of the soul that can produce a rational principle This division between the parts of the soul, (one that is rational in a loose sense, and one that is

rational in a strict sense) dictates the parts of virtue in a sense◦ Moral virtues

▪ Excellences having to do with character▪ Can act in a way that involves a rational principle, even though it doesn't produce it ▪ Reason that Aristotle thinks that it is specific to human is that animals can be trained,

but their appetitive soul can never recognize the rationality of an argument▪ Excellence of our capacity to act or feel in a rational fashion (or, involving reason)

◦ Intellectual virtues ▪ Virtues of the mind in the strictest sense (rational soul)▪ Virtue of our capacity to think rationally▪ Excellence of the capacity of reason ▪ Defines you, in a strict sense▪ Therefore, there is a kind of happiness associated with this kind of virtue ▪ However, there is another kind of virtue that is human...moral virtue

Book 2 General account of moral virtue (what it involves) Look specifically at kinds of moral virtue *Read Chapter 7 for illustrations of his doctrine, if you want* Outline the conditions for moral responsibility

◦ For something being a voluntary act ◦ Moral action must be deliberate and voluntary

Introduces moral virtue by explaining how it is acquired, and contrasts it with intellectual virtues, which are acquired by teaching◦ They are learned

Moral virtues, in a very important sense, are not taught◦ Acquired through training/habituation◦ Child, in being reared properly has to be told not to lie, etc.

▪ And if they don't lie, then initially, it is not because they understand the argument behind it, it is because they have been trained to do so

▪ This is how moral virtue is acquired Appetities being controlled in such a way that they are in line with reason

Because moral virtues come from habituation/training, they can't, arise by nature ◦ Nothing that exists by nature can form a habit that is contrary to nature◦ Rocks fall to the place they want to be in, and you cannot habituate a rock to do otherwise

If moral virtue were like that, then it could be like the stone You can habituate someone to be a very vicious person, or a very virtuous person

◦ But, you cannot train a rock to go up Moral virtues are not contrary to nature either

◦ By nature, we are made able to receive them ◦ Have the potential to receive them

In a sense, it has to be by nature But what we have in the strictest sense (out of the womb), is just a bare potential to acquire it

◦ Actualized through proper habituation The idea here, is that as opposed to the falling of rocks, nature, in the case of human beings,

needs help to be perfected ◦ Through education, or human ingenuity

Also, crucially, what exists by nature first has potentiality, or the potentiality to do something, and then later exhibits the activity

In things which arise by habit, on the other hand, and which are therefore not by nature (out of the womb), it is the other way around

◦ You first have to exercise the moral virtues before you become morally virtuous ◦ You don't have the ability to be morally virtuous, until you practice doing morally virtuous

things▪ Its just like learning to play an instrument, how? By playing it!▪ You don't have the strong sense of potentiality to play it in the 'first actuality' sense.

You don't really have the ability to act in a morally virtuous way until you do morally virtuous things and acquire the habit that is moral virtue

Point of habituation is to create a good settled state of character ◦ If it is to produce moral virtue, the aim of education is to produce a fixed disposition to

respond in appropriate ways to given situations, or to your own emotions (hexis) This settled state of character arises out of like activities

◦ For example, it is by being forced by a commanding officer to withstand the stresses of battle that a soldier acquired the moral virtue of courage ▪ It is only by doing courageous things can someone be courageous

This settled state of character arise through the repetition of activities which are the same sort of activities which will flow from the moral virtue once it comes ◦ Strength is caused by undergoing much exertion

▪ Once you become strong the activities that flow from strength are the same (lifiting lots of stuff)

◦ Temperance is caused from asbstaining from base pleasures, and once you have this moral virtue, you abstain anyway

If you become virtuous, you can become vicious as well through habituation

Pleasures and Pains How they fit into the notion of moral virtue They indicate our settled state of character You are not really temperate if you abstain from sensual pleasures but grudgingly The outward act of temperance is not sufficient to be considered so The outward show of moral virtue is similar, you have to take pleasure in it Similarly, you are not actually courageous if you're in battle only because you have to be You have to take pleasure in it, it has to be part of your nature, and not something you are

fighting at all costs Important to focus on pleasures and pains, because it is because of them that we do bad things

◦ As long as we take more pleasure in flight than in fight we are not courageous, and we will be moved by our passions to act in a way that is not courageous

Given their importance, they are what have to be trained from an early age Have to be educated to take pleasure in the correct things at the right time to the right degree,

etc... Aristotle notes that yes, moral virtue is concerned with pleasure and pain, but it is not the case

that just because something is pleasurable is it morally virtuous◦ You can take pleasure in the wrong things as well◦ Have to take pleasure in the right things

Chapters 5-7 Chapter 5 gives us the genus of moral character, and chapter 6 gives us a more specific/detailed

account 7 – examples of moral virtue

What is Moral Virtue

Looks to the sou:◦ Emotions/passions◦ Always accompanied by pleasure/pain

Faculties/powers◦ Things that enable you to feel

States◦ Things in virtue of which we stand well or badly in respect to our emotions◦ Settled patterns of emotional response

poopie Going to exclude it being a passion or a faculty, leaving state Why isn't it a passion?

◦ We're not praised/blamed for feelings which arise from sensation ◦ Virtue and vice are not the feelings themselves, but involve feeling the feelings in a certain

way (too much/little)◦ Feeling them toward the right/wrong object at the right/wrong time ◦ Involves emotion, but isn't it itself◦ Feelings are not determined by emotion/passion itself◦ We are good/bad to the extent that we control our passions

▪ Reining them in or giving them free reign at the right time◦ We feel without choice

▪ Whereas moral virtue necessarily involves choice Why can't it be a faculty?

◦ The ability to have passions◦ Not praised/blamed for the ability to feel a certain passions◦ Or for having sensation as part of your soul ◦ And, we have a faculty/ability to feel certain emotions by nature

▪ As soon as we're out of the womb▪ But we can't be morally vicious or virtuous by nature

◦ Therefore, it cannot be a power to have sensations Assuming this list is exhaustive, moral virtue has to be a settled state of character

◦ Specifically, a good settled state of character General description of moral virtue ^

Chapter 6 Detailed account

◦ *crucial* Good settled state of character is what? What does it mean to have a good settled state of character?

Doctrine of the Mean The good settled state of character

◦ Pattern disposing you to respond emotionally/behaviourally◦ A disposition to choose the mean between excess and defect in circumstances

Two types of means:◦ Objective/mathematics

▪ 6 is the mean between 10 and 2 (+4 is 10, -4 is 2)◦ Subjective mean

▪ Relative to us

▪ A mean between excess and defect as far as we are concerned ▪ If 10lbs of food is too much, and 2lbs is too little, the mean, in relation to you, might be

3lbs (neither defective nor excessive), whereas the objective mathematical mean might be 6lbs, which may not be correct in relation to you

Moral virtue is striking the mean in any particular moral context The morally virtuous person aims for the mean

◦ Relative to us You can feel a given emotion

◦ Too little/too much◦ What is intermediate, and therefore best, is to feel this emotion at the right time, in reference

to the right object with the right aim ▪ In the right way

This goes for actions too◦ Excess and defect lies here as well ◦ Excess and defect are blamed, striking the mean is praised, and therefore virtuous

General definition of virtue: Chapter 4 – to call someone good, you have to look beyond the actions themselves, beyond

their outward appearance Have to look at the intentions/state of the persons doing those things Actions in themselves are not enough How a person saw the actions he/she have committed To be morally virtuous, the moral agent must have knowledge

◦ Must be able to account for the virtue of his/her deeds The moral agent, in order to be morally virtuous, must have chosen the actions he/she have

carried out, and must be chosen for their own sakes◦ Not out of compulsion, or not for the sake of some further end (which, if it were removed,

the person would not do it)▪ Cannot be means to an end

◦ Actions cannot be good or bad if they are chosen, if they are complelled to do it If a moral agent is to be called morally virtuuous, on account of one or a number of deeds, this

deed has to proceed from a relativlely stable character ◦ It is not appropriate to call someone morally virtuous if they do it once in a blue moon

On the basis of the above, one can make sense of the general definition: (Chapter 6)◦ “Moral excellence is a settled state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean (i.e.

The mean relative to us), this being determined by reason, and in the way in which the man of practical reason would determine

Moral virtue, in other words, is a settled pattern of appropriate emotional and behavioural responses which disposes you to strike the mean between excess and defect in any particular circumstance◦ Choose according to reason, or according to a rule, which is according to which a virtuous

person would choose

Stress on choice Not only must it be chosen, it must arise out of a settled state of character

◦ Education disposes you to choose in one way or another If moral actions must be chosen, the moral state itself is also chosen (Book 3)

Practical Wisdom

phronesis – the exellence of the type of cognition involved in moral action ◦ Not only the word for the excellence, it is the word for the faculty that enables you to carry

it out The practically wise person is able to make the right choices regarding each particular

circumstance in order to strike the mean for each circumstance Note, it is a vague definition What is the mean?

◦ It is that which the man of practical wisdom will choose What is the right choice?

◦ What the person of practical wisdom would choose (person being defined as the one who makes the right choice)

Not putting forward definition as a test that can be run as a general principle wherein you can deduce what to do in any situation

It is a description of what moral virtue is◦ Standard for what is appropriate to do◦ Judgement that a practically wise person will come to

Not every emotion has a mean ◦ You can't be jealous or envious in just the right way as the right time, because they are

absolutely bad No excess or defect of temperance/courage, since the mean is the absolute

◦ It is absolutely good◦ Courage is a mean of being brash and being cowardly, so you can't have an extreme since it

is by nature a mean◦ It is also an absolute good (no better or worse way to be courageous, because either way you

are being courageous)

Three Examples Feelings of fear and confidence

◦ Courage is the mean Excess of fearlessness is brashness, and a deficiency is cowardice

◦ Both are bad◦ The moral virtue (the mean), is courage

Feelings of sensual pleasure◦ Temperance the mean◦ Excess

▪ Self indulgence◦ Defect

▪ Insensitivity Actions

◦ Giving and taking money, the mean is liberality◦ Excess is prodigality (giving in excess), and the defect is stinginess

Chapter 9, Book 2 Emphasizes the difficulty of attaining the mean, and explores how the mean is grasped, by

which intellectual faculty◦ Moral virtue is a good settled state of character that disposes you to strike the mean between

two extremes Not easy to find the mean Anyone can get angry and the passions is not the virtue itself

What is difficult is getting angry toward the right person at the right time with the right purpose in mind

Since the mean is difficult, you should try to steer clear from that which you are most disposed◦ So if you know your disposition is self-indulgent, you should aim for being insensitive and

end up somewhere in the middle How do you end up in particular situations knowing what the right thing to do is? Ethics isn't an exact science, so it is a question of degree

◦ Little less or more, not that big a deal ◦ Large deviations from the mean are blameworthy

How do you draw the line?◦ Perception

Not identical to practical wisdom ◦ Being compared to sensation here because it deals with particular facts and things while

theoretical wisdom deals with general things In a sense, it is knowledge of particulars Practical wisdom – knowledge of what to do in particular circumstances

◦ Along the lines of perception◦ You are not applying some universal rule and deriving what to do from the universal

▪ It is a kind of sight Doesn't mean that there aren't any universal principles

◦ All morally virtuous actions are a mean – universal principle Cannot give an account for why they are what they are

◦ Person of particular wisdom will know how they work out in particular situations, but it is not that they know what to do from deriving knowledge from an ultimate principle

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Happiness An activity of the soul employing/involving reason, in accordance with excellence Employing/involving reason = ambiguous In Chapter 13, Book 1, he sets up a distinction in the human soul:

◦ Rational vs irrational The irrational part – vegitative, reproductive, nutriative

◦ No share in reason Appetite, however, has a share in reason Intellectual virtue – excellence of our ability to think Moral Virtue – excellence of our capacity/ability to act/behave/feel/ in a way that corresponds

to reason The irrational part of the soul shares in reason in that it can recognize a good argument

Virtues of Character Moral virtue – settled pattern of emotional/behavioural account which disposes us to chose the

mean in any given situation between excess and deficiency in respect to emotions/actions Noted two things:

◦ Stress on choice ▪ Something has to be done intentionally▪ Condition for the possibility of moral evaluation

◦ The person of practical wisdom is regarded by Aristotle in the formal definition of moral

virtue - “doing what the person of practical wisdom will do”

Book 3 Chapters 1-5 The reason this is important is because things are only susceptible to blame/praise if they are

deliberate

What is Involuntary Takes two forms:

◦ Involuntary because you are compelled physically to do it ◦ A certain type of ignorance on the part of the moral agent (you)

Compulsion – any case in which the moving principle for your action lies completely outside of you (is external to you)◦ You the agent contribute nothing to what you are doing ◦ If you are physically compelled to do something, then its not your fault

Duress – doesn't mean that you are being compelled, and therefore, not involuntary◦ Whatever is done to avoid a greater evil, is still voluntary

▪ If you are sailing in a ship and you have to jettison precious cargo, and you owed that cargo to someone, you are still morally compelled

▪ Source of action is still you, the person, throwing these precious things overboard

Ignorance Only ignorance of particulars in any given circumstance can count as involuntary and therefore

get you off the hook, so to speak◦ Whereas, in the case of universals or general principles at play, those, it is blameworthy not

to know ◦ Say you accidentally kill someone at a bowling alley by rolling a bowling ball full of

explosives, its not your fault since you didn't know◦ But, you could be blamed if your excuse was that you didn't know that killing was bad

What is Choice? Moral virtue implies that it was chosen Aristotle says that choice is what is decided upon with previous deliberation What is deliberation? First need to think about what we can deliberate about?

◦ We cannot deliberate over necessities◦ Things that happen most of the time (unchanging)◦ Or things which happen out of chance◦ What others do (insofar as they are the causes of something)◦ Impossible things◦ Past events

Things that cannot possibly be otherwise Deliberate about what can be otherwise

◦ Contingent◦ Not necessarily the way they are◦ What it is in your power to do?

More often than not, we deliberate about means and not ends The specific ends that we deliberate about the means to realize are supplied by another source

◦ Not deliberation For example, our end is happiness

◦ We don't deliberate about that ◦ In virtue of being human beings, our end is happiness◦ We deliberate over the means for happiness

▪ You might, though deliberation, decide that happiness determined to health, and that jogging is a good means of attaining health

The function of a doctor is what defines a doctor qua doctor◦ Does not deliberate on whether or not to heal◦ Deliberates about the means to his/her end qua doctor

Chapter 5, Book 3 Both good and evil deeds are chosen Denying that means that ,oral categories don't apply to us Objection – actions follow from settled states of character, but, what if your settled state of

character is such that you can't resist temptation? ◦ Moreover, this objection is stronger because our moral character, our patterns that we form

through habituation, in fact, colour/shape the way we see things▪ Make us see the world in a certain way, make us thing certain things are good and others

bad So, how can a person be blamed for following their settled state? Well, you must have chosen to do those activities repeatedly, and once they crystallize into a

disposition, if even irrevocably so, you have still chosen to do the things that form the character Your character determines your world view and what you deem to be good

◦ If you have a vicious character, what you deem to be good, is not actually so You are still morally responsible for your character, and thus the actions which flow from it

Book 6 Admits that his definition of moral intelligence is a circular one So what is the mean?

◦ That which is in accordance with orthos logos (right reason) In other words, that which the person of practical wisdom who sees what is the right reason

would choose Aristotle himself recognizes that this is about as helpful as telling doctors that they should just

do what the medical art requires Thus, it should be determined what is the right rule/reason and what is the reason that fixes it Have to look for the factors responsible for striking the mean The cognitive faculty that enables us to strike the mean in any particular situation, or the

components of any such appropriate judgement Reminds us of the distinction between moral and intellectual virtues, and the corresponding

distinction between the rational and the irrational parts of the soul ◦ New distinction within the rational part of the soul in the strict sense

Two parts of the rational part of the soul in the strictest sense:◦ One by which we contemplate the kindof things whose principles cannot be otherwise

(necessary)▪ Scientific part

◦ One by which we contemplate variable things (contingent things)▪ Calculating/deliberating part

Don't deliberate that 2+2 = 4, or deliberated if you should have eaten bananas or not yesterday

Objects Associated with Each of the Divisions of the Rational Soul

The function of every intellectual faculty is to distinguish between the true and the false The excellence of an intellectual faculty is to judge between true and falsity well In the case of the faculty of the rational soul which thinks about eternal necessary unchanging

things, its function is to ascertain what is necessarily true or false Whereas, in the case of the part of the rational soul which is set over contingent things, it is a

little more complex ◦ The good state of practical reason, is truth (or the capacity to discern truth), in agreement

with right desire

Deliberate Desire The efficient causes of actions is choice The moral acts to be moral acts have to be chosen The origin or efficient cause of choice is twofold:

◦ Right desire▪ Or, desire, period.▪ Determines the end which is to be pursued

◦ Always in conjunction with the first: deliberation▪ Reasoning about means in view of the ends supplied by desire▪ Reason which judges regarding the ends set by desire

This is why choice, good/bad action, cannot exist without both thought and a settled state of character ◦ The SSC shapes your disposition, inclination, to desire in one way or another, which set the

end which you deliberate about the means to realize Moral virtue – settled state of character which involves choice (which is deliberate desire)

◦ Involves both the right desire and the right deliberation of the means which lead to that right desire

◦ Intellect alone does not suffice you to move to anything

Complete List of Intellectual Virtue Opinion/belief can't be intellectual virtue since it has to do with the grasping of truth/falsity well Whereas opinion, by definition, is not really a grasp of truth or falsity

Demonstrative Cannot be otherwise Universal/eternal truths The method of episteme is demonstration A little like what Plato called hypothetical reasoning

◦ Deduces a conclusion according to valid inference from premises Premises of a demonstration can they themselves be intermediate conclusions What about the premises which are not conclusions of previous arguments? First premises are not themselves going to be further substantiated by other premises

◦ They are first principles Episteme is the intellectual virtue regarding demonstrations which cannot be otherwise

◦ Draws premises out of those which are pre-given Knowledge, in this sense of demonstrative reasoning, is concerned with validity

◦ Definition of a valid argument is that if the premises are true then the conclusion must be true

In itself, validity has to do with the structure of the argument Deals with truth and internal consistency

◦ Relies on another power within reason to give it true premises from which it can derive things

Techne Things that are variable and can be otherwise Has to do with the making of things Concerned with things that come to be and require and external agent to make them Other part of reason, having to do with variable things, is practical wisdom

◦ Doing things, rather than making them Making and doing aren't the same thing The production of objects, this process has an end outside of itself (the thing which is produces,

which itself has a further purpose) Action, moral action, is an end in itself, and therefore the two can't be the same thing Concerned with the truths regarding the processes of production Carpenter knows what a table is and knows the materials that the form of table dictates, and the

carpenter qua carpenter knows the techniques of making a good table

Phronesis Practical wisdom Knowledge of how to secure what is best in life How to realize our ends as human beings Concerned with action, and what is to be done, and what is contingent and variable The man of practical wisdom deliberates well on how best to lead a fulfilled life Practical wisdom involves deliberation

More on Deliberation You don't deliberate about ends, or ultimate ends

◦ Deliberate about the means to fulfil that end (desire) True and reasoned state of capacity to act in a way that is good or bad for men In Book 5, practical wisdom is called opinion

◦ Well, it might not be opinion in the strictest sense ◦ Opinion can't be an intellectual virtue because intellectual virtue has to do with ascertaining

what is good and true ◦ Overstatement on the part of Aristotle

▪ Rationale: can't be an opinion in the strictest sense of opinion, because to be morally virtuous in the fullest sense, you need to know what you are doing is morally virtuous, and you need to be doing it because it is morally virtuous, and for no other reason

The knowledge involved in moral virtue is a kind of knowledge and not mere opinion Just looks like opinion when you compare it to episteme

◦ Or the theoretical sciences in general Moral knowledge not as exact as that found in theoretical disciplines Not quite knowledge in the fullest sense of theoretical reason, and closer to perception because

to has to do with particulars

Nous Comprehension Being able to demonstrate what follows from first principles is different from being able to

grasp those first principles themselves ◦ Two intellectual faculties have to be at play

▪ One that sees what follows from premises Needs somewhere else for the premises to come from If there wasn't a first principle, life would be an infinite regress

▪ One that grasps the premises themselves If knowledge is going to be possible, justification for our propositions through demonstration,

through deducing those propositions from somewhere, it has to come to an end at some point you will need a non demonstrative/immediate grasp of premises Nous – immediate, direct grasp of first principles/premises of an argument

Philosophical Wisdom someone who is philosophically wise has to know what the first premises are, and what follows

from them Combination of demonstrative knowledge and nous Nous – what enables the grasp of first principles of reason

◦ Gives you a direct grasp of reason The ultimate/most fundamental rules of reasoning Something can't be and not be at the same time You can't prove that by invoking other premises and demonstrating from it

◦ That demonstrate would rely on the principle of non-contradiction Nous also gives you a direct grasp of universals

◦ Definitions of things ◦ To Aristotle, we can percieve/observe a whole bunch of things at the same time (group of

chairs), and on the basis of just observing those, nous grasps what is common to them, what they are (of the same sort)

◦ You don't deduce it logically or argue for it rationally It is on the basis of your direct grasp of the nature of 2 that you can demonstrate from it

◦ You can't grasp your concept from something else, and if you can, you have to intuit directly from that concept

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What is the good for anything?◦ To realize its nature

Those things defined by an essential function, virtue is going to be predicated on that function The essential human function is thinking, reason. Our goodness, what fulfils us is thinking, and employing reason Aristotle goes on to refine this account by investigating the soul Ch 15, Book 1, there are two primary parts to the soul

◦ Rational ◦ Irrational

To each part corresponds a virtue Even the irrational part, one part of it, has a share in reason as Aristotle puts it

◦ Partakes of it, or at least, can obey it through habituation ◦ Appetite

Appetite can heed advice from reason ◦ Can recognize good reason when it sees it

The rational part, proper, is the part that actually thinks, and generates arguments for or against a certain type of behaviour

Two types of human excellence◦ Moral Virtue

▪ Pretain/belong to, the part of our soul that is irrational, but can be made to heed reason▪ Settled state of character that disposes you to strike the mean in any given situation

between excess and deficiency with respect to actions (virtuous behaviour)◦ Intellectual Virtue

▪ Ability to grasp/discern the truth/falsity in the various spheres that we can comprehend These two forms of excellence are two different types of happiness for human beings What kind of hierarchy is there between these two forms of happiness?

◦ (Book 10)

Book 6 Remember that, within our rational soul, there are various powers of reason

◦ To these correspond various excellences/intellectual virtues Five states in which the activity of thinking is performed well

◦ Deliberate/calculativeVariable (bifurcates into...)

▪ Techne (art/making)▪ Phronesis (practical wisdom)

◦ Theoreticalinvariable (leads to...)

▪ Sophia (philosophical wisdom) (which bifurcates into...) Episteme (demonstrative wisdom) Nous (intuition)

Demonstrative Reason (Episteme) Virtue is to be able to reason validly from given premises, though it does not generate them, to

the conclusion that falls out of, or can be derived validly from/by the premises, that it takes over from another faculty (Nous)

From the hypothetical reasoning in Plato◦ If an argument structure is valid, the supposed truth entails the truth of the conclusion

Demonstrative reasoning, however, can't go on infinitely◦ Then you'd need a demonstration for a premise which would need a demonstration and yet

another premise which would need..... What ultimately provides the first principles of demonstrations/arguments : Nous!

Nous The immediate grasp of the first principles of argumentation

◦ Bedrock premise for arguments/demonstrative reasonings (demonstrations) Grasps universals on a basis of the perception of the many different instantiations of a principle

◦ Grasp of the form chair would be abstracted from nous by the empirical observation (sense data of many chairs)

It is through this that you can then go on to demonstrate things It is nous which grasps that all men are rational, and then demonstrative reasoning takes over

◦ All men are rational (first principle). Socrates is a man (grasped by perception). Therefore, Socrates is rational (generated by demonstrative reasoning. ▪ To think through a syllogism? It requires both types of reason, and is therefore an

exercise of sophia.

It is only working in conjunction that you can get true knowledge (sophia), philosophical reasoning

If you are going to have true knowledge, you need to know more than simply that one thing is a table (nous), and then you have to talk about it (episteme)

Angus is such a Viking <--yes. A premise grasped by perception. :P

Sophia Highest realization of knowledge because it is concerned with the highest (best) objects by

nature Those which exist by necessity, and unchangingly Nous grasps what is, rather than what becomes. By contrast, the objects of phronesis (practical wisdom), are

◦ Not necessary (can be other than what they are)◦ Are not universal (sophia – universal principles)◦ More concerned with particulars

▪ What is right to do in a particular situation◦ About human, not divine things

On the basis of this compare and contrast, there is an evident hierarchy between sophia and phronesis ◦ Sophia > Phronesis

All of these are intellectual virtues, but phronesis and sophia are the respective intellectual virtues of deliberate and theoretical reasoning◦ Phronesis is an end in itself, while techne is a means to getting further ends◦ Sophia is an end in itself also, and is superior to phronesis

Chapter 12, Book 6 Objection

◦ Phronesis is concerned with all forms of behaviour and emotions which are good ▪ Acting/feeling in appropriate ways

◦ But, those who are good, have a good settled state of character, don't seem to need phronesis since their settled state disposes them to do the right things▪ What is the use of phronesis?

◦ Analogy – you have to become a doctor to become healthy◦ You can't just follow their dictates to become healthy

Aristotle's response◦ the fulfilment of our essential function in moral virtue also involves an intellectual virtue by

necessity ◦ Excellence of character isn't sufficient, even in true morally virtuous actions

Moral virtue, good settled state of character, is what makes your aim correct, your desire correct.◦ Deliberation (phronesis) is required to strike upon the right means in realizing the end◦ Habituation to desiring certain things and not in others ◦ Hence, moral virtue involves phronesis

Distinction Between Doing Morally Virtuous Things and Actually Being Morally Virtuous To really be morally virtuous, for it to be true, the external deed being externally in conformity

to moral virtue is not sufficient As Aristotle puts it, in order to be good one must be in a certain state, and for the sake of the

acts themselves

◦ To evaluate any given action, you have to know how that agent percieved that action◦ Phronesis is crucial to this distinction

The agent has to know why it is that what he is doing is morally virtuous Knowledge is an essential component to moral virtue The agent, doing the morally virtuous thing, has to know that it is morally virtuous, and is doing

it for that reason . Phronesis gives you knowledge of what is required in any given particular situation, what the

mean is that you are trying to strike, (right reason)◦ Phronesis can be equated to perception, as it is a grasp of the particular right way of feeling

in a particular situation Phronesis is very close to perception – what got us the 'Socrates is a man' point in the syllogism Observing many different morally virtuous actions of a particular sort, to pick out and grasp

what it is which makes all of those instances of moral virtue, morally virtuous.◦ In that sense, phronesis is closer to nous, or at least involves something like nous. Can't just

be knowledge of particulars ▪ Knowledge of the general principles

Chapter 13 Distinction between moral virtue (weak natural virtue) and moral virtue in the strict sense Natural virtue is a blind unconscious performance of actions which externally conform to right

reason ◦ Thus, they look like something a morally virtuous person would do

▪ Non-virtuous reason, or done out of sheer habituation By contrast, there is something that is real moral virtue Moral virtue in the strictest sense is guided by knowledge and is chosen on the basis of the

moral agents knowledge of why it is that the particular deed he is contemplating is good, and the general principles that he is using to evaluate his actions/ends in a situation

For that reason, moral virtue necessarily involves phronesis and isn't fully complete without it Moral excellences having to do with character are not forms of reason in an of themselves

◦ But, they necessarily involve the presence of reaso◦ The moral agent must be reasoning, and knowing that what he is doing is reasonable and for

the right reasons

Moral Virtue Implies Phronesis and Phronesis Requires Moral Virtue, Such That They are Co-Dependent

If phronesis is the capacity to debate about means, then it required moral virtue to provide it with a good end to which to work toward

Phronesis first and foremost is to debate about the means which lead to good ends, therefore, it needs moral virtue to give it something to work

Phronesis is the capacity to deliberate how to be generous in a particular situation If without this good end is not presented to phronesis then it would just be cleverness

(reasoning, period).

-----Poopire on phronesis---- (by Erika)

Phronesis required moral virtue, since you only develop that knowledge based on repeated observations of morally virtuous actions ◦ you become good at striking the right mean by observing others

Phronesis will be able to extract the general principle out of the observations

◦ In that sense, to be a man of phronesis, in a sense, you already need to be morally virtuous aristotle can go die in a hole There is a sense that, despite the fact that the two are co-dependent, that you are automatically

morally virtuous by just being a person of phronesis◦ you have all the moral virtues once you have phronesis on the condition that you already

have a good settled state of character...which you will have since the development of phronesis requires a good settled state

Two things about phronesis: ◦ Sometimes he seems to speak as though it as intellectual virtue that allows you to pick the

correct means to the good end◦ But, knowing what the good end is, is also a cognitive activity ◦ The morally virtuous person in the fullest sense needs to know why what he is doing is

morally virtuous◦ The morally virtuous person needs to have phronesis to know what the means are to realize

his end, moral virtue, (the means being striking the literal means)◦ But, you can't know that something is good without knowing the end as well?

▪ You can't know that jogging and eating well leads to good health, if you don't know that there is good health, or what good health is

Moral virtue to Aristotle is not simply a cognitive state, even though it involves a cognitive state (phronesis)◦ Perfect moral virtue is part habituation, and part knowledge

▪ Knowledge disposes you to seek correct ends and take pleasure in the actions that are morally virtuous

The truly virtuous person's habits will be a self-conscious expression of his practical wisdom

Two Primary Kinds of Virtue Excellences associated with irrational part of soul Excellences associated with rational part of soul Associated with, that the excellences themselves, are two different forms of happiness What we want to establish in Book 10, (ch6-9) is to establish which Virtue is superior to the

other Happiness (actualizing your nature) is not a disposition

◦ Not a potentiality▪ If it were, then you could be happy when you are asleep, when you are in a coma ▪ This is not a fulfilled life

Happiness isn't some soma pill. (Soma = Brave New World reference. If you don't get it, go read the book.)

Happiness, in the strictest sense, is playing the guitar, not when you have the potencial to play i If happiness were a disposition, then you could be happy in the most extreme misfortune

◦ The expression of moral virtue in extreme misfortune is very limited One has to be born, to a certain degree, with the equipment to actualize moral virtue Happiness has to be an activity done well

◦ Carried out in accordance with virtue Some activities are pursued for their own sakes, others for the sake of something else Since the highest good is an activity, it is an end in itself, since it is the highest good What is the activity, that, when done well, is happiness.

◦ Not that it gives rise to it First contender:

◦ Amusement

▪ It seems like it might be, since, amusement, frivolous idle pleasures are fulfilling You spend a lot of time playing video games, going so far as to neglect food and

such▪ Amusement is also what people with a lot of power do

Amusement is what they seek ▪ Aristotle's reply: only those people who have sampled all the different types of pleasures

are fit to choose ▪ Tyrants choose only physical pleasures, not so much the amusement of philosophical

wisdom▪ Amusement can't be it, because, it is perverse and childish to construe amusement as a

highest good or end in itself Perversion of the natural order of means and ends

▪ The purpose of amusement is to restore yourself so you can better accomplish that which is truly an end in itself

21/11/2011

Book 10 In chapter 6, Book 10, it is established that happiness is not a disposition

◦ Not a capacity◦ You cannot be said to be virtuous or excellent, or good in the fullest/strictest sense unless

you are actually carrying out those things which are virtuous, unless you are deploying your settled state of character in pursuing morally virtuous activities, and continuously doing so▪ Or at least doing so as much is possible ▪ When you are asleep, your moral virtue is just a disposition, not in effect

Like a person who can play the guitar, but doesn't actually have a guitar in their hands, they have the potential to play

◦ Happiness is an activity If happiness is the highest good, then it is one when done in accordance with virtue is happiness

in itself The first contender for that activity when pursued with virtue is

◦ Amusement/idle frivolous pleasure (sensual)▪ People seem to pursue it as an end itself because they give up a lot of things to gain it ▪ The tyrants of this world seek amusement, even though they have all the power in the

world Amusement is just childish and perverse It is perverse to think that idle things are the highest good, because you don't break

your back and toil all day just so you can play video games Amusement is synonymous with diversion Amusement is simply a diversion which takes your mind off something and relaxes

you◦ But if it is the highest good, you would pursue it for its own sake ◦ A life of just amusement would be a life of diversions, and thus an empty life◦ Diversions by nature are diverting from something, and if that is all that you are

doing, clearly your life must be empty◦ Amusement is for the sake of something else, from work (which is inherently fulfilling)

So, what activity, when done well, is happiness? Theoria – Theoretical reasoning

◦ The object of which are necessary and eternal truths

◦ It's virtue is sophia

Theoria The highest form of virtue in us, which represents the most complete happiness is theoria when

done well He proves this by bringing up a criterion or characteristics of complete happiness, and showing

how theoria and only theoria fulfils that critera Happiness should be an activitiy which is in accordance with our highest/supreme

excellence◦ Contemplation, when done well, is the best, and therefore meets this criteria◦ Theoretical reasoning is what is highest/best in us◦ Therefore the highest form of excellence, and thus, highest form of happiness◦ It enables us to grasp the highest objects, by nature, those things which are best in nature

and therefore are to the fullest extent (pure actuality [eternal unmoved mover])◦ Best in us because it is what most strictly speaking, defines us, separates us and

distinguishes us from all other animals and living things◦ Aristotle's reasoning is that which defines you, that which makes you that type of thing, is

what is best in you and thus makes you that type of thing▪ Because reason is what distinguishes us from other things, it therefore must be the best

of us Happiness should be continuous and not intermittent

◦ Theoria – is that which can be done continuously◦ By contrast, the morally virtuous person will take pleasure in a generous act, but that act is

quickly ending, and with it, the pleasure ends too, and the act itself is over, and the act itself is virtue

◦ This is definitely the case with sensual pleasure Happines should be mingled with pleasure

◦ There should be pleasure in achieving the highest good and realizing your nature◦ To Aristotle, sophia which is the highest virtue (the excellence of our capacity to

contemplate), is the pleasentest of activities◦ The pleasures of philosophy are marvellous for their purity and their enduringness◦ The pleasure of philosophical conversation is pure in that it is unalloyed with any suffering

by necessity ◦ Whereas, to Aristotle, moral virtue is always impure in this sense, the pleasure associated

with this is always impure▪ If you are courageous, then you must take pleasure in your acts of bravery, which

usually involve killing people▪ Insofar as you are brave, you are going to take pleasure in it▪ But if you are morally virtuous in a rounded way, you are also compassionate▪ And insofar as you are compassionate you are going to be pained by killing someone

else▪ So, the pleasure that you derive from your bravery, you will be sorrowed as well

◦ Philosophical pleasures are enduring, because, barring you dying or going crazy, you can contemplate eternal truths longer than anything else▪ Whereas, the same can't be said of sensual pleasures ▪ And as you age, the sphere of your avaliable forms of moral virtue get smaller and

smaller As you age, you stop being able to be brave on the battlefield You can still have the disposition, but you can't fully deploy it

Happiness is self-sufficient ◦ There are no goods beside it◦ Contemplation is the most self-sufficient activity◦ He grants that philosophers have basic needs which need to be satisfied, but they need less

of these things than other human beings, and therefore their activity is more self-sufficient ◦ To be morally virtuous, you need more equipment than you need to just think well ◦ For example, to be generous, you need a little more money than what you need by necessity

to survive ◦ To be brave, you needed to be wealthy enough to buy your equipment (armour)◦ To be morally virtuous, you need more external goods, and therefore less self sufficient

▪ This goes for other moral virtues as well, all of which are interpersonal▪ With contemplation, all you need is yourself, but for something like kindness, where

you need another person ▪ Moral virtues are carried out in a social context▪ You cannot be generous without having other people to be generous to▪ It helps you to become a better reasoner when you discuss with other people, and there

is education involved, but, you can easily just do it by yourself after the discussions (go into the mountains or some such)

Happiness is most final ◦ In the sense that it is pursued as an end in itself and not for the sake of anything further,

beyond it◦ It is the end of all ends◦ Only contemplation is pursued for its own sake◦ Nothing arises from the contemplation of eternal necessary truths than eternal necessary

truths◦ It is not pursued for some further end ◦ By contrast, you do gain from moral virtue

▪ You become honoured and rich from the performance of brave deeds▪ You gain favours from the performance of kind deeds

Happiness depends on leisure ◦ Happiness is a leisurely activity◦ Leisure here is not an idle activity, but something which is most end-like◦ It is the thing you aught to pursue if you had the option of every activity in the world◦ Moral virtue is not leisurely in this sense ◦ Let us take the moral virtues in war

▪ Courage, for example, is a moral virtue, but you would not wage war if you didn't have to, and even the courageous morally virtuous person would not wage war, just because

▪ Therefore, it is not an end in itself▪ You wage war for the sake of peace▪ The same goes for moral virtue in the sphere of politics▪ You can deploy moral virtue in politics

In fact, the two highest spheres wherein moral virtue is displayed best are war and politics

▪ The good politician rules for the benefit of his/her subjects The point of ruling But it is toilsome, and you sacrifice a great deal in ruling, and legislating practical

wisdom And in a perfect world, wherein everyone was automatically virtuous, then the

morally virtuous person would not want to rule

▪ It is not, in the fullest sense, an end in itself▪ The morally virtuous person carries out morally virtuous actions for their own sakes

You are only morally virtuous because you take pelasure in them, not because you are paid to do so, or for any end beyond it which may be accidental to being a morally virtuous person

Because ruling their subjects is a good thing, they do it, however, it is not an end in itself in the fullest sense, because if the world were perfect, and habituation through laws were not required to make good people, the ruler would not want to rule

▪ Moral virtue is not leisurely, because if you didn't have to do it, you wouldn't▪ Your moral virtue would remain a disposition▪ Highest moral virtues

Political moral virtue Moral virtue in the battlefield

▪ But they are not highest virtues in the sense that when done for themselves are happiness

◦ 1177B20 ◦ Theoria is the activity that, when done well, is happiness

It is the highest and the least intermittent form of happiness It is an endless and infinite pleasure What is best in us, is what we most truly are Even phronesis some animals have

◦ Some can deliberate well about good means, good for them What you are in the strictest sense is your capacity to reason theoretically, and you are only

secondarily a body therefore it would be strange if someone were to choose the life of themselves, but the life of

something else (the body = moral virtue) That which is best and most pleasant in each thing It is, however, a life too high for man We enjoy it insofar as there is a spark of the divine in us But, we are finite creatures of flesh and blood, and we have needs that we need to attend to

◦ We need to eat, need to sleep, etc. We strive for the happiness that is involved in reasoning well, in philosophical wisdom But, we can never fully attain it, because the life of the body drags us down Insofar as the philosopher is human, he never trancends the polis Philosophy is possible in a well-ordered state, and provides the leisure that is necessary for

his/her activity◦ In a sense, the philosopher is a parasite ◦ They need the security of a well-ordered state

Therefore, they need to either become a ruler himself to maintain the well-ordered state, or he remains dependant on politicians who are able to rule well

At the very least, the philosopher will have to educate his fellow citizens, the elites He will have to show them that the life of contemplation doesn't pose a threat to the city, and

doesn't go against the city's beliefs Another vindication of philosophy in the face of their detractors It is a defence of philosophy before a political audience

◦ Aristotle's lectures would have been said before politicians The life of the philosopher is divine It is not completely attainable for human beings insofar as they are human beings Unending enjoyment of this life is not possible for human beings

◦ But we can approach it Paradox

◦ Complete happiness ends up being the performance of the highest human activity in accordance with virtue

◦ Therefore, theoria done with sophia ◦ But insofar as we perform this activity, we transcend our finitute and become eternal and

necessary ourselves (the eternal unmoved mover [which is eternally engaged in contemplation])

We seek to emulate the life of the eternal unmoved mover In terms of Plato's cave metaphor, we exist at the mouth of the cave, and we are eternally in the

struggle of that part of us which is divine and the part that is human◦ Humans are a point of tension◦ We seek to contemplate, but we also have bodies, which needs shelter, and thus requires

politics and community, and so we are pulled down into the cave◦ Humans – a synthesis of intellect and body ◦ Straining to transcend our finitude, and to contemplate eternally, but are tied down by our

finite material bodies Human beings are a synthesis of intellect and body, and if that is the definition of a human, the

moral virtue is more properly human, because it, in the strict sense, requires habituation (with the body), but involves intellect, because to be truly morally virtuous you need to know why you are being morally virtuous, and why you are doing what you are doing (practical wisdom)

Politics Necessary because proper habituation cannot take place outside the context of a well run state The force that a father weilds is insufficient You need the coercive force of a well run state to mold a person's character such that they

develop a good settled state of character The purpose of a ruler is to pass good laws, and they are good precicely because they lead to

proper habituation of citizens State intervention of the development of moral virtue is necesary This is completely opposite to modern liberal concepts of the state The justification of a state is one that develops good moral virtue in its subjects And a good state is one that achieves this, by producing morally virtuous subjects

OUR PAPERS

Explain the argument in whatever passages are relevant in whatever passages are relevant in what in the question in question

Be specific to the question Focus in on what is pertinent to the question Explain the argument Distinction between explaining and summarizing When you are paraphrazing/narrating, you are just asserting things, that one thing is said,

followed by another, followed by the next Look at the argument and the logical connections between each of the points which are raised

in the dialogues Unpack them, and spell out, make explicit, the connections between one thing that is said and

another thing that is said

What has to be presupposed for the conclusion? What are the steps that have to be presupposed for that conclusion to be followed?

Set up the content of your paper and your specific topic in your introduction◦ It shouldn't just summarize the whole argument

Make every link in your argument explicit and crystal clear

Some Paper-workSee what I did there? xD

Pronominal Possessives◦ Her + s = Hers

Indefinite Pronoun, Possessive Form◦ One + s = One's ◦ Somebody else's

Series of three terms:◦ The American flag is red, white, (the comma here is the 'oxford comma') and blue.

Parenthetical remarks ◦ Should be separated off from the rest of the sentence by a comma on both sides (Duuuuuuh)

Comma Before Conjunction Introducing a Separate Clause◦ The story of its first years can no longer be constructed, and blah blah blah blah.

If you don't use a conjunction (so, but, and, thus, etc) and you just put a comma between two independent sentences, that's a run on.

Underestimate the intelligence of your reader.◦ Shorten sentences when you can, if it doesn't affect the meaning

The Semi-Colon◦ To divide two independent clauses without a conjunction◦ My car is out of gas; we cannot reach town before dark.

Colon◦ Used before a quotation and acts as evidence for what you've said ◦ Also used when you are numerating things (acts as equal sign)

The subject of the verb determine the number of the verb◦ Singular verb after the following: each, either, everyone, everybody, neither, nobody,

someone. ▪ “Everybody thinks he has a unique sense of humour”▪ NOT: “Each person likes the smell of their own farts.”

“Each person likes the smell of his own farts.”◦ Don't use 'their' as the neutral pronoun, it is plural. USE 'HE'!!

Harmonize your pronouns◦ If you start with 'one', keep using it throughout the sentence! ◦ “Each person must do what he thinks is right.”

▪ Each person is singular, so, you must use 'he'.▪ NOT: “Each person must do what they think is right...”

Superfluous Words◦ “Her story is a strange one.” Just write: “Her story is strange.”◦ “Used for fuel purposes.” Ummm.... “Used for fuel.” Nuff said.

Enough about Grammar, Now, for the papers themselves The Purpose of the Assignments

◦ To take a section of a work as a whole and explain the argument that the section, whatever it

may be. EXPLAIN! Four virtues to good writing in HUMS 2000

◦ Accuracy▪ Examine the text and make explicit to your reader▪ Unpack and analyze the argument that the text contains ▪ There is an argument, and therefore, a right answer

You can inaccurately, or accurately capture the right answer▪ Go through the argument and take meticulous notes

In them, you should be explaining to yourself what the argument is The relationship between premise 1 and 2, and how together they entail the

conclusion ▪ If there are preliminary arguments that are involved, make notes on those too and

explain how they fit◦ Precision

▪ Saying on paper what you mean to say ▪ Actually translating your understanding onto the page so that someone else can

understand the argument and see that you do too ◦ Clarity◦ Elegance

Citations The point? To avoid being accused of plagiarism But this applies more if you are using secondary sources If you are quoting from that author, or even arguing in a way similar to it, you need to cite You cite wherever you need to answer: “where does he get that in Plato/Aristotle?” Citation, in other words, is a way of providing textual evidence for what it is that you are saying

◦ Thwarting possible challenges to your argument You're also aiding your reader by giving them the citation, should they wish to look it up If you are drawing from a whole (large) section of a text, then that isn't helpful Take your reader by the hand

◦ They should never have to guess at what you're doing

30/11/2011

Introduction to Plotinus

Moved to Alexandria to study law, but quickly fell in love with philosophy, and studied underneath Ammonius Sackass....(what an unfortunate name)

He then went on an expidition with an emperor to India, but before he got to Persia, the emperor was assasinated by his troops

Bummed out, he moved to Rome and then opened up an extremely successful school◦ Became the school of Athens, and he had a lot of important patrons

Some metaphysics ◦ Foundation on the basis of which you can understand political functions

By the time we get to Plotinus, metaphysics has been moored from its political basis ◦ The exclusive concern is now solely ethical, not just political ◦ Soteriological – salvation ◦ Stoicism, epicurianism, cynicism, etc.

To all these schools of thought, philosophy becomes therapy for the individual soul, becomes

the means of salvation from the world of politics ◦ Politics no longer the platform for morally virtuous behaviour ◦ See it in the way that Socrates' interlocutors see it in Book 1 of the Republic ◦ Run by thieves, and ruling is just being a thief on a larger scale

Salvation is outside of the realm of poltics – apolitical Most true for neo-platonism

◦ Individual salvation through philosophical contemplation of the highest things◦ Ultimately through a mystical union with the first principle of the universe

Increased emphasis on the belief that the body is a prison (present in Plato, but exaggerated here)◦ Our bodied state is unnatural ◦ Abandoning concerns with politics

Aim of neo-platonism is to escape our embodied state◦ Recollecting our spiritual nature through contemplation

Rekindling the spark of the divine that lies within us We already are but we've forgotten by catering exclusively to our bodies

◦ Contemplation no longer an end in itself – end to salvation The sole motivator of salvation is also a response to the many questions left unanswered in

Plato/Aristotle◦ Some schools just try to deflate these questions

Neo-platonism tries to answer the questions that are left unanswered in Plato, but doing so by remaining faithful to the spirit of Plato's thought

So, what are some of these questions?◦ What is the Good, really?◦ What is its relation to the other forms?◦ Where are the forms?◦ What are the forms? (Not really given a thorough answer in Plato)◦ How and why do particular material things participate in the forms?

▪ What does 'participation' here, mean?◦ What is recollection, exactly?◦ How do we come to know the forms? What procedure? ◦ How is it possible for us to know the forms?◦ If we are most essentially defined by our souls, why are we in bodies to begin with?

Aristotle:◦ How, really, does the eternal unmoved mover move all things through love?◦ How can we derive universal knowledge from our sense experience of particulars?

▪ Our knowledge of the form of chair isn't a generalization, but abstracted from the data being supplied to us

◦ Why do we have a divine element within us?◦ Does it survive our death?

▪ If so, where does it go?◦ Why are there only 4 causes?

Some schools of thought just sweep them away as ill-founded and due to the bad foundations of the philosophies themselves

Look to answer the questions that arise on the basis of things that Plato does say, and elaborate upon (or revise) the things that Plato's says explicitly, about general principles of his thought

Plato was not a systematic thinker◦ Neo-platonists love systems

Systems of thought say what Plato sort of (or should have) said

◦ Would have been consistent with his general principles, and answer the questions that arise within them

Cross-pollination between the schools◦ Neo-platonists are Platonists but, adopt from stoicism and Aristotelian philosophies as well◦ Systematic synthesis of these different strands of philosophy

▪ Weave it into a unified whole

Neo-Platonism

Wants to accomplish two things:◦ Systematic and exhaustive account of the whole of reality

▪ Structure▪ Source▪ Principles▪ All things!▪ Don't just want to know the source of movement and change, and go further than

Aristotle, want to know the ultimate source/cause of things. Period. Why are things the way they are, and not otherwise

◦ To develop an account of why/how it is we can come to know these things▪ What kind of things are we, such that we can ask/answer these questions?▪ What is our nature?▪ What is special about us?

The two above motives are inextricably related To account for the order of the universe, is to explain our station/nature, our role in the cosmos

The Neo-Platonic Universe

What is the top of the neo-platonic universe?◦ The First Principle The One (To Hen)

▪ First in two ways: All things flow out of the first cause

◦ Emanate from the first cause All things desire to return to their source, and be like the first principle in the extent

that it can ◦ In and through their desire, that they actualize their various natures ◦ All things return to the first principle in the ways and the extent that they can, as

determined and defined by their respective natures◦ First cause is the final cause of the universe, and that's how it acts as the first

principle ◦ Beginning is the end, end is the beginning

▪ Alpha and Omega, origin and the end (final end) of all things The first Principle is called the One, and as the final cause, it is called the Good What does the One has to be like to be the first (efficient) cause of all things?

◦ Gives rise to all things◦ Cause of all being

If that is the case, it cannot itself be a being,◦ It cannot be, period

The One must be beyond being◦ Why?

'Being' is what we are trying to explain, and give a reason/account for To say that the One is being, it would amount to saying that there is no cause to being Cause of being has to be beyond being Has to be before/prior to being, but not temporally/chronologically! Anything that is possible, is actual in the neo-platonic universe

◦ Seamless hierarchy of being with no gaps ◦ Every type of being exists

The idea is that if the One were not beyond being, then it couldn't be the cause of infinitely many things◦ Being is determined. ◦ To be is to be determined, to have determinate qualities/quanitites.◦ To be is to be limited/definate◦ To be this rather than that.◦ There is being as a whole, because there are beings who are positively identified, who exist

discreetely Things are something rather than nothing.

◦ Being as a whole, cannot exist, unless there are beings which are something rather than nothing

If the One were not beyond being, if it were being itself, it would have a determinate nature, and be a certain type of thing, but this would imply that it couldn't give rise to infinitely many things◦ Things only give rise to those things which follow from their determinate nature◦ Fire, is something, and given that determinate nature, only one effect follows from it: heat.

If the One were a being, it would be determinate and its reproductive power limited, but it has given rise to all things, so, therefore, it is beyond being◦ Beyond substance◦ Beyond having a determinate nature

It's existance is sheer indeterminism◦ By excess of power and being and unity, not by defect◦ It is not being, but it is not non-being

Being a non-being, it is not knowable, and not name-able◦ To speak is to name something and to name something is to make it something....

How can we come to know it if that is the case? Strictly speaking, we can't. We can come to know it by analogy

◦ Through its effects, through what it produces◦ Have to negate anything positive that it might say about it

For example, we can say that it is absolutely powerful, and infinitely productive◦ It is unified, and it is simple.

In the case of it being power, it is only because it has the ability to give rise to infinite things of determinate power

It is called the one because it gives rise to things that are, and therefore, one. Things are to the extent that they are one, and the specific type of unity that defines it It is one in the way that an army aught to be one But it is not one, as in 1, or a determinate nature that is opposed to two, or three, or four,

because it is beyond all determinations/beings Use the term 'one' as a metaphor It is one because it is not two, or three The One is just the simplest name possible

Determination implies multiplicity◦ If you determine it, you are x and not not x. (Multiplicity)◦ But the One is x and not x.

If it were composite, intelligible material components, a prior cause would have had to occur to cause them

But, that is absurd, because there is nothing prior to it, which gives rise to it For a very similar reason, it can have no potentiality, it is pure actuality It can't have potenciality, because if it did, some prior cause would have to be posited to make it

actual ◦ But by definition it is the first cause

It is not capable of change. ◦ If you have no potentiality, you cannot be otherwise than you are◦ Giving rise to the rest of the universe◦ Doesn't take place in time ◦ All things flow and emanate from it, but outside of time ◦ It is giving rise to all things doesn’t affect it in any way ◦ In fact, it is not even correct to say that it is related to what it produces, but what it produces

is related to it Plotinus describes the one as a river flowing out of a source, but the source never being

depleting it in any way

The Good To understand why the One must also be called the Good The One confers being on all things, and does that by making each thing 1

◦ Things are, period, to the extent that it is one◦ You destroy something by making it loose its essential defining unity◦ Unity in Plotinus' system is prior to being

The One makes things come into existence by conferring a degree of unity upon them But when things are brought into existence, they turn back upon the one in their respective

ways, and only in so doing do they actually become the things that they are.◦ Things come to be out of the one, but, it is really only in seeking to return to the one that

they truly actualize what they are, and actualize the specific kind of unity that defines them Each thing attempts, in its own way, to its source, according to its nature, and this specific

attempt is its nature, and is what each thing is◦ In desiring to commune with it, all things realize their respective natures, and thus realize

the Good. ◦ The Good is to actualize your nature and be the thing that you are by nature, by essence

So...what does this mean? The first thing that is produced by the one/good

◦ The First (not chronologically) is a divine mine▪ Nous! (capital 'N' to distinguish it from Aristotle's use)

Nous is the only thing that the One gives rise to directly Nous is what the one produces directly/immediately The One gives rise to being as well Turns out, that in giving rise to a divine mind (Nous) that it gives rise to being

What is Being? Not mere existence Being involves determination and hence negation/opportunity

Being as a whole is a system of determination such that each thing is what it is in virtue that it is something that all other things are not◦ THE FORMS!

Being is the complete hierarchically ordered system of forms (intelligible determinations) But there are primary, secondary, and tertiary determinations of being

◦ Thus, some forms are more Primal/Fundamental than others.◦ Plato calls them the greatest kinds◦ Being, Same, Other, Rest, Motion, Quality, Quantity, Passion, etc..

Most universal forms Everything that is in the sense of being a being is determinate and participates in the form of

Being, and Other (because it is the same as itself and other than what it is not), Same, Rest, etc...◦ Most universal ◦ There are some things that are less universal, because not not everything is a squirrel, etc.

To the neo-platonists forms are existing beings and the causes of all things that fall under them ◦ E.g. The genus animal is the cause of all things animal, and the cause of the individual dogs

and squirrels, etc. The Forms are the metaphysical causes of being such a thing as dog

◦ Yes they have sex and reproduce, but it is the metaphysical cause of the form of dog that allows them to be dogs

The more general/encompassing form isn't just the encompassing cause, it is also their efficient cause

The genus animal is that from which the various species of animal, which are also forms, derive They flow out of the higher order form Picture darkness, and a beam of light, white light which contain the other colours within them

◦ What is contained in simplicity in the white light is refracted through the prisms of the various levels of forms and turned into the many colours

The form of animal contains within it, and encompasses/envelops all the different species that are refracted from it ◦ Less and less power to produce, the more specific the form, the less power that it

encompasses The form dog gives rise to power and less productive things than the dog... Give a causal account of the existence of all things [poop] Express/make multiple what it expressed in utter unity Each form has only a limited degree of productivity, based on how specific/general is

◦ But even the most general form isn't as encompassing as the thing which gives rise to it, and that which gives rise to the other forms

Beings lower in the hierarchy is less Good ◦ The less unified you are, the more multiple you become and the less good you are◦ Prime matter = utter absence of unity

05/12/2011

Plotinus Continued

Neo-platonism has a two-fold aim◦ To account for all things

▪ A rational account of the entire order of the universe▪ An account of the source of all things

▪ The origin of reality/its first principle◦ To produce an account of why we can know these things

▪ Only by giving an overall account of the whole of reality that you can explain why it is that we human beings can come to know the whole of reality Will be giving an account of our nature and our station in the cosmos

Goes further than Aristotle, because Aristotle only gives the account of the origin of the change that is synonymous with nature

Start at the Top Two-fold causal relation with all things All things flow from it, all things follow from it Gives rise to all things Thus, the efficient cause of all things Its name is 'the One'. It is also the end of all things

◦ All things strive to end to it◦ Have a love for it

In this way, it is the good, as it is the good of all things, the end that all things seekThe essay question is:

“What are the three hyposteses/levels of reality (the one, divine intellect, and soul) according to Plotinus, and how do their relations explain the structure of reality

Because all being comes from the One, the One has to be beyond being◦ Cause of all being, therefore, beyond being

Trying to explain the cause of: being.◦ If we were to say that the first principle itself was `being`, then it would not be a satisfactory

answer The first principle/cause of being/whole of being, with the first principle/cause of all things, has

to be beyond being, has to transcend it To be is to be determinate

◦ Something, rather than nothing◦ To be 'something' is to be 'this thing' rather than 'that thing'

Being as a whole is the totality of all things having a determinate nature◦ The being of all things which have a determinate nature, itself has a determinate nature ◦ It. itself, is something ◦ In other words, there is no being as a whole, without beings.

Why, then, does the first cause have to be beyond being?◦ Beings are because they are something rather than nothing, and they give rise only those

things that follow from their determinate nature▪ Fire, only gives rise to heat, it doesn't cool things▪ Cooling things doesn't follow logically/causally, from the determinate nature of fire▪ The determinate nature of heavy things doesn't give rise to thought, because that is not

logical◦ If the first cause were a being, it would have a determinate nature, and its causal power

would be limited, and could not give rise to infinitely many things/all things which are possible▪ All things are produced by the One

Ergo, it has to be beyond determinate being ◦ Can't be said to 'be', period, if by 'being' you mean determinate, substantial being

That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, however The one isn't nothingness or sheer non-being

It is not being, but not non being◦ It is an excess of actuality, an excess of power

So, what else can we say about the One? Since it is sheer existence, it is also synonymous with pure actuality Can have, therefore, no potentiality

◦ If it did, we would have to hypothesize some prior cause that gave rise to it, but that's absurd, since the One is the first principle

◦ Nothing caused it, nothing is prior to it For a similar reason, it has to be absolutely simple

◦ If it were composite, some prior cause would have to be supposed for those composite elements being united in it, such that it becomes the composite thing that it is

◦ Again, this would be absurd, since by definition, the first principle is the first! It is One

◦ Utterly unified◦ We can say this because the One/first principle, gives rise to the whole of being◦ We've seen that things are, to the exent that they are One◦ The many different ways that things can be One, is the many different ways things can be,

period. ◦ A chair has a defining essential kind of unity that is specific to it, and only itself◦ The One gives rise to all things, and in giving rise to all things it gives rise to unity◦ All things are to the extent that they participate in the unity of the One

Not 1, as opposed to 2, 3, or 4.◦ Not a determinate nature of the number one◦ the One, etc, are simply metaphors

The one is unnameable, ineffable ◦ Cannot be described◦ Cannot be spoken/named

▪ To speak is to say something definite▪ But the one is no thing

◦ Cannot be known▪ Knowledge is a being, knowledge is what is ▪ You have to have an object to know soemthing, whereas the one is not something

The One is unchanging ◦ Gives rise to all things, but gives rise to all things outside of time◦ Giving rise to all things don't change it/affect it◦ Logically and ontologically first, but not temporally, or chronologically first

Because it is nothing by not being a thing, it is everything◦ It cannot be affected by giving rise to something, because it is no thing.◦ It encompasses all things, but is encompassed by no thing, it is not affected by it

All things flow from it, without it being depleted in any way◦ Like a river flowing from a source (the One), but it doesn't loose anything by things issuing

forth from it The One is perfect

◦ Plentitude of being, but not being◦ Imperfection is a kind of negation/corruption, or nonbeing◦ An imperfect chair is something that doesn't correspond to its nature◦ A chair that is an imperfect chair is a chair that is less chair than other chairs which more

closely correspond to what it is to be a chair

◦ An imperfect chair is less, period, because its being is judged according to its essence as a chair

The one is pure actuality◦ Pure existence◦ Pure being, (but, it is not determinate being)◦ It is not, but only by excess of being◦ Sheer and absolute plenitude of existence

Absolutely infinite inexhaustible productive power◦ Basic postulates of neo-platonism◦ All things which are perfect, produce◦ When one thing reaches its defining actuality, it's state of perfection (internal

actuality/activity), once it is realized, once it is perfect as the thing it is, it gives rise to external reality/external actuality▪ What is produces is an external image/expression of itself

◦ Plotinus uses the term 'emanation' to describe this quality The One gives rise to being, because of its perfection

◦ It is super abundant perfect/power/existence◦ The One can't contain itself

▪ It has so much power/actuality, it overflows It wouldn't make sense for it to hold onto its power, since it is infinite

◦ By giving it away, it doesn't lose it Wholly transcendent

◦ Each thing is determinate, and the One is indeterminate Utterly imminent

◦ But, it can't be other than all things, because it is indeterminate◦ To be 'other' is to be something else, which it is not

What it gives rise to is bother other than it, but similar to it, and importantly – encompassed by it◦ What it gives to is encompassed by it

What it gives rise to is also different from it◦ If two things are exactly alike in every respect, they are the same◦ If the one were to give rise to things that were exactly like it, it would not be One, it would

be Two, but it is not What the One gives rise to is less perfect than it Perfection is synonymous with actuality, unity, and power

◦ Only different from our perspective What it gives rise to is only a fragmented/divided expression of the One

◦ What is enfolded in the one ◦ Less perfect

One --> Intellect

The Products of the One Immediately – a divine mind (second hypostesy) Nous emanates from the One, it gives rise to it As soon as it issues out of the One, it turns back toward the one in an attempt to unite with

it/grasp it◦ It's first efficient cause is also its end/final cause

Nous Why does it turn back and try to unite with the One? In other words, why is it the Good (final cause)? All things desire perfection If the One is absolute perfection, all things also desire the One All things desire to be, but things only are to the extent that they participate in unity The One is absolute unity

◦ Therefore, all things have longing for the One Nous, in issuing from the One, longs to unite with it

◦ The only way it knows how (har har), to think it, since that is its nature But, the One cannot be thought, it is beyond being To think is to think something, and not nothing The Nous can't be, because the One is not being But, in this necessarily failed attempt to grasp the One, it actualizes itself as a separate level of

actuality, and therefore gives rise to being in trying to think the one◦ Okay...so, how?

Well, think about being ◦ To be is to be determinate

Being, as a whole, is the total hierarchically ordered system of determinations◦ Determinations = forms

The Forms are that, in virtue of which, anything is what it is Being is not becoming The Forms are what most truly is. The Forms are unchanging, universal, absolute, self-predicating, and thats why they are what is

most truly◦ Things which participate in them are less than them ◦ Material instantiations are subject to change, are always other than what they are, not self-

identical Being and the Forms are synonymous Being, to Plotinus, (what the divine mind gives rise to), is the total hierarchical system of forms,

in which the most general order of Forms give rise to more lower order Forms, and have more causal power than the lower-order Forms. ◦ Ontologize logic◦ E.g. Because Same and Other are general forms.

▪ The higher order forms which encompass the more specific forms, also give ruse to them causally, but all within nous.

The One's infinite productive power is diffused through this way The Forms are also produced in nous' necessary attempt to unite with the One The One repels thought, since something has to be a something to be known

◦ You know some things Nous, therefore, in trying to grasp the One, grasps not the One, but itself Nous tries to think the one, but because the One is not able to be an object of thought, the only

thing that Nous thinks is it's ability to think, and its inability to grasp the One◦ All the Nous are the determinate expressions of the One's infinite productive

power/actuality It doesn't think these things one after another.

◦ It thinks all of these productive powers all in one moment poop in mind [eloquence, by Erika Belloni]

What it ends up thinking is it's own activity of thought, ◦ And it's own activity of thought, in a sense, are the Forms

Nous Constitutes itself in a separate level of reality, as a kind of bare potentiality/power to exist There is almost a second level of its existence, in trying to return to the One

◦ In trying to return to it, it constitutes itself as a second level of existence It generates the Forms in thinking the utter simplicity of the One There is a correspondance between the two

◦ The thoughts in Nous do correspond to what is contained in the One◦ Refraction of what is contained as utter simplicity in the One◦ The first unfolding of what is enfolded in the One

Analogy: Logos of the mind, and the Logos of the word◦ The logos of speech is a more multiple, divided image of the united Logos in the mind

The Highest Forms Logically, the first to be produced by Nous The Highest, most universal/powerful (most unified) Give rise to most things Highest Forms

◦ Thinking◦ Being◦ Same ◦ Other◦ Rest◦ Motion◦ Quantity◦ Quality

How do these things arise from Nous' failed attempts to grasp the One Nous is a thinking activity

◦ How does its very act of thinking generate the primary determination of being? And thus all the other determinations

Thought and being are co-constituting Nous makes being in thinking it

◦ Intellect gives rise to being in thinking it, and being gives intellect existence in being, by giving thought

Nous thinks Thinking first generates determinate being

◦ In thinking, is something determinate ◦ In being something in thinking

Nous' defining/interal activity is to think Thinking is always about something Knowledge is always about what is The divine mind gives rise to being It doesn't really give rise to something separate from being All thought requires duality (subject/object) Duality of thinking/being In the divine mind, that duality is always immediately abolished

◦ Thinking and being are identical

Requires an object for thought, if it is thinking it is thinking something, and you can therefore deduce the form of being

The things it thinks just are the moments of its thinking activity In Nous , to be is to be thought The Forms are thoughts of the divine mind, not just the objects

◦ Moments of its thinking activity

Same and Other Thinking involves a duality between subject and object Right away there is a distinction between same and other To be an object of thought, it must be definite, to be this rather than that Something rather than some other thing. Right away there is same and other Thinking engenders a distinction between the form of same and the form of other This, is the same as itself, and not that (otherness) This difference is immediately abolished in nous. There is always an underlying identity in this otherness in nous, it is the most supremely unified

orders of reality which come from the One (save the One). All the determinations of nous are, in one hand, all absolute, since Beauty is beauty, not relative

to anything In the divine mind, they are all absolute, but they are also all relational, only are what they are,

in relation to other things All the Forms in nous only have an identity in relation to the totality of the system of forms of

all other things The Otherness is immediately abolished because there is an inherently identity between the

Forms

Motion and Rest Not spatial motion and rest, or temporal Logical, causal, motion and rest Motion of logical entaiment or reciprocity Motion is kinesis, change, and rest is stasis, stability, or self-sameness The stability is each form being what it is and not something else

◦ Self idenitity Movement within nous is about how some forms are derived from other forms More specific forms are logically derived from the higher order forms 'Cat' is logically derived from the form 'Animal'.

◦ Logical/causal movement, not spacial or temporal These logical and causal relations between forms are movements of the thinking of nous itself. These are moments of nous itself Nous doesn't think these one after another, it thinks them in a single eternal act, which is

simultaneous, and single It is thinking them in failing to think the One, but it is internally differentiated There is a movement of thought, logically and causally, between nous' thought.

Quantity and Quality If to be is to be determinate, then what makes a thing determinate? It's quality It's possession of a trait or determination which makes it what it is, and not some other thing

Inherent in it's notion of quality is being this rather than that, which is quantity◦ Two things

07/12/2011

Plotinus Ctd.

Why, exactly, does nous turn back and try to rejoin the One?

Nous Produces its contents by thinking divided perspectives of the utterly simple One Doesn't think these partial manifestations successively, but simultaneously

◦ In a single act, outside of time Thinks/gives rise to the total hierarchically ordered relational system of the determinations of

being (aka. Platonic forms) In a way, these forms are not wholly other than it

◦ they are the moment's of nous's thinking◦ You can think of the divine mind as Aristotle's divine mind (thought thinking itself)

Platonic forms situated in a divine mind Anything that fulfils its nature, or realizes its defining activity, creates The One has a kind of internal activity, but one that cannot be defined

◦ Due to its super-abundant power/actuality, it gives rise to a second actuality◦ This secondary reality is nous

Continuity between nous and the One Expression of itself Actualizes itself by attempting to return to the One The neo-platonic universe is a spiral Precisely in returning to the one, it fails to grasp the one, and nous realizes itself as other than

the one As soon as it realizes what it is, it, in turn, gives rise to a secondary reality, which is...soul And soul, will do the same thing

Just like the One, Nous will give rise to a secondary reality Through attempting to think the one, and failing, and thereby generating a system of the Forms,

it also generates another secondary reality This process of emenation, or giving rise to a secondary reality/actuality, of nous' giving rise to

soul, is analagous to the One's giving rise to nous. Just like the One is not depleted in giving rise to nous, Nous doesn't become depleted by giving

rise to Soul Why do these things produce?

◦ They have a super-abundance of power/perfection/actuality◦ Too much power within them ◦ It wouldn't make sense to jealously keep all that power, because their power is infinte◦ They lose nothing in dispensing

Nous – absolute, total system of the determinations of being What nous gives rise to is more multiple of it

◦ Divided refracted image

Soul A recaptitulation of the one's production of Nous, but at a lower level It is still, in a way, coming out of the one Soul is still ultimately an expression of the One's causal power, but mediated through Nous

◦ Refraction of the refraction Soul is the external actuality of Nous Soul, for the most part, is what we are

◦ We are not utterly identical with the hypostesis (level of reality) of soul▪ We are individual souls▪ Which both are, and are not identical with the hypostesis

◦ At the centre of our very being as soul, is nous, and at the centre of that, the One Similar to the metaphor of logos in the mind, versus the logos of the soul

◦ The word in the mind is more unified in language or speech ◦ The word in the mind is always simpler

Soul is like the external speech of nous. ◦ It is more multiple because it is an expression in speech

Soul's Constitution Nous gives rise to soul an active power to exist, as Soul This power to be is actualized in Soul's attempt to return to nous in the way that it can.

◦ To think◦ Turns out that it's thinking is a particular sort, different from the sort that characterizes nous

Soul desires its proximate cause, and indirectly it desires the one But, as Soul, it hasn't even heard of the One

◦ It thinks nous is pure actuality◦ It seeks to return to nous for the same reasons that nous desires to return to the one

Why?◦ All things desire actuality/existance◦ As far as soul is concerned, nous is pure actuality, and it desires to become one with it, to

unite with it All things desire to be, and all things are to the extent that they are One

◦ From the perspective of Soul, nous is utterly unified, utterly One True to a certain extent – nous is the more One-like of the determinate beings

◦ In nous, the determination between subject and object is abolished◦ It's otherness is always abolished because it only is what it is in reference to all the other

forms As far as Soul is concerned, is absolutely One Soul seeks to return to nous in accordance to its nature

◦ By thinking it, since it is an intellectual being Thinks it discoursively, not noeticlly

◦ Nous = noesis ◦ Soul = dianoia

What dianoia means, to Poltinus, is running through, or thinking through◦ Soul thinks the contents of the divine mind, but, one form at a time◦ Thinks them sequentially, serially◦ Takes what is, from Soul's perspective, is utterly unified, and divides/refracts it, one form at

a time◦ Dividing one Form from the other◦ Taking one in isolation of the other

◦ Bound to produce a fragmented understanding of each of those forms ▪ Precisely because the Platonic forms are a total system of thought, and it cannot be

thought in isolation of something else It only thinks partial aspects of each form, one after another Divides the forms themselves by grasping one aspect, and another, and another Isolates the form of Justice and tries to produce definitions through propositions

◦ But none of those propositions are proper definitions◦ Oh, justice is this...and this....and that...and this too!

Because Soul thinks discursively, it generates Time◦ Time = measure of the change in Soul's thinking, the measure of its thinking

In nous , there is a kind of change/motion, because there are distinct logical movements and lgocial motion between those movements,◦ All of the determinations are done in a single moment, since nous is outside of time.

But now, at Soul's level, this becomes a temporal movement, because it thinks one form, and then, what that form entails, logically, and what that form entails, logically

It doesn't forget its thought Capable of producing syllogisms because it remembers the things it discovered before

Time New way in which things can be multiple

We are Most Essentially Soul...At least, from an Angle Therefore, our most essential function is thinking Now, how is it that we can think the forms? Knowledge is possible because we came from nous, we're caused by nous. That entails that, at the very core of ourselves, trancends more than just Soul There is a part of us, as Soul, which remains in nous, which participates in nous Continuity between cause and effect, and the effect, in one sense, remains, and is imminent to,

its cause If there weren't some kind of continuity between cause and effect, and if Soul didn't remain

somewhat a part of nous, it wouldn't be able to Think We would have no intelligible object, we would have no access to nous. We can judge beautiful things in terms of each other, it must entail that we have some cognitive

grasp of the form, beauty, as it resides in nous. We do it on the basis of our access to the form in nous. There is a part of us, as Soul, that remains in nous. If the objects of Soul's thought (the forms), were alien to it, then the enquiry would be futile, it

would be impossible to know anything Our discursive reasoning is guided by the presence, to us, of the Forms If they were utterly alien to us (doctrine of recollection), if we didn't, at some level, have some

sort of grasp of the forms, why would we desire to know them?◦ You only desire to look/know something when you know what they are◦ And how will we know when we've found them?

It is only because they are not alien to us That within us, that transcends us There is a part in the soul that is higher than Soul

Three Phases of Emanation In Soul's coming from nous, there are three moments (outside of time)

◦ 1) Remaining (Essence)▪ In one sense, the essence of soul itself, has to be nous▪ The highest point as its very being as soul, has to be nous ▪ Part of soul is un-descended ▪ Continuing to participate in nous, it has access to it, and it is why it can think things like

justice, or beauty◦ 2) Procession (Power)

▪ When the external actuality emanates from its cause ▪ To be the thing that it is

◦ 3) Return (Actuality)▪ The power to be what it is, being actualized, in the attempt, and subsequent failure to

return▪ Reversion of soul to nous

Not entirely cut-off from what we are thinking

poop◦ indeed

agreed weeeeeeeeeeeee~~~~~~~~~~!

Where are we right now? In Nous? Or in the One?

Body Soul gives rise to something external to it A more multiple expression/image of itself, for the very same reason that Nous gives rise to

Soul It actualizes its nature, and realizes the good in actualizing its nature, becoming perfect,

produces something outside itself Body = the whole of nature

◦ Material things succeptible to change ◦ Some of those having internal principles of motion and rest

Soul, as a whole, gives rise to nature as a whole, the material world Soul's production is more multiple than, and inferior to, it Why?

◦ It is spatial, in space Time is generated in Soul's thinking discursively, and Soul gives rise to space in thinking Body Soul sort of overcomes its dividedness/multiplicity in memory, keeping the forms that it has

thought, but Body can't do that It can't overlap Can't be in the same space as another body One spatial form can't be in the same space as another spatial form

Divisions within Soul Higher Soul – permately fixated on nous

◦ Continuously carrying out discursive thinking Lower Soul – managerial

◦ Order, manage, and give rise to Nature

◦ The whole of material reality It is through the lower soul that nature is continually created and sustained It does so by sending out what Plotinus calls seminal reasons

◦ logoi spermatikoi Seminal reasons issue forth from the lower part of the Soul, and they are just Aristotle`sinternal

principles of motion and rest The forms, as we find them in this world The Forms of matter The Hypostesis of Soul is interally complex Many souls within the Hypostesis of Soul, and each of us is one of those souls Each individual soul both is, and is not, a part of the Hypostesis, in the same way that the forms

in nous both are, and are not, the whole of nous There is a hierarchy among the individual souls in the hypostesis of soul

◦ Some are more divine than others◦ Important, because each of thse individual souls is supposed to manage/sustain different

parts of the material world, while remaining fixated on nous ◦ In virtue of their contemplation of nous that they are able to order the contemplation of nous

Souls are supposed to give rise to and sustain things in the material world Individual souls are able to do that wihtout becoming tangled in the things they give rise to in

the material world, and order The higher forms of souls in the hierarchy of soul as a whole, are able to do this But the crappier souls, (us), aren't able to do that They forget, that they have this higher soul, which is fixated on nous and is even, in a sense,

part of nous. Instead, they come to identify with that which we aught to just manage in a detached way Being in a body is a bad thing, and is unnatural We are not supposed to identify ourselves with this bodily thing and see this fate as identical Souls that become attached to the body are lesser souls and more prone to corruption It consists in tolma (audacity/rebellion)

◦ A will to be utterly self determinate ◦ As a body or a soul, in isolation from all other things in the universe◦ Against the laws/reason which governs all things

Wishing to be one's own law, precisely as an utterly limited, insignificant part of the cosmos Ironically, this perverted desire to become absolutely self moving, makes these souls less

powerful◦ Making them heterokenetic, instead of autokinetic◦ Being moved by other sources instead of self moving

Heterokinesis These souls are swayed by their passions and are ruled by the body This finite part of this material world is vunerable They are prey to their passions and they are slaves to pleasures and pains, which are just the

way in whcih the bodies are affected by external things Passions are defined in the way that their bodies are affected by external things Remain in the level of mere opinion, and think that the world is real based on what the senses

report Taking the senses, and what they deliver, as knowledge, as true reality This is passive, since you can't stop sensing, but, your senses deceive you Knowledge, to Plotinus, is a kind of self movement, is autokinesis

Aught to be derived from the internal principles of the soul You can't come to know things strictly speaking through the senses

◦ You can't see universal laws through your senses So, how do you become autokinetic

◦ Move inwards, and upwards◦ A process of recollection, remembering who we are

Strategies Made to have contempt for the body and the natural world But, we mustn't come to see it as inherently evil Insofar as it is, it is good and beautiful, because being is synonymous with goodness and beauty The natural world, the bodily world, is beneath us Need to come to see that we, in fact, continually give rise to it, insofar as that we are souls Continuously sustain it Need to stop identifying with the body, and stop taking its pleasures and pains as what is of

most importance This is helped by ascetic practices

◦ Curb your appetites to the extent that a human being can...without dying Have to come to recognize that what we are most essentially is Soul, and that our function is

thinking Remember that which they already are, by moving inwards and upwards We are more soul than body, and as such, because soul has a part of itself remaining in nous,

you are, at your core, nous itself Philosophizing is an attempt to get back to nous. As long as it remains at the level of discursive reasoning (which should only be a preparatory

phase), we will stay in the level of Soul Intuitively, apprehend the form in itself, and become identical to nous . Insofar as you identify with any of the forms, you become one with nous,and the whole system

of forms In becoming soul, you become more autokinetic, because the whole material world is governed

by soul Insofar as you become one with soul, the whole material world becomes an expression of your

deductive power If you ascend further, putting off discursive reasoning, You must realize, or recognize, that you always are soul, and as such, are always, already are

nous. ◦ Become concious of the thinking activity that always takes place within you

When you ascend to Nous you become more autokinetic The Good, in itself, lies beyond nous, is the One But you can't reach it while you're still thinking, because as long as you keep thinking, you are

other than it The last stage is a transintellectual mystical envelopment in the One Not a conscious experience, or an intellectual one

◦ An absorption into the One◦ Have to give up being as a determinate being

07/12/2011THE EXAM

Same sort of exercise as the papers Still expects it to be rigerously organized.

◦ Prepare an outline which should be committed to memory Only 3 hypostesis, even though there are 4lvls of reality

◦ One◦ Nous◦ Soul◦ Body doesn't count, because it doesn't produce anything

▪ Answer should incorporate body because the material reality is the external actuality of Soul

▪ An account of soul will involve an account of nature

Part A) 10 greek words, 11 english Nous = Plotinus nous = Aristotle

Practice Terms

Hupokeimenon Aristotle's Physics, trying to give a sufficient account for change Change occurs between two contraries In a substantial change, the hupokeimenon (the underlying substratum), one of the three

principles What underlies the change between contraries (contraries being the other principles) In a substancial change, the hypokeimenon is matter, going from not ship, to ship, if it is made

of wood Accidental change, the hypokeimenon is the substance, undergoing a change in non-essential

attributes

Nous Plotinus's Aenead's One of the three orders of reality, the second level of reality produced by the one and in turn

gives rise to Soul It thinks the Platonic forms in one simultaneous act, and in so doing, gives rise to a secondary

reality: Soul.