I'll reduce this to Jesus in his moral philosophy according to the Synoptic Gospels versus that of Aristotle's moral philosophy and observations on how people should live.
1. Which person had the most influence in terms of practicable philosophy?
2. Who had the most resolute and astute observations about human nature?
3. What are the practical applications from either philosophy, does their differences make for difficulty in following both sets of philosophies?
4. Does Aristotelianism clash with Christian based philosophy or more or less compliment it?
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Jesus. Body hardened by carpentry, three day respawn.
Oh, wait, wrong response for the forum.
1. Which person had the most influence in terms of practicable philosophy?
Most people would say Jesus. I'd say Jesus. (if I were american) this is like asking if my parents or the declaration of independence made more influence in my life. My parents, for simply being more pervasive, even if my parents were american and the society we live in was helped shaped by the declaration of independence.
2. Who had the most resolute and astute observations about human nature?
3. What are the practical applications from either philosophy, does their differences make for difficulty in following both sets of philosophies?
4. Does Aristotelianism clash with Christian based philosophy or more or less
Aristotle is a bit too ivory tower for me. Doing good for the sake of doing good? Fine, but hard to digest, even harder to explain.
Jesus' "love your neighbor as you love yourself" is far more easy to understand and less abstract. If necessary, it can be couched on terms of rationalized self-interest.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
By what standard are we defining good though? What the Neo Nazi think is good and what the Catholic Priest or a Secular Humanist thinks is good may be vastly different. Does Aristotle define good?
By what standard are we defining good though? What the Neo Nazi think is good and what the Catholic Priest or a Secular Humanist thinks is good may be vastly different. Does Aristotle define good?
1. Which person had the most influence in terms of practicable philosophy?
To oversimplify vastly: Jesus invented modern religion, Aristotle invented modern science. Most people aren't scientists, so in terms of their beliefs and practices, Jesus. But most people also use cars and televisions and computers and all the other fruits of science, so in terms of their everyday lives, Aristotle.
The other thing to consider is that science is clearly objective. There is a truth, and it's out there for anyone to discover. So if Aristotle hadn't done it, other people would have. Whereas Jesus was a unique and irreproducible phenomenon.
3. What are the practical applications from either philosophy, does their differences make for difficulty in following both sets of philosophies?
As Martin Luther King, Jr. succinctly put it, Jesus was an extremist for love. But Aristotle taught that virtue lay in avoiding extremes. The ideal Christian life is one of ascetic renunciation of sin and contemplation of God, and this is antithetical to Aristotle's more well-rounded vision of the good life. In particular, eremiticism and monasticism directly contradict Aristotle's famous observation that "Man is a social animal".
4. Does Aristotelianism clash with Christian based philosophy or more or less compliment it?
Well, there are some famous clashes in their metaphysics, which (along with Aristotle's paganism) rendered the Catholic establishment rather hostile to Aristotle until the days of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose life was devoted to patching over these conflicts and who did so to the Church's satisfaction.
To take one particularly stupid, but historically important, example: Aristotle wrote that the substance of a thing is composed of the union of the thing's form and its material - a doctrine called hylomorphism. So if you look at, oh, say, a loaf of bread, you can tell it's bread, and not anything else, by noting that it's shaped like bread and made of bread-stuff. It's certainly not the Body of Christ; that would look totally different. This of course was a problem for the Eucharist. Aquinas reconciled the problem by decoupling Aristotelian substance from form and matter, such that a thing could have the "substance" of the Body of Christ while still having exactly the same form and matter as a loaf of bread. I'm rolling my eyes here, but Catholic theologians thought this was really freaking awesome.
Aristotle is a bit too ivory tower for me. Doing good for the sake of doing good? Fine, but hard to digest, even harder to explain.
Jesus' "love your neighbor as you love yourself" is far more easy to understand and less abstract. If necessary, it can be couched on terms of rationalized self-interest.
I'll start with the aside first: one thing about Aristotle's writings, if memory serves me correctly, is that most of them are lost. What we have left of Aristotle is dense because it was likely not intended for the general audience. In fact, wikipedia guesses that only a third of Aristotle has survived into the 21st Century. And in my opinion, while important things survived, they were not nearly as fun as what survived of Plato.
For my main point, Aristotle's virtue ethics were about doing what is good because it was a demonstrateable (is that a real word?) balance between two vices, which receives the label of goodness. For example, gluttony falls under the term vice because it causes undesirable health problems such as obesity, the diseases associated with obesity, and the side effects of obesity (i.e. lack of endurance). Also starvation/eating disorders falls as a vice because of it causes fatigue, delusions, and physical damage. In between, one could place eating healthy, which has the outcome that rational agents desire: a healthy body.
Take this with a grain of salt though: Blinking Spirit will probably have a field with this because I'm treading on his philosopher with broad strokes and faint memories not backed by research, and I'm pretty sure I just framed Virtue Ethics as Consequentialism, which is not the same thing.
Aristotle. This isn't even a question. Jesus didn't write anything like the Politics and Nicomachean Ethics.
As far as we know. Similar to how all we have left of Aristotle is mostly the "unfun" writings, we have even less than that on Jesus. While I sincerely doubt he had an unrecorded scholarly career authoring the "P Gospel" and the "R Gospel," some of Jesus's teachings resonate with nature in such a way that they are alive today. What comes to mind is "Do unto others," which I believe played a role in Kant's deontilogical ethics, and "he who is without sin can cast the first stone," or as I've called it, "Dingo****! You're just mad because your check bounced and his didn't."
As Martin Luther King, Jr. succinctly put it, Jesus was an extremist for love. But Aristotle taught that virtue lay in avoiding extremes. The ideal Christian life is one of ascetic renunciation of sin and contemplation of God, and this is antithetical to Aristotle's more well-rounded vision of the good life. In particular, eremiticism and monasticism directly contradict Aristotle's famous observation that "Man is a social animal".
While I'm certain this is because you were just approaching time and because Aristotle has been blended into the Church for almost a millennium, I don't see the major difference between "ascetic renunciation of sin" and "avoiding extremes." I'm not saying that you're wrong; I'm asking for clarity because it sounds like a little bit of an exaggeration (again coming more than 900 years after Aquinas pulled Aristotle into the fold).
I have a tendency to not want to call the Gospels philosophy, or anything found within them. This is not an insult--it's simply saying that there are no logical arguments laid out in order to prove the points the gospels are trying to make. The Gospels are just a different type of literature.
The challenge I have here is that I find that quite a lot of philosophy is done through literature. Plato's Republic... actually, Plato as narrated by Socrates, is literary in quality. And many literary works throughout history, are making philosophical arguments to people by presenting their point through a narrative. Most Existentialists comes to mind to have at least dabbled in literature as philosophy.
"Do unto others," which I believe played a role in Kant's deontilogical ethics...
"Do unto others" is hardly original to Jesus. It's a cornerstone of early ethical thought. It's in the Mahabharata (~400 BC), Confucius (~500 BC), Thales (~600 BC), and a Middle Kingdom Egyptian parable (~2000-1650 BC).
While I'm certain this is because you were just approaching time and because Aristotle has been blended into the Church for almost a millennium, I don't see the major difference between "ascetic renunciation of sin" and "avoiding extremes." I'm not saying that you're wrong; I'm asking for clarity because it sounds like a little bit of an exaggeration (again coming more than 900 years after Aquinas pulled Aristotle into the fold).
Asceticism is the diametric opposite of extreme avoidance. The truest Christians, those who closest follow the example of Jesus, have been men and women like Francis of Assisi, who renounce material possessions and pleasures and depart radically from the path of a normal, well-rounded human life. This is asceticism. This is what Aristotle would find intemperate and wrong. The compromises with this ideal that all the rest of Christendom makes - families, careers, worldly aspirations - would meet with Jesus' disapproval but Aristotle's approval.
Jesus' ideal human being is a friar. Aristotle's ideal human being is a Renaissance man. The two ideals are incompatible.
2. Who had the most resolute and astute observations about human nature?
Aristotle. This isn't even a question. Jesus didn't write anything like the Politics and Nicomachean Ethics.
This is interesting, because I have a counter point. I would undoubtedly say Jesus.
Jesus strikes at the very heart of human nature. He doesn't do it directly, but rather indirectly. For example, what if someone slapped your cheek---and what if instead of striking him back like we would clearly anticipate human nature to do, we turned the other cheek?
It's a profound statement of a contrary system of philosophy of human nature. One that exalts forgiveness and redemption, and an almost irrational faith that the other person will see significance to turning of the other cheek rather than keep slapping you in the face.
If I slapped you, Blinking Spirit, I would anticipate you to slap me back. If I stole your cloak, I would not expect you to offer me your tunic as well.
Revenge, Retaliation is the most common articulation of what we would find human and rational. If you slap me and I don't slap you back, what deterrence have I give you to stop slapping me?
But Jesus' philosophy of:
----"turn the other cheek"
----"that it is easier for a camel to thread the eye of a needle than it would be for a rich man to enter heaven"
----"let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Has no one condemned you woman? No my lord. Then neither do I condemn you. Go and leave your life of sin."
was an appeal to a part of humanity inlaid so deep, we forgot we even had it. The idea that jadedness, and revenge isn't all that can be vindicated as we grow older in life. That somewhere in this world, there is a possibility of hope, grace, and redemption.
Jon Valjean is a fictional character. He was a criminal who would steal from a church offering him sanctuary and kindness. And when he was caught, the bishop not only did not turn him in, but offered him the candleholders.
And it was that final act, which motivated Val jean to change.
That is redemption a-la Jesus style. It Jesus's own philosophy about the nature of human kind and human nature that so purely and even irrationally advocates a belief in the inherent goodness of the other person--that you would risk further pain and suffering to yourself to see it through.
The world may not in fact work that way. But Jesus' indirect articulation of that turn the cheek philosophy was in my opinion a very profound statement about human nature because it is precisely what we would never expect.
I think that's the very reason that the philosophy of Jesus went from teachings in small jewish town to worldwide influence today.
To be frank, I can't even get someone to listen to me on this forum. What chance do I have of getting two billion people to listen to my words, and live their life for them?
You cite a few of Jesus' aphorisms, and you actually concede that these aphorisms are wrong about human nature, and you expect this to persuade me that Jesus had the more resolute and astute observations of human nature?
Rather than just tell me how awesome you think Jesus' philosophy is, why don't you go through Politics or Nicomachean Ethics or De Anima and tell me why you don't think Aristotle's observations hold water. No, they're not as contrary as Jesus' are. In fact, many of them just read like common sense. That's exactly why they're more astute.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You cite a few of Jesus' aphorisms, and you actually concede that these aphorisms are wrong about human nature, and you expect this to persuade me that Jesus had the more resolute and astute observations of human nature?
Rather than just tell me how awesome you think Jesus' philosophy is, why don't you go through Politics or Nicomachean Ethics or De Anima and tell me why you don't think Aristotle's observations hold water. No, they're not as contrary as Jesus' are. In fact, many of them just read like common sense. That's exactly why they're more astute.
I think you misunderstand what I was trying to express. To be fair I didn't say it well.
Your point was simply that Jesus had nothing like Politics or Nicomachean Ethics. You concluded summarily that Jesus had nothing to offer. In fact you dismissed that question as easily going to Aristotle without further discussion. You offered none of Jesus' observations at all.
I wanted to counter your dismissive conclusion by offering my takes on Jesus. I never said that Aristotle's observations dont hold water. But you didnt offer anything for the Jesus side of things.
I wanted to offer a counterpoint, which is that Jesus in fact had very profound observations about human nature for the reasons I wrote.
You cite a few of Jesus' aphorisms, and you actually concede that these aphorisms are wrong about human nature, and you expect this to persuade me that Jesus had the more resolute and astute observations of human nature?
Rather than just tell me how awesome you think Jesus' philosophy is, why don't you go through Politics or Nicomachean Ethics or De Anima and tell me why you don't think Aristotle's observations hold water. No, they're not as contrary as Jesus' are. In fact, many of them just read like common sense. That's exactly why they're more astute.
I think you misunderstand what I was trying to express. To be fair I didn't say it well.
Your point was simply that Jesus had nothing like Politics or Nicomachean Ethics. You concluded summarily that Jesus had nothing to offer. In fact you dismissed that question as easily going to Aristotle without further discussion. You offered none of Jesus' observations at all.
I wanted to counter your dismissive conclusion by offering my takes on Jesus. I never said that Aristotle's observations dont hold water. But you didnt offer anything for the Jesus side of things.
I wanted to offer a counterpoint, which is that Jesus in fact had very profound observations about human nature for the reasons I wrote.
I think another point missing was that Jesus was a rabbi and pooled from many older Jewish texts in his references as well. And even then if we consider say Ecclesiastes there were some points drawn out of Egyptian sayings and the same with Proverbs. A few themes from Genesis have a lot of similarities to the Epic of Gilgamesh. Which places the founding for some concepts well before Jesus. So these observations predate Jesus.
Equally, it may very well be possible that Jesus did have access to Aristotle's works.
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
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1. Which person had the most influence in terms of practicable philosophy?
2. Who had the most resolute and astute observations about human nature?
3. What are the practical applications from either philosophy, does their differences make for difficulty in following both sets of philosophies?
4. Does Aristotelianism clash with Christian based philosophy or more or less compliment it?
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Oh, wait, wrong response for the forum.
Most people would say Jesus. I'd say Jesus. (if I were american) this is like asking if my parents or the declaration of independence made more influence in my life. My parents, for simply being more pervasive, even if my parents were american and the society we live in was helped shaped by the declaration of independence.
Aristotle is a bit too ivory tower for me. Doing good for the sake of doing good? Fine, but hard to digest, even harder to explain.
Jesus' "love your neighbor as you love yourself" is far more easy to understand and less abstract. If necessary, it can be couched on terms of rationalized self-interest.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Aristotle : Virtue is good?
The other thing to consider is that science is clearly objective. There is a truth, and it's out there for anyone to discover. So if Aristotle hadn't done it, other people would have. Whereas Jesus was a unique and irreproducible phenomenon.
Aristotle. This isn't even a question. Jesus didn't write anything like the Politics and Nicomachean Ethics.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. succinctly put it, Jesus was an extremist for love. But Aristotle taught that virtue lay in avoiding extremes. The ideal Christian life is one of ascetic renunciation of sin and contemplation of God, and this is antithetical to Aristotle's more well-rounded vision of the good life. In particular, eremiticism and monasticism directly contradict Aristotle's famous observation that "Man is a social animal".
Well, there are some famous clashes in their metaphysics, which (along with Aristotle's paganism) rendered the Catholic establishment rather hostile to Aristotle until the days of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose life was devoted to patching over these conflicts and who did so to the Church's satisfaction.
To take one particularly stupid, but historically important, example: Aristotle wrote that the substance of a thing is composed of the union of the thing's form and its material - a doctrine called hylomorphism. So if you look at, oh, say, a loaf of bread, you can tell it's bread, and not anything else, by noting that it's shaped like bread and made of bread-stuff. It's certainly not the Body of Christ; that would look totally different. This of course was a problem for the Eucharist. Aquinas reconciled the problem by decoupling Aristotelian substance from form and matter, such that a thing could have the "substance" of the Body of Christ while still having exactly the same form and matter as a loaf of bread. I'm rolling my eyes here, but Catholic theologians thought this was really freaking awesome.
I think you're thinking of someone else.
Yes. In some detail, and with well-argued justification. Read his Nicomachean Ethics.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
For my main point, Aristotle's virtue ethics were about doing what is good because it was a demonstrateable (is that a real word?) balance between two vices, which receives the label of goodness. For example, gluttony falls under the term vice because it causes undesirable health problems such as obesity, the diseases associated with obesity, and the side effects of obesity (i.e. lack of endurance). Also starvation/eating disorders falls as a vice because of it causes fatigue, delusions, and physical damage. In between, one could place eating healthy, which has the outcome that rational agents desire: a healthy body.
Take this with a grain of salt though: Blinking Spirit will probably have a field with this because I'm treading on his philosopher with broad strokes and faint memories not backed by research, and I'm pretty sure I just framed Virtue Ethics as Consequentialism, which is not the same thing.
As far as we know. Similar to how all we have left of Aristotle is mostly the "unfun" writings, we have even less than that on Jesus. While I sincerely doubt he had an unrecorded scholarly career authoring the "P Gospel" and the "R Gospel," some of Jesus's teachings resonate with nature in such a way that they are alive today. What comes to mind is "Do unto others," which I believe played a role in Kant's deontilogical ethics, and "he who is without sin can cast the first stone," or as I've called it, "Dingo****! You're just mad because your check bounced and his didn't."
While I'm certain this is because you were just approaching time and because Aristotle has been blended into the Church for almost a millennium, I don't see the major difference between "ascetic renunciation of sin" and "avoiding extremes." I'm not saying that you're wrong; I'm asking for clarity because it sounds like a little bit of an exaggeration (again coming more than 900 years after Aquinas pulled Aristotle into the fold).
Please, bakgat. Read Nicomachean Ethics. In fact, as long as Blinking Spirit approves of this or this translation; don't wait, read them online.
The challenge I have here is that I find that quite a lot of philosophy is done through literature. Plato's Republic... actually, Plato as narrated by Socrates, is literary in quality. And many literary works throughout history, are making philosophical arguments to people by presenting their point through a narrative. Most Existentialists comes to mind to have at least dabbled in literature as philosophy.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Asceticism is the diametric opposite of extreme avoidance. The truest Christians, those who closest follow the example of Jesus, have been men and women like Francis of Assisi, who renounce material possessions and pleasures and depart radically from the path of a normal, well-rounded human life. This is asceticism. This is what Aristotle would find intemperate and wrong. The compromises with this ideal that all the rest of Christendom makes - families, careers, worldly aspirations - would meet with Jesus' disapproval but Aristotle's approval.
Jesus' ideal human being is a friar. Aristotle's ideal human being is a Renaissance man. The two ideals are incompatible.
I don't read Greek, so I can't weigh in on translation matters.
Sure, but it doesn't follow that a particular piece of literature - to wit, the Gospels - is philosophy.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
on the other hand, no writings of jesus survived.
This is interesting, because I have a counter point. I would undoubtedly say Jesus.
Jesus strikes at the very heart of human nature. He doesn't do it directly, but rather indirectly. For example, what if someone slapped your cheek---and what if instead of striking him back like we would clearly anticipate human nature to do, we turned the other cheek?
It's a profound statement of a contrary system of philosophy of human nature. One that exalts forgiveness and redemption, and an almost irrational faith that the other person will see significance to turning of the other cheek rather than keep slapping you in the face.
If I slapped you, Blinking Spirit, I would anticipate you to slap me back. If I stole your cloak, I would not expect you to offer me your tunic as well.
Revenge, Retaliation is the most common articulation of what we would find human and rational. If you slap me and I don't slap you back, what deterrence have I give you to stop slapping me?
But Jesus' philosophy of:
----"turn the other cheek"
----"that it is easier for a camel to thread the eye of a needle than it would be for a rich man to enter heaven"
----"let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Has no one condemned you woman? No my lord. Then neither do I condemn you. Go and leave your life of sin."
was an appeal to a part of humanity inlaid so deep, we forgot we even had it. The idea that jadedness, and revenge isn't all that can be vindicated as we grow older in life. That somewhere in this world, there is a possibility of hope, grace, and redemption.
Jon Valjean is a fictional character. He was a criminal who would steal from a church offering him sanctuary and kindness. And when he was caught, the bishop not only did not turn him in, but offered him the candleholders.
And it was that final act, which motivated Val jean to change.
That is redemption a-la Jesus style. It Jesus's own philosophy about the nature of human kind and human nature that so purely and even irrationally advocates a belief in the inherent goodness of the other person--that you would risk further pain and suffering to yourself to see it through.
The world may not in fact work that way. But Jesus' indirect articulation of that turn the cheek philosophy was in my opinion a very profound statement about human nature because it is precisely what we would never expect.
I think that's the very reason that the philosophy of Jesus went from teachings in small jewish town to worldwide influence today.
To be frank, I can't even get someone to listen to me on this forum. What chance do I have of getting two billion people to listen to my words, and live their life for them?
Rather than just tell me how awesome you think Jesus' philosophy is, why don't you go through Politics or Nicomachean Ethics or De Anima and tell me why you don't think Aristotle's observations hold water. No, they're not as contrary as Jesus' are. In fact, many of them just read like common sense. That's exactly why they're more astute.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I think you misunderstand what I was trying to express. To be fair I didn't say it well.
Your point was simply that Jesus had nothing like Politics or Nicomachean Ethics. You concluded summarily that Jesus had nothing to offer. In fact you dismissed that question as easily going to Aristotle without further discussion. You offered none of Jesus' observations at all.
I wanted to counter your dismissive conclusion by offering my takes on Jesus. I never said that Aristotle's observations dont hold water. But you didnt offer anything for the Jesus side of things.
I wanted to offer a counterpoint, which is that Jesus in fact had very profound observations about human nature for the reasons I wrote.
I think another point missing was that Jesus was a rabbi and pooled from many older Jewish texts in his references as well. And even then if we consider say Ecclesiastes there were some points drawn out of Egyptian sayings and the same with Proverbs. A few themes from Genesis have a lot of similarities to the Epic of Gilgamesh. Which places the founding for some concepts well before Jesus. So these observations predate Jesus.
Equally, it may very well be possible that Jesus did have access to Aristotle's works.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.