Unable to resist this urge to piss off William Ball and Robert Paul --
proving thereby my lack of arete -- I must confess that I always feel a
tweak of consternation when I hear others speak glowingly of the Ancient
Greek philosophers and their principled lives. Wait, a minute, I say to
myself, aren't these the same guys who sat around snarfing down gyroi while
their slaves worked the fields, worked the house, and worked on their
genitalia when called upon, aren't these the lovers of little boys,
fat-assed rich men with nothing to do but sit around and bullshit all day
everyday, arguing whether women had souls, and if so, of what sort, for
clearly it was not that of men such as themselves -- are these the virtuous,
excellent men we're talking about? (Diogenes of Sinope excluded, of
course).
On the otherhand, they did discover thinking. That's worth something, I
suppose.
Mike Geary Diogenes of Memphis
-----Original Message----- From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Judith Evans Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 6:34 PM To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Definition(s) of Virtue
Robert, I thought arete was the fulfilment of one's capabilities (I take that from Googling it yesterday, also from discussions some while ago).
For Aristotle, virtue was a mean between two extremes, the extremes being defects of character: courage is a mean between rashness and timidity, e.g. (Not everything admits of a mean:
Yes -- I'm finding it difficult to describe the extremes between which arete lies unless it is, simply, a mean between any (and all) extremes.
Puzzled in Cardiff
Judy
--- Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm surprised that in Marlena's list of opinions about virtue, there's no reference to Aristotle, that hero of virtue, whose investigation of areté is a landmark of Western philosophy-no kidding.
I suspect it was the Greek notion of areté that Bill Ball was asking about when he asked whether virtue (whatever it was) could be taught, and that notion doesn't fit easily with some of the things said about virtue so far.
For Aristotle, virtue was a mean between two extremes, the extremes being defects of character: courage is a mean between rashness and timidity, e.g. (Not everything admits of a mean: there's no such thing as committing adultery in the right way with the right person at the right time-a bit of Aristotelian levity.) The virtues are 'excellences' of human character, but the list of Aristotelian virtues may not exactly match a list made up by people like us who are not male Athenian aristocrats. It would be strange though if timidity and rashness were considered virtues, and the kinds of behaviour that 'virtue' (and obviously ''areté') ranges over don't form an entirely unruly class.
'It is neither by nature nor contrary to it that we are virtuous; rather, we are adapted by nature to receive the virtues, and we become virtuous by habit.' Habituation is helped along by correction and 'training,' by this is not the kind of training the Sophists claimed to be able to provide for the children of the Athenian nouveaux riches.
'Virtue ethics' is making a sort of come back in Western philosophy, but it hasn't replaced the typical concern with rules and principles.
If Bill insists (and I hope he does) I'll read the Protagoras.
Robert Paul Reed College
I hope Robert will read the Protagoras for a follow up on the virtue thread, because we want to get straight, for purposes of discussion, whether we can teach it, once we know exactly what it is, its essence, quiddity, the form or idea of it.
The Gorgias is another matter. I think, in terms of argument and persuasion, the Protagoras is for argument by way of logic, the goal of which is discovery of a truth , while persuasion is the art of gaining assent of the listener through rhetoric, or psychology, like Reagan, or Churchill, or Demosthenes, or even Hitler (question of good and evil aside). It is what Werner Jaeger in his Paidaia calls the job of the "rhetor" in ancient Greece. The sophists used argument, like Bush who lists the simple facts that no one would disagree with on the face of its simplistic logic. What he needs is to study Ronald Reagan, the Rhetor, to move the citizenry.
Now that I've thoroughly confused everyone, let's go on.
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