Aristotle was born around 384 BC in the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia, where his father was the royal doctor. He grew up to be arguably the most influential philosopher ever, with modest nicknames like The Master and simply The Philosopher. His first big job was tutoring Alexander the Great, who soon after went out and conquered the known world. Aristotle then headed off to Athens, worked with Plato for a bit, then branched out on his own. He founded a little school called the Lyceum. French secondary schools [foreign language] are named in honor of this venture. He liked to walk about while teaching and discussing ideas. His followers were nicknamed Peripatetics, the wanderers. His many books are actually lecture notes.
Aristotle was fascinated by how many things actually work. How does a chick grow in an egg? How do squid reproduce? Why does a plant grow well in one place and hardly at all in another? And most importantly, what makes a human life and a whole society go well? For Aristotle, philosophy was about practical wisdom. Here are four big philosophical questions he answered.
One, what makes people happy? In the Nicomachean Ethics—the book got its name because it was edited by his son, Nicomachus—Aristotle set himself the task of identifying the factors that lead people to have a good life or not. He suggested that good and successful people all possess distinct virtues and proposed that we should get better at identifying what these are so that we can nurture them in ourselves and honor them in others. Aristotle zeroed in on 11 virtues: courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, pride, patience, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, modesty. Aristotle also observed that every virtue seems to be bang in the middle of two vices. It occupies what he termed the golden mean between two extremes of character.
For example, in book four of his Ethics, under the charming title of Conversational Virtues Wit, Buffoonery, and Boorishness, Aristotle looks at ways people are better or worse at conversation. Knowing how to have a good conversation is one of the key ingredients of the good life, Aristotle recognized. Some people go wrong because they lack a subtle sense of humor. That's the boor, someone useless for any kind of social intercourse because he contributes nothing and takes offense at everything. But others carry humor to excess. The buffoon cannot resist a joke, sparing neither himself nor anybody else provided that he can raise a laugh and saying things that a man of taste would never dream of saying. So the virtuous person is in the golden mean in this area, witty but tactful.
A particularly fascinating moment is when Aristotle draws up a table of too little, too much, and just right around the whole host of virtues. We can't change our behavior in any of these areas just at the drop of a hat, but change is possible, eventually. Moral goodness, says Aristotle, is the result of habit. It takes time, practice, encouragement. So Aristotle thinks people who lack virtue should be understood as unfortunate rather than wicked. What they need isn't scolding or being thrown into prison, but better teachers and more guidance.
Two, what's art for? The blockbuster art at the time was tragedy. Athenians watched gory plays at community festivals in huge open air theaters. Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles were household names. Aristotle wrote a how to write great plays manual, The Poetics. It's packed with great tips. For example, make sure to use peripeteia, a change in fortune, when for the hero, things go from great to awful. In Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio gets Kate Winslet. Great. Then they hit the iceberg. Awful. And anagnorisis, a moment of dramatic revelation, when suddenly the hero works out their life is a catastrophe. But what is tragedy actually for? What's the point of a whole community coming together to watch horrible things happening to lead characters, like Oedipus in the play by Sophocles, who by accident kills his father, gets married to his mother, finds out he's done these things, and gouges out his own eyes in remorse and despair?
Aristotle's answer is catharsis, which is Greek for catharsis. Catharsis is a kind of cleaning. You get rid of bad stuff, in this case, cleaning up our emotions, specifically our confusions around the feelings of fear and pity. We've got natural problems here. We are hardhearted. We don't give pity where it's deserved. And we're prone to either exaggerated fears or not getting frightened enough. Tragedy reminds us that terrible things can befall decent people, including ourselves. A small flaw can lead to a whole life unraveling, and so we should have more compassion, pity for those whose actions go disastrously wrong. We need to be collectively retaught these crucial truths on a regular basis. The task of art, as Aristotle saw it, is to make profound truths about life stick in our minds.
Three, what are friends for? In books eight and nine of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle identifies three different kinds of friendship. There's friendship that comes about when each person is seeking fun. Their chief interest is in their own pleasure and the opportunity of the moment which the other person provides. Then there are friendships that are really strategic acquaintances. They take pleasure in each other's company only insofar as they have hopes of advantage of it. Then there's the true friend, not someone who is just like you, but someone who isn't you, but about whom you care as much as you care about yourself.
The sorrows of a true friend are your sorrows. Their joys are yours. It makes you more vulnerable, should anything before this person. But it's hugely strengthening too. You're relieved from the too small orbit of your own thoughts and worries. You expand into the life of another. Together, you become larger, cleverer, more resilient, more fair-minded. You share virtues and cancel out each other's defects. Friendship teaches us what we ought to be. It's quite literally the best part of life.
Four, how can ideas cut through in a busy world? Like a lot of people, Aristotle was struck by the fact that the best argument doesn't always win the debate or the battle. He wanted to know why this happens and what we can do about it. He had lots of opportunity for observations. In Athens, lots of decisions were made in public meetings, often in the Agora, the town square. Orators would vie with one another to sway popular opinion.
Aristotle plotted the ways audiences and individuals are influenced by many factors that don't strictly engage with logic or the facts of the case. It's maddening, and many serious people, especially Plato, can't stand it. They avoid the marketplace and populist debate. Aristotle was more ambitious. He invented the art of what we still today call rhetoric, the art of getting people to agree with you. He wanted thoughtful, serious, and well-intentioned people to learn how to be persuasive, to reach those who don't agree already.
He makes some timeless points. You have to recognize, acknowledge and soothe people's fears. You have to see the emotional side of the issue, is someone's pride on the line, are they feeling embarrassed, and edge around it accordingly. You have to make it funny because attention spans are short. And you might have to use illustrations and examples to make your point come alive. We're keen students of Aristotle. Today, philosophy doesn't sound like the most practical activity. Maybe that's because we've not paid enough attention recently to Aristotle.