by Sharon Kaye
At the same time, however, critics would point out that many of the people we admire most of all were extremists. Consider Ghandi, who starved himself to protest tyranny, or Mother Teresa, who devoted her entire life to helping the poor.
How would Aristotle respond to this objection? He might say that the apparent excess of these two was really only moderation, considering the extreme circumstances they faced. On the other hand, he might say that these two should not be admired so much after all. Either way, it is clear that there might be substantial disagreement over what constitutes the golden mean, and therefore that the doctrine needs further support.
Three types of friendship
The doctrine of the golden mean is supported by Aristotle’s theory of friendship. Whereas Plato regarded justice as the highest good, Aristotle puts friendship above justice, pointing out that those who are friends have no need of justice while those who are just still need friends.
Aristotle is also famous for asserting: ‘Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods.’ Does this seem true? Imagine yourself rich, famous and healthy, but completely friendless. Next imagine yourself poor, unhealthy and undistinguished, but surrounded by great friends. Which would you rather be? Obviously, you would rather have friends and other goods, but if you had to choose, wouldn’t you choose friendship? Aristotle thinks you would.
Not all friendships are equally valuable, however. According to Aristotle, there are three different types.
The friendship of utility is a relationship you develop because it is mutually useful. You might have such a friendship with a co-worker or a neighbour. While you are working together or living nearby, you chat and help each other out. But the relationship does not keep you from changing jobs or moving away, and, once you do, you may never see the person again.
The friendship of pleasure is a relationship you pursue for mutual enjoyment. Aristotle has in mind individuals who get together to engage in a recreational activity. In this case, interest in the activity holds priority over the people involved. In a football team, for example, players may come and go without changing the game.
Both utility friendships and pleasure friendships are tenuous and probably temporary. They exist for the sake of something else. When in such a relationship, your love is directed primarily towards the utility or the pleasure and only incidentally towards the person who helps you achieve it.
The friendship of virtue, in contrast, is all about the people involved. Here, your love is directed primarily towards your friend and only incidentally towards whatever utility or pleasure they may help you achieve. This is the highest or most valuable form of friendship because, while it does not exclude utility or pleasure, it inspires the individuals to be good.
Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good – and goodness is an enduring thing. And each is good without qualification and to his friend, for the good are both good without qualification and useful to each other. So too they are pleasant; for the good are pleasant both without qualification and to each other, since to each his own activities and others like them are pleasurable, and the actions of the good are the same or like. And such a friendship is as might be expected permanent, since there meet in it all the qualities that friends should have.
Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII, Part 3 (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.8.viii.html)
A virtue friend is someone who cares about you for your own sake, thereby encouraging you to be the best person you can be. Because you care about them for their own sake, you want to be a good friend and do the things that will make them proud of you.
Aristotle asserted that true friends are like a single soul dwelling in two bodies, not so much because they are like-minded but because they provide a reflection for one another. Looking at a true friend is like facing a mirror: you see your own achievements and failures reflected back at you.
True friendship is rare. Although it does not come easily, it is something worth striving for. Aristotle was convinced that, in striving to be the best friend you can be, you have to exercise your rational capacities, and, in so doing, you learn to act in accordance with the golden mean.
Logic
Good reasoning is crucial, not only in the moral but also in the intellectual realm. This is why Aristotle became such an enthusiastic student of logic. In fact, he is considered the father of modern logic, insofar as he was the first to develop a systematic analysis of deductive validity.
Deductive validity is when the premises of an argument necessarily imply its conclusion. For example, consider the following argument:
1 Socrates is a man.
2 All men are mortal.
3 Therefore Socrates is mortal.
Steps 1 and 2 are the premises, that is, the reasons for the inference. Step 3 is the conclusion that is inferred. This is a good argument because the premises support the conclusion.
By way of contrast, consider the following argument:
1 Some geese are white.
2 Some chickens are white.
3 Therefore some crows are white.
Each of the premises is true. Nevertheless, it is not a good argument because the premises do not support the conclusion. Even if some geese and some chickens are white, there may not be any white crows. This is to say that the inference is not deductively valid.
The argument about Socrates, in contrast, is deductively valid because, if the premises are true, then the conclusion has to be true. We don’t even need to know whether or not each of the steps is true in order to see that there is a necessary relationship between the premises and the conclusion.
It is very important to be able to recognize deductive validity because, if the structure of an argument is not valid, then there’s no point in examining its content. When appraising a house, you must first make sure the floors will hold up before deciding whether or not you like the furniture!
A three-step argument like the one above about Socrates is called a syllogism. As it turns out, you can create 24 different types of syllogism by using the following four formulas (where the variables ‘A’ and ‘B’ could stand for anything you like):
1 All As are B.
2 Some As are B.
3 No As are B.
4 Some As are not B.
Not all syllogisms are deductively valid, however. Aristotle carefully laid them out and sorted them, discussing problematic inferences. By introducing this sort of logical analysis, he set a rigorous standard for intellectual debate for ever after.
Realism
The greatest debate between Plato and Aristotle, which has become a central point of controversy among philosophers ever since, concerns the Forms. As we saw in Chapter 1, Plato argued that knowledge depends on ideal exemplars existing beyond our world. If there are no objective and universal Forms to judge our ideas against, then we are left with nothing but opinions.
Aristotle denies that Plato’s ideal exemplars exist. As an empiricist, he refuses to believe in anything that can’t be experienced first hand. He brings Plato’s Forms down to earth by asserting that they are really just the ‘sensible forms’ of things, which can be observed through the five senses.
By a ‘sense’ is meant what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter. This must be conceived of as taking place in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold; we say that what produces the impression is a signet of bronze or gold, but its particular metallic constitution makes no difference: in a similar way the sense is affected by what is coloured or flavoured or sounding, but it is indifferent to what in each case the substance is; what alone matters is what quali
ty it has.
Aristotle, De Anima, Book II, Ch.12 (http://www.aquinasonline.com/Magee/da2-512.htm)
When you see a purple onion, you can notice the purpleness it has in common with other purple objects. This means abstracting its colour away from its substance. You can think about purpleness all by itself, independently of any material object. But this does not mean that purpleness really exists in a transcendent realm beyond our world. It exists as a concept in our minds.
For Aristotle, the same holds for justice, and beauty, and truth itself. In his view, to say that these are concepts we abstract from the world is not to reduce them to mere opinions. Someone who called a purple onion ‘green’ would be incorrect, and there might be something wrong with his vision. Likewise, someone who called an unjust action ‘just’ would be incorrect, and there might be something wrong with his moral sense.
Aristotle is a realist, because he affirms that the material world is real and knowable without transcendent Forms. His view is also sometimes called immanent realism, insofar as it asserts that the forms required for knowledge reside within the objects we perceive rather than in a transcendent realm.
But can Aristotle succeed with the comparison between purple and justice? Critics may insist that moral qualities, like justice, are so unlike physical qualities, like purple, that they cannot be perceived through the five senses. Aristotle, and any empiricist like him, will have to work hard to prove that our perceptions can yield true knowledge of the world around us.
Key ideas
Deductive validity: Where the premises of an argument necessarily imply its conclusion
Doctrine of the four causes: True knowledge of something requires a fourfold explanation of its existence
Doctrine of the golden mean: The virtuous person avoids extremes, aiming always to act in a moderate fashion
Empiricism: Knowledge comes from observation of the physical world around us – the foundation of modern science
Friendship of pleasure: A relationship you pursue for mutual enjoyment
Friendship of utility: A relationship you develop because it is mutually useful
Friendship of virtue: A relationship in which your love is directed primarily towards your friend and only incidentally towards whatever utility or pleasure they may help you achieve
Syllogism: A three-step argument
Teleology: The view that everything in the universe has a special function
Fact-check
1 Aristotle argues that the formal cause of the human being is…
a To find happiness
b Having the essence of a rational animal
c Virtue
d Flesh and blood
2 If an argument is deductively valid, then the inference is…
a Probable
b Inadequate
c Necessary
d Arbitrary
3 Which of the following is the highest form of friendship, according to Aristotle?
a Pleasure
b Utility
c Knowledge
d Virtue
4 Aristotle argues that being virtuous means acting in which of the following ways?
a Moderately
b Extremely
c Predictably
d Usefully
5 How is the colour purple like justice, in Aristotle’s view?
a Both are Forms in a transcendent realm
b Both can be perceived through the five senses
c Both are ultimately illusions
d Both are formal causes of physical objects
6 Which of the following studies would appeal to an empiricist?
a Dissecting animals
b Meditating
c Reading other studies
d Applying universal laws
7 Which of the following best describes the following argument?
1 The first goose flew south
2 The second goose flew south.
3 The third goose flew south.
4 Therefore, the fourth goose will fly south.
a Invalid
b Deductive
c Syllogism
d Necessary
8 In a friendship of virtue, each values the other…
a As a means of achieving virtue
b Because they are useful
c As long as they enjoy the same activities
d For their own sake
9 Aristotle is called a ‘realist’ because…
a He was practical
b He believed the Forms are real
c He rejected visionary politics
d He affirmed that the material world around us is real and knowable
10 Which of the following would Aristotle find most praiseworthy?
a Saving as much money as you can
b Training to break an Olympic record
c Staying up all night to do well in an exam
d Attending the wedding of an old friend
Dig deeper
J. Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (Cambridge University Press, 1988)
C.D.C. Reeve, Substantial Knowledge: Aristotle's Metaphysics (Hackett, 2000)
C. Shields, Aristotle (Routledge, 2007)
3
Anselm and God as supreme being
‘Faith seeks understanding.’
Anselm of Canterbury
In this chapter you will learn:
• the meaning of Pascal’s Wager
• about Anselm’s attempt to prove the existence of God
• why Gaunilo and others reject the proof
• the problem of evil
• the meaning of theodicy
• how Augustine argues that evil is necessary
• why atheists think evil disproves the existence of God.
Thought experiment: the greatest gamble
You wake up in a blurry, unfamiliar room. You are lying in a bed with white covers. You cannot move. Your head is throbbing.
There is a woman in the room. She checks a machine by your bed and tells you that you’re in hospital. As she speaks, the room grows brighter and brighter. The light is coming from above you. Its source is unfathomably warm and beautiful. It speaks to you: ‘I will give you eternal life, if only you believe in me.’
You wake up again in the same bed in the same room. Your head is no longer throbbing and you can move freely. You soon learn that you have made a miraculous recovery from a serious car accident.
After leaving the hospital, you cannot stop thinking about your encounter with the bright light. Sometimes you feel sure it was God. At other times you feel it was just a dream induced by your head injury.
What should you believe?
At last you tell a friend about it. He responds as follows.
There are two possibilities: either it was God or it was not God. And you have two choices: to believe or not to believe. Combining the two possibilities with your two choices yields four possible results:
1. If it was God and you choose to believe, then you will receive an infinitely valuable reward – eternal life.
2. If it was God and you choose not to believe, then you will lose eternal life – in effect, an infinite penalty.
3. Suppose it was not God and you choose to believe. What have you lost? Nothing. You suffer only the disappointment of being wrong.
4. Suppose it was not God and you choose not to believe. What have you gained? Only the satisfaction of being right.
So, essentially, you are embarked on a great gamble, the greatest gamble of all. No matter how unclear your encounter may have been, the best course of action is clear. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by believing.
In fact, when you think of it this way, no one can afford not to believe in God. Regardless of whether or not you have ever had an ‘encounter’, the fact that there could be a God who will give eternal life to those and only those who believe should be enough to motivate your belief. A finite sacrifice for a chance at infinity – right?
T
he Age of Faith
After the death of Aristotle, intellectual activity in Europe slowly sank into a steep decline. The Roman Empire rose and then fell, leaving chaos in its wake. The long, dark medieval period, or ‘Middle Ages’, arrived, lasting from about AD 400 to 1400.
Life was tough during the medieval period. You counted it a good day if you simply survived. Most people never even learned to read, much less studied philosophy. With few exceptions, the Church alone kept education alive. If you were lucky enough to be born with good brains, your best bet was to join a monastery as soon as possible.
It’s not surprising, therefore, that the few philosophers the medieval period managed to produce were theologians, preoccupied with theories about God. In this unscientific era, miracles seemed to happen every day and plenty of people were convinced that they had experienced God directly. Nor was it socially acceptable to question God’s existence.
But can God’s existence be proven? This was a challenge medieval intellectuals felt ready to tackle. Some maintained that belief in God was a matter of faith alone, while others insisted that there are convincing arguments to support faith.
In Chapters 1 and 2 we saw how Plato and Aristotle pioneered two opposing epistemologies, or approaches to the search for knowledge. Plato’s epistemology, based on innate principles, is abstract and mystical; Aristotle’s, based on sensory experience of the world, is concrete and empirical. The debate between them persisted through the medieval period, garnering followers on both sides and creating divergent approaches to theology. Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) makes an argument for the existence of God inspired by Plato’s innatist approach.
Case study: Blaise Pascal and fideism
Considering how difficult it is to prove the existence of God, it’s not surprising that many philosophers have argued that theism is a matter of faith alone.