Latham Crihfield
Dr. Phil Oliver
Intro to Philosophy (PHIL 1030-008)
February 23, 2017
Date Missed: Quiz for Thursday, February 16th
This essay is to make up for the quiz on the missed day of February
16th, 2017. Life has delivered us many idioms of the course of several
hundred years. There is one famous idiom that we all may or may not
have heard: “One swallow does not make a summer.” The legendary Greek
philosopher Aristotle first coined this idiom. Like all idioms, this
particular one has a unique meaning behind it. Now what Aristotle meant
by his idiom of “one swallow doesn’t make a summer” was that just
because you say something good has happened does not mean that one or
more good things will happen afterwards to improve on whatever situation
you are in. In this case, if you happen to see a swallow, it does not
mean that the summer season will happen right after or later on.
Another example might be if you see a four-leaf clover, it does not mean
that you will become rich. With that in mind, let us now focus on the
lesson of virtues and self-happiness. Now, the Greek term “eudaimonoia”
often means happiness or welfare, particularly over personal agendas or
calmness in oneself. In order to increase our chances of improving our
personal welfare, or eudaimonia, we must practice self-control, create
motivation for ourselves, and focus on our own well-being and personal
agendas. We cannot achieve eudaimonia however, without first having a
set of virtues. Virtues are our own versions of having high moral
standards that are specific characteristics to be valued; it is a vital
trait or quality of an individual that is deemed morally good. Virtues
are considered a foundation of higher principles of good moral beings.
“Truth by authority” is knowledge based on authority. This kind of
“truth”, however, may depend on the reputation of the individual or upon
the institution of authority, like a well-known university or the
government of Greece. If the truth comes from a person of high
standards, such as a king or a governor of a city or town, their truth
is considered of higher value than that of a show polisher or carpenter
or even a homeless person who has been living in the dirt and mud for
many years now. This kind of authority can be harmful to people’s
philosophies or philosophy in general. It can forcefully obtain or
censor knowledge, or perhaps it can intervene on an individual’s free
will and moral standards. Even worse, authoritative truth can often be
imposed onto the people as the actual truth and that nothing else can
challenge it. In other words, it can be considered to be the “real
truth” (or “alternative truth” in today’s society, as Miss Conway so
infamously coined the term “alternative facts”). Philosophy is the
study of how a person seeks knowledge about the world, its environment,
and its existence, and the authority of truth based on a person who’s
status was higher than that of Aristotle’s status greatly affects the
terms of philosophy as a result.
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