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Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

campion.edu.au

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Re: Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

#61

Post by nemo »

mirmor23 wrote: post #54
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to distinguish between "many people are born into slavery" and "many people are meant to be slaves by their inborn nature". The former is true, the latter is not, even in the example you've given. Also, he was referring to people performing labour, not people adhering to spiritual belief or ideological systems. I see what you mean, but I don't think this means what he believed was true. I see it as categorica…

being born into slavery is a random fact -- life happens and they had no control over it really. many people are meant to be slaves is also a fact -- it is not like everyone is gifted cerebrally, or even blessed to be in an environment where, by the time they are adults, have been shown a good formula for life; so consequently a section of the society is destined to be just slaves, it just needs the presence of a man…

"many people are meant to be slaves is also a fact" - you definitely need to spend a while researching what comprises a fact.

Re: Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

#62

Post by graboy »

Razengan wrote: post #36

You know I always found it odd/unfair how religions were founded around Jesus, Muhammed etc but not for Aristotle, Socrates etc.

I've thought about this. Aristotle doesn't draw as hard of a line between right and wrong behavior or advocate for specific actions, with the right action depending on circumstance, and to finding the middle path. Traditional religions might be a bit more hardline, with specific rules or commandments. It's easier to identify with belonging to a particular group when the line between belonging and not belonging is more crisp and defined by particular practices.

Would love to know if others have takes.

Re: Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

#63

Post by mirmor23 »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #60
mirmor23 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

being born into slavery is a random fact -- life happens and they had no control over it really. many people are meant to be slaves is also a fact -- it is not like everyone is gifted cerebrally, or even blessed to be in an environment where, by the time they are adults, have been shown a good formula for life; so consequently a section of the society is destined to be just slaves, it just needs the presence of a man…

I'm going to firmly disagree and insist that no one should ever be a slave, and they are not meant to be slaves, regardless of their intellectual capacity or whether they were shown a good formula for life. Human society is in a failed state anywhere in which someone is forced into slavery. I think you're committing a naturalistic fallacy, and I don't agree at all that people are ever meant to be slaves. The most I c…

'meant' was used to the effect of 'destined';

I've no disagreements with your position or moral principles. But spherical cow is different from reality.

Re: Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

#64

Post by smallnix »

mirmor23 wrote: post #63
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to firmly disagree and insist that no one should ever be a slave, and they are not meant to be slaves, regardless of their intellectual capacity or whether they were shown a good formula for life. Human society is in a failed state anywhere in which someone is forced into slavery. I think you're committing a naturalistic fallacy, and I don't agree at all that people are ever meant to be slaves. The most I c…

'meant' was used to the effect of 'destined'; I've no disagreements with your position or moral principles. But spherical cow is different from reality.

By 'destined' I assume you mean 'there was never a way their life would play out other than them becoming slaves'. But the word 'meant' and 'destiny' carry a meaning of "it is the right thing to happen", which I think we all agree is not the case.

Re: Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

#65

Post by nonameiguess »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #56
ComputerPerson wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He stated, in a separate work, that women had fewer teeth as an example of his views on their inferiority. Makes you want to take everything he said with a grain of salt. In his defense (sorry if defending him offends here), women probably did, at the time, often have fewer teeth due to worse dental care.

https://sourcelibrary.org/book/problemata-text-beginning-omn... An original source for this. I wonder if wisdom teeth affected this count? It’s so odd of a claim

The thing I always come back to is Aristotle's belief that if you release an object being circled about your head by rope, it will move perpendicular to the tangent line of the circle. This is trivial to disconfirm by experiment. It moves parallel to the tangent. It's just that science of his school of thought was rationalist. They believed in the power of thought more than the power of experiment. You can surely observe the lifecycle of women and men and see they develop and shed teeth in exactly the same ways and same number, but why bother doing that if you earnestly believe you can just intuit laws of nature purely by thinking really hard?

To be clear, I'm a huge Aristotle fan. He's a towering intellect I will never come close to equaling. His ideas set the stage for very nearly all western thought. It just goes to show that everyone everywhere has deficiencies and blind spots. The smartest person who ever lived can still be wrong in extremely obvious ways in retrospect. Intelligence is no guarantee you're going to actually be right about very much.

Re: Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

#66

Post by mirmor23 »

nemo wrote: post #61
mirmor23 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

being born into slavery is a random fact -- life happens and they had no control over it really. many people are meant to be slaves is also a fact -- it is not like everyone is gifted cerebrally, or even blessed to be in an environment where, by the time they are adults, have been shown a good formula for life; so consequently a section of the society is destined to be just slaves, it just needs the presence of a man…

"many people are meant to be slaves is also a fact" - you definitely need to spend a while researching what comprises a fact.

'meant' was a wrong choice of word which i stated above.

you come across as a child by being snarky - you definitely need to spend some time learning how to behave like an adult.

Re: Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

#67

Post by tmtvl »

Roughly translating something my grandfather once said: 'a quote is not something to be parroted, but to be pondered'. Unfortunately all the provided quotes are in English, so they're unlikely to actually be things Aristotle wrote or said; rather they're translations which may have different nuances or meanings. That doesn't mean they're not worth pondering, though (or parroting, if they are worthy of it and applicable to a situation).

Re: Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

#68

Post by graboy »

graboy wrote: post #62
Razengan wrote: post #36

You know I always found it odd/unfair how religions were founded around Jesus, Muhammed etc but not for Aristotle, Socrates etc.

I've thought about this. Aristotle doesn't draw as hard of a line between right and wrong behavior or advocate for specific actions, with the right action depending on circumstance, and to finding the middle path. Traditional religions might be a bit more hardline, with specific rules or commandments. It's easier to identify with belonging to a particular group when the line between belonging and not belonging is mor…

These come from my own musings not someone else's - but bearing sycophancy in mind, I asked Claude and it told me this is basically the "strict church thesis" from sociology of religion, and linked me this paper, I think it lines up with my takes written from someone who has had this idea before: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/230409

Re: Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

#69

Post by aerhardt »

ComputerPerson wrote: post #49
andsoitis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he has some pretty messed up and weird views What’s an example?

He stated, in a separate work, that women had fewer teeth as an example of his views on their inferiority. Makes you want to take everything he said with a grain of salt. In his defense (sorry if defending him offends here), women probably did, at the time, often have fewer teeth due to worse dental care.

Sorry for defending Aristotle? Have we lost the plot as a society?

Re: Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

#70

Post by tsoukase »

Aristotle is very good, but Plato is perfect. Some random quotes:

Only the dead have seen the end of war

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.

If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.

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