[HN Gopher] Who can claim Aristotle?
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Who can claim Aristotle?
Author : sillybilly
Score : 62 points
Date : 2024-11-28 20:23 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (aeon.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (aeon.co)
| cafard wrote:
| In "The Perfect Critic", T.S. Eliot wrote that "Aristotle is a
| person who has suffered from the adherence of persons who must be
| regarded less as his disciples than as his votaries. One must be
| firmly distrustful of accepting Aristotle in a canonical spirit;
| this is to lose the whole living force of him."
|
| I find it curious to see no mention of one rather large
| institution, the Roman Catholic Church, which for about a century
| regarded St. Thomas Aquinas as its official theologian and
| philosopher; and of course Aquinas drew heavily on Aristotle. I
| have no idea, though, whether neo-Scholasticism persists as a
| major influence.
|
| A number of British philosophers of the last century engaged with
| Aristotle's ethical writing: Foote, Hampshire, Kenny, and
| McIntyre come to mind.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| The Catholic Church does retain elements of Aristotelian
| metaphysics in its theology. A great example is the Catholic
| teaching of transubstantiation, wherein subject and accident
| terminology is utilized to explain how bread and wine become
| the body and blood of Christ while retaining the
| characteristics of the original elements. Church history is
| fascinating, even if one isn't a Christian.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| The bit about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin
| also becomes more interesting after one realises the question
| was not one of determining some finite number, but finite or
| infinite -- do angels* have volume?
|
| (I don't think theologians distinguished countable infinities
| from other infinities; that's much more recent, right?)
|
| * this is probably also a lesson that, before spending a
| thousand years arguing over whether class C has property P or
| not, it might be wise to demonstrate, first, that C is indeed
| inhabited?
| jumpoddly wrote:
| Interesting perspective.
|
| I've always had a distaste for Aristotle, preferring Plato, but
| after reading this I'm wondering if that stemmed more from the
| additional lens of the person introducing him to me.
|
| Might have to revisit his work as my older self.
| throw0101d wrote:
| A decent argument can be made that most of modern life is based
| of Aristotle's metaphysics:
|
| * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43277412-aristotle-s-
| rev...
|
| And that most 'Western values' are basically Christian in
| origin (with an undercurrent of Aristotle):
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Holland_book)
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor...
|
| MacIntyre argues that when it comes to ethics, the only two
| viable options are Aristotle or Nietzsche:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Virtue
|
| Certainly Plato is influential, but he doesn't seem to have any
| _practical_ use in day-to-day life.
| jumpoddly wrote:
| Interesting reads, thanks
|
| I think the broadest most practical day to day knowledge
| stems from Plato, nee Socrates, "I do not think I know what I
| do not know"
| mbivert wrote:
| There are so many ways to practically apply Plato.
|
| The simplicity of his elocution, his use of systematic
| pauses when communicating -- that's a common advice given
| to contemporary speakers -- the relevancy of the cycle of
| political systems, that ancient Greeks were first taught
| sports and music to acquire psychological balance, a
| necessary prerequisite to efficient further studies, etc.
|
| Having knowledge of Plato & other old fellows, almost feels
| like cheating at life: it equips ones mind with knowledge
| and skills that has been deemed worthy by enough humans to
| help it endure for millennia.
|
| The people who don't know about them can't fathom how much
| they miss.
| throw0101d wrote:
| Worth a reminder that we don't have to do all-or-nothing.
| Aristotle has some good/useful points ( _eudaimonia_ ) and some
| that we probably want to leave behind (slavery).
| whatever1 wrote:
| We never left slavery behind, we just moved it overseas.
| jumpoddly wrote:
| And equally abhorrently, as the 13th amendment and now
| California can attest, to the incarcerated
|
| > Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as
| punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
| convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
| subject to their jurisdiction.
|
| "Californians voted against outlawing slavery. Why did
| proposition 6 fail?"
|
| https://www.kqed.org/news/12013392/californians-voted-
| agains...
| ChocMontePy wrote:
| I think Aristotle had the greatest mind of any human who ever
| lived.
|
| The older I get the more I realize that there are a thousand true
| and intelligent things you can say about any topic. Magazines,
| journals, and libraries are full to the brim of intelligent
| people writing intelligent things. But an extremely minuscule
| portion of that huge mass is made of writing that gets right to
| the heart of the matter.
|
| And Aristotle is the writer I've encountered the most who
| constantly gets right to the essence or core of what he's
| discussing, moving past the trivialities and the unessential to
| illuminate deep truths in a logical way. It's why a short essay
| like his Poetics--which in many ways is a limited work for the
| modern day because it deals wiih a very specific type of ancient
| literature--is still pored over by modern writers and
| screenwriters because of the deep dramatic truths it lays out.
| tokai wrote:
| On the other hand deification of Aristotle's intellect and
| thought hampered the development of physics for almost 1500
| years.
| hackandthink wrote:
| You may be interested in:
|
| "Aristotle's Physics: a Physicist's Look"
|
| My take is that it was hard to find a better theory, the
| usual explanation of scholastical dogmatism is to shallow.
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057
| samatman wrote:
| Insofar as that's true, it isn't a fact about Aristotle, it's
| a fact about the mindset of scholars who came after him.
| lukan wrote:
| Well, their mindset evolved at least partly around the
| question, how far they can go with free thinking, before
| making the transition to free burning.
| geye1234 wrote:
| This is not (really) true. Well there's an element of truth
| in it, but only an element.
|
| European philosophy was not really Aristotelian until the re-
| arrival of his work in the 12C, so it's hardly fair to
| 'blame' him for the lack of scientific development that
| period. When it did arrive, it was _extremely_ controversial,
| and it took the genius of Aquinas (and even then, only just)
| for Aristotle to be accepted in Christian thought.
|
| In the 17C, there was a much greater interest in quantitative
| methods than there had been previously. And some of his
| physics was obviously found to be wrong. But there was no
| discovery (and remains no discovery) that falsified broad
| swathes of his work. The change of interest and focus was far
| more important in the progress of what we now call science
| than the supposed rejection of Aristotle.
|
| This is described in E.A. Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations of
| Modern Science.
|
| Pre-modern people were far more interested in living a
| morally good life (a happy life, in the Aristotelian sense of
| the word) than they were in controlling nature. That changed
| in the 17C.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Great mind? I don't think so.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_slavery
| cgh wrote:
| This is addressed in the article.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Addressed how? Just a meek claim that Artistotle may have
| been misinterpreted. Meek because the author knowingly
| can't argue with Aristotle's own stringent defense of the
| "right kind" of slavery.
| mykowebhn wrote:
| I agree. Look, for example, at his work on Logic, especially
| Categories, On Interpretation, and the Prior and Posterior
| Analytics.
|
| Of course, the fields of Philosophical and Mathematical Logic
| have advanced since Aristotle, especially starting with the
| work of Frege, but that took approximately 2000 years. And
| before Aristotle, no work on Logic came close to what Aristotle
| discovered and developed. Aristotle's work on Logic was sui
| generis and hardly any advancement in logic occurred until
| Frege 2000 years later.
|
| I feel his work in Logic alone makes him one of the greatest
| minds who ever lived. That doesn't take into account his
| contributions in other areas of philosophy, which were also
| significant.
| motohagiography wrote:
| His ideas provide a useful filter with words personal qualities,
| and the moderation of virtues in Nichomchean Ethics pretty much
| describes what it means when we say someone is 'honest.' it's a
| foundational read, along with the stoics.
|
| the provocative aspect of Aristotle today is that for people who
| see themselves as not on the level of citizens and who reject
| being compared by the virtues he (and later, aquinas)
| articulated, the judgment implies they are somehow moral or
| spiritual fugitives from it. if I'm not patient, friendly,
| magnanimous, courageous, charitable, ambitious, truthful, etc, am
| I really an inferior or less worthy person? according to who? in
| that sense, the current concept of intersectionality is a kind of
| secular re-blessing of people marginalized by those values so as
| to organize them into a movement to dismantle this dominion of
| judgment by ancient virtues. viewed this way, Aristotle's values
| and how they support a conceptual moral "kingdom of god" are this
| movements shared enemy. I get that normal people want to see
| these things as just human progress vs. quaint old ideas, and not
| view the value of Aristotle today through the lens of
| eschatology, but if one did, it illuminates some aspects that
| should raise at least some eyebrows.
| analog31 wrote:
| Ask HN: What's a favored translation these days?
| seeknotfind wrote:
| Penguin Classics edition of Nichomachean Ethics has a great
| introduction and is very readable.
| asimpletune wrote:
| The best comes from Hackett publishing.
| cybersoyuz wrote:
| A recent translation by Bartlett and Collins has extensive
| notes and reflects up-to-date scholarship. https://press.uchi
| cago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo113934...
| geye1234 wrote:
| > if I'm not patient, friendly, magnanimous, courageous,
| charitable, ambitious, truthful, etc, am I really an inferior
| or less worthy person?
|
| Not in your essence. All people are equal in their essence. But
| it's better to be a person who's truthful than a person who
| constantly lies. So in that sense, a truthful person is better
| than a liar.
|
| Anyway, the beauty is that anyone can attain these virtues.
| It's very, very hard work, but even the pursuit brings very
| great joy.
|
| (Being 'ambitious' is not a virtue, btw :-) )
| chambers wrote:
| Another fascinating comment by motohagiography.
|
| However, I think the movement is less a rebellion of the few,
| and more the unbelief of the many. That is, people don't
| believe the benefit to being virtuous outweighs the cost.
|
| Which is completely rational. Traditional virtue requires self-
| sacrifice and is impossible to sustain. The social capital the
| world gives in return is not enough to make it worth it.
| Rather, people need deep spiritual, even otherworldly, beliefs
| to make meeting high moral standards rational.
|
| However those beliefs are unscientific and anathema to our age
| which pathologizes our soul as a mental health concern. This
| abasement leaves only the surface, physical attributes of a
| person as items of virtue: their skin and their flesh, their
| race and their sex. In this way, moral frameworks that assert a
| "deep down" appear ungrounded, whereas frameworks that make a
| virtue out of a person's skin color and taste for flesh look
| grounded and real.
| kouru225 wrote:
| Aristotles obsession with logos is a problem that we're all still
| dealing with ngl
| openrisk wrote:
| Its quite difficult to rationalize and demystify the depth of
| Ancient Greek thought and Aristotle is probably the best
| embodiment of that conundrum.
|
| It would be quite an educational breakthrough if we could
| actually _feel_ how and why there was this peak moment in
| intellectual inquiry, why it did not persist, why it emerged
| again but only millennia afterwards and whether it may again
| vanish as we drift into digitally intermediated dark ages.
| istjohn wrote:
| Given that everything that Aristotle said that we can empirically
| test has been found to be nonsense, any ongoing relevance he
| might have to any modern field of inquiry just shows how unmoored
| that field of inquiry is from any actual knowledge.
| alganet wrote:
| > He often features as a darling of Right-wing ideologues
|
| Ideology will be the end of us all.
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