Phl 303
Lecture 9: The Modern Movement Away from Aristotle

Machiavelli

First basic disagreement with Aristotle: the nature of the state

Aristotle: the state is founded on friendship & trust, a partnership for common good

Machiavelli: founded on fear of the prince, a stable system of coercion.

There are roughly 3 ways to organize a society:

  1. As a partnership, based on the joint pursuit of common goals.
  2. As an ongoing ceasefire among individuals and groups with disparate goals, who remain essentially in a state of belligerency.
  3. As a totalitarian system, in which all possible dissent and opposition is ruthlessly suppressed.
What is required for 1, the partnership model?

  1. The shared conviction ("we hold these truths to be self-evident...") that there is a scale of value that is universal and accessible to all.
  2. The inclusion in this scale of value of weighty non-egotistical values: the value, for example, of participating in a common pursuit of justice and mutual respect.
Historically, this has depended on the acceptance of an Aristotelian conception of human nature, as the basis of universal values, and including the idea that we are social animals, whose happiness depends on genuine friendship and virtuous activity.

Second disagreement: Machiavelli vs. Aristotle

Machiavelli conceives of politics as a positive empirical science, concerned with what is, not with what ought to be.

  • A fact/value distinction.
  • E.g., whether we like it or not, a too-scrupulous ruler is likely to fail.
  • Aristotle too consider politics an empirical science, but he models it upon biology.
  • Consideration of ideal types, of final causes, is a crucial part of scientific explanation, for Aristotle.

  • Thomas Hobbes

    Three Key Elements:

    1. Materialism. The human mind consists of nothing but certain motions in the brain. Thoughts, desires, etc. are essentially physical phenomena.
    2. The subjective theory of value. We call something "good" because we desire it.
      Contrast Aristotle's objective theory: our desires are ordered to an objective final cause (a natural end).
    3. Like Machiavelli, Hobbes sees the political realm founded on fear. Two fears: (1) a fear of the "state of nature", and (2) a fear of the sovereign.
    Notice the contrast with Aristotle:
    For Aristotle, humans are social animals. So the well-ordered city is the "state of nature".

    For Hobbes, the "state of nature" consists of stripping away all political culture and order.

    These three theses are connected: the materialism leads to a subjective theory of value, which leads to the view of the state as a coercive resolution of natural conflict.

    Weaver's Analysis of the Origin of Modernity

    Begins with William of Ockham (early 14th c., Oxford).

    Nominalism: all that exists are particulars. There are no universals (esssences, accidents, ideals), only names.

    We do not share a universal essence of humanity, we simply share the name "human", based on various similarities among humankind.

    Aristotle's System:

    1. The existence of real universals, or properties of things (like humanity, wisdom, anger).
    2. The existence of real particulars, individual things (like Aristotle, an individual oak tree, God).
    3. Cases in which an individual thing has a particular property (like Aristotle's being wise). We can call these facts or situations.
    4. The distinction between those cases in which the property is essential to the particular (like Aristotle's being human) and those in which it is accidental to it (like Aristotle's being angry).
    5. The distinction between a function (essential) and a use (accidental).
    6. The existence of final causes of things (the fulfillment of the thing's functions).
    7. Happiness (eudaemonia) as the final cause of human life.
    8. A universal scale of human values, based on their objective contribution to or interference with happiness.

    Francis Bacon (England, early 17th c.)

    Statesman, patron of science, influential author

    Redefines the mission of science (or "natural philosophy")

    Shift in the balance between two purposes of science:

    For Aristotle: first purpose was primary.
    For Bacon: the second purpose is elevated.

    Shift from the high-minded uselessness of philosophy to the hard-headed usefulness of applied science

    Stong humanitarian element in Bacon: the need to use science to meet real human needs, to alleviate want and despair.

    Shift to an atomistic and materialistic focus. Understanding material and efficient causes has the most value in technology.

    We can better control the whole by understanding its constituent parts and their modes of interaction.

    This materialism raises a problem: where does the human mind or soul fit in?

    Rene Descartes

    Early 17th. c philosopher, scientist, mathematician.

    Dualism (ghost in the machine model)

    Human beings are a composite of two essentially separate thing: a body and a mind.

    The body is a machine -- can be understood exhaustively in materialistic terms.

    The mind is a separate "substance" or entity.

    Raises the problem of mind/body interaction.

    The pineal gland as the locus of interaction.

    Contrast Descartes' dualism with the hylomorphism (matter/form) of Aquinas:

    Both agree that the soul/mind can exist apart from the body. However, they disagree about the nature of the combination of the mind and body in this life.

    1. The union of soul & body

    Aquinas: soul and body together form a single entity or substance. When the human being causes something to happen, the soul and body operate together, as one.

    Descartes: soul and body are two separate entities or substances. The soul affects the body and the body affects the soul. Every action by the human is either an action of the body or of the soul, never both together.

    2. The nature of the disembodied soul

    Aquinas: disembodied soul loses many of its functions: vegetative, sensation, imagination, sensory memory.

    Descartes: disembodied soul loses none of its proper functions. It merely loses an external connection to the body.

    3. Naturalness of the soul apart from the body

    Aquinas: The disembodied human soul is in an unnatural state. The human soul is naturally the form of the living body.

    Descartes: The soul retains its nature (that of a thinking thing) in the absence of the body.

    Descartes preserves Aristotle's formal and final causes, but limits them to the realm of mental substance. They are banished from the whole physical, corporeal realm.

    Jean-Jacques Rousseau (18th c. French thinker).

    Help provide the impetus for the French Revolution.

    Re-introduced the nature/convention distinction of the Sophists (today's nature/nurture distinction).

    What is natural is not determined by the essence of human nature (as Plato, Aristotle thought), but by giving free play to the impulses of the individual, unrestricted by artificial constraints imposed by society.

    For Aristotle, achieving the natural state required self-restraint and molding by a healthy society.

    For Rousseau, the natural state requires the absence of all restraint and all socialization.

    A compromising of nature is required to make society possible.

    We experience something like a natural state of freedom collectively, through participating in the General Will.

    Society can act like a fully natural individual human being, free from all external restraints or moralistic inhibitions.

    Last updated September 30, 1999
    Created by: Robert C. Koons
    Send comments to: koons@la.utexas.edu

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