Are we After Virtue or is Virtue After us?

When I chose this title, I was thinking of this double meaning of being after the time of virtue and Aristotle as well as striving after or toward Virtue. But the question that came to me while thinking and discussing this play on words is if virtue is really after us. Is virtue taking place after us or is virtue pursuing our consciousness.

For my first counter thought, Virtue is something that is seemingly made by man and yet common to men. In an almost stoic way it seems like after the human virtue is attainable, through the death to self and a reliance on something other than human– becoming more than human is the only means to attain virtue. This having its roots in the more biblical and religious garden on my mind, the words of Paul, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” I understand that this train of thought moves outside of philosophy into a more theological approach but it is still something try as I might to avoid, the lives of the saints points to something more than human.

My second twist on the question takes into account a more Hegelian view of the Spirit working in the world through the rational consciousness of men in time. It could very well be that we are after the virtue of the past but the virtue is still being manifested in new and more dare I say ‘perfect’ ways as the World Spirit manifests itself more fully in cultures and States throughout the world. This in a way makes virtue something that moves and changes while the end goal never changes. It makes room for a changing virtue that while a phronimus is present in a time and a place, the course of history will continue to mold the phronimus in relation to previous ones. They will collectively grow on each other.

THEE Line of the Metaphysics

The first line of Aristotle’s Metaphysics continues to stop me in my tracks. “All men by nature desire to know.” What does he mean by desire? What are we desiring to know? What nature, the animal or the rational? If we want to know it rationally, does he mean logically or more reasonably? Can attain this knowledge… or maybe he cannot and will always only be trying to achieve it.

In my understanding, this is all very tied into his notion that man is in time, in a place, in a culture, in an upbringing and in relation to others. Throughout this course we have touched on a variety of these questions I have posed above though not very in depth. For me the desire to know seems in opposition to the idea that metaphysics is the first philosophy of the time. It sounds like the desire to know would be more closely tied to Epistemology as first philosophy. Understandably, at the point in history when this was supposedly written, the focus of epistemology was of the meta-physical for both Plato as well as for Aristotle to an end. Anyways, back to the train of thought revolving around this desire in a context and in a time. I believe that the Phronimus in the culture would posses and demonstrate the desire to know in the way of the time and the place. Arguably, the desire to know would be different for many people but is there an ultimate desire to know as shown by the Phronimus? Like Aristotle doesn’t describe the absolute good, I find myself in a very similar situation where I could see that there is a hierarchy of desired knowledge but defining the highest thing desired to be known besides perhaps God would prove to be very difficult.

On Being and Essence- The End of Perfect Circles

           During my very naive reading and notes from class on Aquinas’s “On Being and Essence” something has stuck with me and has left me with an awe and a sort of sadness. It is this understanding that his chain of being from prime matter to God is no longer something that can be applied alone to what is in the world. In Aquinas, there is the ‘beautiful’ if I may view of Man being at the height of the physical world where his intellect reaches beyond the physics even though his form is in not without matter. This human composite sits at this middle point where he is the most complex thing that exists. This is contrasted with God who is pure act and prime matter which is pure potency. As a compost, there is unending restlessness between his unified rational and irrational nature. This ‘fight’ forms the basis for the philosophy of that time, the time before, and for a while after.

           As class periods have gone by both in Metaphysics and 19&20th, this thought that there is no way anyone can return to the same thought process as Aquinas and fully understand how he came to this end has humbled me. The idea that it is impossible to see the world through his without taking into account the knowledge modern science, my experience, and many other biases has greatly decreased whatever little confidence I had in this faulty belief. This semester in particular, I have in a sense lost this mentality of seeking out the perfect circles. Philosophy is always morphing into something new, the idea of a single ‘T’ruth out there to be followed and obeyed is not longer as appealing or as realistic, if I may, as it once was. This view I once held or this goal I desired to achieve, much like Aquinas’s perfect world of angels marching in circles around God with man in the center of this great divide, has died.

Jean Vanier on Aristotle

One of the first things that I immediately thought when I first began to hear this man talk was the enthusiasm and something like love or adoration he had when speaking about Aristotle. In the question “Can Greek philosophy be a guide for life?” he immediately speaks of Aristotle’s focus on reality. This immediately called to mind the beginning of Aristotle’s Metaphysics where all men by nature desire to know. And for Aristotle it seems like all men desire to know reality. This philosophy that everything comes from reality through our sensory data is spoken of as being a part of a man who was passionately searching for reality.

What is very interesting to me coming with 19th and 20th thoughts still fresh in my brain is this focus on reality but not only in the things of the senses. His work in Metaphysics where man searches for the reality of what is the first cause and the substance, nature, and form of the reality that he experiences on a daily basis. In a society focused so intently on the physics of everything and the meaning placed in the present physics only, hearing Vanier speak of Aristotle’s passion for reality seems to be more complete than what is presented by more modern thinkers.

Vanier seems to make sure to paint Aristotle as a man focused on the person. Agreeably, Aristotle did not have a ‘full’ view of who a person was, but Vanier draws on what Aristotle sees a ‘person’ doing. The idea that a person was a part of a democracy like society, which for me speaks to a more individualistic view persons interactions. Aristotle’s society was complete with private organizations and bodies and was in some way surprising to me. I had painted Aristotle as more of a collectivist in my head. The ‘few’ are people ‘out of’ the group due to their virtue while at the same time raised up within the group to lead. They are not totally within and communal in the way I had originally thought.

First Reflection on Ladder of Inference and Changing One’s Thinking

My reaction to this “Ladder of Inference” is to grin in realization of how often I fall into this very way of thinking. In the provided text, I found the line line “our ability to achieve the results we truly desire is eroded by our feelings that:

• (1) Our beliefs are the truth
• (2) the truth is obvious
• (3) our beliefs are based on real data
• (4) The data we select are the real deal”

to be very crucial in understanding that there is so much bias that goes into every day choices, assumptions and activities. It made me wonder the question of how reliable our sensory data is. Even if we can scientifically understand how we can misinterpret things and what happens that leads our senses to be deceived. I’m thinking of the stick in water problem. How can we fully understand how our presuppositions change what we perceive and how we interpret the same data. It makes the idea that we can come to know the form of the object itself very questionable for me.

What is even more disturbing for me is the idea that the way we think can be changed to such an extent. If the basis of a ‘rational’ argument is influenced by terms which are constantly changing to each person using them how can a fundamentally rational or logical argument hold. It seems like it would be very difficult to say something concrete about many things. Thinking with Descartes, it is very easy to doubt what one holds to be true. If much of how one thinks can be characterized as being on some part of this ladder of inference, where is a solid foundation?

Finally, practically speaking I found this ladder of inference to be a great asset to my daily life. I want to see this way of thinking taught to people as a standardized method to be mindful of the self. At least in my own life, continuing to pursue this mindfulness and looking inward perhaps not in the stoic method alone but in a more understanding way of how I am influenced and how I influence what I see is helpful.