June 23, 2025 • 38 mins
Plato and Aristotle are, hands down, the most influential philosophers of all time. In this lecture we take a look at the life and teachings of Aristotle. Aristotle wrote on everything from metaphysics to biology to ethics to politics. What did he believe and why was his influence so overwhelmingly massive?
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0:00 Aristotle's Enormous Influence on Philosophy and Theology4:33 Aristotle's Life, Philosophy, and Controversial Beliefs7:19 Aristotle's Lasting Influence on Philosophy and Science12:06 Exploring Aristotle's Influence on Perception of Being14:41 Aristotle Versus Plato: Substance and Forms in Metaphysics16:40 Defining a Table and Identity Through Philosophical Inquiry18:34 Plato and Aristotle's Divergent Views on Forms and Reality20:07 Aristotle's Concept of Substance and Its Inconsistencies23:29 Aristotle's Virtue Ethics and the Pursuit of Human Excellence26:58 Aristotle's Golden Mean: Balancing Virtues Between Extremes28:33 Practicing Virtues and Skills Requires Effort and Persistence30:09 Aristotle's View on Politics and Human Flourishing31:13 Aristotle's Views on Slavery and Natural Inequality33:05 Aristotle's Political Philosophy and Critique of Democracy
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Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Hello and welcome to another edition of Ideological.
I am your host, Zach Lee, and I hope that you are doing great.
Today is a very special day. Today is Aristotle Day.
Today we're going to talk about a figure whose influence is so
enormous that you, you can really just have a podcast just
on different elements of his thought.
(00:29):
Like there could be an entire podcast, not just like 1
episode, but like every week they just come out with a
different aspect of his thought.He's that much of A genius.
And so today we're talking aboutAristotle.
And we can't cover everything inone lesson of such an enormous
figure, but we're going to do our best and we're going to have
fun mainly talking about his metaphysics, ethics, and, and
(00:50):
some of his political views. But I first want to start out by
talking about how this guy's a big deal.
OK? The Beatles are a big deal,
right? And, you know, Michael Jordan's
a big deal. Aristotle makes them all look
like hated children. His influence is absolutely
enormous. We're talking about the guy
(01:11):
that's in the top one or two greatest philosophers of all
time. OK, there's debate on this.
Some people think it's Plato. Usually they say plato's #1
Aristotle's number 2. There's a famous quote by Alfred
N Whitehead where he says all ofWestern philosophy is but
footnotes to Plato. But others have argued that
actually Aristotle's influence might be bigger than Plato's
because though Plato had a huge influence and even was the
(01:35):
teacher of Aristotle, Aristotle's biology, science,
the way he influenced the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle
Ages and all that kind of stuff,he might have a bigger
influence. Especially with people today,
most of us are more naturally Aristotelian than we are
Platonic. And so anyway, Aristotle, big
freaking deal. He is the forerunner of all the
(01:55):
science and biology we have today.
He basically invented logic. Now let me be clear, you can't
invent logic. Logic is math.
Logic is is there before Aristotle.
What I mean is, he's really the first one that we know of to
have a full-fledged system of logic.
Other people had written on elements of it, at least in his
own. Let me say it this way.
(02:15):
He might not be the only person to the the the first person to
have a full-fledged system of logic.
He thinks, and his influence is so enormous that he is kind of
considered to be. That's a better way to say it.
There are other people that wrote about logical things
before, but he's kind of considered to be the original
systematizer of a system of logic.
His system of logic will be usedthe most throughout world
(02:37):
history. It it won't, it won't change
until a couple of guys, Bull andFrega are their last names, will
change some elements of logic, but Aristotle's logic will be
kind of the standard for a long time.
He actually writes in the Sophistical Refutations talking
about logic. He said when it comes to this
subject, it is not the case thatpart had been worked out in
advance and part had not. Instead nothing existed at all.
(02:57):
So he thinks he's kind of a big deal logically.
He is a big deal. Logically, his influence on
Judaism, on Islam, on Christianity would be enormous.
These religious systems would all use Aristotle to kind of
systematize their theology. In Judaism, he influenced Moses
Maimonides. In Islam, he influenced Avicenna
(03:21):
and Averroes. Aquinas.
Thomas Aquinas, who's again a big deal.
Thomas Aquinas is probably the second most influential
theologian in Roman Catholicism after Augustine, maybe third
overall. And so he he's just, he simply
calls Aristotle the philosopher.Like when you're reading his
Summa Theologia, he just says things like the philosopher
(03:42):
says, and he just means Aristotle cause Aristotle is the
philosopher. Aristotle's influence is felt in
poetry, politics, rhetoric, science, logic, philosophy,
theology, psychology and education.
His works were not accessible tomost of Europe for hundreds of
years, though a few works have been translated early, but it
didn't really hit Europe until about the 12th century.
(04:03):
Arabic writers had actually usedhim earlier and so he was more
widely known in the kind of the Islamic world before it became
really popular to read him in universities in in Europe.
So anyway, Aristotle's, whether you love him or hate him, his
influence is enormous. I'm very aroused right now.
Aristotle, He's he's doing great.
(04:24):
Let's talk about his life. He was born in 384.
By the way. Sometimes people wonder what I'm
doing with this. I'm looking at my notes.
I like looking at you right intoyour soul.
I like zooming in and saying something deep, but I also have
to look at my notes. He was born in 384 BCE and it's
pronounced in Greek Stagera, which is a a place in northern
Greece. In 367, he moved to Athens where
(04:46):
he attended Plato's Academy for 20 years.
So I don't know how long you went to college, but to to study
with Plato and his disciples andwalk around Peripatetic style
and learn about philosophy, somefrom the greatest, you know,
philosophy and philosophy city at the time is incredible.
In 343, he was invited to tutor Alexander the Great.
(05:08):
Look at this lineage, Socrates, suppose so.
You've got Socrates and his linkto teaching Plato.
We don't have anything actually written by Socrates himself.
We have things about him from Plato.
Plato uses him as a mouthpiece. But you've got Socrates and then
his student Plato, and then Plato's student Aristotle.
And then Aristotle's student is Alexander the Great, who, by the
(05:30):
way, conquered the known world in his 20s.
I don't know what you were doingin your 20s, probably getting
drunk and playing Xbox, but Alexander the Great was
conquering the known world. That's quite a lineage.
He's not called Alexander the Pretty Good.
He's so Aristotle is doing some big things.
In 335, he returns to Athens andshortly thereafter sets up his
rival school, the Lyceum. He's often shown, if you look at
(05:53):
pictures of Aristotle, you know,it's not like we have
photographs, but if you Google it, he's often shown in like a
bust with a beard. That's because a beard was seen
as like a mark of an intelligentphilosopher.
Let's just let that set for a second.
Bearded men make better philosophers.
However, he probably did not actually have a beard.
Diogenes Layers just said that he was shaved.
(06:17):
He was one of the few major philosophers to be married.
Most in most famous philosophersin western history were
bachelors. He is an unashamed elitist.
OK, so let me be let me just saythis.
He would certainly be cancelled.In our day, he defended slavery.
He thought Greeks were smarter and better than foreigners, the
Barbarians. He thought women were incomplete
men. And he also thought people who
(06:37):
are more talented and virtuous should have more honors and
rewards. So he is not egalitarian.
He is elitist. He thinks some people are better
than other people by nature and by training when it comes to
things like virtuous living. He died in 322.
And when he did, he had a large estate, 2 teenage kids, and a
common law wife because his previous wife had died.
(06:58):
OK, that's our boy Aristotle. Let's talk about his works.
Looking at Aristotle's works is trickier than other ancient
authors. Let me tell you why.
One, when we have ancient list of his works, we don't have some
of those today. So we're like, where are these
works? There's also things that we have
in our list today that ancient writers might not have
additionally, and this is the biggest, the biggest, so we
don't have Aristotle's full corpus.
(07:19):
This is the biggest thing, though.
Most of what we have from Aristotle has at some point kind
of been put together and edited.We don't have so.
So for example, if you read MobyDick, Moby Richard, I don't want
to offend anyone, by Herman Melville, which I think is one
of the greatest works of fictionof all time.
That is a sustained story from beginning to end.
(07:41):
Or even if you read philosophical works, take
Descartes, Meditations, he has apurpose for why he's writing
that and he writes it and it, it, it all goes together and it
all makes sense whether you agree or disagree.
From Aristotle, though, we we primarily have almost like his
students, classroom notes. They're things that are kind of
thrown together. So they're very difficult to
read sometimes. They're not super systematic.
(08:02):
There are several places where there are just, in my view,
straight up contradictions. Some people think that you can
harmonize it, but I think that there's just some contradictions
because in most of these works he was teaching, writing,
whatever. And at some point they're put
together, but you don't have thesame kind of linear just hi, I'm
Aristotle and I just want to write this treatise only on
every topic. I mean, we have some areas, like
(08:23):
some areas of his works, you're like, this is a sustained
argument and this is great and it can go on for a while.
Some works even seem a lot more linear and sustained than
others. But a lot of what we have is
kind of put together piece meal.So just keep that in mind.
He's he's difficult to read anyway.
His language is difficult and we're kind of reading, we're
kind of a family on the wall forsome teaching moments.
(08:43):
And so let me give you his most enduring works.
This is not the full list. These are the ones, though, that
if you want to get into Aristotle, these would be great
places to start. Categories de interpretacione or
on interpretation, Prior analytics, posterior analytics
topics, sophistical refutations,Physics.
Physics is a great place to start.
It's actually very metaphysical,despite the fact that it's
(09:03):
called physics Metaphysics, which is a different work, also
dealing with metaphysics. De Anima, that is his view of
the OR his work on the soul. That'll be very popular in the
Middle Ages, as well as a defense of the soul history of
animals. Why did I include that one?
Because you need to understand that Aristotle is a top rate
biologist. And that's a good work if you
(09:23):
kind of want to understand how he thinks of Aristotle's just as
comfortable studying like the mating habits of frogs as he is
talking about being OK. The Nick of McCann Ethics would
be his primarily primary ethicalwork, the Udemian ethics.
There's a lot of crossover between those two, politics,
rhetoric, rhetoric and poetics. I like how I made a mistake
saying the word rhetoric. It's ironic, ironical, as I've
(09:45):
heard people say. So this is Aristotle.
His influence is enormous. We can't go over everything in
his thought. I I just can't emphasize to you
what a big deal this guy is, whether you love him or hate
him. After Aristotle, people are just
going to have to deal with this thought.
There is no doing theology. You have to have a system that
(10:06):
undergirds that theology. What is theology?
It's whatever your religious tradition teaches, plus a way of
systematizing it so it doesn't contradict.
And Aristotle becomes the guy inthe Middle Ages.
Later, though most of the MiddleAges is not aware of what's
going on with most of Aristotle's writings.
But the same thing in Islam, thesame thing in Judaism.
They are all having to deal withthis guy.
(10:27):
But not just that, I mean other guys later on will appeal back
to his views of teleology, back to his views of purpose.
Teleology being that everything has a purpose, things go a
certain way for a reason. His view of the world will also
be extremely powerful and popular.
He believed that the universe was eternal.
A lot of philosophers believed that he very much had a view of
(10:50):
the world and the universe and how things function that would
be strongly challenged by like Galileo and these kind of guys
later to say, no, Aristotle's not right.
Aristotle's physics is kind of the the primary view of the
physical world really until someone like Isaac Newton.
Isaac Newton is such an influential figure, not just
because apples fall on his head,because in a sense his physical
system is replacing Aristotle. Now, again, there's other guys
(11:13):
that had come before Newton. Anytime I say something in a 30
minute podcast, I can't give allthe qualifiers.
And people think if I don't giveall the qualifiers, I don't know
it or should have said it or whatever.
I can't give all the qualifiers.So give me grace anyway.
So he he is people, some people hate him.
They fight against him, but he is, he is the guy.
(11:34):
All right. He is the yeah.
So let's talk about his metaphysics.
Metaphysics is actually just a term for his works that came
after physics that was later given there.
These meta means after in Greek and Fusus is physics.
So it's really just the lecturesafter physics.
But what metaphysics means specifically to Aristotle, and
(11:54):
he says this in his metaphysics,is that he's trying to study
trying to study being qua being.What does that mean?
That means being in so far as itis being.
So he's trying to study being itself, not just individual
beings. A pencil, Zach, something like
this. This is a pen, by the way.
I said pencil. It's also purple 'cause I'm
fancy. He's trying to study being
(12:15):
itself being qua being. And for Aristotle, there's
different categories of being. So let's do something less
boring. What I want you to do is
wherever you're listening to this or watching this, I want
you to look around the room and I want you to name some objects
in the room, OK? You might say things like there
are books, there's your phone, there's a computer, there's your
(12:37):
hand, there's a water bottle. You might name individual
objects. So go ahead and and for a
second, just name some things inthe room.
I'll wait. OK, Do you have your list?
You name some things. You most likely name the things
that I just named these individual physical objects.
If you're a little more trying to trick me, you might say
(12:59):
things like Zach, there's not just a book in the room.
There's words on the pages. And if you're especially,
especially bright, you might saycrazy things like there's light
and air in the room. Great.
Here's what you probably didn't name.
Sitting is in the room. Notice that I'm sitting.
There's an action in the room. Time is in the room beside this.
(13:20):
Check this out. Here's a coaster, and here's a
pen. And the pen is now beside the
coaster. You probably didn't name things
like numbers. How many numbers are in this
room? An infinite number, whatever it
might be. So my point is, there's all
redness is in the room. We didn't just name a a straight
up color. We probably said there's a red
(13:40):
book, but just redness itself. There's a lot of different kinds
of beings that are in the room. Why did you primarily focus on
individual objects? And the answer is because you
have been influenced by Aristotle, whether you've read
them or not. Again, his influence is that
big. So he divides being into
different kinds of beings. I'll name it name, I'll name
(14:01):
them. This is his list of 10 and
sometimes he's a little more reserved on when he gives a list
and and what he includes. But here's a list of 10.
Substance, quantity, quality, relatives or relation somewhere
or place, sometime or time beingin a position or just what
people call position. Having or being in a state.
(14:21):
Sometimes people just say state acting or action and then being
acted upon or what's called passion.
Passion for ancient writers usually means being affected by
something. If they talk about the passions,
the idea is that you're kind of this passive victim and they
just hit you and they change you.
But anyway, of those 10 categories, though, which one
for Aristotle is the most important, the primary way of
(14:42):
being, and it is substance. OK, let's do some nerd things.
The easiest way to understand Aristotle's view of metaphysics
is to contrast him with his teacher, Plato.
OK, now again, that's not play dough, the clay that you smush
through that little thing and make the weird spaghetti noodles
that look super gross. Plato with AT this is going to
be a just a crass simplificationof Plato.
(15:05):
How do we know what's beautiful down here on earth?
How do we know what's justice down here on earth?
How do we know these kind of things?
For Plato, the answer is there is an eternal world above us,
that the world is 2 tiered. There's the world down here, the
shadows where things are instantiated.
And there's individual things like, you know, hamburgers and
trees and hippopotamus, and there's all these kind of things
(15:29):
down here, but they're not the most real things.
They're just like a shadow. The most real things are up in
the heavens. They're what he calls the Forms.
What is a form? For Plato?
It's a standard definition of something.
It's the standard of goodness. And then individual things down
here have that to a degree, or it's the standard of beauty or
the standard of justice. Or how do we know what a
(15:51):
triangle is down here? Because there's a perfect
triangle in the Forms and everything down here
instantiates that, like yield signs or like pieces of pizza.
And then we have triangles. That's Plato's view.
It is very top down. You have these standard forms,
these standard definitions of things in the heavens that our
souls have seen, he thinks are back in eternity.
He thinks humans didn't just start existing when their
(16:12):
parents had sex. And then we come down here and
we compare things down here, theshadows to the Forms.
Anyway, that's Plato. We need a whole lecture on
Plato. We don't have time for it today,
but that's his view. Now I'm I'm going to simplify it
with an analogy that Plato wouldhave hated because he likes
talking about big concepts like goodness, the good.
And I'm going to use a man made artifact, which he would hate.
But I'm going to do this becauseI think it's helpful.
(16:33):
If you have a table with four legs, is that a table?
You'd probably say, sure. You might be sitting at a table
with four legs right now. If I take away one of the legs,
is that still a table? You'll say, yeah, I think that's
you can have a three legged table.
Perfect. You and I are in agreeance.
It's not. I don't think that's a word.
Well, it might be. Let's say we only have two legs
(16:54):
now on the table and we lean it against a wall.
Is that a table? Sure.
Now let's say though, that we take off all the legs and then
it's just a piece of wood on theground.
Is it a table? Now, most of you would probably
say no, it's just a piece of wood.
Not all pieces of wood are tables.
A piece of particle board at a construction site is not a
(17:15):
table. How did you know that?
How did you know what a table was?
And then how did you know when it was no longer a table?
Well, maybe you say Zach, maybe it's it's function that makes it
a table. It's something that holds up
food. Well, no, a military briefing
room table doesn't hold up food.And it's a table or when you eat
(17:36):
food, you know, sitting down on your lap, that doesn't mean your
lap or your plate is a table. So it's not just the function of
it. How did you know what a table
was? And then how did you know when
it changed? Or if I say, am I Zach?
If I lose my hair, you'll say yes, and I'll say, am I Zach?
If I were to, like be vaporized or somehow actually became a
woman, you'd be like, maybe not.How did you know what Zach was?
Well, again, Plato would not usethis for just me as Zach or as a
(17:58):
table. I'm using this as an example to
teach you because it's easier. But imagine for a second that up
in the heavens there's a standard definition of table
that's already imprinted on yourmind.
That's how you knew what a tablewas when I said could you have a
2 legged table? And you thought, yeah, there's a
definition of a table and two legs fits.
But then when we took all the legs off the table, you said no
again. He would do bigger things like
(18:19):
goodness. But you get the point.
That is Plato. Aristotle's is the opposite.
OK, now let me be clear. I'm not saying that Aris and a
lot of people misunderstand this.
Aristotle is not saying that justice and beauty do not exist.
All he's saying is that they exist in so far as some
substances are just or beautiful.
(18:40):
So whereas Plato's top down, Aristotle is bottom up.
For Aristotle, the form of a horse is in a horse.
It is the individual things. What we do is we look at a horse
and we look at a horse and we look at a horse and we get this
kind of category of what what a horse is.
And so it's not just that there's a form of horseness and
the horses down here partake in that horseness.
(19:02):
It's rather that the hoarseness is in the individual horse or
goodness or beauty or justice isan individual substances that
are just or good or beautiful. So whereas Plato is having this
two tiered structure of reality,Aristotle kind of has one tier.
I look at a horse and that individual horse obviously has
hoarseness. I look at something individually
(19:23):
that's beautiful, let's say a a sunset or a flower.
And that thing has beauty, but it has it not detached from the
substance. OK, that's huge for
understanding Aristotle. Anyway, easiest way to think of
it is this famous painting of we, we might even throw it on
the screen of Plato and Aristotle where Plato is
pointing up at the sky and Aristotle has his hand stretched
(19:45):
out. And Plato's talking about the
forms up in the heavens and Aristotle's saying no things
down here. Let's look at individual things.
Let's look at individual substances, etcetera.
Now I keep saying substance. What does Aristotle mean by
substance? A substance for Aristotle.
So if Plato's primarily talking about forms.
Aristotle's primarily talking about substance.
A substance for Aristotle, though, is not a stuff.
(20:06):
Don't think of. How we think of substance today
is. We think of like atoms or water
or, you know, if I say what is that substance made of?
If you're like the cake, it's made of like bread or flour.
We think of it as a stuff. That's not what he means by
substance. Substance for Aristotle means
something like the primary way of existing.
And, and here's what's frustrating about Aristotle.
(20:28):
He's sometimes inconsistent on his definition of substance.
OK, sometimes substance is individuated.
So Zach, me the person, Zach is a substance, but the category of
man is not. But sometimes substance is
definable and not individuated. So sometimes man is a substance,
but Zach is not. So let me let me give you some
places where he kind of contradicts himself, the primary
(20:48):
meaning of substance. And by the way, if you if you
have to say, OK, I'm going to oversimplify.
What does Aristotle mean by substance?
This is the best definition. This comes from categories his
work categories substance strictly so-called, primarily in
par excellence is that which is neither said of subject nor is
in a subject, EG such and such aman, such and such a horse.
Second substances are the species and genera to which the
(21:10):
primary substances belong. Thus such and such a man belongs
to the species human, and the genus of his species is animal.
So both human and animal are called second substances.
What he's trying to say is therethere's a sense in which man,
mankind, or horse kind are a secondary substance.
The primary way to think of substances, though, is an
(21:32):
individual object. For Aristotle, the primary way
to view substance is individual middle sized objects.
So I, Zach, am a substance. This water bottle is a
substance. OK, that's a substance.
Not just me, human, not just humanity, but Zach is a
substance. That's his primary way.
(21:52):
But there are other places wherehe talks about these categories
of substance and even these moreeternal kind of substances when
he talks about like the unmoved movers of the universe.
I'll give you a quote from his metaphysics.
Hence the first heavens must be eternal.
There is therefore something which moves them.
And since what both moves and ismoved has an intermediate
status, there must be a mover which moves them without being
(22:15):
moved. Eternal and a substance and
actual. What does he mean by that?
Aristotle's theology, he, he thinks that the stories of the
gods like Zeus, Greek mythology,you need those for dumb people.
You need those for the vulgar tohelp them understand they're not
as smart as philosophers. But really those are just dumb.
There's obviously not these kindof anthropomorphic gods.
(22:36):
Rather what stands behind those gods are these like eternal
principles of the universe. And in a sense, those things are
a type of substance par excellence.
So he's a little bit inconsistent.
Summary. What does all this mean?
Again, I find this stuff so fascinating and some of you are
like, yes, talk to me more dirtytheology and other people are
(22:57):
like, why am I not listening to a podcast that is just Wiener
jokes? That would be so much more fun.
I just need to throw more of those in here.
For Aristotle, individual middlesized objects, regular things we
encounter throughout our day, the tree, the hydrangea, the
person, like the specific person.
Bob, your friend, those are substances.
(23:17):
OK, let's talk about his ethics real quick.
I have a whole lecture that should that's already been
recorded on different ethical, excuse me, ethical systems and
Aristotle's virtue ethics is oneof those.
But just to summarize because I don't want to repeat that entire
lesson. Whereas most systems of ethics,
and you primarily get this in Udemian ethics and then
Nicomachean ethics again. And there's a lot of crossover
(23:38):
between those two works. Whereas most systems of ethics
try to create a list, it's almost Kazu St. like a list of
just right and wrong ethical things.
Murder equals bad. Helping someone equals good.
Adultery each equals bad helping.
Aristotle is not as interested in playing that game.
He will go through certain virtues and he will list certain
(23:59):
virtues and vices in in in theseworks.
And so he's not avoiding it all together, but he doesn't give
you a comprehensive list. What he tries to do instead is
he tries to make you understand that the goal of an ethical or
virtuous life is to become an excellent person.
This is why sometimes this is called Aritaic ethics right
after the the Greek word Aritae,which means excellence.
(24:20):
By that what he means is human flourishing, maximizing your
potential being what a human is made to be.
A human, if they are truly flourishing and truly being
virtuous, will seek after a lifeof rational contemplation which
leads to virtuous action as theysubmit themselves to virtues and
discipline themselves to be virtuous.
This will lead to not only happiness in life.
(24:42):
Aristotle thinks, one, if you don't have all the virtues, you
don't have any of them because they all are going to go
together and you have to know how to use them.
But also he thinks that if you're not virtuous, you cannot
be happy. Again, listen to the ethics
lecture. I talk more about that.
I don't want to repeat all that stuff here.
But what what he's trying to do is virtue ethics for Aristotle,
is that somebody chooses to act virtuously over time, which
causes them to become a virtuousperson who naturally does what
(25:04):
is right, who acts from the right motivations under a life
of rational contemplation, who maximizes their virtuous human
potential. That's his view of ethics.
So he's trying to get you to be an excellent human, which he
thinks means being virtuous. That's what will make you happy.
That's what humans are made to do.
They're made to embrace the different things a human is
supposed to do at that time in life unimpeded.
(25:25):
OK, that's a great way to say it.
To live a successful life for Aristotle, to have pleasure, is
doing standard activity that humans are supposed to do
unimpeded, supposed to enjoy unimpeded.
That's the goal of life for Aristotle.
That's how that makes you a virtuous person.
So then when the issue comes up,you know what to do.
So instead of having to create alist of 1000 do's or don'ts,
(25:48):
also known as 1000, become the kind of virtuous person that
when the situation arises, you know what you should do without
having to have the list. Become the kind of person that
can see virtue by being virtuous.
And then you don't need a list so much because you've already
practiced these other things that are obviously virtuous.
OK, An interesting point here, by the way, you have to have
(26:11):
independence to truly be excellent for Aristotle.
So if you have to work a vocation, which most of us do,
you're cutting yourself short ofyour highest potential.
You can't truly be an excellent human if you have to devote so
much of your day to pursuing a vocation that's not as great as
having the time for politics andstudy and leisure and helping
others in, in whatever it might be.
(26:32):
OK, within Aristotle, there is something that scholars often
call the golden mean. What that means is there are
some things that are just straight up bad.
Adultery, OK. A lot of things, though, in
life, it's a balance between twoextremes.
You don't want too much one way or too much of the other.
And so, so many virtues are the this mean, this medium, this in
between of two extremes. So I'll give you just a few as I
(26:55):
run through this. Again, listen to the ethics
lecture lecture. I mean, it's by yours truly.
So you know, it's going to be just fire courage.
If you just, if you're a coward,you're obviously not courageous.
So cowardice is on one end of the spectrum.
That's not good. Here's cowardice, it's bad, we
hate you cowardice. But on the other end of the
spectrum, there is brashness where you just run out on the
battlefield and commit suicide. You're just like, I'm just going
(27:16):
to run out there and get killed.I won't even be successful.
That's not courage either. Courage is having the right
amount of fear and overcoming itwhen the time calls for it.
That's the mean. That's the golden mean.
I just hit my mic when I did that, which is awesome.
The golden mean, that's what that is OK or wittiness.
You don't want to be the person that's the clown that's always
telling the joke that nobody takes seriously.
But you also don't want to be the person who's boorish, who
(27:39):
can't make a joke. You have to be witty.
In this sense, Aristotle would say, wow, Zach in the
ideological podcast. How, how witty, how virtuous you
are. This includes even other things
like anger. There's a right time to get
angry. You can be too angry.
That's a vice. You can also let everyone walk
all over you and that's a vice. Sexual pleasure.
There's a right and appropriate way to pursue sexual pleasure.
(28:00):
And then there's somebody who never pursues it that everyone
would think is kind of weird anda person who pursues it way too
much, who everybody thinks is a perv.
And so there's this, this, this middle ground, this, this golden
means. So a lot of, but what Aristotle
does in describing these different virtues is to try to
use common sense to try to figure out where is the
(28:20):
appropriate demarcation between two extremes.
And then lastly, and again, I mentioned this in the other
lecture, more a big thing for Aristotle is that you have to
practice virtue when you're not virtuous or you'll never learn
it. You're not going to wake up one
day and not be anxious. You're going to have to practice
all day not thinking anxious thoughts and practicing bravery.
(28:41):
You're not going to wake up one day and not be lustful.
You're going to have to practicenot giving into your passions.
You're not going to wake up one day and be witty.
You're going to have to practicebeing witty.
You're going to have to be around witty people.
You're going to have to read books on on wit and humor and
these kind of things. In the same way that you won't
be a great baseball player by just hoping you will, you have
to practice. In the same way that you won't
(29:02):
be a great flute player by just hoping you will, You have to
practice for every area in your life where you want to change,
where you want to be a better person, where you want to be
more successful. Maybe it's courage you want to
grow, and maybe it's intelligence you want to grow,
and whatever it is, you're goingto have to practice it while
you're bad at it. The person playing the flute is
bad at it and sounds terrible and everyone wants to kill them,
(29:25):
but they have to practice while they're bad or they'll never get
good. The same is true with personal
traits and virtues. The same is true.
You're going to have to practicethese things while you're bad at
it, and then you do it for however many years and you
started to overcome some of yourvices.
So take that to be helpful as you will.
Lastly, let's talk a little bit about politics.
(29:47):
Aristotle thinks that a truly aspirational human life should
play itself out in politics. Well, why, Zach?
Because for Aristotle, remember the virtuous life, the best
life, the most pleasurable life,is 1 of rational contemplation.
That's what the gods do, even though he says elsewhere that
the gods are just kind of symbols for these celestial,
eternal things, these unmoved movers.
(30:09):
Again, not entirely consistent, but the gods, they just sit
around and think they don't needanything.
And so, yes, there is a life of rational contemplation, but that
should play itself out in virtue.
It should play itself out in action.
You have to know how to apply the wisdom that you have.
And it's so it's not just pure contemplation.
And one of the ways to play thisout that is so essential for
human flourishing is in politics.
(30:30):
Because in politics what you do is you take your rational
contemplation, you take your virtue, and you play it out for
the good of others. You play it out to help people.
Humans are Political Animals. That's the way Aristotle views
it. And so we like functioning in
community. We like functioning in society.
And so we need to develop these virtues so that we can have
virtual societies and so we can influence the state and the
(30:50):
people around us. Now again, Aristotle's going to
hold some things that are offensive for modern standards.
Like I said, he is pro slavery. He does he he he does not.
I hear people quote Aristotle like in defense of democracy,
which by the way, in a second we'll learn that he doesn't
defend democracy, but his democracy is not like what we
have today. He thought certain people should
have certain rights and others would not.
(31:11):
He is pro slavery. He actually thinks that some
people are slaves by nature. So by nature people are not
equal. OK, there.
There's a joke about this. What is the I'm trying to
remember. I didn't write it in my notes.
It's some sort of joke about Godbeing a capitalist because he
doesn't create people equally. Some meaning some people are
smarter, some people are more handsome, some people are more
(31:33):
talented, some people are stronger.
So even if everyone's life has equal human value, that doesn't
mean everybody is equal in everyarea.
Some people are more virtuous, some people are smarter, some
people are whatever. And so in Aristotle's thinking,
some people by nature are made to be slaves and they'd be
happier that way because they can't really lead themselves.
OK, Now again, don't think this is also offensive today.
(31:55):
I'm not supporting Aristotle here.
I'm just saying what his view is.
Don't think 1800 slavery in America, OK, Think of the kind
of slavery going on in his day, which is still bad.
I'm not defending it. But his view is that some people
are happier being LED who don't have all these talents and
skills and virtues in education,whereas other people are
naturally made to lead. Not saying I agree with him,
just telling you what Aristotle thinks.
(32:16):
OK, don't shoot the messenger. He is also pro private property.
He does think that certain people who are more talented
should have more and better things, higher honors, higher
rewards, etcetera. Now let's talk briefly about his
politics. Again, his main work in this is
politics, if you want to read that, but I want to contrast it
with Plato. For Plato, his view of an ideal
(32:38):
state is very weird, by the way.First of all, it's led by
philosopher kings. So these people that have to be
trained academically their entire lives, they have to learn
and focus on the forms, be kept away from bad stories of talking
about the gods, vices and these kind of things.
They have to become these philosopher kings and they will
be the best leaders for society.So #1 is a philosophy or is a
(33:00):
philosopher king. For him, that's who should rule
society, the person that's the wisest.
And then people should have all things in common, including
wives and kids. He's kind of a proto Marxist and
all, and all these kind of things.
Everybody, everything is shared and you have guardians over the
city and blah blah, blah. You can read the Republic.
It's, it's a fantastic book. His view of politics is very
strange though. But for Plato, if you were to
(33:20):
rate the different governmental systems #1 and the best one is
the philosopher king. Right after that is a democracy,
which usually means property owners.
But here it's, it's for, for Plato, it has the idea of like
someone to rule who rules with virtue and honor and military
virtue. So phosphor kings, democracy and
oligarchy, which it mainly meansa small group that often means
rule by the wealthy, The property owners #4 on his list
(33:45):
is democracy. He only has five.
He thinks the last one is the worst tyranny.
That's 5th but one step above tyranny.
The worst form, he thinks, is democracy.
Why does Plato think democracy is terrible?
Because it's ruled by the uneducated, poor masses.
For Plato, what he thinks is themasses are primarily going to
vote in ways that are best for them.
When you're hungry, when you're poor, when you're uneducated,
(34:07):
you're going to vote in a way that benefits you.
But that could be done at the detriment of society as a whole,
or it could be done at the detriment of the minority.
Do you really want the majority being able to overrule the
rights of some type of minority just because there's more of
them? This is kind of the tyranny of
the majority is sometimes what it's called.
So he thinks democracy is a terrible form of government for
Aristotle. Aristotle is more nuanced.
(34:27):
The main thing Aristotle's trying to do is this.
He's trying to say a good democracy will do what is best
for the people, do what is best for the state, not just for
those in power. So good types of, I might have
said democracy. I meant to say governmental
systems. Good types of governmental
systems do what's best for everyone.
(34:47):
Bad types of governmental systems do what's best just for
the leaders. And these can play itself out in
different ways. So the the view that Aristotle
probably most would lean towards, at least practically,
is what he calls a polity. That's a mixed form of oligarchy
and democracy. What that means is where you
have kind of this combination ofthese elites and the people who
(35:08):
rule for everyone's best. That's his ideas.
So the powers spread out, but the decisions are made for
what's best for everyone, not just for those in power.
Let me say this as strongly as Ican.
Aristotle would have hated modern identity politics.
Identity politics is where you associate with some group and
you view the entire political landscape just through what that
group wants. So if it's race, you only care
(35:29):
about issues related to the racethat you're supporting, or if
it's LGBTQ, you only support issues related to LGBTQ.
Or on the religious side, you might only view things through
some type of religious lens. It's where you just do what's
best for your group instead of what's best for everybody.
OK. And that is something that he
would hate because he thinks decisions should be made
(35:51):
rationally for everyone's best, not just one special interest
group over another. Now, when polity gets degraded,
it becomes democracy, OK? That's why Aristotle also
doesn't like democracy means everyone ruling for their own
interest instead of what's best for everyone in the state.
OK, another form that you can have, and again, Aristotle's
(36:11):
more flexible here than Plato, on on what types of governments
would work. Maybe in different places and
times you have aristocracy. This is the next best form
that's ruled by those who are virtuously, virtuously best, not
virtually virtuously the best. This small group does what's
best for the state and for everyone.
Again, that's the good form aristocracy.
It's degraded form as oligarchy where the small group makes
(36:33):
decisions that are just best forthem and not what's best for
everyone and the people. So you sometimes see this in
with politicians today that use that position to leverage and
benefit themselves at the expense of other people.
And then the third type would bemonarchy, which is 1 ruler.
And again, as long as that monarchy, he's not against
aristocracy or monarchy. If if a monarch is an excellent
(36:54):
person and he does what is trulybest for the people, not just
what's best for him, that could be a good type of government.
But it it it denigrates or it gets its degraded form is
tyranny. And so Aristotle doesn't think
there's very many people that are so virtuous that they won't
bend that power when all the power is focused on one person,
absolute power corrupts absolutely that they won't do
that, have that power and just use it mainly for their good.
(37:16):
So to be clear, Aristotle's finewith monarchies, fine with
aristocracy if the right people are in office.
But because people are so easy to corrupt, he wants to find a
balance of a few and a many doing what's best for everybody.
And that is polity, OK. We didn't even get into all his
biology. We didn't get into, you know,
(37:36):
his psychology. We didn't get into his poetry.
We didn't get into his rhetoric.Yeah.
So it, there's so much more thatcould be said, but this is a, a
good start, an introduction to Aristotle, this enormous thinker
who is just just so again, love him or hate him, certain groups
hate him. Feminists hate him because of
what he says about women, etcetera.
(37:57):
Other people think he is the most brilliant man, whoever
lives or lives. So he has haters and lovers.
What do we call him? Lovers.
That sounds romantic anyway. But that is Aristotle, so thanks
for tuning in. Ideological.
You're welcome.
Hello and welcome to another edition of Ideological.
I am your host, Zach Lee, and I hope that you are doing great.
Today is a very special day. Today is Aristotle Day.
Today we're going to talk about a figure whose influence is so
enormous that you, you can really just have a podcast just
on different elements of his thought.
(00:29):
Like there could be an entire podcast, not just like 1
episode, but like every week they just come out with a
different aspect of his thought.He's that much of A genius.
And so today we're talking aboutAristotle.
And we can't cover everything inone lesson of such an enormous
figure, but we're going to do our best and we're going to have
fun mainly talking about his metaphysics, ethics, and, and
(00:50):
some of his political views. But I first want to start out by
talking about how this guy's a big deal.
OK? The Beatles are a big deal,
right? And, you know, Michael Jordan's
a big deal. Aristotle makes them all look
like hated children. His influence is absolutely
enormous. We're talking about the guy
(01:11):
that's in the top one or two greatest philosophers of all
time. OK, there's debate on this.
Some people think it's Plato. Usually they say plato's #1
Aristotle's number 2. There's a famous quote by Alfred
N Whitehead where he says all ofWestern philosophy is but
footnotes to Plato. But others have argued that
actually Aristotle's influence might be bigger than Plato's
because though Plato had a huge influence and even was the
(01:35):
teacher of Aristotle, Aristotle's biology, science,
the way he influenced the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle
Ages and all that kind of stuff,he might have a bigger
influence. Especially with people today,
most of us are more naturally Aristotelian than we are
Platonic. And so anyway, Aristotle, big
freaking deal. He is the forerunner of all the
(01:55):
science and biology we have today.
He basically invented logic. Now let me be clear, you can't
invent logic. Logic is math.
Logic is is there before Aristotle.
What I mean is, he's really the first one that we know of to
have a full-fledged system of logic.
Other people had written on elements of it, at least in his
own. Let me say it this way.
(02:15):
He might not be the only person to the the the first person to
have a full-fledged system of logic.
He thinks, and his influence is so enormous that he is kind of
considered to be. That's a better way to say it.
There are other people that wrote about logical things
before, but he's kind of considered to be the original
systematizer of a system of logic.
His system of logic will be usedthe most throughout world
(02:37):
history. It it won't, it won't change
until a couple of guys, Bull andFrega are their last names, will
change some elements of logic, but Aristotle's logic will be
kind of the standard for a long time.
He actually writes in the Sophistical Refutations talking
about logic. He said when it comes to this
subject, it is not the case thatpart had been worked out in
advance and part had not. Instead nothing existed at all.
(02:57):
So he thinks he's kind of a big deal logically.
He is a big deal. Logically, his influence on
Judaism, on Islam, on Christianity would be enormous.
These religious systems would all use Aristotle to kind of
systematize their theology. In Judaism, he influenced Moses
Maimonides. In Islam, he influenced Avicenna
(03:21):
and Averroes. Aquinas.
Thomas Aquinas, who's again a big deal.
Thomas Aquinas is probably the second most influential
theologian in Roman Catholicism after Augustine, maybe third
overall. And so he he's just, he simply
calls Aristotle the philosopher.Like when you're reading his
Summa Theologia, he just says things like the philosopher
(03:42):
says, and he just means Aristotle cause Aristotle is the
philosopher. Aristotle's influence is felt in
poetry, politics, rhetoric, science, logic, philosophy,
theology, psychology and education.
His works were not accessible tomost of Europe for hundreds of
years, though a few works have been translated early, but it
didn't really hit Europe until about the 12th century.
(04:03):
Arabic writers had actually usedhim earlier and so he was more
widely known in the kind of the Islamic world before it became
really popular to read him in universities in in Europe.
So anyway, Aristotle's, whether you love him or hate him, his
influence is enormous. I'm very aroused right now.
Aristotle, He's he's doing great.
(04:24):
Let's talk about his life. He was born in 384.
By the way. Sometimes people wonder what I'm
doing with this. I'm looking at my notes.
I like looking at you right intoyour soul.
I like zooming in and saying something deep, but I also have
to look at my notes. He was born in 384 BCE and it's
pronounced in Greek Stagera, which is a a place in northern
Greece. In 367, he moved to Athens where
(04:46):
he attended Plato's Academy for 20 years.
So I don't know how long you went to college, but to to study
with Plato and his disciples andwalk around Peripatetic style
and learn about philosophy, somefrom the greatest, you know,
philosophy and philosophy city at the time is incredible.
In 343, he was invited to tutor Alexander the Great.
(05:08):
Look at this lineage, Socrates, suppose so.
You've got Socrates and his linkto teaching Plato.
We don't have anything actually written by Socrates himself.
We have things about him from Plato.
Plato uses him as a mouthpiece. But you've got Socrates and then
his student Plato, and then Plato's student Aristotle.
And then Aristotle's student is Alexander the Great, who, by the
(05:30):
way, conquered the known world in his 20s.
I don't know what you were doingin your 20s, probably getting
drunk and playing Xbox, but Alexander the Great was
conquering the known world. That's quite a lineage.
He's not called Alexander the Pretty Good.
He's so Aristotle is doing some big things.
In 335, he returns to Athens andshortly thereafter sets up his
rival school, the Lyceum. He's often shown, if you look at
(05:53):
pictures of Aristotle, you know,it's not like we have
photographs, but if you Google it, he's often shown in like a
bust with a beard. That's because a beard was seen
as like a mark of an intelligentphilosopher.
Let's just let that set for a second.
Bearded men make better philosophers.
However, he probably did not actually have a beard.
Diogenes Layers just said that he was shaved.
(06:17):
He was one of the few major philosophers to be married.
Most in most famous philosophersin western history were
bachelors. He is an unashamed elitist.
OK, so let me be let me just saythis.
He would certainly be cancelled.In our day, he defended slavery.
He thought Greeks were smarter and better than foreigners, the
Barbarians. He thought women were incomplete
men. And he also thought people who
(06:37):
are more talented and virtuous should have more honors and
rewards. So he is not egalitarian.
He is elitist. He thinks some people are better
than other people by nature and by training when it comes to
things like virtuous living. He died in 322.
And when he did, he had a large estate, 2 teenage kids, and a
common law wife because his previous wife had died.
(06:58):
OK, that's our boy Aristotle. Let's talk about his works.
Looking at Aristotle's works is trickier than other ancient
authors. Let me tell you why.
One, when we have ancient list of his works, we don't have some
of those today. So we're like, where are these
works? There's also things that we have
in our list today that ancient writers might not have
additionally, and this is the biggest, the biggest, so we
don't have Aristotle's full corpus.
(07:19):
This is the biggest thing, though.
Most of what we have from Aristotle has at some point kind
of been put together and edited.We don't have so.
So for example, if you read MobyDick, Moby Richard, I don't want
to offend anyone, by Herman Melville, which I think is one
of the greatest works of fictionof all time.
That is a sustained story from beginning to end.
(07:41):
Or even if you read philosophical works, take
Descartes, Meditations, he has apurpose for why he's writing
that and he writes it and it, it, it all goes together and it
all makes sense whether you agree or disagree.
From Aristotle, though, we we primarily have almost like his
students, classroom notes. They're things that are kind of
thrown together. So they're very difficult to
read sometimes. They're not super systematic.
(08:02):
There are several places where there are just, in my view,
straight up contradictions. Some people think that you can
harmonize it, but I think that there's just some contradictions
because in most of these works he was teaching, writing,
whatever. And at some point they're put
together, but you don't have thesame kind of linear just hi, I'm
Aristotle and I just want to write this treatise only on
every topic. I mean, we have some areas, like
(08:23):
some areas of his works, you're like, this is a sustained
argument and this is great and it can go on for a while.
Some works even seem a lot more linear and sustained than
others. But a lot of what we have is
kind of put together piece meal.So just keep that in mind.
He's he's difficult to read anyway.
His language is difficult and we're kind of reading, we're
kind of a family on the wall forsome teaching moments.
(08:43):
And so let me give you his most enduring works.
This is not the full list. These are the ones, though, that
if you want to get into Aristotle, these would be great
places to start. Categories de interpretacione or
on interpretation, Prior analytics, posterior analytics
topics, sophistical refutations,Physics.
Physics is a great place to start.
It's actually very metaphysical,despite the fact that it's
(09:03):
called physics Metaphysics, which is a different work, also
dealing with metaphysics. De Anima, that is his view of
the OR his work on the soul. That'll be very popular in the
Middle Ages, as well as a defense of the soul history of
animals. Why did I include that one?
Because you need to understand that Aristotle is a top rate
biologist. And that's a good work if you
(09:23):
kind of want to understand how he thinks of Aristotle's just as
comfortable studying like the mating habits of frogs as he is
talking about being OK. The Nick of McCann Ethics would
be his primarily primary ethicalwork, the Udemian ethics.
There's a lot of crossover between those two, politics,
rhetoric, rhetoric and poetics. I like how I made a mistake
saying the word rhetoric. It's ironic, ironical, as I've
(09:45):
heard people say. So this is Aristotle.
His influence is enormous. We can't go over everything in
his thought. I I just can't emphasize to you
what a big deal this guy is, whether you love him or hate
him. After Aristotle, people are just
going to have to deal with this thought.
There is no doing theology. You have to have a system that
(10:06):
undergirds that theology. What is theology?
It's whatever your religious tradition teaches, plus a way of
systematizing it so it doesn't contradict.
And Aristotle becomes the guy inthe Middle Ages.
Later, though most of the MiddleAges is not aware of what's
going on with most of Aristotle's writings.
But the same thing in Islam, thesame thing in Judaism.
They are all having to deal withthis guy.
(10:27):
But not just that, I mean other guys later on will appeal back
to his views of teleology, back to his views of purpose.
Teleology being that everything has a purpose, things go a
certain way for a reason. His view of the world will also
be extremely powerful and popular.
He believed that the universe was eternal.
A lot of philosophers believed that he very much had a view of
(10:50):
the world and the universe and how things function that would
be strongly challenged by like Galileo and these kind of guys
later to say, no, Aristotle's not right.
Aristotle's physics is kind of the the primary view of the
physical world really until someone like Isaac Newton.
Isaac Newton is such an influential figure, not just
because apples fall on his head,because in a sense his physical
system is replacing Aristotle. Now, again, there's other guys
(11:13):
that had come before Newton. Anytime I say something in a 30
minute podcast, I can't give allthe qualifiers.
And people think if I don't giveall the qualifiers, I don't know
it or should have said it or whatever.
I can't give all the qualifiers.So give me grace anyway.
So he he is people, some people hate him.
They fight against him, but he is, he is the guy.
(11:34):
All right. He is the yeah.
So let's talk about his metaphysics.
Metaphysics is actually just a term for his works that came
after physics that was later given there.
These meta means after in Greek and Fusus is physics.
So it's really just the lecturesafter physics.
But what metaphysics means specifically to Aristotle, and
(11:54):
he says this in his metaphysics,is that he's trying to study
trying to study being qua being.What does that mean?
That means being in so far as itis being.
So he's trying to study being itself, not just individual
beings. A pencil, Zach, something like
this. This is a pen, by the way.
I said pencil. It's also purple 'cause I'm
fancy. He's trying to study being
(12:15):
itself being qua being. And for Aristotle, there's
different categories of being. So let's do something less
boring. What I want you to do is
wherever you're listening to this or watching this, I want
you to look around the room and I want you to name some objects
in the room, OK? You might say things like there
are books, there's your phone, there's a computer, there's your
(12:37):
hand, there's a water bottle. You might name individual
objects. So go ahead and and for a
second, just name some things inthe room.
I'll wait. OK, Do you have your list?
You name some things. You most likely name the things
that I just named these individual physical objects.
If you're a little more trying to trick me, you might say
(12:59):
things like Zach, there's not just a book in the room.
There's words on the pages. And if you're especially,
especially bright, you might saycrazy things like there's light
and air in the room. Great.
Here's what you probably didn't name.
Sitting is in the room. Notice that I'm sitting.
There's an action in the room. Time is in the room beside this.
(13:20):
Check this out. Here's a coaster, and here's a
pen. And the pen is now beside the
coaster. You probably didn't name things
like numbers. How many numbers are in this
room? An infinite number, whatever it
might be. So my point is, there's all
redness is in the room. We didn't just name a a straight
up color. We probably said there's a red
(13:40):
book, but just redness itself. There's a lot of different kinds
of beings that are in the room. Why did you primarily focus on
individual objects? And the answer is because you
have been influenced by Aristotle, whether you've read
them or not. Again, his influence is that
big. So he divides being into
different kinds of beings. I'll name it name, I'll name
(14:01):
them. This is his list of 10 and
sometimes he's a little more reserved on when he gives a list
and and what he includes. But here's a list of 10.
Substance, quantity, quality, relatives or relation somewhere
or place, sometime or time beingin a position or just what
people call position. Having or being in a state.
(14:21):
Sometimes people just say state acting or action and then being
acted upon or what's called passion.
Passion for ancient writers usually means being affected by
something. If they talk about the passions,
the idea is that you're kind of this passive victim and they
just hit you and they change you.
But anyway, of those 10 categories, though, which one
for Aristotle is the most important, the primary way of
(14:42):
being, and it is substance. OK, let's do some nerd things.
The easiest way to understand Aristotle's view of metaphysics
is to contrast him with his teacher, Plato.
OK, now again, that's not play dough, the clay that you smush
through that little thing and make the weird spaghetti noodles
that look super gross. Plato with AT this is going to
be a just a crass simplificationof Plato.
(15:05):
How do we know what's beautiful down here on earth?
How do we know what's justice down here on earth?
How do we know these kind of things?
For Plato, the answer is there is an eternal world above us,
that the world is 2 tiered. There's the world down here, the
shadows where things are instantiated.
And there's individual things like, you know, hamburgers and
trees and hippopotamus, and there's all these kind of things
(15:29):
down here, but they're not the most real things.
They're just like a shadow. The most real things are up in
the heavens. They're what he calls the Forms.
What is a form? For Plato?
It's a standard definition of something.
It's the standard of goodness. And then individual things down
here have that to a degree, or it's the standard of beauty or
the standard of justice. Or how do we know what a
(15:51):
triangle is down here? Because there's a perfect
triangle in the Forms and everything down here
instantiates that, like yield signs or like pieces of pizza.
And then we have triangles. That's Plato's view.
It is very top down. You have these standard forms,
these standard definitions of things in the heavens that our
souls have seen, he thinks are back in eternity.
He thinks humans didn't just start existing when their
(16:12):
parents had sex. And then we come down here and
we compare things down here, theshadows to the Forms.
Anyway, that's Plato. We need a whole lecture on
Plato. We don't have time for it today,
but that's his view. Now I'm I'm going to simplify it
with an analogy that Plato wouldhave hated because he likes
talking about big concepts like goodness, the good.
And I'm going to use a man made artifact, which he would hate.
But I'm going to do this becauseI think it's helpful.
(16:33):
If you have a table with four legs, is that a table?
You'd probably say, sure. You might be sitting at a table
with four legs right now. If I take away one of the legs,
is that still a table? You'll say, yeah, I think that's
you can have a three legged table.
Perfect. You and I are in agreeance.
It's not. I don't think that's a word.
Well, it might be. Let's say we only have two legs
(16:54):
now on the table and we lean it against a wall.
Is that a table? Sure.
Now let's say though, that we take off all the legs and then
it's just a piece of wood on theground.
Is it a table? Now, most of you would probably
say no, it's just a piece of wood.
Not all pieces of wood are tables.
A piece of particle board at a construction site is not a
(17:15):
table. How did you know that?
How did you know what a table was?
And then how did you know when it was no longer a table?
Well, maybe you say Zach, maybe it's it's function that makes it
a table. It's something that holds up
food. Well, no, a military briefing
room table doesn't hold up food.And it's a table or when you eat
(17:36):
food, you know, sitting down on your lap, that doesn't mean your
lap or your plate is a table. So it's not just the function of
it. How did you know what a table
was? And then how did you know when
it changed? Or if I say, am I Zach?
If I lose my hair, you'll say yes, and I'll say, am I Zach?
If I were to, like be vaporized or somehow actually became a
woman, you'd be like, maybe not.How did you know what Zach was?
Well, again, Plato would not usethis for just me as Zach or as a
(17:58):
table. I'm using this as an example to
teach you because it's easier. But imagine for a second that up
in the heavens there's a standard definition of table
that's already imprinted on yourmind.
That's how you knew what a tablewas when I said could you have a
2 legged table? And you thought, yeah, there's a
definition of a table and two legs fits.
But then when we took all the legs off the table, you said no
again. He would do bigger things like
(18:19):
goodness. But you get the point.
That is Plato. Aristotle's is the opposite.
OK, now let me be clear. I'm not saying that Aris and a
lot of people misunderstand this.
Aristotle is not saying that justice and beauty do not exist.
All he's saying is that they exist in so far as some
substances are just or beautiful.
(18:40):
So whereas Plato's top down, Aristotle is bottom up.
For Aristotle, the form of a horse is in a horse.
It is the individual things. What we do is we look at a horse
and we look at a horse and we look at a horse and we get this
kind of category of what what a horse is.
And so it's not just that there's a form of horseness and
the horses down here partake in that horseness.
(19:02):
It's rather that the hoarseness is in the individual horse or
goodness or beauty or justice isan individual substances that
are just or good or beautiful. So whereas Plato is having this
two tiered structure of reality,Aristotle kind of has one tier.
I look at a horse and that individual horse obviously has
hoarseness. I look at something individually
(19:23):
that's beautiful, let's say a a sunset or a flower.
And that thing has beauty, but it has it not detached from the
substance. OK, that's huge for
understanding Aristotle. Anyway, easiest way to think of
it is this famous painting of we, we might even throw it on
the screen of Plato and Aristotle where Plato is
pointing up at the sky and Aristotle has his hand stretched
(19:45):
out. And Plato's talking about the
forms up in the heavens and Aristotle's saying no things
down here. Let's look at individual things.
Let's look at individual substances, etcetera.
Now I keep saying substance. What does Aristotle mean by
substance? A substance for Aristotle.
So if Plato's primarily talking about forms.
Aristotle's primarily talking about substance.
A substance for Aristotle, though, is not a stuff.
(20:06):
Don't think of. How we think of substance today
is. We think of like atoms or water
or, you know, if I say what is that substance made of?
If you're like the cake, it's made of like bread or flour.
We think of it as a stuff. That's not what he means by
substance. Substance for Aristotle means
something like the primary way of existing.
And, and here's what's frustrating about Aristotle.
(20:28):
He's sometimes inconsistent on his definition of substance.
OK, sometimes substance is individuated.
So Zach, me the person, Zach is a substance, but the category of
man is not. But sometimes substance is
definable and not individuated. So sometimes man is a substance,
but Zach is not. So let me let me give you some
places where he kind of contradicts himself, the primary
(20:48):
meaning of substance. And by the way, if you if you
have to say, OK, I'm going to oversimplify.
What does Aristotle mean by substance?
This is the best definition. This comes from categories his
work categories substance strictly so-called, primarily in
par excellence is that which is neither said of subject nor is
in a subject, EG such and such aman, such and such a horse.
Second substances are the species and genera to which the
(21:10):
primary substances belong. Thus such and such a man belongs
to the species human, and the genus of his species is animal.
So both human and animal are called second substances.
What he's trying to say is therethere's a sense in which man,
mankind, or horse kind are a secondary substance.
The primary way to think of substances, though, is an
(21:32):
individual object. For Aristotle, the primary way
to view substance is individual middle sized objects.
So I, Zach, am a substance. This water bottle is a
substance. OK, that's a substance.
Not just me, human, not just humanity, but Zach is a
substance. That's his primary way.
(21:52):
But there are other places wherehe talks about these categories
of substance and even these moreeternal kind of substances when
he talks about like the unmoved movers of the universe.
I'll give you a quote from his metaphysics.
Hence the first heavens must be eternal.
There is therefore something which moves them.
And since what both moves and ismoved has an intermediate
status, there must be a mover which moves them without being
(22:15):
moved. Eternal and a substance and
actual. What does he mean by that?
Aristotle's theology, he, he thinks that the stories of the
gods like Zeus, Greek mythology,you need those for dumb people.
You need those for the vulgar tohelp them understand they're not
as smart as philosophers. But really those are just dumb.
There's obviously not these kindof anthropomorphic gods.
(22:36):
Rather what stands behind those gods are these like eternal
principles of the universe. And in a sense, those things are
a type of substance par excellence.
So he's a little bit inconsistent.
Summary. What does all this mean?
Again, I find this stuff so fascinating and some of you are
like, yes, talk to me more dirtytheology and other people are
(22:57):
like, why am I not listening to a podcast that is just Wiener
jokes? That would be so much more fun.
I just need to throw more of those in here.
For Aristotle, individual middlesized objects, regular things we
encounter throughout our day, the tree, the hydrangea, the
person, like the specific person.
Bob, your friend, those are substances.
(23:17):
OK, let's talk about his ethics real quick.
I have a whole lecture that should that's already been
recorded on different ethical, excuse me, ethical systems and
Aristotle's virtue ethics is oneof those.
But just to summarize because I don't want to repeat that entire
lesson. Whereas most systems of ethics,
and you primarily get this in Udemian ethics and then
Nicomachean ethics again. And there's a lot of crossover
(23:38):
between those two works. Whereas most systems of ethics
try to create a list, it's almost Kazu St. like a list of
just right and wrong ethical things.
Murder equals bad. Helping someone equals good.
Adultery each equals bad helping.
Aristotle is not as interested in playing that game.
He will go through certain virtues and he will list certain
(23:59):
virtues and vices in in in theseworks.
And so he's not avoiding it all together, but he doesn't give
you a comprehensive list. What he tries to do instead is
he tries to make you understand that the goal of an ethical or
virtuous life is to become an excellent person.
This is why sometimes this is called Aritaic ethics right
after the the Greek word Aritae,which means excellence.
(24:20):
By that what he means is human flourishing, maximizing your
potential being what a human is made to be.
A human, if they are truly flourishing and truly being
virtuous, will seek after a lifeof rational contemplation which
leads to virtuous action as theysubmit themselves to virtues and
discipline themselves to be virtuous.
This will lead to not only happiness in life.
(24:42):
Aristotle thinks, one, if you don't have all the virtues, you
don't have any of them because they all are going to go
together and you have to know how to use them.
But also he thinks that if you're not virtuous, you cannot
be happy. Again, listen to the ethics
lecture. I talk more about that.
I don't want to repeat all that stuff here.
But what what he's trying to do is virtue ethics for Aristotle,
is that somebody chooses to act virtuously over time, which
causes them to become a virtuousperson who naturally does what
(25:04):
is right, who acts from the right motivations under a life
of rational contemplation, who maximizes their virtuous human
potential. That's his view of ethics.
So he's trying to get you to be an excellent human, which he
thinks means being virtuous. That's what will make you happy.
That's what humans are made to do.
They're made to embrace the different things a human is
supposed to do at that time in life unimpeded.
(25:25):
OK, that's a great way to say it.
To live a successful life for Aristotle, to have pleasure, is
doing standard activity that humans are supposed to do
unimpeded, supposed to enjoy unimpeded.
That's the goal of life for Aristotle.
That's how that makes you a virtuous person.
So then when the issue comes up,you know what to do.
So instead of having to create alist of 1000 do's or don'ts,
(25:48):
also known as 1000, become the kind of virtuous person that
when the situation arises, you know what you should do without
having to have the list. Become the kind of person that
can see virtue by being virtuous.
And then you don't need a list so much because you've already
practiced these other things that are obviously virtuous.
OK, An interesting point here, by the way, you have to have
(26:11):
independence to truly be excellent for Aristotle.
So if you have to work a vocation, which most of us do,
you're cutting yourself short ofyour highest potential.
You can't truly be an excellent human if you have to devote so
much of your day to pursuing a vocation that's not as great as
having the time for politics andstudy and leisure and helping
others in, in whatever it might be.
(26:32):
OK, within Aristotle, there is something that scholars often
call the golden mean. What that means is there are
some things that are just straight up bad.
Adultery, OK. A lot of things, though, in
life, it's a balance between twoextremes.
You don't want too much one way or too much of the other.
And so, so many virtues are the this mean, this medium, this in
between of two extremes. So I'll give you just a few as I
(26:55):
run through this. Again, listen to the ethics
lecture lecture. I mean, it's by yours truly.
So you know, it's going to be just fire courage.
If you just, if you're a coward,you're obviously not courageous.
So cowardice is on one end of the spectrum.
That's not good. Here's cowardice, it's bad, we
hate you cowardice. But on the other end of the
spectrum, there is brashness where you just run out on the
battlefield and commit suicide. You're just like, I'm just going
(27:16):
to run out there and get killed.I won't even be successful.
That's not courage either. Courage is having the right
amount of fear and overcoming itwhen the time calls for it.
That's the mean. That's the golden mean.
I just hit my mic when I did that, which is awesome.
The golden mean, that's what that is OK or wittiness.
You don't want to be the person that's the clown that's always
telling the joke that nobody takes seriously.
But you also don't want to be the person who's boorish, who
(27:39):
can't make a joke. You have to be witty.
In this sense, Aristotle would say, wow, Zach in the
ideological podcast. How, how witty, how virtuous you
are. This includes even other things
like anger. There's a right time to get
angry. You can be too angry.
That's a vice. You can also let everyone walk
all over you and that's a vice. Sexual pleasure.
There's a right and appropriate way to pursue sexual pleasure.
(28:00):
And then there's somebody who never pursues it that everyone
would think is kind of weird anda person who pursues it way too
much, who everybody thinks is a perv.
And so there's this, this, this middle ground, this, this golden
means. So a lot of, but what Aristotle
does in describing these different virtues is to try to
use common sense to try to figure out where is the
(28:20):
appropriate demarcation between two extremes.
And then lastly, and again, I mentioned this in the other
lecture, more a big thing for Aristotle is that you have to
practice virtue when you're not virtuous or you'll never learn
it. You're not going to wake up one
day and not be anxious. You're going to have to practice
all day not thinking anxious thoughts and practicing bravery.
(28:41):
You're not going to wake up one day and not be lustful.
You're going to have to practicenot giving into your passions.
You're not going to wake up one day and be witty.
You're going to have to practicebeing witty.
You're going to have to be around witty people.
You're going to have to read books on on wit and humor and
these kind of things. In the same way that you won't
be a great baseball player by just hoping you will, you have
to practice. In the same way that you won't
(29:02):
be a great flute player by just hoping you will, You have to
practice for every area in your life where you want to change,
where you want to be a better person, where you want to be
more successful. Maybe it's courage you want to
grow, and maybe it's intelligence you want to grow,
and whatever it is, you're goingto have to practice it while
you're bad at it. The person playing the flute is
bad at it and sounds terrible and everyone wants to kill them,
(29:25):
but they have to practice while they're bad or they'll never get
good. The same is true with personal
traits and virtues. The same is true.
You're going to have to practicethese things while you're bad at
it, and then you do it for however many years and you
started to overcome some of yourvices.
So take that to be helpful as you will.
Lastly, let's talk a little bit about politics.
(29:47):
Aristotle thinks that a truly aspirational human life should
play itself out in politics. Well, why, Zach?
Because for Aristotle, remember the virtuous life, the best
life, the most pleasurable life,is 1 of rational contemplation.
That's what the gods do, even though he says elsewhere that
the gods are just kind of symbols for these celestial,
eternal things, these unmoved movers.
(30:09):
Again, not entirely consistent, but the gods, they just sit
around and think they don't needanything.
And so, yes, there is a life of rational contemplation, but that
should play itself out in virtue.
It should play itself out in action.
You have to know how to apply the wisdom that you have.
And it's so it's not just pure contemplation.
And one of the ways to play thisout that is so essential for
human flourishing is in politics.
(30:30):
Because in politics what you do is you take your rational
contemplation, you take your virtue, and you play it out for
the good of others. You play it out to help people.
Humans are Political Animals. That's the way Aristotle views
it. And so we like functioning in
community. We like functioning in society.
And so we need to develop these virtues so that we can have
virtual societies and so we can influence the state and the
(30:50):
people around us. Now again, Aristotle's going to
hold some things that are offensive for modern standards.
Like I said, he is pro slavery. He does he he he does not.
I hear people quote Aristotle like in defense of democracy,
which by the way, in a second we'll learn that he doesn't
defend democracy, but his democracy is not like what we
have today. He thought certain people should
have certain rights and others would not.
(31:11):
He is pro slavery. He actually thinks that some
people are slaves by nature. So by nature people are not
equal. OK, there.
There's a joke about this. What is the I'm trying to
remember. I didn't write it in my notes.
It's some sort of joke about Godbeing a capitalist because he
doesn't create people equally. Some meaning some people are
smarter, some people are more handsome, some people are more
(31:33):
talented, some people are stronger.
So even if everyone's life has equal human value, that doesn't
mean everybody is equal in everyarea.
Some people are more virtuous, some people are smarter, some
people are whatever. And so in Aristotle's thinking,
some people by nature are made to be slaves and they'd be
happier that way because they can't really lead themselves.
OK, Now again, don't think this is also offensive today.
(31:55):
I'm not supporting Aristotle here.
I'm just saying what his view is.
Don't think 1800 slavery in America, OK, Think of the kind
of slavery going on in his day, which is still bad.
I'm not defending it. But his view is that some people
are happier being LED who don't have all these talents and
skills and virtues in education,whereas other people are
naturally made to lead. Not saying I agree with him,
just telling you what Aristotle thinks.
(32:16):
OK, don't shoot the messenger. He is also pro private property.
He does think that certain people who are more talented
should have more and better things, higher honors, higher
rewards, etcetera. Now let's talk briefly about his
politics. Again, his main work in this is
politics, if you want to read that, but I want to contrast it
with Plato. For Plato, his view of an ideal
(32:38):
state is very weird, by the way.First of all, it's led by
philosopher kings. So these people that have to be
trained academically their entire lives, they have to learn
and focus on the forms, be kept away from bad stories of talking
about the gods, vices and these kind of things.
They have to become these philosopher kings and they will
be the best leaders for society.So #1 is a philosophy or is a
(33:00):
philosopher king. For him, that's who should rule
society, the person that's the wisest.
And then people should have all things in common, including
wives and kids. He's kind of a proto Marxist and
all, and all these kind of things.
Everybody, everything is shared and you have guardians over the
city and blah blah, blah. You can read the Republic.
It's, it's a fantastic book. His view of politics is very
strange though. But for Plato, if you were to
(33:20):
rate the different governmental systems #1 and the best one is
the philosopher king. Right after that is a democracy,
which usually means property owners.
But here it's, it's for, for Plato, it has the idea of like
someone to rule who rules with virtue and honor and military
virtue. So phosphor kings, democracy and
oligarchy, which it mainly meansa small group that often means
rule by the wealthy, The property owners #4 on his list
(33:45):
is democracy. He only has five.
He thinks the last one is the worst tyranny.
That's 5th but one step above tyranny.
The worst form, he thinks, is democracy.
Why does Plato think democracy is terrible?
Because it's ruled by the uneducated, poor masses.
For Plato, what he thinks is themasses are primarily going to
vote in ways that are best for them.
When you're hungry, when you're poor, when you're uneducated,
(34:07):
you're going to vote in a way that benefits you.
But that could be done at the detriment of society as a whole,
or it could be done at the detriment of the minority.
Do you really want the majority being able to overrule the
rights of some type of minority just because there's more of
them? This is kind of the tyranny of
the majority is sometimes what it's called.
So he thinks democracy is a terrible form of government for
Aristotle. Aristotle is more nuanced.
(34:27):
The main thing Aristotle's trying to do is this.
He's trying to say a good democracy will do what is best
for the people, do what is best for the state, not just for
those in power. So good types of, I might have
said democracy. I meant to say governmental
systems. Good types of governmental
systems do what's best for everyone.
(34:47):
Bad types of governmental systems do what's best just for
the leaders. And these can play itself out in
different ways. So the the view that Aristotle
probably most would lean towards, at least practically,
is what he calls a polity. That's a mixed form of oligarchy
and democracy. What that means is where you
have kind of this combination ofthese elites and the people who
(35:08):
rule for everyone's best. That's his ideas.
So the powers spread out, but the decisions are made for
what's best for everyone, not just for those in power.
Let me say this as strongly as Ican.
Aristotle would have hated modern identity politics.
Identity politics is where you associate with some group and
you view the entire political landscape just through what that
group wants. So if it's race, you only care
(35:29):
about issues related to the racethat you're supporting, or if
it's LGBTQ, you only support issues related to LGBTQ.
Or on the religious side, you might only view things through
some type of religious lens. It's where you just do what's
best for your group instead of what's best for everybody.
OK. And that is something that he
would hate because he thinks decisions should be made
(35:51):
rationally for everyone's best, not just one special interest
group over another. Now, when polity gets degraded,
it becomes democracy, OK? That's why Aristotle also
doesn't like democracy means everyone ruling for their own
interest instead of what's best for everyone in the state.
OK, another form that you can have, and again, Aristotle's
(36:11):
more flexible here than Plato, on on what types of governments
would work. Maybe in different places and
times you have aristocracy. This is the next best form
that's ruled by those who are virtuously, virtuously best, not
virtually virtuously the best. This small group does what's
best for the state and for everyone.
Again, that's the good form aristocracy.
It's degraded form as oligarchy where the small group makes
(36:33):
decisions that are just best forthem and not what's best for
everyone and the people. So you sometimes see this in
with politicians today that use that position to leverage and
benefit themselves at the expense of other people.
And then the third type would bemonarchy, which is 1 ruler.
And again, as long as that monarchy, he's not against
aristocracy or monarchy. If if a monarch is an excellent
(36:54):
person and he does what is trulybest for the people, not just
what's best for him, that could be a good type of government.
But it it it denigrates or it gets its degraded form is
tyranny. And so Aristotle doesn't think
there's very many people that are so virtuous that they won't
bend that power when all the power is focused on one person,
absolute power corrupts absolutely that they won't do
that, have that power and just use it mainly for their good.
(37:16):
So to be clear, Aristotle's finewith monarchies, fine with
aristocracy if the right people are in office.
But because people are so easy to corrupt, he wants to find a
balance of a few and a many doing what's best for everybody.
And that is polity, OK. We didn't even get into all his
biology. We didn't get into, you know,
(37:36):
his psychology. We didn't get into his poetry.
We didn't get into his rhetoric.Yeah.
So it, there's so much more thatcould be said, but this is a, a
good start, an introduction to Aristotle, this enormous thinker
who is just just so again, love him or hate him, certain groups
hate him. Feminists hate him because of
what he says about women, etcetera.
(37:57):
Other people think he is the most brilliant man, whoever
lives or lives. So he has haters and lovers.
What do we call him? Lovers.
That sounds romantic anyway. But that is Aristotle, so thanks
for tuning in. Ideological.
You're welcome.
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