Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas

He also famously stated that "man is by nature a political animal". Aristotle conceived of politics as being like an organism rather than like a machine, and as a collection of parts none of which can exist without the others. Aristotle's conception of the city is organic, and he is considered one of the first to conceive of the city in this manner.

Plato was a mathematician and a philosopher from Greece. Possibly his most famous student is Aristotle.

St. Thomas Aquinas

BIRTH DATE

c. 1225

DEATH DATE

March 7, 1274

EDUCATION

University of Naples

PLACE OF BIRTH

Roccasecca, Italy

NICKNAME

"The Universal Teacher"

"The Christian Apostle"

Theory of Forms

Aristotle was born around 384 BC in the ancient Greek kingdom of Mecedonia where his father was a royal doctor. He grew up to be arguably the most influential philosopher ever, with modest nicknames like ‘the master’ and simply ‘the philosopher’. He was a student of Plato a philosopher from Greece.

The Theory of Forms explains that the world is made up of reflections of more perfect and ideal ‘forms’. The material world is really just half-seen images of the reality of the Forms. The world we see is only a reflection of the Forms the world represents. A Form whether it's a circle, or a table, or a tree, or a dog--is, for Socrates, the answer to the question, 'What is that?' Only understanding Forms can lead to true knowledge.

Aristotle was a student of Plato’s at the Academy in Athens, who then became a tutor to Alexander the Great, before returning to Athens to set up his own philosophy school, called the Lyceum. Aristotle had an incredibly broad and curious mind, and wrote definitive works on physics, biology, ethics and psychology, politics, rhetoric and literary criticism – and those are just the works that survive.

Allegory of the cave

The Allegory of the cave is composed by Plato written in The Republic. It is a fictional dialogue between Socrates and his brother Glaucon.

ETHICS

Aristotle considered ethics to be a practical rather than theoretical study, i.e., one aimed at becoming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake. He wrote several treatises on ethics, including most notably, the Nicomachean Ethics.

According to Aristotle, each species has its particular nature, and the good life for that species is one that fulfills its nature. So he begins his ethical inquiry, in the Nichomachean Ethics by asking what is the nature of man.

He decides man has both a rational and an irrational system in his psyche, and that human nature also has a natural drive for human society (‘man is a political animal’), for knowledge, for happiness, and for God

The good life is a life that fulfills these natural drives, and directs them to their highest end. That’s what philosophy does: it uses our rational mind to guide the natural desires of our psyche to their highest fulfillment, which Aristotle calls eudaimonia, or flourishing.

LAW ABIDINGNESS

Those who follow the law are just and fine with it because they are contented, in that sense. You live and abide to the law without breaking the law.

In terms of fairness, ethics has to do with our reasoning as a reflection of our moral.

COMPLETE VIRTUE

To be a just person in this sense. It goes beyond by just obeying the law. It cultivates virtues by making your self a better being.

Doing things not necessary for yourself, but for the benefit of others as well.

DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

1. The series of motion necessitates a first mover

>there is a first unmoved mover

Have something good to share with others like MONEY for example.

Specifically not in the terms of wealth but income.

It can only be distributed fairly or a person can take more on their fair share from a group.

e.g.: group assignments and reports. “one has taken credit more than what he/she did”.

2. The series of cause and effect requires a first efficient cause

>every cause is dependent on the preceding cause

CORRECTIVE JUSTICE

FIVE WAYS OF PROVING GOD’S EXISTENCE

3. The contingency of beings necessitates a non-contingent being to bring forth existence

>everything that exists requires for its existence something that already existed

When things have gotten out of control, weather distribution happened was wrong, When people have taken credit more than their fair share, CORRECTIVE JUSTICE sets things right.

RECIPROCITY

How exactly does philosophy cultivate our nature and lead us to eudaimonia?

4. The degrees of perfection point to a perfect being who has the maximum of all positive qualities

>beings in the world have characteristics to varying degrees

• It is a conception on “you get what you give”
• When you do good for somebody else, they should do good for you as well or vice versa.
• A corresponding punishment will fit a specific crime.
• RECIPROCITY is a different kind of fairness

5. The order and beauty visible in the world requires and intelligent designer

>natural things are directed toward their purpose

EQUITY

It takes practice.  Philosophy helps us to develop virtues, by which Aristotle means the right way to act in different situations. he thinks virtues exist in a ‘golden mean’ between excesses. So the virtue of courage, for example, exists in the golden mean between recklessness and timidity. The virtue of good humour exists in the golden mean between excessive solemnity and excessive buffoonery. Working out what the appropriate virtue is in different situations takes some theory, but it mainly takes a lot of practice, until your ethical philosophy has become habituated, and you naturally do the right thing at the right time.

• practice until it becomes your 2nd nature.

• “Appropriateness”
• Being able to loosen up
• Flexible measure more on moral reasoning and empathic reasoning to justify a corresponding action.

What is justice?

EUDAIMONIA = FLOURISHING

• Ethics examines the good and moral of an individual
• Politics examines the good of the city state
• Disposition or Habit – “virtue”
• Makes a person to be apt to be just
• Makes you act justly
• Makes you want to desire justice
• You become empathic relating it to your morals because of ethic practices

Aristotle certainly believed that the practice of the virtues is a very important part of the good life. Through generations have past and continuing to use and improve and flourish ethics and morality we had developed a stable society despite of its imperfectness. Aristotle thought you needed virtue for a good life, but you also needed a bit of luck. The good life consists not just in inner virtue, but also in certain external conditions, like good health, a loving family, a fulfilling career and a free society.

POLITICS

In addition to his works on ethics, which address the individual, Aristotle addressed the city in his work titled Politics. Aristotle considered the city to be a natural community. Moreover, he considered the city to be prior in importance to the family which in turn is prior to the individual, "for the whole must of necessity be prior to the part".

LAW

>"A certain rule and measure of acts whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting."

>Addressed to the whole people meeting in common or to persons who have charge of the community as a whole

MORAL PRINCIPLES

Four Propositions

3. Law is posited by the responsible authority

> the person or body that “has the care of the community” is entitled to make laws

4. Law needs to be coercive

> only public authority can punish or rightly engage in war, and it is reasonable for public authorities to seek a virtual monopoly on what would now be called police operations for the prevention, suppression, and detection of crime.

1. Law is an appeal to reason

> an appeal to the mind, choice, moral strength and love of those subject to the law

2. Law is for a political community's common good

> gives them reason for regarding the law as authoritative and obligatory

Conscience

• our practical intelligence at work in the form of a stock of judgments about the rightness or wrongness of kinds of action

Prudentia (Prudence)

• basic elements of sound judgment and practical reasonableness
• the cause, measure and form of all virtues

SUMMA THEOLOGICA

- most famous work of Aquinas

- divided into 3 parts:

1. Existence and Nature of God

2. Purpose of Man

3. Christ

1. Eternal Law

>”Laws of the universe”

>God stands to the universe which he creates as a ruler does to a community which he rules

2. Divine Law

>The revealed word of God (revelation)

>Derived from eternal law as it appears historically to humans

>Old Law(Old Testament = Ten Commandments) and New Law(New Testament = teachings of Jesus)

FOUR KINDS OF LAW

3. Natural Law

>Eternal law as it applies to us which we know by reason

4. Human Law

>Laws devised by human reason

>Instruments in the promotion of virtue

>Human law is derived from Natural Law (natural law is law with moral content)

Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas

References:

Finnis, J. (2005). Aquinas' moral, political, and legal philosophy". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/aquinas-moral-political/

Aquinas on law. Retrieved from http://people.wku.edu/jan.garrett/302/aquinlaw.htm

http://www.iep.utm.edu/republic/

http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/archives/plato%20and%20the%20theory%20of%20forms.htm

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-allegory-of-the-cave-by-plato-summary-analysis-explanation.html