Biography

Socrates, (born c. 470 BCE, Athens [Greece]—died 399 BCE, Athens), Greek philosopher whose way of
life, character, and thought exerted a profound influence on ancient and modern philosophy.
Socrates (469/470-399 BCE) was a Greekphilosopher and is considered the father of
western philosophy. Plato was his most famous student and would teach Aristotle who would
then tutorAlexander the Great. By this progression, Greek philosophy, as first developed by Socrates,
was spread throughout the known world duringAlexander's conquests.
Socrates was born c. 469/470 BCE to the sculptor Sophronicus and the mid-wife Phaenarete. He
studied music, gymnastics, and grammar in his youth (the common subjects of study for a young Greek)
and followed his father's profession as a sculptor. Tradition holds that he was an exceptional artist, and
his statue of the Graces, on the road to the Acropolis, is said to have been admired into the 2nd century
CE. Socrates served with distinction in the army and, at the Battle of Potidaea, saved the life of the
General Alcibiades.

When he was middle-aged, Socrates' friend Chaerephon asked the famous Oracle at Delphi if there was
anyone wiser than Socrates, to which the Oracle answered, "None." Bewildered by this answer and
hoping to prove the Oracle wrong, Socrates went about questioning people who were held to be 'wise'
in their own estimation and that of others. He found, to his dismay, "that the men whose reputation for
wisdom stood highest were nearly the most lacking in it, while others who were looked down on as
common people were much more intelligent" (Plato, Apology, 22). The youth of Athens delighted in
watching Socrates question their elders in the market and, soon, he had a following of young men who,
because of his example and his teachings, would go on to abandon their early aspirations and devote
themselves to philosophy (from the Greek 'Philo', love, and 'Sophia', wisdom - literally 'the love of
wisdom'). Among these were Antisthenes (founder of the Cynic school), Aristippus (the Cyrenaic
school), Xenophon (whose writings would influence Zeno of Cithium, founder of the Stoic school) and,
most famously, Plato (the main source of our information of Socrates in his Dialogues) among many
others. Every major philosophical school mentioned by ancient writers following Socrates' death was
founded by one of his followers.
The diversity of these schools is testimony to Socrates' wide ranging influence and, more importantly,
the diversity of interpretations of his teachings. The philosophical concepts taught by Antisthenes and
Aristippus could not be more different, in that the former taught that the good life was attained by self-
control and self-abnegation, while the latter claimed a life of pleasure was the only path worth pursuing.
It has been said that Socrates' greatest contribution to philosophy was to move intellectual pursuits
away from the focus on `physical science' (as pursued by the so-called Pre-Socratic Philosophers such as
Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and others) and into the abstract realm of ethics and morality. No
matter the diversity of the schools which claimed to carry on his teachings, they all emphasized some
form of morality as their foundational tenet. That the `morality' espoused by one school was often
condemned by another, again bears witness to the very different interpretations of Socrates' central
message. While scholars have traditionally relied upon Plato's Dialogues as a source for information on
the historical Socrates, Plato's contemporaries claimed he used a character he called `Socrates' as a
mouth-piece for his own philosophical views. Notable among these critics was, allegedly, Phaedo, a
fellow student of Socrates, whose writings are now lost, and Xenophon, whose Memorablia presents a
different view of Socrates than that presented by Plato.
HOWEVER HIS TEACHINGS WERE INTERPRETED, IT SEEMS CLEAR THAT SOCRATES' MAIN FOCUS WAS
ON HOW TO LIVE A GOOD AND VIRTUOUS LIFE.
However his teachings were interpreted, it seems clear that Socrates' main focus was on how to live a
good and virtuous life. The claim atrributed to him by Plato that "an unexamined life is not worth living"

We
(Apology, 38b) seems historically accurate, in that it is clear he inspired his followers to think for
themselves instead of following the dictates of society and the accepted superstitions concerning the
gods and how one should behave. While there are differences between Plato's and Xenophon's
depictions of Socrates, both present a man who cared nothing for class distinctions or `proper behavior'
and who spoke as easily with women, servants, and slaves as with those of the higher classes. In ancient
Athens, individual behavior was maintained by a concept known as `Eusebia' which is often translated
into English as `piety' but more closely resembles `duty' or `loyalty to a course'. In refusing to conform to
the social propieties proscribed by Eusebia, Socrates angered many of the more important men of
the city who could, rightly, accuse him of breaking the law by violating these customs.

In 399 BCE Socrates was charged with impiety by Meletus the poet, Anytus the tanner, and Lycon the
orator who sought the death penalty in the case. The accusation read: “Socrates is guilty, firstly, of
denying the gods recognized by the state and introducing new divinities, and, secondly, of corrupting
the young.” It has been suggested that this charge was both personally and politically motivated as
Athens was trying to purge itself of those associated with the scourge of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens
who had only recently been overthrown. Socrates' relationship to this regime was through his former
student, Critias, who was considered to be among the worst of the tyrants and was thought to have
been corrupted by Socrates. It has also been suggested, based in part on interpretations of Plato's
dialogue of the Meno, that Anytus blamed Socrates for corrupting his son. Anytus, it seems, had been
grooming his son for a life in politics until the boy became interested in Socrates' teachings and
abandoned political pursuits. As Socrates' accusers had Critias as an example of how the philosopher
corrupted youth, even if they never used that evidence in court, the precedent appears to have been
known to the jury.
Ignoring the counsel of his friends and refusing the help of the gifted speechwriter Lysias, Socrates chose
to defend himself in court. There were no lawyers in ancient Athens and, instead of a solicitor, one
would hire a speechwriter. Lysias was among the most highly paid but, as he admired Socrates, he
offered his services free of charge. The speechwriter usually presented the defendant as a good man
who had been wronged by a false accusation, and this is the sort of defense the court would have
expected from Socrates. Instead of the defense filled with self-justification and pleas for his life,
however, Socrates defied the Athenian court, proclaiming his innocence and casting himself in the role
of Athens' 'gadfly' - a benefactor to them all who, at his own expense, kept them awake and aware.
When it came time for Socrates to suggest a penalty to be imposed rather than death, he suggested he
should be maintained in honor with free meals in the Prytaneum, a place reserved for heroes of
the Olympic games. This would have been considered a serious insult to the honor of the Prytaneum
and that of the city of Athens. Accused criminals on trial for their life were expected to beg for the
mercy of the court, not presume to heroic accolades.

Socrates was convicted and sentenced to death (Xenophon tells us that he wished for such an outcome
and Plato's account of the trial in his Apology would seem to confirm this). The last days of Socrates are
chronicled in Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, the last dialogue depicting the day of his
death (by drinking hemlock) surrounded by his friends in his jail cell in Athens and, as Plato puts it, "Such
was the end of our friend, a man, I think, who was the wisest and justest, and the best man I have ever
known" (Phaedo, 118).

Socrates' influence was felt immediately in the actions of his disciples as they formed their own
interpretations of his life, teachings, and death, and set about forming their own philosophical schools
and writing about their experiences with their teacher. Of all these writings we have only the works of
Plato, Xenophon, a comic image by Aristophanes, and later works by Aristotle to tell us anything about

We
Socrates' life. He, himself, wrote nothing, but his words and actions in the search for and defense of
Truth changed the world and his example still inspires people today.

Important contribution
Socrates (ca. 469-399 BCE) is hailed as one of the founders of Western philosophy, however, very little is
known about him as a historical figure and philosopher. The best account of life and work of one of the
most influential philosophers of all times is given by the later classical writers, in the first place by his
students Plato and Xenophon and the playwright Aristophanes who was his contemporary. Despite that,
the mentioned writers reveal that the ancient Greek philosopher made important contributions to
philosophy as well as epistemology and logic. He is the inventor of the so-called Socratic method or
elenchus which remains one of the most commonly used approaches not only to answer the
fundamental questions of philosophy but it also serves as a tool for scientific research. Ironically, the
most famous Socrates’ saying is “I only know that I know nothing”.
Socratic Problem
As mentioned earlier, Socrates’ life and work are surrounded by mystery. He did not write any
philosophical works or left any writings. The knowledge we have about him both as a historical figure
and philosopher is based exclusively on later classical writings. Uncertainty regarding Socrates’ life and
work which is known as the Socratic problem is related to the fact that the information we have about
him (besides the above mentioned authors, Socrates also appears in the works by Aristotle and the
famous historian Thucydides) are philosophical and dramatic rather than historical texts. This makes it
very difficult to create a picture of his life, work and philosophical thought.
Socrates’ student Plato is traditionally considered the best source about the philosopher’s life and work
although many scholars emphasise that it is very difficult to distinguish between Plato’s and Socrates’
philosophical views and even more difficult to create an accurate account of Socrates’ life. As a result,
some consider Xenophon to be more reliable source of information about Socrates as a historical figure.
Personal Life
Plato and Xenophon are the main sources for Socrates’ personal life. From their writing, we find out that
the renowned ancient Greek philosopher was born to Sophroniscus, a stonemason (or perhaps a
sculptor) and his wife Phaenarete who was a midwife. He spent his life in Athens where he was born but
details of his early life are scarce. He is said to participate in the Peloponnesian War (431-04 BCE) and
that he married relatively late with Xanthippe who was much younger from him. She bore him three
sons – Lamprocles, Sophroniscus and Menexenus.
It is not certain what Socrates did for a living. According to Xenophon, he was completely devoted to
philosophy, while Aristophanes says that he earned a living by teaching at a school he ran with
Chaerephon. Plato, however, rejects the accounts of Socrates being paid for teaching. Then there are
also accounts of him working as a stonemason, like his father. In the antiquity, he was credited with the
creation of the Three Graces statues near Acropolis but this has been rejected by modern scholars.
The Gadfly of Athens
Plato portrays Socrates as the gadfly of Athens. He explains that Socrates loved to “test” the wisdom of
those he considered to be wiser than him. But since most of the people he “tested” were statesmen and
other influential people of Athens, he soon came to be known as the gadfly of Athens because his
methods of testing wisdom made many influential people look everything but wise in the public. He also
came into conflict with the elites and the general public in Athens by praising the city’s rival of Sparta
although he claimed loyalty to Athens. It is speculated that his role of gadfly might had been one of the
leading causes for his trial and execution. However, he remained the “gadfly of Athens” until the very
end. At the trial, he apparently proposed that he should be paid a wage by the government and free
dinners for lifetime when he had been asked to propose a punishment for his wrongdoing.
Trial and Execution

We
Those who persecuted and tried Socrates did not left any records. Again, Plato and Xenophon are the
main sources for the events leading to the philosopher’s trial and execution. They tell us that Meletus,
Lycon and Anytus charged Socrates with impiety and corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens. In his
defence speech, he is said to defend his role as the “gadfly”, making it easy on his persecutors to
sentence him to death. Both Plato and Xenophon tell us that he had an opportunity to escape and that
his friend Crito even bribed the guards in the prison but he decided to stay. He was given to drink poison
hemlock.
Socratic Method
Socrates main contribution to Western philosophy is his method of inquiry that was called after him
Socratic method, sometimes also known as elenchus. According to the latter, a statement can be
considered true only if it cannot be proved wrong. The Socratic method which is dialectic breaks down a
problem into a series of questions which are then sought to be answered. This method which is also
used in scientific research by making a hypothesis and then either proving it correct or false, is by some
suggested to be first used by Zeno of Elea (ca. 490-430 BCE) but it was Socrates who refined it and used
it to solve ethical questions.
The philosopher’s beliefs are difficult to distinguish from Plato’s. According to some, they may have
been reinterpreted by Plato but according to the others, the latter perhaps completely adopted
Socrates’ philosophical thoughts and that his beliefs actually reflect those from Socrates. Thus the
famous philosopher’s saying “I only know that I know nothing” can be in a way also claimed for his life
and work.

His concept about the Self

Know thyself: a moral epistemological and injunction
“I only know that I know nothing.” That is the thing I know most.”

The philosophy of Socrates still shines today. Even the most distant philosophers of his principles have
discussed and debated his philosophy and teaching (Nietzsche for example).
The phrase “Know thyself” has not been invented by Socrates. It is a motto inscribed on the frontispiece
of the Temple of Delphi.
This assertion, imperative in the form, indicates that man must stand and live according his nature.Man
has to look at himself. To find what? By what means?
These two questions are fundamental.
The what, at first. Indeed, this invitation to introspection must be connected to the Platonic theory of
reminiscence. Everyone, says Socrates, has the knowledge itself, just remember them. Knowledge is
inherent in man, not outside. Wisdom is learning to recollect.
How, then. This knowledge of oneself can be achieved only through the Socratic method, that is to say,
the dialogue between the soul and itself, or between a student and his teacher. Socrates is as often in
the role of questioner, as an attendant emotional. Socrates’ questions because he knows nothing,
knows he knows nothing, has nothing to learn, but it can help its followers to discover the truths they
have in them.
Without this work on yourself, life is worthless according to Socrates:
“An unexamined life not worth living“

“The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.”

Socrates – Republic 38c
Socrates left no actual writing so impressions of Socrates have come primarily from the writings of his
student, Plato. There are also other contributions from Xenophon and a contemporary playwright –
Aristophanes.

We
It is possible that Plato embellished the legacy of Socrates by making him appear the noblest
philosopher; an ideal to be cherished and followed. The extent of this embellishment is hard to quantify,
but the life of Socrates remains a great inspiration to many.
Socrates married Xanthippe and together they had three children. Tradition suggests that Xanthippe was
argumentative and hard to please, with Socrates the model of philosophic calm.
The Socratic Method
Apart from a brief spell in the army, it is not clear how Socrates earned a living; but he attracted a group
of young men, who came to learn and study with Socrates. Socrates sought to teach through a path of
self-enquiry. He did not claim to have the answers; he would merely ask questions to his students,
forcing them to think for themselves and question their own dogmas and beliefs.
“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing,”
– Republic, 354c
This famous statement of Socrates is symptomatic of his Socratic method. Socrates was always aware of
the limitation of his knowledge.
Plato writes how the thirty tyrants sought to involve Socrates in the unjust execution of Leon of Salamis,
who opposed the Tyrants. Socrates, however, refused and could have been executed himself, had not
the tyrants been overthrown.
During Socrates’ life, the state of Athens was undergoing political turmoil after suffering a humiliating
defeat in the Peloponnesian war. This exacerbated feelings of nationalism and loyalty to the Athenian
state. However, Socrates felt compelled to test and examine his own countrymen. He was also willing to
criticise and test conceptions of justice and avoid a narrow sectarian viewpoint.
At one point, Socrates famously states (as quoted by Plutarch).
“I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”
However, his persistent criticisms and questioning created political enemies; his position was worsened
by the suspicious climate of the time.
A friend of Socrates, Chaerephon, asked the Oracle of Delphi if anyone was wiser than Socrates. The
Oracle said that no one was wiser than Socrates.
Socrates thought this was a paradox because he didn’t know anything. However, after talking to all the
leading poets and dignitaries of Athens, Socrates realised that although other people thought they knew
a lot – actually they didn’t. So Socrates affirmed that the Oracle was right. He was the wisest – purely
because he was aware of his own ignorance.
“I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he
knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I
do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do
not know.”
Socrates is often portrayed as a great saint – someone with a command of his own self. Though he was
also reputed to have a quick anger. One story concerning Socrates was when Socrates, along with some
students, went to see a well known ‘soothsayer’. The ‘soothsayer’ was asked to speak about the nature
of Socrates.
She replied that Socrates had all the negative qualities of vanity, ego, fear and hatred.
At this, his students were outraged as they didn’t see them in their teacher.
However, at this point, the soothsayer continued. True, Socrates has these qualities, but unlike others,
he is also able to rise above them and keep them locked away.
Trial and Execution of Socrates
Socrates’ unorthodox political viewpoints and willingness to expose the ignorance of others created
many enemies. This led to his arrest and trial. This trial was sensationalised in the dialogues of Plato.
Plato paints a picture of a philosopher perfectly detached from the fear of death and committed to the
truth. Shortly before his death, Socrates said:

We
“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die and you to live. Which is the better,
only God knows.”
When Socrates was found guilty of ‘corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and of ‘impiety’ He
calmly accepted the verdict and rather than try and escape the death penalty – he accepted the hemlock
poison. If Socrates had repudiated his beliefs, he could have been free; he could also have tried to
escape, but as a philosopher, he felt it more important to stick to his beliefs. He also felt a social contact
with the state of Athens, and therefore should willingly meet his fate. Socrates’ last words were:
“Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please, don’t forget to pay the debt.” Asclepius was the Greek god
for curing illness.
This could have meant Socrates saw death as freedom for the soul. Others interpret it as meaning that
his death was a purifying remedy for Athens’ misfortune and mistakes.

Aristotle (384—322 B.C.E.)

Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, making contributions to logic, metaphysics,
mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He was
a student of Plato who in turn studied under Socrates. He was more empirically-minded than Plato or
Socrates and is famous for rejecting Plato's theory of forms.

As a prolific writer and polymath, Aristotle radically transformed most, if not all, areas of
knowledge he touched. It is no wonder that Aquinas referred to him simply as "The
Philosopher." In his lifetime, Aristotle wrote as many as 200 treatises, of which only 31 survive.
Unfortunately for us, these works are in the form of lecture notes and draft manuscripts never
intended for general readership, so they do not demonstrate his reputed polished prose style
which attracted many great followers, including the Roman Cicero. Aristotle was the first to
classify areas of human knowledge into distinct disciplines such as mathematics, biology, and
ethics. Some of these classifications are still used today.
As the father of the field of logic, he was the first to develop a formalized system for reasoning.
Aristotle observed that the validity of any argument can be determined by its structure rather
than its content. A classic example of a valid argument is his syllogism: All men are mortal;
Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. Given the structure of this argument, as long as
the premises are true, then the conclusion is also guaranteed to be true. Aristotle’s brand of logic
dominated this area of thought until the rise of modern propositional logic and predicate logic
2000 years later.
Aristotle’s emphasis on good reasoning combined with his belief in the scientific method forms
the backdrop for most of his work. For example, in his work in ethics and politics, Aristotle
identifies the highest good with intellectual virtue; that is, a moral person is one who cultivates
certain virtues based on reasoning. And in his work on psychology and the soul, Aristotle

We
distinguishes sense perception from reason, which unifies and interprets the sense perceptions
and is the source of all knowledge.

Aristotle famously rejected Plato’s theory of forms, which states that properties such as beauty
are abstract universal entities that exist independent of the objects themselves. Instead, he argued
that forms are intrinsic to the objects and cannot exist apart from them, and so must be studied in
relation to them. However, in discussing art, Aristotle seems to reject this, and instead argues for
idealized universal form which artists attempt to capture in their work.
Aristotle was the founder of the Lyceum, a school of learning based in Athens, Greece; and he
was an inspiration for the Peripatetics, his followers from the Lyceum.
1. Life
Aristotle was born in 384 BCE at Stagirus, a now extinct Greek colony and seaport on the coast
of Thrace. His father Nichomachus was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia, and
from this began Aristotle's long association with the Macedonian Court, which considerably
influenced his life. While he was still a boy his father died. At age 17 his guardian, Proxenus,
sent him to Athens, the intellectual center of the world, to complete his education. He joined the
Academy and studied under Plato, attending his lectures for a period of twenty years. In the later
years of his association with Plato and the Academy he began to lecture on his own account,
especially on the subject of rhetoric. At the death of Plato in 347, the pre-eminent ability of
Aristotle would seem to have designated him to succeed to the leadership of the Academy. But
his divergence from Plato's teaching was too great to make this possible, and Plato's nephew
Speusippus was chosen instead. At the invitation of his friend Hermeas, ruler of Atarneus and
Assos in Mysia, Aristotle left for his court. He stayed three year and, while there, married
Pythias, the niece of the King. In later life he was married a second time to a woman named
Herpyllis, who bore him a son, Nichomachus. At the end of three years Hermeas was overtaken
by the Persians, and Aristotle went to Mytilene. At the invitation of Philip of Macedonia he
became the tutor of his 13 year old son Alexander (later world conqueror); he did this for the
next five years. Both Philip and Alexander appear to have paid Aristotle high honor, and there
were stories that Aristotle was supplied by the Macedonian court, not only with funds for
teaching, but also with thousands of slaves to collect specimens for his studies in natural science.
These stories are probably false and certainly exaggerated.
Upon the death of Philip, Alexander succeeded to the kingship and prepared for his subsequent
conquests. Aristotle's work being finished, he returned to Athens, which he had not visited since
the death of Plato. He found the Platonic school flourishing under Xenocrates, and Platonism the
dominant philosophy of Athens. He thus set up his own school at a place called the Lyceum.

We
When teaching at the Lyceum, Aristotle had a habit of walking about as he discoursed. It was in
connection with this that his followers became known in later years as the peripatetics, meaning
"to walk about." For the next thirteen years he devoted his energies to his teaching and
composing his philosophical treatises. He is said to have given two kinds of lectures: the more
detailed discussions in the morning for an inner circle of advanced students, and the popular
discourses in the evening for the general body of lovers of knowledge. At the sudden death of
Alexander in 323 BCE., the pro-Macedonian government in Athens was overthrown, and a
general reaction occurred against anything Macedonian. A charge of impiety was trumped up
against him. To escape prosecution he fled to Chalcis in Euboea so that (Aristotle says) "The
Athenians might not have another opportunity of sinning against philosophy as they had already
done in the person of Socrates." In the first year of his residence at Chalcis he complained of a
stomach illness and died in 322 BCE.
2. Writings
It is reported that Aristotle's writings were held by his student Theophrastus, who had succeeded
Aristotle in leadership of the Peripatetic School. Theophrastus's library passed to his pupil
Neleus. To protect the books from theft, Neleus's heirs concealed them in a vault, where they
were damaged somewhat by dampness, moths and worms. In this hiding place they were
discovered about 100 BCE by Apellicon, a rich book lover, and brought to Athens. They were
later taken to Rome after the capture of Athens by Sulla in 86 BCE. In Rome they soon attracted
the attention of scholars, and the new edition of them gave fresh impetus to the study of Aristotle
and of philosophy in general. This collection is the basis of the works of Aristotle that we have
today. Strangely, the list of Aristotle's works given by Diogenes Laertius does not contain any of
these treatises. It is possible that Diogenes' list is that of forgeries compiled at a time when the
real works were lost to sight.
The works of Aristotle fall under three headings: (1) dialogues and other works of a popular
character; (2) collections of facts and material from scientific treatment; and (3) systematic
works. Among his writings of a popular nature the only one which we possess of any
consequence is the interesting tract On the Polity of the Athenians. The works on the second
group include 200 titles, most in fragments, collected by Aristotle's school and used as research.
Some may have been done at the time of Aristotle's successor Theophrastus. Included in this
group are constitutions of 158 Greek states. The systematic treatises of the third group are
marked by a plainness of style, with none of the golden flow of language which the ancients
praised in Aristotle. This may be due to the fact that these works were not, in most cases,
published by Aristotle himself or during his lifetime, but were edited after his death from
unfinished manuscripts. Until Werner Jaeger (1912) it was assumed that Aristotle's writings

We
presented a systematic account of his views. Jaeger argues for an early, middle and late period
(genetic approach), where the early period follows Plato's theory of forms and soul, the middle
rejects Plato, and the later period (which includes most of his treatises) is more empirically
oriented. Aristotle's systematic treatises may be grouped in several divisions:
 Logic
1. Categories (10 classifications of terms)
2. On Interpretation (propositions, truth, modality)
3. Prior Analytics (syllogistic logic)
4. Posterior Analytics (scientific method and syllogism)
5. Topics (rules for effective arguments and debate)
6. On Sophistical Refutations (informal fallacies)
 Physical works
1. Physics (explains change, motion, void, time)
2. On the Heavens (structure of heaven, earth, elements)
3. On Generation (through combining material constituents)
4. Meteorologics (origin of comets, weather, disasters)
 Psychological works
1. On the Soul (explains faculties, senses, mind, imagination)
2. On Memory, Reminiscence, Dreams, and Prophesying
 Works on natural history
1. History of Animals (physical/mental qualities, habits)
2. On the parts of Animals
3. On the Movement of Animals
4. On the Progression of Animals
5. On the Generation of Animals
6. Minor treatises
7. Problems
 Philosophical works
1. Metaphysics (substance, cause, form, potentiality)
2. Nicomachean Ethics (soul, happiness, virtue, friendship)
3. Eudemain Ethics
4. Magna Moralia
5. Politics (best states, utopias, constitutions, revolutions)
6. Rhetoric (elements of forensic and political debate)
7. Poetics (tragedy, epic poetry)

We
3. Logic
Aristotle's writings on the general subject of logic were grouped by the later Peripatetics under
the name Organon, or instrument. From their perspective, logic and reasoning was the chief
preparatory instrument of scientific investigation. Aristotle himself, however, uses the term
"logic" as equivalent to verbal reasoning. The Categories of Aristotle are classifications of
individual words (as opposed to sentences or propositions), and include the following ten:
substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, situation, condition, action, passion. They seem
to be arranged according to the order of the questions we would ask in gaining knowledge of an
object. For example, we ask, first, what a thing is, then how great it is, next of what kind it is.
Substance is always regarded as the most important of these. Substances are further divided into
first and second: first substances are individual objects; second substances are the species in
which first substances or individuals inhere.
Notions when isolated do not in themselves express either truth or falsehood: it is only with the
combination of ideas in a proposition that truth and falsity are possible. The elements of such a
proposition are the noun substantive and the verb. The combination of words gives rise to
rational speech and thought, conveys a meaning both in its parts and as a whole. Such thought
may take many forms, but logic considers only demonstrative forms which express truth and
falsehood. The truth or falsity of propositions is determined by their agreement or disagreement
with the facts they represent. Thus propositions are either affirmative or negative, each of which
again may be either universal or particular or undesignated. A definition, for Aristotle is a
statement of the essential character of a subject, and involves both the genus and the difference.
To get at a true definition we must find out those qualities within the genus which taken
separately are wider than the subject to be defined, but taken together are precisely equal to it.
For example, "prime," "odd," and "number" are each wider than "triplet" (that is, a collection of
any three items, such as three rocks); but taken together they are just equal to it. The genus
definition must be formed so that no species is left out. Having determined the genus and
species, we must next find the points of similarity in the species separately and then consider the
common characteristics of different species. Definitions may be imperfect by (1) being obscure,
(2) by being too wide, or (3) by not stating the essential and fundamental attributes. Obscurity
may arise from the use of equivocal expressions, of metaphorical phrases, or of eccentric words.
The heart of Aristotle's logic is the syllogism, the classic example of which is as follows: All
men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. The syllogistic form of logical
argumentation dominated logic for 2,000 years until the rise of modern propositional and
predicate logic thanks to Frege, Russell, and others.
4. Metaphysics

We
Aristotle's editors gave the name "Metaphysics" to his works on first philosophy, either because
they went beyond or followed after his physical investigations. Aristotle begins by sketching the
history of philosophy. For Aristotle, philosophy arose historically after basic necessities were
secured. It grew out of a feeling of curiosity and wonder, to which religious myth gave only
provisional satisfaction. The earliest speculators (i.e. Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander) were
philosophers of nature. The Pythagoreans succeeded these with mathematical abstractions. The
level of pure thought was reached partly in the Eleatic philosophers (such as Parmenides) and
Anaxagoras, but more completely in the work of Socrates. Socrates' contribution was the
expression of general conceptions in the form of definitions, which he arrived at by induction
and analogy. For Aristotle, the subject of metaphysics deals with the first principles of scientific
knowledge and the ultimate conditions of all existence. More specifically, it deals with existence
in its most fundamental state (i.e. being as being), and the essential attributes of existence. This
can be contrasted with mathematics which deals with existence in terms of lines or angles, and
not existence as it is in itself. In its universal character, metaphysics superficially resembles
dialectics and sophistry. However, it differs from dialectics which is tentative, and it differs from
sophistry which is a pretence of knowledge without the reality.
The axioms of science fall under the consideration of the metaphysician insofar as they are
properties ofall existence. Aristotle argues that there are a handful of universal truths. Against
the followers of Heraclitus and Protagoras, Aristotle defends both the laws of contradiction, and
that of excluded middle. He does this by showing that their denial is suicidal. Carried out to its
logical consequences, the denial of these laws would lead to the sameness of all facts and all
assertions. It would also result in an indifference in conduct. As the science of being as being,
the leading question of Aristotle's metaphysics is, What is meant by the real or true substance?
Plato tried to solve the same question by positing a universal and invariable element of
knowledge and existence -- the forms -- as the only real permanent besides the changing
phenomena of the senses. Aristotle attacks Plato's theory of the forms on three different grounds.
First, Aristotle argues, forms are powerless to explain changes of things and a thing's ultimate
extinction. Forms are not causes of movement and alteration in the physical objects of
sensation. Second, forms are equally incompetent to explain how we arrive at knowledge of
particular things. For, to have knowledge of a particular object, it must be knowledge of the
substance which is in that things. However, the forms place knowledge outside of particular
things. Further, to suppose that we know particular things better by adding on their general
conceptions of their forms, is about as absurd as to imagine that we can count numbers better by
multiplying them. Finally, if forms were needed to explain our knowledge of particular objects,
then forms must be used to explain our knowledge of objects of art; however, Platonists do not
recognize such forms. The third ground of attack is that the forms simply cannot explain
We
the existence of particular objects. Plato contends that forms do not exist in the particular objects
which partake in the forms. However, that substance of a particular thing cannot be separated
from the thing itself. Further, aside from the jargon of "participation," Plato does not explain the
relation between forms and particular things. In reality, it is merely metaphorical to describe the
forms as patterns of things; for, what is a genus to one object is a species to a higher class, the
same idea will have to be both a form and a particular thing at the same time. Finally, on Plato's
account of the forms, we must imagine an intermediate link between the form and the particular
object, and so on ad infinitum: there must always be a "third man" between the individual man
and the form of man.
For Aristotle, the form is not something outside the object, but rather in the varied phenomena of
sense. Real substance, or true being, is not the abstract form, but rather the concrete individual
thing. Unfortunately, Aristotle's theory of substance is not altogether consistent with itself. In
the Categories the notion of substance tends to be nominalistic (that is, substance is a concept we
apply to things). In theMetaphysics, though, it frequently inclines towards realism (that is,
substance has a real existence in itself). We are also struck by the apparent contradiction in his
claims that science deals with universal concepts, and substance is declared to be an individual.
In any case, substance is for him a merging of matter into form. The term "matter" is used by
Aristotle in four overlapping senses. First, it is the underlying structure of changes, particularly
changes of growth and of decay. Secondly, it is the potential which has implicitly the capacity to
develop into reality. Thirdly, it is a kind of stuff without specific qualities and so is indeterminate
and contingent. Fourthly, it is identical with form when it takes on a form in its actualized and
final phase.
The development of potentiality to actuality is one of the most important aspects of Aristotle's
philosophy. It was intended to solve the difficulties which earlier thinkers had raised with
reference to the beginnings of existence and the relations of the one and many. The actual vs.
potential state of things is explained in terms of the causes which act on things. There are four
causes:

1. Material cause, or the elements out of which an object is created;

2. Efficient cause, or the means by which it is created;
3. Formal cause, or the expression of what it is;
4. Final cause, or the end for which it is.
Take, for example, a bronze statue. Its material cause is the bronze itself. Its efficient cause is the
sculptor, insofar has he forces the bronze into shape. The formal cause is the idea of the
completed statue. The final cause is the idea of the statue as it prompts the sculptor to act on the
bronze. The final cause tends to be the same as the formal cause, and both of these can be
We
subsumed by the efficient cause. Of the four, it is the formal and final which is the most
important, and which most truly gives the explanation of an object. The final end (purpose, or
teleology) of a thing is realized in the full perfection of the object itself, not in our conception of
it. Final cause is thus internal to the nature of the object itself, and not something we subjectively
impose on it.
To Aristotle, God is the first of all substances, the necessary first source of movement who is
himself unmoved. God is a being with everlasting life, and perfect blessedness, engaged in
never-ending contemplation.
For a fuller discussion, see the article Aristotle's Metaphysics and Western Concepts of God.
5. Philosophy of Nature
Aristotle sees the universe as a scale lying between the two extremes: form without matter is on
one end, and matter without form is on the other end. The passage of matter into form must be
shown in its various stages in the world of nature. To do this is the object of Aristotle's physics,
or philosophy of nature. It is important to keep in mind that the passage from form to matter
within nature is a movement towards ends or purposes. Everything in nature has its end and
function, and nothing is without its purpose. Everywhere we find evidences of design and
rational plan. No doctrine of physics can ignore the fundamental notions of motion, space, and
time. Motion is the passage of matter into form, and it is of four kinds: (1) motion which affects
the substance of a thing, particularly its beginning and its ending; (2) motion which brings about
changes in quality; (3) motion which brings about changes in quantity, by increasing it and
decreasing it; and (4) motion which brings about locomotion, or change of place. Of these the
last is the most fundamental and important.

Aristotle rejects the definition of space as the void. Empty space is an impossibility. Hence, too,
he disagrees with the view of Plato and the Pythagoreans that the elements are composed of
geometrical figures. Space is defined as the limit of the surrounding body towards what is
surrounded. Time is defined as the measure of motion in regard to what is earlier and later. It
thus depends for its existence upon motion. If there where no change in the universe, there would
be no time. Since it is the measuring or counting of motion, it also depends for its existence on a
counting mind. If there were no mind to count, there could be no time. As to the infinite
divisibility of space and time, and the paradoxes proposed byZeno, Aristotle argues that space
and time are potentially divisible ad infinitum, but are not actually so divided.
After these preliminaries, Aristotle passes to the main subject of physics, the scale of being. The
first thing to notice about this scale is that it is a scale of values. What is higher on the scale of
being is of more worth, because the principle of form is more advanced in it. Species on this

We
scale are eternally fixed in their place, and cannot evolve over time. The higher items on the
scale are also more organized. Further, the lower items are inorganic and the higher are organic.
The principle which gives internal organization to the higher or organic items on the scale of
being is life, or what he calls the soul of the organism. Even the human soul is nothing but the
organization of the body. Plants are the lowest forms of life on the scale, and their souls contain a
nutritive element by which it preserves itself. Animals are above plants on the scale, and their
souls contain an appetitive feature which allows them to have sensations, desires, and thus gives
them the ability to move. The scale of being proceeds from animals to humans. The human soul
shares the nutritive element with plants, and the appetitive element with animals, but also has a
rational element which is distinctively our own. The details of the appetitive and rational aspects
of the soul are described in the following two sections.

For a fuller discussion of these topics, see the article Aristotle: Motion and its Place in Nature.
6. The Soul and Psychology
Soul is defined by Aristotle as the perfect expression or realization of a natural body. From this
definition it follows that there is a close connection between psychological states, and
physiological processes. Body and soul are unified in the same way that wax and an impression
stamped on it are unified. Metaphysicians before Aristotle discussed the soul abstractly without
any regard to the bodily environment; this, Aristotle believes, was a mistake. At the same time,
Aristotle regards the soul or mind not as the product of the physiological conditions of the body,
but as the truth of the body -- the substance in which only the bodily conditions gain their real
meaning.
The soul manifests its activity in certain "faculties" or "parts" which correspond with the stages
of biological development, and are the faculties of nutrition (peculiar to plants), that of
movement (peculiar to animals), and that of reason (peculiar to humans). These faculties
resemble mathematical figures in which the higher includes the lower, and must be understood
not as like actual physical parts, but like suchaspects as convex and concave which we
distinguish in the same line. The mind remains throughout a unity: and it is absurd to speak of it,
as Plato did, as desiring with one part and feeling anger with another. Sense perception is a
faculty of receiving the forms of outward objects independently of the matter of which they are
composed, just as the wax takes on the figure of the seal without the gold or other metal of which
the seal is composed. As the subject of impression, perception involves a movement and a kind
of qualitative change; but perception is not merely a passive or receptive affection. It in turn acts,
and,distinguishing between the qualities of outward things, becomes "a movement of the soul
through the medium of the body."

We
The objects of the senses may be either (1) special, (such as color is the special object of sight,
and sound of hearing), (2) common, or apprehended by several senses in combination (such as
motion or figure), or (3) incidental or inferential (such as when from the immediate sensation of
white we come to know a person or object which is white). There are five special senses. Of
these, touch is the must rudimentary, hearing the most instructive, and sight the most ennobling.
The organ in these senses never acts directly , but is affected by some medium such as air. Even
touch, which seems to act by actual contact, probably involves some vehicle of communication.
For Aristotle, the heart is the common or central sense organ. It recognizes the common qualities
which are involved in all particular objects of sensation. It is, first, the sense which brings us a
consciousness of sensation. Secondly, in one act before the mind, it holds up the objects of our
knowledge and enables us to distinguish between the reports of different senses.
Aristotle defines the imagination as "the movement which results upon an actual sensation." In
other words, it is the process by which an impression of the senses is pictured and retained before
the mind, and is accordingly the basis of memory. The representative pictures which it provides
form the materials of reason. Illusions and dreams are both alike due to an excitement in the
organ of sense similar to that which would be caused by the actual presence of the sensible
phenomenon. Memory is defined as the permanent possession of the sensuous picture as a copy
which represents the object of which it is a picture. Recollection, or the calling back to mind the
residue of memory, depends on the laws which regulate the association of our ideas. We trace the
associations by starting with the thought of the object present to us, then considering what is
similar, contrary or contiguous.

Reason is the source of the first principles of knowledge. Reason is opposed to the sense insofar
as sensations are restricted and individual, and thought is free and universal. Also, while the
senses deals with the concrete and material aspect of phenomena, reason deals with the abstract
and ideal aspects. But while reason is in itself the source of general ideas, it is so only
potentially. For, it arrives at them only by a process of development in which it gradually clothes
sense in thought, and unifies and interprets sense-presentations. This work of reason in thinking
beings suggests the question: How can immaterial thought come to receive material things? It is
only possible in virtue of some community between thought and things. Aristotle recognizes an
active reason which makesobjects of thought. This is distinguished from passive reason which
receives, combines and compares the objects of thought. Active reason makes the world
intelligible, and bestows on the materials of knowledge those ideas or categories which make
them accessible to thought. This is just as the sun communicates to material objects that light,
without which color would be invisible, and sight would have no object. Hence reason is the
constant support of an intelligible world. While assigning reason to the soul of humans, Aristotle
We
describes it as coming from without, and almost seems to identify it with God as the eternal and
omnipresent thinker. Even in humans, in short, reason realizes something of the essential
characteristic of absolute thought -- the unity of thought as subject with thought as object.
7. Ethics
Ethics, as viewed by Aristotle, is an attempt to find out our chief end or highest good: an end
which he maintains is really final. Though many ends of life are only means to further ends, our
aspirations and desires must have some final object or pursuit. Such a chief end is universally
called happiness. But people mean such different things by the expression that he finds it
necessary to discuss the nature of it for himself. For starters, happiness must be based on human
nature, and must begin from the facts of personal experience. Thus, happiness cannot be found in
any abstract or ideal notion, like Plato's self-existing good. It must be something practical and
human. It must then be found in the work and life which is unique to humans. But this is neither
the vegetative life we share with plants nor the sensitive existence which we share with animals.
It follows therefore that true happiness lies in the active life of a rational being or in a perfect
realization and outworking of the true soul and self, continued throughout a lifetime.

Aristotle expands his notion of happiness through an analysis of the human soul which structures
and animates a living human organism. The parts of the soul are divided as follows:

Calculative -- Intellectual Virtue

Rational

Appetitive -- Moral Virtue

Irrational

Vegetative -- Nutritional Virtue

The human soul has an irrational element which is shared with the animals, and a rational
element which is distinctly human. The most primitive irrational element is the vegetative faculty
which is responsible for nutrition and growth. An organism which does this well may be said to
have a nutritional virtue. The second tier of the soul is the appetitive faculty which is responsible
for our emotions and desires (such as joy, grief, hope and fear). This faculty is both rational and
irrational. It is irrational since even animals experience desires. However, it is also rational since

We
humans have the distinct ability to control these desires with the help of reason. The human
ability to properly control these desires is called moral virtue, and is the focus of morality.
Aristotle notes that there is a purely rational part of the soul, the calculative, which is responsible
for the human ability to contemplate, reason logically, and formulate scientific principles. The
mastery of these abilities is called intellectual virtue.

Aristotle continues by making several general points about the nature of moral virtues (i.e.
desire-regulating virtues). First, he argues that the ability to regulate our desires is not instinctive,
but learned and is the outcome of both teaching and practice. Second, he notes that if we regulate
our desires either too much or too little, then we create problems. As an analogy, Aristotle
comments that, either "excess or deficiency of gymnastic exercise is fatal to strength." Third, he
argues that desire-regulating virtues are character traits, and are not to be understood as either
emotions or mental faculties.

The core of Aristotle's account of moral virtue is his doctrine of the mean. According to this
doctrine, moral virtues are desire-regulating character traits which are at a mean between more
extreme character traits (or vices). For example, in response to the natural emotion of fear, we
should develop the virtuous character trait of courage. If we develop an excessive character trait
by curbing fear too much, then we are said to be rash, which is a vice. If, on the other extreme,
we develop a deficient character trait by curbing fear too little, then we are said to be cowardly,
which is also a vice. The virtue of courage, then, lies at the mean between the excessive extreme
of rashness, and the deficient extreme of cowardice. Aristotle is quick to point out that the
virtuous mean is not a strict mathematical mean between two extremes. For example, if eating
100 apples is too many, and eating zero apples is too little, this does not imply that we should eat
50 apples, which is the mathematical mean. Instead, the mean is rationally determined, based on
the relative merits of the situation. That is, it is "as a prudent man would determine it." He
concludes that it is difficult to live the virtuous life primarily because it is often difficult to find
the mean between the extremes.

Most moral virtues, and not just courage, are to be understood as falling at the mean between two
accompanying vices. His list may be represented by the following table:

VICE OF DEFICIENCY VIRTUOUS MEAN VICE OF EXCESS

We
Cowardice Courage Rashness

Insensibility Temperance Intemperance

Illiberality Liberality Prodigality

Pettiness Munificence Vulgarity

Humble-mindedness High-mindedness Vaingloriness

Want of Ambition Right Ambition Over-ambition

Spiritlessness Good Temper Irascibility

Surliness Friendly Civility Obsequiousness

Ironical Depreciation Sincerity Boastfulness

Boorishness Wittiness Buffoonery

Shamelessness Modesty Bashfulness

Callousness Just Resentment Spitefulness

The prominent virtue of this list is high-mindedness, which, as being a kind of ideal self-respect,
is regarded as the crown of all the other virtues, depending on them for its existence, and itself in
turn tending to intensify their force. The list seems to be more a deduction from the formula than
a statement of the facts on which the formula itself depends, and Aristotle accordingly finds
language frequently inadequate to express the states of excess or defect which his theory
involves (for example in dealing with the virtue of ambition). Throughout the list he insists on
the "autonomy of will" as indispensable to virtue: courage for instance is only really worthy of
the name when done from a love of honor and duty: munificence again becomes vulgarity when
it is not exercised from a love of what is right and beautiful, but for displaying wealth.

We
Justice is used both in a general and in a special sense. In its general sense it is equivalent to the
observance of law. As such it is the same thing as virtue, differing only insofar as virtue
exercises the disposition simply in the abstract, and justice applies it in dealings with people.
Particular justice displays itself in two forms. First, distributive justice hands out honors and
rewards according to the merits of the recipients. Second, corrective justice takes no account of
the position of the parties concerned, but simply secures equality between the two by taking
away from the advantage of the one and adding it to the disadvantage of the other. Strictly
speaking, distributive and corrective justice are more than mere retaliation and reciprocity.
However, in concrete situations of civil life, retaliation and reciprocity is an adequate formula
since such circumstances involve money, depending on a relation between producer and
consumer. Since absolute justice is abstract in nature, in the real world it must be supplemented
with equity, which corrects and modifies the laws of justice where it falls short. Thus, morality
requires a standard which will not only regulate the inadequacies of absolute justice but be also
an idea of moral progress.
This idea of morality is given by the faculty of moral insight. The truly good person is at the
same time a person of perfect insight, and a person of perfect insight is also perfectly good. Our
idea of the ultimate end of moral action is developed through habitual experience, and this
gradually frames itself out of particular perceptions. It is the job of reason to apprehend and
organize these particular perceptions. However, moral action is never the result of a mere act of
the understanding, nor is it the result of a simple desire which views objects merely as things
which produce pain or pleasure. We start with a rational conception of what is advantageous, but
this conception is in itself powerless without the natural impulse which will give it strength. The
will or purpose implied by morality is thus either reason stimulated to act by desire, or desire
guided and controlled by understanding. These factors then motivate the willful action. Freedom
of the will is a factor with both virtuous choices and vicious choices. Actions are involuntary
only when another person forces our action, or if we are ignorant of important details in actions.
Actions are voluntary when the originating cause of action (either virtuous or vicious) lies in
ourselves.

Moral weakness of the will results in someone does what is wrong, knowing that it is right, and
yet follows his desire against reason. For Aristotle, this condition is not a myth, as Socrates
supposed it was. The problem is a matter of conflicting moral principles. Moral action may be
represented as a syllogism in which a general principle of morality forms the first (i.e. major)
premise, while the particular application is the second (i.e. minor) premise. The conclusion,
though, which is arrived at through speculation, is not always carried out in practice. The moral
syllogism is not simply a matter of logic, but involves psychological drives and desires. Desires
We
can lead to a minor premise being applied to one rather than another of two major premises
existing in the agent's mind. Animals, on the other hand, cannot be called weak willed or
incontinent since such a conflict of principles is not possible with them.

Pleasure is not to be identified with Good. Pleasure is found in the consciousness of free
spontaneous action. It is an invisible experience, like vision, and is always present when a perfect
organ acts upon a perfect object. Pleasures accordingly differ in kind, varying along with the
different value of the functions of which they are the expression. They are determined ultimately
by the judgment of "the good person." Our chief end is the perfect development of our true
nature; it thus must be particularly found in the realization of our highest faculty, that is, reason.
It is this in fact which constitutes our personality, and we would not be pursuing our own life, but
the life of some lower being, if we followed any other aim. Self-love accordingly may be said to
be the highest law of morals, because while such self-love may be understood as the selfishness
which gratifies a person's lower nature, it may also be, and is rightly, the love of that higher and
rational nature which constitutes each person's true self. Such a life of thought is further
recommended as that which is most pleasant, most self-sufficient, most continuous, and most
consonant with our purpose. It is also that which is most akin to the life of God: for God cannot
be conceived as practising the ordinary moral virtues and must therefore find his happiness in
contemplation.

Friendship is an indispensable aid in framing for ourselves the higher moral life; if not itself a
virtue, it is at least associated with virtue, and it proves itself of service in almost all conditions
of our existence. Such results, however, are to be derived not from the worldly friendships of
utility or pleasure, but only from those which are founded on virtue. The true friend is in fact a
second self, and the true moral value of friendship lies in the fact that the friend presents to us a
mirror of good actions, and so intensifies our consciousness and our appreciation of life.

For a fuller discussion of these topics, see the article Aristotle's Ethics.
8. Politics
Aristotle does not regard politics as a separate science from ethics, but as the completion, and
almost a verification of it. The moral ideal in political administration is only a different aspect of
that which also applies to individual happiness. Humans are by nature social beings, and the
possession of rational speech (logos) in itself leads us to social union. The state is a development
from the family through the village community, an offshoot of the family. Formed originally for
the satisfaction of natural wants, it exists afterwards for moral ends and for the promotion of the

We
higher life. The state in fact is no mere local union for the prevention of wrong doing, and the
convenience of exchange. It is also no mere institution for the protection of goods and property.
It is a genuine moral organization for advancing the development of humans.

The family, which is chronologically prior to the state, involves a series of relations between
husband and wife, parent and child, master and slave. Aristotle regards the slave as a piece of
live property having no existence except in relation to his master. Slavery is a natural institution
because there is a ruling and a subject class among people related to each other as soul to body;
however, we must distinguish between those who are slaves by nature, and those who have
become slaves merely by war and conquest. Household management involves the acquisition of
riches, but must be distinguished from money-making for its own sake. Wealth is everything
whose value can be measured by money; but it is the use rather than the possession of
commodities which constitutes riches.

Financial exchange first involved bartering. However, with the difficulties of transmission
between countries widely separated from each other, money as a currency arose. At first it was
merely a specific amount of weighted or measured metal. Afterwards it received a stamp to mark
the amount. Demand is the real standard of value. Currency, therefore, is merely a convention
which represents the demand; it stands between the producer and the recipient and secures
fairness. Usury is an unnatural and reprehensible use of money.

The communal ownership of wives and property as sketched by Plato in the Republic rests on a
false conception of political society. For, the state is not a homogeneous unity, as Plato believed,
but rather is made up of dissimilar elements. The classification of constitutions is based on the
fact that government may be exercised either for the good of the governed or of the governing,
and may be either concentrated in one person or shared by a few or by the many. There are thus
three true forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and constitutional republic. The
perverted forms of these are tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. The difference between the last
two is not that democracy is a government of the many, and oligarchy of the few; instead,
democracy is the state of the poor, and oligarchy of the rich. Considered in the abstract, these six
states stand in the following order of preference: monarchy, aristocracy, constitutional republic,
democracy, oligarchy, tyranny. But though with a perfect person monarchy would be the highest
form of government, the absence of such people puts it practically out of consideration.
Similarly, true aristocracy is hardly ever found in its uncorrupted form. It is in the constitution
that the good person and the good citizen coincide. Ideal preferences aside, then, the
constitutional republic is regarded as the best attainableform of government, especially as it
We
secures that predominance of a large middle class, which is the chief basis of permanence in any
state. With the spread of population, democracy is likely to become the general form of
government.
Which is the best state is a question that cannot be directly answered. Different races are suited
for different forms of government, and the question which meets the politician is not so much
what is abstractly the best state, but what is the best state under existing circumstances.
Generally, however, the best state will enable anyone to act in the best and live in the happiest
manner. To serve this end the ideal state should be neither too great nor too small, but simply
self-sufficient. It should occupy a favorable position towards land and sea and consist of citizens
gifted with the spirit of the northern nations, and the intelligence of the Asiatic nations. It should
further take particular care to exclude from government all those engaged in trade and
commerce; "the best state will not make the "working man" a citizen; it should provide support
religious worship; it should secure morality through the educational influences of law and early
training. Law, for Aristotle, is the outward expression of the moral ideal without the bias of
human feeling. It is thus no mere agreement or convention, but a moral force coextensive with all
virtue. Since it is universal in its character, it requires modification and adaptation to particular
circumstances through equity.

Education should be guided by legislation to make it correspond with the results of psychological
analysis, and follow the gradual development of the bodily and mental faculties. Children should
during their earliest years be carefully protected from all injurious associations, and be
introduced to such amusements as will prepare them for the serious duties of life. Their literary
education should begin in their seventh year, and continue to their twenty-first year. This period
is divided into two courses of training, one from age seven to puberty, and the other from
puberty to age twenty-one. Such education should not be left to private enterprise, but should be
undertaken by the state. There are four main branches of education: reading and writing,
Gymnastics, music, and painting. They should not be studied to achieve a specific aim, but in the
liberal spirit which creates true freemen. Thus, for example, gymnastics should not be pursued
by itself exclusively, or it will result in a harsh savage type of character. Painting must not be
studied merely to prevent people from being cheated in pictures, but to make them attend to
physical beauty. Music must not be studied merely for amusement, but for the moral influence
which it exerts on the feelings. Indeed all true education is, as Plato saw, a training of our
sympathies so that we may love and hate in a right manner.

For a fuller discussion of these topics, see the article Aristotle's Politics.

We
9. Art and Poetics
Art is defined by Aristotle as the realization in external form of a true idea, and is traced back to
that natural love of imitation which characterizes humans, and to the pleasure which we feel in
recognizing likenesses. Art however is not limited to mere copying. It idealizes nature and
completes its deficiencies: it seeks to grasp the universal type in the individual phenomenon. The
distinction therefore between poetic art and history is not that the one uses meter, and the other
does not. The distinction is that while history is limited to what has actually happened, poetry
depicts things in their universal character. And, therefore, "poetry is more philosophical and
more elevated than history." Such imitation may represent people either as better or as worse
than people usually are, or it may neither go beyond nor fall below the average standard.
Comedy is the imitation of the worse examples of humanity, understood however not in the
sense of absolute badness, but only in so far as what is low and ignoble enters into what is
laughable and comic.

Tragedy, on the other hand, is the representation of a serious or meaningful, rounded or finished,
and more or less extended or far-reaching action -- a representation which is effected by action
and not mere narration. It is fitted by portraying events which excite fear and pity in the mind of
the observer to purify or purge these feelings and extend and regulate their sympathy. It is thus a
homeopathic curing of the passions. Insofar as art in general universalizes particular events,
tragedy, in depicting passionate and critical situations, takes the observer outside the selfish and
individual standpoint, and views them in connection with the general lot of human beings. This
is similar to Aristotle's explanation of the use of orgiastic music in the worship of Bacchas and
other deities: it affords an outlet for religious fervor and thus steadies one's religious sentiments.

Plato

BORN

428 BCE or 427 BCE

Athens, ancient Greece
DIED

348 BCE or 347 BCE

Athens, ancient Greece
NOTABLE WORKS
 “Laws”
 “Critias”
 “Theaetetus”

We
  “Letters”
 “Meno”
 “Hippias Major”
 “Apology”
 “Symposium”
 “Ion”
 “Menexenus”
SUBJECTS OF STUDY
 Socrates
 immortality
 philosopher king
 soul
 a priori knowledge
FOUNDER OF
 Academy

Life
The son of Ariston (his father) and Perictione (his mother), Plato was born in the year
after the death of the great Athenian statesmanPericles. His brothers Glaucon and
Adeimantus are portrayed as interlocutors in Plato’s masterpiece the Republic, and his
half brother Antiphon figures in the Parmenides. Plato’s family was aristocratic and
distinguished: his father’s side claimed descent from the godPoseidon, and his
mother’s side was related to the lawgiver Solon (c.630–560 BCE). Less creditably, his
mother’s close relatives Critias andCharmides were among the Thirty Tyrants who
seized power in Athens and ruled briefly until the restoration of democracy in 403.
Plato as a young man was a member of the circle around Socrates. Since the latter
wrote nothing, what is known of his characteristic activity of engaging his fellow
citizens (and the occasional itinerant celebrity) in conversation derives wholly from
the writings of others, most notably Plato himself. The works of Plato commonly
referred to as “Socratic” represent the sort of thing the historical Socrates was doing.
He would challenge men who supposedly had expertise about some facet of human
excellence to give accounts of these matters—variously of courage, piety, and so on,
or at times of the whole of “virtue”—and they typically failed to maintain their
position. Resentment against Socrates grew, leading ultimately to his trial and
execution on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth in 399. Plato was
profoundly affected by both the life and the death of Socrates. The activity of the
older man provided the starting point of Plato’s philosophizing. Moreover, if

We
Plato’s Seventh Letter is to be believed (its authorship is disputed), the treatment of
Socrates by both the oligarchy and the democracy made Plato wary of entering public
life, as someone of his background would normally have done.
After the death of Socrates, Plato may have traveled extensively inGreece, Italy,
and Egypt, though on such particulars the evidence is uncertain. The followers
of Pythagoras (c. 580–c. 500 BCE) seem to have influenced his philosophical program
(they are criticized in thePhaedo and the Republic but receive respectful mention in
thePhilebus). It is thought that his three trips to Syracuse in Sicily (many of
the Letters concern these, though their authenticity is controversial) led to a deep
personal attachment to Dion (408–354BCE), brother-in-law of Dionysius the
Elder (430–367 BCE), the tyrant of Syracuse. Plato, at Dion’s urging, apparently
undertook to put into practice the ideal of the “philosopher-king” (described in
theRepublic) by educating Dionysius the Younger; the project was not a success, and
in the ensuing instability Dion was murdered.
Plato’s Academy, founded in the 380s, was the ultimate ancestor of the
modern university (hence the English term academic); an influential centre of
research and learning, it attracted many men of outstanding ability. The great
mathematicians Theaetetus (417–369BCE) and Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 395–c. 342 BCE)
were associated with it. Although Plato was not a research mathematician, he was
aware of the results of those who were, and he made use of them in his own work. For
20 years Aristotle was also a member of the Academy. He started his own school,
the Lyceum, only after Plato’s death, when he was passed over as Plato’s successor at
the Academy, probably because of his connections to the court of Macedonia.
Because Aristotle often discusses issues by contrasting his views with those of his
teacher, it is easy to be impressed by the ways in which they diverge. Thus, whereas
for Plato the crown of ethics is the good in general, or Goodness itself (the Good), for
Aristotle it is the good for human beings; and whereas for Plato the genus to which a
thing belongs possesses a greater reality than the thing itself, for Aristotle the opposite
is true. Plato’s emphasis on the ideal, and Aristotle’s on the worldly,
informs Raphael’s depiction of the two philosophers in the School of Athens (1508–
11). But if one considers the two philosophers not just in relation to each other but in
thecontext of the whole of Western philosophy, it is clear how much Aristotle’s
program is continuous with that of his teacher. (Indeed, the painting may be said to
represent this continuity by showing the two men conversing amicably.) In any case,
the Academy did not impose a dogmatic orthodoxy and in fact seems to have fostered
a spirit of independent inquiry; at a later time it took on a skepticalorientation.
Plato once delivered a public lecture, “On the Good,” in which he mystified his
audience by announcing, “the Good is one.” He better gauged his readers in
his dialogues, many of which are accessible, entertaining, and inviting. Although
Plato is well known for his negative remarks about much great literature, in
the Symposium he depicts literature and philosophy as the offspring of lovers, who

We
gain a more lasting posterity than do parents of mortal children. His own literary and
philosophical gifts ensure that something of Plato will live on for as long as readers
engage with his works.

Dating, Editing, Translation

Plato’s works are traditionally arranged in a manner deriving from Thrasyllus
of Alexandria (flourished 1st century CE): 36 works (counting the Letters as one) are
divided into nine groups of four. But the ordering of Thrasyllus makes no sense for a
reader today. Unfortunately, the order of composition of Plato’s works cannot be
known. Conjecture regarding chronology has been based on two kinds of
consideration: perceived development in content and “stylometry,” or the study of
special features of prose style, now executed with the aid of computers. By combining
the two kinds of consideration, scholars have arrived at a widely used rough grouping
of works, labeled with the traditional designations of early, middle, and late dialogues.
These groups can also be thought of as the Socratic works (based on the activities of
the historical Socrates), the literary masterpieces, and the technical studies (see
below Works individually described).
Each of Plato’s dialogues has been transmitted substantially as he left it.
However, it is important to be aware of the causal chain that connects modern
readers to Greek authors of Plato’s time. To survive until the era of printing,
an ancient author’s words had to be copied by hand, and the copies had to be
copied, and so on over the course of centuries—by which time the original
would have long perished. The copying process inevitably resulted in some
corruption, which is often shown by disagreement between rival manuscript
traditions.

Plato, (born 428/427 BCE, Athens, Greece—died 348/347, Athens),

ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE), teacher
of Aristotle (384–322 BCE), and founder of the Academy, best known as the
author of philosophical works of unparalleled influence.

Building on the demonstration by Socrates that those regarded as experts

in ethical matters did not have the understanding necessary for a good human
life, Plato introduced the idea that their mistakes were due to their not

We
engaging properly with a class of entities he called forms, chief examples of
which were Justice, Beauty, and Equality. Whereas other thinkers—and Plato
himself in certain passages—used the term without any precise technical
force, Plato in the course of his career came to devote specialized attention to
these entities. As he conceived them, they were accessible not to the senses
but to the mind alone, and they were the most importantconstituents of reality,
underlying the existence of the sensible world and giving it what intelligibility it
has. In metaphysics Platoenvisioned a systematic, rational treatment of the
forms and their interrelations, starting with the most fundamental among them
(the Good, or the One); in ethics and moral psychology he developed the view
that the good life requires not just a certain kind of knowledge (as Socrates
had suggested) but also habituation to healthy emotional responses and
therefore harmony between the three parts of the soul (according to Plato,
reason, spirit, and appetite). His works also contain discussions
in aesthetics, political philosophy,theology, cosmology, epistemology, and
the philosophy of language. His school fostered research not just in philosophy
narrowly conceived but in a wide range of endeavours that today would be
called mathematical or scientific.

Plato’s perspective on the idea of “self” is actually best represented in his

theory/explanation of the “psyche.” Rather than use the word “self,” he had what some
academics call a tripartite theory of the soul. He constructed a taxonomy of spirit/logic-
reason/appetite as categories in which people in essence respond to or seek life. I am
oversimplifying here, for the sake of brevity. But, in Plato’s Republic, you dig much
more deeply into his thinking. So, the self, according to Plato, in answer to your
question, are the three coexistent aspects of the soul, from which you can understand
your own desires and behaviors. For instance, if one were to say something like, “I can’t
believe I did that. That’s just not me. I found myself randomly hooking up with the
person I just met on the bus ride home. And when I left, I felt like it was really out of
character. I wasn’t being myself.” In Plato’s view, that person may have been acting like
themselves, though not working from the logical/reasoning aspect of self, but out of the
appetite, the lust the carnal hunger the passionate part of one’s self. Others have
followed Plato’s logic in the development of psychological theory and other
philosophical thinking. Freud is one the more obvious examples , with id/ego/super ego.
In Plato’s version of self, the spirit is the part of the self/soul that regulates the the
appetitive and is the source of emotions like anger and other moods. In regulating
We
various appetitive passions, the spirited region is expressed because of either denial or
acquiescence to the carnal/temporal/appetitive. These are examples from memory, and
there are much more thorough treatises of Plato’s work. But, this is a solid cursory
breakdown.

Socrates

Aristotle

Plato
St.Augustine

Rene Descartes

John Locke

David Hume
We
 Emmanuel Kant

Sigmund Freud

Gilbert Ryle

Saint Augustine of Hippo (/ɔːˈɡʌstɪn/; 13 November 354 – 28

August 430 AD)[1] was a Roman African, early Christian
theologian and philosopher from Numidia whose writings
influenced the development of Western Christianity and
Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in north Africa
and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western
Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Period. Among his most
important works are The City of God, On Christian Doctrine and
Confessions.

Born

13 November 354

Thagaste, Numidia (modern-day Souk Ahras, Algeria)

Died

28 August 430 (age 75)

Hippo Regius, Numidia (modern-day Annaba, Algeria)

Venerated in

All Christian denominations which venerate saints

Major shrine

We
San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, Pavia, Italy

Feast

28 August (Western Christianity)

15 June (Eastern Christianity)

4 November (Assyrian)

Influences

Ambrose, Anthony the Great, Cicero, Cyprian, Monica, Paul of Tarsus,

Plato, Plotinus

Influenced

Virtually all subsequent Western philosophy and theology, including

Arendt, Aquinas, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, Calvin, Descartes,
Heidegger, Husserl, Jansen, Kierkegaard, Luther, Malebranche, Negri,
Newman, Orosius, Ratzinger, Sartre, Schmitt, Tolkien, Wittgenstein

Major works

Confessions of St. Augustine

City of God

On Christian Doctrine

Augustine of Hippo

Era

Ancient philosophy

Region

Western philosophy

School

Christian philosophy

Main interests

Theology

Notable ideas

Predestination, just war theory

We
According to his contemporary Jerome, Augustine "established anew the
ancient Faith".[a] In his youth he was drawn to Manichaeism and later to
neo-Platonism. After his baptism and conversion to Christianity in 386,
Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology,
accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives.[2] Believing that
the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped
formulate the doctrine of original sin and made seminal contributions to
the development of just war theory. When the Western Roman Empire
began to disintegrate, Augustine imagined the Church as a spiritual City
of God, distinct from the material Earthly City.[3] His thoughts
profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. The segment of the
Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the
Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople[4] closely identified
with Augustine's On the Trinity.

Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern

Christian Church, and the Anglican Communion and as a preeminent
Doctor of the Church. He is also the patron of the Augustinians. His
memorial is celebrated on 28 August, the day of his death. Augustine is the
patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, the alleviation of sore
eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses.[5] Many Protestants, especially
Calvinists and Lutherans, consider him to be one of the theological
fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teachings on salvation
and divine grace.[6][7][8] Protestant Reformers generally, and Martin
Luther in particular, held Augustine in preeminence among early Church
Fathers. Luther himself was, from 1505 to 1521, a member of the Order of
the Augustinian Eremites.

In the East, his teachings are more disputed, and were notably attacked by
John Romanides.[9] But other theologians and figures of the Eastern
Orthodox Church have shown significant appropriation of his writings,
chiefly Georges Florovsky.[10] The most controversial doctrine
associated with him, the filioque,[11] was rejected by the Orthodox
Church.[12] Other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the
doctrine of grace, and predestination.[11] Nevertheless, though
considered to be mistaken on some points, he is still considered a saint,
and has even had influence on some Eastern Church Fathers, most
notably Saint Gregory Palamas.[13] In the Orthodox Church his feast day
is celebrated on 15 June.[11][14] Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch has
written: "[Augustine's] impact on Western Christian thought can hardly
be overstated; only his beloved example Paul of Tarsus, has been more
influential, and Westerners have generally seen Paul through
Augustine's eyes."

We
WORKS

Augustine was one of the most prolific Latin authors in terms of surviving
works, and the list of his works consists of more than one hundred
separate titles.[167] They include apologetic works against the heresies
of the Arians, Donatists, Manichaeans and Pelagians; texts on Christian
doctrine, notably De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine);
exegetical works such as commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms and Paul's
Letter to the Romans; many sermons and letters; and the Retractationes,
a review of his earlier works which he wrote near the end of his life.

Apart from those, Augustine is probably best known for his Confessions,
which is a personal account of his earlier life, and for De civitate Dei (The
City of God, consisting of 22 books), which he wrote to restore the
confidence of his fellow Christians, which was badly shaken by the sack
of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. His On the Trinity, in which he developed
what has become known as the 'psychological analogy' of the Trinity, is
also considered to be among his masterpieces, and arguably one of the
greatest theological works of all time.[citation needed] He also wrote
On Free Choice of the Will (De libero arbitrio), addressing why God gives
humans free will that can be used for evil.

Self concept

Augustine's sense of self is his relation to God, both in his recognition of

God's love and his response to it—achieved through self-presentation,
then self-realization. Augustine believed one could not achieve inner
peace without finding God's love.

It has been asserted that Saint Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430) has had
enormous influence on the formation of Western thought and Western
civilization. Some, as F.J. Sheed, for example, have even argued for St.
Augustine’s “towering importance in the history of mankind” (Augustine
323). It is not my goal in this paper to examine whether St. Augustine’s
importance was indeed towering in the history of all mankind. Nor do I
wish to examine Jasper’s assertion that St. Augustine is “by far the most
important hermeneut of the early Christian church”[1] (Jasper 39) from
the position of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Both issues, however, are
of utmost importance to our discussion, but the authors’ statements and
my implied questions are merely rhetorical. One fact cannot be denied: St.
Augustine indeed played a prominent role in the formation of the Western
mind.

Sheed notes that St. Augustine’s was “the one light that shone steadily”
for the seven centuries between St. Augustine’s death and the twelfth
century, when “first-rate thinkers were once more in action in the

We
Church” (Augustine 324). Despite the lack of an obvious reference to the
Western Church, the context of Sheed’s remark leads me to believe that
he would not challenge a hypothesis that the East was nourished by its
own lights, while being somewhat shaded from the rays of St. Augustine’s
“enormous intellect” (Augustine 324) by the cultural and ecclesiastical
divide between the two parts of the Roman Empire. Although, even in the
West, such theologians as John Scotus Eriugena, whom Sheed apparently
considers a second-rate thinker, were studying the Eastern Fathers
(Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, the Cappadocians, and others,
in Eriugena’s case), and were not blinded by the illustrious Augustine. In
his discussion on the issue of the filioque, the Irishman apparently was
not convinced by the Doctor’s arguments and preferred to search for
answers, alas!—self-admittedly, in vain, elsewhere.

Herein lies the area of my interest: if the East and the West are different
(and I choose to presuppose that they are), and if the ecclesiastical,
cultural, theological, and even intellectual divides have not been
healed, despite centuries of pontifical[2] efforts, then it may be possible
to find some early signs, some symptoms of the early stages of the looming
Great Divorce, in the persona of St. Augustine of Hippo who “single
handed… shifted the center of gravity” for the West (Martindale, qtd. in
Augustine 324). I do not wish to imply that St. Augustine’s work was the
sole source of the estrangement between the East and the West—this
matter is too complex to be addressed in a short paper. But if St.
Augustine’s influence in the West was as great as it is touted to be, then
“cut off from its intellectual sources” in the East (Augustine 324), cut
off from the ecclesiastical life within the Grace of concensus patrum,
the West may have inherited not only the greatness of Bishop Augustine
of Hippo, but also his individuality, peculiarities, oddities, and (ready?!)…
flaws (!). Quite apart from looking for straws in St. Augustine’s eyes—
thankless pursuit indeed—I shall embark on a voyage of celebrating some
of the differences in his and “the Easterns’” (as Pius IX referred to us in
his [in]famous epistle) view of self.

Each person, at least in the Lockean approach,[3] is characterized by

self-awareness, and this faculty is thought fundamental for the
conscious[4] process of Christian salvation. In fact, a prominent modern
Russian theologian Aleksey Osipov makes a direct link between self-
awareness and the ability to accept Christ as savior. He argues that one
accepts a savior only insofar as he sees his own need for salvation
(Osipov 319-23). A person who is not drowning will not call for a life
guard, and one who thinks he is healthy will not run to a physician. Only
the person who realizes his doom can accept Christ as the Savior—not

We
king, judge, teacher, revolutionary, reformer, etc. In other words, the
Christian (at least, Orthodox) understanding of salvation is intimately
connected to the ancient “gnothi se auton,” and the Church traditionally
puts a great deal of effort into the formation of self which it views as
proper. These views in the East and the West have been noted to diverge
in rather significant ways.

The differences permeate the two worldviews from top to bottom and
place the two cultures “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12).
From the individualist tendencies of Latin theology and ecclesiology
juxtaposed against the conciliarity of the Eastern mind to various
mystical experiences of saints[5]—all speak of an ever-widening divide, a
“divergence of hearts” (Kuraev, Вызов140). And while I do not wish to give St.
Augustine as much credit in shaping the history of mankind as some have
attributed to him, I do believe that it may be possible to identify some
specifically Augustinian traits that, left without peer review for a few
hundred years, could have potentially influenced the very features that
are now identified as the core differences between the Western and
Eastern cultures.

* * *

One of the most obvious things that cannot escape our attention is that
St. Augustine’s Confessions is nearly the first autobiography that
appeared in the West. The only exceptions are the so-called “apologies”
that, although autobiographical in nature, nonetheless had the purpose
of excusing the author’s actions in light of accusations or
misunderstandings. Another autobiographical work—Libanius’ Orations—
appeared in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire only a few decades
before Confessions; but this work was neither intended for public
readings, nor did it achieve any notable status in the cultural makeup of
either the East or the West.

The very fact that Confessions, a work that has had such a profound
impact on the development of the Western mind and soul, is an
autobiography, deserves further exploration. It appears that in his
Confessions St. Augustine breaks away from, however rudimentary, the
tradition of apologetic autobiographies and proclaims a new era in the
development of the genre. In a commentary on Book I of the Confessions,
Charles Matthews argues that

We
…in terms of genre, the Confessions may be the least apologetic text
Augustine ever wrote, despite all those who try to read their way to faith
through it; it is not meant for those outside of the church, but for those
inside, to help them in their quest to become more fully Christians.
(Paffenroth 9)

At first glance, this style of writing is not entirely new: the Christian
Scriptures contain numerous examples of autobiographical notes by
those who personally witnessed Christ’s earthly ministry as well as by
the Apostle Paul in his epistles to various Christian communities. But
those are exceptions, rather than rules, and have been treated as such by
the Christian Church who bestowed upon them the status of Holy
Scriptures. Moreover, nowhere in the period literature do we find as
complete a record of anyone’s life—childhood, growing up, formation,
conversion, and maturity—as we observe in Confessions. St. Augustine’s
own story, both in its earthly and spiritual dimensions, is at the forefront
of Confessions, whereas Paul’s reminiscences, for example, are more
apologetic or illustrative in their nature:

For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in
Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might
have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence
in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a
Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the
righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain
to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. (Philip. 3:3-7 NKJV[6])

For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the
church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in
Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more
exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased
God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His
grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles,
I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to
Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia,
and returned again to Damascus. (Gal. 1:13-17 NKJV)

We
In the first example, the Apostle uses his autobiographical information in
the context of an apparent theological argument in the target
community. In a common pastoral (and rhetorical) approach, Paul places
his own life within the value system of the community in order to establish
authority for the statement that is to follow.

The second example may be seen as an apology of sorts and an attempt by

Paul to show his divine qualifications to be an apostle, where he lacks any
of his own. Despite the fact that Paul may be the least likely to serve as
an apostle of Christ in his own right, Paul’s God Himself has commissioned
Paul, and it is through this commission that Paul’s authority to establish
and instruct Christian communities is exercised.

This pastoral nature of autobiographical-style notes is clearly evident in

another early Christian document, the Second Epistle of St. Clement:

Let us also become of the number of them that give thanks, that have
served God, and not of the ungodly that are judged. For I myself also,
being an utter sinner,and not yet escaped from temptation, but still being
in the midst of the engines of the devil, give diligence to follow after
righteousness, that I may have strength to come even near it, fearing the
judgment to come. (ch. xviii; Roberts-Donaldson translation)

A considerably shorter statement of a very similar nature can be found in

Paul’s letter to Timothy:

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. (1 Tim. 1:15 NKJV)

Both passages work to detract from the personae of the writers and
instead to focus the readers’ attention on Christ and His judgment
(Clement) or salvation (Paul). Because of this quality, both epistles can
be (and have been) read aloud to a congregation of the faithful during
formal public services.

We
St. Augustine’s work, on the other hand, not only contains much larger
autobiographical sections, but arguably has the intent of capturing the
readers’ attention and keeping it focused on the very persona of the
famous Bishop. St. Augustine probably did not intend for his Confessions
to be proclaimed from the pulpit. Just as the Sacrament of Confession
had developed into a deeply private rite by the time St. Augustine
ascended to an Episcopal throne, his Confessions are to be read in
private: in a study, a monastic cell, an eremitic comfort of one’s favorite
arm-chair, or, as was Margaret Miles’ choice, in the tight bonds of
“pleasure and luxury” at a Mediterranean resort:

In the mornings I read Augustine excitedly, making copious notes,

examining Augustine’s language and grammar in detail. Afternoons, we
went to a beach where I sat under a tree and pondered the morning’s
reading, sometimes writing pages of ideas I had about it, sometimes writing
nothing, but letting ideas float in and out like the softly lapping
Mediterranean—the same sea that touched Ostia and Hippo Regius. (Miles
7-8)

Miles suggests that St. Augustine expected his book to be a “good read”
(Miles 66); not entertaining per se, but certainly captivating beyond the
usual attraction that most people enjoy for theology. Perhaps the very
use of the autobiographical foundation and skillful rhetoric for his
writing were tools that allowed St. Augustine to “engage his reader in a
dialogue in which the reader’s life could be decisively altered” (Miles 66).

As in any good adventure story, St. Augustine’s autobiography captivates

its readers in as much as his life is different from the mundane and the
boring, if only to the degree of that which is desirable and alluring,
albeit utopian in its dreamy purest form. St. Augustine awakes his
reader’s imagination and allows it to complete his autobiographical
sketches in whatever color appeals to each. Miles notes, for example,
that

Augustine shows remarkable skill in engaging readers’ erotic curiosity

only to refuse to satisfy it. His goal is to produce erotic interest and thus
to supplement and intensify readers’ multiple and complex attachments
to the Confessions… Confessions constructs its reader as voyeur in
relation to an erotic text, a text full of partial disclosures, vivid sensual

We
metaphors, tantalizing gaps, and earnest appeals for the reader’s
understanding and indulgence. (Miles 67-8)

Is this the secret of the work’s popularity with the learned medieval
monks in their darkened and shadowy cells and studies?

* * *

Might St. Augustine have added a touch of exaggeration to his

descriptions for the sake of appeal? It is not unlikely, nor was it
uncommon in antique thought. The world and the Church look at the same
things through two distinctly different lenses. That which is considered
grave by the Church is often discounted by the world; and that which is
hailed by the latter receives little acknowledgment from the former.
The closer one gets to the source of light, the more noticeable soiled
spots become on one’s baptismal gown. A person sitting in a dark room
may truly feel and confess that the room is relatively tidy, but when the
light is turned on, it may reveal a thick layer of dust in place of a soft
carpet, dirt covering the intricacies of the wall-paper design, and rotten
leftovers on a table in place of fine dishes. In the East it is believed that
the desire to do some housecleaning is proportional to the ability to see
the dirt. Thus, the closer one gets to the bright light of Transfiguration,
the more reasons one notices for not publically exemplifying his or her
life as a model to follow. This apparent “delusion” is common among
Eastern saints who, having achieved great sanctity, did not count
themselves worthy of being followed or emulated. Analyzing this
phenomenon, St. Ignatii Bryanchaninov writes:

The holy fathers of the Eastern Church, especially the ones who dwelt in
the wilderness, when they reached the heights of spiritual exercises,
then all of these exercises blended into only repentance. Repentance
encompassed their whole life and all of their work: it was the result of
seeing their own sin. (Bryanchaninov 2:125-6)

And summarizing the Eastern Christian experience, Kuraev refers to the

statement made by St. Ephraim of Syria: “The whole Church is the Church
of the repenting; She is wholly the Church of those who are perishing…”
(Kuraev, Традиция210)

We
The spiritual experience of the West, on the other hand, is quite different.
Saint Francis of Assisi, for example, declared that he did not know of any
sin that he had not paid for through confession and repentance, whereas
an Orthodox saint is likely to have said that he had not even begun the
task of repentance (ibid. 182). Likewise, during prayer, Francis
“altogether transformed himself into Jesus” (Ugolino 166). On another
occasion, he saw two lights, one of which represented Francis, the
other—God (Ugolino 163). A typical Eastern reaction to these visions was
noted by Leo Tolstoy in his 1890 [7]short story “Father Sergius”: “He
thought himself a shining light, and the more he felt this, the more was he
conscious of a weakening, a dying down of the divine light of truth that
shone within him” [8] (Part V). Thérèse de Lisieux wanted to be the love in
the heart of the Mother Church—a desire that to an Eastern ear may
sound a bit presumptuous, to say the least. Another Western luminary,
Mathilda, is reported to have had a vision of herself being pure and
shining, like gold that had been purified (Kuraev, Традиция182). She did not see
any need for repentance or good deeds, and was ready to die without
confession. A Russian saint, on the other hand, has a very different
spiritual experience: “I do not see my sin, because I still sin. The one who is
enjoying sin and the one who allows himself to taste sin, even only in
thought or feeling, cannot see the sin” (Bryanchaninov 2:122).

* * *

The Eastern Christian tradition does not know autobiographies, aside

from occasional pastoral notes that may be seen as autobiographical in
their nature. Eastern saints do not compose accounts of their own lives.
The right to canonize, to present something as a rule or a model, is not to
be usurped by the individual—it belongs to the community. Eastern
Christianity, much like its Western Sister, knows hagiographies, but
almost exclusively. The only notable exception known to me is an
autobiography by Fr. Ioann (Krestyankin), a popular modern-day spiritual
guide, who, as he himself wrote, undertook the task shortly before his
death in order to prevent fables and exaggerated accounts from
spreading after his repose.

The West, on the other hand, knows many autobiographies whose post-
Augustinian authors viewed their own writings as spiritually edifying for
many or in some other sense worth reading. The “work” of Bishop
Augustine was continued by his spiritual descendants: Teresa of Avila and

We
Teresa of Lisieux (both are Doctors of the Roman Catholic Church, like
St. Augustine), and others. An autobiography conveys the idea that the
author sets him- or herself apart as an example for others, as a beacon,
or a guide whose path though life’s journey must be recorded for
posterity. The very same may be said about hagiographies, but with only
one obvious difference: a hagiography is written by another person who
recognizes sanctity while the saint him- or herself is oblivious to his or
her spiritual achievements. The closer a saint approaches God, the more
dirty he or she finds him- or herself in the ever-increasing brightness of
the light of Tabor. Others, on the other hand, are in the best position to
reflect upon the spiritual journey of that person and to note that which
is noteworthy. An autobiography sees its object within and in a direct
relationship to its subject—a mixture that is likely to be, perhaps
intentionally so, as objective as it is subjective. The spirit of subjectivity,
sometimes masquerading as its counterpart, that an autobiography
celebrates, may indeed be seen as one of the defining principles of
Western civilization, and, in as much as it is so, St. Augustine may be
counted among the forerunners, if not the Founding Fathers, of spiritual
relativism.

Western spiritual relativism may be especially evident in the multiplicity

of Protestant and Neo-Protestant movements, but it is also present within
“Augustine’s own” Roman Catholic Church. In his doctoral dissertation,
Kuraev argues that “today, Catholicism no longer exists as a holistic
phenomenon. The Catholic Church is divided into a myriad of theological
schools, traditions, [and] clubs” (Kuraev, Традиция206), each of which asserts
its own unique spiritual path yet happily coexists with others, allowing
for a buffet-style practice of one’s Catholic faith. The main dish of this
spiritual feast is the personal and very individual experience of each
Catholic. As a good friend once noted, there are as many ways of being a
Catholic as there are Catholics—a statement that may sound absurd
within an Eastern paradigm.

I do not want to overemphasize St. Augustine’s influence on the

development of Western thought and culture. Perhaps this may be the
never-ending debate of nature vs. nurture, but it seems that many of the
prominent features that distinguish the West would have ripened with or
without St. Augustine’s Confessions. In fact, Confessions may arguably
be seen an early flower of an already sprouting twig of Western
individualism, rather than its seed. Some people are said to be well ahead
of their times, as St. Augustine may have been. In the modern West it is not
at all uncommon for people to be fascinated with their own lives and
experiences, including (or, especially?) spiritual ones in just the same way

We
as those who thought of themselves as “great” in any way have always
been. The only difference is that in times long past, few thought of
themselves as worth a monument; nowadays, most Westerners are taught
to be convinced of their greatness, albeit in their own unique and special
way. But it just may be my Eastern collectivist upbringing that precludes
me from fully appreciating the unique place that St. Augustine occupies in
the history of mankind.

* * *

We have briefly looked at some of the undercurrents of the

interpretation of self in the very genre of St. Augustine’s Confessions.
Of course, in a short paper it is impossible to even begin the examination of
such complex and overwhelmingly large issues as the divergence of
hearts of the East and West. St. Augustine’s is certainly not a prime
example of this divergence: a well-educated erudite, who was as much
under the influence of the East as he was of the West, a man of God who is
counted among the saints in both Churches, he found himself in the middle
of one of the most devastating life experiences of recorded history—the
fall of the Roman Empire. Did he ever intend for his Confessions to
change the world? Most likely, yes—his own. Anyone who approaches the
Sacrament of Repentance hopes for this change. And if the illness of sin,
the burning of passions is great, equally great is the task of healing, and
just as great is the relief. A pastor who gives his most intimate to his
flock, who opens his heart and offers to them his confession is playing a
dangerous game with a double-edged sword: he will either be trampled
into the dirt at the doorstep of his cathedral, or he will be admired and
hallowed.

But as with any confession, whether public or private in its form, St.
Augustine’s is made before God first, man second. It is a prayer and a
contemplation before it is a proclamation or instruction. It was not
intended for a wide audience, but for small circles of like-minded friends
“many of whom felt as intellectually isolated as did St. Augustine
himself” (Augustine xxix-xxx). But even more specifically, it is probably
intended for the smallest circle, the most intimate meeting of St.
Augustine and God face to Face. This, perhaps, explains St. Augustine’s
choice of genre—at the meeting of a patient and his physician the attention
is on the patient’s illness and its history. Could it be that St. Augustine’s
tragedy is that the generations of Western Christians that followed him

We
mistook some of the symptoms of his illness to be stages of spiritual
ascension?

Aside from focusing on the ills of the two Christian civilizations—whether

Western or Eastern (and, yes, the East has its own ills)—it appears to me
that many of the divisive differences may have been moderated, had the
two Churches found a way to continue to communicate, had the two been
convinced that a formal division would not bring understanding and
eventual reconciliation, as they undoubtedly hoped, and that the Robe of
Christ would be torn for at least the next millennium, perhaps the
ancients would have done more to maintain the spirit of conciliarity
between the East and the West. As it happened, the “Westerns” were left
in a spiritual and intellectual vacuum with only one light that shone for
them—that of St. Augustine. It is not surprising then that nothing
precluded the West from forming a hermeneutical understanding of St.
Augustine’s work that reflected the West’s Roman heritage of city-state
legalism in theology and philosophy, apart from the Eastern eremitic
theology being developed in the deserts of Egypt and Syria.

As for St. Augustine himself, despite the claims made by Western scholars
concerning his uniqueness, he embodied some of the best traditions of
both the Cappadocian and the Alexandrian hermeneutical schools,
moderating between the two, and using this foundation for his own
hermeneutical interpretations. Some of these interpretations, such as St.
Augustine’s interpretation of biblical time, follow classical Greek
models (Ricoeur 2:47), yet others have been and continue to be questioned.
St. Augustine’s idea of the Limbo, for example, was not formally accepted
during his lifetime (the Council of Carthage of 418), nor is it accepted
now. As recently as 22 April 2007, the Vatican released a document
which, while not specifically rejecting Limbo, certainly did not endorse
the idea, but appeared to steer Roman thought in a somewhat different
direction. Similarly, St. Augustine’s defense of the insertion of the
filioque clause was found wanting by such Latin theologians as John “the
Irishman” Eriugena, and undoubtedly added to the stubbornness of the
opposing sides, adding nothing to the love by which everyone is to know
Christ’s disciples (John 13:35).

It may be too late, but if “mankind,” whose history was shaped by St.
Augustine, put aside the well-deserved admiration and turned a more
critical eye to the saint’s hermeneutical heritage, including the view of
self that may have been inspired by his works, the resulting dialogue

We
would benefit not only the task of reconciling the still-divided Eastern
and Western parts of the Old Roman Empire, but also help the West to
learn about itself—an ancient advice (or was it an ad?) written at the
entrance to the Apollo’s temple at Delphi. And if all mankind—the
Westerners, Easterners, Northerners and Southerners, could look
deeply and honestly inside themselves, then divisions could cease to exist,
because one who has a broken leg does not judge the one with a broken
arm, and the one with stomach pain does not look for flaws in the one
with a headache—all are ill, and all are in need of a Physician.

Rene Descartes

René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. A

native of the Kingdom of France, he spent about 20 years of his life in the
Dutch Republic after serving for a while in the Dutch States Army of
Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder of the United
Provinces. Wikipedia

Born: 31 March 1596, Descartes, Indre-et-Loire, France

Died: 11 February 1650, Stockholm, Sweden

Influenced: Isaac Newton, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz, more

Parents: Jeanne Brochard, Joachim Descartes

NOTABLE WORKS

“La Géométrie”

“Meditations on First Philosophy, in Which Is Proved the Existence of God

and the Immortality of the Soul”

“Principles of Philosophy”

“The Passions of the Soul”

“Letter to Voetius”

“Rules for the Direction of the Mind”

“The Discourse on Method”

“The World”

We
DID YOU KNOW?

Contrary to popular claims, Descartes did not develop any mathematical

concept named after him, including a "Cartesian Coordinate System."

Descartes's brother did not inform Descartes of his father's death, and
Descartes declined to go to the funeral when informed.

A later edition of "Meditations," now Descartes's most popular work,

included an appended text with critiques and Descartes's replies.

René Descartes, (born March 31, 1596, La Haye, Touraine, France—died

February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden), French mathematician, scientist,
and philosopher. Because he was one of the first to abandon scholastic
Aristotelianism, because he formulated the first modern version of mind-
body dualism, from which stems the mind-body problem, and because he
promoted the development of a new science grounded in observation and
experiment, he has been called the father of modern philosophy. Applying
an original system of methodical doubt, he dismissed apparent knowledge
derived from authority, the senses, and reason and erected new epistemic
foundations on the basis of the intuition that, when he is thinking, he
exists; this he expressed in the dictum “I think, therefore I am” (best known
in its Latin formulation, “Cogito, ergo sum,” though originally written in
French, “Je pense, donc je suis”). He developed a metaphysical dualism
that distinguishes radically between mind, the essence of which is
thinking, and matter, the essence of which is extension in three
dimensions. Descartes’s metaphysics is rationalist, based on the
postulation of innate ideas of mind, matter, and God, but his physics and
physiology, based on sensory experience, are mechanistic and empiricist.

Works

René Descartes is most commonly known for his philosophical statement,

“I think, therefore I am” (originally in French, but best known by its Latin
translation: "Cogito, ergo sum”). He is also attributed with developing
Cartesian dualism (also referred to as mind-body dualism), the
metaphysical argument that the mind and body are two different
substances which interact with one another. In the mathematics sphere,
his primary contribution came from bridging the gap between algebra and
geometry, which resulted in the Cartesian coordinate system still widely
used today.

Descartes’ Concept of Self

After establishing the reasons behind his radical skepticism, Descartes

goes on to ask himself what he can know. In other words, what new
foundations can he replace the old ones with? He quickly realizes that it

We
is subjective knowledge about his self that is most reliable, and embarks
on an intellectual journey to establish a firmer understanding of this.

He begins with an argument known commonly as the Cogito. He comes to

understand that if he is capable of doubting – which is precisely what he
is doing – then he must exist. He may doubt everything else, may be
deceived about the existence of all other things, but he must necessarily
exist. Cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I am. Now, it’s important to note
that Descartes does not actually phrase his conclusion in this exact
manner in the Meditations. It was only later that he came to use the
famous latin sentence to describe his findings. In fact, his phrasing in the
meditations might be preferable, in that he does not structure his thought
process in the manner of a syllogism (a premise followed by a conclusion).
The reason for this is simple; the statement “I think therefore I am” is an
incomplete argument. There is a missing second premise; “all thinking
things exist”. Thus, “cogito ergo sum” might actually be doubted in some
way. However, Descartes responds to this by claiming that the Cogito is
not, in fact, a syllogism (a stance that is strengthened by the fact that, as
said, he does not present it as such in the Meditations). The conclusion is
reached through an intuitive leap, rather than a reasoned examination of
two premises. It is, after all, absurd to say that something can think and
yet not exist at the same time.

After establishing the fact of his existence, Decartes goes on to ask

himself what he is. He eventually comes to describe himself as a thinking
thing. But what is a thinking thing? The easiest way to understand
Decartes’ thoughts here is to look at his ideas regarding substance, the
essence of a substance, and the modes of a substance. A substance is
defined as something that is capable of existing independently of all
things besides the sustaining power of God (which Decartes believes is
necessary for anything to exist). Let’s look at the mind in terms of these.
Clearly, the mind can be viewed as a substance, since we can see it existing
independently (let’s not worry about chemicals in the brain for the
nonce). What is its essence, though? Well, according to Decartes, the
essence of mind is thought, which he describes in terms of doubting,
affirming, judging, etc. This makes sense – a mind can be seen as something
that is defined by thought. The modes of the mind, then, are the various
ways of thinking I just mentioned (doubting, affirming, and so on and so
forth).

We
So, Decartes has established that he is a thing that thinks, and he has
achieved at least a sketchy idea of what that means. He then starts to
consider material objects in an attempt to understand his mind even
better, choosing to do this by examining a piece of wax. At first, the wax is
hard and solid, smelling slightly of flowers and tasting slightly of
honey. It makes a sound when he taps it with his finger. However, when it’s
brought close to a flame it starts to melt, changing in shape and size,
losing all taste and smell, and it no longer makes a noise when he hits it
(as it has softened). And yet, even though his senses are perceiving
something owning entirely different properties to those the wax had
earlier, he is still conscious of it as a piece of wax. The same piece of wax,
even. His senses do not tell him this, so he reasons that the way he really
perceives the wax is through his mind. What does he perceive it as? An
extended substance that is flexible and changeable*. This tells him
something important about the relationship between his mind and the
external world, and it also tells him that his senses are only of limited
value. Naturally, without his senses he would not be aware of the wax at
all, but without a judging mind he would only have a very muddled
understanding of it.

One of the conclusions that Descartes draws from his examination of the
wax is that he can never know anything better than his own mind. This is
because, whenever he comes to understand something about a material
thing, such as its size or shape, he is also becoming aware of the ability of
his mind to perceive and understand that property. Whenever he learns
about material objects, then, he learns about his mind. But he can learn
things about his mind without learning anything new about the material
world. Therefore, his mind is more readily known to him than anything
else. There is, however, one problem with this. What he learns about his
mind when examining the properties of an object – his ability to perceive
said properties – is in fact a property of his mind. However, Descartes
himself regards properties as being immaterial – it is the essence of a
thing that truly matters. So it would seem that his conclusion here is not
entirely solid.

This, then, is what Descartes views as the “self”; a thinking thing, as

outlined above. There are some further weaknesses to his arguments, but
these deal mostly with particulars and I don’t want to deal with them too
throroughly here. Suffice it to say that while his main points are mostly
sound, not all of his conclusions should be taken at face value (this can
of course be said of virtually everything, especially when one is dealing
with philosophy). To fully appreciate Descartes’ views on the self,

We
however, an understanding of his thoughts on dualism – another topic he
adresses in theMeditations- is neccessary. I’ll be looking at these shortly.

John Locke

John Locke FRS (/lɒk/; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English
philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential
of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of
Liberalism".[9][10][11] Considered one of the first of the British
empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally
important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the
development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings
influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish
Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His
contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are
reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.

Born

29 August 1632

Wrington, Somerset, England

Died

28 October 1704 (aged 72)

High Laver, Essex, England

Nationality

English

Education

Christ Church, Oxford

Era

17th-century philosophy

(Early modern philosophy)

Region

Western philosophy

We
School

Empiricism Foundationalism[1] Conceptualism[2] Indirect realism[3]

Correspondence theory of truth[4] Ideational theory of meaning[5]
Corpuscularianism[6] Social contract Natural law Liberalism

Main interests

Metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of mind,

philosophy of education, economics

Notable ideas

Consciousness

Consent of the governed

Labor theory of property

Law of opinion

Lockean proviso

Molyneux's problem

Natural rights (rights of life, liberty and property)[7]

Primary/secondary quality distinction

Social contract

State of nature

Tabula rasa

Influences

Grotius, Descartes, Filmer, Pufendorf, Hobbes, Masham[8]

Influenced

Hume, Kant, Berkeley, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shaftesbury, many subsequent

political philosophers (including the Founding Fathers of the United
States)

Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions

of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later
philosophers such as David Hume, Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Locke
was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He
postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa.
Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he

We
maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is
instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception.[13]
This is now known as empiricism. An example of Locke's belief in empiricism
can be seen in his quote, "whatever I write, as soon as I discover it not to
be true, my hand shall be the forwardest to throw it into the fire." This
shows the ideology of science in his observations in that something must
be capable of being tested repeatedly and that nothing is exempt from
being disproven. Challenging the work of others, Locke is said to have
established the method of introspection, or observing the emotions and
behaviours of one's self.

Works

A Letter Concerning Toleration, 1689.

(1690) A Second Letter Concerning Toleration

(1692) A Third Letter for Toleration

(1689) Two Treatises of Government (published throughout the 18th

century by London bookseller Andrew Millar by commission for Thomas
Hollis)[78]

(1690) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

(1691) Some Considerations on the consequences of the Lowering of

Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money

(1693) Some Thoughts Concerning Education

(1695) The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures

(1695) A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity

Major posthumous manuscripts

(1660) First Tract of Government (or the English Tract)

(c.1662) Second Tract of Government (or the Latin Tract)

(1664) Questions Concerning the Law of Nature (definitive Latin text, with
facing accurate English trans. in Robert Horwitz et al., eds., John Locke,
Questions Concerning the Law of Nature, Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1990).

(1667) Essay Concerning Toleration

(1706) Of the Conduct of the Understanding

(1707) A paraphrase and notes on the Epistles of St. Paul to the

Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians

We
NOTABLE WORKS

“Some Thoughts Concerning Education”

“The Reasonableness of Christianity”

“Two Treatises of Government”

“Essays on the Law of Nature”

“An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”

“A Letter Concerning Toleration”

“Two Tracts on Government”

John Locke, (born August 29, 1632, Wrington, Somerset, England—died

October 28, 1704, High Laver, Essex), English philosopher whose works
lie at the foundation of modern philosophical empiricism and political
liberalism. He was an inspirer of both the European Enlightenment and
the Constitution of the United States. His philosophical thinking was
close to that of the founders of modern science, especially Robert Boyle,
Sir Isaac Newton, and other members of the Royal Society. His political
thought was grounded in the notion of a social contract between citizens
and in the importance of toleration, especially in matters of religion.
Much of what he advocated in the realm of politics was accepted in
England after the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 and in the United
States after the country’s declaration of independence in 1776.

Other Works

Locke’s writings were not confined to political philosophy and

epistemology. Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693), for example,
remains a standard source in the philosophy of education. It developed
out of a series of letters that Locke had written from Holland to his
friend Edward Clarke concerning the education of Clarke’s son, who
was destined to be a gentleman but not necessarily a scholar. It
emphasizes the importance of both physical and mental development—both
exercise and study. The first requirement is to instill virtue, wisdom, and
good manners. This is to be followed by book learning. For the latter,
Locke gives a list of recommended texts on Latin, French, mathematics,
geography, and history, as well as civil law, philosophy, and natural
science. There should also be plenty of scope for recreation, including
dancing and riding.

We
Locke’s The Reasonableness of Christianity(1695) is the most important of
his many theological writings. Central to all of them is his belief that
every individual has within him the abilities necessary to comprehend his
duty and to achieve salvation with the aid of the Scriptures. Locke was
constantly trying to steer a course that would allow individuals to
accept the essential doctrines of Christianity while retaining a certain
freedom of conscience. According to Locke, all Christians must accept
Jesus as the Messiah and live in accordance with his teachings. Within this
minimum framework, however, differences of worship could and should
be tolerated. Locke was thus in many ways close to the Latitudinarian
movement and other liberal theological trends. His influence on
Protestant Christian thought for at least the next century was
substantial.

Locke wrote no major work of moral philosophy. Although he sometimes

claimed that it would be possible in principle to produce a deductive
system of ethics comparable to Euclid’s geometry, he never actually
produced one, and there is no evidence that he ever gave the matter more
than minimal attention. He was quite sure, however, that through the use
of reason human beings can gain access to and knowledge of basic moral
truths, which ultimately arise from a moral order in “the soil of human
nature.” As he expressed the point in Essays on the Law of Nature (1664),
an early work expressing a position from which he never diverted,

since man has been made such as he is, equipped with reason and his other
faculties and destined for this mode of life, there necessarily result
from his inborn constitution some definite duties for him, which cannot be
other than they are.

Just as one can discover from the nature of the triangle that its angles
equal two right angles, so this moral order can be discovered by reason
and is within the grasp of all human beings.

David Hume

BORN

May 7, 1711

Edinburgh, Scotland

DIED

We
August 25, 1776 (aged 65)

Edinburgh, Scotland

NOTABLE WORKS

“A Treatise of Human Nature”

“Essays, Moral and Political”

“History of England”

“An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”

“Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals”

SUBJECTS OF STUDY

England

miracle

idea

neutral monism

causation

ROLE IN

Scottish Enlightenment

David Hume, (born May 7 [April 26, Old Style], 1711, Edinburgh, Scotland—
died August 25, 1776, Edinburgh), Scottish philosopher, historian,
economist, and essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism
and skepticism.

Hume conceived of philosophy as the inductive, experimental science of

human nature. Taking the scientific method of the English physicist Sir
Isaac Newton as his model and building on the epistemology of the English
philosopher John Locke, Hume tried to describe how the mind works in
acquiring what is called knowledge. He concluded that no theory of
reality is possible; there can be no knowledge of anything beyond
experience. Despite the enduring impact of his theory of knowledge, Hume
seems to have considered himself chiefly as a moralist.

Mature Works

We
During his years of wandering Hume was earning the money that he
needed to gain leisure for his studies. Some fruits of those studies had
already appeared before the end of his travels, viz., a further Three
Essays, Moral and Political (1748) and Philosophical Essays Concerning
Human Understanding (1748). The latter is a rewriting of Book I of the
Treatise (with the addition of his essay “On Miracles,” which became
notorious for its denial that a miracle can be proved by any amount or
kind of evidence); it is better known as An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding, the title Hume gave to it in a revision of 1758. The Enquiry
Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) was a rewriting of Book III of
the Treatise. It was in those later works that Hume expressed his mature
thought.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is an attempt to define the

principles of human knowledge. It poses in logical form significant
questions about the nature of reasoning in regard to matters of fact and
experience, and it answers them by recourse to the principle of
association. The basis of Hume’s exposition is a twofold classification of
objects of awareness. In the first place, all such objects are either
“impressions,” data of sensation or of internal consciousness, or “ideas,”
derived from such data by compounding, transposing, augmenting, or
diminishing. That is to say, the mind does not create any ideas but derives
them from impressions. From this Hume develops a theory of linguistic
meaning. A word that does not stand directly for an impression has
meaning only if it brings before the mind an object that can be gathered
from an impression by one of the mental processes just mentioned. In the
second place, there are two approaches to construing meaning: an
analytical one, which concentrates on the “relations of ideas,” and an
empirical one, which focuses on “matters of fact.” Ideas can be held
before the mind simply as meanings, and their logical relations to one
another can then be detected by rational inspection. The idea of a plane
triangle, for example, entails the equality of its internal angles to two
right angles, and the idea of motion entails the ideas of space and time,
irrespective of whether there really are such things as triangles and
motion. Only on that level of mere meanings, Hume asserts, is there room
for demonstrative knowledge. Matters of fact, on the other hand, come
before the mind merely as they are, revealing no logical relations; their
properties and connections must be accepted as they are given. That
primroses are yellow, that lead is heavy, and that fire burns things are
facts, each shut up in itself, logically barren. Each, so far as reason is
concerned, could be different: the contradictory of every matter of fact
is conceivable. Therefore, there can be no logically demonstrative
science of fact.

We
From this basis Hume develops his doctrine about causality. The idea of
causality is alleged to assert a “necessary connexion” among matters of
fact. From what impression, then, is it derived? Hume states that no causal
relation among the data of the senses can be observed, for, when people
regard any events as causally connected, all that they do and can
observe is that they frequently and uniformly go together. In this sort of
togetherness it is a fact that the impression or idea of the one event
brings with it the idea of the other. A habitual association is set up in the
mind; and, as in other forms of habit, so in this one, the working of the
association is felt as compulsion. This feeling, Hume concludes, is the only
discoverable impressional source of the idea of causality.

Theory

Bundle theory, originated by the 18th century Scottish philosopher David

Hume, is the ontological theory about objecthood in which an object
consists only of a collection (bundle) of properties, relations or tropes.

According to bundle theory, an object consists of its properties and

nothing more: thus neither can there be an object without properties nor
can one even conceive of such an object; for example, bundle theory
claims that thinking of an apple compels one also to think of its color, its
shape, the fact that it is a kind of fruit, its cells, its taste, or at least one
other of its properties. Thus, the theory asserts that the apple is no more
than the collection of its properties. In particular, there is no substance
in which the properties are inherent.

Immanuel Khant

Immanuel Kant (/kænt/;[15] German: [ʔɪˈmaːnu̯eːl ˈkant, -nu̯ɛl -];[16][17] 22

April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher who is a
central figure in modern philosophy.[18] In his doctrine of
transcendental idealism, he argued that space, time and causation are
mere sensibilities; "things-in-themselves" exist, but their nature is
unknowable.[19][20] In his view, the mind shapes and structures
experience, with all human experience sharing certain structural
features. He drew a parallel to the Copernican revolution in his
proposition that worldly objects can be intuited a priori ("beforehand"),
and that intuition is therefore independent from objective reality.[21]
Kant believed that reason is the source of morality, and that aesthetics
arise from a faculty of disinterested judgment. Kant's views continue to
have a major influence on contemporary philosophy, especially the fields
of epistemology, ethics, political theory, and post-modern aesthetics.

We
Notable ideas

Abstract–concrete distinction[10]

Aesthetic–teleological judgments

Analytic–synthetic distinction

Categorical and hypothetical imperative

Categories

Copernican revolution

Cosmotheology

Critical philosophy

Empirical realism

Kant's antinomies

Kant's pitchfork

Kingdom of Ends

Mathematical and dynamical sublimity[11]

Nebular hypothesis

Noogony and noology

Noumenon/thing-in-itself

Ontotheology

Primacy of the practical[12]

Public reason

Rechtsstaat

Sapere aude

Transcendental schema

Transcendental idealism

Transcendental theology

Understanding–reason distinction

We
In one of Kant's major works, the Critique of Pure Reason (1781),[22] he
attempted to explain the relationship between reason and human
experience and to move beyond the failures of traditional philosophy and
metaphysics. Kant wanted to put an end to an era of futile and
speculative theories of human experience, while resisting the skepticism
of thinkers such as David Hume. Kant regarded himself as showing the
way past the impasse between rationalists and empiricists which
philosophy had led to,[23] and is widely held to have synthesized both
traditions in his thought.[18]

Kant was an exponent of the idea that perpetual peace could be secured
through universal democracy and international cooperation. He believed
that this would be the eventual outcome of universal history, although it
is not rationally planned.[24] The nature of Kant's religious ideas
continues to be the subject of philosophical dispute, with viewpoints
ranging from the impression that he was an initial advocate of atheism
who at some point developed an ontological argument for God, to more
critical treatments epitomized by Nietzsche, who claimed that Kant had
"theologian blood"[25] and was merely a sophisticated apologist for
traditional Christian faith.[a]

Kant published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics,

astronomy, and history. These include the Universal Natural History
(1755), the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), the Metaphysics of
Morals (1797), and the Critique of Judgment (1790), which looks at
aesthetics and teleology.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most important philosophers of

the Enlightenment Period (c. 1650-1800) in Western European history.
This encyclopedia article focuses on Kant’s views in the philosophy of
mind, which undergird much of his epistemology and metaphysics. In
particular, it focuses on metaphysical and epistemological doctrines
forming the core of Kant’s mature philosophy, as presented in the
Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) of 1781/87 and elsewhere.

There are certain aspects of Kant’s project in the CPR that should be
very familiar to anyone versed in the debates of seventeenth century
European philosophy. For example, Kant argues, like Locke and Hume

We
before him, that the boundaries of substantive human knowledge stop at
experience, and thus that we must be extraordinarily circumspect
concerning any claim made about what reality is like independent of all
possible human experience. But, like Descartes and Leibniz, Kant thinks
that central parts of human knowledge nevertheless exhibit
characteristics of necessity and universality, and that, contrary to
Hume’s skeptical arguments, there is good reason to think so.

Kant carries out a ‘critique’ of pure reason in order to show its nature
and limits, thereby curbing the pretensions of various metaphysical
systems articulated on the basis that reason alone allows us to
scrutinize the depths of reality. But Kant also argues that the legitimate
domain of reason is more extensive and more substantive than previous
empiricist critiques had allowed. In this way Kant salvages (or attempts
to) much of the prevailing Enlightenment conception of reason as an
organ for knowledge of the world.

This article discusses Kant’s theory of cognition, including his views of

the various mental faculties that make cognition possible. It distinguishes
between different conceptions of consciousness at the basis of this
theory of cognition and explains and discusses Kant’s criticisms of the
prevailing rationalist conception of mind, popular in Germany at the time.

Gilbert Ryle

Gilbert Ryle

(1900-1976)

Information philosophy identifies the mind with the immaterial information

in the brain, which is a biological information processor Gilbert Ryle was
best known for his criticism of what he called the "Official Doctrine" of
"Cartesian Dualism" as a theory of mind. He thought René Descartes had
naturalized the theological idea of a soul as a separate non-material
substance called "mind."

The mind-body problem asks how a non-material mental substance can

causally influence the material body. Ryle's 1949 book The Concept of
Mind is regarded by many thinkers as having eliminated the immaterial
mind and "dis-solved" the mind-body problem, which Ryle saw as the result
of what he called a "category mistake."

We
In some ways influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who thought many
philosophical problems were caused by misuse of language, Ryle said the
category mistake was applying properties to a non-material thing that are
logically and grammatically appropriate only for a category including
material things.

With his remarkable ability to turn a phrase, what Ryle even more
famously did was to stigmatize "mind" as the "Ghost in the Machine."
Unfortunately, the phrase greatly advanced the enlightenment idea of
"Man a Machine." And it helped prepare the way for today's revolution in
cognitive science based on the "computational theory of mind," with the
digital computer the model for intellectual operations.

Not that Ryle himself thought of man as a mechanical system or machine.

Far from it. Though he described both body and mind as a "field of causes
and effects" and likened the motion of the planets to a "clockwork," he
thought minds were "not bits of clockwork, they are bits of non-
clockwork." (p.20)

Since biology established its title as a science, he says,

The Newtonian system is no longer the sole paradigm of natural science.

Man need not be degraded to a machine by being denied to be a ghost in a
machine. He might, after all, be a sort of animal, namely, a higher mammal.
There has yet to be ventured the hazardous leap to the hypothesis that
perhaps he is a man. (p.328)

Ryle thought that the problem of free will was a "tangle of spurious
problems." Minds, as entities outside the causal system, do not exist. He
said the "myth" of volition belongs with concepts like phlogiston and
"animal spirits."

For Ryle, free will was invented to answer "the question whether human
beings deserve praise or blame." He conflates free will with moral
responsibility, committing the ethical fallacy," assuming with Immanuel
Kant, Robert Kane, and many others that our actions must be moral to be
free.

We
Perhaps the best known compatibilist philosopher, Daniel Dennett, was a
student of Ryle's and cannot separate free will from moral
responsibilty. Dennett offers a "free will worth wanting" that is simply
moral competence. But this is what Ryle would have identified as a
"category-mistake."

Whether deterministic laws of nature mean that every human action is

pre-determined is a scientific problem. Whether we can generate
"uncaused causes" and genuinely new thoughts in our minds depends on
quantum theory.

Moral responsibility, on the other hand, is a societal and cultural

problem.

Free will has traditionally been connected to moral responsibility. But it

is wrong to say that free will simply is moral competence, as Dennett
says, or is "ultimate responsibility" as Kane says. Sadly, free actions are
also likely to be evil actions.

Know-How and Know-That

Epistemologists make important distinctions between knowing how

(technical ability), knowing that (facts and propositions), and knowing
what (acquaintance with things and persons). In his presidential address
to the Aristotelian Society in 1945, Ryle insisted that knowing that (some
fact) is empty intellectualism without knowing how to make use of the
fact.

Effective possesion of a piece of knowledge-that involves knowing how to

use that knowledge, when required, for the solution of other theoretical
or practical problems. There is a distinction between the museum-
possession and the workshop-possession of knowledge. A silly person can
be stocked with information, yet never know how to answer particular
questions. The uneducated public erroneously equates education with the
imparting of knowledge-that. Philosophers have not hitherto made it very
clear what its error is. I hope I have provided part of that correction.

('Knowing How and Knowing That," Proceedings of the Aristotelian

Society, New Series, Vol. 46 (1945 - 1946), p.16)

We
The subtle verbal distinctions between know how, know that, and know
what in English language debates about epistemology are more evidence
of the failure of language analysis.

Knowledge has become propositional knowledge, truth claims about a

proposition.

A subject S is said to "know" a proposition P if and only if,

(i) P is true,

(ii) S believes that P, and

(iii) S is justified in believing that P.

The modern definition of knowledge as "justified true belief" comes from

Plato's Theaetetus, where "belief" was "opinion" (doxa), "true" was
"right" (orthe), and "justified" was an "account" (logos) - a reason or
explanation or story.

Plato's word for"knowledge" was episteme, from which modern

philosophy gave us epistemology. But the meaning of the Greek word is
closer to "know how," which makes it supportive of Ryle's point that
knowing involves an ability and not just an intellect.

We