------- VersaTerm-Link Mail Archive ------- X-Date: Fri, 25 Mar 94 12:46:45 EST X-User: "Lance Fletcher" X-Mbox: Mailbox [aristotle] ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 11:35:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "Whit Blauvelt" > "It seems to me that if activities have ends, this is only by social convention > or agreement." > > If this were so, and if Aristotle were attempting to develop an ethical theory > that admitted of application beyond the context of his own society, then his > project is doomed to failure. An infant cries for milk. Is the suggestion that 1. This isn't an activity (crying) for an end (milk) because the infant has not learned (and was not born with) our social construction of "ends" and "activities"? or 2. It is only an activity towards an ends if someone with such a social construction is present to "interpret" it as such? What if it is a micro-organism in need of nutrition for survival swimming towards a food source? How can it be coherent not to describe this as an "activity" towards an "ends" which, from the standpoint of the actor, is "good"? I'd submit that there's a substantiality to such descriptions which is not culturally relative. Whit Blauvelt ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 11:37:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: NE: Ostwald text, I.1 From: "Peter Orlowski" /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 11:37:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: NE: Ostwald text, I.1 From: "Peter Orlowski" On Wed, 23 Mar 1994, james schmidt wrote: > 7. In all these cases the ends of the master sciences are preferable to the > ends of the subordinate sciences, since the latter are pursued for the sake > of the former. > > I take this explain why Politics is superior to Economics [the science of the > household], though this is not worked out until the Politics. Another reason why politics is higher than economics: Teach a parrot to say "supply" and "demand" and you have yourself an economist. But since parrots cannot kiss babies (no lips) or press the flesh (no hands), and since they are not capable of lying, a parrot could never be a politician. :-) /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 11:11:06 -0600 Subject: NE: 1094a1 ch 1 (i) From: "Richard Diamond" Some matters of translation. Larry Hauser writes: > Sorry I came in late, but neither of these translations I have has > "they" (= those who think every art & inquiry, etc. aims at > some good?) in it. Those translators avoid the difficulty by turning the active (middle, actually, but with active sense) verb into a passive verb -- i.e. they gloss it over. This is a bad thing to do! Recall that the Latin also renders the verb actively (enunciaverunt) rather than passively (enunciati sunt). ** Lindsey Martin writes: > to say that in greek of the classic and later periods 'apofnmi' has a > negative meaning, i.e., ='deny'. I am not suggesting that we > abandon the Aristotle himself uses apophEmi to mean denial. However, that's not the verb he's using here. He's using apophainO (first aorist, middle, 3rd plural) which means in the active "to make known", "to show by reasoning" and in the middle "to define" (that's how LSJ takes the line in question). Actually, this makes me want to strengthen the verb I use to render the word to something like "shown" which leaves open the manner in which they do it (i.e., by example, by definition, etc.) *** Thanks to Karl Fredrickson for posting the Ostwald text. It is one I am not familiar with. It shares the common difficulty of the available translations of interpreting important questions for the reader. For example, is Ethics an art or a science? This is a valid question to ask, and at least in Book I Aristotle's Greek does not give the answer. Ostwald will make that choice for us soon enough apparently, as he has already made "bridle-making" an art when Aristotle himself does not (look at what he does with text 6) and look ahead to 1094b1-5 or so, and see what he does. *** Richard Diamond diamond@acad.udallas.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 11:23:42 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "schwarze steven jon" On Wed, 23 Mar 1994, Peter Orlowski wrote: > Another way of drawing the distinction is this: ends exist independently > of our willing them, i.e. they do not originate in our willing them, but > pruposes take their origin from our willing them, i.e. purposes would not > be if agents did not give them being. makes sense--yet, even if we don't will an end, to what extent does it exist "independently" of "us" at all? I don't quite have the right terminology here, but I'm trying to get at the notion of convention--not something willed, yet not independent. > > > So at the very least > > I would emphasize that if activities have ends, those ends can > > change as social practice changes. I am afraid that A will get > > the ends of various activities so fixed in mind that they will > > become "objective facts" out of which one can build an ethical > > empire. > > Okay, I have been talking about an axe, because it is simpler to follow, > but let me take an art and its activity. The end of the art of medicine > is health. Now you want to say that this is merely conventional, but I > maintain that Ari. thinks it is by the very nature of medicine and > doctoring. > It is > because of the NATURE and very MEANING of the arts that they have their > ends, or better yet, it is the end which determines the very NATURE of the > activity, and the activity languishes when the end is frustrated. > Convention has little to do with it. makes sense too--but might we disagree with Aristotle here? I think the comments Peter responds to here (sorry, can't remember who) are important ones. To what extent do the ends of activities become "fixed," "objective facts" for Aristotle? Do not activities often have multiple ends that exist simultaneously, or in contradiction? Are there other activities or arts that are tougher, borderline cases (that is, activities in which the "nature" is not as clear-cut as medicine)? Since the tenor of our discussion has seemed to favor "reading with" A rather than reading against him, I'm a bit hesitant about challenging the whole teleological framework after the first 8 lines. But I think exploring what a text "leaves out" is just as important as understanding what it "puts in." sjs Steve Schwarze Dept. of Communication Studies University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 12:40:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: RE NE 1.(1) From: "Whit Blauvelt" > Everything aims at the good, so the > main problem of ethics is to spell out what the (true) good is. That > done, it will be obvious that the way to live is to aim for it, to > orient our lives toward obtaining it. Which is pretty much the route he > takes. Altho, to anticipate, knowing what the true good is and acting on that knowledge may turn out to be quite different (i.e., akrasia). And, even if it is "obvious that the way to live is to aim for it," this leaves open the question of _how to aim_. For an ethics to be practical, it must either address this problem, or maintain that this is not variable, that somehow aiming for us is built-in and not adjustable. Again, to go too far ahead, we may see that A is as concerned with gap between recognizing the good and acting on that recognition, as he is with the question of how to recognize the good. (But I don't mean to suggest that these are cleanly separate problems). We've both gotten ahead of the discussion. May we resume this when the slow reading is a bit futher along? Whit Blauvelt ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 10:07:14 -0800 Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "Lindsey Thomas Martin" >I am interested in Peter Orlowski's distinction between purposes and >ends. It seems that to him (to A also?) people have purposes >but activities (techne) arts, ets have ends. I think--hoping that he will answer for himself as well--that Mr Orlowski's point is that a general, for example, has a proper end qua general but may also have other purposes, some of which may conflict with that end. (Mr) Lindsey Thomas Martin (lmartin@sfu.ca) Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review (dialogue@sfu.ca) & Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science (604) 291-4979; Fax: (604) 291-4443 EAA 2024, Simon Fraser University Burnaby BC V5A 1S6 Canada. ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 13:45:09 -0500 Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "DanLusthaus" >An infant cries for milk. Is the suggestion that > >1. This isn't an activity (crying) for an end (milk) because the infant >has not learned (and was not born with) our social construction of "ends" >and "activities"? > >or > >2. It is only an activity towards an ends if someone with such a social >construction is present to "interpret" it as such? A baby is not crying "for" milk, a baby is crying because it is uncomfortable, feeling the pain of hunger. Eventually it will come to associate the comfort of milk with the alleviation of that pain, but the teleology is a later construction, not the initiating impulse or cause. That is evident from the fact that "milk" is not the only reason that babies cry. They cry when alone, when left in soiled diapers, when they have an airbubble, when they bump into things, etc. - i.e., when they feel some sort of discomfort or pain. That's why parents often try various things to quiet the crying; "we" assume the crying is for milk, and then the baby rejects the bottle (or breast) and keeps on crying. We then search for the cause of the discomfort and seek to alleviate it. The tendency to define things (i.e., the world) in teleological terms may be comforting for some, but a distortion nonetheless. Dan Lusthaus Bates College dlusthau@abacus.bates.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 14:37:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "Peter Orlowski" On Wed, 23 Mar 1994, DanLusthaus wrote: > A baby is not crying "for" milk, a baby is crying because it is > uncomfortable, feeling the pain of hunger. Wouldn't Ari. say the end was nutrition, even if the baby had not the purpose? > Eventually it will come to > associate the comfort of milk with the alleviation of that pain, but the > teleology is a later construction, not the initiating impulse or cause. I think this is not Ari. position. (I think teleology is the wrong word anyway, given its Wolffian or Kantian implications.) > The tendency to define things (i.e., the world) in teleological terms may > be comforting for some, but a distortion nonetheless. This is way off the text. Aristotle clearly thinks that things aim at the good and act for ends. Is it approporiate to dispute this when we have not fully explained 1) WHAT HE MEANS BY THIS and 2) why this is true? I thought the spirit of slow reading was to assume that the author could teach us something. Your statement might be more appropriate for the Kant list, regarding "as-if" teleology. /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 14:45:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "Peter Orlowski" > Since the tenor of our discussion has seemed to favor "reading with" > A rather than reading against him, I'm a bit hesitant about challenging the > whole teleological framework after the first 8 lines. But I think > exploring what a text "leaves out" is just as important as understanding > what it "puts in." In the spirit of slow-reading, should we assume that the text leaves anything out before we have seen it through? Show we assume that what we think it should include is appropriately included here in the first chapter of the Ethics, or even in the NE at all? > makes sense too--but might we disagree with Aristotle here? I think the > comments Peter responds to here (sorry, can't remember who) are important > ones. To what extent do the ends of activities become "fixed," > "objective facts" for Aristotle? Do not activities often have multiple ends > that exist simultaneously, or in contradiction? Are there other > activities or arts that are tougher, borderline cases (that is, activities in > which the "nature" is not as clear-cut as medicine)? It is important to be clear what Ari. is NOT saying. He is NOT saying, for instance, that things act AS IF they had ends. We must free ourselves as much as possible from forcing our own ideas upon the text. I am all for saying what the text leaves out, in order to understand what it does say. When a boundary (definition) is set on anything, we must exclude as well as include. I think we should resist the temptation to say that Ari. is wrong because he does not share our prejudices however. That attitude will only handicap our ability to appreciate the full power of the doctrine. We may prematurely deny him answers to questions he is capable of answering. /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare On Wed, 23 Mar 1994, schwarze steven jon wrote: > > > On Wed, 23 Mar 1994, Peter Orlowski wrote: > > > Another way of drawing the distinction is this: ends exist independently > > of our willing them, i.e. they do not originate in our willing them, but > > pruposes take their origin from our willing them, i.e. purposes would not > > be if agents did not give them being. > > makes sense--yet, even if we don't will an end, to what extent does it > exist "independently" of "us" at all? I don't quite have the right > terminology here, but I'm trying to get at the notion of convention--not > something willed, yet not independent. > > > > > > So at the very least > > > I would emphasize that if activities have ends, those ends can > > > change as social practice changes. I am afraid that A will get > > > the ends of various activities so fixed in mind that they will > > > become "objective facts" out of which one can build an ethical > > > empire. > > > > Okay, I have been talking about an axe, because it is simpler to follow, > > but let me take an art and its activity. The end of the art of medicine > > is health. Now you want to say that this is merely conventional, but I > > maintain that Ari. thinks it is by the very nature of medicine and > > doctoring. > > > It is > > because of the NATURE and very MEANING of the arts that they have their > > ends, or better yet, it is the end which determines the very NATURE of the > > activity, and the activity languishes when the end is frustrated. > > Convention has little to do with it. > > > > sjs > > Steve Schwarze > Dept. of Communication Studies > University of Iowa > Iowa City, IA 52242 > > ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 14:07:55 -0600 (CST) Subject: translation of diorthOtikon From: "Richard C. Taylor" <6297TAYLORR@vmsf.csd.mu.edu> Irwin trans. p.122: Aristotle 1131a1: "Another species concerns rectification in transactions...." This is in reply to Michael's question. R. Taylor ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 15:27:34 EST Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "Sean A. Kelsey" "The tendency to define things (i.e., the world) in teleological terms may be comforting for some, but a distortion nonetheless." The tendency is a distortion only if to act for an end implies acting for an end that we perceive and recognize as an end. It is not clear that Aristotle, at any rate, takes acting for an end to imply this. Which raises the very pertinent question: what can acting for an end mean if it doesn't imply this? Perhaps some of Mr. Orlowski's remarks about the axe and the art of medicine could be developed into an explicit answer to this question (though I don't myself see how in detail). Sean Kelsey ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 12:56:43 -0800 Subject: Electronic NE From: harrawoo@violet.berkeley.edu The NE and most of Aristotle's (and Plato's and others') works is also available electronically from the Eris Project, via Gopher. I got mine by going into the University of Notre Dame library gopher, and downloading was pretty straightforward. Michael Harrawood ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 15:31:55 CST Subject: Re: The question of separation From: "carol poster" Dear Lance, It does sound like NE seems to be turning into a main Aristotle list and Categories is getting a bit overwhelmed. I suspect that logic is a slower and more contemplative field and ethics more voluble and passionate. So I would think NE should stay as the main list, and Categories as a seperate entity. re: Organon: I don't think we should try to do it all at once -- but go through it sequentially, Categories first, then On Interpretation, etc. I really like the slow reading method -- but find it works best if we limit our number of texts. Thanks for offering the options ... Regards Carol ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 14:41:41 -0800 Subject: Re: NE: Translation From: "Paul Bullen" I think that by far the best translation (aside from a few questionable translations of technical terms) and edition is that by Terence Irwin. It is published by Hackett (Indianapolis, 1985) and is sold for about $8. It includes a critical commentary and an encylopedic glossary. The translation is quite literal without being obstinate. His outline is intelligent. It is not dominated by the somewhat arbitrary traditional chapter and book divisions. In any case, it is always best to have several translations. * Paul Bullen * Political Science * University of Chicago * Chicago, Illinois 60637 * BUL1@midway.uchicago.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 14:41:52 -0800 Subject: Re: secondary lit on Aristotle on moral responsibility From: "Paul Bullen" May I recommend: Arthur W.H. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility, Oxford, 1960; Chicago reprint in the 1970s. Also some of his later journal articles. Richard Sorabji, Necessity, Cause, and Blame: Perspectives on Aristotle's Theory, Cornell, 1980. * Paul Bullen * Political Science * University of Chicago * Chicago, Illinois 60637 * BUL1@midway.uchicago.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 14:42:02 -0800 Subject: Re: Introduction From: "Paul Bullen" >I'm doing phd on Aristotle's theory of particular justice and the >issue of analogy. I also defend Aquinas's reading of Aristotle. >I'm interested in Aristotle/Aquinas connexions. >I don't know what I hope to produce or gain from the List. >michael greenwood I am finishing up a PhD on Arisotle on "equity". * Paul Bullen * Political Science * University of Chicago * Chicago, Illinois 60637 * BUL1@midway.uchicago.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 18:04:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: This is actually an important subject! From: "Laura Wedner" The issue of sex difference is, in my opinion, not at all a trivial subject in these first few chapters of the NE. [Although it seems to have absolutely nothing to do with gender, there I will agree!] The word man does not appear in my translation [Ross (Urmsom), rev. Barnes] until Chapter 2. But even so, and even if the word used for man is anthropos, it is not clear how or whether this text (at least, the first three chapters, which is all I have re-read for the purposes of this slow reading list) relates to females. First of all, Greek words are either masculine, feminine, or neuter, and it is no surprise that the word "anthropos" is masculine. Women in ancient Greece are not as human as men are; neither are children or slaves. This is because to be human is to be rational--to use a phrase of A's from ch. 3, NE: "those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle." But women are not like this, according to A and other ancient Greeks. So, you ask, what are women? Well, they are still human, but like children the rational part of their souls has not been fully formed. They are somewhere between man and animal; a bridge between nature and culture, since they possess parts of each. Someone, I forget who, was earlier arguing that if women are "free," then there is no reason that what A is saying should not apply to them. Unfortunately, there are no "free" women in ancient Greece--certainly, there are women who belong to "free" men and there are slave women. But even women belonging to free men MUST, unless they are hetaira (prostitutes of a specific variety) or foreigners, belong to a man either as slave or as a wife or relative for whom he is responsible. In fact, paradoxically the "slave" women have more physical freedom than the "free" wives or relatives of wealthy free men, who are confined in a women's quarters and who are perceived as most virtuous when they set foot outside the house as seldom as possible. There is no reason to think that Aristotle would "automatically" include women as part of his discussion about rationally thinking "anthropoi" since women are not rational, they are not concerned with ethics since they are physically/mentally incapable of philosophical inquiry or political participation, and there is no reason to suppose that A is specifically including them. In fact, in Ch. 3 the phrases A uses indicate that he is talking only about men--could not be talking about women at all. Women are not educated; women are not the sort of students who could use knowledge in the way A is suggesting; women do not fully possess the rational principle that A desires of his audience. In light of this, I do not think that discussions of sex difference or of the inclusiveness of A's language are atopical, uninteresting, or misguided. I, for one, find it very interesting that the questions A is about to discuss are only questions for educated men. This is not simply because I want to accuse him of sexism--this is already obvious and not a very interesting point alone. Instead, I find it interesting to consider what criteria A finds necessary to learning about ethics. In considering this text as contemporary readers, we might assume that both men and women and not just "free" ones are capable of being rational, but we might still wonder whether this assumption is a necessary one, and if so what its implications are. I hope I have been clear about why I find this issue important, and I hope others will consider it as we proceed with our reading. -lwedner@emory.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 18:32:36 -0500 Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "DanLusthaus" Peter Orlowski protests: >Wouldn't Ari. say the end was nutrition, even if the baby had not the >purpose? >This is way off the text. Aristotle clearly thinks that things aim at the >good and act for ends. Is it approporiate to dispute this when we have >not fully explained 1) WHAT HE MEANS BY THIS and 2) why this is true? I >thought the spirit of slow reading was to assume that the author could >teach us something. 1. I didn't introduce the discussion of ends/purposes/teleology, it was going when I jumped in. 2. slow reading does not mean - at least to me - that one silently acquiesces to everything the author claims, without a critical thought. As an author makes claims, one SHOULD propose all the counter-cases, all opposing evidence, issues that the position the author stakes out must address successfully if it is to be acceptable. And so on. It is Ar. who begins his text by invoking the notion of aims, and treating these as organizing, primary principles. It is not only fair, but necessary that this be questioned. Slow reading means taking the time to question. 3. That doesn't mean impatience. We will wait for Ar. to answer the objections. In the meantime, we will mark the objections. If he doesn't address them before he's done, we'll have to evaluate that as well. 4. To Larry Hauser's dichotomy between whether ends are teleological or social constructions, my example of the crying baby (actually that wasn't my example either, it was already under discussion) would reject that as a false dichotomy. The crying expresses a discomfort. That the discomfort can be soothed does not mean that the *purpose* of the crying is the object providing that soothing. The relation between an action and its effect can, then, be defined either as (1) teleological (telos, by the way, is a Greek, not a German word, with due respects to Kant) - meaning the goal is the cause/purpose of the action (e.g., "nutrition" is the cause of babies crying), or (2) efficient causality, meaning that, the effects derive from the efficient power of the cause, which necessarily precedes its effect. Thus the crying is caused by discomfort, which incidentally may be related to nutrition, but also may have other efficient causes. 5. It is not too early to ask these questions, but too early to answer them. Let's read on. Dan Lusthaus Bates College dlusthau@abacus.bates.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 18:32:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: LAST WORD ON GENDER NEUTERED LANGUAGE HERE AT ARISTOTLE... From: "Peter Orlowski" I hope. Below is the administrators invitation to move it to her list. /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 14:29:55 -0500 (EST) From: Sharon Shea To: Peter Orlowski Cc: women@world.std.com Subject: Re: Gender neutered language Yes, you are welcome to have a discussion on gendered neutered language here. Personally, I think some of it is necessary, and sometimes it gets ridiculous, depending on context and circumstances. Should make an interesting conversation. Good luck. -Sharon administrator, women ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 18:56:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: women, slaves, Rhetoric, men, humans From: "Laura Wedner" On Wed, 23 Mar 1994, Peter Orlowski wrote: > This discussion regarding gender neutered words is now been conducted on the > WOMEN@world.std.com list. Please respond there. The moderators of this > list prefer it that way. I hope my most recent post makes clear why I think this is a topic worth considering for anyone reading the NE as well. > Regarding ancient greek philosophy and just attitudes regarding women, Ms. > Nichols argues convincingly in her book "Citizen and Statesmen" that > Aristotle considered the household to be ruled by political rule, which > for Aristotle means ruling in turn, so that neither man nor woman is head > of house, but they take turns ruling, depending on the circumstance, much > as in a greek democratic state, citizens take turns governing. Men tend > to rule when acquisition is needed and women tend to rule when > preservation is needed. This is based on actual texts on Ari. and it I have not read this book by Nichols, but my understanding of the rule of the ancient Greek household was that women did, in fact, have a large degree of responsibility for the smooth running of the household. But they had no power in terms of running the family. The household and the family unit are totally different concepts for ancient Greeks than they are for us today. The women's role in running the household gives her no more "political power" than would be befitting for the head slave--this is pretty much her role, to be the boss of all the other household slaves. I have no idea what is meant by "acquisition" and "preservation," but it makes sense that it women are not to spend much time outdoors or go to the marketplace, that men or slaves would be the persons most likely to acquire necessary household items. > remarkably similar to recent feminist philosophy of the nature of the > feminine, of the nurturing and person rapport that women are so wonderful > at and that many men find so difficult. Recent feminist philosophy encompasses an extremely broad set of arguments and perspectives on the "nature of the feminine." In fact, many feminists would be loath to assert that there is any such nature. I see no reason to believe, as you (? seem to ?) assert, that women are good at nurturing and men are not. What is your evidence for this? Is this an essential part of being a female? Or is it a part of gender roles constructed in society? I do not think this is irrelevant to Aristotle, again, because Aristotle seems to find essential differences between men and women based on sex, and these differences at least affect the composition of the audience A is addressing in the first three chapters of the NE. ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 16:34:49 -0800 Subject: women, slaves, Rhetoric, men, humans From: "Paul Bullen" I would be grateful for the reference for the passage in Rhetoric in which Aristotle is said to consider women as similar to slaves? I do not recall seeing such a passage. In the Politics Book I Arisotle distinguishes women from slaves and criticizes the non-Greeks for not doing so. He says that while the relationship between master and slave is despotic or masterly the relationship between free husband and free wife is "political." (In the Nicomachean Ethics the relationship is characterized as "aristocratic.") Aristotle does believe that there is a universal and natural pattern of rulers and ruled and that the husband-wife relationship is an instance of that pattern: the man is the head of the family, etc. But the woman is still free (unless she happens to also be a slave, something not entailed in being a woman). I do not think that any of I have said is controversial, but I can provide more precise references if necessary. On the question of anthropos and person, it seems that when speaking of a species, 'person' would not work. The traditional use of the generic 'man' certainly would. If one wanted to have a conventional way of indicating whether 'anthropos' or 'ane'r were being used in the Greek, one could usually use 'human being' (or just 'human') and 'man' respectively. One could also speak of 'man' 'a man' and 'males' and 'females.' (It personally think 'people' is an acceptable plural for 'person' in come contexts; in others 'persons'--I am speaking here as a matter of general English usage and not what is necessarily best for translating Aristotle.) It is probably difficult to agree on these matters before hand. I think that context will allow people to be understood despite different habits, especially now that this issue has been aired. * Paul Bullen * Political Science * University of Chicago * Chicago, Illinois 60637 * BUL1@midway.uchicago.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 20:37:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: HALL@wvsvax.wvnet.edu Peter and others: The ax has an end because someone designed it for that purpose and others use it for that purpose; this is its customary use. The ax as an object doesn't intend this and cannot use itself for this purpose. There is certainly a developmental aspect to the natural world, but I hesitate to call it an end except in a metaphorical way "The end of the acorn is the oak" etc. Activities are indeed intentional medicine has health as its end, but this may be because we DEFINE medicine as any activity the object of which is health. It is not as though first there is the activity and then WE DISCOVER what its natural end is. With the ax and other objects we may even infer what the end is, i.e. how they fit into the lives of those who use them. Anthropologists make such inferences all the time; sometimes they are right, sometimes they learn better later. This begins to remind me of the finding the clock in the desert argument, but I fear that this sort of reasoning is implicit in the concept of telos. I am probably thinking ahead, but I do expect A to tell us that men and women have different ends (I think the question of inclusive/exclusive language is important) AND that he will imply that this is just part of the natural world. Well I for one think gender is a social construction, just like ENDS. Bob Hall, West Virginia State College ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 20:45:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: "wombed man" From: "BROWN PHILIP H" > The whole question of this use of "man" has always struck me as off-base. > After all, "woman" comes from "wombed man." Perhaps we should prefer > "man" as the general case and "unwombed man" for the male, "woman" for > the female? In any case the very term "woman" presupposes that we are > talking about a type of man--indeed picks out that type as, arguably, > being advantaged and augmented by its unique endowment. > > Whit > > "Woman" comes from OE "wifman," which in turn comes from "wif" (female) and "man" (man, human being). The pronunciation of "wifman" started to shift to the current pronunciation in the Middle Ages. "Womb" has a different etymology. Phil ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 19:49:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dancing Angels From: "felija00" I signed on to a reading of Aristotle's Ethics. I am finding out how many "philosophers" can dance on the head of a pin. It's been fun. It has a nice beat and my friends seemed to like it, let's get on with the task. With that done I have a question. What good is the good? Does Aristotle address this later? Machiavelli says that if I want your land then I should kill you first. That way there is no one to complain when I take your land. The good is that I get the land. But both men assume that I know the purpose or the reason or the definition of the good. What if I just want to hang out and watch you kill people to get their land? I am enjoying the other messages about ARISTOTLE. Sincerely from Jim Feliciano felija00@dons.ac.usfca.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 22:55:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: From: "Laura Wedner" Pardon me for beating what to so many people appears to be a dead horse, but I have received various pieces of mail which suggest to me that most people on this list consider the discussion of "gender" issues (actually, I more interested in talking about sex differences, since that's what Aristotle seems interested in) irrelevant to reading the NE. If I want to talk about women's issues, I will go read the "women" list. However, I am interested in talking about Aristotle, and since Aristotle talks about women, and men and women, or in this case, fails to talk about women and only talks about men in a case where we might wonder why he does so, I am interested in talking about such issues in Aristotle. I see no reason why this issue need overshadow other interesting ones, but I also see no reason why it has now been (if I understand the private messages I have been sent) declared procedurally incorrect to discuss "gender." If Aristotle mentions horses or the theories of Democritus or the art of cobbling, should we take our discussions of these issues in Aristotle to separate lists? Should I observe the same rules on the Plato list? After all, if our slow reading of the Republic keeps moving along, we will no doubt encounter all kinds of procedural headaches once we hit the passages on women. lwedner@emory.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 22:08:28 -0600 Subject: Intro/Thoughts on NE Interpretation From: "Amy Ihlan" This is my first posting to the list. I'm a (brand new) professor of philosophy. I teach ethics, political philosophy, some ancient Greek philosophy, philosophy of law, and feminist theory. I'm interested in the NE because I think it's relevant and important in all of these categories. Please do not stop reading this just because I use the "G" word! I'm a bit disturbed by the suggestion (or shall I say order?) that we drop issues of gender and get back to discussing ethics (as though these are neatly separable questions) -- or take our feminist concerns elsewhere. Whether Aristotle meant to direct the NE to all humans is an important interpretive question. As others on the list have noted, there is textual evidence in Rhetoric, Politics (and in the discussions of friendship later in the NE) to indicate that Aristotle believed that only free men are capable of the rational deliberation necessary for moral action. For specific textual references and a well-documented discussion, I highly recommend Elizabeth Spelman's "Who's Who in the Polis" (in *Inessential Woman*, Beacon Press 1988). I don't believe that the issue of intended audience can be resolved by trying to decide whether Aristotle was using (or ought to have been using) "gender neutral" language. His views about the appropriate relationships and power hierarchies between men, women, and members of "lower" social classes become clearer if we try to draw connections between Aristotle's ethics and politics. There is plenty of evidence that Aristotle believed ethics and politics to be closely and necessarily connected -- reading the NE should make that much clear. So we should go ahead and get busy reading the NE -- but with the willingness to keep these important interpretive questions in mind as we read. Although I agree that the main focus ought to be on the NE, I think that reference to other relevant and illuminating works of Aristotle enriches the discussion. And I don't think it's possible to interpret the NE (or to decide whether and to what extent it might be useful for our own moral thinking) without trying to figure out who Aristotle thought he was talking to. Thus, I'm afraid that, for me at least, issues of gender are going to be important and remain important througout the discussion. If such topics are going to be off limits, I'm not sure whether I want to remain on the list. Amy Ihlan Philosophy Department aihlan@vax2.winona.msus.edu 329 Minne Hall Winona State University Winona, MN 55987 ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 20:10:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dancing Angels From: "felija00" I signed on to a reading of Aristotle' Ehtics. I am now finding out how many "philosophers" can dance on the head of a pin (a male or female pin I don't care). I do not expect Aristotle to be aware of our views on gender or physics or equality or television violence. He was not working in our myopic era. He worked in his own myopic era. I do have a stupid question though. What good is the good? Is any goal good just because it is a goal. Machiavelli says that if I want your land then I should kill you first because then no one will be around to complain when I take your land. Sounds good to me. I would appreciate someone pointing out the obvious to me. If Aristotle explains this later please let me know I can't wait to get there. This list is really making me think. THANKS! Sincerely from, Jim Feliciano felija00@dons.ac.usfca.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 23:38:52 -0600 Subject: NE: Confusion reigns ... From: "J. Guy Stalnaker" >1094a1 ch 1 (i) I come to Aristotle's works for the first time and all the talk about translations gives me headaches. I downloaded a text copy of NE from the APA gopher site. Ross translated this particular text. It begins with Book I and a series of paragraphs, each with an arabic number before the paragraph. This number scheme has some relation to the above quoted designations from some other translation. Could someone enlighten me about that connection please? >translation of diorthOtikon On a similar vein -- since list members use greek words in their postings, I realize that the greek characters with no corresponding english character need some form of approximation. Does the list maintain an information sheet -- or has a list member created one -- that novices can use to better understand the greek words used? Many thanks, Guy S. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- J. Guy Stalnaker A convention in itself arbitrary may acquire prestige through being long jstalnak@students.wisc.edu observed. P. F. Strawson -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 00:16:20 -0600 (CST) Subject: NE - various stuff From: BENTLECC@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu >"He [Manson] chose that which others view as evil because he found it >choiceworthy -- ie, good." I like this; it has a functionality to it >lacking in other approaches. It says that no matter what we decide, >it is "good," because it is (presumably) the "best" decision for us at the >moment, or so we think [People do what they want to do]." It may be worth considering whether or not it is rash to assume that Manson chose anything (in Aristotelian terms). We are enculturated to think of choice as somekind of fundamental right or a capacity for choice as somehow innate and unalienable. Is this the case for Aristotle (or for the cultural scene that the NE takes for granted)? It might be argued on Aristotlelian terms that Manson neither chose nor aimed - nor was even engaged in a practice with a telos. Moreover, even if Manson did chose in the Aristotelian sense, the idea that what he did was "choiceworthy/good"..."because it is the 'best' decision for us at the moment" sounds dangerously close to saying that Manson's desires entered into some kind of moral calculus (i.e. that his feelings and desires were "reasons for action"). We may well find that this is would be a significant distortion. ------------ >"I would be very interested in discussing what sense it could make to >speak of activities in some sense having ends irrespective of the conscious >intentions of the person doing the activity." 1174b30 - Akrill "Pleasure completes the activity not as the inherent state does, but as the bloom of youth does on those in the flower of their age" - Apostle "But pleasure perfects the activity not as a disposition which resides in the agent but as an end which supervenes like the bloom of manhood to those in their prime of life" - Rackham "But the pleaure perfects the activity, not as the fixed disposition does, by being already present in the agent, but as a supervening perfection, like the bloom of health in the young and vigorous" ----------- >"Another way of drawing the distinction [inter end and purpose] is this: >ends exist independently of our willing them, i.e. they do not originate >in our willing them, but purposes take their origin from our willing them, >i.e. purposes would not be if agents did not give them being." It may be dangerous and anachronistic to force the late concept of will into the Aristotle. Prohairesis, as the result of a practical syllogism is not "willed". I think this is fair to say. It may be the case that for Aristotle will is an appetite over and against which phrohairesis must become instantiated/actualized phronetically. I'm not so much dead sure about this as I am wary of carelessly using terms like "will" and modern understandings of "choice" to speak of elements of Aristotelian ethics. We are engaging a text in which many modern ideas "aren't soup yet". We need to be careful in unheedfully turning modern ideas and concepts back on texts which play a part in their own genesis. ------------ >"A baby is not crying "for" milk, a baby is crying because it is >uncomfortable, feeling the pain of hunger. Eventually it will come to >associate the comfort of milk with the alleviation of that pain, but the >teleology is a later construction, not the initiating impulse or cause." Yes - The child must be initiated into the ritual (i.e. the polis) - once it has been enculturated, once it BECOMES human, then it will be proper to predicate teleological trajectories to its behaviour. Its motions will have become behaviour, its matter informed. >"The tendency to define things (i.e., the world) in teleological terms may >be comforting for some, but a distortion nonetheless." The raw infant is not in the world, nor is it human. It must be distorted (educated) into this condition - so that it will arrive at a posture ready for the supervening event. The tendency to define things teleologically is an imprimature of being human. It reflects participation in the tissue of ritual life, i.e. the condition for the possibility of theoria - even of the kind of theoretical claim that attributions of teleological terms are "distorting" "reality". ------------ Well that's my 2 cents (and a little bit more). There is an irony in the fact that slow reading can provoke an infinite constellation of tangental streams of interrogation, which tend to interrupt the original focus out of which they arise. Please take my peremptory and somewhat preachy remarks as a spirited (not to say presumptuous) attempt to interrupt the incipient burgeoning of tangental excess on the trunk of appropriate questioning(s). "Nip it in the Bud" Barney Fife C. Bentley ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 01:25:14 EST Subject: Re: NE: Confusion reigns ... From: "Lance Fletcher" Guy Stalnaker asks: > >On a similar vein -- since list members use greek words in their postings, I >realize that the greek characters with no corresponding english character need >some form of approximation. Does the list maintain an information sheet -- or >has a list member created one -- that novices can use to better understand the >greek words used? This strikes me as a very useful suggestion, both that we make available a short glossary of commonly used terms in Greek philosophy, and also an explanation of our conventions for rendering Greek letters in ascii text. I know we have some experts here (I am not among them). If something of this kind already exists, please post it, or send it to me by e-mail and I will distribute it on request. And if it doesn't already exist, I invite one or more of you to take on the project of producing such a glossary (I envision something of no more than 2-3 pages.) Lance Fletcher [lance@freelance.com] The Free Lance Academy (a Platonic BBS) 201-963-6019 for Internet access: gopher or anonymous ftp to: world.std.com /ftp/pub/freelance ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 01:50:58 EST Subject: Confusion? From: "John Kirby" Lance, [1] as for transliteration, I don't know about ASCII characters -- these will differ, won't they, depending on the character set used? -- but it seems to me that most people use the following system or something like it: alpha = a beta = b gamma = g delta = d epsilon = e zeta = z eta = E (i.e. capital) theta = th iota = i kappa = k lambda = l mu = m nu = n xi = x omicron = o pi = p rho = r sigma = s tau = t upsilon = u (NOT y) phi = ph (NOT f) chi = kh (NOT ch) psi = ps omega = O (i.e. capital) I think it would be good if the List adopted this as our official system. [2] as for technical terms, I think Hippocrates Apostle has such a glossary in one or more of his translations (look for his on the Metaphysics). But he can be idiosyncratic; perhaps the best would be the glossary included in Richard Janko's translation/commentary for the Poetics (published by Hackett). It's several pages long and, as I remember, it covers the major topics. Best, John Kirby Purdue University ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 8:58:29 +200 Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes -Reply From: "Ian Jennings" >>"It seems to me that if activities have ends, this is only >>by social convention or agreement." >If this were so, and if Aristotle were attempting to develop >an ethical theory that admitted of application beyond the >context of his own society, then his project is doomed to >failure. This is surely an unwarranted leap. His ethical theory would then have application wherever the social conventions of his society were shared. And it is an open question as to the extent to which societies share conventions - it may even be the case that certain conventions are shared by all societies. Ian Jennings University of Natal ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 9:06:21 +200 Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes -Reply From: "Ian Jennings" Peter Orlowski writes: >I agree with you that an axe has a telos (end) apart from the >person who uses it Hope this is not nit-picking, but one surely can't maintain that an axe has a telos apart from the person who MADE it, as opposed to the person who uses it. Ian Jennings University of Natal ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 02:40:51 EST Subject: Re: Intro/Thoughts on NE Interpretation From: "Lance Fletcher" Dear Amy, I am responding to the passages of your message that I quote below. I am in the midst of composing a message on the whole list, in my capacity as list owner and moderator, but I wanted to respond quickly to you in private. In brief, the suggestion or order to which you refer did not come from me, I did not authorize it and do not agree with it. I am taking some care in composing my message to the list because, as I am sure you understand very well, these are sensitive issues, and it is hard to turn around without stepping on toes. One thing that I particularly want to acknowledge is the grace and thoughtfulness with which you, and also Laura Wedner, have expressed yourselves in a situation that you might well have found annoying, to say the least. > >I'm a bit disturbed by the suggestion (or shall I say order?) that we drop >issues of gender and get back to discussing ethics (as though these are >neatly separable questions) -- or take our feminist concerns elsewhere. > >And I don't think it's possible to interpret the NE (or to decide whether >and to what extent it might be useful for our own moral thinking) without >trying to figure out who Aristotle thought he was talking to. Thus, I'm >afraid that, for me at least, issues of gender are going to be important >and remain important througout the discussion. If such topics are going to >be off limits, I'm not sure whether I want to remain on the list. > The following is a copy of a message that I sent earlier today to Peter Orlowski, which might help you to understand the drift of my thinking. Since it is now past 2:30 AM, I may need to postpone my message to the list until after I sleep. >Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 20:27:52 EST >Subject: Re: women, slaves, Rhetoric, men, humans >To: "Peter Orlowski" > > >>This discussion regarding gender neutered words is now been conducted on the >>WOMEN@world.std.com list. Please respond there. The moderators of this >>list prefer it that way. > >Peter, > >If I am included in the reference of "moderators" here, I am not so sure. >Certainly I have not said that. I don't wish to make a big deal about this. I >understand that your intentions are for the best. And I am sending this >privately because I don't wish to cause you any embarrassment. However, I am >sensitive about having people presume to speak for me. In general, my silence >does not signify approval. In this particular case my failure to respond >immediately to your earlier forward of the message from Sharon on the women list >was mainly due to the fact that I am of two minds about how to proceed. > >You have probably seen the message I posted last night in which I argued that >the present discussion of gender language was generated by Carol Poster's >misreading of a message by Richard Diamond. I am actually a little puzzled that >there has been no response at all to that message. It's the kind of silence that >makes me wonder whether the message was properly distributed. > >But while this discussion may be out of proportion and has certainly been >digressive in the way it has been conducted, I am not sure I want to just push >it aside. When I was a classroom teacher, I always tried to respond to this >kind of issue by treating it philosophically, by making it an occasion to >further and deepen the inquiry in which we were already engaged. That's not >always easy to do, and there are times when it makes sense to adjourn the >discussion of irrelevant issues, but in this case I am not sure that the gender >language topic is really irrelevant. My reason for saying that is that it is an >example of ethical discourse. That is to say, the issues that make this a >touchy topic have to do with the fact that it is of more than purely scholarly >interest, but has to do with different views about how people ought to behave >and what needs to be done to reshape old habits (remember that ethos means >something close to "habit"). Ideally the practice of slow reading should work >to foster self-exploration and self-discovery about exactly those kinds of >things. I have been thinking that it would be a real contribution if we could >somehow manage to take what is often a fairly silly conversation and make in >into an occasion for some real philosophical reflection. That's why I didn't >respond to you right away. > Lance Fletcher [lance@freelance.com] The Free Lance Academy (a Platonic BBS) 201-963-6019 for Internet access: gopher or anonymous ftp to: world.std.com /ftp/pub/freelance ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 20:54:14 +1000 Subject: NE: Ends and Purposes From: "Roger Lamb" Sean Kelsey writes: "If I beat someone over the head repeatedly with a stout stick, it seems that one of the ends of this type of activity is damaging the head of the person in question." It is certainly an effect, but would just any effect of an activity count as (one of) its end(s) for Aristotle? Somehow, I doubt it. (What does he say about the possibility of activities having more than one end?) If not just any effect of an activity would count as an end of that activity, is it some particular effect which would? What would the principle for determining the relevant kind of effect? Could purpose come into it? Peter Orlowski has suggested that "purpose...is an efficient cause, a motive, i.e., motor cause, not a final cause or end." If that is right (for Aristotle), then if purpose does `come into it' in establishing which effect is the end, then there is the possibility of a closer connection between efficient causes and final causes than I previously supposed. Roger Lamb Department of Philosophy University of Queensland St. Lucia, Queensland AUSTRALIA ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 09:28:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: NE RE: ends and purposes From: "Richard E Heft" ref: Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 11:16:17 -0500 (EST) From: Peter Orlowski Peter, In your first paragraph you use the Greek words proairesis and telos in support of your distinction of `ends' and `purposes'. It's not clear in my mind whether these are Aristotle's words used in the text of chapter 1, or rather words chosen to clarify your position. Could you please clear this up. If they are from the text would you indicate where they are found so we can give them their proper weight in our reading. In the latter case, I suggest that they are irrelevant. We are dealing with English words chosen by the interpreter, presumably because he felt they best expressed Aristotle's meaning. If this is true, then I think we should be bound by common usage, and to define that, I quote from my dictionary: END 4a : the goal toward which an agent acts or should act b: the object by virtue of or for the sake of which an event takes place PURPOSE 1.a something set up as an object or end to be attained 2 : an object or result aimed at To me these two seem so closely synonymous that distinguishing them as you have done is only confusing. Your use of the `axe' as an example was also interesting. Axes come in many forms. There is one with a flat side which is paralell to the direction of the stroke with the other side inclined to it to form a wedge. It is used to trim a log to a flat face. Another has a long, narrow, very thin blade with a hammer on the opposing end. It is used by roofers to split and install wood shingles. I suppose you could include an adz, really an axe-like tool with the cutting edge perpindicular to the handle and used for shaping wooden parts. Each of these was specifically designed and shaped to fill a special purpose, and that purpose is inherent in its shape. It is that purpose, the purpose of the designer which you seem to be labeling an `end'. If you were to talk to me about the axe's end, I'm afraid I would understand you to be discussing it eventual discard---rusted, with the blade nicked, and the handle broken. With respect to the practice of medicin and the Hippocratic Oath, you said the following: "Consider the Hippocratic Oath. It prohibits doctors from killing people." and also, "How does the Oath protect medicine? The oath protects medicine because it preserves the use of the art for its proper end." I'm afraid that `proper end' is also undergoing changes. The medical profession once insisted on keeping a patient alive to the limit of its ability to do so---regardless of the patient's condition or wishes. Now it will at least accede to the patient's wishes to the extent of permitting him to expire without taking extraordinary measures. Sometime I expect, people like Kevorkian and his supporters will succeed in having doctor-assisted euthanasia made legal. It is my understanding that is already the case in the Netherlands, in all but name. That is, euthanasia is condoned by the public, the medical profession, and the law, but it has not been made legal for fear of the onrush of foreigner coming to---as you once put it---be poisoned. The point of all this is that I don't believe that medicin has a `proper' end; it has the goals and scope that its practicioners and society gives it. The `end' of medicin, like the `end' of the axe, is not an absolute characteristic. It is nothing more that the purpose assigned to it by man and that is always subject to change from time to time, and from place to place. In sum, speaking strictly about English now, not the Greek language. I feel that `end' and `purpose' are very nearly perfect synonyms. I have ends and I have purposes and whenever I speak of one, I can almost always substitute the other without changing the meaning or confusing the listener. Regards, Dick Heft ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 09:51:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Intro/Thoughts on NE Interpretation From: "Peter Orlowski" On Thu, 24 Mar 1994 HALL@WVSVAX.WVNET.EDU wrote: > Amy Ihlan writes: "I don't think it's possible to interpret the NE > without trying to figure out who A thought he was talking to." > That's right on point. > Any number of contemporary (i.e.late 20th c) moral philosophers have > appealed to A for support of what some have called a "communitarian" > ethic (Alasdair MacIntryre for one). One of their claims is that > ethics needs to be built on a foundation of communal goals. > Some point to classical gGreece as a time when such a communal > consensus existed. But if A was talking to a "community" that ex- > cluded women, slaves, foreigners, etc., then his communal goals > if they exist were built on exclusion. > (Anyone interested in this might look at Derek Phillips book, > LOOKING BACKWARD, Princeton , 1993) > Bob Hall, West Virginia State College QUITE the opposite. Communal goals, by definition, are built on INCLUSION. The question is this: who should be a member of the community? If you waited until we got to the politics, you would know that slaves and women WERE included in the community, and were in fact ESSENTIAL to it. The difference is that greek slaves had a lower status than citizens. Ari. however argues AGAINST the greek institution of slavery. His notion of natural slavery is meant to argue that the way slavery was conducted in his day was against nature. Some commentators even argue that his idea of the place of the natural slave in the political life was equivalent to our idea of employing retarded individuals in meaningful work so that they might participate in the common good. (Just an aside: should severely mentally retarded Americans be allowed to vote? If not, are they not similar in status to a natural slave?) Now I am not sure I agree with this latter interpretation, but I see the force of the argument and I am reluctant to dismiss it off hand because of some prejudice about Ari. primitive notions of community. Remember, Aristotle may start with endoxa (common reputable opinions) but when he is done, he has worked these so much that the final synthesis, Aristotle's doctrine, is often remarkably different. Keep in mind that the rabble may have considered women less than human, but some philosophers (Plato,e.g.) considered women to be equivalent to men. Aristotle will synthesize these, I think, and many other endoxa, and decide that women are equal but not equivalent and not less. Another point that is lost to modern commentators with their modern prejudices: most of the politics is not talking about the IDEAL community, but the political community as it is found. Aristotle is a scientist, not a social engineer. He does not make the community but observes and describes it. Some of his points apply to ALL human communities, other apply only to aristocratic, oligarchic or democratic communities. Some apply only to a polis (political community) like Sparta's, others apply only to one like Athens's. If we want to know what is the IDEAl constitution for a slavish people, we will find it involves things repugnant to an educated citizenry. Similarly, what is IDEAL for an educated citizenry is disasterous for a slavish citizenry. Finally, it is a defensible position that the absolutely ideal polis will be one which raises all the citizens to the highest level of participation in the community that they are capable of. It is also defensible to say that Aristotle believed this. Finally, it is defensible to say that Aristotle believed that such an ideal community would give women political equality. Am I say what Aristotle's actual position was? Not really. I am saying that the issue of what Ari. said is not settled, and we would be doing Aristotle an injustice if we tried to settle it ourselves without putting aside our own prejudices and give the text the benefit of the doubt, at least until we have read it through VERY carefully. We might decide in the end that he was wrong anyway, but I promise you, we will learn something anyway, something important, and we will be a little more uncomfortable with our own prejudices as a result. /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 09:39:19 -0600 (CST) Subject: NE (exclusivity of greek community) From: BENTLECC@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu Bob Hall points out MacIntyre's focus on the rootedness of the NE in the community, the polis - and its exclusionary character. This presents a problem as to how such an ethical "system" can be relate to our ethical life - or how it can be appealed to as a model for ethical life in the present. MacIntyre does not avoie ...does not avoid this problem, however. One place it comes up is in chapter 6 of his book "Whose Justice Which Rationality". PP 97 to 102. There he is opening on to the issue of the possiblity of Aristotle's understanding being subject to dialectical recontrual (a possibility he thinks is present on Aristotle's own terms). Perhaps Al-Farabi, Maimonides, and Aquinas can be seen as realizing this potential. C. Bentley ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 10:49:36 CST Subject: Re: NE: Confusion reigns ... From: "carol poster" for Greek philosophical terms, 2 good references are Peters, F.E. Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon. New York: New York University Press, 1967. Urmson, J.O. The Greek Philosophical Vocabulary. London: Duckworth 1990. Other works that might help are the Oxford Classical Dictionary and Liddell & Scott _An Intermediate Greek Lexicon_. Carol Poster c594460@mizzou1.missouri.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 11:02:17 CST Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "carol poster" re: the end of the acorn is the oak In terms of Aristotelean theories of causation, as I vaguely remember them, the oak would be the formal cause of the acorn. As we look at the ends of activities in NE, we might need to think about how they relate to A.'s physical theories. Carol Poster c594460@mizzou1.missouri.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 11:38:32 -0600 Subject: NE: Greek transliteration From: "Richard Diamond" A couple people have asked for transliteration, so here's the standard according to the Chicago Manual of Style (in parentheses I put some of the alternatives that are used) Alpha a Beta b Gamma g Delta d Epsilon e Zeta z Eta E (it's a long vowel, so 'e' for epsilon, 'E' for eta) Theta th Iota i Kappa k Lambda l Mu m Nu n Xi x Omicron o Pi p Rho r Sigma s Tau t Upsilon u Phi ph Chi kh (ch) Psi ps Omega O (capital, it's a long vowel) Vowels with rough breathing get "h" before them, e.g. haireo. ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 12:31:49 -0600 Subject: NE: Glossary From: "Richard Diamond" A useful greek-english vocabulary can be found in the back of any of Apostle's translations. Most decent translations have their own sort of glossary in them. Aristotle starts off with the most thorny words in the Ethics itself, so why not start there? tekhne -- art. The knowledge of how to generate something. Like to know how to produce health in a man is to have medicine. To know how to make a poem is to have the art of poetry. This is all in book VI of the Ethics, especially 1140a12ff. methodos - inquiry (Latin: doctrina) A difficult to translate word. From "meta" (meaning, here, after) and "hodos" (road or way) thus meaning a "following after" a pursuit, investigation. This is what Aristotle is doing in the Ethics -- he calls it a methodos (1094b10). praxis -- action (Latin: actus) Yet another charged word. It means action in the moral sense. Aristotle does not speak of the praxis of dogs, but of men. The virtuous action is an action of a certain kind, done knowingly from choice, chosen per se (for its own sake) and done with certainty and firmness (1105b) proiaresis -- choice (Latin: electio) Literally "forechoice". The word for choice (airesis, also meaning to take or grab) together with the prefix "pro" (before). Thus, it means to choose one thing before another, emphasizing the deliberate nature of the choice. Aristotle defines choice as a deliberated upon desire of things in our power (1113a10). (oh, the above is often (incorrectly, imho) translated as "intention") There are plenty of other words in chapter 1 (i), but let that be a start. Richard Diamond diamond@acad.udallas.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 15:36:50 EST Subject: Re: OOPS! From: "JK" I am very glad to read Lance's latest post, re: gendered language. I had decided not to contribute to the discussion, but I am not going to make a couple of observations. [1] The issue of whether Aristotle was sexist or not must be kept distinct in our minds from whether we choose to use sexist language. It is possible to remain aware of the cultural constraints shaping 4th-century Athenian thought without ourselves pledging allegiance to those same cultural constraints. I think that, in 1994, we must all acknowledge that the word 'man' is ethically charged (to say the least): to try and just 'decide' to use the word 'man' to encompass 'man + woman' is to reinscribe what many people feel is an age-old oppression, marginalization, and devaluation of women. I personally feel that, even if one DOESN'T feel that women have been historically oppressed, marginalized, and devalued in male-dominated cultures (and I think they have), nonetheless simple courtesy would require that we attempt to avoid using language that is the least bit redolent of that historical oppression/marginalization/devaluation. As I say, this is all distinct from the issue of what Aristotle and his coevals thought about the status or 'place' of women, in the Great Chain of Being or in society. Some awareness of these thoughts will doubtless emerge from a careful reading of the Aristotelian corpus. But in the meantime we can maximize our mutual respect by avoiding language that is more and more universally coming to be regarded as inappropriate. Someone in a recent posting said that 'anthrOpos' is grammatically masculine. I don't think this is correct; I don't have my Greek text of EN with me, but if my reference in the Liddell/Scott/Jones lexicon sub uoc. is correct, Aristotle himself uses it as a feminine noun at EN 1148b 20. And in any case, grammatical gender is by no means always in line with biological gender, or with grammatical declension: the second declension in Greek, while predominantly masculine, has some feminine nouns (hodos, 'way,' for example), and the first declension vice versa. Those who know Latin will be familiar with a whole class of first-declension masculine nouns: poeta, agricola, nauta, pirata, etc. I propose 'human' as the least unsatisfactory translation of 'anthrOpos.' It avoids the philosophical problems connected with 'person' and draws attention to the fact that 'anthrOpos' is often used, in both singular and plural, to refer to the human race generically. AND this will [a] avoid predisposing us in evaluating Aristotle's gender politics and [b] avoid offending those who, like me, see the human race as composed of more than one gender. Yes, it sounds awkward at first -- 'Man is the measure of all things' sounds catchier than 'A human is the measure of all things,' and when I teach my students the mortality syllogism, it is tempting to say 'All men are mortal' rather than 'all humans are mortal'; but these things become easier each time we do them. And oppression is never going to stop unless the end begins with us. I hope this is seen as a constructive contribution to this ongoing conversation on gendered language. John Kirby Purdue University ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 16:33 EST Subject: Re: NE (exclusivity of greek community) From: "jm257" > Bob Hall points out MacIntyre's focus on the rootedness of >the NE in the community, the polis - and its exclusionary character. >This presents a problem as to how such an ethical "system" can >be relate to our ethical life - or how it can be appealed to as >a model for ethical life in the present. MacIntyre does not avoie >...does not avoid this problem, however. One place it comes up >is in chapter 6 of his book "Whose Justice Which Rationality". PP 97 >to 102. There he is opening on to the issue of the possiblity of >Aristotle's understanding being subject to dialectical recontrual >(a possibility he thinks is present on Aristotle's own terms). > Perhaps Al-Farabi, Maimonides, and Aquinas can be seen as >realizing this potential. > >C. Bentley > I've caught this thread in the middle, so I don't know if what I have to say is relevant in context. MacIntyre does indeed think that Aristotle can (and should) be reunderstood in terms of Christianity, Thomistic Christianity. However, MacIntyre's account of Thomism is very exclusionary itself. See _Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry_ ; towards the end (my copy is in my office and I don't remember exactly where) MacIntyre indirectly advocates such exclusivity in communities such as universities. He goes as far to praise those who kept Hume out of university solely because of his heretical religious beliefs. The point is that MacIntyre may not be the best alternative, IMHO, for a virtue ethic that is inclusive of difference, especially the vast range of differences present in most western countries. Jim McElhinney jm257@umail.umd.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 16:51 EST Subject: Introduction From: "jm257" This should have preceded my other post, but obvoiously did not. I am a graduate student at the University of Maryland at College Park. My principle area of interest is ethics, in particular virtue ethics. I joined primarily to strentghen my knowledge of Aristotle's ethics; I saw a posting that NE was being discussed. I will probably lurk for the most part, although I do find the postings on gender interesting and somewhat puzzling and troublesome; perhaps that is a result of another interest that I see as related in some integral ways to virtue ethics, namely feminist philosophy, especially epistemology and ethics. It is puzzling how 'man' can be taken to mean 'woman' as well. I understand it as a convention, but wonder what, qua convention, it signifies. Jim McElhinney jm257@umail.umd.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 14:33:33 -0800 Subject: (NE) How the husband is to rule the wife From: "Paul Bullen" Peter Orlowski wrote: >Aristotle considered the household to be ruled by political rule, which >for Aristotle means ruling in turn, so that neither man nor woman is head >of house, This seems to be at odds with what Aristotle says at Pol I.12 (1259a40-b10): "The fashion of ruling a wife is political....For unless the male is constituted in some respect contrary to nature, he is naturally fitter to lead than the female....While it is true that in most cases of 'political' rule there is an alternation of ruler and ruled..., even then, when one rules and another is ruled, differences are sought in external appearance, forms of address, and honors....The male relates to the female in this way--but permanently." Aristotle compares the rule of a husband over his wife to political rule, but points out that the analogy does not extend to an actual alternation of leadership. But since a wife is not a slave, she should be ruled with the dignity of a free person. * Paul Bullen * Political Science * University of Chicago * Chicago, Illinois 60637 * BUL1@midway.uchicago.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 17:10:35 -0600 (CST) Subject: NE: how to read From: "schwarze steven jon" My otherwise boring spring break has been enhanced by coming to the library every day and finding 40 or 50 interesting posts on Aristotle. Yet, at times I bristle at comments suggesting "we" are reading improperly. Perhaps I am off-base here and am (selfishly?) more interested in doing "rapid thinking" about Aristotle than "slow reading;" let me know if I am. But I think at least a small bit of (tangential) reflection about our reading practices could be useful as we proceed. I'll start that reflection with a request: could someone please send me a checklist, a set of criteria, or a secret decoder ring that will help me read "without imposing my (post)modern prejudices" on the text? I pose this both facetiously and not, because if one wants me to read "without imposition," then I'd like to know precisely how I might be able to accomplish such a task. It is one thing to talk about imposition when we debate the translation of particular terms, in order to account for changes in terms like "man." But it is another thing to say that we must (and assume that we can) shed all our prejudices in order to read a text "properly." Can we escape our previous "textual habituation"? I think not. Simply put, I'm suggesting that it's not out of line to make contemporary connections to Aristotle. (In that regard I wholeheartedly agree with Laura and Amy's posts on gender--moreover, we ought not limit ourselves to discussing gender "only when the text explicitly mentions it," as has been suggested. There is too much wrong with that position to address it here.) Rather than take these connections as distortions or misreadings of Aristotle, why not take them as productive interventions, as insightful readings, or as the "presence" of yet another member of the list who should have just as much "say" as any of us? (I have this vision of getting a post from Hannah Arendt that would provide some great insights on our discussion of the "place" of women and slaves in relations to the household and the polis). I like these connections. They HELP me understand Aristotle, they give me MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES on A, they help me think about what I can DO with Aristotle. One might respond that this way of reading obfuscates "what Aristotle really meant." I have my doubts about that position. I wonder what authorizes a "here's what A really meant" reading of NE. I wonder who might produce readings that obtain such authorization. I wonder how such a reading might be useful. Call me crazy for thinking that texts are always written by other texts, that one always reads intertextually. Maybe Bahktin's notion of dialogism is hogwash; maybe Derrida's claim that "there is nothing outside the weave [text]" has nothing to teach us; and maybe hermeneutics is just a big waste of time--but I'm just uncomfortable with the notion that bringing in other texts, even those of Aristotle's, somehow distorts or takes away from our reading of NE. sjs Steve Schwarze Dept. of Communication Studies University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 18:14 EST Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "Larry.Hauser" <21798LAH@msu.edu> You are, of course, using "purpose" in a technical sense here, Peter, since it is perfectly natural to say "The purpose of an axe is to chop wood." Would "concious end" or "deliberately intended end" be a fair statement of what you mean by "purpose"? Larry Hauser ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 18:19:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: (POLITICS) Husband-wife relationship From: "Peter Orlowski" On Thu, 24 Mar 1994, Paul Bullen wrote: > >Aristotle considered the household to be ruled by political rule, which > >for Aristotle means ruling in turn, so that neither man nor woman is head > >of house, > > Politics I.12.1259a40-b10: > "The fashion of ruling a wife is political....For unless he is constituted > in some respect contrary to nature, the male is naturally fitter to lead > than the female....While it is true that in most cases of 'political' > governance there is an alternation of ruler and ruled...even then, when one > rule and another is ruled, differences are sought in external appearance, > forms of address, and honors....The male relates to the female in this > way--but permanently." Yes, but have you seen Nichols interpretation of this passage in "Citizen and Statesmen"? It is very interesting. I will only mention one point of Nichols interpretation, since I do not want to short change it, and I hope you might read it for yourself. Obviously there has to be something to the analogy. Nichols thinks that it is this - neither rules the other, but each rules in part. The rules that are played by each are permanent, because rule is not distributed by exchange of office over time, but by division in office. But don't think this is all there is to the argument. There is more, and I find the way she has Aristotle reforming endoxa particularly delightful! > > Aristotle compares the husband's ruling of his wife to political rule, but > points out that the analogy does not extend to an actual alternation of > rule. But since a wife is not a slave, she should be ruled with the dignity > of a free person. > The dignity of the free person is to be autarchic. (He says this somewhere in the Metaphysics.) A wife who is permanently subjected to a husband, which is how you read the text, is not autarchic. Now I am not saying that Nichols reading of Aristotle is the only possible one, but that those who think that the topic is settled need to be aware that this is not the case. /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare P.S. This is Peter writing! ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 18:28:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "Whit Blauvelt" > It strikes me that this example cuts the _other_ way, _against_ social > construction. If the teleology of the were all in the eye of the parental int > erpreter it would seem when mother offers milk (what she _interprets_ > the crying as "for" -- hence, according to the doctrine of interpretive > construction, what the crying _is_for_) she could not fail to be giving the > infant what it was crying for. Why then won't the infant take the breast, > drink, and be satisfied? The example seems to show the crying has to be > _for_something_ ... or else parent > (cuddiling, burping, whatever) _independently_of_interpretation_ > ing would be a lot easier than it is. > I had a developmental psych prof about 20 years back who was quite proud of his films of infants just a few days old sticking out their tongues in response to an adult's first doing the same at them. The strong implication is that the infant in a significant way knows what a tongue is, knows the equivalence of sticking out its own tongue to another's have stuck out their tongue--and this without benefit of "social construction" or even of looking at itself in a mirror. Given such evidence, I'd think the burden on the "social constructionists" to tell why an infant who has had milk a few times shouldn't learn to crave milk, to be hungry _for_ it in much the same way as I might be hungry _for_ a chocolate. And if a rat can press a bar for its piece of chocolate, I don't know why we wouldn't grant an infant the power of purpose to cry for milk. (And its not just "generic hungry"--it doesn't want steak or frites.) Wouldn't it be possible to read A's introductory passage as defining _good_ rather defining _as_ good--that is, as saying "We'll use the word 'good' for any such thing which is the end of action." Could this be all he means by "good," rather than some quality defined against a Christian notion of "evil"? What happens if we take the text, so far, and proposing merely this? Whit Blauvelt ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 18:41:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: OOPS! From: "Peter Orlowski" On Thu, 24 Mar 1994, JK wrote: > that we attempt to avoid using language that is the least bit redolent of that > historical oppression/marginalization/devaluation. > avoid > offending those who, like me, see the human race as composed of more than > one gender. Yes, it sounds awkward at first -- 'Man is the measure of > all things' sounds catchier than 'A human is the measure of all things,' > and when I teach my students the mortality syllogism, it is tempting > to say 'All men are mortal' rather than 'all humans are mortal'; but > these things become easier each time we do them. And oppression is never > going to stop unless the end begins with us. > > I hope this is seen as a constructive contribution to this ongoing > conversation on gendered language. > > John Kirby > Purdue University This discussion has been going on at women@world.std.com. I think that those who are interested in it would do well to sign on to that list. You'll get both sides of the debate there. As for me, I will speak as I think most clearly expresses the ideas I have. I hope that this list will not become a sounding board for others to force there moral beliefs upon me or attempt to convert me to their morals, whether it be morals regarding permissible words, or morals regarding anything else. I understand the rules on this board against flaming and the like, and I can abide by that. Let us instead discuss what Aristotle has to say on ethics without exhortations that we change our lifes. So back to the text! :-) /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 18:02:25 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "schwarze steven jon" On Thu, 24 Mar 1994, Whit Blauvelt wrote: > I'd think the burden on the "social constructionists" to tell > why an infant who has had milk a few times shouldn't learn to crave milk, > to be hungry _for_ it in much the same way as I might be hungry _for_ a > chocolate. And if a rat can press a bar for its piece of chocolate, I > don't know why we wouldn't grant an infant the power of purpose to cry > for milk. (And its not just "generic hungry"--it doesn't want steak or > frites.) > > Wouldn't it be possible to read A's introductory passage as defining _good_ > rather defining _as_ good--that is, as saying "We'll use the word 'good' > for any such thing which is the end of action." Could this be all he > means by "good," rather than some quality defined against a Christian > notion of "evil"? What happens if we take the text, so far, and proposing > merely this? > Where does choice fit into this picture--I take A as speaking of distinctly human activity in this first section, even when he says the good is that at which ALL things aim. Such activity is not sheer motion (the response of the baby), for that kind of motion is common to all animals and not specific to human animals. Insofar as he's working in a context of human ethics, I think that choice might be lurking in the shadows here. While on the one hand I'd agree with your take on how to read "good," I'd also say that's not "all he means" by it, at least in the context of a discussion about human goods and "the" human good. For me, it's an interesting rhetorical question when one considers how various analogies (either those that we use or those that Aristotle uses) work to both clarify and hide key issues in A's theory. Our axe discussion is a good example of that. sjs Steve Schwarze Dept. of Communication Studies University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 19:30:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "Peter Orlowski" On Thu, 24 Mar 1994, Larry.Hauser wrote: > You are, of course, using "purpose" in a technical sense here, Peter, since it > is perfectly natural to say "The purpose of an axe is to chop wood." Would > "concious end" or "deliberately intended end" be a fair statement of what you > mean by "purpose"? > > Larry Hauser I would say something more like this: purpose = deliberate intention OF the end. Your formulation might lead one to think that a purpose is a kind of end, but no one desires to own the intention of a house, but only a REAL CONCRETE house. A purpose is only an end if someone acts for the sake of that purpose, that is they rest satisfied in that purpose. This would be strange, and I am not sure it is possible. In any case, I would agree that I am trying to use purpose in a very precise way (call it technical if you like.) We loosely talk about unconscious things having purposes, but I don't think we mean it that way, that is, that they purpose anything to themselves. If we equate end and purpose, then we cannot understand Aristotle's claims. To say that things have ends and make this equation is already to assume one of two things: either plants or artifacts are conscious, or human beings imagine them to be (for the sake of convenience or whatever.) If we make a precise separation of the meanings, however, then we find that we can say that things have ends without being having to base your theory on either of these two possibilities. Aristotle does this latter move. /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 20:33:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: NE:Ends and choice From: "Peter Orlowski" Where does choice come in? We might just have to wait and see. No doubt it will play a part. But I suspect that choice will fit within agent cause, and so we still must could that Aristotle does not want to confuse the concepts of choice and end EVEN IN HUMAN ACTION. This is not to say that human action will not involve choice - it surely will - but that the choice presupposes end, and end is something which can be understood as apart from choice. Somewhere (in the Physics, II.8?) Aristotle says that the artist does not deliberate about his end. In other words, the artist does not deliberate about what is the end of his art - that is given. At best, he may need to select which means he might use to achieve that end (but even there, the art itself might have the method "all figured out" for him) or he might have to select the matter he will use if the art is productive (but then again, certain things about the matter may also be given, e.g. that the ax be made of hard material.) So even in human beings, the end for Aristotle is a separate notion from choice. /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 21:39:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: NE: how to read From: "Whit Blauvelt" > I'll start that reflection with a request: could someone please send me a > checklist, a set of criteria, or a secret decoder ring that will help me > read "without imposing my (post)modern prejudices" on the text? > ... > I like these connections. They HELP me understand Aristotle, they give me > MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES on A, they help me think about what I can DO with > Aristotle. One might respond that this way of reading obfuscates "what > Aristotle really meant." I have my doubts about that position. I wonder > what authorizes a "here's what A really meant" reading of NE. I wonder who > might produce readings that obtain such authorization. I wonder how such a > reading might be useful. The threat is that we might, on encountering something unfamiliar, rush to see it as an example of something we think we already understand. For instance, Ralph Waldo Emerson had grand theories of "nature." So he joined an expedition westward led by a great naturalist (whose name slips my mind, but we'd recognize it), who commented afterwards that Waldo didn't understand nature at all--his direct experience was obfuscated by his theories. Sure, we've all got explanatory systems, and they're of some use. But what if we take Aristotle to be a guide to a natural terrain quite distant from our experience--which he really is, however much his ideas have been harvested for inclusion in more recent grand theories of things. We're not going to see what he's leading us to if we can't set aside our own pet theoretical obsessions. > Call me crazy for thinking that texts are always written by other texts, that > one always reads intertextually. Maybe Bahktin's notion of dialogism is > hogwash; maybe Derrida's claim that "there is nothing outside the weave > [text]" has nothing to teach us; and maybe hermeneutics is just a big > waste of time--but I'm just uncomfortable with the notion that bringing in > other texts, even those of Aristotle's, somehow distorts or takes away from > our reading of NE. > Consider though, what if Aristotle is pointing to something beyond the text? How will you ever see it if, whenever you read, all it fills your mind with is other texts? Whit Blauvelt ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 20:52:01 CST Subject: Re: NE:Ends and purposes From: "carol poster" Perhaps, since this is a slow reading of NE, rather than concern ourselves with the ramifications of English independent of the Greek, it would be a good idea to look at the Greek. Precisely which word are people translating as purpose? If it's telos, then it definitely does mean end. If it's proairesis -- it can mean purpose or choice ... Carol Poster ------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 22:28:24 -0800 Subject: Re: (POLITICS) Husband-wife relationship From: "Paul Bullen" Mr. Orlowski: Please be advised that you have unintentionally made your words, with which I disagree, seem as though they are mine. The first sentence after "Paul Bullen wrote:" is yours (and the second is Aristotle's). >On Thu, 24 Mar 1994, Paul Bullen wrote: > >> >Aristotle considered the household to be ruled by political rule, which >> >for Aristotle means ruling in turn, so that neither man nor woman is head >> >of house, >> >> Politics I.12.1259a40-b10: >> "The fashion of ruling a wife is political....For unless he is constituted >> in some respect contrary to nature, the male is naturally fitter to lead >> than the female....While it is true that in most cases of 'political' >> governance there is an alternation of ruler and ruled...even then, when one >> rule and another is ruled, differences are sought in external appearance, >> forms of address, and honors....The male relates to the female in this >> way--but permanently." This is a minor point but I would not want it to cause confusion. (By the way when I realized that for some reason my went directly to you instead of to the group, I made some improvements and sent out the second edition addressed properly). I have Mary Nichol's book and have read parts of it. It is a bit difficult to know what to say in a "slow reading" group when someone suggests reading an item of secondary literature other than "thanks for the reference." Such references are helpful, although I am not sure how much it can count as an argument in the present (which is not to say that it counts for nothing). It is possible that when I read whatever she has to say more carefully I will be persuaded, but that has not happened yet. When Aristotle says he thinks that males are by nature more suited to be leaders I think he means it. Now there is leading and there is leading, and I would tend to think that Aristotle's domestic would be humane. And he may agree that the wife is in charge of the kitchen and of the daily care of the children (or the bookkeeping, etc.), but I think that there is every indication in what he has written to think that as a general matter he would see the man as the head of the family. Since I am now speaking in generalities without providing further textual evidence, and since this is a discussion that is trying to make sense of the first page of the Nicomachean Ethics, I am quite happy to let the matter rest for now. The need to do that will, of course, arise frequently since it is not realistic to aim for final agreement on any issue. At some point there will always be more to be gained by moving to the next topic. Something to do with a law of diminishing returns, I think. * Paul Bullen * Political Science * University of Chicago * Chicago, Illinois 60637 * BUL1@midway.uchicago.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 00:40:24 -0600 Subject: NE: Ch. 1 (i) More on ends From: "Richard Diamond" Carol Poster asks which word people are referring to as purpose. In the first two texts from the _Ethics_ (1094a1-3) Aristotle does not speak of end (telos), but simply says all THINGS (i.e. both inanimate objects and rational beings) aim at some good. When we say a thing aims at some good, we mean the same thing as saying it acts for an end. When we say a person acts for an end, he acts for a purpose, or according to a choice (proairesis, as in the first line of the text). I believe this is a good point Peter Orlowski has been making with regard to the English terms considered in their philosophic, not dictionary, definitions. I think, however, it is better if if we stick to Aristotle's exact terminology (using choice and not purpose) we can avoid the confusion that has arisen among those more comfortable with the everyday usage of purpose. No meaning is lost in doing so, I think. If not, Perhaps Mr. Orlowski could show a concrete instance where we ought to talk about "purpose" instead of "choice." Let's continue on in the text and see what we come up with about ends: > 2. Thus they have stated nobly that the good is that at which > all things aim. > 3. But there appears to be some difference among the ends [telos]: > for some [ends] are activities and others are works apart from > them. > 4. Of these, some ends are apart from the actions, in these > the works are by nature better than the activities. Aristotle's argument seems to be the following: all things aim at ends (text 2). Not all ends are the same (text 3). Some ends are better than others -- those that are done for their own sake are naturally better (text 4). Aristotle writes next: > 5. Since there are many actions, arts, and sciences the ends > also become many. For of the physician, it is health; of the > shipbuilder, a ship; of the general, victory; and of the > household manager, wealth. But Richard Heft suggests that these ends can change. I think this is a really important point we must turn our attention to: > The point of all this is that I don't believe that medicin has > a `proper' end; it has the goals and scope that its practicioners > and society gives it. The `end' of medicin, like the `end' of the > axe, is not an absolute characteristic. It is nothing more that > the purpose assigned to it by man and that is always subject to > change from time to time, and from place to place. I think Aristotle would disagree with Mr. Heft based on the above text 5. To what extent does society give the end to art, and to what extent does nature? If society changed its mind and made everyone with an M.D. build ships on the side, would they be doctors or shipbuilders? It seems the end determines the art. If one builds ships, he is a shipbuilder. If one kills people, he is a murderer. Mr. Heft mentions that in the Netherlands doctors can now make their chronologically challenged patients metabollically different. I suggest Aristotle would say that the end of medicine is given by nature and nothing other than health could truly be its end. One acting for the end of death would be a murderer or a killer, and nothing more. But what of shipbuilding? Is that an entirely artificial art such that nature would in no way dictate its end? It is more clear to me that nature dictates the end of health. If someone who is by profession a shipbuilder decides to make a car, he is an automobile maker, and not a shipbuilder (insofar as he builds the car). Some thoughts. Richard Diamond diamond@acad.udallas.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 16:41:30 +1000 Subject: Ends and Purposes From: "Roger Lamb" Sean Kelsey writes (24 March, 10:08 EST): (A) "I agree that not just ANY effect of an activity counts as [an] end of it. But I'm not so sure that, for Aristotle at least, the purpose of the agent is the only factor relevant in determining which effects of an activity count as the end of the activity." An argument which he offers for this is: (B) "In fact, for Aristotle this has to be the case, since he thinks the activities of plants (e.g., nutrition, reproduction) have ends, yet he doesn't think that the plants act with a purpose...." I think (B) goes through as an argument for (A). Still, we might be left wondering about cases where there is an agent, one with purposes, and moreover one with purposes which motivate the action in question. What I expect to find out as we get further into the text is that even in such cases as these, for Aristotle, the motivating `purpose of the agent is not the ONLY factor relevant in determining which effects of an activity count as the end of the activity'. But this is because I imagine that the purposes of the agent which motivate the activity do not determine the end of the activity AT ALL. Consider the purpose we might standardly have in sitting down to a gourmet meal in a magnificent restaurant. Apart from social purposes we might have moving us to this activity, we usually do have some purpose in mind such as the enjoyment of a really splendid cuisine. Yet I imagine this purpose will not determine the Aristotelian end, which is probably going to turn out to be something a bit more boring, say, nutrition. So, even where there is a single motivating purpose with respect to some activity, this need not determine, nor even be identified with, the end of the activity. Indeed, one suspects such purposes are `got up' (by nature) in the service of the end. Of course, one's purpose MIGHT be nutrition. But in this case the most that could be said is that the identity of purpose and end is contingent. The upshot is that I find myself agreeing with the spirit of Peter Orlowski's remarks when, admittedly speaking of choice rather than purpose, he concludes (24 March, 20:33 EST): "...Aristotle does not want to confuse the concepts of choice and end EVEN IN HUMAN ACTION. ...even in human beings, the end for Aristotle is a separate notion from choice." Roger Lamb Department of Philosophy University of Queensland AUSTRALIA ------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 00:00:25 -0700 (MST) Subject: intro From: "Thomas Harris" Hi, I'm new to the list. I am a grad student at the U of Utah. I am primarly interested in the reading of the NE, but realize the necessity of referring to other texts, and A's philosophy in generaly to understand what's going on. I would hazard to guess, as with most things, I will mainly be lurking in the background; with this list especially so since I am somewhat behind. I am not a GK scholar, but have found some of the references about translations uselful. I guess I am primarly interested in the NE given A's recent revitalization as the focus of virtue ethics, which I am interested in exploring. Can we get a general posting about where this reading is in the NE for late comers, or a private message if this is more appropiate---from the few messages I have recieved, I guess we are in Ch. 1. Hello and thanks to slow reading comerades. t. harris Thomas.Harris@m.cc.utah.edu ------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 03:29:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: (POLITICS) Husband-wife relationship From: "Peter Orlowski" On Thu, 24 Mar 1994, Paul Bullen wrote: > Mr. Orlowski: > Please be advised that you have unintentionally made your words, with which > I disagree, seem as though they are mine. Apologies! > I have Mary Nichol's book and have read parts of it. > It is a bit difficult to know what to say in a "slow reading" group when > someone suggests reading an item of secondary literature other than "thanks > for the reference." Your welcome. > Since I am now speaking in > generalities without providing further textual evidence, and since this is > a discussion that is trying to make sense of the first page of the > Nicomachean Ethics, I am quite happy to let the matter rest for now. Okay. Just so long as people are aware that the matter needs deeper reading, and that the book remains open on the question. We can get up to our elbows when we get to the texts on this topic. > The > need to do that will, of course, arise frequently since it is not realistic > to aim for final agreement on any issue. At some point there will always be > more to be gained by moving to the next topic. Something to do with a law > of diminishing returns, I think. > Everything you say seems most reasonable to me. Until we have a chance to examine the whole issue in depth in its most expedient place, I am open to both opinions on this matter. > * Paul Bullen > * Political Science > * University of Chicago > * Chicago, Illinois 60637 > * BUL1@midway.uchicago.edu > /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare ------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 04:11:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: NE: Proairesis, telos and logos From: "Peter Orlowski" I think Diamond is right - I use "purpose" as Aristotle uses "proairesis" which we translate as "choice". I used "purpose" because it contrasts so well with "end", for the PUR-pose is an intention "put BEFORE" the act, to begin the act, while an end is realized after or in the activity. I see, however, that some still think I meant "end" by "purpose" so agree with Diamond's suggestion that we avoid this by reading my "purpose" as "choice" and my "propose" as "choose." On Fri, 25 Mar 1994, Poster wrote: > Perhaps here we need to look at Aristotle's notion of definition. A woman > would only be called a doctor in so far as her end was health, so that when > she was acting in some manner not aiming at health, she would not properly > be called a doctor. I agree with your point about definition. I think there is still a sense, however, in which we can say a doctor uses his art to kill. The methods of your doctor (in so far as she is a doctor) are for the sake of health. Art is a kind of knowledge, and being such, it can be used one way or the other. The art is for the sake of health, but this knowledge of instruments and medicines and the body can also be used contrary to their end. In a sense, then, this doctor who acts to kill is not a doctor, as you point out well, because she is not acting for health, but in that she is using the means of the art of medicine which exist because of the end of healing for her purpose of killing, she is a doctor who abuses her art. This is why a doctor who uses his art to kill must have his licence revoked, but a doctor who kills without the use of his art does not violate the Hippocratic Oath. > Carol Poster > c594460@mizzou1.missouri.edu /~~~~\ "And therefore never flout at me for what I { /a>--\ have said against it; for man is a giddy Peter [ <===\) thing, and this is my conclusion." Orlowski } , , , \ ' -William Shakespeare ------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 06:15:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: NE: They and Ends From: YEAGER@wvsvax.wvnet.edu >Well, I'll get my feet wet again. Maybe this time I can >enter the text such that it comes out the telephone line >like it went in. > >For me, ethics is about human ends, not the ends of axes. >I don't doubt that both have ends in a physical sense. >Certainly that is what we (I?) mean when we (I?) speak of >human nature. However, human beings have somewhat more >rational power than an ax. The human has the power of int- >entioned action (forgive my language, I am just developing >these tools). The ax has none. Is it not the case that >ethics is about valuing intentioned human action (particu- >arly A's NE)? > >"They" seem to me to be the OWM of Athens (the Old White Men >with all the money, power, and education). As one with a >particular interest in business ethics, I interpret (for >my purposes) they to be the community in which the firm >operates. I think A meant something just like that -- but >in a political sense. > >I am really enjoying the discussion, by the way. As a student >of philosophy in a small Appalachian city I could not have >hoped for an opportunity like this with local resources (although >there are a few really good ones). I think this type of forum >is of great potential value to traditional classrooms. > ------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 09:40:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: NE:Ends and choice From: HALL@wvsvax.wvnet.edu Peter Orlowski: Let me get this right. The "end" is separate from the choice - m not determined by the individual (you say the artist doesn't deliberate about his or her end) and - I believe you insisted earlier - certainly not a social construct. Now you say that "choice presupposes end" and I would guess that 'presupposes' means based upon or governed by ? The only choice, then , would appear to be whether or not to conform to the "end". I am beginning to dislike this view of human nature and human action. Do I have it right? Second point: I take it that you would eliminate the notion of intentionality from the concept of an "end"; i.e. your distinction between "end" and "purpose". What then does it mean to say that something "aims" at an "end"? To me the intentionality or purpose that is eliminated from the notion of the "end" creeps back in when we talk about things "aiming" at ends. Is A's word ephiesthai? That seems to imply intentionality to me. What other words are used as verbs with "end"? Bob Hall, West Virginia State College ------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 11:24:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: NE:Things aiming at some good From: "David Westbrook" I have been following with considerable interest the discussions that have taken off from the first sentences of NE. I am struck by the sudden move A. (following those who have "declared" [Apostle] or "defined" [Ostwald] re: the good) makes in the first sentence from certain apparently human activities to "things". Aristotle starts with a short list: technE (art, "applied science" [Ostwald]), methodos ("systematic investigation" [Ostwald] or "inquiry" [Apostle]), praxis (action), and proairesis (choice, "intention" [Apostle]) - all of which "seem" [Ostwald] or "are thought" [Apostle] "to aim at some good". (I apologize if my characters are not standard.) Aristotle then approvingly ("expressed themselves well in declaring" [Apostle], "well defined as" [Ostwald]) gives us the view (of someone) that, to paraphrase, all THINGS aim at some good. I do not have a copy of the Greek before me so I wonder what the word that has been translated as "things" is. The Apostle glossary gives two options (Ostwald has no such glossary and says nothing in his notes): poiEma translates as "thing produced by art", "thing produced" and "poem" - none of which is simply the "thing" that appears in the translation, so this seems the least likely to me even though it would fit quite well with the humanly intentional activities A. mentions at the outset; the alternative is the standard *on*, which translates as "thing" or "being" and is all encompassing. Anyone with the Greek text can tell us if we are to believe, following Aristotle, that rocks "aim at some good" (apart from the one who aims them at the window, I should think). Even though A. does not mention telos until the next sentence, that shouldn't restrict us from thinking about it right away in trying to figure out what A. means in telling us that "all things aim at some good." It occurs to me that (assuming 'on' to be the term he uses) Aristotle is expressing a teleological view of things, perhaps of Being in general. Now my A. is extremely rusty so I am counting on you all to correct my (Hegel inspired) excesses. Perhaps those with better knowledge of the Physics and Metaphysics than I can confirm or deny my suspicions that all things for A. will indeed ultimately aim at some good: namely The Good, or the noEsis noEseOs (thought thinking itself) of the "unmoved mover". David Westbrook Social & Political Thought York University