Enduring Philosophical Concepts

While neither the words of Plato nor those of Aristotle seem fully sound in relation to the workings of governments today, it seems that, despite the age of The Republic and The Nicomachean Ethics, a majority of truths discussed within each still apply. Even though the specifics of how such ideals are reached may be infeasible, the underlying ideals themselves, such as the worth of justice for its own sake, are still quite applicable.

Virtue is another such ideal that still holds weight today even though Aristotle wrote about it centuries ago. It seems possible that the majority would agree that virtue is something necessary in daily life and that being virtuous could be considered one of a person’s highest goals. The list of things for which such high recognition of worth is applicable is very short, so virtue must indeed be an important aspect of a person’s character upon which to focus. And focus on it Aristotle does indeed! Within The Nicomachean Ethics, there are no less than five separate books discussing virtue alone and the topic is mentioned in other areas as well.

A great deal of what is said about virtue by Aristotle seems reasonable. It is first mentioned in Book II that virtue is something that must be acquired by habit and not by study. Aristotle makes it a point that one cannot become virtuous by merely reading about the nature of virtue; one may only become virtuous by doing virtuous acts and thinking virtuously. This seems to make perfect sense for, while virtue is of great import, it is still just another skill that one can acquire. However, Aristotle notes that one cannot go against one’s nature. That implies that even though one may do virtuous acts, one is not virtuous unless virtue is innate in one’s character. How might virtue be acquired, then, if it is something that must already be part of a person? Perhaps “refined” is a more appropriate term, or even “discovered,” since when one is living life, one’s actions, thoughts, and words can be said to reflect the virtue inherent in oneself. Upon personal analysis of why one did, thought, or said something, one might discover something about the virtue that one has.

Upon such analysis, a personal dilemma might be reached: was the right thing done? How can one be sure? While Aristotle does not provide many absolutes for what “the right thing” is beyond saying that murder and adultery are never such, he does give a guideline for one to determine for oneself, relative to oneself, what is the right and virtuous choice: the mean of what is excess and what is deficiency. He offers several examples of specific cases, such as the one of courage being the mean between rashness and cowardice. Since moderation and sense seem to be essential in a balanced and happy life, the mean of two extremes seems to be the logical choice for the right course of action.

Happiness is another thing that Aristotle touches upon, stating that it is the ultimate goal because all other things lead to it. When asking someone why they did something, if one continuously repeats this question, ultimately, the answer of the person will be that it makes him or her happy. At least this is Aristotle’s belief, but given the plausibility of the previous case, it seems that this belief is sound. When Aristotle discusses happiness as the end goal, it is not meant that such happiness is to be fleeting or transient; he is not referring to the simple results of pleasures that come and go, but of an overall, lasting sense of happiness. He eventually ties this in with virtue in that only a truly virtuous person can lead a happy life and, oppositely, a person with a truly happy life must indeed be virtuous.

Perhaps one of the things that seems most logical about Aristotle is that he is very cautious about declaring absolutes. He gives a guideline for finding virtue and states that virtue is relative to each individual person. The very idea that a virtuous act is relative to what is excessive and what is deficient is something that shies away from being an absolute. Beyond stating that murder and adultery are absolutes in that they are never in the right, Aristotle for the most part avoids declaring absolute forms of anything. This is very unlike his former teacher, Plato, who seems to enjoy throwing absolutes around almost as much as Aristotle likes to emphasize moderation.

Plato speaks of a world of Forms, distant absolutes that represent true goodness. There is a corresponding Form for everything on this planet: a perfect form of a chair, a perfect form of a blade of grass, a perfect form of a bottle opener. When a carpenter builds a chair, that chair can never be as perfect as its Form, although the carpenter is modelling it after his own perception of said Form. In this way, the carpenter is removed a step from creating the perfect chair in its entirety since he does not know what the perfect chair is; his perception is inaccurate. Since he is only a carpenter and not one of Plato’s highly toted philosopher kings, he cannot possibly conceive of what true Goodness is for he has not received the proper education. Why has he not received the proper education in order to comprehend great things? Because he has a less valuable metal making up his soul than that in the soul of a philosopher king, or at least this is the myth that the Platonic society would have told him.

Being only once-removed from the Form seems to be an acceptable distance (which is quite a good thing, for if only philosopher kings were allowed to create goods, which they are not allowed to do because they are too busy ruling the society, it would seem that the Platonic society would be very non-materialistic indeed), whereas when a painter paints an image of that carpenter’s chair, the painter is basing his simulacrum on another simulacrum and so his painting is twice removed from the Form of the chair. Since poets, painters, and their ilk are not depicting things that are only a step away from their corresponding Forms, Plato does not see the worth in these jobs or their results.

This idea seems ludicrous and would especially not hold up in today’s world. To say to most anyone that art has no purpose in life is to define yourself as an imbecile. Aristotle claimed that the end goal of all endeavors is happiness; if this is true, then naturally art has a place in society because art makes nearly all people happy in some way or another. (One would hope that Plato would agree that a society of happy people is superior to a society of discontent people but, given his previous judgements that seem so irrational, perhaps this cannot be assumed about him.) Music, literature, paintings, sculptures; all these things would be the products of wasted effort to Plato. Even to someone who does not appreciate artistic ventures, if that person can appreciate money, he or she should be able to agree that art has a place in this world because, through the production of art, one can make money which overall improves society.

Something that goes against a democratic government of today is that the producer in Platonic society has no voice in government. The producers make up the largest class and yet are unable to speak their minds about how they are ruled. This is antithesis to a democratic society in which everyone has a voice in their government and every voice is equal. Considering that many countries that have democratic governments are doing quite well today, it would seem that Plato’s distaste concerning democracies is somewhat misplaced. Granted, he is from a much older era and everything was quite different then, but to completely write off democratic governments as merely being a step above tyrannical governments seems ill-advised.

What might be viewed as one of the best perceptions that Plato has is that of justice as being an end in itself, that justice is worthwhile on its own. Plato’s arguments through Socrates against Thrasymachus and others are well thought and well put, even after centuries. Although Plato eventually justifies his argument that justice is worthwhile in and of itself by claiming that justice leads to awareness of the Forms, which not everyone could agree exist, he also states enough logical arguments that work to prove the worth of justice without requiring the audience to believe in specific absolutes. Plato gives the example of an evil man, a tyrant, who is quite unhappy because of the state his mind is in due to his unjust lifestyle. Such a man perpetually lives in fear that his enemies will rise up against him, whereas the just man has far fewer worries about such things because being just does not make as many enemies as being unjust. It is also stated that there are three character types: money-loving, honor-loving, and truth-loving. Though all three have perceptions of pleasure, only the truth-loving person can be truly happy because the truth-loving person is the most just, as justice can be very much related to truth.

So it is that both Aristotle and Plato have contributed greatly to the foundations of present-day philosophy. In spite of the fact that some of their conceptions now ring strangely, the core concepts upon which they based their specific arguments still have merit. Details that sound strange to many today, such as a world of forms that are perfect versions of imperfect items found in life, may once have made perfect sense to more than just a few people in the times that these pieces were written. Based upon that assumption, one might say that both The Nicomachean Ethics and The Republic are magnificent pieces of profound insights. One might conclude, then, that since the world has changed greatly since the times of these philosophers and even small bits, let alone large sections, of their works contain truth centuries later, that their works remain magnificent pieces of profound insights.