Political Theory

Human Nature

1. Human Nature Not by SUBSTANCE but by ESSENCE; Not by BODY but by SOUL

2. OBJECTIVES Present a brief and precise biography of Aristotle. Discuss the principles of human nature in the Aristotlean point of view. Discuss Aristotle’s view on politics and government. Give an overview on Aristotle’s view on the strand of ethics in human nature.

3. Aristotle ( 384–322 B.C)

4. Aristotle Aristotle was born at Stagira in Chalcidice in northern Greece. His father was a doctor whose patients included Amyntas , King of Macedonia . At the age of 17, Aristotle went to Athens to study under Plato, and remained at the Academy for nearly twenty years until Plato’s death in 348/7 When Speusippus succeeded Plato as its head, Aristotle left Athens, lived for a while in Assos and Mytilene , and then was invited to return to Macedonia by Philip to tutor Alexander

5. Aristotle Aristotle returned to Athens in 335 at the age of 49, and founded his own philosophical school . He worked there for twelve years until Alexander’s death in 32 3, when the Athenians in strongly anti-Macedonian mood brought a formal charge of impiety against him . Aristotle escaped with his life to Chalcis, but died there in the following year at the age of 62. He married twice, and had a son, Nicomachus , by his second wife

6. Aristotle Aristotle’s philosophical interests covered an extremely wide area. He composed major studies of logic, ethics, and metaphysics , but also wrote on epistemology, physics, biology , meteorology, dynamics, mathematics, psychology , rhetoric, dialectic, aesthetics, and politics Many of his treatises constitute an attempt to see the topics studied through the perspective of one set of fundamental concepts and ideas.

7. Aristotle All reflect similar virtues: a careful weighing of arguments and considerations, acute insight, a sense of what is philosophically plausible , and a desire to separate and classify distinct issues and phenomena . They also exhibit considerable reflection on the nature of philosophical activity and the goals of philosophy itself .

8. The Human Nature “Man is a rational animal.’’ Aristotle

9. Illustration of the three kinds of soul

10. REASON Reason distinguishes man from other forms of life-possessing beings like plants and brutes.

11. Grades of Being Kinds of Soul MAN Rational Animals/Brutes Sensitive Plant/Vegetation Vegetative

12. QUESTION ON PLATO’S OTHER WORLDLINESS

13. Forms Material Plato

14. If forms are essence to things, how can they exist separated from things from things? If they cause of things, how can they are cause of things, how can exist in different world? Aristotle

15. Stability was an illusion Motion was an illusion Paramedis Heraclitus

16. The former world is unstable and transient realm of visible. The latter world intelligible composed of the eternally unchanging form, which themselves are poorly reflected in the transitory word of visible.

17. Distinction between Matter and Form. Matter Object’s matter is unique to that object. It is called the object’s “ thisness ” Matter is the principle of individuation. Form Forms are not separate entities. They embedded in particular things. A particular object must have matter and form. Its Universal? The objects form is called the “ whatnes ”.

18. Distinction between Matter and Form. Matter Form The form is a things essence, or nature It is related to the things function.

19. SUBSTANCE

20. The Four Causes 1 Material cause: what x is made of or comes from, for example, the bronze in a bronze statue of Hermes. 2 Formal cause: the shape or structure of x, what x is essentially, for example the Hermes-shape of a bronze statue of Hermes. 3 Efficient cause: what puts the form in the matter, for example, the sculpting of the sculptor Praxiteles as he en-formed the bronze with a Hermes-shape. 4 Final: the purpose or end of x, for example, the bronze statue of Hermes is for honouring Hermes.

21. Aristotle on Politics

22. POLITICS MORAL VALUE HAPPINESS The function or goal of every individual, so is the function of the state. He agree with P lato that humans are endowed of social instinct.

23. State The state (polis)is natural to human organization whose goal is to maximize its happiness for its citizen. In fact ,the state is more natural than a family because it is only the social climate produced by community can human nature be truly self-actualized.

24. Distinction between Nature and Convention SOPHIST Somewhat artificial Laws are natural to humans. Just as humans are naturally social, so is their desire to political body as innate disposition. Aristotle Different constitutional basis creates dfiferent kind of state. As long as citizens is designed for the cmmon well being ( eudaimonia ) of all its citizen.

25. Question on his Modified Democracy His division of labor within the state was as harsh as Plato’s great number of inhabitants of the state – perhaps the majority-would be slave. Aristotle provide a tortured argument trying to proved that individuals are natural slaves and s innate tools. Even those individual who are citizens but our laborers are debarred from full participation in the advantages of the citizenship. Freedom is severely restricted for all members of the polis.

26. Question on his Modified Democracy Aristotle believe that the desire the desire to accumulate wealth is based on natural instinct and should be allowed expression, although the state should control the excesses produced by giving free reign to that instinct. His political point of view is more attracted than Plato today but this advantage was diminished by Aristotle’s assumption that the wealth of the state will based on slave labor, by his disfranchisement of female citizen, by debasing the class of blue collar workers in his republic.

27. Ethics as a background to his study of Politics .

28. 1. A city state has as its goal well-being, and the ideal constitution is one in which every citizen achieves wellbeing. 2. In practice, *democracy is preferable to oligarchy because it is more stable and its judgements are likely to be wiser since individuals when grouped together have more wisdom than a few.

29. 3. The practice of slavery, with regard to both ‘ natural’ and ‘non-natural’ slaves required to till the soil and maintain the state (1 330a 32–3), is justifiable. 4. Plato’s ‘communist’ society of guardians in the Republic is to be condemned because it leads to social disturbances, undermines private property and friendship, which is the greatest safeguard against revolution’, and is unobtainable .

30. Perfectionist Goals

31. ? FAILURE -fails to spell this out or to specify in detail the distributional policies which are to be implemented by the wise rulers who hold power in his preferred constitution.

32. Politics Politics contains many influential remarks, such as those condemning the practice of lending money for profit and analysing the nature of revolutions, it is incomplete as a work of political theory

33. Politics It also exhibits some of the less attractive aspects of perfectionist theory: if people lack the abilities required for a life of excellence, they are natural slaves rightfully deprived of the basic freedoms enjoyed by those with higher-grade capacities. EXAMPLE

34. Politics In conclusion, Aristotle does not seriously address the intuitions of liberty or equality of treatment which run contrary to the demands of perfectionist theory in these cases .

35. Strands of Ethics

36. Strands of Ethics 1. It aims to give a reflective understanding of well being or the good life for humans.

37. Strands of Ethics 2. It suggests that well-being consists in excellent activity such as intellectual contemplation and virtuous actions stemming from a virtuous character. Virtuous action is what the person with practical wisdom would choose; and the practically wise are those who can deliberate successfully towards well-being. This might be termed the Aristotelian circle, as the key terms (well-being, virtue, and practical wisdom) appear to be inter-defined .

38. Strands of Ethics 3. It develops a theory of virtue (* arete ¯) which aims to explain the fact that what is good seems so to the virtuous. . This is a study in moral psychology and epistemology, involving detailed discussion of particular virtues involved in the good life.

39. Self Control Incontinence Self Indulgence

40. Human Nature and Ethics Sometimes it appears that the self-sufficient contemplation (of truth) by the individual sage constitutes the ideal good life, but elsewhere man is represented as a ‘political animal’ who needs friendship and other-directed virtues (such as courage, generosity , and justice) if he is to achieve human well being

41. Human Nature and Ethics On occasion, Aristotle seems to found his account of the good life on background assumptions about human nature , but elsewhere bases his account of human nature on what it is good for humans to achieve.

42. Human Nature and Ethics He remarks that the virtuous see what is good, but elsewhere writes that what is good is so because it appears good to the virtuous.