Plato and Aristotle PDF

PLATO AND
ARISTOTLE:
THE GENESIS OF
WESTERN THOUGHT
COURSE GUIDE
Professor Aryeh Kosman

HAVERFORD COLLEGE
Plato and Aristotle:

The Genesis of Western Thought

Haverford College
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Course Syllabus
About Your Professor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Lecture 1
Plato (with Nods to Socrates) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Lecture 2
The Euthyphro: The Virtue of Holiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Lecture 3
The Charmides: The Virtue of Quiet Self-Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
Lecture 4
The Republic: Justice and the Virtue of Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Lecture 5
The Republic: Justice and the Philosopher King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Lecture 6
The Symposium: Is the Philosopher Capable of Love? . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
Lecture 7
The Phaedo: Death and the Philosopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
Lecture 8
Aristotle: Patience with Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
Lecture 9
The Organon: Substance as the Primary

Mode of Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
Lecture 10
The Metaphysics: What Is Philosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
Lecture 11
Biology and On the Soul: Life and Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
Lecture 12
The Nicomachean Ethics: Ethics and the Good Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
Lecture 13

The Politics and the Poetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58
Lecture 14
Plato and Aristotle: A Final Review and Summation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
Course Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68
Photo courtesy of Aryeh Kosman
About Your Professor

Aryeh Kosman
Aryeh Kosman is the John Whitehead Professor of Philosophy at Haverford
College in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Professor Kosman began his studies at
the University of California at Berkeley and completed his doctoral work at
Harvard University, with study between at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
He joined the Haverford faculty in 1962 and has taught there since, except
during visiting appointments at Princeton University, the University of
California at Los Angeles, the University of California at Berkeley, the
University of Washington, and the University of Pittsburgh. He has been a fellow at Harvards Center for Hellenic Studies and at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Professor Kosman has
lectured and written extensively on ancient, medieval, and early modern philosophy. His main areas of interest in the history of philosophy include metaphysics, ethics, philosophical psychology, and the philosophy of language
and literature. His teaching interests also include contemporary issues in aesthetics and the philosophy of literature. Professor Kosman is the recipient of
several teaching awards. He is also the father of three grown and successful
sons. He presently lives in Haverford with his wife, Deborah Roberts, a classicist and translator, and their young daughter Hannah.
Clipart.com
School of Athens
Detail of Plato and Aristotle
Stanza della Segnatura, Stanze di Raffaello, Vatican
by Raphael (1483-1520)
Introduction
This course is an introduction to the philosophical thought of the two most
important philosophical figures of ancient Greece. By working through parts
of their central texts and thoughts, we will gain an understanding of Plato and
Aristotles relevance in the past and today as well.
Plato and Aristotle offered theories and philosophies distinctive of their individual world views. Plato, sometimes remarked on for his otherworldliness,
and Aristotle, characterized more by this worldliness, approached their
exploration of the human condition in different ways. But in this examination
of the minds and works of two of our first philosophers, it is their similarities
that shine through: their commitment to reason as critical to moral, political,
and spiritual lives; their unending desire to understand the world; and above
all, their mutual love of wisdom, the fruits of which have inspired and enriched
the lives of inquisitive men and women to this very day.
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Lecture 1:
Plato (with Nods to Socrates)
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Xenophons Conversations
of Socrates.
In order to comprehend who we are as people we must begin to understand the

philosophical giants who have shaped our thinking. We will think through the
philosophical texts of Plato and Aristotle and not simply make a list of their ideas.
In reading the texts we will strive to understand what the philosophers were
attempting to articulate. Remember two primary concerns as you consider these
works: (1) Be concerned always with philosophical relevance, and (2) Be concerned with truth and historical accuracy.
Consider this . . .
1. Did Aristotle pay homage to Plato to the same degree that Plato paid
to Socrates?
2. Why did Socrates feature so prominently in Platos writings?
I. Plato and Aristotle (with Nods to Socrates)
A. No discussion of Plato and Aristotle would be complete without first mentioning Socrates.
1. Socrates was an immensely important figure in Athenian life. As a
teacher and thinker he had an enormous, though controversial, influence. He was a close friend of Platos family.
2. Socrates was, in effect, the founder of moral philosophy and a master of
philosophical interrogation. He characteristically asked questions of
meaning, such as, What is ? What is justice? What is courage?
B. Plato was born in Athens in 428 BCE to a wealthy and aristocratic family.
He aspired to follow in his familys footsteps and become an aristocratic
politician, but Socrates inspired him to follow a course of philosophy.
1. Socrates was condemned to death for corrupting the youth. It was the
influence that Socrates life, trial, and death had upon Plato that turned
him toward a life of studying philosophy.
LECTURE ONE
2. After Socrates death Plato left Athens to travel through Italy. On his
return he founded the Academy. This institution was devoted to research
and instruction in philosophy and the sciences. Platos life became that
of, in essence, the first accredited philosophy professor. He devoted his
life to teaching and guiding the Academy.
C. Aristotle was a student of Plato and eventually the tutor for Alexander
the Great.
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1. He lost his father at an early age and

was brought, at the age of 17, to
Platos Academy, where he remained
for approximately twenty years.
SOCRATES DEATH
Socrates himself carried out the

sentence of death when he
drank the prescribed hemlock
potion. It was a death that could
3. Although a student of Plato, he diswell have been avoided. Prior to
agreed with several of Platos funtrial, the prosecutors fully
damental ideas, like those of the
expected Socrates to leave the
Ideal Forms.
D. Plato and Aristotle were extraordinari- jurisdiction. Indeed, his friends
offered an opportunity for him to
ly prolific. Both had a wide range of
escape to Thessaly, a suggesinterests and wrote on subjects
tion that Socrates rejected,
including (among others) metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, biology insisting instead that such a
course of action would be wrong
and politics. Our lectures will, at difand would deny respect for due
ferent times, touch on all these subjects. In beginning our discussion, we process of the law. At the trial
itself, Socrates showed his conwill look first at the works of Plato.
tempt for the process by only
II. An Introduction to Platos Work
defending himself through a narration of the facts of his life
A. Plato wrote 26 dramatic textshis
rather than addressing the
Dialoguesthat have become the
issues at hand. His death has
foundations of the history of
sometimes been characterized
Western philosophy.
as a suicide considering the
B. Platos Dialogues are written in a dracircumstances surrounding
matic or poetic style that is mimetic
the event.
(see sidebar on page 8). His actual
voice never appears directly in these
dialogues; all of his words and ideas
are expressed through the characters
he creates in these works. Dialogue is an instrument in Platos hands.
As with Shakespeare, it is for the reader to determine, within the context
of an overall understanding of the work and of the characters, what may
have been Platos actual views.
2. Later in life, he founded his own
school in Athens called the Lyceum.
Summary:
In order to comprehend who we are as human beings, it may help us to
understand the work and thought of Plato and Socrates. Plato may have
been an early philosopher, but he was not a primitive philosopher. In his dialogues Socrates plays the main character, and as this character, encourages us to consider two important points:
1. True wisdom is the recognition that one is not wise.
2. A devotion to philosophy may take the form of joyful, almost erotic
play; the word philosophy means love of wisdom.
FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING
Questions
1. How is reading Plato always an interpretive endeavor?
2. For what reasons is reading Plato a difficult and complex task?
3. As Socrates plays such a vital character in the Dialogues, is it possible to
assume that Plato intended the character of Socrates to be his
spokesperson?
4. Would Platos writing be as rich if he used his own voice instead of that
of Socrates?
5. What is the point of the proposition that true wisdom is the recognition
that one is not wise?
Suggested Reading
Xenophon. Conversations of Socrates. New York: Penguin, 1990.
Other Books of Interest

Bodeus, Richard. Aristotle and the Theology of the Living Immortals. Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 2000.
LECTURE ONE
Brickhouse, Thomas C., and Nicholas D. Smith. Platos Socrates. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, Inc., 1996.
Lecture 2:
The Euthyphro:
The Virtue of Holiness
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Platos The Dialogues of
Plato, Volume 1: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Gorgias, Menexenus
(translated by R.E. Allen).
The Euthyphro is an early dialogue of Platos that concerns itself with the
virtue of holiness. Like all the dialogues it is presented as a dramatic scene
with characters. In this case the characters represented are Socrates and
Euthyphro. The dialogue takes place on the steps of the courthouse where
Socrates is about to be tried. Euthyphro is present at the court to prosecute
his father, who he believes is responsible for the death of one of his laborers.
Consider this . . .
1. What does Euthyphro mean in Greek?
2. Why does Socrates object to Euthyphros accounts of holiness?
I. The Subject Matter of the Euthyphro
A. The Euthyphro portrays Socrates and Euthyphro attempting to understand the nature of piety or holiness.
B. The conversation between Socrates and Euthyphro occurs because
Euthyphro claims to have an expert knowledge concerning piety, that is, an
understanding of what the gods would require of someone in his position.
C. Its that knowledge that Socrates, himself on trial for being unholy, asks
Euthyphro to teach him (us) about.
II. Some Features of the Euthyphro Characteristic of Early
Platonic Dialogue
A. The dialogue is devoted to the search for the definition or meaning of a
concept or entity such as holiness or piety.
B. Euthyphro offers a series of definitions designed to articulate the definition.
C. Socrates, on the other hand, questions Euthyphros suggestions and
cross-examines his claims to knowledge. None of his definitions seem
satisfying to Socrates. So none works in the sense of withstanding the
questions that Socrates poses.
D. The conversations in these dialogues ends aporetically; that is, they
end with no apparent solution to the question raised.
III. Some Further Thoughts About These Features
A. We might wonder how Socrates can criticize Euthyphros suggested
definitions if he doesnt already know the nature of piety. This suggests that theyre not looking for definition in an ordinary sense of the
9
word; theyre not looking for what could be found in a dictionary, but
for some deeper understanding of a concept that they recognize.
B. We might say that theyre looking for the form of the holy. The form is
that by virtue of which the things that are said to be holy are holy; it
is holiness itself. The form is thus the essential nature of some collection of things, the X-ness itself by virtue of which the Xs are all
said to be X. This notion of form, important in both Plato and
Aristotle, is a rich but complex and
problematic notion in Platos writing.
C. But how could a single definition capture
the exact nature of the form? And how
can any particular piece of language
give us this understanding? Could there
be any one particular definition, therefore, thats the right one? These are
some of the questions that lie behind
the argument of the dialogue.
IV. The Argument of the Euthyphro
A. In the course of the dialogue,
Euthyphro offers several definitions
of holiness.
VIRTUES
Many of Platos dialogues, particularly those that scholars think
were composed early in his
career, represent Socrates in
search of the definition and
understanding of a particular
virtue. In this dialogue the virtue
in question is that of holiness;
the dialogue called the Laches is
about courage, the Charmides
about temperance, and the
Republic is about justice. Other
early dialogues consider the
nature of friendship (Lysis), or
courage (Laches), of virtue in
general (Meno), or of love and
rhetoric (Phaedrus).
1. At first he says that holy is what hes

now doing (prosecuting the wrongdoer, as he says). Then he says that
it is what is pleasing to the gods,
and then that it is what all the gods
love. He goes on to say that it is the
part of justice having to do with service to the gods and that it is the science of prayer and sacrificeknowing, that is, what is right to say to
and do for the gods.
2. This kind of series of definitions is offered in many of Platos early

and middle dialogues. A central question about how to read Plato
is the question of whether any or all of these definitions are helpful,
and if so how.
B. Socrates presents problems with Euthyphros accounts of holiness.
1. Socrates objects to Euthyphros first definition because it gives an
example or instance of holiness rather than a definition.
LECTURE TWO
a. An example doesnt tell us enough, because it doesnt tell us

which features constitute the essence in question.
b. Or we could say that it gives too much; an example is ontologically
overloaded, and we cant tell which of its many features count as
determining its essential nature. To ask after the form is to try to
narrow the being to those features that capture the specific nature
in question.
10
c. But consider when an example might be useful: if someone

knows how to read an example, it might be very helpful as a
forceful illustration of the nature being defined. We might think
about this more generally: whats wrong with a definition in a
particular case may not be about the definition itself, but with
our inability to read it properly.
2. Socrates offers a more complex argument to show that the next
definitionthe pious is what the gods approve ofisnt a good definition. Heres the argument that Socrates gives.
a. He first introduces a distinction between the state of being carried
and the activity of being carried. We can express this as the distinction between being carried and getting carried. This is a less
obvious distinction in English than in Greek; to understand it, think
of the difference between Miriam being an employee and Miriam
being employed.
b. Socrates then establishes two relationships, each of which could
be expressed by two sentences, one of which is true
and one of which is false.
SENTENCE 1A: TRUE:
Something is being
approved because it gets
approved. (Thats like
saying Miriam is an
employee because
shes employed.)
SENTENCE 1B: FALSE:
Something gets
approved because it is
being approved. (That
would be like saying
Miriam is employed
because shes an
employee.)
SENTENCE 2A: TRUE:
Something gets
approved because
its holy.
SENTENCE 2B: FALSE:
Something is holy
because it
gets approved.
ACTIONS AND PASSIONS

An interesting philosophical distinction helps in understanding
this argument. The activity of
being carried is the passion of
being carried, which is the passive correlate of the action of
carrying. If John carries a
baguette, his carrying the
baguette is an action, and the
baguettes being carried by him
is a passion. The action and the
passion are one and the same
thing, but they are conceptually
distinct. To further confuse matters, if John loves Miriam, then
Miriam being loved by John is a
passion in this technical sense,
though his loving her is an
action. Dont confuse passion in
this technical sense with the
passion that is Johns love!
c. The fact that 2A is true and 2B

is false is the fact that Euthyphro agrees to at the beginning of the
discussion; the gods approve of the holy because its holy.
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d. Socrates shows that if it were the case that being approved

by the gods were the same thing as being holy, then the two true
statements would turn out to be false, and the two false statements would turn out to be true.
e. Central to this argument is the claim that the gods approve of the
holy because its holy. Its not because the Gods love the holy that
its holy; its the other way aroundthey love the holy because its
holy. This is what Plato shows us needs to be thought about.
f. What has emerged from this encounter? Consider this possibility:
the right account emerges. Well talk about this in the
next lecture.
V. Conclusions from the Euthyphro
A. Euthyphro is unable to articulate differences between essential natures.
By the end of the dialogue it appears that no definition has been agreed
upon and that Euthyphro has been unmasked as not knowing what he
thought he knew.
B. Perhaps, however, an understanding has emerged from the dialogue,
but not in the form of any one single definition. Perhaps Plato has
offered us the true account of holiness, but only if we are able to understand it for what it is, to read the account properly.
Summary:
LECTURE TWO
The Socratic method presented in the Dialogues is simply to question and

examine someones understanding of an idea. However, we should be looking
for more than a definition. We should search for a clearer and more definite
understanding of the concept in question. Socrates is always looking for the
essential nature of a conceptPlato later calls this the form of something.
12
Questions
1. How do you think the virtue of holiness that Socrates and Euthyphro discuss is understood today? Does a person have to be religious in order
to be holy?
2. What, if anything, do you think this dialogue reveals about Platos understanding of the relationship between holiness and a more general notion
of moral virtue? How do you think the notion of what is good might be
related to the notion of divine approval?
3. Well, what do you think? Is a runner out because the umpire calls him out,
or does the umpire call him out because hes out? What issues do you
think depend on how we answer this question, and how could we go
about deciding it?
4. At the end of the dialogue, Socrates and Euthyphro have not managed to
agree on a proper definition of piety. Is the dialogue in this respect a failure,
or do you think that something positive has emerged, and if so, what?
5. What are the ways in which a dialogue could help us understand the
meaning or force of a concept?
Suggested Reading
Plato. The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 1: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno,
Gorgias, Menexenus. Trans. R.E. Allen. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1989.
13
Lecture 3:
The Charmides:
The Virtue of Quiet Self-Control
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Rosamond Kent Spragues
Platos Laches and Charmides.
In the last lecture, we suggested thinking of a dialogue as offering a model of

understanding that we might think of as dialectic. On this model, understanding
emerges not from a privileged definition, but from a body of discourse that
enables us to read or know our way around a concept. In this lecture, well see
this same model applied to Platos dialogue, the Charmides.
Consider this . . .
1. According to the Charmides, what is the definition of temperance?
2. What are the four cardinal virtues?
I. The Subject Matter of the Charmides
A. Its not immediately clear what this virtue, temperance, is; several definitions are offered, but its difficult to see what they all have in common.
II. Further Thoughts on the Nature of Platonic Forms and
Their Understanding
A. Forms are transcendent, but emerge
from the being of A. Forms explain the
being of the things that they are the
forms of. The form of X, in other
words, is the principle of the things
that are X being X. They are principles
of integrity and unity of things that are
X, and so of being X. Beautiful things
are beautiful by virtue of the form
of beauty.
LECTURE THREE
B. The form of X is also the principle of the

intelligibility of things that are X and
therefore of the integrity and unity of the
definitions or accounts of being X. Just
as any particular X expresses its form
but doesnt fully capture it, so any piece
of language expresses the definition of
the form, but cant fully capture it.
Dialectic (dialogue) teaches us to learn
to read the accounts.
14
VIRTUES
As the Euthyphro is about holiness, and the Republic, which
well discuss in the next lecture, is
about justice, the Charmides is
about a virtue called in Greek
sophrosyne: temperance or selfcontrol. Other early dialogues, as
we noted in the previous lecture,
consider the nature of friendship
(Lysis), of courage (Laches), of
virtue in general (Meno), or of
love and rhetoric (Phaedrus).
Of these, temperance and justice, which well discuss in this
and succeeding lectures, are two
of the so-called cardinal virtues
introduced by Plato in the
Republic. These four cardinal
virtues are wisdom, courage,
temperance, and justice.
C. Dialogues often show us people who can articulate accounts that

express but without understanding why they do. We encounter characters who have the right thing to say but dont say it properly, or dont
understand what theyre saying; they are not fully in command of the
wisdom they are able to speak. The dialogues (and philosophy in general) are attempts to aid us in the recovery of the wisdom that we possess but do not possess in a fully understood way. Think of them as
exercises in the redemptive appropriation of a common wisdom.
III. The First Definition of Temperance or Self-control Given in
the Charmides
A. Charmides says that being temperate is doing everything in an orderly and quiet way, and that temperance or self-control is a kind of
quietness. Socrates offers a counter argument to show that is not an
adequate definition.
B. In one sense Socrates argument is a good one. But for it to work, we
have to understand quietness as involving calm tranquility.
C. This understanding allows us to tell a story about the kind of temperance
or self-control that Plato wants his readers to think of. Think of control
that is effortless and does not force what it controls, but masters it gently
and with ease. Sophrosyne is that kind of control focused on the self; it
is the kind of self-control that involves the subjects effortless and tranquil
performance of what she truly wants to do.
D. Temperance is thus self-mastery of a quiet and tranquil mode. It is
the virtue of a person who is harmonious and at peace with himself.
Summary:
The first definition, although not capturing the nature of temperance or selfcontrol, reveals something about the nature of the virtue once we learn to
read it. Understanding this fact helps us to appreciate the dialogue in its larger project of understanding the general nature of sophrosyne. The understanding that we do receive is indeed ideal, but Plato takes it to be important
that we maintain that ideal for the successful conduct of our moral and intellectual lives.
SOPHROSYNE
In the course of the dialogue, sophrosyne, or temperance, is said successively to be a kind of quietness (159b), a form of modesty (160e), minding
ones own business or doing the thing that is ones own (161b), the doing of
good things (163e), a science of self (165c), and a science that is of itself and
other sciences (168a).
15
Questions
1. What English word do you think best captures the virtue or state of character that Socrates, Charmides, and Critias are talking about?
2. How do you think Plato understands the relationship between self-knowledge and self-control?
3. What do you think might be the relationship between any two other features of the virtue theyre talking about? Think, for example, of what might
be the relationship between modesty and quietness.
4. What differences do you see between the parts of the dialogue in
which Socrates is talking to Charmides and those in which he is talking
with Critias?
5. In the lecture, I spoke of the difference between intermediate or higher
forms of mastery or control in an art or craft, and gave one example
from my own life. Can you think of other skills or arts or crafts that
exemplify that distinction, or call it into question?
6. Does this work reveal any other features that could contribute to our
grasp of how a dialogue might help us understand the meaning or force
of a concept?
Suggested Reading
Sprague, Rosamond Kent. Platos Laches and Charmides. Hackett
Publishing Co., 1992.

Friedlnder, Paul. Plato: the Dialogues, First Period. Chapter 4. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1964.
Hyland, Drew A. The Virtue of Philosophy: An Interpretation of Platos
Charmides. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1981.
LECTURE THREE
North, Helen. Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek

Literature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966.
16
Lecture 4:
The Republic:
Justice and the Virtue of Justice
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Platos Republic (translated
by C.D.C. Reeve).
The Republic is considered to be Platos most successful and influential dialogue. It opens with a conversation, similar to the other dialogues, this time
concerning the subject of justice. Justice is approached in this case both as a
personal and moral virtue and as a general condition of a society. The understanding of justice in terms of these will lead to a deeper understanding of justice as being, additionally, a metaphysical concept. Before reaching this conclusion, we will explore more carefully what it means to describe something as
a virtue and then discuss a central question of the Republic.
Consider this
1. What is the relationship between justice and virtue?
2. If justice is a virtue, what kind of virtue is it?
I. Overview of the First Four Books of the Republic
A. Book 1 of the Republic may be thought of as a short dialogue on justice
of the same scope and format as the Euthyphro or Charmides.
1. Socrates and the dialogues other participants argue about and
attempt to understand the nature of the virtue of justice.
2. A series of definitions and accounts of justice is considered, but each
of them is found somehow to be wanting.
B. In Book 2, a problem is posed concerning the nature of justice.
1. Is justice an intrinsic good, something good in and of itself?
2. Or is it good simply because of the rewards that a reputation for justice brings in its wake?
C. Socrates claims that we need a clearer sense of what justice is in order
to answer that question.
1. In order to do this, he suggests the creation, in discourse, of an ideal
city to see what justice looks like in that context.
2. Then we can apply what we have discovered about justice in the city
back to the individual.
D. By the end of Book 4, Socrates claims to have discovered the nature of
justice, and then offers an answer as to whether it constitutes an intrinsic human good.
1. Later we will look at that answer and think about whats involved in it.
17
2. But first its important to think about the relationship between justice
and virtue.
II. First Notions About the Relationship Between Justice and Virtue in
Platos Republic
A. We might first suppose that justice is a central component of virtue.
How, we might think, could a person be virtuous without being just?
1. This is what leads us to think sometimes of justice as in some sense
the primary virtue. We might think this for two reasons:
a. We might think of justice as the central mode of social and political
virtue, and think in turn of social and political virtue as central to
ones notion of morality.
b. We might be impressed with the fact that justice concerns itself
with our relations to others, which we might also think as central to
our notion of morality.
2. This is an attractive view if we read the Republic, as indeed it often
has been read as a text primarily concerned with justice as an aspect
of social and political philosophy.
B. Perhaps, however, the City that is introduced by Socrates in the
Republic is designed more as a metaphor to allow us to see more clearly the nature of justice of the individual soul. In that case, we want to
think differently about the relationship between justice and virtue. It will
help if we think further about the nature of virtue in the Republic.
III. More About Virtue in the Republic
A. When is the notion of virtue first introduced in the Republic?
1. The first mention is in Book 1 (335b), when we read of the virtue of
dogs and horses, which turns out to mean the qualities that make a
dog or horse a good dog or horse.
2. Shortly later (353b) virtue is connected to the notion of something
functioning. A function here is the characteristic activity or work that
something engages in. A virtue is what enables something to perform
its function well. A virtue, then, is a quality something has that allows
it to be itself in a good fashion.
LECTURE FOUR
B. Here a virtue is a good quality; understood morally, a virtue is a good

state of character, a dispositional capacity for proper action. Its interesting to consider what it means to place this notion of virtue at the center
of moral philosophy. But for now, we need to think about implications for
our original question.
IV. More About the Relationship Between Justice and Virtue in Platos
Republic
A. We can now say that justice is a virtue. Its a quality of an entity that
allows the entity to do well what it characteristically does.
B. But what kind of virtue is it? Socrates proposes that the answer to this
will be constant no matter whether it applies to a person or to a city or
18
commonwealth, and so it might do to look for this quality in the city.

Lets begin then by inquiring into the nature of the city, which is to say,
the Republic.
V. What Is the Republic?
A. To answer this question, Socrates asks us to imagine the origin of
social collectivity and suggests that this origin is to be found in the division of labor. I think a city comes to be, Socrates says (369b),
because none of us is self-sufficient, but we all need many things.
B. If we furthermore assume that different people, being different, are able
to do different things, the central claim of the Republic emerges: A society will work best if different people do different jobs and, most importantly, if they do the jobs for which they are best suited. This is the originating principle of a good political organization; such an organization will
work best if people do the jobs for which they are best qualified.
VI. More on Justice and Virtue
A. Now were able to see the nature of justice and its connection to virtue.
B. Justice is the principle that each part of a complex organism like a city
should perform the function for which it is best suited, that is, for which it
has the appropriate virtue.
1. About the city, Socrates says (433A): Everyone must practice one of
the occupations of the city for which he is naturally best suited, and
this means, for which he or she has the appropriate virtues. When
that is true, the city is just.
2. And similarly, the person in whom each part performs that for which it
is best suited will, by analogy, also be just.
3. In general, justice is present when each part of a functionally differentiated entity is given the function for which it has the appropriate
virtue. Justice then is the virtue that characterizes entities whose functionally differentiated parts reveal the principle: function should be in
accord with virtue.
Summary:
The city is constructed on the principle of a division of function as a fundamental feature of social life. Justice is the differentiation of function based on
virtue. Socrates argues that it is good for a society for its citizens to do what
they are good at. He further applies this argument to individuals; individuals
will function best if their several faculties do what they are best qualified to do.
This then raises the question, What are the virtues of the separate parts of a
person? The Republic asks as one of its most central questions: What would
it be like to live a life ruled by reason, where reason is not a tyrant, and where
every other element of a persons being is contributing what is appropriate for
it to contribute? Justice is the proper agreement between function and virtue,
the proper relationship of being and acting. In this general sense we can come
to consider Justice not only as a political or social concept but also as metaphysical one.
19
Questions
1. If a group of people were to rob a bank, what separate functions would be
required, and what virtue for each function would be necessary?
2. How can the Universe as a whole be applied to Socrates idea of justice
and virtue?
3. It is commonly said that justice is the goal of the legal system. How does
that compare to the concept of justice that Plato put forth?
4. In the Republic, how is one to discern the job best suited for him
or herself?
5. How does the current system promote or inhibit a person to do, or not to
do, what he or she is best suited to?
Suggested Reading
Plato. Republic. 3rd rev. ed. Trans. C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett
Publishing Company, 2004.

Friedlndler, Paul. Plato: The Dialogues, Second and Third Period. New
York: Pantheon Books, 1969.
Plato. Republic of Plato. 2nd ed. Trans. Allan Bloom. New York: Basic
Books, 1991.
LECTURE FOUR
Phillips, Christopher. Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy. New York:

W.W. Norton & Co., 2002.
20
Lecture 5:
The Republic:
Justice and the Philosopher King
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Platos Republic (translated
by C.D.C. Reeve).
Justice in the Republic is, as we saw, a virtue both of individuals and of political societies. It is the virtue that allows people to live well by exhibiting the
harmony of soul in which parts perform the functions for which they are best
suited. What is the relationship between this idea of justice as a correspondence between function and virtue and the simpler sense of justice as a general mode of social morality? The two other principal characters of the
Republic, Glaucon and Adiemantus, ask Socrates to convince them that it is
worth their while to be just by showing them that justice is something of intrinsic worth. When they ask this question, they are interested in behaving justly,
in just conduct; Socrates, however, answers in terms of a harmony of the
soul, of a just state of character. What are we to make of this shift?
Consider this . . .
1. Will a person be happy merely by virtue of acting justly?
2. Whats the proper relationship between character and the conduct that
emanates from character?
3. How does Plato understand the relationship between the world of being
and the world of appearance?
I. Socrates Argument Regarding Justice
A. At the end of Book 4 (443c) Socrates characterizes justice in the following terms: Justice isnt concerned with someone doing his own
externally but with what is inside him. One who is just does not allow
any part of himself to do work of another part or allow the various
classes within him to meddle with each other. How does this answer
address the question of Glaucon and Adeimantus?
1. It does so if there is, as Socrates argues, a connection between:
a. The harmony of the soul (or proper character) that Socrates
identifies as justice.
b. The modes of proper conduct in society that Glaucon and
Adeimantus are referring to when they speak of justice.
2. And for the argument to work, there must be a causal relationship
between conduct and character, preferably in both directions. In fact
we can hear this in what Socrates says:
B. When he does anything, whether acquiring wealth, taking care of his
body, engaging in politics or private contract, in all of these he believes
21
that the action is just and fine that preserves this inner harmony and
helps achieve it and calls it so and regards as wisdom the knowledge
that oversees such action.
1. Healthy things produce health, and unhealthy things produce disease.
2. And in the same way, just action produces justice in the soul, and
unjust action produces injustice in the soul.
II. The Philosopher King
A. Glaucon and Adiemantus are now led to ask how this ideal city can be
brought about.
B. Socrates answers: Until philosophers rule as kings, or those who are
now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide,
while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively
are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,
nor I think will the human race.
C. In order to understand what Socrates means by this claim, we will
need to think what he understands a philosopher to be.
III. What Is a Philosopher?
A. A philosopher is someone whose eye is turned toward being. The
notion of being here is the notion of the essential nature of things that
we encountered earlier: not, for example, the many holy things, but
their being holy. This is what we earlier called forms.
B. Forms are the principles of the being and therefore of the intelligibility
of things: the principles that enable us to understand what they are.
Heres how Socrates puts it (507b): We say that there are many beautiful things and many good things and so on for each kind and in this
way we distinguish them in our discourse. But Beauty itself, and the
Good itself and all such things we set down as a single form for each,
believing that there is but one and calling it the being of each thing.
C. The philosopher, as someone who is in love with being itself, is in love
not simply with the several beings of this world, the world of appearance. The philosopher is in love with the forms, with the intelligible
principles of those things being what they are.
IV. The Relationship of Being to Appearance
A. Its important to understand correctly the relationship between the things
of what Socrates calls the visible world and the forms that are the principles of their being and constitute what he calls the intelligible world.
LECTURE FIVE
B. Socrates offers a visual model by way of explanation. It is, he says, like

a line divided into two unequal sections. The bottom section is the visible, the top section is the intelligible. Each two sections of those lines
are themselves divided in the same ratio. The bottom visible section is
thus divided into images and the original things of which they are the
images; the top intelligible section is similarly divided.
22
C. Think about the bottom section. In our perceptual dealings with the
world we are constantly given images of things: the look of things from
a particular point of view, for example, or the way an object appears to
us from some perspective. We cannot understand what these images
are unless and until we understand the original of the image. To recognize the look of a chair requires that we understand it to be the look
of a chair, and this involves seeing it in relation to the other appearances of the chair.
D. Similarly, to understand a chair is to understand it in relation to all the
other chairs and to see the being of the chair which is manifested in
each and every chair and every individual chair that we see.
E. For Plato to see the forms is to understand the principles of being that
govern and make intelligible the world of appearance that we live in.
Summary:
Plato represents the allegiance of particular things to their forms as a mode
of justice. This justice is determined by an equality of individuals under the
forms; all equal things are equally equal. The forms themselves, though, are
defined in their being, by their essential difference from one another. Insofar
as its right for things to act out their nature, the very nature of things themselves can be seen as a form of justice between essential nature (figured
here as virtue) and proper action (figured here as function).
The Philosopher is someone who is in love with what is. The vertical dimension of Platos divided line evokes the twin themes of justice and love that
properly divide and hold together the City or Commonwealth of being.
Socrates expresses the relationship between the philosopher, justice, and
love this way (490a): as the philosopher moves on he neither loses nor
lessens his erotic love until he grasps the being of each nature itself with the
part of his soul that is fitted to grasp it, because of its kinship with it, and once
getting near what really is and having intercourse with it, and having begotten
understanding and truth, he knows, truly lives, is nourished and is relieved
from the pains of giving birth. Then such a person will not have any part in
the love of falsehood, but will love being and what is.
23
Questions
1. How is Justice understood as a virtue of individual organization and as a
social and political virtue?
2. Is there a difference between social well being and individual well being?
3. Would people naturally act justly if their actions were completely anonymous?
4. What is the process necessary for one to see the forms?
Suggested Reading
Plato. Republic. 3rd rev. ed. Trans. C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett
Publishing Company, 2004.

Plato. Republic. Trans. Desmond Lee. New York: Penguin, 2003.
LECTURE FIVE
Schofield, Malcolm. Saving the City: Philosopher-Kings and Other Classical

Paradigms. New York: Routledge, 1999.
24
Lecture 6:
The Symposium:
Is the Philosopher Capable of Love?
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Platos Symposium (translated by Christopher Gill).
The Symposium is perhaps the most elegant of Platos dialogues; it is widely
thought to be his finest and most sophisticated literary work, and is surely
one of his most influential dialogues. The Symposium, unlike other dialogues,
is primarily a series of speeches. The speeches are given by a group of men
who meet at a drinking party (a symposium) in celebration of the awarding of
a literary prize to one of their group. They propose to spend the evening
speaking in praise of the God Eros, the God of Love. Plato masterfully creates a set of characters, each of whom praise love in a different voice and in
a different way.
Consider this . . .
1. Remember that the Greek translation of Symposium is Drinking Party.
What significance does this have?
2. How might we think, as in the last lecture, of appearance as in love
with being?
I. Some Standard Mythological Depictions of Eros in the
Early Speeches
A. Eros is the oldest and most honorable of the gods.
B. He is presented as a god of great good to humankind.
C. He is spoken of in relation to Aphrodite.
D. He is the god of skills that depend on the understanding
of the attraction of things to one another, arts like medicine, music,
and astronomy.
II. Aristophanes Myth About Love: An Important Midpoint in
the Conversation
A. Originally human beings were double their present appearance. They
were round with four hands and four feet, a head with two faces, pointing in opposite directions, and double genitals.
B. The Gods became nervous at human abilities and Zeus had all humans
cut in half so that they were forced to walk on two feet. The result of this
having been cut in half has forced humans to continually search to
reconnect with their other half.
C. Within this myth, love is the drive to reestablish the broken and original
nature of ourselves that the jealous gods have taken from us. Union
with our original other half is what has the potential to bring us the
greatest happiness in life.
25
D. Aristophanes says (193c): We must praise the god Love . . . for both
leading us in this life back to our own nature and giving us high hopes
for the future, for he promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to
our original state and heal us, make us happy
and blessed.
E. Aristophanes presents an extraordinary view of love, and it is one that figures later in Socrates account. But as in all the early depictions, love is
being lavishly praised as a good and beautiful God. In the speech given
by Agathon, for example, Eros is painted as temperate, young, beautiful,
just, brave, and wise.
F. It is against this background that Socrates entry into the conversation
represents a fundamental shift, both rhetorical and philosophical, in the
nature of the discourse.
III. Socrates Questions Agathon
A. Socrates first changes the tone of the conversation by switching from
set speech to a dialectical, question and answer form of discussion; he
questions Agathon. In his questioning of Agathon, Socrates makes
explicit two things about love.
1. The intentional character of love: Love is always of some object or
another. There is no such thing as simply loving; when we love, we
love something, and love is determined always by the fact that it is
the love of this or that.
2. The incompleteness of love: Love is always separated from its object.
The object that defines and determines love is always something that
love lacks.
IV. A Different Idea of Love in Socrates Speech
A. Socrates suggests that love is not a god but rather a daimon, a kind of
divine being that is intermediate, poised, as though between being and
non-being, between fullness and lack. Love is therefore not something
beautiful and good, nor is it the proper object of praise. Love is rather
of the beautiful and good. And it is therefore that beautiful and good
object love is the love of which is the appropriate object of praise.
B. Socrates has learned this from a description of love given by a priestess named Diotima. She teaches him that love is of the good and
therefore cannot be the good. Diotima presents a picture of love born
of poverty and need, because love looks toward that which it does not
have and which it is in love with.
V. Diotimas Mysteries of Love
LECTURE SIX
A. The true lover must ascend a ladder of love from object to object until
love culminates in the love of the beautiful itself (see 210d).
B. But love is not simply the longing for absolute beauty; it is the longing
to bring forth in beauty, to procreate in beauty. Beauty is connected
with being. The beauty of something is the beauty a thing has in so far
as it is what it is. To talk about the love of beauty is always to talk
26
about love in relationship to what the object is. To love something for
its beauty is to love something for itself.
C. Love therefore becomes the procreation of virtue in beauty. It is the creative recognition of what another might be, of how that person might be
what they really are. Love is coming to recognize the beauty of another
person, and calling them to that beauty.
D. Finally, cosmically, love is that principle that draws the world
toward itself.
VI. The Archaeology and Theology of Love
A. Love is finally recognized as a virtue and not merely a passion.
B. Remember that the majority of people we love (our parents, our children, ourselves) are not people we choose to love. We are fated to
love them and must learn therefore to love them, must learn to see and
recognize their beauty.
C. The philosophical nature begins with the love of what is, so our love is a
special instance of the universal, erotic striving of the universe for itself.
An authentic personal love is simply a particular special interest of the
philosophical love the philosopher has of the world in its true being.
VII. Alcibiades
The last moment of the dialogue concerns the beautiful young man,
Alcibiades. He is the embodiment of self-love gone wrong, a picture
of the indulgence to the fair self.
Summary:
Plato shows us that to love the world allows us to engage in an authentic and
true love of individuals. And in loving people we can help them to love themselves. Love is the ladder to the state in which Eros is transcended in the mode
of acceptance. This Platonic ascent, in the mysteries of love, is an ascent into
the world of forms, the intelligible world. It is an ascent into our world seen aright
and thus seen as beautiful, recognized for what it is and consequently to be
loved. The dialectic of philosophy makes being allow for the principle of the
world to shine through its appearances. The philosopher recognizes the world
as its own appearance, is capable of loving it and thus calls it to itself. In the final
analysis, however, we constantly lose what we attain and must continually seek
to replace our objects of love; we thus come to understand that love is framed
by death, as we will see in our next lecture.
27
Questions
1. What does unconditional love mean in the light of the Symposium?
2. How do we love someone for themselves?
3. What is the discipline by which we might learn to love one another?
4. How can we develop the virtue of love?
Suggested Reading
Plato. Symposium. Trans. Christopher Gill. New York: Penguin, 2003.
LECTURE SIX
Pressfield, Steven. Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades and the

Peloponnesian War. New York: Random House, 2001.
28
Lecture 7:
The Phaedo:
Death and the Philosopher
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Platos Phaedo (translated
by David Gallop).
The Phaedo takes place in the jail cell of Socrates on his final day before he is
condemned to drink hemlock and die. The conversation turns to the topic of
death and more specifically to the soul and whether it may be immortal. The
dialogue is Platos mimetic narration of the last moments in the life of the dearly
beloved character and person of Socrates.
Consider this . . .
1. Is Socrates portrayal in the dialogues an accurate picture of the historical
person Socrates?
2. What role does Socrates play as a spokesperson of Platos own views?
3. Where would Plato stand on the question of whether animals have souls?
I. Socrates and the Phaedo
A. Socrates is presented in the Phaedo in a special light. Here, he is more
than simply a source of Platonic opinion; he is more clearly than ever
represented as an exemplar of the philosophical life.
B. There is an overriding sadness to the dialogue coupled with a fear of
death that makes this dialogue a moving and dramatic text.
C. In an analogy to Theseus and the saving of the Athenian youth, Socrates
paints the fear of death as a monster, from which the youth must be
saved. In saving these youth, Socrates is in a sense saving himself. How
does Socrates do this?
1. He argues that philosophers should embrace and welcome death.
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy, are directly and of their own
accord preparing themselves for dying and death. If this is true and
theyve actually been looking forward to death for all their lives, it
would of course be absurd to be troubled when the thing comes for
which they have so long been preparing and looking forward.
2. He offers a deeper understanding of something people believe about
death and philosophy but dont fully understand.
II. Death and the Philosopher
A. The conversation begins by asking and answering the question: What is
death? Is death the release of the soul from the body? Socrates says
that death consists of the release or separation of the soul from the body.
29
What follows from this is that the Soul is simply the principle of life. It is
the explanatory principle (or The Form) by virtue of which things that are
alive are alive.
B. Philosophers practice dying by practicing a mock separation of soul
from body. This is identified by Socrates as a cathartic detachment and
purification. It is the philosophers primary purpose to continually purify
himself by separating the soul as much as possible from the body. True
philosophers make dying their profession. If philosophers are continually
preparing themselves for death then it cant be the case that they will be
unhappy when death actually arrives.
In 69e Socrates said: This is the defense of which I offer you Simmias
and Cebes, to show you that it is natural for me to leave you and my
earthly rulers without any feeling of grief or bitterness, since I believe that
I should find there no less than here, good rulers and good friends.
C. The philosopher, however, is not an ascetic; for that would mean
defining oneself in terms of the body, by denying the body. The
philosopher is someone who is detached in regard to bodily pleasures and desires. He doesnt define himself with reference to the
body but rather to the soul.
III. Immortality of the Soul
A. Philosophical discourse is presented as a weaving of a magical spell that
can be used to cure people of their fear of death. Socrates presents a
therapeutic understanding of dying as something to help people face
death courageously and correctly.
B. If the soul is described as the principle of life, what does it mean to say
the soul is immortal? It cant mean that the soul doesnt die or that it lives
on forever.
C. The sense in which the soul is immortal is a sense in which it constitutes
in itself the very principle of life. To understand the soul to be immortal is
to understand the soul to be what it isThe Principle of Life. Living in
respect to the Soul is living in such a way that one is fully alive.
D. The Phaedo then becomes a dialogue not so much about death but
about how to learn to live with death so that it does not undermine life.
IV. The Phaedo as a Conversation About How to Live
A. To understand Immortality as presented in the Phaedo is to understand
the concept of living fully in the moment, or to be fully alive.
LECTURE SEVEN
B. Immortality is not living forever but living our lives in such a way that
death does not disqualify or make meaningless the actual force of our
lives. It means living each moment to its fullest, so that death cannot take
away from life.
C. Platos view is that to live this way is to live philosophically.
D. Socrates asks of his students this very point, that in order to live fully one
must live philosophically and it is his final request of them. He says that
to flee from death or to have fantasies of immortality as a conquering of
30
death is actually to flee into its arms. When we refuse to live through our
lives, refuse to die each day to our lives and be resurrected each day
into the next moment of our lives we die in our lives.
Summary:
Such was the end of our comrade who was, we may fairly say of all
those we knew in our time, the bravest and the wisest and the most just of
human beings.
The importance of Socrates is his exemplary life that comes shining through in
the Phaedo. It is a portrait not just of someone who has lived well but also of
one who has died well. Socrates understands that his death cannot undo the
life that he has lived. There is a parable in the Republic in which human beings
are presented as living in a cave where all they see are the shadows on the
wall. Socrates claims that a life of enlightenment is a turning from these shadows and an exiting from the cave into the full light of the world. At the end of
the enlightenment, when the philosopher turns his eyes upon the principles of
the forms, the philosopher finds himself in the world, and in the world seen
clearly, seen as it is in the light of being and intelligibility.
THE SOUL AND DEATH

Consider the following two statements of Socrates on the subject of philosophers continually preparing for death:
(T)he soul of the philosopher greatly despises the body and avoids it and
strives to be alone by itself.
Be of good cheer and say that you are burying my body only.
31
Questions
1. What makes Platos dialogues so powerful?
2. What permits a text to become canonical?
3. What has allowed Platonism to exist?
4. How does the Platonic concept of immortality differ from the generally
accepted contemporary definition of the word? Is it possible to reconcile
the two?
5. If to flee from death is to flee into its arms, how would one do this in contemporary society, and are there any good examples?
Suggested Reading
Plato. Phaedo. New ed. Trans. David Gallop. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999.
LECTURE SEVEN
Easterling, P.E. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1997.
32
Lecture 8:
Aristotle: Patience with Complexity
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Aristotles The Basic Works
of Aristotle (edited by Richard McKeon).
Aristotle was born in Macedonia in Northern Greece to a moderately prosperous family. As a teenager he moved to Athens, where he studied under Plato at
the Academy. He stayed there for twenty years, until Platos death in 347 BCE.
He then went to the Island of Lesbos, where he studied biology. After this he
served as the tutor to the son of the King of Macedon, who grew up to become
Alexander the Great. Following this he returned to Athens, where he founded his
own school called the Lyceum. Here he taught and studied for the next fifteen
years. In this lecture we discuss the basics of studying Aristotles works.
Consider this . . .
1. What impact did Aristotles travels have on his writing?
2. How did his attention to detail help Aristotles investigations?
I. Reading Aristotle
A. Reading Aristotle is different from reading Plato.
1. The body of Aristotles work is not as polished as the dialogues of
Plato; his writing reads more like notes for lectures.
2. His texts are dense, elliptical, and often quite difficult to understand.
3. Aristotle, unlike Plato, lacks literary irony or humor and this can
make much of his work seem dry.
B. The rewards, however, of reading Aristotle are enormous. He was an
immensely prolific writer and thinker who worked in such diverse areas
as logic, metaphysics, philosophical psychology, ethics, political theory,
and literature. In all of these, his writings are engaging and rewarding.
C. Aristotle was also a biologist of great subtlety and scope. Almost a
quarter of his surviving texts are devoted to his research and findings
in the biological sciences. He also wrote about chemistry, physics,
and psychology. He was insatiably curiousfrom the intricacies of
chicken embryology to the study of being.
D. It is revealing to note that Aristotle is studied throughout the world; he
was introduced to Western Europe through the science and philosophy of Muslim civilization. Today he is studied not just by scholars in
classics and philosophy but also by thinkers in theology, history of science, literature, and politics.
33
II. The Master of Those Who Know

A. Dante was to describe Aristotle as The Master of Those Who Know,
and that is an accurate characterization. Aristotle established the very
ways that we have of thinking of things. It is as though he were the
discoverer of the conceptual shape of our world.
B. Many of the conceptual terms that we take to be embedded in the structure of our thinking were first Aristotles. We owe to him, for example,
such notions as matter, form, substance, and essence. Of course,
Aristotle didnt invent these features of our world, but he was a master
in bringing to light those things that we already knew but didnt see.
III. Aristotles Patience
A. Aristotle exhibits an unwavering patience for staying with the complexity of
intellectual problems, and this is something that we need to recognize and
emulate if we are to read Aristotle with understanding. Recognizing his
patience will help us to understand the rambling nature of some of
Aristotles thought. Ultimately this recognition of Aristotles insistence on
staying with a problem, regardless of the difficulty of reaching a solution,
must be seen as a virtue.
B. Think of Aristotle in relation to John Keats notion of Negative
Capability with certain changes; Aristotle can be characterized as a
person, capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts without reaching after closure and the cessation of reason. Seeing this as
an intellectual virtue is to understand that while it is often important to
come to closure and know when deliberation must end, it is equally
important to know when closure would be premature and when
thought must continue.
C. In addition, Aristotle is a reminder that there are some disciplines of
thought, and philosophy may be among them, where action and conviction and closure are not necessarily the primary goal. To stay attentive to the complexities of thought and language or to the shape of
an area of our world is here of equal importance.
Summary:
LECTURE EIGHT
Having shaped fundamentally the way we conceive the world in which we

live, Aristotle remains important today; for to understand how we conceive our
world today, it is important to understand how we have arrived at this conception. If we think of philosophy as an enterprise of self-understanding, of how
we come to fashion our lives and our world, then the understanding of philosophys history is important to this very enterprise. Reading Aristotle, and struggling with his ideas, constitutes philosophy in one of its deepest forms.
34
Questions
1. Think of how you understand these basic notions that have entered our conceptual vocabulary through Aristotle: matter, form, substance, essence.
2. How do you think these conceptual terms are related to one another?
3. What major difference is there between the writings of Aristotle and Plato?
Suggested Reading
Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. Richard McKeon. New York:
Random House, 2001.

Adler, Mortimer J. Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy. New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Ross, Sir David, and J.L. Ackrill. Aristotle. 6th ed. New York: Routledge, 1995.
35
Lecture 9:
The Organon:
Substance as the Primary Mode of Being
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Aristotles The Basic Works
of Aristotle (edited by Richard McKeon).
Aristotles works, collectively known as the Organon (instrument or tool),

may be looked at in a general sense as Aristotles logical theory. These
works represent instruments for a number of theoretical activities Aristotle
wants his readers to think about. Logic in this sense is a version of a theory
of thought. But of course these methodologies or tools of thought are not necessary in all the practical aims of ones life.
Consider this . . .
1. Do you have to be a master of physics before you can ride a bicycle?
2. What does it take for two sentences together to allow the inference of a
third? What allows us to infer?
I. The Analytics
There are two books that make up the Analytics: The Earlier or Prior
Analytics and the Later or Posterior Analytics. The two works have somewhat different purposes:
A. The Posterior Analytics discusses the formal representation of
scientific understanding.
B. The Prior Analytics concerns the modes of inference and reasoning
that are required for such understanding to be worked out. In this work,
Aristotle above all presents a theory of the syllogism.
II. The Prior Analytics and the Syllogism
A. At its simplest, a syllogism is a piece of reasoning in which, some
things being taken to be true, other things are thought to follow from
those things being true.
B. The word for syllogism comes from the Greek logos, meaning statement.
A syllogism brings together two statements in order to infer a third.
1. A is the case and B is the case, and so it follows that C is the case.
LECTURE NINE
2. We are entitled to infer the truth of C from the truth of A and B

because of the fact that A and B together imply C.
C. The Prior Analytics is concerned then with the formal account of the
sorts of relations that assertions must have to one another in order for
us to be able to infer something else.
36
III. On Interpretation
A. The short book called On Interpretation concerns itself with the elements that go into making up this syllogistic reasoning. In Aristotles
view these elements are either one of two things:
1. An affirmation of what is the case: Dogs are mammals affirms being
a mammal of dogs.
2. A denial of what is the case: Porpoises are not fish denies being a
fish of porpoises.
3. Within each of these are two important elements:
a. The subject about which something is being said, that is, affirmed
or denied.
b. The predicate that is said of the subject, that is, what is affirmed or
denied of the subject.
B. Aristotles discussion in On Interpretation presents a logical grammar of
thought. He sees all thought and discourse as exhibiting that structure
of subject and predicate. Predication can involve both the specific and
the general.
C. Consider which one of these sets of assertions gives a true syllogism.
1. Dobbin is a horse and horses are mammals, so Dobbin is a mammal.
2. Dobbin is not a horse and horses are mammals, so Dobbin is not
a mammal.
D. What do assertions have to look like for an inference to follow? What
must be the shape among affirmations, denials, subjects, and predicates for them to allow for valid syllogisms from which we can infer
other truths?
E. The Prior Analytics, in other words, is concerned with the patterns of
inferential reasoning.
IV. The Posterior Analytics
A. In this book Aristotle is concerned with demonstration. A demonstration
is something that gives us scientific understanding, that is, understanding of phenomena in the world. Aristotle argues that we take ourselves
to understand something when we know its cause, that is, when we
know whats responsible for it being the case.
B. Scientific understanding is occasioned by causal explanation of which
a paradigm form is a certain kind of syllogism. This understanding is
found in discovering what features of the phenomenon in question are
going to serve to explain what one is trying to understand. Scientific
understanding then is an explanatory art and is brought about by the
very phenomenon of explanation itself.
C. The ability to grasp these modes of understanding is made possible by
our possession of mind or intellect. Mind, as the faculty by which we
come to understand principles of explanation, is the capacity to see the
intelligibility and coherence of the world and therefore to explain the
world scientifically.
37
V. The Categories
A. Aristotles book, the Categories, is relevant to our idea of Aristotle as
an inventor or author of the basic features of our conceptual schemes.
For the very word category enters our language because of the title of
this book. The word kategorein in Greek means to predicate. The categories are kinds (and hence categories) of predication. They are the
different modes of what we say about some subject when we assert
what is the case. In addition, then, the categories can be seen as different modes of being.
B. Aristotle goes on to claim that the primary mode of being is substance.
Substance is the first of the categories and is said to be that which is
neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject. Substance is
able to take on different attributes while remaining one and the same
individual. It can, in other words, while remaining exactly what it is, be
open to further incidental determination. Because substances are precisely what they are, they are capable of constituting the ultimate subjects of predication.
Summary:
Substance is an important category in Aristotles thinking. It is central precisely because it constitutes the ultimate subject of predication, and it is able
to constitute this ultimate subject because it has the kind of determinate
essential nature that it has. Being a subject, having an essential nature and
the consequent primacy of substance as the basic category of being and
predication here come together. From them emerges the fundamental claim
of Aristotles ontologythat having a definite nature is a necessary condition
for the possibility of serving as the ultimate subject of all predication.
ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC
The history of logic in Western philosophical thought began with Aristotle.
Aristotle first developed the syllogism, the core logical argument form consisting
of two premises and a conclusion. His purpose was to establish the conditions
under which a deductive inference is valid or invalid. A valid conclusion can
only come from premises that are logically connected to one another.
LECTURE NINE
In modern times, Immanuel Kant thought that Aristotle had discovered

everything there was to know about logic. Subsequently, adherents of
Aristotelian logic and those of the new mathematical concepts were at odds
and considered their respective efforts incompatible. More recently, there
has been a recognition that there are a number of similarities of approach
and interest between Aristotle and modern logicians.
Aristotle sought a coherent common methodology that would serve any
scientific or discursive discipline. Thus, logic was an instrument, the
organon, by which mankind might be enabled to come to
know anything.
Source: Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy
38
Questions
1. What Greek word does Aristotle use to describe our terms of mind
and intellect?
2. Is there a relation between predication and being? How are they different
sides of the same coin?
Suggested Reading
Aristotle. Aristotle: Categories and De Interpretatione. Trans. J.L. Ackrill. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1975.

Baron, Jonathan. Thinking and Deciding. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001.
Rubenstein, Richard E. Aristotles Children: How Christians, Muslims, and
Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages.
Dubuque, IA: Harcourt Brace & Co., 2003.
39
Lecture 10:
The Metaphysics:
What Is Philosophy?
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Aristotles The Metaphysics
(translated by Hugh Lawson-Tancred), Books 4, 7, 8, 9, and 12.
Our word metaphysics comes directly from the title of Aristotles book, the
Metaphysics. The book was given this title because in ancient editions of
Aristotle it followed works referred to as the Physics and so is, in effect, The
Book That Comes After the Physics. Aristotle himself describes the subject
matter of the Metaphysics as first philosophy.
Consider this . . .
1. What are the different senses of being healthy?
2. What is the relation of weights and their weights?
3. How is it that substances can have a determinate nature and still be the
basic fundamental subjects of predication?
I. What Is First Philosophy?
A. Aristotle at the beginning of Book 4 of the Metaphysics describes first
philosophy as a science that investigates being. There are a number
of features involved in this description:
1. In investigating being, Aristotle is investigating something quite ordinary and ubiquitous. He is studying the features of the universe
invoked when we remark upon such ordinary facts as the following:
The window is open or is closed; I am seated and I am in this room.
2. The science that he envisions in the Metaphysics is a general one; it
is concerned with ontology on the whole and the universal structure
of what is.
3. The investigation is concerned not with understanding some specific
instance or type of beingbeing a mammal, for examplebut is
focused on being itself. Aristotle wants to understand, as he puts it,
being as being, what is also sometimes translated being qua being.
LECTURE TEN
B. The study of being is not linguistic. Being isnt dependent on the existence of the verb to be. For example, in I cut the grass, being is
referred to; we can think of the assertion as equivalent to I am being a
grass cutter. Even in languages without a verb to be, being is inherent in the very predicative structure of assertion.
C. Aristotles study of being cuts across the categories of being. Being
has no single one sense because there are so many different kinds of
being. Aristotle says that being is equivocal; being, as he puts it, is
said in many senses.
40
D. If being is equivocal and said in many

senses, how could there then be a
science of being as such?
E. Aristotle argues that indeed being is
said in many senses, but that one of
these senses, that of substance, is
primary. Because of this the study
of being can be conducted by
attending to the nature and structure
of substance. All the different senses of being are related back to, and
are to be understood in relation to
this primary sense of being, the
sense that is reflected in substance.
II. The Nature of Substance
DIFFERENT
DIFFERENCES
One of the reasons that philosophy is so challenging is that
theres never one single way to
cup up reality. When Aristotle
thinks about being, he makes
many different distinctions. Think
of the difference between being in
relation to the several categories
and being in relation to the concepts of potentiality and actuality.
One thinks in terms of categories,
predication, definition, and the
like. The other thinks in terms of
change, process, and the structure of things in the world.
Reading Aristotle demands
patience as he moves from one
distinction to another.
A. In doing ontology, therefore, we must

talk about substance. At the beginning of Book 7 of the Metaphysics,
Aristotle describes the situation this
way: And indeed the question that
was raised of old, and is raised now
and always, and is always the subject of doubt, namely the question,
What is being?, is just the question, What is substance?
B. According to Aristotle there are two criteria in virtue of which we identify something as substance:
1. A substance is something not said of a subject but that of which
other things are said. Substance represents a kind of Subjectness.
2. A substance is something that has a determinate nature. Substance is
connected with the what, as in the question of identity: What is it?
C. In addition to these criteria Aristotle draws a distinction between things
that are substances and that about them by virtue of which we say that
they are substances. We may think of this as a distinction between
substances and their substance.
III. Some Ontological Distinctions
A. In the course of his discussion, Aristotle draws several distinctions
related to the study of being.
1. There is a distinction between substance and the other categories of
being. This distinction underlies the argument that to understand substance is to understand the nature of being in general.
2. There is a distinction between substances and their substance. Think of
this on an analogy with the distinction between weights and their weight
(see sidebar, p. 51), or more generally, between beings and their being.
3. There is a distinction between the two different criteria of substance.
On the one hand substance is identified with being a this, with being
41
capable of serving as a subject, and on the other hand with being a

what, in other words with having a determinate nature.
B. These distinctions are related to one another. Substance is the basic
kind of being because its being is determinate, and this enables it to
serve as subject, that is, to be further determinable. In order to be
determinable a subject has to be determinate. If something doesnt
have an essential nature, it will be overwhelmed by the accidental features that are true of it. Think how fractured life would be if every time
we played out a role we became a new individual instead of being the
same individual playing a new role. Without substance there would be
Ontological Schizophrenia. Instead of subjects undergoing change,
there would be only a constant replacement of one thing by another.
IV. Substance in Terms of Matter and Form
A. Its easy to think of matter and form in terms of change or making: matter is what something is made out of, form the shape into which it is
made. In the Metaphysics, however, matter and form are things that
are thought less of in terms of change and more in terms of the structure of predication or being.
1. The matter of something is what the thing consists of, that which is,
as it were, being the thing. A wooden beam which is a threshold, for
example, is the matter of the threshold.
2. Correspondingly, that which is something in this material sense is
specifically that thing. So if the wooden beam is the matter of which
the threshold consists, then the form is that by virtue of which the
beam constitutes a threshold: in this case, being in a certain position
beneath a door.
B. The application of these notions allows us to think through the structure of substance. If we take a particular substance, a horse for
instance, we can distinguish the following:
1. the subject which is the horse: the matter of which the horse, so to
speak, consists.
2. the being by which it is a horse: the form or principle by virtue of
which the matter is a horse.
3. the combination of subject and being, or of matter and form in this
sense: the thing that is a horse being that very thing by virtue of
which a horse is what it is.
LECTURE TEN
C. Aristotle wants to understand how it is possible for us to recognize the

unity of a subject and its being, how in the case of substance a subject can be identical with what it is. He wants us to be free from what
he takes to be a Platonist theory, implied in the doctrine of forms,
according to which everything is a relation between a subject and its
being. On this view, Socrates is a human being only by virtue of his
relation to the form human being. Aristotle wants a theory in which
Socrates is human by virtue of himself, in his own right as a substantial being.
42
D. Aristotle wants us to understand the

basic structure of being on the model
of this human being being human.
V. The Notion of Activity
A. Aristotle goes on to develop, in Book
9 of the Metaphysics, the notion of
activity. This allows him to develop a
theory in which beings are not just
things that stand in some relation to
their natures, but are instances of
actively being what they are.
B. Substances thus express their
natures by being them and are
thought by Aristotle as paradigms
of the general activity of being.
Substance is said primarily to be
associated with the notion of activity. The substance of a horse is
nothing other than the horse busy
at work being a horse.
VI. The Divine
A. In later books of the Metaphysics,
Aristotle discusses the divine as the
principle of being. God is shown to be
essentially activity itself; the divine, in
other words, is that being which is
just being what it is.
SUBSTANCES AND
THEIR SUBSTANCE
Heres an analogy to help you
think about the distinction
between substances and their
substance. Imagine that someone (perhaps a new speaker of
English) asked you the question,
What do we mean by weight?
You might answer that the term
is used in two ways, and that
there are two kinds of things
to which the term applies.
Weights are the objects used
as standards in weighing
thingsthe ounce weight, the
half-pound weight, the pound
weight. These weights are the
weights that they are because of
their weight. It is their weight in
the second sense that constitutes them as weights in the first
sense. The relation in your
answer reproduces the relation
between our two senses of substance: weights and their weight,
substances and their substance.
First
potentiality
First actuality =
second potentiality
Second
actuality
Analogy
from
language
A Venetian (including a newborn) is

able to speak Italian
(contrast a newborn
dog) even when he
cant yet speak it.
An adult Venetian is
able to speak Italian
(contrast most of the
population of Brule,
Nebraska) even
when silent.
Guido is speaking
Italian while ordering
la colazione.
Italian
Global
Body
Soul
Living
Nutrition
Nutrive System
Power of digestion
Eating and digesting Food
Perception
in General
Perceptual organ
Perceptual power
Perceiving
Object of
perception
Sight
Eye
Sight
Seeing
Sight
Hearing
Ear
Power of hearing
Actual hearing
Sound
Thought
What goes here?
Mind
Thinking
Thoughts
Object
A life
43
B. It is in exemplifying that mode of being involved in things being what

they are that the divine represents the explanatory principle of substance and thus of being.
C. Suppose, for example, that I ask, What is it that constitutes the being
of a horse? If we answer this by saying that the fundamental structure
of the horses being is its being what it is, then we have invoked the
nature of divine being. This explains how God could be thought to constitute the fundamental principle of all being in the world.
Summary:
LECTURE TEN
It is for this reason that Aristotle appeared so attractive to the biblically rooted religions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. When, in Exodus, Moses
asks God to identify himself, God answers, I AM WHAT I AM. The basic
thought of Aristotles Metaphysics is in keeping with this very answer. For the
fundamental structure of Aristotelian being is exemplified in the fact that each
thing is exactly what it is.
44
Questions
1. What is the sense in which someone who gives a thoroughly biochemical
explanation of life could be said to be offering a theory of the soul?
2. How are the soul and body related according to Aristotle? How does this
relation work with regard to the mind?
3. What are the different levels of potentiality and actuality, and how do they
help explain the soul?
Suggested Reading
Aristotle. The Metaphysics. New ed. Trans. Hugh Lawson-Tancred. New
York: Penguin, 1999.

Gill, Mary Louise. Aristotle on Substance: The Paradox of Unity. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1991.
Scaltsas, Theodore, David Charles, and Mary Louise Gill. Unity, Identity and
Explanation in Aristotles Metaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Witt, Charlotte. Substance and Essence in Aristotle: An Interpretation of
Metaphysics VIIIX. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
45
Lecture 11:
Biology and On the Soul:
Life and Consciousness
The Suggested Reading for this lecture are Aristotles De Anima
(translated by R.D. Hicks) and On the Parts of Animals IIV (translated by
James G. Lennox).
Aristotle did extensive work in the biological sciences. He was interested in animal life from the standpoint of natural history, and did much work in classifying
and enumerating features of animal life and in discovering empirical evidence
among those features. But he also placed great emphasis on the explanatory
role of scientific theory. For Aristotle, a natural science like biology did not consist simply of the gathering of empirical evidence; natural history was always to
be coupled with demonstration and explanation, with the activity of theoretical
science. In addition, biology for Aristotle referred back to the more theoretical
and ontological dimensions of the philosophy of life, as evidenced in his treatise
De Anima or On the Soul.
Consider this . . .
1. If you could take a soul and put it in a coffee cup, would the coffee cup
be alive?
2. Why, or why not?
I. Aristotle and Biology
A. Aristotles biological writings present a complex mix of observation and
analysis within the context of a theoretical account of animal life. Above
all, his biological work is rich in its understanding of the relation of
organic structure to biological function.
B. This relation of structure to function is involved in the teleology of
Aristotles biology.
1. Aristotle believed that the complex nature of biological phenomena
can best be explained by showing the fit and join of bodies and
their organs to lives and their practices.
2. He understood functions to be explanatorily prior, which meant
that material structure was not as important an explanatory fact as
formal structure.
C. An example from embryology will make this clear.
LECTURE ELEVEN
1. Aristotle argued against the view, common in antiquity, that the

embryo and its parts are contained in miniature in the body of one or
another of the parents (usually the father).
2. He rejected this idea that the parts of the offspring must be in the
seed of the parents. According to Aristotle the animal is contained in
the seed, but only formally. The seed has the power to produce the
46
animal by a process of formation in which the seed supplies information on how to produce another of its same kind. (This is in essence
what we today think of as the role of DNA.)
II. The Treatise De Anima or On the Soul
A. Aristotles book On the Soul is an abstract, theoretical account of
animal life. In thinking about Aristotles treatment of the soul in this
work, it helps to think back to Platos Phaedo; having a soul means
being an animal.
B. We can understand this fact by imagining the following question: why
does Aristotle begin his discussion of the soul by asking what a soul is
rather than by asking whether or not there is a soul?
1. That may seem wrongheaded; for what if we could explain thoroughly
what it is to be alive based solely on chemical and natural principles
without any reference to the soul?
2. But in such a case, those very principles would constitute the nature
of the soul. For in asking what the nature of the soul is, Aristotle is
asking simply what the distinction is between living and non-living
things; the soul is whatever the principle is that explains living things
being alive.
3. It may help understand this fact to note that a common word in
Greek for being alive means having a soul. Imagine if instead of saying that someone were alive or dead or had just died we said that
they were besouled or unsouled or desouled; it might then be
clear to us that someone asking, What is the soul, is asking, What
is it to be alive?
III. The Structure and Argument of the Treatise On the Soul
A. On the Soul is written in three books:
1. Book 1 considers the theoretical account of soul and life given by
Aristotles predecessors.
2. Book 2 offers a general account of the soul and its faculties in general and a detailed discussion of the nature of perception.
3. Book 3 talks about the nature of soul to human beings and the
essence of thought.
B. Aristotle agreed with his predecessors in their understanding of what
the soul is meant to account for. The characteristic activities that mark
out things as alive are fundamentally two:
1. Self-motion. Things that are alive have self-initiated motion so that
they can act in the world.
2. Perception. Living things exhibit some form of perceptual consciousness or awareness. They are able not merely to act in the world but
to be affected by the world and be aware of that affection.
47
C. Aristotle disagreed with his predecessors, however, in other regards.

1. To account for the motion of a living thing, his predecessors thought
that the soul itself must be in motion. Aristotle says this misunderstands exactly what it is for something to be a principle of the ability
to move.
2. Similarly, he disagrees that the soul, in order to be the principle of an
animal being alive, must itself be something that is alive, something
that when attached to a body brings life along with it.
3. Aristotle argues that if that were the case, the soul would be capable
of bringing about life by its connection to any body whatsoever. You
could add a soul to a coffee cup and the coffee cup would be alive.
4. For Aristotle, this is a fundamentally incorrect manner of looking at
the relation of body to soul. On his view there is a necessary relationship between body and soul that is clear only if we understand the
soul to be the form of the body.
a. An organism is not a simple combination of a body and a soul; it is
an ensouled body.
b. The soul is the form of an animal of which the body is simply the
material correlate. But in order for this to be true, the body must
be highly organized and determinate. Aristotle makes this point
about the body by using a word we encountered earlier. He
describes the body as organicon, an instrument. The body, we
might say, is the global organ for the carrying out of the functions
of life. The soul is the set of capacities that resides in that body.
IV. Aristotles Definition of the Soul
A. Early in Book 2 Aristotle offers a general definition of what the soul is;
the soul, he writes, is the first actuality of a natural body that has life
potentially in it. To understand what Aristotle means, we will need to
understand the notion of a first actuality.
B. Every human being has the ability or potentiality to speak English.
But there is a difference between the potentiality that a newborn has
to speak English and the potentiality of an adult English speaker.
The adults ability is the developed potentiality of the newborns.
This ability itself (as is made clear when one is silent) is distinct from
the actuality of actually speaking, the activity that occurs when one
is engaged in talking English. So we can distinguish three levels of
potentiality and actuality.
1. The potentiality of a newborn to speak English.
LECTURE ELEVEN
2. The realized ability of an adult to speak English, even if the speaker

is momentarily silent.
3. The full actuality of speaking, realized in actual talk.
C. The second of these levels is what Aristotle means by a first actuality.
Like the ability to speak English, it is at once the realization of a potentiality, and a potentiality for further realization.
48
D. The soul is such a principle in which living is the analogy of speaking

English. Roughly, the analogy looks like this:
The body is analogous to the infants ability to speak.
The soul is analogous to the adults realized ability to speak.
The activity of living is analogous to the activity of actual speech.
E. This scheme of Body/Soul/Living is only the global version of a scheme
Aristotle employs throughout his work. With it he gives a general
account of the activities that distinguish living beings, the activities we
might call psychic (from the Greek psyche, soul): the activities of life.
V. Two Examples of Psychic Activities
A. One of the central capacities of animal life is the capacity for nutrition.
Our ability to take in food and to make it into ourselves is analogous to
the capacity for perception, our ability to perceive or take the world in
and transform it, as it were, into conscious awareness.
B. The scheme we outlined can be applied to the psychic capacity of the
nutritive system:
1. The bodily nutritive system: the stomach, intestines, and
digestive structure.
2. The nutritive faculty: the power these things have to do something.
3. Eating and digesting: the activity of nutrition.
4. Aristotle then adds a fourth part to this structure, the object of the
eating: food.
C. Now consider this scheme (now four-part) with respect to a psychic
activity of perception (seeing, for example).
1. The eye is the organ, (part of) the bodily system of the perception.
2. Sight is the faculty, the ability or power to see.
3. Seeing itself is the activity.
4. What is seen is the object of the activity.
D. The perceptual capacity is a power that an animal has by virtue of having an organ with the ability to take in the sensible form of that which
is perceived.
E. Thus the subject and the object are linked in a perceptual chain. For
the object itself has its own power, in this case, the power of visibility,
and that power is realized in being seen. In this sense seeing and
being seen are the same activity.
F. It is because the eye is an organ designed to capture the look of
things that the animal is able to see. In his discussion Aristotle construes seeing as passive and being seen as active. Seeing is
thought of as being affected by the activity of a visible thing in its
appearing to a subject. The general account of sense perception is
that it is capacity to take on the sensible form of an object without the
matter. Perception is the passive ability to be affected by the sensible
form of things.
49
G. Aristotle closes his discussion with an apparent difficulty. Suppose you

leave an open onion next to some cream cheese overnight. In the
morning the cream cheese smells like onion. This is because the
cream cheese has taken on the sensible form of the onion without its
matter. But does the cream cheese then smell the onion? Of course
not; but what more is there to smelling than being affected by a smell?
Aristotle replies to this by saying that smelling is not just being affected; it is being affected consciously. Smelling, like seeing and hearing
and like perception in general, is a form of conscious awareness.
Summary:
LECTURE ELEVEN
Aristotles theory of perception, elaborated through Book 2 and the opening

chapters of Book 3 of On the Soul, is thus preparatory to a more general
question: What is the nature of awareness? In Book 3, Aristotle turns to a
theory of mind. Mind appears here, not as a monitor that oversees perceptual
activity and allows sensation to become conscious perception, but rather as
the paradigm instance of consciousness pure and simple. Aristotles view is
that the mind is the ability to be aware of the world without the mediation of
any of the material elements required for perceptual capacity. Recall from the
Metaphysics that mind is that which is most divine about the universe. For
Aristotle the most divine activities are reproduction and thoughtreproduction
because it is the way that animals have to most emulate the eternity of the
divine and thought because it is the way that animals have to most emulate
the activity of the divine. It is thought that allows us as humans to experience
the world as we do, and that allows us to think of ourselves as humans leading our lives and not just living them.
50
Questions
1. In this lecture, it is suggested that the term desouled might be appropriate
for the dead. What precedent would Aristotle use to support such a claim?
2. According to Aristotle, how are the soul and the body related?
3. What is the difference between actuality and potentiality?
Suggested Reading
Aristotle. De Anima. New ed. Trans. R.D. Hicks. New York: Prometheus
Books, 1991.
. On the Parts of Animals IIV. Trans. James G. Lenox. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2002.

Aquinas, Thomas. Commentary on Aristotles Metaphysics. Beloit, WI:
Dumb Ox Press, 1995.
Gotthelf, Allan, and James G. Lennox, eds. Philosophical Issues in Aristotles
Biology. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
51
Lecture 12:
The Nicomachean Ethics:
Ethics and the Good Life
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Aristotles Nicomachean
Ethics (translated by Roger Crisp).
In discussing Aristotles ethics, specifically the work known as the

Nicomachean Ethics, we will now be thinking not just about animal life in
general, but specifically about human life. In this work, Aristotle considers
general issues concerning the goals of human life and action, identified as
happiness, and specifically the role that virtue plays in a good human life
and in the achievement of happiness. His account includes a discussion of
the nature of deliberation, choice and moral action and the role that they
play in a life of human virtue, a life devoted finally to achieving human wellbeing or happiness.
Consider this . . .
1. What as human beings do we want out of our lives?
2. How might we go about achieving these things?
3. What is it that will make for a happy and well-functioning life?
I. What Is Ethics?
A. To say that ethics is concerned with the question of how to lead a
human life so as to achieve happiness is characteristically Aristotelian.
It is to identify the subject of ethics not so much in terms of some external structure of obligation, but in terms of the flourishing and happiness
of human beings. We may put it simply by saying that ethics is the
understanding of what it means to lead a good human life.
B. Ethics for Aristotle is not concerned with thinking about obligations and
duties we might be thought to have outside of our simply being good
human beings. In that sense Aristotles ethics is a general theory of
good action in the sense of what we are to do, but conceived, as we
shall see, in such a way as to focus upon the question of what kind of
person we wish to become.
II. The Argument of the Nicomachean Ethics
LECTURE TWELVE
A. At the beginning of the Ethics, Aristotle argues that all questions of

human activity involve a conception of the good at which we aim. He
means by this that we are not simply living our lives but are leading our
lives, purposefully aware of ourselves as acting: engaging in what the
Greeks called praxis, the kind of action that is distinctively human.
B. Action in the sense of praxis involves choosing to do a certain thing in
light of our sense that our action will achieve an end that we take to be
52
good, an end that we want to see realized. This end need not be independent of the action itself, or something that the action brings about;
in some cases, cases important for Aristotles argument, the action
itself is the end.
C. Indeed, Aristotle argues, there must be some mode of acting that is
desired for itself and not for the sake of something else that it might
bring about. Otherwise if we imagined that everything we choose is for
the sake of some other thing that we choose, we would be involved in
an infinite regress.
D. Then what is the highest good at which human action aims?
1. Note that in asking this question, Aristotle presupposes that what we
aim at is the highest human good: human welfare and well-being.
2. His ethical theory is thus one that recognizes human well-being as
the primary normative parameter in terms of which we think about
organizing our lives.
3. Aristotle goes on to answer the question, what is the good of human
life? He says that everyone agrees that the ultimate good of human
life is happiness.
III. What Is the Nature of Happiness?
A. Happiness for Aristotle is a mode of well-being and not just a state of
feeling good. The Greek word for happiness, eudaimonia, suggests simply a life that is successful, that has been lived well. As Aristotle says
explicitly, happiness is the same as living well and doing well; happiness is not about feeling good but about leading a life that is good.
1. The etymology of the English word happiness, cognate with words
like perhaps, happen, and happenstance, suggest that still for us
happiness in its true sense signifies the condition of how things go
for you in your life.
2. Happiness really means a life in which things have worked out in the
way we would like them to work out. It is for this reason that Aristotle
sees a life well lived as a life characterized by happiness.
3. To point out, however, that happiness is the highest good of human
life will seem trite if we dont remind ourselves of what it is being contrasted to. To say that happiness is the good of human life is to say
that there is no end outside of human being that our lives are directed toward. Human being is not serving a purpose beyond itself, and
the good of human being therefore doesnt lie in the fulfillment of
such an external purpose; it lies only in doing well.
B. Aristotle says we will be able to give an even clearer answer to what is
the meaning of happiness, understood as the good of human life, if we
attend to the question of the function of human beings.
1. Could it be the case, Aristotle asks, that the various activities of
human life (professions, for example, like being a carpenter or being
a professor) could be said to have functions, and that the various
53
organs of the body could be said to have functions, but that being a
human being itself does not have a function?
2. There must, he argues, be a function of human being in general.
IV. Function
A. Remember (think back to Platos Republic) that function is not the
notion of an instrumental purpose outside of itself; a function is simply
the characteristic activity that a thing engages in. So Aristotle hopes to
articulate the meaning of happiness by attending to the characteristic
activity of what it is to be human.
B. Happiness on this account turns out to be activity of the soul in conformity with virtue, that is, living a characteristic human life in conformity
with the notions of what would make a life of that sort good.
V. Virtue
A. In Book 2 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle introduces us to the
subject of virtue. Aristotles ethical theory, like that of Plato, is centered
on the notion of virtue.
1. For the Greeks in general, the idea of leading a good life was not
simply about the question is, What should I do, and how should I
act? but equally and perhaps more importantly, What kind of person
do I want to be, what kind of character do I aspire toward? Of course,
the person I want to be is a person who acts well, but character is
nonetheless central.
2. The focus here is on the development of states of character that will
lead to certain actions, and those actions are understood to be virtuous only when they emanate from such states of character. These
states of character are the virtues.
B. Aristotle says that virtues are not natural, in that we are not born with
them, but they are not contrary to nature either.
1. We can think of virtues in terms of second nature; they are characteristic dispositions that are formed by habituation. Character is necessary in the structure of human life, but character itself is always
formed by the modes of action.
2. Virtue is an intermediate notion poised between a natural capacity,
realized in the form of a virtue and realized by the very activities that
the virtue is a dispositional capacity toward.
LECTURE TWELVE
C. Aristotle puts it this way: A virtue is a characteristic involving choice,

consisting in observing the mean relative to us, a mean defined by a
rational principle, such as a person of practical wisdom would use
to determine.
Consider, as an instance of this analysis, the virtue of courage.
1. Courage is the capacity to act courageously in the right circumstances
and in the right way when we are called upon to do so. And being
courageous is something we become habituated to by continuing
54
modes of courageous action. Aristotle describes courage as the

mean with regard to feelings of fear and confidence.
2. A virtue in this way involves a mean between an excess and a deficiency. To live a good life involves a delicate balance between, in this case,
recklessness and cowardice; it is, therefore, a matter of complex judgment. The task of living virtuously is finding the mean.
3. Notice that Aristotle describes courage as the mean with respect
to feelings of fear and confidence. Aristotle thinks of virtues as
means with respect to actions and passions, where by passion we
mean feelings.
D. So a virtue is the capacity that a moral agent has to know not simply
how to behave or act properly but also how to properly allow oneself to
be affected by the world.
E. The virtues further involve not simply the recognition of proper action or
feeling relative to our desire, but the cultivation of proper desire itself.
The unity of action and feeling are emblematic of a deeper unity that is
articulated in the unity of action and desire. Its not enough to have a
will; the goal of human ethical cultivation is the cultivation of proper and
appropriate desires themselves.
VI. The Voluntary, Choice and Deliberation
A. The voluntary: We are praised, blamed, and held responsible only for
what we engage in as voluntary human agents, not for what we are
forced to do or do by accident.
B. Choice and deliberation: The virtues, described as capacities for action
and feeling, are described as relative to choice. The theory of choice
reveals the fact that these dispositions are really dispositional capacities for deliberating well and choosing well. Choosing well here means
how to act and how to behave and how to feel. Virtue is a capacity for
the deliberate choice of a good life.
C. Because moral life is so much involved in deliberation, Aristotle turns in
Book 6 of the Ethics to the relation between virtues of thought and
virtues he thinks of as the moral virtues. In that book we are led to a
conception of good thinking as an analogy of good acting. Finally, our
dispositions are involved globally in our ability to exercise reason in the
deliberative choice of how to act. Thus Aristotle marks off the chief
cognitive virtue as practical wisdom.
Summary:
In the Western tradition, practical wisdom came to be called prudence.
Prudence now often refers simply to selfish interests or to interests in contrast
to our moral obligations. But for Aristotle, the prudential is the arena of how to
think and act well. It is the notion of an ability that an agent has to know what
to do and how to act. A sensitivity to what it is situations demand of us constitutes the heart of a good human life. The chief ethical question becomes: how
can we become sensitive to what it is that the world requires of us, and how
55
can we become possessed of the practical wisdomthe know-howthat will

enable us to work out what to do?
LECTURE TWELVE
At the end of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle points out that ethical science
is merely a department of a much larger concern he calls political science. The
question of how we train ourselves and our children must always be understood within the context of what it is to live as human beings do, that is, as
political animals, as animals within a social context.
56
Questions
1. How can an action be an end itself?
2. What is the difference between a mode of being and a state of being?
3. Can happiness as it is used in the vernacular be understood by Aristotles
definition of the word?
4. How would an approach to life differ if one were to seek a good life by asking, What kind of person do I want to be?
Suggested Reading
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Roger Crisp. Cambridge: Cambridge

Bodeus, Richard. The Political Dimensions of Aristotles Ethics. Trans. Jan
Edward Garrett. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993.
Morris, Thomas V. If Aristotle Ran General Motors. New York: Henry Holt &
Co., 1998.
Telford, Kenneth. Commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics.
Binghamton, NY: Institute of Global Cultural Studies, 1999.
57
Lecture 13:
The Politics and the Poetics
The Suggested Reading for this lecture are Aristotles Aristotle: The
Politics and the Constitution of Athens (edited by Steven Everson) and
Aristotles Poetics: A Translation and Commentary for Students of
Literature (translated by Leon Golden).
For Aristotle, social and political lifelife in the city or polisis the environment
in which human beings best flourish. The goal (the telos) of the polis is the realization of a good life. Human beings are by nature political; that is, it is our
nature to live in the context of civilization or culture, to live social lives in common with others with whom we are politically connected. The political in a general sense is the extension of family, friendship, and all natural human associations. It is a level of social organization that involves governing and being governed; the Politics can be thought of as an account on the understanding of governance. One of the central institutions of political life, one of the central components of civilized human beings, is the creation of literary art. In this lecture, we
will first briefly consider some of Aristotles views on political life and then discuss his account of the genre of literature called tragedy.
Consider this . . .
1. According to Aristotle, what are the possible forms of government?
2. Is there a linking between politics and a moral life in modern forms of
government and the arts?
I. The Politics
A. The Politics concerns itself with several issues:
1. It gives an account of what the city (or as we would more generally
call it, the state) is, both genetically and formally.
2. It offers a discussion on the nature of citizenshipa citizen being
someone who has power to affect the polis.
3. It describes the various modes of constitution or government.
Forms of government can be classified on the basis of answers to
these two questions:
LECTURE THIRTEEN
a. Who rules?
b. More importantly, since this affects the questions of good and bad
forms of government: is the governing done for the sake of the
governed or for the sake of the governing?
4. In Aristotles view, the best form of government is a constitutional
government in which many govern for the sake of the governed.
58
How many
people rule?
For whose
sake?
For the sake of
those who
govern
For the sake
of the
governed
One
person
rules
Several
people
rule
Many
people
rule
Tyranny
Oligarchy
Democracy
Monarchy
Aristocracy
Constitutional
B. There are many interesting features to Aristotles discussion in the

Politics; but here I want to stress only two features I think salient in the
theory of the Politics:
1. Statesmanship or political science is a form of wisdom. It is the wisdom that enables a statesman to know how best to rule and help others conduct themselves well within society.
2. Statesmanship is a natural human capacity. For Aristotle thinks that
human beings are by nature social; man is, as he puts it, a political
animal by nature. This claim of Aristotles about human beings does
not mean simply that people are gregarious. It means that only in
the context of the polis are human beings able to do their greatest
natural good.
C. The word political has a fruitful analogue in our word civilized. We
can think of Aristotle as urging that human beings are civilized animals,
animals capable of best flourishing in the civilized and cultured environment of a social community in which people are capable of governing
themselves well.
D. Human beings are, as individuals, in a sense unfinished animals. It is
only in the social and cultural context of civilization that full determination is given to them, and only there that happiness can flourish. The
Politics is, for this reason, the master science that governs human
flourishing, well-being, and happiness.
II. The Poetics
A. Considering Aristotles Poetics together with his treatment of political
life in the Politics should raise in your mind questions such as these:
1. How are the notions of tragedy, poetry, and art connected to notions
of ethics and politics?
2. More generally, how is poetry connected to the moral life?
3. In the beginning of the Poetics, Aristotle says that tragic poetry, like
all literature, is an imitation or mimesis. Specifically, he says, it is
about imitated or imagined action. Indeed, the Greek word drama
is, as Aristotle points out, a dialect variation of the more standard
59
Greek word for action, praxis. Therefore, a tragedy or drama is an

imitation of an action. How is it possible then, that something that is
connected with the mimetic or fictional could be related to something
like ethics, which we consider to be part of the real world?
B. Some features of the Poetics
1. Some of the connections between tragedy and the moral will begin to
be revealed if we consider the complexity of acting.
a. We use the word act to refer both to people who are imitating or performing on a stage and to the actual activity or action of human life.
b. This ambiguity of meaning should remind us of the respect in which
all moral action is, in a sense, imitative or mimetic.
c. Recall that for Aristotle the assumption of virtue is achieved by acts
of imitation, that is, by the instances of acting virtuously through
which we become habituated, become firm in our ability to choose
and act appropriately. It is only when the virtue is perfected within us
that we are able to act from virtue rather than in imitation of virtue.
Virtue is shaped by our acting out the role ofwe might say impersonatingthe virtuous person.
2. Next we need to consider the nature of tragedy as a form
of theatricality.
a. We dont experience emotions in a theatrical context in the same
way that we might be expected to experience them in real life.
Aristotle holds that the effect of witnessing tragedy (in a poem or
on stage, for example) is pleasurable yet simultaneously associated with the experience of fear and pity.
b. So we need to understand how an otherwise painful experience of
fear and pity is able to yield the kind of pleasure that is experienced in drama and poetry. How (with apologies to Coleridge) can
poetry raise a sunny dome of pleasure upon the icy caves of terror
and commiseration?
c. An important fact is that the theaterthe principle site of drama
and tragedyis an arena of imitated representation. Because of
this, emotions get experienced in a context without connection to
our practical lives. The events that occasion these emotions are
not happening in our real lives.
LECTURE THIRTEEN
ii. In this sense, the institutions of theater, tragic poetry, and art in
general are like the institutions of ritual. Ritual, which serves a
function of intensifying and enforcing structures of communal life,
provides as well contexts of sanctuary in which dangerous activities, including such intensifications, can be carried out.
ii. By virtue of being imitative, art is similarly capable of marking off
a sacred space in which we are allowed to experience emotions
safely. This is a place where we can confront terrible possibilities
and the fears that they inspire without the pain that would be
occasioned if we were to experience these fears in our real lives.
60
d. What tragedy allows is our experience in an environment of safety, in a

space of sanctuary of the universal fear that we are subject to the terrible events that occur in tragedy. This is not the fear that we will undergo
the specific events that are depicted in tragedy.
e. It is the general feature of tragically represented actions that they all
derive from the universal possibility of mistake or mishap. Aristotle
believes that tragedies point to the general liability of action to mishap
and consequently the fragility of our happiness and moral character.
3. Behind all this is Aristotles deep interest in the ambiguity of action.
This ambiguity can be thought of in two different ways:
a. Actions can be given many different descriptions. The same action
therefore can be understood to be both good and bad, good under
one description, bad under another. It is this multiplicity or ambiguity
of action that is the phenomena of tragic conflict. In Sophocles
Antigone, for example, the fundamental conflict of action is whether
or not Antigone should bury her brother, a deed simultaneously commanded and prohibited.
b. A more important ambiguity for Aristotle derives from the distinction
between two different modes of capturing and individuating actions:
i. An action is the object of the deliberation or choice of an acting agent. An action in this sense is an agents activity; it is
what someone does.
ii. On the other hand, an action is what emerges as the result of
our activity. An action in this sense is an entity in the world, an
entity that emanates out of an action but then subsequently has
a life of its own.
c. Aristotle sees in tragedy a revelation of the constant possibility of
fracture between these two aspects of action. What follows from
this is the distinction of being responsible for an action and being
blamable for an action. Tragic poetry can help us to come to terms
with the terrible weight of these distinctions.
d. Aristotles concern with moral action in the Poetics is thus with the
pathology of such action, with where it breaks down or goes wrong.
At our very best, when acting out of good character, with good deliberation, we often will act in ways that bring about our downfall. This is
a terrifying fact that tragedy helps us confront. Goodness of character
and excellence of deliberation cannot in fact guarantee our happiness; actions that are good from the point of view of an agent may
nonetheless be revealed as bad, through no wickedness of the
agent, in that very world in which they are enacted.
Summary:
Tragedy is a human institution that is designed to help us accept the fact that no
mode of virtue can guarantee the efficacy of human action in bringing about the
happiness for which we strive. Aristotle is recognizing the fact that there is a fundamental tragic rift in the world at this joint of human action. We are not gods and
cannot guarantee that our actions will bring about our well-being. The Poetics can
61
LECTURE THIRTEEN
be seen as a sequel to the Ethics and the Politics in that it continues a vision of
civic life as the source of our capacity to live satisfying and fulfilling lives. In
tragedy, our gaze is directed upon the vulnerability of well being that is presented
in the Ethics and the Politics as brought about by civic life. We are invited in the
Poetics to acknowledge the fears and vulnerabilities of our well-being, to recognize that our happiness is subject to an irrational control of destiny that may at
any point sever the connection between political virtue and well-being. The
Poetics goes further by offering us the hope that by acknowledging these fears
we may be able to cleanse our lives of their corrosive effect. This cleansing is the
catharsis to which Aristotle briefly refers in his account of tragedy. It is for these
reasons that Aristotle believes tragic poetry to represent one of the most significant institutions and powers of political or civic life that we possess.
62
Questions
1. How does the complexity of our notion of acting reveal itself in
dramatic art?
2. How does art allow us to go beyond what might be considered good?
3. In what different ways can actions be thought of as ambiguous?
Suggested Reading
Aristotle. Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens. 2nd ed. Ed.
Steven Everson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
. Aristotles Poetics: A Translation and Commentary for Students of
Literature. Trans. Leon Golden. Commentary O.B. Hardison. Tallahassee,
FL: Florida State University Press, 1982.

Rorty, Amelie O. Essays on Aristotles Poetics of Athens. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1992.
Simpson, Peter L. A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
63
Lecture 14:
A Final Review and Summation
The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Kenneth J. Dovers Greek
Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle.
In this final lecture we end our discussion by summarizing what weve discussed throughout the course.
Consider this . . .
1. Which philosophical contributions by Plato and Aristotle are applicable to
modern life? Why?
2. Can philosophy help an individual overcome fear of the unknown?
I. Virtue
A. For both Plato and Aristotle the notion of virtue is of critical importance in
the formation of our moral lives and in our understanding of what it is to
lead a moral life. Most simply understood, a virtue is a good quality.
B. A moral virtue for Plato and Aristotle is a state of character. Virtue in
their vocabulary refers less to a general state of moral goodness than
to specific features of our character, to specific states of moral character. These states of character are thought of as dispositions, as ready
and developed capacities that individuals have for choosing and acting
properly. Such a capacity can be looked upon as a skill, which means
that an individual with a virtue is skilled at behaving morally in an
appropriate way.
LECTURE FOURTEEN
C. According to Plato and Aristotle alike, the question of moral philosophy is

not simply the question: how am I to conduct myself in my life, what
should I do? Moral philosophy addresses more specifically the question:
How am I to become a good person? What should I be? For both
thinkers, a good life is a life of activity in which the states of character we
call virtues are actualized and not simply possessed; otherwise, one could
imagine good people simply sleep their lives away. But a good life is a life
in which actions are not only in accord with virtue but are the realizations
of those virtues. A good person is not someone who merely behaves in a
certain way, but someone who behaves that way out of good character.
D. It is easy to think of moral philosophy as concerned with rules and regulations on how to behave properly, concerned, as it were, with moral law.
But Plato and Aristotle present moral philosophy more in terms of the
development of a skill, the skill of character.
E. In addition to virtue being a good quality, it is important to see that
virtue enables a subject to do well what it does: it makes it possible
64
for something to succeed at

being what it is. We saw this fact
expressed in the link between virtue
and function; it follows from this that
virtue is linked to being.
F. All instances of goodnessof virtue in
the broadest senseare dependent
upon and related to the kind of thing
that the virtue is said to be a virtue of.
The notion of virtue is always associated then with the predicative being of
the subject to which virtue is attributed.
II. Being
A. Plato asks what the essential nature is
that is specified by some certain mode
of being. His concern with explaining
this notion of being is fundamental to a
variety of his philosophical enterprises
and projects.
VIRTUE AND BEING

Heres a question that might
help us understand the logical
relation between virtue as goodness and being. Is it a virtue,
that is, is it a good thing, for
something to be made of copper? The incompleteness of this
question becomes evident if we
imagine an electrician wondering
if she should use copper as the
material for some of her instruments. If what she wants is a
conductor of electricity, being
made of copper is indeed a
virtue. But if what she wants to
have is an insulator, then its
certainly not true that being
made of copper is a virtue; its
highly dangerous. So the question of whether its good for
some specific thing to be made
of copper just depends on what
that specific thing is. Virtue here
depends on being.
B. Platos dialogue, the Theaetetus, offers

a clear example of this link. He shows
that a series of accounts of what it is to
understand is marred by the fact that
the speakers of the dialogue all take
the object of understanding to be a
thing. Plato shows that you can never
grasp the concept of understanding or knowing in that way, for the object
of understanding is always an instance of being. To understand is to comprehend that and why something is the case. In other dialogues, including
the Parmenides and the Sophist, this idea of the centrality of being is pursued. Throughout these discussions, Plato stresses his conviction that the
world is articulated in ontological structures, articulated in terms of being.
C. The word ontological here refers simply to the science of being. But
if we think of the distinction we noted in Aristotle between a thing
and its being, we may come to think of ontology as being as a theory of the being of beings.
D. What is striking, perhaps more particularly in Aristotle than in Plato, is the
fact that the theory of being places the notion of activity, in its full gerundive and verbal sense, at the center of the analysis. The world, and this
view, is not presented to us as a series of inert objects that have qualities
stuck to them, but as a dynamic and complex nexus of modes of being
of substanceswhich express their nature and are what they are.
III. Soul
A. For Aristotle animals are the paradigmatic modes of substance. An animal

is a being characterized by the fact that it is alive; this fact of being alive,
65
as the fundamental being of such an entity, is made possible for Plato and
Aristotle by the fact an animal has a soul. The soul, however, is not a
something that we have, a thing that makes us alive; it is simply the principle of our being alive. In Plato, such a principle is called an essential
form and in Aristotle, the formal cause of things that are alive being alive.
For both philosophers the features that characterize human animals are
awareness and the capacity for self-generated activity. These modalities,
by which animals are capable of freely acting in the world, and of being
acted upon without being overtaken by the world, define what it is to be
alive and consequently what it is to have a soul.
B. The care of the soul means attending to these features of ourselves
as rational animals. It thus means being attentive constantly to our
lives as conscious beings and to our lives as thinking, active, rational, and free animals.
IV. Final Thoughts
A. The deepest community in Plato and Aristotle is the vision of philosophy
as the mode for caring for ourselves as thinking, aware, moral agents. It is
often said, and perhaps justly, that Plato seems to court a certain mysteriousness and seems willing to leave unsaid that which he thinks cannot be
said, while Aristotle attempts to explain everything as clearly as he can.
But it would be a mistake on the basis of this fact to categorize Plato as
having an overriding sense of otherworldliness and Aristotle of this
worldliness. We should avoid categorizing these philosophers into mutually exclusive camps.
B. Above all these philosophers share a commitment to reason as critical to
our moral, political, and spiritual lives and to reason as nourishing us in
our innate desire to understand. All human beings, Aristotle remarks at
the opening of the Metaphysics, desire to understand. This coupling of
the striving of desire with the goal of seeing things as they truly are is
what is perhaps most characteristic of the Greek philosophers we have
here discussed. Philosophy is understood by both as one of the fundamental modalities of the desire to understand.
C. Philosophy is devoted to wisdom as a redemptive appropriation of our
self-understanding and our vision of the world, a vision possessed by us
but often forgotten. The pursuit of wisdom and thus the enterprise of philosophy is a project of coming to see ourselves as we are, and of the
world as we conceive it. Philosophy is not about new discovery but about
the recovery of our deepest intuitions and understandings of the world.
LECTURE FOURTEEN
D. Finally, it is important to realize that Plato and Aristotle appeal so strongly

not so much because they attempt to offer us certainty and clarity in our
lives but perhaps because, on the contrary, they allow us to accept joyfully rather than fearfully our own uncertainty. They call us to live happily in
the acceptance of our finite and mortal selves, sustained by the eye we
keep trained on wisdom, the wisdom whose love Plato and Aristotle, as
philosophers, continually invite us to entertain.
66
Questions
1. Corporations commonly have a corporate philosophy or morality often
codified in a Code of Ethics. How does this approach differ from our
two philosophers approaches to moral philosophy?
2. What is the commonality of the two philosophers in their understanding of
the soul?
3. How can the works of these two philosophers enhance lives of those living
in the twenty-first century?
Suggested Reading
Dover, Kenneth J. Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

Benardete, Seth, Michael Davis, and Ronna Burger, eds. Argument of the
Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2000.
Gotshalk, Richard. Beginnings of Philosophy in Greece. Lanham, MD:
University Press of America, 2000.
Madigan, Patrick. Aristotle and His Modern Critics: The Uses of Tragedy in
the Nontragic Vision. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 1992.
67
COURSE MATERIALS
Suggested Reading:
Aristotle. Aristotle: Categories and De Interpretatione. Trans. J.L. Ackrill. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1975.
. Aristotles Poetics: A Translation and Commentary for Students of Literature.
Trans. Leon Golden. Commentary O.B. Hardison. Tallahassee, FL: Florida State
. Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens. 2nd ed. Ed. Steven
Everson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. Richard McKeon. New York: Random
House, 2001.
. De Anima. New ed. Trans. R.D. Hicks. New York: Prometheus Books, 1991.
. The Metaphysics. New ed. Trans. Hugh Lawson-Tancred. New York:
Penguin, 1999.
. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Roger Crisp. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000.
. On the Parts of Animals IIV. Trans. James G. Lenox. New York: Oxford
Dover, Kenneth J. Greek Popular Morality In the Time of Plato and Aristotle. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1974.
Plato. The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 1: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Gorgias,
Menexenus. Trans. R.E. Allen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989
. Phaedo. New ed. Trans. David Gallop. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
. Republic. 3rd rev. ed. Trans. C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett
Publishing Company, 2004
. Symposium. Trans. Christopher Gill. New York: Penguin, 2003.
Sprague, Rosamond Kent, Platos Laches and Charmides. Hackett Publishing Co., 1992.
Xenophon. Conversations of Socrates. New York: Penguin, 1990.
Other Books of Interest:
Adler, Mortimer J. Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Aquinas, Thomas. Commentary on Aristotles Metaphysics. Beloit, WI: Dumb Ox
Press, 1995.
COURSE MATERIALS
Baron, Jonathan. Thinking and Deciding. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001.
Benardete, Seth, Michael Davis, and Ronna Burger, eds. Argument of the Action:
Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Bodeus, Richard. Aristotle and the Theology of the Living Immortals. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 2000.
. The Political Dimensions of Aristotles Ethics. Trans. Jan Edward Garrett.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993.
Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith. Platos Socrates. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, Inc., 1996.
68
COURSE MATERIALS
Other Books of Interest (continued):

Easterling, P.E. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge
Friedlnder, Paul, Plato: the Dialogues, First Period. New York: Pantheon Books, 1964.
. Plato: the Dialogues, Second and Third Period. New York: Pantheon
Books, 1969.
Gill, Mary Louise. Aristotle on Substance: The Paradox of Unity. Princeton: Princeton
Gotshalk, Richard. Beginnings of Philosophy in Greece. Lanham, MD: University Press
of America, 2000.
Gotthelf, Allan and James G. Lennox (eds.) Philosophical Issues in Aristotles Biology.
Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Hyland, Drew A. The Virtue of Philosophy: An Interpretation of Platos Charmides.
Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1981.
Madigan, Patrick. Aristotle and His Modern Critics: The Uses of Tragedy in the
Nontragic Vision. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 1992.
Morris, Thomas V. If Aristotle Ran General Motors. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1998.
North, Helen. Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966.
Plato. Republic. Trans. Desmond Lee. New York: Penguin , 2003.
. Republic of Plato. 2nd ed. Trans. Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1991.
Phillips, Christopher. Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy. New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 2002.
Pressfield, Steven. Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War.
New York: Random House, 2001.
Rorty, Amelie O. Essays on Aristotles Poetics of Athens. Princeton: Princeton
Ross, Sir David and J.L. Ackrill. Aristotle. 6th ed. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Rubenstein, Richard E. Aristotles Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews
Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages. Dubuque, IA:
Harcourt Brace & Co., 2003.
Scaltsas, Theodore, David Charles, and Mary Louise Gill. Unity, Identity and
Explanation in Aristotles Metaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Schofield, Malcolm. Saving the City: Philosopher-Kings and other Classical Paradigms.
New York: Routledge, 1999.
Simpson, Peter L. A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle. Chapel Hill,
NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Telford, Kenneth. Commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics.
Binghamton, NY: Institute of Global Cultural Studies, 1999.
Witt, Charlotte. Substance and Essence in Aristotle: An Interpretation of
Metaphysics VIIIX. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
These books are available online through www.modernscholar.com
or by calling Recorded Books at 1-800-636-3399.
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PLATO AND

Professor Aryeh Kosman

Plato and Aristotle:

Professor Aryeh Kosman

Recorded Books is a trademark of

Plato and Aristotle:

Lecture content 2003 by Aryeh Kosman

72003 by Recorded Books, LLC

About Your Professor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Plato (with Nods to Socrates) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

The Euthyphro: The Virtue of Holiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

The Charmides: The Virtue of Quiet Self-Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

The Republic: Justice and the Virtue of Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

The Republic: Justice and the Philosopher King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

The Symposium: Is the Philosopher Capable of Love? . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

The Phaedo: Death and the Philosopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Aristotle: Patience with Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

The Organon: Substance as the Primary

The Metaphysics: What Is Philosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

Biology and On the Soul: Life and Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

The Nicomachean Ethics: Ethics and the Good Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Plato and Aristotle:

Plato and Aristotle: A Final Review and Summation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

Course Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68

Photo courtesy of Aryeh Kosman

About Your Professor

In order to comprehend who we are as people we must begin to understand the

1. He lost his father at an early age and

Socrates himself carried out the

FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Other Books of Interest

Brickhouse, Thomas C., and Nicholas D. Smith. Platos Socrates. Oxford:

1. At first he says that holy is what hes

2. This kind of series of definitions is offered in many of Platos early

a. An example doesnt tell us enough, because it doesnt tell us

c. But consider when an example might be useful: if someone

ACTIONS AND PASSIONS

c. The fact that 2A is true and 2B

d. Socrates shows that if it were the case that being approved

The Socratic method presented in the Dialogues is simply to question and

FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

In the last lecture, we suggested thinking of a dialogue as offering a model of

B. The form of X is also the principle of the

C. Dialogues often show us people who can articulate accounts that

FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Other Books of Interest

North, Helen. Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek

B. Here a virtue is a good quality; understood morally, a virtue is a good

commonwealth, and so it might do to look for this quality in the city.

FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Other Books of Interest

Phillips, Christopher. Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy. New York:

B. Socrates offers a visual model by way of explanation. It is, he says, like

FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Other Books of Interest

Schofield, Malcolm. Saving the City: Philosopher-Kings and Other Classical

FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Other Books of Interest

Pressfield, Steven. Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades and the

THE SOUL AND DEATH

FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Other Books of Interest

Easterling, P.E. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge: