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Philosophy 100

Philosophy 100. Aristotle Happiness, Virtue, and The Golden Mean. Aristotle, 384-322 B.C. Studied 20 years with Plato at The Academy, starting at age 17. Born to Nicomachus, a physician, in Macedonia. Founded his own school the Lyceum, known as Peripatetic (walking place). Aristotle.

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Philosophy 100

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  1. Philosophy 100 Aristotle Happiness, Virtue, and The Golden Mean

  2. Aristotle, 384-322 B.C. • Studied 20 years with Plato at The Academy, starting at age 17. • Born to Nicomachus, a physician, in Macedonia. • Founded his own school the Lyceum, known as Peripatetic (walking place).

  3. Aristotle • He tutored Alexander the Great when Alexander was a young teen. • Aristotle was charged with impiety in Athens, and left to live in Chalcis, in the eastern Agean sea, and established a new school on the island of Lesbos, teaching women philosophy.

  4. Aristotle • Aristotle preferred the physical, concrete, material world, and the senses. • Biology was his primary subject. • Truth for Aristotle is changing, imperfect, and living. • Aristotle is called “The Father of Science”.

  5. Aristotle • Humans are political and social beings. • Moral action is possible only in society and community of our fellow humans. • To be human is to live with other humans, and interaction. • The idea of goodness is part of everyday, practical activity of human life.

  6. Aristotle • Aristotle’s approach is teleological, which means the connection between right action and the result or end of right action. • The good, is “that which everything aims” in art and science. • All of our actions have goals or aims. • The end goal for humans is happiness.

  7. Aristotle • Happiness is an end in itself, never chosen as a means to something else. • Happiness is practical, understandable. • Happiness is final, self sufficient. • Happiness is both particular and universal.

  8. Aristotle • Ideas, concepts, or forms do not exist outside of material objects. • Knowledge can be found in the world of the senses, natural world, physical/material world. • The unity of matter and the forms. • Ideas cannot transcend matter.

  9. Aristotle • Principles and theories – knowledge of quality. (Abstract, universal) • Causality – why something happens (Scientific) explains 3. Senses and Experiences – particular, concrete, immediate

  10. Aristotle • The world is constantly in a state of flux, change: motion/growth/decay/generation/corruption • Change is a natural process and product of life. Everything is in process of becoming and dying.

  11. Aristotle • There are 4 causes: • Formal – what a thing is • Material – that of which it is made • Efficient – how and why it is made • Final – teleos – the end purpose or goal • For Aristotle there is no first mover or creator • Morality is developed out of everyday life.

  12. Aristotle • “Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance to reason.” Actualizing your highest potential for good using reason • The soul is your mind or psyche • Two parts to the soul: rational and irrational • Irrational: nutrition, growth, common to all species – animalistic: connected with the body • Rational: seeks the best, obeys principles, self control, self discipline – reason, humanity:mind

  13. Aristotle • Virtue: actualizing your highest potential for good using reason; deliberate choice in accordance with the mean; virtue is excellence, the best, the highest • There is deliberate choice which implies human responsibility

  14. Aristotle • 2 types of virtue: Moral and intellectual • Moral Virtue: habits developed out of our nature through living life; adaptations: learn to do by doing: the practical everyday world; The mean between two extremes, habitual choice of actions between two vices: excess and deficiency

  15. Aristotle • The Golden Mean is the mean between two extremes, may be relative for each individual. • Society sets our mean, by use of the law. • Acts which have no mean and are intrinsically bad in and of themselves: • Spite, Envy, adultery, murder, theft, lying

  16. Aristotle • Intellectual virtue: philosophic contemplation & wisdom, thinking, knowledge, takes time, experience – understanding • A good life is a happy life, a good person is a morally virtuous person • The ultimate life is happy, moral, and philosophic

  17. Aristotle • Aristotle recognizes deliberate choice in humans, which puts responsibility on humanity. • There are voluntary and involuntary acts. • Voluntary acts are acts based on deliberate choice and total human responsibility. • Involuntary acts are acts from ignorance, poor teaching, external compulsion, or avoidance of a greater evil.

  18. Aristotle • 2 types of acts/choices: • Instrumental – acts done as a means for other ends, externalized • Intrinsic – acts done for their own sake, internalized

  19. Aristotle’s Golden Mean EXCESS____mean________ DEFICIENCY moral virtue Honor/Vanity_proper pride__humility Confidence_____Courage____Fear Pleasure______temperance___Pain Give $_______liberality_____take $ Easy going_temperate__irascible/hot temper

  20. Aristotle • “the right action at the right time, to the right person for the right reason” This is knowing when you are morally virtuous

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