...ID - 22780878 Essay #3 – Aristotle’s Function Argument In this essay, I will be discussing Aristotle’s function argument. This argument is found in Nicomachean ethics, in which Aristotle claims that the best human good is “the soul’s rational activity expressing virtue” (1098a16-17). To better understand this claim, we must first discuss the function argument in its entirety. Aristotle prefaces this argument by presuming that the best good is happiness. What we need, however, is a clearer definition of what the best good is (1097b22-24). Beginning with the first premise of his argument, Aristotle states that we will be able to define what the best good is if we first discover what the function of a human being is. This is because the good (i.e. doing well in anything that has a function and characteristic action) depends on the function itself (1097b26-29). If this is true, then we can apply this concept to human beings, if human beings do indeed have a function. Furthermore, Aristotle questions if human beings have a function at all, aside from the functions projected onto them by whatever occupation they serve in society (i.e. farmer, blacksmith). In his argument’s second premise, Aristotle states that if every bodily part in a human being has a function, we can similarly attribute a function to the human being as a whole. This premise acts upon Aristotle’s argument prior to the function argument in Nicomachean ethics, which states that numerous goods can serve higher...
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...Aristotle Essay Adnan Ahmad Compare and contrast Aristotle‘s concept of mind with that of Descartes. Introduction In this essay I attempt to show Aristotle’s concept of soul/mind*[1]. Then I compare and contrast it with Descartes’ concept of mind. In order to understand Aristotle’s concepts of mind, I shall consider Aristotle’s De Anima, in which Aristotle mostly concentrates on soul/mind discussion. I will examine the work of Kahn and Sorabji, who both considered Aristotle’s and Descartes’ philosophy in relation to soul and body problem. In order to compare Aristotle’s concept of mind with Descartes’, I am going to introduce Descartes’ most famous philosophical work which involves the question of mind directly, namely hisMeditations. …………………………. …………………………… ………………………………. If we look at Aristotle’s De Anima we can understand that pre-Aristotle thinkers were already concerned with corporeal and incorporeal problems. For example, for Plato soul was an ‘incorporeal’ and immortal thing, but body corporeal and mortal. The first impression we get from reading De Anima is that the mind and body problem was unsolved. Perhaps the resolved problem didn’t satisfy Aristotle. Aristotle claims that an incorporeal thing cannot exist without a corporeal thing. Aristotle’s new theory for solving soul and body problems makes controversial debate among most post-Aristotelian philosophers. Rene Descartes was one of them who rejected the Aristotelian...
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...unlikely that we will do anything unless it makes us happy. Because happiness and its definition are so widely debated and thought provoking, it is no wonder that a mind such as Aristotle undertakes the task of writing about happiness. What we come to find in Book One Nicomachean Ethics is that Aristotle ultimately defines happiness as function. However, in this definition comes two major questions: Why does function equate to happiness and how can we even be sure that humans have a function? In this essay I will prove that happiness is the end that human function strives towards, and, by showing why Aristotle’s argument does not evoke the fallacy of composition, that humans...
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...ARISTOTLE'S POLIS: NATURE, HAPPINESS, AND FREEDOh1 Ideologists of all stripes seem to have difficulty dealing with t h e foundations of what is loosely called the ""Western tradition," t h a t is, the body of knowledge that has come down to us from Athens a n d Jerusalem. Of course, these days Jerusalem is simply ignored. T h e classical tradition, however, must be dealt with. Yet it is frequently so transfigured that what emerges is what the ideologist wishes u s t o see, rather than what is these. The most ambitious attempt at this sort of thing by a 'Yiberal" ideologist is Eric A. Havelock's T h e Liberal Temper in Greek Politics.' More recently and on a smaller scale, Fred Miller has, in the pages of this journal, interpreted one aspect of the classical tradition from the standpoint of "~ibertarianY' political theory, in his essay "The State and the Community in Aristotle's Polieics. "' This curious attempt to defend the "libertarianism9' of Lykophron and Mippodamus3 against Aristotle's '6ppaternalism9'is a daring, if ill-conceived, enterprise. In Miller's presentation, Aristotle seems t o emerge as a villain who misunderstand the enlightened political thought of the Greek "libertarians" and, we are to infer, derails subsequent political thought in the name of "'paternalism." Fundamental to Miller's reading of the Politics is the idea t h a t there is a distinction between ""cmmunity" and "'state" that Aristotle confuses in his use of golis. He argues that...
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...AS Philosophy & Ethics Course Handbook 2013 to 2014 [pic] OCR AS Level Religious Studies (H172) http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/type/gce/hss/rs/index.aspx OCR AS Level Religious Studies (H172) You are studying Philosophy of Religion and Religious Ethics and will be awarded an OCR AS Level in Religious Studies. The modules and their weightings are: |AS: |Unit Code |Unit Title |% of AS |(% of A Level) | | |G571 |AS Philosophy of Religion |50% |(25%) | | |G572 |AS Religious Ethics |50% |(25%) | If you decide to study for the full A Level you will have to study the following modules at A2: |A2: |Unit Code |Unit Title |(% of A Level) | | |G581 |A2 Philosophy of Religion |(25%) | | |G582 |A2 Religious Ethics |(25%) | Grading | ...
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...rational being who feels emotions. Our emotions make up a part if not most of our humanity. It can be also called passions like how it was used in antiquity. One of these emotions is love. To feel love and to reciprocate it is proper to rational beings such as the human person. But the term “love” has taken quite different meanings around the globe, a lot of persons even have their own notion of love. It is the one of the most elusive and abused term of mankind. It eludes definition for the reason that one really cannot exhaust love in one specific definition. As Benedict XVI said (2006, p. 7) “In our present context, the term “love” has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word where we attach quite different meanings.” We human persons are capable of expressing and accepting love, since we are endowed with intellect and will aside from our passions. These faculties make it possible for a human to feel being loved and to love back in return. The faculty intellect is the one that perceives and comprehends love, where we can interpret it, while the faculty of the will is the one that is responsible for conveying and reciprocating love. Our acts as human beings such as loving are very much different from those of the animals’. This is because human acts require the use of both the intellect and the will. It requires knowing and willing a particular act, making it voluntary. Aristotle notes that “What is voluntary would seem to be that of which...
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...1. What are the implications of Aristotle's unification of body and soul for human relations with the earth? Are people more likely to respect plants and animals if they are understood to have souls? Aristotle’s belief that humans consisted of the body and soul. The soul, he speculated, was the essence of life and is what made us so advanced compared to other creatures on Earth. The body and soul, together, create the human. In modern times the word “Human” also is used as an adjective. We describe animals who act similar to us as being “strangely human”. This is a good example of how we see ourselves in comparison to nature. Animals and plants are as alive as we are so why do we treat them wrongfully? This must change if we are to reach an...
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...rules which we can apply to our actions whereas the latter argues that rather than creating a system of ethics, we ought to focus on the very character of people; adopting good habits of character will lead us to doing was is right and what is essential for us to be a fully happy...
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...that pleasure. A pleasure which is proper to an activity makes the activity more accurate, more enduring, and better, while an alien pleasure impairs the activity. The pleasure proper to a good activity is good, while the pleasure proper to a bad activity is evil. Just as each animal is thought to have a proper function, it also has a proper pleasure which corresponds to the activity of that function. The pleasures proper to human beings are those which correspond to the activity of a perfect and blessed man. Section 6: Let us review what has already been said about happiness. Happiness is an activity of some sort which is chosen for its own sake and is self-sufficient. Actions according to virtue are chosen for their own sake. Happiness is not found in amusement, for it would be absurd to argue that the goal of a person's life and work is amusement. Rather, amusement is chosen for the purpose of relaxation, which is necessary to enable a person to engage in serious work. Everything is thought to be chosen for the sake of something else except for happiness. A happy life is a life according to virtue. Section 7: Since it has already been established [in Book One] that happiness is an activity according to virtue, it is reasonable to posit that it is an activity according to the highest virtue, which would be an activity corresponding to the best part of man. The activity of the intellect is the best human activity, since it corresponds to the highest part of man...
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...In this essay, I argue that popular culture strongly portrays and greatly determines a person’s experiences with friendship. In recent years, the popularity of social media platforms, such as Facebook, have risen portraying a new form of communication for friends and strangers alike. To say that the growing age of social media has impacted popular culture would be an understatement. Traditionally, friendships have been formed off of face-to-face interaction, and with the steady rise of social networking, those types of connections seem to be few and far between. In the article, Why I Am Not a Friend, Mariam Thalos expressed her concerns on the topic saying that “…social networking might make a wide range of face-to-face interactions obsolete,...
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...justified in Birmingham. From his prison cell, King replied not only to the ministers' letter but also to an educated, white, middle-class audience, by writing his response in the margins of the newspaper and on toilet paper . "I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was well timed in the view of those who have not suffered from the disease of segregation," King, wrote in what was later published as the essay, Letter from Birmingham Jail. The 6500 word letter went on to explain and make clear to the clergy and to the world why the struggle against racism must not be deferred. King's main claim in this letter is that no matter what the circumstances are it is far beyond time for the black community to stand up and fight for what is rightfully theirs, the same rights and freedoms accorded to the white community. King effectively accomplishes this task through the structure of the essay and in his use of pathos, ethos, and logos to defend his arguments. King's structure of the essay is purposeful in its attempt to sway the audience into his way of thinking. King begins the essay by clarifying why he is in Birmingham to begin with. Secondly, King describes his direct action campaign, for this is why he is being attacked, his "unruly" behavior. He then explains to the reader that this campaign may involve breaking laws, but they are laws that should not be in place to begin with. Next King appeals to the...
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..."Discuss critically religious and secular ethical arguments about environmental issues" In his book, 'The End Of Nature', Bill McKibben highlights the fact that we are destroying the natural environment at an increasing rate, for our own short-term gain. Since the day that man created agriculture, and industrialisation to follow, the imbalance between man and nature has been growing[1/2]. This has been accompanied by a massive population increase, tripling in the twentieth century alone[3]. Human pressure on nature has never been so great. Such pressure has resulted in 'environmental issues', ranging from global warming and eutrophication, to the depletion of natural resources and an increase in the number of landfill sites. A distinction must be drawn between 'anthropogenically created’ environmental issues, and 'natural' ones. The extinction of most of the dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago was not caused by man, but rather an entirely natural disaster, perhaps a meteor or extreme tectonic activity. It is difficult to apply any man-made ethic to situations that are not man-made, so for the purpose of this essay, 'environmental issues' will be taken to be current issues actively cause by human beings. During the last few decades, many thinkers from different disciplines have been searching for a new ethic to confront environmental issues with - an 'environmental ethic'. Whether religious or secular in nature, this must be able to define the environment...
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...Sophocles' Oedipus is a perfect fit to Aristotle's Ideal Tragic Hero. Oedipus follows all of the rules, with a hamartia, an anagnorisis, and a peripeteia. The audience is introduced to the hamartia, or tragic flaw, of Oedipus early in the play. Oedipus believes he can dodge the oracle given to him at Delphi that he will kill his father and marry his mother. By leaving the city of Corinth and heading to Thebes, Oedipus thinks that he can outsmart the will that the gods have for him. However, the audience knows that one cannot run away from an oracle. The oracle will come true no matter what is done. Therefore, the hamartia of Oedipus is his belief that he can evade his oracle. Oedipus' anagnorisis, recognition, later comes when he is told that it was he who killed the former King Lauis and that he is, in fact, now married to his own mother. The city of Thebes had been searching for King Lauis' murderer in order to drive him out of Thebes to save the city from the plague. With this anagnorisis Oedipus is finally led to his peripeteia, or downfall. First of all, Oedipus is put to shame in front of his entire city because of his incestuous act of marrying his mother. But, more importantly, he realizes that he had not successfully avoided the oracle. In order to try to save himself he blinds himself. If he is not able to see the truth with his own eyes, he should not be able to enjoy the gift of sight. http://personal.monm.edu/ysample/aristotle.htm Oedipus follows ten of the points...
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...notion that to understand the world one needed to know its nature and that there was an explanation for all phenomena in natural terms. That was a giant step from the assumptions of the old world that supernatural forces determined almost everything. While considering the effects of magnetism and static electricity, he concluded that the power to move other things without the mover itself changing was a characteristic of "life", so that a magnet and amber must therefore be alive in some way (in that they have animation or the power to act). If so, he argued, there is no difference between the living and the dead. If all things were alive, they must also have souls or divinities (a natural belief of his time), and the end result of this argument was an almost total removal of mind from substance, opening the door to an innovative non-divine principle of action. Thales recognized a single transcendental God (Monism), who has neither beginning nor end, but who expresses himself through other gods...
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...Part 1 1. What is Philosophy? Quite literally, the term "philosophy" means, "love of wisdom." In a broad sense, philosophy is an activity people undertake when they seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationships to the world and to each other. As an academic discipline philosophy is much the same. Those who study philosophy are perpetually engaged in asking, answering, and arguing for their answers to life’s most basic questions. To make such a pursuit more systematic academic philosophy is traditionally divided into major areas of study. Source: http://philosophy.fsu.edu/content/view/full/36588 2. What are the benefits of Studying Philosophy? Studying philosophy improves reasoning and critical skills. Skills gained by philosophy majors are useful in almost any career. * The ability to think logically * The ability to analyze and solve problems * The ability to assess proposed solutions * The ability to write and speak clearly, attending to details Students learn about questions. How to ask good questions and distinguish the worthwhile from the worthless questions. How to divide, prioritize, and simplify questions. Students are affected by learning about questions. * Studying questions liberates us from prejudice * It helps us to think independently, thus, promoting autonomy, self-government, and individuation * It broadens our perspective on life The study of philosophy benefits students intellectually...
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