Aristotle (384—322 BCE)

aristotle

1. Life

Aristotle was born in 384 BCE at Stagirus, a Greek colony and seaport
on the coast of Thrace. His father Nichomachus was court physician to
King Amyntas of Macedonia, and from this began Aristotle's long
association with the Macedonian Court, which considerably influenced
his life. While he was still a boy his father died. At age 17 his
guardian, Proxenus, sent him to Athens, the intellectual center of the
world, to complete his education. He joined the Academy and studied
under Plato, attending his lectures for a period of twenty years. In
the later years of his association with Plato and the Academy he began
to lecture on his own account, especially on the subject of rhetoric.
At the death of Plato in 347, the pre-eminent ability of Aristotle
would seem to have designated him to succeed to the leadership of the
Academy. But his divergence from Plato's teaching was too great to
make this possible, and Plato's nephew Speusippus was chosen instead.
At the invitation of his friend Hermeas, ruler of Atarneus and Assos
in Mysia, Aristotle left for his court. He stayed three year and,
while there, married Pythias, the niece of the King. In later life he
was married a second time to a woman named Herpyllis, who bore him a
son, Nichomachus. At the end of three years Hermeas was overtaken by
the Persians, and Aristotle went to Mytilene. At the invitation of
Philip of Macedonia he became the tutor of his 13 year old son
Alexander (later world conqueror); he did this for the next five
years. Both Philip and Alexander appear to have paid Aristotle high
honor, and there were stories that Aristotle was supplied by the
Macedonian court, not only with funds for teaching, but also with
thousands of slaves to collect specimens for his studies in natural
science. These stories are probably false and certainly exaggerated.

Upon the death of Philip, Alexander succeeded to the kingship and
prepared for his subsequent conquests. Aristotle's work being
finished, he returned to Athens, which he had not visited since the
death of Plato. He found the Platonic school flourishing under
Xenocrates, and Platonism the dominant philosophy of Athens. He thus
set up his own school at a place called the Lyceum. When teaching at
the Lyceum, Aristotle had a habit of walking about as he discoursed.
It was in connection with this that his followers became known in
later years as the peripatetics, meaning "to walk about." For the next
thirteen years he devoted his energies to his teaching and composing
his philosophical treatises. He is said to have given two kinds of
lectures: the more detailed discussions in the morning for an inner
circle of advanced students, and the popular discourses in the evening
for the general body of lovers of knowledge. At the sudden death of
Alexander in 323 BCE., the pro-Macedonian government in Athens was
overthrown, and a general reaction occurred against anything
Macedonian. A charge of impiety was trumped up against him. To escape
prosecution he fled to Chalcis in Euboea so that (Aristotle says) "The
Athenians might not have another opportunity of sinning against
philosophy as they had already done in the person of Socrates." In the
first year of his residence at Chalcis he complained of a stomach
illness and died in 322 BCE.
2. Writings

It is reported that Aristotle's writings were held by his student
Theophrastus, who had succeeded Aristotle in leadership of the
Peripatetic School. Theophrastus's library passed to his pupil Neleus.
To protect the books from theft, Neleus's heirs concealed them in a
vault, where they were damaged somewhat by dampness, moths and worms.
In this hiding place they were discovered about 100 BCE by Apellicon,
a rich book lover, and brought to Athens. They were later taken to
Rome after the capture of Athens by Sulla in 86 BCE. In Rome they soon
attracted the attention of scholars, and the new edition of them gave
fresh impetus to the study of Aristotle and of philosophy in general.
This collection is the basis of the works of Aristotle that we have
today. Strangely, the list of Aristotle's works given by Diogenes
Laertius does not contain any of these treatises. It is possible that
Diogenes' list is that of forgeries compiled at a time when the real
works were lost to sight.

The works of Aristotle fall under three headings: (1) dialogues and
other works of a popular character; (2) collections of facts and
material from scientific treatment; and (3) systematic works. Among
his writings of a popular nature the only one which we possess of any
consequence is the interesting tract On the Polity of the Athenians.
The works on the second group include 200 titles, most in fragments,
collected by Aristotle's school and used as research. Some may have
been done at the time of Aristotle's successor Theophrastus. Included
in this group are constitutions of 158 Greek states. The systematic
treatises of the third group are marked by a plainness of style, with
none of the golden flow of language which the ancients praised in
Aristotle. This may be due to the fact that these works were not, in
most cases, published by Aristotle himself or during his lifetime, but
were edited after his death from unfinished manuscripts. Until Werner
Jaeger (1912) it was assumed that Aristotle's writings presented a
systematic account of his views. Jaeger argues for an early, middle
and late period (genetic approach), where the early period follows
Plato's theory of forms and soul, the middle rejects Plato, and the
later period (which includes most of his treatises) is more
empirically oriented. Aristotle's systematic treatises may be grouped
in several division:

* Logic
1. Categories (10 classifications of terms)
2. On Interpretation (propositions, truth, modality)
3. Prior Analytics (syllogistic logic)
4. Posterior Analytics (scientific method and syllogism)
5. Topics (rules for effective arguments and debate)
6. On Sophistical Refutations (informal fallacies)
* Physical works
1. Physics (explains change, motion, void, time)
2. On the Heavens (structure of heaven, earth, elements)
3. On Generation (through combining material constituents)
4. Meteorologics (origin of comets, weather, disasters)
* Psychological works
1. On the Soul (explains faculties, senses, mind, imagination)
2. On Memory, Reminiscence, Dreams, and Prophesying
* Works on natural history
1. History of Animals (physical/mental qualities, habits)
2. On the parts of Animals
3. On the Movement of Animals
4. On the Progression of Animals
5. On the Generation of Animals
6. Minor treatises
7. Problems
* Philosophical works
1. Metaphysics (substance, cause, form, potentiality)
2. Nicomachean Ethics (soul, happiness, virtue, friendship)
3. Eudemain Ethics
4. Magna Moralia
5. Politics (best states, utopias, constitutions, revolutions)
6. Rhetoric (elements of forensic and political debate)
7. Poetics (tragedy, epic poetry)

3. Logic

Aristotle's writings on the general subject of logic were grouped by
the later Peripatetics under the nameOrganon, or instrument. From
their perspective, logic and reasoning was the chief preparatory
instrument of scientific investigation. Aristotle himself, however,
uses the term "logic" as equivalent to verbal reasoning. The
Categories of Aristotle are classifications of individual words (as
opposed to propositions), and include the following ten: substance,
quantity, quality, relation, place, time, situation, condition,
action, passion. They seem to be arranged according to the order of
the questions we would ask in gaining knowledge of an object. For
example, we ask, first, what a thing is, then how great it is, next of
what kind it is. Substance is always regarded as the most important of
these. Substances are further divided into first and second: first
substances are individual objects; second substances are thespecies in
which first substances or individuals inhere.

Notions when isolated do not in themselves express either truth or
falsehood: it is only with the combination of ideas in a proposition
that truth and falsity are possible. The elements of such a
proposition are the noun substantive and the verb. The combination of
words gives rise to rational speech and thought, conveys a meaning
both in its parts and as a whole. Such thought may take many forms,
but logic considers only demonstrative forms which express truth and
falsehood. The truth or falsity of propositions is determined by their
agreement or disagreement with the facts they represent. Thus
propositions are either affirmative or negative, each of which again
may be either universal or particular or undesignated. A definition,
for Aristotle is a statement of the essential character of a subject,
and involves both the genus and the difference. To get at a true
definition we must find out those qualities within the genus which
taken separately are wider than the subject to be defined, but taken
together are precisely equal to it. For example, "prime," "odd," and
"number" are each wider than "triplet" (that is, a collection of any
three items, such as three rocks); but taken together they are just
equal to it. The genus definition must be formed so that no species is
left out. Having determined the genus and species, we must next find
the points of similarity in the species separately and then consider
the common characteristics of different species. Definitions may be
imperfect by (1) being obscure, (2) by being too wide, or (3) by not
stating the essential and fundamental attributes. Obscurity may arise
from the use of equivocal expressions, of metaphorical phrases, or of
eccentric words. The heart of Aristotle's logic is the syllogism, the
classic example of which is as follows: All men are mortal; Socrates
is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. The syllogistic form of
logical argumentation dominated logic for 2,000 years.
4. Metaphysics

Aristotle's editors gave the name "Metaphysics" to his works on first
philosophy, either because they went beyond or followed after his
physical investigations. Aristotle begins by sketching the history of
philosophy. For Aristotle, philosophy arose historically after basic
necessities were secured. It grew out of a feeling of curiosity and
wonder, to which religious myth gave only provisional satisfaction.
The earliest speculators (i.e. Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander) were
philosophers of nature. The Pythagoreans succeeded these with
mathematical abstractions. The level of pure thought was reached
partly in the Eleatic philosophers (such as Parmenides) and
Anaxagoras, but more completely in the work of Socrates. Socrates'
contribution was the expression of general conceptions in the form of
definitions, which he arrived at by induction and analogy. For
Aristotle, the subject of metaphysics deals with the first principles
of scientific knowledge and the ultimate conditions of all existence.
More specifically, it deals with existence in its most fundamental
state (i.e. being as being), and the essential attributes of
existence. This can be contrasted with mathematics which deals with
existence in terms of lines or angles, and not existence as it is in
itself. In its universal character, metaphysics superficially
resembles dialectics and sophistry. However, it differs from
dialectics which is tentative, and it differs from sophistry which is
a pretence of knowledge without the reality.

The axioms of science fall under the consideration of the
metaphysician insofar as they are properties ofall existence.
Aristotle argues that there are a handful of universal truths. Against
the followers of Heraclitus and Protagoras, Aristotle defends both the
laws of contradiction, and that of excluded middle. He does this by
showing that their denial is suicidal. Carried out to its logical
consequences, the denial of these laws would lead to the sameness of
all facts and all assertions. It would also result in an indifference
in conduct. As the science of being as being, the leading question of
Aristotle's metaphysics is, What is meant by the real or true
substance? Plato tried to solve the same question by positing a
universal and invariable element of knowledge and existence — the
forms — as the only real permanent besides the changing phenomena of
the senses. Aristotle attacks Plato's theory of the forms on three
different grounds.

First, Aristotle argues, forms are powerless to explain changes of
things and a thing's ultimate extinction. Forms are not causes of
movement and alteration in the physical objects of sensation. Second,
forms are equally incompetent to explain how we arrive at knowledge of
particular things. For, to have knowledge of a particular object, it
must be knowledge of the substance which is in that things. However,
the forms place knowledge outside of particular things. Further, to
suppose that we know particular things better by adding on their
general conceptions of their forms, is about as absurd as to imagine
that we can count numbers better by multiplying them. Finally, if
forms were needed to explain our knowledge of particular objects, then
forms must be used to explain our knowledge of objects of art;
however, Platonists do not recognize such forms. The third ground of
attack is that the forms simply cannot explain the existence of
particular objects. Plato contends that forms do not exist in the
particular objects which partake in the forms. However, that substance
of a particular thing cannot be separated from the thing itself.
Further, aside from the jargon of "participation," Plato does not
explain the relation between forms and particular things. In reality,
it is merely metaphorical to describe the forms as patterns of things;
for, what is a genus to one object is a species to a higher class, the
same idea will have to be both a form and a particular thing at the
same time. Finally, on Plato's account of the forms, we must imagine
an intermediate link between the form and the particular object, and
so on ad infinitum: there must always be a "third man" between the
individual man and the form of man.

For Aristotle, the form is not something outside the object, but
rather in the varied phenomena of sense. Real substance, or true
being, is not the abstract form, but rather the concrete individual
thing. Unfortunately, Aristotle's theory of substance is not
altogether consistent with itself. In the Categories the notion of
substance tends to be nominalistic (that is, substance is a concept we
apply to things). In theMetaphysics, though, it frequently inclines
towards realism (that is, substance has a real existence in itself).
We are also struck by the apparent contradiction in his claims that
science deals with universal concepts, and substance is declared to be
an individual. In any case, substance is for him a merging of matter
into form. The term "matter" is used by Aristotle in four overlapping
senses. First, it is the underlying structure of changes, particularly
changes of growth and of decay. Secondly, it is the potential which
has implicitly the capacity to develop into reality. Thirdly, it is a
kind of stuff without specific qualities and so is indeterminate and
contingent. Fourthly, it is identical with form when it takes on a
form in its actualized and final phase.

The development of potentiality to actuality is one of the most
important aspects of Aristotle's philosophy. It was intended to solve
the difficulties which earlier thinkers had raised with reference to
the beginnings of existence and the relations of the one and many. The
actual vs. potential state of things is explained in terms of the
causes which act on things. There are four causes:

1. Material cause, or the elements out of which an object is created;
2. Efficient cause, or the means by which it is created;
3. Formal cause, or the expression of what it is;
4. Final cause, or the end for which it is.

Take, for example, a bronze statue. Its material cause is the bronze
itself. Its efficient cause is the sculptor, insofar has he forces the
bronze into shape. The formal cause is the idea of the completed
statue. The final cause is the idea of the statue as it prompts the
sculptor to act on the bronze. The final cause tends to be the same as
the formal cause, and both of these can be subsumed by the efficient
cause. Of the four, it is the formal and final which is the most
important, and which most truly gives the explanation of an object.
The final end (purpose, or teleology) of a thing is realized in the
full perfection of the object itself, not in our conception of it.
Final cause is thus internal to the nature of the object itself, and
not something we subjectively impose on it.

God to Aristotle is the first of all substances, the necessary first
source of movement who is himself unmoved. God is a being with
everlasting life, and perfect blessedness, engaged in never-ending
contemplation.
5. Philosophy of Nature

Aristotle sees the universe as a scale lying between the two extremes:
form without matter is on one end, and matter without form is on the
other end. The passage of matter into form must be shown in its
various stages in the world of nature. To do this is the object of
Aristotle's physics, or philosophy of nature. It is important to keep
in mind that the passage from form to matter within nature is a
movement towards ends or purposes. Everything in nature has its end
and function, and nothing is without its purpose. Everywhere we find
evidences of design and rational plan. No doctrine of physics can
ignore the fundamental notions of motion, space, and time. Motion is
the passage of matter into form, and it is of four kinds: (1) motion
which affects the substance of a thing, particularly its beginning and
its ending; (2) motion which brings about changes in quality; (3)
motion which brings about changes in quantity, by increasing it and
decreasing it; and (4) motion which brings about locomotion, or change
of place. Of these the last is the most fundamental and important.

Aristotle rejects the definition of space as the void. Empty space is
an impossibility. Hence, too, he disagrees with the view of Plato and
the Pythagoreans that the elements are composed of geometrical
figures. Space is defined as the limit of the surrounding body towards
what is surrounded. Time is defined as the measure of motion in regard
to what is earlier and later. It thus depends for its existence upon
motion. If there where no change in the universe, there would be no
time. Since it is the measuring or counting of motion, it also depends
for its existence on a counting mind. If there were no mind to count,
there could be no time. As to the infinite divisibility of space and
time, and the paradoxes proposed byZeno, Aristotle argues that space
and time are potentially divisible ad infinitum, but are not actually
so divided.

After these preliminaries, Aristotle passes to the main subject of
physics, the scale of being. The first thing to notice about this
scale is that it is a scale of values. What is higher on the scale of
being is of more worth, because the principle of form is more advanced
in it. Species on this scale are eternally fixed in their place, and
cannot evolve over time. The higher items on the scale are also more
organized. Further, the lower items are inorganic and the higher are
organic. The principle which gives internal organization to the higher
or organic items on the scale of being is life, or what he calls the
soul of the organism. Even the human soul is nothing but the
organization of the body. Plants are the lowest forms of life on the
scale, and their souls contain a nutritive element by which it
preserves itself. Animals are above plants on the scale, and their
souls contain an appetitive feature which allows them to have
sensations, desires, and thus gives them the ability to move. The
scale of being proceeds from animals to humans. The human soul shares
the nutritive element with plants, and the appetitive element with
animals, but also has a rational element which is distinctively our
own. The details of the appetitive and rational aspects of the soul
are described in the following two sections.
6. The Soul and Psychology

Soul is defined by Aristotle as the perfect expression or realization
of a natural body. From this definition it follows that there is a
close connection between psychological states, and physiological
processes. Body and soul are unified in the same way that wax and an
impression stamped on it are unified. Metaphysicians before Aristotle
discussed the soul abstractly without any regard to the bodily
environment; this, Aristotle believes, was a mistake. At the same
time, Aristotle regards the soul or mind not as the product of the
physiological conditions of the body, but as the truth of the body —
the substance in which only the bodily conditions gain their real
meaning.

The soul manifests its activity in certain "faculties" or "parts"
which correspond with the stages of biological development, and are
the faculties of nutrition (peculiar to plants), that of movement
(peculiar to animals), and that of reason (peculiar to humans). These
faculties resemble mathematical figures in which the higher includes
the lower, and must be understood not as like actual physical parts,
but like suchaspects as convex and concave which we distinguish in the
same line. The mind remains throughout a unity: and it is absurd to
speak of it, as Plato did, as desiring with one part and feeling anger
with another. Sense perception is a faculty of receiving the forms of
outward objects independently of the matter of which they are
composed, just as the wax takes on the figure of the seal without the
gold or other metal of which the seal is composed. As the subject of
impression, perception involves a movement and a kind of qualitative
change; but perception is not merely a passive or receptive affection.
It in turn acts, and,distinguishing between the qualities of outward
things, becomes "a movement of the soul through the medium of the
body."

The objects of the senses may be either (1) special, (such as color is
the special object of sight, and sound of hearing), (2) common, or
apprehended by several senses in combination (such as motion or
figure), or (3) incidental or inferential (such as when from the
immediate sensation of white we come to know a person or object which
is white). There are five special senses. Of these, touch is the must
rudimentary, hearing the most instructive, and sight the most
ennobling. The organ in these senses never acts directly , but is
affected by some medium such as air. Even touch, which seems to act by
actual contact, probably involves some vehicle of communication. For
Aristotle, the heart is the common or central sense organ. It
recognizes the common qualities which are involved in all particular
objects of sensation. It is, first, the sense which brings us a
consciousness of sensation. Secondly, in one act before the mind, it
holds up the objects of our knowledge and enables us to distinguish
between the reports of different senses.

Aristotle defines the imagination as "the movement which results upon
an actual sensation." In other words, it is the process by which an
impression of the senses is pictured and retained before the mind, and
is accordingly the basis of memory. The representative pictures which
it provides form the materials of reason. Illusions and dreams are
both alike due to an excitement in the organ of sense similar to that
which would be caused by the actual presence of the sensible
phenomenon. Memory is defined as the permanent possession of the
sensuous picture as a copy which represents the object of which it is
a picture. Recollection, or the calling back to mind the residue of
memory, depends on the laws which regulate the association of our
ideas. We trace the associations by starting with the thought of the
object present to us, then considering what is similar, contrary or
contiguous.

Reason is the source of the first principles of knowledge. Reason is
opposed to the sense insofar as sensations are restricted and
individual, and thought is free and universal. Also, while the senses
deals with the concrete and material aspect of phenomena, reason deals
with the abstract and ideal aspects. But while reason is in itself the
source of general ideas, it is so only potentially. For, it arrives at
them only by a process of development in which it gradually clothes
sense in thought, and unifies and interprets sense-presentations. This
work of reason in thinking beings suggests the question: How can
immaterial thought come to receive material things? It is only
possible in virtue of some community between thought and things.
Aristotle recognizes an active reason which makes objects of thought.
This is distinguished from passive reason which receives, combines and
compares the objects of thought. Active reason makes the world
intelligible, and bestows on the materials of knowledge those ideas or
categories which make them accessible to thought. This is just as the
sun communicates to material objects that light, without which color
would be invisible, and sight would have no object. Hence reason is
the constant support of an intelligible world. While assigning reason
to the soul of humans, Aristotle describes it as coming from without,
and almost seems to identify it with God as the eternal and
omnipresent thinker. Even in humans, in short, reason realizes
something of the essential characteristic of absolute thought — the
unity of thought as subject with thought as object.
7. Ethics

Ethics, as viewed by Aristotle, is an attempt to find out our chief
end or highest good: an end which he maintains is really final. Though
many ends of life are only means to further ends, our aspirations and
desires must have some final object or pursuit. Such a chief end is
universally called happiness. But people mean such different things by
the expression that he finds it necessary to discuss the nature of it
for himself. For starters, happiness must be based on human nature,
and must begin from the facts of personal experience. Thus, happiness
cannot be found in any abstract or ideal notion, like Plato's
self-existing good. It must be something practical an human. It must
then be found in the work and life which is unique to humans. But this
is neither the vegetative life we share with plants nor the sensitive
existence which we share with animals. It follows therefore that true
happiness lies in the active life of a rational being or in a perfect
realization and outworking of the true soul and self, continued
throughout a lifetime.

Aristotle expands his notion of happiness through an analysis of the
human soul which structures and animates a living human organism. The
parts of the soul are divided as follows:
Calculative — Intellectual Virtue
Rational
Appetitive — Moral Virtue
Irrational
Vegetative — Nutritional Virtue

The human soul has an irrational element which is shared with the
animals, and a rational element which is distinctly human. The most
primitive irrational element is the vegetative faculty which is
responsible for nutrition and growth. An organism which does this well
may be said to have a nutritional virtue. The second tier of the soul
is the appetitive faculty which is responsible for our emotions and
desires (such as joy, grief, hope and fear). This faculty is both
rational and irrational. It is irrational since even animals
experience desires. However, it is also rational since humans have the
distinct ability to control these desires with the help of reason. The
human ability to properly control these desires is called moral
virtue, and is the focus of morality. Aristotle notes that there is a
purely rational part of the soul, the calculative, which is
responsible for the human ability to contemplate, reason logically,
and formulate scientific principles. The mastery of these abilities is
called intellectual virtue.

Aristotle continues by making several general points about the nature
of moral virtues (i.e. desire-regulating virtues). First, he argues
that the ability to regulate our desires is not instinctive, but
learned and is the outcome of both teaching and practice. Second, he
notes that if we regulate our desires either too much or too little,
then we create problems. As an analogy, Aristotle comments that,
either "excess or deficiency of gymnastic exercise is fatal to
strength." Third, he argues that desire-regulating virtues are
character traits, and are not to be understood as either emotions or
mental faculties.

The core of Aristotle's account of moral virtue is his doctrine of the
mean. According to this doctrine, moral virtues are desire-regulating
character traits which are at a mean between more extreme character
traits (or vices). For example, in response to the natural emotion of
fear, we should develop the virtuous character trait of courage. If we
develop an excessive character trait by curbing fear too much, then we
are said to be rash, which is a vice. If, on the other extreme, we
develop a deficient character trait by curbing fear too little, then
we are said to be cowardly, which is also a vice. The virtue of
courage, then, lies at the mean between the excessive extreme of
rashness, and the deficient extreme of cowardice. Aristotle is quick
to point out that the virtuous mean is not a strict mathematical mean
between two extremes. For example, if eating 100 apples is too many,
and eating zero apples is too little, this does not imply that we
should eat 50 apples, which is the mathematical mean. Instead, the
mean is rationally determined, based on the relative merits of the
situation. That is, it is "as a prudent man would determine it." He
concludes that it is difficult to live the virtuous life primarily
because it is often difficult to find the mean between the extremes.

Most moral virtues, and not just courage, are to be understood as
falling at the mean between two accompanying vices. His list may be
represented by the following table:
Vice of Deficiency Virtuous Mean Vice of Excess
Cowardice Courage Rashness
Insensibility Temperance Intemperance
Illiberality Liberality Prodigality
Pettiness Munificence Vulgarity
Humble-mindedness High-mindedness Vaingloriness
Want of Ambition Right Ambition Over-ambition
Spiritlessness Good Temper Irascibility
Surliness Friendly Civility Obsequiousness
Ironical Depreciation Sincerity Boastfulness
Boorishness Wittiness Buffoonery
Shamelessness Modesty Bashfulness
Callousness Just Resentment Spitefulness

The prominent virtue of this list is high-mindedness, which, as being
a kind of ideal self-respect, is regarded as the crown of all the
other virtues, depending on them for its existence, and itself in turn
tending to intensify their force. The list seems to be more a
deduction from the formula than a statement of the facts on which the
formula itself depends, and Aristotle accordingly finds language
frequently inadequate to express the states of excess or defect which
his theory involves (for example in dealing with the virtue of
ambition). Throughout the list he insists on the "autonomy of will" as
indispensable to virtue: courage for instance is only really worthy of
the name when done from a love of honor and duty: munificence again
becomes vulgarity when it is not exercised from a love of what is
right and beautiful, but for displaying wealth.

Justice is used both in a general and in a special sense. In its
general sense it is equivalent to the observance of law. As such it is
the same thing as virtue, differing only insofar as virtue exercises
the disposition simply in the abstract, and justice applies it in
dealings with people. Particular justice displays itself in two forms.
First, distributive justice hands out honors and rewards according to
the merits of the recipients. Second, corrective justice takes no
account of the position of the parties concerned, but simply secures
equality between the two by taking away from the advantage of the one
and adding it to the disadvantage of the other. Strictly speaking,
distributive and corrective justice are more than mere retaliation and
reciprocity. However, in concrete situations of civil life,
retaliation and reciprocity is an adequate formula since such
circumstances involve money, depending on a relation between producer
and consumer. Since absolute justice is abstract in nature, in the
real world it must be supplemented with equity, which corrects and
modifies the laws of justice where it falls short. Thus, morality
requires a standard which will not only regulate the inadequacies of
absolute justice but be also an idea of moral progress.

This idea of morality is given by the faculty of moral insight. The
truly good person is at the same time a person of perfect insight, and
a person of perfect insight is also perfectly good. Our idea of the
ultimate end of moral action is developed through habitual experience,
and this gradually frames itself out of particular perceptions. It is
the job of reason to apprehend and organize these particular
perceptions. However, moral action is never the result of a mere act
of the understanding, nor is it the result of a simple desire which
views objects merely as things which produce pain or pleasure. We
start with a rational conception of what is advantageous, but this
conception is in itself powerless without the natural impulse which
will give it strength. The will or purpose implied by morality is thus
either reason stimulated to act by desire, or desire guided and
controlled by understanding. These factors then motivate the willful
action. Freedom of the will is a factor with both virtuous choices and
vicious choices. Actions are involuntary only when another person
forces our action, or if we are ignorant of important details in
actions. Actions are voluntary when the originating cause of action
(either virtuous or vicious) lies in ourselves.

Moral weakness of the will results in someone does what is wrong,
knowing that it is right, and yet follows his desire against reason.
For Aristotle, this condition is not a myth, as Socrates supposed it
was. The problem is a matter of conflicting moral principles. Moral
action may be represented as a syllogism in which a general principle
of morality forms the first (i.e. major) premise, while the particular
application is the second (i.e. minor) premise. The conclusion,
though, which is arrived at through speculation, is not always carried
out in practice. The moral syllogism is not simply a matter of logic,
but involves psychological drives and desires. Desires can lead to a
minor premise being applied to one rather than another of two major
premises existing in the agent's mind. Animals, on the other hand,
cannot be called weak willed or incontinent since such a conflict of
principles is not possible with them.

Pleasure is not to be identified with Good. Pleasure is found in the
consciousness of free spontaneous action. It is an invisible
experience, like vision, and is always present when a perfect organ
acts upon a perfect object. Pleasures accordingly differ in kind,
varying along with the different value of the functions of which they
are the expression. They are determined ultimately by the judgment of
"the good person." Our chief end is the perfect development of our
true nature; it thus must be particularly found in the realization of
our highest faculty, that is, reason. It is this in fact which
constitutes our personality, and we would not be pursuing our own
life, but the life of some lower being, if we followed any other aim.
Self-love accordingly may be said to be the highest law of morals,
because while such self-love may be understood as the selfishness
which gratifies a person's lower nature, it may also be, and is
rightly, the love of that higher and rational nature which constitutes
each person's true self. Such a life of thought is further recommended
as that which is most pleasant, most self-sufficient, most continuous,
and most consonant with our purpose. It is also that which is most
akin to the life of God: for God cannot be conceived as practising the
ordinary moral virtues and must therefore find his happiness in
contemplation.

Friendship is an indispensable aid in framing for ourselves the higher
moral life; if not itself a virtue, it is at least associated with
virtue, and it proves itself of service in almost all conditions of
our existence. Such results, however, are to be derived not from the
worldly friendships of utility or pleasure, but only from those which
are founded on virtue. The true friend is in fact a second self, and
the true moral value of friendship lies in the fact that the friend
presents to us a mirror of good actions, and so intensifies our
consciousness and our appreciation of life.
8. Politics

Aristotle does not regard politics as a separate science from ethics,
but as the completion, and almost a verification of it. The moral
ideal in political administration is only a different aspect of that
which also applies to individual happiness. Humans are by nature
social beings, and the possession of rational speech (logos) in itself
leads us to social union. The state is a development from the family
through the village community, an offshoot of the family. Formed
originally for the satisfaction of natural wants, it exists afterwards
for moral ends and for the promotion of the higher life. The state in
fact is no mere local union for the prevention of wrong doing, and the
convenience of exchange. It is also no mere institution for the
protection of goods and property. It is a genuine moral organization
for advancing the development of humans.

The family, which is chronologically prior to the state, involves a
series of relations between husband and wife, parent and child, master
and slave. Aristotle regards the slave as a piece of live property
having no existence except in relation to his master. Slavery is a
natural institution because there is a ruling and a subject class
among people related to each other as soul to body; however, we must
distinguish between those who are slaves by nature, and those who have
become slaves merely by war and conquest. Household management
involves the acquisition of riches, but must be distinguished from
money-making for its own sake. Wealth is everything whose value can be
measured by money; but it is the use rather than the possession of
commodities which constitutes riches.

Financial exchange first involved bartering. However, with the
difficulties of transmission between countries widely separated from
each other, money as a currency arose. At first it was merely a
specific amount of weighted or measured metal. Afterwards it received
a stamp to mark the amount. Demand is the real standard of value.
Currency, therefore, is merely a convention which represents the
demand; it stands between the producer and the recipient and secures
fairness. Usury is an unnatural and reprehensible use of money.

The communal ownership of wives and property as sketched by Plato in
the Republic rests on a false conception of political society. For,
the state is not a homogeneous unity, as Plato believed, but rather is
made up of dissimilar elements. The classification of constitutions is
based on the fact that government may be exercised either for the good
of the governed or of the governing, and may be either concentrated in
one person or shared by a few or by the many. There are thus three
true forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and constitutional
republic. The perverted forms of these are tyranny, oligarchy and
democracy. The difference between the last two is not that democracy
is a government of the many, and oligarchy of the few; instead,
democracy is the state of the poor, and oligarchy of the rich.
Considered in the abstract, these six states stand in the following
order of preference: monarchy, aristocracy, constitutional republic,
democracy, oligarchy, tyranny. But though with a perfect person
monarchy would be the highest form of government, the absence of such
people puts it practically out of consideration. Similarly, true
aristocracy is hardly ever found in its uncorrupted form. It is in the
constitution that the good person and the good citizen coincide. Ideal
preferences aside, then, the constitutional republic is regarded as
the best attainable form of government, especially as it secures that
predominance of a large middle class, which is the chief basis of
permanence in any state. With the spread of population, democracy is
likely to become the general form of government.

Which is the best state is a question that cannot be directly
answered. Different races are suited for different forms of
government, and the question which meets the politician is not so much
what is abstractly the best state, but what is the best state under
existing circumstances. Generally, however, the best state will enable
anyone to act in the best and live in the happiest manner. To serve
this end the ideal state should be neither too great nor too small,
but simply self-sufficient. It should occupy a favorable position
towards land and sea and consist of citizens gifted with the spirit of
the northern nations, and the intelligence of the Asiatic nations. It
should further take particular care to exclude from government all
those engaged in trade and commerce; "the best state will not make the
"working man" a citizen; it should provide support religious worship;
it should secure morality through the educational influences of law
and early training. Law, for Aristotle, is the outward expression of
the moral ideal without the bias of human feeling. It is thus no mere
agreement or convention, but a moral force coextensive with all
virtue. Since it is universal in its character, it requires
modification and adaptation to particular circumstances through
equity.

Education should be guided by legislation to make it correspond with
the results of psychological analysis, and follow the gradual
development of the bodily and mental faculties. Children should during
their earliest years be carefully protected from all injurious
associations, and be introduced to such amusements as will prepare
them for the serious duties of life. Their literary education should
begin in their seventh year, and continue to their twenty-first year.
This period is divided into two courses of training, one from age
seven to puberty, and the other from puberty to age twenty-one. Such
education should not be left to private enterprise, but should be
undertaken by the state. There are four main branches of education:
reading and writing, Gymnastics, music, and painting. They should not
be studied to achieve a specific aim, but in the liberal spirit which
creates true freemen. Thus, for example, gymnastics should not be
pursued by itself exclusively, or it will result in a harsh savage
type of character. Painting must not be studied merely to prevent
people from being cheated in pictures, but to make them attend to
physical beauty. Music must not be studied merely for amusement, but
for the moral influence which it exerts on the feelings. Indeed all
true education is, as Plato saw, a training of our sympathies so that
we may love and hate in a right manner.
9. Art

Art is defined by Aristotle as the realization in external form of a
true idea, and is traced back to that natural love of imitation which
characterizes humans, and to the pleasure which we feel in recognizing
likenesses. Art however is not limited to mere copying. It idealizes
nature and completes its deficiencies: it seeks to grasp the universal
type in the individual phenomenon. The distinction therefore between
poetic art and history is not that the one uses meter, and the other
does not. The distinction is that while history is limited to what has
actually happened, poetry depicts things in their universal character.
And, therefore, "poetry is more philosophical and more elevated than
history." Such imitation may represent people either as better or as
worse than people usually are, or it may neither go beyond nor fall
below the average standard. Comedy is the imitation of the worse
examples of humanity, understood however not in the sense of absolute
badness, but only in so far as what is low and ignoble enters into
what is laughable and comic.

Tragedy, on the other hand, is the representation of a serious or
meaningful, rounded or finished, and more or less extended or
far-reaching action — a representation which is effected by action and
not mere narration. It is fitted by portraying events which excite
fear and pity in the mind of the observer to purify or purge these
feelings and extend and regulate their sympathy. It is thus a
homeopathic curing of the passions. Insofar as art in general
universalizes particular events, tragedy, in depicting passionate and
critical situations, takes the observer outside the selfish and
individual standpoint, and views them in connection with the general
lot of human beings. This is similar to Aristotle's explanation of the
use of orgiastic music in the worship of Bacchas and other deities: it
affords an outlet for religious fervor and thus steadies one's
religious sentiments.