regarded as a philosopher of common sense: Plato diluted by common sense as Bertrand Russell quipped. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do not mix easily. In contrast to the idealistic Plato he is more interested in scientific investigations. He is not as distrustful of the evidence of the senses as was Plato, preferring theories of the natural world to metaphysical speculation. While respecting Plato, he could not accept his eternal, unchanging world of Forms. Rather, he thought of the Forms as metaphors that distract us from the empirical study of the natural world and the relationships between people. Yet, he could not entirely abandon Plato from whom he took the view that reality lies in form.
He has two questions for Plato: (a) If the Forms are essences of things, how can they exist separated from things? (b) If they are the cause of things, how can they exist in a different world? Aristotle concludes that Plato’s theory of two worlds is an intellectual disaster and that Forms are not separate entities but are embedded in particular things. They are in the world, not separated from it. Consequently, they are singulars, not universals. Forms are in a body and matter is what is unique to the object. All trees have the same form but no two trees have the same matter. Aristotle is also critical of Plato’s inability to explain motion and change. Unsurprisingly, Plato regarded change as a feature of the perceived world and permanence as a feature of a transcendental world. Aristotle argues that Plato cannot account for the causal relationships between the two worlds. Indeed, this problem bedevils all two-world theories: how does one world interact with the other? Nor can Plato’s Forms account for motion and change since the former are timeless and spaceless. Having renounced them, Aristotle faces the problem of how to introduce notions of stability into his philosophy. His answer involves a distinction between actuality and potentiality. Matter and form are represented by potentiality and actuality, as we can see in the example of an acorn. The acorn’s matter contains the potentiality of becoming an oak tree which is the acorn’s actuality.
Nature is, for Aristotle, a teleological system which strives towards perfection (rather than towards Plato’s transcendental ‘Good’). He suggests that perfection must exist in the telos towards which things strive. This he calls the Prime Mover and it is the only thing in the universe with no potentiality: it is pure actuality. The nature of things consists of an innate tendency to develop in a certain direction that demands an external cause. The only unmoved mover is the Prime Mover which is immaterial and pure actuality and engaged in eternal thought: a pure mind whose only object of thought is itself.
When Aristotle returns to mere mortals he struggles mightily with the concept of psyche. In his way of thinking perfect precedes imperfect, so psyche is a product of the perfect mind. Psyche is, however, inseparable from the human body: psyche is form, body is matter. All the powers of psyche (except nous: the power of abstract thought) have bodily organs and he ridicules those who characterise psyche as immaterial. He argues against Plato’s widely-held view of psyche which involves the absurd idea of an immaterial substance in the body but no explanation of how they interact. For Aristotle, then, possessing a psyche is like possessing a skill: psyche cannot be separated from the body.
Furthermore, mind and psyche are different. Mind is an independent, indestructible substance implanted within a psyche which moves the body and is characterised by sensation, feeling and motivation. Mind, on the other hand, has the higher function of thinking and has no relation to the body and the senses. Psyche contains rational and irrational elements. When we think rationally we are united through logic and valid reasoning; when we think irrationally we are separated from each other because we lack a common ground on which to conduct ourselves through language. As Aristotle says, we partake of the divine through the glory of rational thinking and, if successful, our egoism is eliminated and we find comfort in the greater force of intelligent community. Personal power resides in the capacity to think and act rationally.
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle emphasises his distance from Plato. Our object is not that we may know what virtue is, but that we may become virtuous. Humans are political animals, and while self-sufficiency is an important human achievement, it must be embedded in a web of social and political obligations since man is born for citizenship.
Humans are teleological creatures: their acts are performed for some purpose. The ultimate goal of human life is happiness and our function is to engage in an activity of the psyche which is in accordance with virtue and which follows a rational principle. Virtue takes two forms: intellectual and moral. A character is morally virtuous if it moves towards a ‘golden mean of moderation’. For example, when facing danger we can act in either of two extreme ways: in a cowardly or foolhardy fashion. The mean of moderation would be to act courageously and we learn to act courageously by the exercise of choice and trial and error elimination. Intellectual virtue derives from inheritance and education and the highest virtue is associated with the exercise of pure reason which is achieved through disinterested thought, the goal of which is philosophical wisdom. Since we are political animals we need to combine theorising with practical matters. Here Aristotle anticipates Kurt Lewin’s famous quip that there is nothing as practical as a good theory.
Sadly there are obstacles to the achievement of happiness. Before we can pursue happiness through philosophical activity we need: good friends, riches, political power, good health, good birth, good children, and leisure. While he acknowledges that there are alternatives to the philosophical life, Aristotle clearly favours a life based on a rational ‘I’. We may, for example, pursue a life of pleasure and amusement (like children and animals), or we may pursue a life of virtuous public service. He discounts the life of pleasure and amusement because it fails to elevate men above the animals and thus denies what is quintessentially human. He respects those who choose a life of virtuous public service but praises above all else the philosophical life because it informs the life of public service.
We reveal ourselves by the way of life we choose. Our choices should be based on careful deliberation and not on desire or impulse. We reveal our character by what we do voluntarily and for which we are responsible. Our virtue is especially revealed by rational control over our irrational emotions. If we cannot control our emotions we are immature and morally weak. In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle has much to say about the qualities of noble individuals who are good in the highest degree because they deserve more than the average person. They are pleased at honours that are conferred by good people, but they despise honours from unimportant people and on trifling grounds. When in danger they are unsparing in their lives, knowing that there are conditions in which life is not worth having. They are dignified towards people who enjoy a high position but unassuming towards those of the lower class. They are open in their hate and in their love, for they believe it is cowardly to conceal their feelings. They speak their thoughts because they tell the truth except when they speak ironically to vulgar people. They are people who possess beautiful and profitless things rather than profitable and useful ones. It is their duty to promote logic and noble rhetoric which seeks to perfect individuals by showing them better versions of themselves, whereas base rhetoric influences people in the direction of evil.
Obviously Aristotle’s description of noble individuals does not apply to the majority of people and so the question arises as to whether we can regard as morally enlightened a society that confines the noble philosophical life to the few. While Plato and Aristotle suffer no doubts about this issue, Stoics and Christians disagree arguing that virtue is for all people, and democrats agree although they add qualifications about power and property. Aristotle is clear: the aim of the State is to promote and produce ‘cultured, noble gentlemen’. After the French Revolution of 1789, industrialism, the world wars of the first half of the twentieth century, modernism and postmodernism, the days of the cultured, noble gentlemen have, for good or ill, passed.
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Why does cynicism have such a
