Plato, Aristotle and nunThe pipes deep beneath the ground in Flint quietly disseminated poison into the bodies of its residents. As we dig into the history of Western thought, we find a similar leeching. Ideas, deep beneath the language and culture of the West, continue to poison the future before us. In this section, I excavate...
(Shame, Temporality and Social Change:Ominous Transitions)What happened in Athens after both Plato and Aristotle were gone?Athens remained the center of philosophy until the Romans sacked it in 87 b.c.e. Much of our knowledge of Hellenistic philosophical activity comes from the first century B.c.E. Roman writers Lucretius (99-55 b.c.e.) and Cicero (106-43 b.c.e.), and secondary medieval sources. Plato's Academy became the...
(The handy philosophy answer book)Did Plato and Aristotle influence early Christian and medieval philosophy?Yes, but both early christian and medieval philosophy were influenced by interpretations of Plato and Aristotle's thought, which neither they nor today's scholars would accept as completely true to the sources. This was because Plato was given a Neoplatonic interpretation and Aristotle was interpreted...
(The handy philosophy answer book)Plato and AristotleThe superiority theory is said to have originated in Plato’s comments on laughter and ridicule. To be overcome with laughter was, for Plato, not befitting of the philosopher and a threat to both rationality and social order. For this reason, Plato thought it important that laughter should be controlled,...
(The Rhetoric of Racist Humour: US, UK and Global Race Joking)Plato on the pleasures and pains of knowingPlato often assures us that it is pleasant to acquire knowledge. In the Republic a philosopher is said to live the most pleasant life because only a philosopher experiences the true and pure pleasures to be had from acquiring knowledge of the special intelligible objects that are the Forms. In...
(The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists)Aristotle on the pleasures of learning and knowingIt is well known that Aristotle disagrees with what he takes to be the analysis of the nature of pleasure dominant among his predecessors and contemporaries, namely that pleasure is some kind of change (kinesis) or coming-to-be (genesis). He often connects this view of the nature of pleasure...
(The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists)Measuring future pleasures in Plato ’s Protagoras and PhilebusTowards the end of Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates and Protagoras discuss our ability to choose between possible courses of action or possible objects of pursuit by comparing respective levels of pleasantness and painfulness. Socrates outlines a means by which someone can ensure that he makes the...
(The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists)Aristotle on the pleasures and pains of memoryAristotle has a lot to say about memory and a lot to say about the nature of pleasure. He also has something to say about the relationship between pleasure and memory and expectation. Sometimes it appears that Aristotle assumes a model like the one at work in Plato’s Philebus. But at other times...
(The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists)Aristotle’s Response to Plato: The Importance of FriendshipTo provide an overview as to how Aristotle approached this objective, it is necessary to review an essential element of Plato's Republic. Plato’s Republic, in establishing the reign of reason in a just society including, of course, the just soul, envisioned a society in which workers, guardians, and...
(Political Thinking, Political Theory, and Civil Society)Aristotle on Plato’s Forms and the Search for HappinessFor Aristotle, a person with practical intelligence seeks the "best good for a human being that is achievable in action.”16 On this view, one should pursue only the best goals that are worthy of human life and that are capable of being realized in practice. Aristotle, in the Politics, believed...
(Political Thinking, Political Theory, and Civil Society)
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