In the Phaedrus, Plato discusses the soul’s journey and the role of divine madness in achieving true insight and wisdom. — Wayfarer
(278d)I think it would be a big step, Phaedrus, to call him ‘wise’ because this is appropriate only for a god. The title ‘lover of wisdom’ or something of that sort would suit him better and would be more modest.
(277e)But the person who realises that in a written discourse on any topic there must be a great deal that is playful ...
Starting where Aristotle does, with man, do we know what it is to be a man? What is the final cause, the telos of man? The question asks us not simply to give an opinion or account of it, but to know it by having achieved it, by the completion of our telos. Aristotle begins by saying that all men by nature desire to know. Is the satisfaction of that desire our telos?
The question of the telos of man is the question of self-knowledge. Socrates said his human wisdom is knowledge of ignorance. This is not expressed as an opinion but as something he knows. Is Aristotle’s wisdom, like that of Socrates, human or is it divine?
But, with some caveats, the answer to the bolded is "yes." There are many ways to live a good, flourishing life, but the life of contemplation is highest and most divine. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think his reasoning is fairly straightforward ... — Count Timothy von Icarus
Ari did seem to assume the existence of some kind of supernatural beings, beyond the limits of human senses*1. But to me his "unmoved mover" sounds more like an abstract Nature-God than the Judeo deity, who walks in the garden with his creatures, and communicates his divine Will in no uncertain terms. In any case, I was using the term "to divine" in a colloquial metaphorical sense, not to be taken literally.Interesting comment on one sense of divine, but he is talking about divine beings. — Fooloso4
Ari did seem to assume the existence of some kind of supernatural beings, — Gnomon
But to me his "unmoved mover" sounds more like an abstract Nature-God than the Judeo deity — Gnomon
(Book Xll, Chapter 8)But whether one must set down one or more than one such independent thing, and hut ow many, must not go unnoticed...
But also admits to limits — Gnomon
Both of those paragons of sagacity also paradoxically expressed doubt about their own wisdom — Gnomon
Wisdom seems to require childish curiosity constrained by adult skepticism. — Gnomon
He probably didn't say that in so many words. But the common quote attributed to the "wise man" is an English paraphrase of the Greek original, intended to indicate that it's wise to not be too cocky about your all-knowingness. Especially on philosophy forums, where you will be called to account. :wink:One question on the link to note 3:where does Socrates say he knows nothing? I think it is a misquotation but would be glad to be shown that I am wrong. — Fooloso4
There are many ways to live a good, flourishing life, but the life of contemplation is highest and most divine. — Count Timothy von Icarus
{6} What in fact happened is witness to this. For it was when pretty much all the necessities of life, as well as those related to ease and passing the time, had been supplied that such wisdom began to be sought. So clearly we do not inquire into it because of its having another use, but just as a human |982b25| being is free, we say, when he is for his own sake and not for someone else, in the same way we pursue this as the only free science, since it alone is for its own sake. It is because of this indeed that the possession of this science might be justly regarded as not for humans, since in many ways the nature of humans is enslaved, so that, according to Simonides, “a god alone can have this |982b30| privilege,” and it is not fitting that a human should not be content to inquire into the science that is in accord with himself. If, then, there is something in what the poets say, and jealousy is natural to the divine, it would probably occur in this case most of all, |983a1|and all those who went too far [in this science] would be unlucky. The divine, however, cannot be jealous—but, as the proverb says, “Bards often do speak falsely.” Moreover, no science should be regarded as more estimable than this. — Aristotle, Metaphysics, 982b24, translated by CDC Reeve
But if happiness (eudomonia) consists in activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be activity in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be the virtue of the best part of us. Whether then this be the Intellect (nous), or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine, either as being itself also actually divine, or as being relatively the divinest part of us, it is the activity of this part of us in accordance with the virtue proper to it that will constitute perfect happiness; and it has been stated already* that this activity is the activity of contemplation — Nichomachean Ethics 7. 1. (1177a11)
it's wise to not be too cocky about your all-knowingness. — Gnomon
(Apology 21d)I reckoned as I was going that I am wiser than this man, for it is likely that neither of us knows anything noble and good, but he thinks he knows something, when he does not know, while I do not actually know.
But then it what sense can we call some person wise, as Aristotle does? — 013zen
(982a 20)We have, then, such and so many accepted opinions about wisdom and those who are wise. Now of these, the knowing of all things must belong to the one who has most of all the universal knowledge, since he knows in a certain way all the things that come under it; and these are just about the most difficult things for human beings to know, those that are most universal, since they are furthest away from the senses.
Namely, knowledge of universals or what is common to all particular instances.
It seems as though Aristotle is telling us what he takes wisdom to consist in. — 013zen
Your translation is slightly different than mine — 013zen
Perhaps it will be clearer if we take the opinions which we hold about the wise man.
(1038b)Again, thinghood [ousia] is what not attributed to any underlying thing, but the universal is always attributed to some underlying thing.
And in general it follows—if the human |1038b30| and whatever is said of things in that way are substance—that none of the things in their account is substance of any of them or is separate from them or in something else. I mean, for example, that there is not some animal—or any other of the things in the account—beyond the particular ones. — Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1038b30, translated by CDC Reeve
Activity, then, is the existence of the thing not in the way in which we say that it exists potentially. And we say, for example, that Hermes exists potentially in the wood and the half-line in the whole, because it could be abstracted from it, and also we say that even someone who is not contemplating is a scientific knower if he is capable of contemplating. And by contrast we say that other things exist actively. What we wish to say is clear from the particular cases by induction, |1048a35| and we must not look for a definition of everything, but be able to comprehend the analogy, namely, that as what is building is in relation to what is capable of building, and what is awake is in relation to what is asleep, |1048b1| and what is seeing is in relation to what has its eyes closed but has sight, and what has been shaped out of the matter is in relation to the matter, and what has been finished off is to the unfinished. Of the difference exemplified in this analogy let the activity be marked off by the first part, the potentiality by the second. |1048b5| But things are said to actively be, not all in the same way, but by analogy—as this is in this or to this, so that is in that or to that. For some are as movement in relation to a capacity [or a potential], and the others as substance to some sort of matter. — ibid. 1048a30
Those opinions, as he goes on to discuss, vary. They cannot all be his opinions. We should not take any of them to be his opinion in more than a tentative and preliminary way, subject to further consideration. — Fooloso4
Metaphysics is the question of being, or ousia. Being is not a universal. — Fooloso4
While I agree, recall that modern culture is generally nominalist and empiricist. There are still advocates of scholastic realism and hylomorphism but they're mainly Catholic philosophers or specialised academics. (See this index.) As far as the mainstream of philosophy is concerned, Aristotelian metaphysics was retired pretty well around the same time as Aristotelian physics, with the scientific revolution and the abandonment of geocentrism. — Wayfarer
This is a theme I have been pursuing but I'm woefully under-prepared to really tackle it. But it's based on my belief that the decline of scholastic metaphysics was a momentous and generally calamitous change in Western culture. I'm always harking back to the supposedly spiritual elements of Greek philosophy but they get pretty short shrift on this forum and elsewhere. — Wayfarer
Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence. — Richard Weaver
Thomists and other critics of Ockham have tended to present traditional realism, with its forms or natures, as the solution to the modern problem of knowledge. It seems to me that it does not quite get to the heart of the matter. A genuine realist should see “forms” not merely as a solution to a distinctly modern problem of knowledge, but as part of an alternative conception of knowledge, a conception that is not so much desired and awaiting defense, as forgotten and so no longer desired. Characterized by forms, reality had an intrinsic intelligibility, not just in each of its parts but as a whole. With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble.
In short, the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality. Preoccupied with overcoming Cartesian skepticism, it often seems as if philosophy’s highest aspiration is merely to secure some veridical cognitive events. Rarely sought is a more robust goal: an authoritative and life-altering wisdom.
As it happens, the very first post I entered on the predecessor forum to this one, was about what I now understand to be Platonic realism, i.e. that abstracta (in that case numbers), are real but not materially existent. I've discussed and debated the issue many times but I find that it's neither well understood nor widely supported - principally because it is obviously incompatible with physicalism. — Wayfarer
I've learned that there's been a minor revival of interest in Aristotle's biology, due to the inescapable teleological features of, well, all living things. — Wayfarer
We have disagreed over Gerson in the past. As a devoted student of Plotinus, I cannot fault his view of Plato since Gerson follows Plotinus' reading.
But I object to Gerson's picture of Aristotle as an anti-naturalist. It elides Plotinus' criticism of Aristotle.
Gerson's version of materialism ignores the limits of the universal that Aristotle discusses in the Metaphysics, which my quote above is taken from. — Paine
In other words, we may call things "forms" not because they are the same as the form of a body, but because they either cause that form, or are caused by that form.Now names are thus used in two ways: either according as many things are proportionate to one, thus for example "healthy" predicated of medicine and urine in relation and in proportion to health of a body, of which the former is the sign and the latter the cause: or according as one thing is proportionate to another, thus "healthy" is said of medicine and animal, since medicine is the cause of health in the animal body. And in this way some things are said of God and creatures analogically, and not in a purely equivocal nor in a purely univocal sense. (ST I, 13, 5)
In the Aristotelian tradition, forms are neither Platonic Ideas nor physical arrangements, but the actuality of what was potential (hyle -- poorly translated "matter"). Since "elementary particles" are not immutable, but can interact and decay to form other particles, they themselves are a combination of form (actuality = what they are now) and hyle (potentiality = what they can become). Their potential aspect is imperfectly described by the laws of physics (e.g. quantum electrodynamics and chromodynamics). See my article, "A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle"But, truthfully, I think a modern notion of forms is defensible. The forms are simply the arrangement of quarks, leptons, and bosons that make up protons and neutrons, or the form that a carbon atom takes, etc — 013zen
Since "elementary particles" are not immutable, but can interact and decay to form other particles, they themselves are a combination of form — Dfpolis
See my article, "A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle" — Dfpolis
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