Aristotle begins his chapter called Techne & Episteme, in his Nichomachean Ethics, with the position that there are 5 forms of thought- craft and scientific knowledge, intelligence, wisdom, and understanding. He compares and contrasts these and clearly values wisdom above others because it is knowing the universal truths from which all deduction may flow. He then concludes that philosophers are scientists who do science to know, and not for some utilitarian ends, implying they are at the heights of virtuous thought (a pat on his own back). (Aristotle)
It was interesting to read the following: “People say that Anaxagoras or Thales or that sort of person is wise, but not intelligent, when they see that he is ignorant of what benefits himself…since intelligence is concerned with action, it must posses both [the universal and the particular knowledge], or the [particular] more [than the universal].”
He wrote, “this is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly class was allowed to be at leisure.” I agree with this claim, because it is confirmed by a book I read in the Technology and Western Civilization class, in which was writ sacred places gave purpose to settlement-based societies and, “a huge amount of time and resources was devoted to the building and maintenance of these sacred structures, which in turn increased the demand for people with specialized skills that precluded them from agricultural work,” (Ede, A).
The statement, “all men by their nature desire to know,” rings true, depending on what is meant by nature and desire, and is a most compelling argument.
Something may be missing from Aristotle’s reasoning. He says that “men of experience…do not tell us the “why” of anything – e.g. why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot.” He appears to deduce purpose of being from action. Scientists and brilliant people today still use the word why to talk of purpose; e.g, a car exists to be driven. Yet things have different purposes depending on who is using them. When people use the word why it seems they mean how and what, which are both things that can be measured. The true why of anything either cannot be known or changes depending on who you ask; e.g., not all cars exist to be driven (some are used for target practice).
Plato’s chapter called Dialectic and Techne, from the Republic, is a comparison between education and the lack of education as that relates to our nature, and to social governance. The identity of two people is detailed; those who carry artifacts along a wall of a cave and those who sit idly on the floor of it while looking at the shadows of the artifacts on the other wall. Plato concludes that education means good direction through instruction, and that this will ensure a better kind of ruler for society, thus ensuring a well-governed city as a result. (Plato)
I found the following quotes interesting: “Can you name any life that despises political rule besides that of the true philosopher? No, by god, I can’t,” and “Surely it is those who are not lovers of ruling that must rule, for if they don’t, the lovers of it, who are rivals, will fight over it.” I found these interesting, because they paint a contrast between the teachers of rulers and the rulers themselves, but says the teachers make the best rulers and the rulers themselves do not necessarily. Rulers can be taught but may not endeavour to the ends said by Plato to be the most moral.
I disagree that it is the purpose of the law to produce citizens which are in harmony and to bind the city together, but it depends on the intentions of those who created the law. If the law is created by rulers, it seems the intention is just that, to unite society under themselves for their own personal benefit. If the ruled, it seems the intention is to right a wrong, which is to restore victims and reform criminals. It is to recreate the concept of heaven on earth, by dispensing the judgement of god here and now, which is the promise given to the true believers by the church and the state itself. First to promise, then to believe; if it were a question of what came first, the chicken of the promise or the egg of the belief, the answer is certainly the chicken. So then, after all, I do not disagree with Plato here.
The most compelling concept here is where Plato predicts that if greater happiness could be attained than through ruling, a well-governed city would be possible. Of course, this ideal does not seem at a glance to have been attained in history.
This classic author was born into a wealthy family, in a city, and so is steeped in the workings of a city, its classes, laws, procedures, principles, etc., He does not seem to be basing his reasoning on the lives of any particular human, but on the health of the city itself. In doing so he puts the city before the person; the cart before the horse- for surely the city existsIs this civility? Perhaps. Is it humanist? I do not think so. It cannot be for human good, so it cannot be considered intelligent, if we are to work with Aristotle’s definitions.
Wendell Berry’s Life is a Miracle’s first chapter reads as a commentary on a scene in King Lear, where a son saves a father’s life by leading him to a safe ledge, so that his attempt at suicide would not succeed. He reveals through dialogue and feigning the appearance of a stranger that the father’s attempt at suicide was an attempt at regaining control over his life, that he falsely believe he had, and had lost. Berry asserts that to give up on treating life as a miracle, as something we do not fully understand, we regain what it means to be alive. (Berry)
Interestingly, Berry asserts, “it is impossible to prefigure the salvation of the world using the same language by which the world has been dismembered and defaced.” This claim about the effectiveness of the use of language, and its potential weaponization,is profound.
The most compelling argument Berry makes is, “the question of how to act in ignorance is paramount.” By saying “In ignorance I believe I may pronounce myself a fair expert,” Berry is continuing the tradition of skeptics like Nietzsche and Gorgias, but he fails to make specific arguments from evidence that would go farther to convince me that his general suppositions do in fact apply to all or even the majority of cases of commercialized scientism (he gives two).
One major thread is woven through each of these three readings, which is that men are putting thought into ways that humans might live better than they do. Aristotle shows that the way is through wisdom. Plato believed the way is through better social governance. Berry supposed that to err on the side of life is the best way to act. All of them wanted each next generation of mankind to grow up to use their mental faculties for loftier purposes, which is a better life for oneself, and for society as a result.
References
Aristotle, and Roger Crisp. Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Berry, Wendell. Life is a miracle : an essay against modern superstition. Counterpoint, 2001.
Ede, Andrew. Technology and Society: A World History. Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Plato. Plato’s The Republic. New York :Books, Inc., 1943.
Joshua Ray Jongema 