Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Hakuna Matata Section 19 Group 3:Aristotle
In discussing Aristotle we started with his
belief of Eudaimonia. Is Eudaimonia really “happiness”, could there be another
definition that displays Eudaimonia better? We all decided success would probably
be a better explanation of Eudaimonia. And we then discussed how we are
supposed to judge our Eudaimonia and how much success is needed to achieve
Eudaimonia. For everyone the level of Eudaimonia could be different depending
on their expectations. Whatever someone feels is a good fulfillment for life is
apart of their overall Eudaimonia. We then discussed the doctrine of the golden
mean which we thought was a happy medium. Aristotle said the good patterns of
behavior is virtues and bad is vices. We tried to figure out why the vices does
not have a doctrine of the golden mean, if they have an extreme or range. We
then thought maybe the vices are needed to define what the virtues are? The
virtue of bravery was the example Aristotle used with a range of cowardly and
full heartedly. We began to make sure everyone understood that Aristotle was
Plato’s student but rejected his ideals. We tried to get a better understanding
of Plato’s Theory of Forms and how Aristotle believed examples was a better way
to understand what something is, rather than just thinking about the perfect
way something can be. The Theory of forms are the ideas of a perfect thing
rather than the actual thing. Aristotle believed this way of thinking was
irrelevant. Brought up next was how nobody questioned Aristotle’s beliefs. For
a period of time this was very bad for the progress of philosophy because
nobody else came up with a different philosophy, which is essentially the whole
point of Philosophy. When trying to define the time in which Plato had taught
Aristotle we found Aristotle was in his mid 20’s and Plato was middle aged. Going
back to the discussion of happiness, we were trying to decide if each day
contributes to your happiness depending on your mood. Overall we came up with some great ideas and tried to help each other understand Aristotle's ideals.
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I definitely agree on everything we discussed in class but I am still kind of confuse on The Form tactic.
ReplyDeleteI think discussing Aristotle's beliefs and comparing them to views of Plato and Socrates helped me get a better understanding of all of them. I found I agree more with Aristotle's philosophical opinions and relate least to Plato. So I understand why Aristotle rejected him!
ReplyDeleteOur discussion was very beneficial for me, and i was able to get a better understanding of Aristotles beliefs such as the his doctrine of the golden mean.
ReplyDeleteQuestions on Blackburn reading:
factual-Why does Blackburn believe moral relativism is not accurate?
discussion-Whats the relavance of subjectivism related to relativism?
I personally found this discussion to be very interesting. In comparing Aristotle to Plato and Socrates, I feel as though I learned much more about not only Aristotle but also these two very influential philosophers before him. The theory of forms from Plato still blows my mind a little, although I do believe I disagree with it, which is an example of why I can understand Aristotle's rejections of Plato's ideas. On the subject of measuring happiness, I do agree that it's not necessarily based on one's mood throughout each individual day to an extent. I don't believe there's a halfway benchmark that says, "if you've had just one more bad day than good at the end of your life overall, you're ultimately unhappy." However, I do feel that happiness is more dependent on the grand scheme of things currently happening or in your life than just solely the events of whatever day it may be. I'm probably not making sense anymore, so I will end on this note. Then again it doesn't seem that philosophers do always make sense, so maybe that's okay.
ReplyDeleteI thought we had a very good discussion on the subject of Forms as well as the Golden Mean. The Theory of Forms intrigued me the most i must say. From my understanding, this Forms theory relates everything in our natural world to something un-naturally perfect in some alternate existence, as a way of being able to further examine the subject at hand in its "perfect" state, creating a sort of euphoria so to speek. As far as questions go:
ReplyDeletefactual - Blackburn says that "the relativist is really trying to undermine something in our practices". What is the relativist "undermining"?
discussion - How does Blackburn's idea of Quasi-realism relate to subjectivism and relativism?
I enjoyed our discussion on Aristotle and also his teacher, Plato. I helped me to gain a better understanding of Aristotle's view on happiness, his doctrine of the golden mean and his term eudaimonia. I also understand now what Pluto's theory of the forms are and I have to say I agree more so with Aristotle's philosophies and way of thinking. It was a good discussion and allowed us all to compare and contrast Aristotle and Pluto and how we view and seek happiness.
ReplyDeleteBlackburn questions:
Factual: What term is used for people who think that there must be a fact?
Discussion: How does subjectivism relate to Blackburn's pragmatic view on relativism?
I thought our discussion went pretty well about the definition of happiness and everything. I like to think that everyone has their own idea of what happiness is therefore its a changing definition with each person. This is probably why Aristotle and Plato disagreed on this aspect because there can't be a good medium of a definition.
ReplyDelete