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Nicomachean Ethics

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Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#81

Post by guerrilla »

meddlepal wrote: post #46
guerrilla wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aristotle is notoriously a terrible writer. A lot of these books are thought to just be lecture notes and things like that pieced together. Compare that to something like Plato's and it's a big difference. I imagine nobody will ever beat Kant in the terrible writing department though.

Hmm, I was a philosophy major in college and I always loved Aristotles (and to a lesser degree Thomas Aquinas) writing styles. They're very dense and to the point. It's the continental philosophers of the enlightenment era that drive me nuts with their meandering arguments.

Other than the structuring, moving from topic to topic without explanation (e.g. Categories), I actually agree. Maybe terrible isn't the right word. He's a lot more like reading modern math.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#82

Post by ttonkytonk »

skat20phys wrote: post #32

It's been awhile since I've read this. Rereading about it now, it seems like a conceptual mess. I also have this sense, hard to put into words, that it is written from a perspective of socioeconomic privilege and implicitly assumes a certain freedom, or has as its focus certain concerns that reflect that. It comes across to me now as narrow-minded and lacking in understanding of the broader human condition and divers…

In Plato's Protagoras it is argued that virtue is a unity and is basically knowing what one should do (e.g. courage is knowing what should really be feared and what should not be).

I'm not sure what you are asking in your last question btw.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#83

Post by PebblesRox »

antman wrote: post #39

I would like to suggest "History of Philosophy without any gaps" podcast website which explains in a rather complete way Philosophy in layman's terms. Everything is neatly organized (just check the top menu). Also it includes non western philosophy such as Avicenna's writings, its importance and relation to Aristotle's work. Here is ths relevant episode on Aristotelian ethics: https://historyofphilosophy.net/aristotl…

And for fun, I recommend Existential Comics: https://existentialcomics.com/philosopher/Aristotle

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#84

Post by pmoriarty »

yboris wrote: post #74

For those interested in a grand overview of history of philosophy (the ideas themselves and the people behind them), this is a worth-reading classic: A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Western_Philosoph...

Just bear in mind that Russell was very biased in favor of Analytic philosophy, so you're not going to get much from him on the Continentals.

Like many other Analytics, he seriously misreads Nietzsche, and he doesn't even mention Heidegger, Husserl, Sartre, or Foucault.

I like Russell, though. He's clear and eloquent, writing well on the subjects he does appreciate and understand.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#85

Post by gliese1337 »

achillesheels wrote: post #62
gliese1337 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From works written down by four or five Greek guys, or by other guys who cited those Greek guys as the source. The fact that our surviving records all happen to funnel through those guys is not proof that it all originated with those guys. It is highly likely that they were both building on an extensive unrecorded philosophical tradition, and participating in a broader contemporary cultural conversation whose other p…

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle unoriginal? Enlightenment Europe is similarly the work done by a handful of geniuses participating in an intellectual culture. We can patently see their originality - what makes you so sure the Greeks did not have the same?

Nothing. I am not saying they weren't geniuses. I am merely pointing out that there is insufficient evidence for a definite conclusion either way.

Cf. Shakespeare. Yes, he was a genius, but not nearly so much of a genius as many people often claim, because a lot of people confuse "Shakespeare is our earliest surviving recorded source for a lot of features of the English language" for "Shakespeare single-handedly invented half of the English language", which is absurd.

And the great minds of the European Enlightenment may also have been genuinely great... but they are also nearly all rich men with patrons and leisure time, and the means to preserve their thoughts in writing. Our view on their history is much clearer than our view of the ancient Greeks, but there's still no telling exactly how much influence there was from their surrounding unrecorded culture, or how many important ideas would've been independently proposed by others if others had the same access to publication and historical preservation.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#86

Post by ewzimm »

barrkel wrote: post #51
skat20phys wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to go through everything with specific examples, because that would be an essay onto itself. But, for example, in Book 3 (via the Rackham translation; http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... ): "If then whereas we wish for our end, the means to our end are matters of deliberation and choice, it follows that actions dealing with these means are done by choice, and voluntary. But…

you believe that the notion of free will is specious, even partially in significant cases of vice Don't mix your modalities. It's possible to reason in terms of free will and decisions between right and wrong; or in terms of causes and effects, from mental illness and broken childhoods through to poverty and criminality; but separately. The problem with reasoning in just one modality or the other is that you miss wha…

I appreciate what you're saying, but I think you might be mixing modalities. Considering that free will may be a pleasant deception doesn't necessarily lead to blaming externalities instead of changing a bad situation.

The concept of blame as it is usually expressed depends on the belief in free will. The person whose free choices led to an outcome bears the greatest responsibility. Assigning blame to others is therefore accomplished by proving that the self didn't possess this freedom. When no choice exists, responsibility reverts to environmental circumstances.

The condition you're describing can only be coherent if a person believes they lack personal agency but that the framework of free will and the primary responsibility of those who have a choice remains in place. This is a real condition that many people suffer from, and many will disguise it as giving in to inevitable causes and effects, but the problem is not that they lack faith in free will, but that they have assigned freedom elsewhere.

If a person accepts the idea that free will is unattainable, the conventional concept of blame becomes incomprehensible. Every dependent choice is related to every other choice. There is no hierarchy of blame that defaults to the environment. A person can either accept no responsibility or all responsibility. Accepting all responsibility will appear impossible to a person holding on to the idea of free will, but to someone who fully abandons it and considers that they are part of a larger whole, personal responsibility for every outcome becomes a natural consequence.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#88

Post by koheripbal »

3pt14159 wrote: post #72
koheripbal wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is HN the only place that happens? Has anyone found another site that has a lots of well organized quality intellectually stimulating content?

There is slatestarcodex.com and a handful of twitter accounts. Also, there are some think tank slacks that are out there, but most of the good stuff is private. Occasionally the ArmsControlWonk slack will be hours ahead of the news and with a lot more certainty over something.

These are specialized sites - I'm wondering if there's an aggregate site like HN for well educated commenters.

We need a healthy ecosystem of sites like HN.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#89

Post by Aaronstotle »

Always glad to see philosophy on HN, I have fond memories learning about NE during my ethics class at Cal. We spent the most amount of time on this, and then slowly went on towards other ethic systems.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#90

Post by karatestomp »

pmoriarty wrote: post #84
yboris wrote: post #74

For those interested in a grand overview of history of philosophy (the ideas themselves and the people behind them), this is a worth-reading classic: A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Western_Philosoph...

Just bear in mind that Russell was very biased in favor of Analytic philosophy, so you're not going to get much from him on the Continentals. Like many other Analytics, he seriously misreads Nietzsche, and he doesn't even mention Heidegger, Husserl, Sartre, or Foucault. I like Russell, though. He's clear and eloquent, writing well on the subjects he does appreciate and understand.

Russell is up front about his biases and limitations in that book, at least. IIRC he divides most chapters into his best effort to describe a philosopher or movement's positions or ideas, then an analysis of how those have held up since (this is incredibly helpful and absent in a lot of texts that try to be dryly objective and not even report any more-or-less consensus passing-of-judgement by philosophy as a field) and, to varying extents, his own takes on them.

The funniest one I recall is Bergson, near the end of the book, which he prefaces with (loosely paraphrasing) "Look, this whole thing seems like total bullshit to me, and I've never read any description of it that doesn't seem like total bullshit, so when I try to describe it and it seems like bullshit that's just the best I can do. Sorry."

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