A First Look at Aesthetics

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

This is the first in a series on Aesthetics, the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste. It necessarily touches on Truth also. "Beauty is an effect of Truth that manifests when the object closer to the Truth is perceived by the subject." This is why Aesthetics cannot be set apart from ethics.

Beauty is recognized where one is closer to Truth. Thus, Truth is fundamental and beyond subject-object duality. This approaches Plato's understanding of beauty as transcendent eternal Forms. In Plato's philosophy beauty is not about art or nature. Were we to ask Plato: what is beauty? he would answer: “Forms are beautiful, the perfect being is beautiful, and among these forms, the form of Good is the most beautiful.” 

For the Ancient Greeks, beauty was not a matter of personal taste. According to Aristotle, beauty could be measured. Literally. “The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree,” he says in Metaphysics.

An expert on Greek and Roman art, Dr. Dietrich von Bothmer (1918-2009) explained, "Beauty was considered an excellence, like honesty or bravery. Physical beauty was important, but it had to be coupled with goodness of spirit as well."

The Neo-Platonist, Plotinus, insisted that beauty inspires an enquiry into its own source (ontology), and that this world is beautiful because it reflects the beauty of a supreme, undivided, transcendent "One". This One "is prior to all existents" and identified with the concept of Good and the principle of Beauty.

Plotinus has influenced those whose discontent with things as they are has led them to seek the realities behind the appearances of the senses. One of those persons is the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860).

Schopenhauer believed that art and aesthetic experience provide escape from an otherwise miserable existence, and that these allow one to attain greater objectivity than science or empirical knowledge. The more a person's mind is concerned with the world as representation, the less it feels the suffering of the world as will. Schopenhauer analyzed art from its effects, both on the personality of the artist, and the personality of the viewer.

When it comes beauty, either as Truth or as an antidote to misery, it is difficult to escape the impression that discernment of beauty is highly subjective. The Irish poet, Oscar Wilde, wrote, "Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world."

In this series on Aesthetics, we will consider three topics:

1. Beauty as a Form of the Good

2. Symbols of Beauty

3. Beauty as Spiritual Therapy

Related reading: A Physicist Looks at Beauty; Feminine Beauty Through History; The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900

Ethics and Ancient Cosmology

Golden Horus of Nekhen, the son of God
His totem was the Falcon.




Alice C. Linsley

Cosmology is the study of the structure and dynamics of the universe. It involves our most fundamental experience and observation of earth and the heavens and the relationship of physical bodies.

Perhaps the best book on this subject was written by a Roman Catholic priest, Paul J. Glenn, Professor of Philosophy in the College of St. Charles Borromeo, Columbus, Ohio.The book is titled "Cosmology: A Class Manual in the Philosophy of Boldily Being." Glenn defines cosmology as philosophical physics to distinguish it from metaphysics, the philosophical science of non-material real being (p. 5).

The cosmology of the Bible is connected to archaic priests who observed the heavens and especially to their veneration of the Sun as the emblem of the Creator. Since they regarded the Sun as superior to its counterpart, the Moon, biblical cosmology necessarily involves recognition of the binary distinctions observed in the order of creation: Sun-Moon, Male-Female, East-West, North-South, and Heaven-Earth. Ancient peoples believed that the structure and dynamics of the cosmos speak of the Creator’s eternal power and divine nature.

Canopic jars

The Apostle Paul alludes to this in Romans 1:20. Here he insists that the eternal nature and divine power of God are expressed in the fixed order of creation. Therefore, seeing that the pattern is observable by all people at all times, none are excused on the basis of ignorance. There is here an assumption that the fixed celestial patterns are superior to the things that can change or be corrupted. This reflects a very ancient belief: "as in heaven, so on earth" and that belief is expressed in the Lord's Prayer that God's "will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

The Horite Hebrew believed that Horus established the cosmic boundaries and guarded the cardinal points. He set the East from the West and the North from the South and he commanded the wind and waves. Horus also established the "kinds" or essences of all the creatures (Gen. 1:21). The genetic boundaries beyond which a creature cannot develop (evolve) are even termed "horotely."

Horus controlled and guarded as the "Son" of the Creator. His four appearances or manifestations were as a man, a jackal, a falcon, and a baboon. These are found on the four canopic jars (shown above) that held the organs of the dead Nilotic rulers. The jars were set to guard the body at the north, east, south and west.

The oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship is found at the twin cities of Nekhen and Nekheb. Nekhen is called the Falcon City as the falcon was one of the animal totems of Horus, the son of Re. Votive offerings at the Nekhen temple were ten times larger than the normal mace heads and bowls found elsewhere, suggesting that this was a very prestigious shrine. Horite priests placed invocations to Horus at the summit of the fortress as the sun rose.

The Horite Hebrew spread their heliocentric cosmology throughout the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion. The Sun was the emblem of the Creator (Ra, Ani) and the Son of the Creator (Horus, Enki). Each morning the priests greeted the rising of the Sun with prayers and praises.

The Sun and its daily east-west journey are a key feature of Horite Hebrew cosmology. The Sun rises in the East as a young lamb and sets in the West as a ram in mature strength. This supplies a clue to the meaning of the story of Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah. Isaac asked where is the lamb for the sacrifice? Abraham answered that the Lord God would provide his own sacrifice. The sacrificed animal was a ram and the symbol of the son of God. The ram also spoke of the West, the cardinal point associated with the future, so that, the provision was associated with a future event.

The binary distinctions impressed upon the ancient biblical Hebrew the reality of their limitations. They had no power to make the Sun follow a different course or to move the polar star. These spoke to them of a greater Power who had established these luminaries as dark reflections of a greater Light.

The Horite Hebrew ruler-priests were conscious of boundaries all around them. Many words related to boundaries are derived from the name Horus: horizon, hour, horotely, horologion, Harmattan, horoscope, etc.

Aristotle links essence to boundaries (horos, horismos) or to definition. He says, “a definition is an account (logos) that signifies an essence” (Topics 102a3).


Related reading:  Tracing Origins Using Comparative Cosmologies; Seven Planets, Seven Bowls; Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant; What Abraham Discovered on Mt. Moriah

Virtue Ethics

By Andrew Mullins

The Wright Brothers gave us flight, Henry Ford the Model T, and Stephen Covey the 7 Habits. But just as Wilbur and Orville Wright would not have claimed to have invented planes, nor Henry Ford the car, Covey's genius was not inventing something altogether new but popularising the lessons of management theory and making it user-friendly.

His book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic became an international best-seller and spawned successful spin-offs like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, The 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me — How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time.

Covey died last month, in his 80th year, after a bicycle accident in April. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Sandra, nine children and 56 grandchildren. He was a devout Mormon and was very active in his church.

The 7 Habits was first published in 1989. William Bennett’s The Book of Virtues followed in 1993, publicising virtues for children. Within a few years Character Strengths and Virtues, by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman restored the notion of virtues to the clinical domain. Seligman’s positive psychology movement surfs the wave which Covey generated.

Airport bookshops are full of self-help books. But there is something special about Covey’s advice which few other consultants and inspirational authors offer.

His intuition of the seven habits is ultimately an argument for Aristotle’s timeless doctrine of virtue, for the fundamental insight that human nature is enriched and fulfilled by strengths of character, habitual behaviours, that empower us to take rational management of our lives.

Let's take a look at his seven habits.

1. Be Proactive. Covey says look inside yourself. Don't be a victim. Change starts inside. We must be good to do good. This is 100% Aristotelian and the underpinning principle of the doctrine of virtue.

2. Begin with the end in mind. Visualise your goals before you act. This repackages Aristotle's final cause. Aristotle would tell us that all rational action is goal-oriented.

3. Put first things first. Consider how you are going to get to where you are going. Plan out your campaign. Be prudent in choosing the means to achieve your goal. Prudence along with justice, fortitude and temperance are the four cardinal virtues also given to us by the great Greek thinkers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

4. Think win/win. This is a re-presentation of the concept of the common good which also dates back to Plato and Aristotle. It is the notion that I am diminished if my actions are not mindful of their impact on you. A truly good action for me will be good for you too, a view that is the complete opposite of the utilitarian principle of “greatest good for the greatest number”, a world in which true goods are opposed and there is no absolute truth.

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This is an extension of the previous point: there is an external truth to be grasped. I am not the arbiter of what is true. This principal is drawn from those same philosophers who emphasised the objectivity of truth. This also refers to the great virtue of justice that respect is unconditional.

6. Synergise. This point is a further refinement of justice. If we are other-centred, if we measure our actions by their impact on other people, we will all be advantaged.

7. Sharpen the saw. We return to the first principle. We must each be the best person that we can be. Change comes from within. We must take full responsibility for our lives.

In some ways Covey builds on the work of another American author, the management consultant Peter Drucker. There are numerous parallels between advice offered in The 7 Habits and Drucker’s 1966 masterpiece The Effective Executive. Drucker also insists on self-knowledge, a clear focus on goals, and prudent decision making. The unspoken principle upon which his work rests is the old axiom “First we make our habits and then our habits make us” -- for better or for worse our habitual behaviours come to comprise our character.

The root of this wisdom ultimately springs from Aristotle’s great book The Nicomachean Ethics which seems to have been composed for his son Nicomachus. Its conclusion is that “happiness is the reward of virtue”. By happiness Aristotle means not just success, but flourishing, the satisfaction of living a fully rational life, with all the side benefits of self-determination.

Covey’s work is a highly innovative and practical application of Aristotelian virtue ethics, a field that has steadily gained ground since the British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe revived discussion of virtue in philosophy departments.

It was about time. Since the Enlightenment ethics has been dominated by utilitarianism and deontology. The first is the view that the consequences of an action make it right or wrong; the second obeying the rules makes it right or wrong.

Virtue ethics presents a much more subtle and accurate understanding of human moral life. If, with self-control and courage, we strive to act prudently and justly then we have the wherewithal to pick the best path through any complex dilemma.

Like Aristotle, Drucker and Seligman, Covey's insights reflect a deep common sense intuition about human beings. We are rational creatures capable, albeit in an imperfect way, of taking control of our destinies. We can use our reason to manage ourselves. Through our reason we can build up patterns of habitual behaviours. Ultimately, our success in life is due to our virtues. As he wrote in one of his last books, First Things First:

“It's not enough to have values without vision; you want to be good, but you want to be good for something. On the other hand, vision without values can create a Hitler. An empowering mission statement deals with both character and competence; what you want to be and what you want to do in your life.”


Andrew Mullins is the principal of Wollemi College in Sydney Australia.

Related reading: Elizabeth Anscombe on Justice; Aristotle's Understanding of the Chief Good; Aristotle and Poverty

Aristotle's Understanding of the Chief Good

In addressing the question of what is the chief good for human beings, Aristotle finds not a single chief good, but a pluriform goodness rooted in the individual's desire (eudaimonism). He takes issue with Plato's Ideal Good which Plato maintains is absolute, that is, the same Good for all people, at all times and in all places.

For both Aristotle and Plato the question of what good was a philosophical question, but one which could not be excised from morality.  For Plato, the Good is enacted by humans who knew the Good. We might call these enlightened humans.  For Aristotle, the Good is enacted by those who fulfill their personal destiny (which brings happiness).  Because he saw each as having a unique destiny (teleology), Aristotle maintained that each would experience Good/personal happiness differently.  One's destiny was the chief good for Aristotle and required hard work to discover.

 "Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right?" (1094a 21-24)

Aristotle remarks that there is broad agreement that the chief good is personal happiness in the fulfillment of one's destiny. This is why "eudaimonism" is often  translated as flourishing. There is broad agreement that this consists in living and doing well, but beyond that there is not general agreement.  Aristotle always takes common opinion seriously in trying to develop his own view. Plato sees the Good as above common opinion or common convention. It is an eternal Form existing outside of time a space and yet the natural world reflects it.

In the common view, a flourishing life consists in pleasure, honor, and virtue. Aristotle will argue that when we want honor what we really want is to deserve honor.



Related reading:  Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt; Aristotle's Observations Do Not Penetrate Beyond the Material

Natural Law and the "Political Animal"

Matthew O'Brien and Robert C. Koons



A notion of “social practice” should guide the way we think about morality and politics. The first in a three-part series.

Whenever philosophy seems abstruse, hairsplitting, or frivolous, it’s worth meditating on G. K. Chesterton’s definition of what philosophy is all about:

Philosophy is merely thought that has been thought out. It is often a great bore. But man has no alternative, except between being influenced by thought that has been thought out and being influenced by thought that has not been thought out.

In the interest of thinking through our thoughts—specifically, our thoughts about how we ought to live—this article is the first in a series of three about natural law ethics. In this first installment, we give a general account of some problems about ‘social reality’ for ethics. In the next article, we apply the account sketched here to the issue of abortion as well as other difficult moral problems, and show how to apply the principle of double effect. In the final piece in the series, we address some of the main big-picture objections to the project of natural law ethics.

Natural law ethics is perhaps unique among competing contemporary moral theories in the degree to which it attempts to respect the distinctiveness of moral experience while, at the same time, fitting its account of that experience into a general picture of the world. To be committed to the project of natural law ethics is to be committed, at least to some extent, to the thesis that ethical principles draw their content from natural facts, facts about the essential constitution or ‘natures’ of things, especially human things. These natural facts include, first, the facts about the nature of human beings as individuals—that is, as rational animals comprised of body and soul—and second, the facts about the relationship between individual human beings and the societies in which they participate. Natural law theorists and their sympathizers have recently revisited the first of these issues in an impressive number of important books. Indeed, Philippa Foot, Kevin Flannery, J. Budziszewski, Rosalind Hursthouse, Anthony Lisska, Timothy Chappell, David Oderberg, Robert George, Christopher Tollefsen, Patrick Lee, Mark Murphy, and Alasdair MacIntyre have all written books in the last few years that examine individual human nature and the moral goods which perfect it.

Read it all here.

Buttiglione Responds to David Hume

The following is a Part II of a series from Rocco Buttiglione's book Exiting a Dead End Road: a GPS for Christians in Public Discourse, published by Kairos Publications in Vienna, and edited by Gudrun and Martin Kugler. Order the book here. Part I is here and Part III is here.


Rocco Buttiglione
Obeying reason

Now a paradox arises. Whilst for all (other) animals to be free means to act according to instinct, for man to be free means to be able to act according to reason. The instinctual side of man must be convinced to obey to reason.

Animal freedom can be defined against external pressure. If I am left to my instincts I am free. For man it is more complicated. Human freedom is defined in opposition to two different kinds of pressure: external pressure but also the internal pressure of the instinctual drives trying to avoid the control and disavow the primacy of reason.

Human freedom, therefore, demands the self control of the person, who can do what he or she sees to control his or her own passions. Immanuel Kant stresses the social relevance of his specific human freedom in his concept of the transcendental I. The transcendental I is the subjectivity in which man acts without the conditioning of passions only guided by the idea of the good (actually for Kant it is rather the idea of duty, but now we cannot deal with the difference between these two ideas). This subjectivity is easily directed towards the common good. Man cannot see anything as good if it is only his own individual selfish good opposed to the good of others. The so called Kantian imperative always tries to preserve the social character of the good.

The experience of the value of the person, and in particular the experience of the value of the other person, induces me to recognize that I cannot define my individual good in opposition to the good of the other. Hence the rule: consider always the person, in yourself and in others, always also as an end and never only as a means. A society in which this rule is not acknowledged cannot be a truly human society.


The drama of two freedoms

If we consider the complexity of human freedom we are forced to see that there are two ways in which we speak of human freedom. We could call the first the lesser freedom and the second the greater freedom. Luther differentiates in his theological language between the freedom of the flesh and Christian freedom.

In one sense we can speak of the freedom of man in the same way in which we speak of the freedom of animals, meaning the absence of external interferences. If we are slaves of our passions, however, this freedom will not be real human freedom. If we are manipulated by others through the offer of different kinds of pleasure so that we renounce the use of reason and behave as if we did not possess an autonomous capacity for the knowledge and the recognition of good and evil, then we are not free.

Aristotle goes as far as to say that for such men it is better to be slaves of other human beings than of their own passions, since they are unable to be free. The specific human freedom arises out of the human capacity to recognize values and to know truth. We could also see that in human beings freedom is ordered to love. When we recognize the value of another person and choose to belong to this person in love than we make the proper use of our freedom and become truly free.

A man who never makes the experience of love leaves this world as void as he was when he first entered into it. His freedom becomes slavery.

A necessary consequence of the nature of human freedom seems to be that our freedom needs to be educated. We are born free, but at the same time we must become free through the control of our passions and the search for truth.

END
 
Again, I like what Buttiglione has to say.  Relativists will argue that since the search for truth leads people in different directions, the search creates greater divisions and potentially less tolerance.

What Makes a Good Society?

There are numerous marks of a good society: justice, equity, rule of law, economic opportunity, reciprocity, prosperity, critical thinking, ethical standards, concern for good citizenship, right to defense, right to private property, etc. But where does the value of Goodness for Goodness sake come in?

Alice C. Linsley

As Americans watch the political stalemate in Washington, we can’t help but notice the conflicting views on what makes a society good. We might agree that it takes good people to make a good society, people reaching out to people. We might say that it takes good leaders to design a good society. Lyndon B. Johnson spoke of the "Great Society" which for him meant social reforms designed to eliminate poverty and racial injustice. Johnson's vision was formed by the radical changes of the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement. He saw the nation's greatness in terms of economic prosperity and opportunity.

The Founding Fathers spoke of a society in which there is "liberty and justice for all". Such a statement could be made by left-leaning Democrats as well as old-guard Republicans. It rings with the shallow “truth” of a slogan. It reads well on a banner carried by activists on both sides of health reform, campaign reform, education reform, etc, but this ideal can be achieved only by embracing the Good. 

Plato was right that one can't live the good life unless one knows the Good. The hard part is defining “good” apart from self-interest. For many, good is what I perceive to serve me best. Society is good if it features personal comforts and benefits and generates a standard of living that I feel entitled to enjoy.  But the reality and the dream are very far apart! We are a nation of overworked and underpaid wage slaves whose debt dampens our passion for the Good.  Many are just trying to survive.  Our standard of living never will be high enough to satisfy us.  There always will be another convenience or techy toy just beyond our reach. We are no longer free. We are ruled by schedules, technology, taxes and our own discontent.  And we tend to think our discontent is someone else's fault. No wonder many Americans are angry!

Aristotle believed that free men are responsible for their voluntary and involuntary actions and behaviors. He did not include slaves in this scheme because to him the society of ruling men was the basis upon which to build a good society.  For Aristotle, a society or state is held together by friendship more than justice. He regarded men with many friendships as good men. [1]

That friendship, or natural affinity, is the basis of a good society is evident to children who determine who is included and who is excluded from their group. No matter how often their mothers tell them to be nice and let everyone play together, children form groups according to their own rules. (And their parents don't "play" with everyone either.) Yet children are more egalitarian than Aristotle's society.  Children slip in and out of different groups quite often.  This is how they discover where they fit best.  But in Aristotle's society a person could never escape from his caste. Slaves were at the bottom of the caste system and they had no rights except those granted to them by their masters. Some slaves were highly skilled in medicine, arts, reading and writing, etc. These were generally treated well by their masters because they had valuable skills, but they were not regarded as the equal of free men like Aristotle. So all the things we like about Aristotle - the attitudes which seem fair and democratic - really apply only to men of his Athenian social class.  There is little application to America, a society of myriad communities straining in diverse directions to achieve a good society .

We grow up hearing that America is the "Land of the Free" but we know from daily experience that people aren't treated as equals and many, though not slaves in an institutional sense, bear the heavier load of work and for the least amount of pay.  It is no surprise that our nation produced a thinker like J. B. Rawls who articulated a way for a person's execution of a rational long-term plan of life to remain fair to other people's life plans under the "veil of ignorance".  The veil is to keep people from tilting the balance of justice in their favor. But Congress, reflecting the nation, is a community of communities, each working to tilt the balance in their favor.  This is not the balance of justice, but the balance of power. Winning the votes, passing the porked bill, getting the dirt on one's opponent - these are what tilt the balance.  These are what break bonds of friendship.

Sociologist Amitai Etzioni has written, "the quest for a good society points to one that allows communities to maintain some limitations on new membership while at the same time greatly restrict the criteria that communities may use informing such exclusivity. The criteria for exclusion cannot be race, ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, or a host of other criteria based on ascribed statuses. Rather, the bonds of good communities, it follows, should be based on affinities whose nature remains to be defined." [2] 

Contrary to political correctness, the good society limits membership by law.  It is predicated on affinity, not on grand schemes or social engineering.  Societies are organic. They develop according to their social DNA and can't be designed. (Socialists neglect this truth.) Unless natural communities can be connected in friendly ways, nation building is impossible. The good society works as a confederation of tribes, each honoring the other's right to exist and all responsible for the most vulnerable and the poorest.


NOTES

1.  Aristotle intended authentic friendships, not fair-weather friends.  Authentic people tend to attract authentic friends. That being the case, the larger the network of friendship, the greater the measure of a man's virtue.

2.  The quotation is from Etzioni's essay "The Good Society" found here.  Etzioni is a communitarian.  As such, he views institutions and policies as reflecting values passed from generation to generation.  "These values become part of the self through internalization, and are modified by persuasion, religious or political indoctrination, leadership, and moral dialogues." Read more here.


Related reading:  Critical Thinking and Good Citizenship; Revising Good and Evil; Teaching the Benefits of Capitalism; Moral Obligation

Aristotle's Observation Didn't Penetrate Beyond this Life

According to Socrates, the ultimate object of human activity is happiness, and the necessary means to reach it, virtue. Since everybody necessarily seeks happiness, no one is deliberately corrupt. All evil arises from ignorance, and the virtues are one and all but so many kinds of prudence. Virtue can, therefore, be imparted by instruction.

The disciple of Socrates, Plato (427-347 B.C.) declares that the summum bonum consists in the perfect imitation of God, the Absolute Good, an imitation which cannot be fully realised in this life. Virtue enables man to order his conduct, as he properly should, according to the dictates of reason, and acting thus he becomes like unto God. But Plato differed from Socrates in that he did not consider virtue to consist in wisdom alone, but in justice, temperance, and fortitude as well, these constituting the proper harmony of man's activities. In a sense, the State is man writ large, and its function its function is to train its citizens in virtue. For his ideal State he proposed the community of goods and of wives and the public education of children.

Though Socrates and Plato had been to the fore in this mighty work and had contributed much valuable material to the upbuilding of ethics; nevertheless, Plato's illustrious disciple, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), must be considered the real founder of systematic ethics. With characteristic keenness he solved, in his ethical and political writings, most of the problems with which ethics concerns itself.

Unlike Plato, who began with ideas as the basis of his observation, Aristotle chose rather to take the facts of experience as his starting-point; these he analysed accurately, and sought to trace to their highest and ultimate causes. He set out from the point that all men tend to happiness as the ultimate object of all their endeavours, as the highest good, which is sought for its own sake, and to which all other goods merely serve as means. This happiness cannot consist in external goods, but only in the activity proper to human nature - not indeed in such a lower activity of the vegetative and sensitive life as man possesses in common with plants and brutes, but in the highest and most perfect activity of his reason, which springs in turn from virtue. This activity, however, has to be exercised in a perfect and enduring life. The highest pleasure is naturally bound up with this activity, yet, to constitute perfect happiness, external goods must also supply their share. True happiness, though prepared for him by the gods as the object and reward of virtue, can be attained only through a man's own individual exertion. With keen penetration Aristotle thereupon proceeds to investigate in turn each of the intellectual and moral virtues, and his treatment of them must, even at the present time, be regarded as in great part correct. The nature of the State and of the family were, in the main, rightly explained by him. The only pity is that his vision did not penetrate beyond this earthly life, and that he never saw clearly the relations of man to God.

From here.

Aristotle and Poverty

"Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime." - Aristotle

Poverty is relative, is it not? When the average American complains of being "poor" it is difficult to feel sympathic. Here poverty likely means that he or she can't afford the latest technological device or designer clothes. Or it may mean he or she is deeply in debt. Rarely would such a statement be taken to refer to poverty in the things of God.

Aristotle was a great observer. Surely he observed that many who are poor remain decent citizens. Most do not revolt and do not commit crimes. Indeed many who are poor in the things of this world are rich in the things of God. In our society we make too little of this fact.