Daoist conceptions of virtue can be described as “cosmic spontaneity”<p><a href="https://sourcelibrary.org/book/chuang-tzu-mystic-moralist-and-social-reformer-giles/page/6993569a83378b7aed7ce70d" rel="nofollow">https://sourcelibrary.org/book/chuang-tzu-mystic-moralist-an...</a>
Actually reading Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics is worth it. Not because he's right about everything (he has some pretty messed up and weird views), but because it's challenging and good to think on, and chances are you'll take something away for yourself that you wouldn't have gotten from some webpage that took one-liners out of context, some of which aren't even by Aristotle.
It’s weird and messed up because Aristotle’s audience isn’t Christian or even Abrahamic the slightest. He’s right about rejecting abstract definitions that aren’t grounded in the elements of a situation however.
> he has some pretty messed up and weird views<p>What’s an example?
He stated, in a separate work, that women had fewer teeth as an example of their inferiority. Makes you want to take everything he said with a grain of salt.<p>In his defense (sorry if defending him offends here), women probably did, at the time, often have fewer teeth due to worse dental care.
He thought some humans were slaves by nature and women were naturally inferior to men.<p>edit: whoa, I didn't realize how racist this guy was. He could be classified as a eugenicist I suppose.<p>He also believed in spontaneous generation (fair, without technology we have now it would be really confusing to understand where all kinds of things come from).<p>Seemed to believe infinity was impossible yet also that the heavens are infinite. Maybe he distinguished between the earthly and heavenly planes, but still seemed to think they were similarly constructed from elements.<p>The list goes on.
many humans are still slaves by nature -- look at how averse many folks in the society are to rational and pragmatic thinking, being enslaved by religion, ideology and showing indifference to human suffering, and endless worship of wealthy.
We need to distinguish between "many people are born into slavery" and "many people are meant to be slaves by their inborn nature". The former is true, the latter is not, even in the example you've given.<p>Also, he was referring to people performing labour, not people adhering to spiritual belief or ideological systems.<p>I see what you mean, but I don't think this means what he believed was true. I see it as categorically different. People adhering to beliefs without critical thought vs being forced into labour due to their 'nature' are very different matters.
being born into slavery is a random fact -- life happens and they had no control over it really.<p>many people are meant to be slaves is also a fact -- it is not like everyone is gifted cerebrally, or even blessed to be in an environment where, by the time they are adults, have been shown a good formula for life; so consequently a section of the society is destined to be just slaves, it just needs the presence of a manipulator.<p>Aristotle, being an endless questioning guy he was, might have figured this out, although i'm not sure.
>He thought some humans were slaves by nature and women were naturally inferior to men.<p>These are unfortunately still all too common beliefs. The latter has mostly been folded into racial essentialism and racial realist beliefs, because slavery is no longer legal (13th amendment loophole notwithstanding) and you can still find people arguing women are intellectually inferior and incapable of rational thought.<p>The whole anti-DEI movement is based on the premise that non-whites and women <i>categorically</i> don't deserve the same status in the workforce as white men, and the only reason they have "equality" is due to anti-white racism.
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The level of precision a subject can reach is peculiar to that subject, but it doesn't follow that nothing can be accurately predicated of it:<p>"It is characteristic of such knowledge [ethics] that it should be deficient in “exactness,” in precision of statement, and closeness of logical concatenation. We must not look for a mathematics of conduct. The subject-matter of Human Conduct is not governed by necessary and uniform laws. But this does not mean that it is subject to no laws."<p>"[T]he man of education will seek exactness so far in each subject as the nature of the thing admits, it being plainly much the same absurdity to put up with a mathematician who tries to persuade instead of proving, and to demand strict demonstrative reasoning of a Rhetorician."<p><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8438/8438-h/8438-h.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8438/8438-h/8438-h.htm</a>
FWIW, I got a lot more about virtue ethics from reading Plato's works, the Stoics, and Cicero. Aristotle is somewhat dry and tedious to read. Go for him if you're into formal logic and related technical systems. But if you're truly interested in virtue ethics and have some reading discipline, try Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.<p>On Marcus Aurelius: he's often recommended mindlessly (especially in tech circles). I actually to suggest to read him <i>last</i>. He <i>does</i> have valuable things to say, but he's the most depressive of the Big Three Stoics. You can better appreciate Aurelius if you've already digested some Socratic dialogues and Epictetus. One of the top-most Stoicism scholars (A. A. Long) describes Marcus Aurelius this way: <i>"a melancholy emperor, who was hardly a card-carrying Stoic"</i>.<p>FWIW, here's[1] my recommended reading order and top English translations from five years ago. Cut out the cheap rehashes by people such as Ryan Holiday and stick to the originals. A bonus note[2] on the Roman gem, Cicero, from six years ago.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22990579">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22990579</a><p>[2] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24638573">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24638573</a>
The first quote is not even a quote from Aristotle but from Will Durant’s book, The Story of Philosophy (1926)
The saying is a paraphrase of Aristotle's ideas on virtue.<p>Technically the words are that of Durant but the core idea is Aristotle.
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet" -- Sun Tzu
Pretty low effort article I like the quotes but yeah.<p>My favorite part is the useless comment bellow each quote like:
"The commenter above has stated that the quote is not from aristotle, this is important for the article"
> 2. "Happiness depends upon ourselves."<p>he's quiet possibly referring to happiness as a relationship (with family, friends, colleagues, citizens etc) rather than just by oneself / isolation / individual. he famously said "man by nature is a political animal" (or social if you prefer)
I expect it’s more similar to the Buddhist idea that happiness is cultivated in your own mind. It’s driven internally rather than externally.
Specifically, meaning making. The same situation can be perceived as negative, neutral, or positive all depending on how the individual interprets it.<p>The classic example that's a bit wrong is a glass of water half empty or half full.<p>The true optimist doesn't see it as half full, he sees it as full. Half with water, half with air (being grateful for the air as well.)<p>The neutral person sees it as half full, and the depressive sees it as half empty.
That's near the opposite of what Aristotle intended. He wrote about happiness as virtuous action, living well. He wasn't so internally oriented.
Social and political are very different, unless you are overly concerned with accumulating power within your social relationships.
I would submit that all social relationships have power dynamics. Politics is about allocation of resources more than power accumulation. You may be conflating the two because more power allows you to allocate resources with less intereference.
It's more social, the translation of political is coming from polis; man is by nature meant to be part of a city or community.
In the original its meaning is being part of a greater unit.
of course they are. his original quote says 'political' but often translations or quotes may say 'social' (informally).
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”<p>Aristotle never said this. It's Will Durant.<p><a href="https://medium.com/the-mission/my-favourite-quote-of-all-time-is-a-misattribution-66356f22843d" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/the-mission/my-favourite-quote-of-all-tim...</a><p><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/s2n3s/source_for_an_alleged_aristotle_quote/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/s2n3s/source...</a><p>This invalidates the post for me, it takes it from academic research to fanboy posting.
Funnily enough, people attributing "smart sounding" quotes to Aristotle has been a headache for historians for as long as Aristotle's writing has been around. The more things change...
The saying is a paraphrase of Aristotle's ideas on virtue.<p>Technically the words are that of Durant but the core idea is Aristotle.
Missing my favorite from Aristotle on knowledge: "The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge"<p>Good for getting out of endless HN/Reddit/Wikipedia loops!
<a href="https://www.backstory.today/b/y2v04s" rel="nofollow">https://www.backstory.today/b/y2v04s</a>
Much of this is either simply not Aristotle, or a paraphrase from one of his works incorrectly attributed to another.
My slop meter is pinging.<p>Edit:<p>Between the misattributions, fabricated quotes, listicle format, thin explanatory paragraphs, and use of “delve” (posted Nov 2024 - during ChatGPT’s Delve Era), this is a pretty embarrassing thing for a Liberal Arts college to post.
Thanks for delving, I hadn't picked up on the misattributions. But I'm looking to read some of those books now given the comments here.
It’s also embarrassing to see a philosopher summarized in quotes or sayings when their real thesis is probably the opposite of what the snippet suggests,<p>Philosophy is not about clever observations! They are developing systems and arguments you have to actually read to understand.
> "Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies."<p>What a cool way to convey the benefits of having strong friendships.
If you ever wondered, those are among the things that made that single person standing out of the crowd od Humanity for more than two thousands years.<3
<i>“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”</i>
> entertain a thought without accepting it<p>Entertaining an idea is understanding it. And, there is some research to show that understanding an idea is believing it. Hence, understanding an idea and not believing it is very effortful.<p>[1] <a href="https://bear.warrington.ufl.edu/brenner/mar7588/Papers/gilbert-ampsy1991.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://bear.warrington.ufl.edu/brenner/mar7588/Papers/gilbe...</a>
I see this quote a lot and can never find it in original sources for Aristotle. It seems to be a misattribution from the foreword of Religion and the Pursuit of Truth by Lowell L Bennion<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/religionpursuito0000lowe/page/n5/mode/2up?q=%22mark+of+an+educated%22" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/religionpursuito0000lowe/page/n5...</a>
From Aristotle?<p>Along the same lines:
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."
-- Robert Frost
><i>From Aristotle?</i><p>apparently not, actually:<p>"<i>The earliest that this quotation appears in print is in Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (1959) by Lowell Bennion.</i>"<p>or<p>"<i>First attributed to Aristotle in Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (1959). Unfound as such.<p>Sometimes thought (though I feel it's a bit of a stretch) a misinterpretation of Nicomachean Ethics 1.3.4 (1094b): "For it is the mark of an educated person to search for the same kind of clarity in each topic to the extent that the nature of the matter accepts it."</i>"
Maybe, yes "maybe" Robert got inspiration from a guy who lived two thousands years earlier.
<p><pre><code> The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
</code></pre>
Reminds me of Charlie Munger's <i>Inversion principle</i> that he borrowed from German mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi's <i>man muss immer umkehren</i>. <a href="https://fs.blog/inversion/" rel="nofollow">https://fs.blog/inversion/</a><p><pre><code> We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
</code></pre>
As counter points, read Cedirc Chin's <i>Problems with deliberate practice</i>, <a href="https://commoncog.com/the-problems-with-deliberate-practice/" rel="nofollow">https://commoncog.com/the-problems-with-deliberate-practice/</a> and <i>Sensemaking as the heart of expertise</i>, <a href="https://commoncog.com/sensemaking-heart-of-expertise/" rel="nofollow">https://commoncog.com/sensemaking-heart-of-expertise/</a><p><pre><code> It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
</code></pre>
This Amjad Masad comment lives rent-free in my head: "Tolerating some amount of cognitive dissonance is one of the best things that I was able to develop in myself ... people don't update their beliefs when new evidence comes to light ... The drive to avoid cognitive dissonance shackles you to your existing beliefs (see confirmation bias)". <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11799477">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11799477</a> (2016).<p>cf. <i>Why people that are often right change their minds often</i>, <a href="https://fs.blog/some-advice-from-jeff-bezos/" rel="nofollow">https://fs.blog/some-advice-from-jeff-bezos/</a>
bro just read the book Aristotle did not run a twitter account
Nice!
You know I always found it odd/unfair how religions were founded around Jesus, Muhammed etc but not for Aristotle, Socrates etc.
There actually were religions founded around the philosophers. The _mathematikoi_ were a cult of followers of Pythagoras that believed everything was Number, and they believed they could purify their souls by learning theorems. And the Neoplatonists founded a religious school based on the works of Plato (with significant elaboration by Plotinus). Christianity ultimately incorporated many Neoplatonic beliefs, along with Stoic beliefs that stemmed from Heraclitus, who argued everything was Logos, which has one translation as _Word_, which is an opening statement in the Bible’s book of John. Aristotle’s works also went on to have a transformative impact on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam through Maimonides, Aquinas, and Averroes, who all interpreted his works.<p>I agree it’s still interesting that major religions were not founded at the time of the early philosophers — maybe it’s because religion as we conceive of it today depends on a _bureaucracy_ to sustain it?
The Greek philosophers were more wise, humble, and didn’t think they’re deities.
it do be like that
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