Against dogmas

Until now, the philosophers we have studied have tried to establish their opinions as more or less certain truths, in other words, they have held on to some dogmas they have believed in. We have also seen philosophers attacking opinions of other philosophers and trying to find weaknesses in them. Yet, the end of such arguments has always been establishing the truth of one's own opinions. Still, one might suppose that some philosophers would merely argue against opinions of others and delight in finding holes in theories and still not teach any credo of their own.

We find such an attitude in some Greek physicians. Medicine in general had had a sort of rivalry with philosophy: both physicians and philosophers were sure they could improve people's lives. Of course, some physicians endorsed philosophical theories of the constitution of humans and based their practice on them. Yet, others of the so-called empirical school thought such theories were always untrustworthy, and instead, based their practice on immediate observations: if this substance appears to make this patient feel better, we should probably make him take it more.

In philosophy, the first clear sign of such a dominant use of criticism had been Socrates' habit of questioning his fellow citizens, although even he was probably trying to get them admit some moral truths. Use of Socratic dialogue was continued in Plato's school, although more as a method for educating young students, while Plato and his immediate followers undoubtedly held on to some dogmas. Still, in course of time, the Socratic method actually overthrew Platonic dogma from its place of honour in Platonic Academy.

The beginner of this trend was Arcesilaus, who was fond of showing that no dogma of other philosophical schools was more believable than a contrary dogma: indeed, he apparently taught that no assertion was to be believed. His opponents and especially Stoics doubted that such a life would be even possible, because believing something was so ingrained in human mind. Arcesilaus answered that one might still use what is reasonable as guidance in life.

An even later teacher of Academy, Carneades, countered the Stoic doubt that instead of firm assertion one could base one's life on plausibilities. Thus, one need not believe in a single sensation, but if it happens to cohere with many other sensations, it might still be recommendable to live as if this sensation was really true. If we ignore external appearances, Carneades' view was actually not that far from official Stoic doctrine: in place of firm truth one could just put high probability. It is therefore not that surprising that later Academicians moved closer to the position of Stoics.

The true embodiment of the critical attitude was the Sceptic or Pyrrhonian school, named after its founder. Pyrrho was famous of doubting everything, even what he saw in front of him, and his opponents told stories of Pyrrho being saved by his followers from dangers he just couldn't accept as true. Pyrrho had only few followers, most notable of them being Timon, famous for poems making fun of all the other philosophers. Later, Pyrrhonian school became to have some affinities with the empirical school of medicine, as evidenced by the name and the testimony of Pyrrhonian with most surviving writings, Sextus Empiricus.

Pyrrhonians shared some methodological points with Academy of Arcesilaus and Carneades. Most importantly, both schools showed that every belief could be countered by another plausible belief. Thus, what one sensed could be countered by other sensations – like tower could seem round and angular from different directions – or by theories – like white could be said to actually be multi-coloured, and similarly theories could be countered by sensations or by other theories.

While Academics were quick to conclude that no assertions should be believed in, Pyrrhonians thought this was contradictory, because it would mean believing in this demand of non-belief. Instead, Pyrrhonians couldn't even decide whether something should be believed in or not.

Seemingly out of all options, Pyrrhonians explained that in addition to conscious choice of holding on to some assertion, people were forced to choose things according to what things seemed to be: thus, when I feel hungry, I am forced to find food, although there might be no guarantee that I am actually in need of nourishment. Similarly, Pyrrhonians suggested, when two opinions appear to be equally plausible, we are forced to suspend our beliefs concerning them altogether. Still, the possibility that either one of the opinions was the correct one still remains.

Just like Academics, Pyrrhonians faced the problem how one could live in such a state of non-belief. While Carneades had relied on the notion of plausibility, Pyrrhonians thought that it was enough to rely on what thing appeared to be and what these appearances forced us to do, just like in the case of hunger and accompanying desire for eating.

Pyrrhonian Aenesidemus was famous for inventing general argument schemes by which all sorts of opinions could be attacked. His general method was to note that we could always view things only from some perspective or context and by changing this context the opinions would also have to change. This relativity or perspectiveness could be caused by the peculiar nature of the one holding the opinion. Thus, different animals sense and think of things differently, and we have no right to hold one species to have a more perfect view of the world than others. Even if we could somehow hold humans as the species with best cognitive apparatus, humans themselves would still have different constitutions and would view things differently. Even if we then could pick out some person as truly wise, she would still feel things differently with different senses: something that would look pleasant could taste horrible. Furthermore, she would see things differently under different conditions, e.g. as young she hears things that she couldn't hear while old.

In addition to the person holding opinion, the things that the opinion should be about cause also differences of opinions when they are changed. Thus, quantity of things affects how we view it: drinking a glass of water is refreshing, drinking whole ocean is deadly. A peculiar case is formed by laws and customs, which differ from place to place and engender different views about the good life.

Finally, the variablity of perspectives could also be caused by the interaction between those who investigated things and those who are being investigated. Thus, even the relative locations of the observer and the observed could make a great difference, because things look different from different angles and distances or when observed in water and out of water. Furthermore, if something is novel to the observer, it will seem more or less different from what a familiar object feels like.

An even simpler and more effective set of arguments was invented by a later Pyrrhonian, Agrippa. His starting point is familiar: there are many contradicting opinions and they all seem to be just a matter of perspective. It is when someone attempts to present an opinion as something more than mere opinion that Agrippa's arguments really begin. If something is just supposed as convincing in itself, then the opponent has an equal right to suppose her option. If then one attempts to base this supposition on something, it will have to be based on something similar or something different. If you base it on something similar, you face the same questions again and at most you can set up a never-ending search for foundation. If you base it on something different, you still have to find some base for this new supposition and you then also have the same two choices: basing it on something similar falls again to the problem of never-ending search, while always trying to base suppositions on something different will eventually go through all possible options and create a loop that itself is not based on anything. The end of the story is that nothing can be supposed without begging the question.

Pyrrhonians also insisted that there appeared to be nothing that could be taught. Either we would be taught all the things that do not exist – but this is absurd – or then we would be taught all the things that exist – but this is equally impossible, because we couldn't start anywhere, if everything had to be taught to us. Furthermore, what was taught isn't corporeal, because bodies are not thoughts, while it is uncertain if there are any incorporeal things.

Then again, Pyrrhonians continued, it was doubtful that there were any experts good enough to teach anything – and non-experts clearly aren't able to teach anything. Furthermore, even learning appeared to be impossible: experts couldn't learn anything anymore, while non-experts couldn't even recognise when they have learned something.

Finally, Pyrrhonians stated that there was no proper method to teach anything. If you just showed things to a pupil, he would just pick up what evidently appeared to him and not learn anything new. Speech, on the other hand, couldn't be used to teach anything, because one would already have to know what the words meant, if he was to learn anything – and if she knew what they meant, then she wouldn't need anyone to teach them more.

Armed with such strong arguments, Pyrrhonians could have just rested on their laurels and declared all attempts to find knowledge futile. Instead, they went to quite some length in order to discredit even individual disciplines. They began with the traditional Greek elementary studies, in order to show that knowledge could not be found even in such elementary topics.

First of the elementary studies skeptics rejected was the learning of grammar and classic literature. Sextus noted that learning grammar was not altogether useless, because reading and writing were important for surviving in the real life. It is the supposedly expert part of it, dealing with intricacies of language that is both useless and doubtful. An expert of language begins by defining its elements or individual sounds, but it is problematic to even decide what is an individual sound. Is a long vowel a separate sound from a short vowel or just two vowels put together? Is a differently pronounced s a new sound or a combination of s with some other sound? Written language is of no help here, because it is far from being consistent and in some cases it accepts such as different elements and uses a different letter for them, but in other cases it uses a combination of several letters.

Combining sounds into syllables and words is also problematic, because it is sometimes difficult to distinguish combinations of several syllables or words from a single syllable or word. Even more inconsistencies are produced by grammatical genera of words, especially if they are defined as masculine or feminine. If the experts of language try to make the linguistic inconsistencies disappear by making all conjugations and such bound to a rule, the problem is which rule one should follow in unclear cases. The only sufficient criterion appears to be the actual language use of different people, but this requires no expertise and would also mean acceptance of all inconsistencies. If the experts would want to revert to some original state of language, they couldn't explain what was better in such archaic forms – if they were natural, everyone would use them.

The teachers of grammar also boasted of knowledge of myths and ancient poets, but this did not impress skeptics. Because myths and poems are so variable and have different version, there can be no systematic discipline studying them. Furthermore, trying to find great wisdom in such works of art is futile, because these works are so inconsistent in their teachings: should we follow the advice of one character or of another?

After grammar, it was rhetoric that faced the skeptic attack. Sextus ridiculed teachers of fine speeches who rarely made speeches themselves, and noted that floral expressions of famous orators rarely received any sympathies from listeners and judges of court anymore and thus failed to convince or impress, which supposedly was the major achievement of this art. In addition, he noted that a community would not benefit from people who could lull others with pretty words, thus making the status of rhetoric as a useful art suspect.

Even mathematical arts weren't left in peace, at least if they passed the limits of what was required in everyday life. Pyrrhonians criticized the notion of points as dimensionless entities, out of which were generated breadthless lines, depthless planes and finally normal bodies. All that we see, they say, has some dimensions, has breadth and even depth, so we truly have no reason to suppose the existence of such non-entities like points, lines and planes. Furthermore, even if such incorporeal entities existed, it would be mysterious how they could produce corporeal bodies or even limit them.

Equally suspect in Pyrrhonians' opinions was the attempt to base arithmetic on the philosophical notion of One as something that made all things into unities. Was this One itself a unity? Wouldn't it then make all the unities into just one entity, thus making it impossible to count anything. And if it was more like a material that could be divided and attached to each unity separately, how could we speak of the One as a unified entity?

It was not practical land measuring and counting that Pyrrhonians criticized, but theories supposedly meant as their foundations. Similarly, they were not antagonistic towards empirical study of stars and their movements, but towards the attempt to read people's destinies from the position of the stars at the time of their conception or birth. Pyrrhonians noted that even if stars do influence human lives, such studies would have to be of utmost accuracy, because clearly there have been persons born very close and very near one another and still with quite remote destinies. Then again, such accuracy is impossible to maintain, because it is too difficult to determine the exact point at which a child has been born or conceived.

The final part of traditional Greek education or music was also argued against by Pyrrhonians. While music was usually hailed as necessary for cultivating human character, Pyrrhonians noted that in many cases music appeared to have quite the opposite effect and that its apparent good consequences were caused by its capacity to captivate its listeners. Furthermore, musical education appeared useless to Pyrrhonians, because even small babies could appreciate good music. Finally, Pyrrhonians attacked the whole notions of a systematic study of music, because it consisted of fleeting melodies, which had no stable structure to be investigated.

Pyrrhonians continued on to argue against the more refined philosophical disciplines. In the order of presentation, they mostly followed Stoics, probably because it was the most famed school at the time. Thus, like Stoics, they began with logic, but instead of showing how one can find what is true, they presented arguments against the possibility to find truth. The other schools had supposed there had to be some group of entities that were able to decide what is true or not: most of them had supposed this group contained at least some humans. Now, Pyrrhonians noted that even recognising someone as a human would require a commonly accepted definition of humanity, which no one had yet given. Indeed, because no one had satisfyingly discerned the generally supposed constituent aspects of humans, that is, material bodies and mental life, there was no reason to assume a combination of these aspects was any more understandable.

Even if we could discern humans from other entities, Pyrrhonians continued, we still could not accept that humans would be able to know the truth, unless someone who knew truth confirmed it – thus, another regress was generated. Further problems were created by the diversity of human opinions – surely not humans with all their disputes could all be truth recognisers.

If humans or at least some of them were still accepted as capable of knowing the truth, Pyrrhonians could always move on to study the tools by which a human being knows something. Of these tools, sensations clearly contradict themselves from time to time, while intellect is somewhat fuzzy entity, of which nothing much is known for certain – and even we just accepted it, as it is, different people would appear to have been lead to different opinions by their intellects. The only option would then be to let senses and intellect cooperate, but even this cooperation would be useless, because neither could be used as a final standard in cases where the senses and intellect disagreed.

Finally, Pyrrhonians doubted the veracity of the idea that what appeared to us human beings through either senses or intellect could be used in discerning truth. Indeed, they said, it is unclear what these appearances are and how they are produced, so there is nothing to indicate that they have any connection with truth. Indeed, it appears that appearances tell more of the internal states of human beings than of any external objects. We couldn't even say that appearances are similar to the objects, because we cannot have any direct view of the objects. And in fact, while appearances contradict one another, there is no standard for deciding which of them are true.

Pyrrhonians went even further and even suspected the very existence of truths. Truths appeared to be something beyond mere perception, because truth is not a thing that we could literally see. Truth also doesn't appear to be a linguistic attribute of statements, because statements as temporal processes come and go and then truth would also vanish after the statement has been uttered. Then again, if truth was just something in our thoughts, then no things we perceive would be true, which would appear strange.

Even more problems arose from the attempts to know something mediately, through signs or symbols, just like fire might be recognised through rising smoke. Sign apparently must then be immediately apparent and clear – otherwise we couldn't know of it – while that which is known through a sign must be hidden and unclear – otherwise there wouldn't be any need to use sign. Problem is, we couldn't know that A is a sign of B, because we wouldn't be aware of the B at all. Furthermore, it is problematic whether knowing something as a sign requires only perception or also thought. If it would require mere perception, it would be unclear how people conceive different causes for certain signs, for instance, two doctors who make different diagnose from same symptoms. Then again, it cannot require thinking, because even dogs can use signs like smells for information gathering.

An important subspecies of sign use that Pyrrhonians also attacked was demonstrations, which derived formerly unknown truths from known truths. Their main point was that all apparently valid conclusions were either useless or inconclusive. Consider, for instance, a proof of the form ”A, if A then B, thus B”. Here the statement ”if A, then B” is actually quite problematic. You cannot really know it is true, unless you have gone through all known cases where the statement A holds. But if you have done this, then you already know directly that B is also true at this time, so the whole deduction is pointless. If, on the other hand, you don't know whether ”if A then B” is true, you cannot prove B through this argument. Weaker inductive proofs fare even worse, because one could not generalise from a single observation. Indeed, Pyrrhonians noted that logicians were not even better in choosing what arguments to follow than real experts: for instance, a doctor might know instinctually that certain prescription was not made right, while logician would have nothing to add to this.

Pyrrhonians also spoke against the need to define things precisely. Indeed, because definitions couldn't be made infinitely big, there should be some ultimate undefined terms, thus showing that skill of defining things is not always useful. Indeed, many definitions made things even more obscure by replacing fairly well known terms with further murkiness. Finally, Pyrrhonians ridiculed the division of classes – if we cannot even know what these classes are, we cannot really say the division is complete.

In physical matters Pyrrhonians could easily refer to the variety of opinions held by different schools, yet, they took pains in finding arguments against certain common opinions. Thus, when Stoics tried to argue that physical matters could be explained by active causes interacting with passive materials, Pyrrhonians raised doubts against both of them. The ultimate active cause was often said to be some god or gods, but Pyrrhonians could also easily bring forward philosophers doubting and even ridiculing the idea of the existence of gods. For instance, god would have to be either motionless and even incapable of motion – rather pathetic god – or else it would love and thus be susceptible to corruption. This point resembles a basic contradiction in the very notion of divinity: gods were thought to be good and powerful, but still they either couldn't manage or wouldn't want to relief the world of all the suffering. Paradoxically, Pyrrhonians thought that this lack of definite conclusion was actually best thing that happened from a religious viewpoint. If no conclusion was certain, then one should just continue following traditional worship just in case. Those who wanted to prove the existence of gods, on the other hand, made religion susceptible to ridicule by blasphemous counterarguments.

In addition to gods, all active causes are actually suspect, Pyrrhonians suggested. Firstly, we couldn't even conceive what causes are, because knowing a cause would presuppose knowing its effects, which would then presuppose knowing their cause. Even if one could know what causes are, she would have to give a cause that would guarantee that there are causes: this would lead to a never-ending series of causes. Finally, it is actually in most cases even impossible to distinguish between the active and the passive components of causal relation. For instance, when sun, say, dries a piece of clay, sun is not the only active thing, because the clay itself is acting to allow the drying – if it would be snow, the result would be quite the contrary, that is, a wet spot.

Furthermore, Pyrrhonians thought the very process of causation to be dubious. Presumably causes either added something to things or took away from them. Now, such an interaction would in most likelihood occur either between two bodies or two non-bodily limits of things, like lines, because it would be difficult to say how e.g. lines could add anything to bodies. Line then apparently could in a sense take away something from another line, for instance, when one line cut another in two. Then again, the very notion of such splitting of lines was very awkward. If a line could be cut in two, then its parts would have to have been joined by a point, which the cutting line would then go through. But where would this middle point then belong? It could not belong to both parts, or they would still be joined, but if it belonged to either, the line would not be cut evenly, and if it belonged to neither, the line would have been cut into three parts. Similar problems would be faced with combining lines and other limits of bodies.

The notion of bodies interacting with one another is equally difficult, Pyrrhonians continued. Suppose a smaller body is added to another. If the smaller body truly changed the essence of the larger body, it would make this other body similar to itself – namely, smaller. Addition would then actually diminish a thing, which would be absurd. If the smaller body, on the contrary, would not affect the essence of the other body, it would not really add anything to the other body, but would only come in close contact with it.

In addition to causes, the very things that causes act on are suspect, Pyrrhonians continue. Most of the philosophical schools assume that there are material objects or bodies that can be described through geometrical means. Yet, in order to account for three-dimensional bodies geometrically, one must regard them as formed from two-dimensional surfaces and finally from one-dimensional lines – problem is that we can see no such two- or one-dimensional things flying around anywhere. Furthermore, it is a mystery how concrete bodies can be thought about reliably. If we could do it, such thoughts would have to be based on prior perceptions of bodies, but it seems that we perceive only fragments of these bodies – we see colours, we smell certain odours, but our perceptions do not tell us that these colours and odours go together. Because we cannot directly perceive all such properties as belonging to one thing, we cannot even think about such belonging.

This still leaves the possibility that there could be incorporeal substances that could be affected by some causes. Problem is that we seem to be unable to define incorporeal substances without any reference to the corporeal substances, which were already deemed problematic. In addition, incorporeal substances cannot be perceived to exist, because they cannot exert any influence on our sense organs. Furthermore, their existence cannot even be argued for, because arguments definitely are not corporeal, so we would have to decide first whether there are incorporeal things, before we could just assume the existence of incorporeal substances.

In addition to the general attack against incorporeal substances, Pyrrhonians also went against some particular types of such substances, such as place and time. Of these two, place cannot be material, because then it would repel bodies, but it cannot also be a void, because then it would vanish, whenever occupied by a body. Time, on the other hand, consists of a part that is not yet, a part that is yet to come and of a fleeting limit between the two – how could it exist? But if place and time do not exist, how could there be any motion, or indeed, change in general and thus anything for physics to study? Then again, motion and change are so natural concepts that defending them requires just reference to common experiences. Because there are good reasons both for accepting them and for disregarding them, Pyrrhonians concluded that we should just refrain to say anything about them.

After physics, Pyrrhonians set their sights on ethical questions. Here they could easily refer to the various opinions and customs in different cultures and with different thinkers, so that any supposed taboo was practiced or at least allowed by some people: for instance, some of the early Stoics had seen nothing bad in eating human flesh. Hence, Pyrrhonists concluded, nothing was naturally good or bad, for otherwise everyone would think it good or bad.

Furthermore, Pyrrhonists denied that anyone could really be an expert of how to live. This couldn't be a natural trick, because then everyone would know it by instinct and need no philosophers to guide them, but learning how to live was as impossible as learning in general. Furthermore, philosophers are often in awe of the idea of a truly good person, but Pyrrhonians noted that such people are usually like nothing when compared with even better persons. Finally, supposed experts of good life lived actually rather poor lives full of all sorts of hardship.

In fact, skeptics appeared to live much calmer lives than their dogmatic fellows, Pyrrhonians thought. Latter had all sorts of beliefs about what is good and what is bad and then spent all their life craving for what is good and fearing for what is bad, thus making their life full of woe and misery. Pyrrhonians, on the other hand, had no opinions about the matter and were thus hurt only by such unavoidable physical feelings like hunger.

Debating schools

Not so thorough histories of philosophy tend to view Plato and Aristotle as an end of a progression starting from Socrates and even pre-Socratics. Yet, both philosophers did found schools of their own, which were active long after Plato and Aristotle had died. We've already seen that the followers of Plato emphasized the role of numbers even more than Plato had, either discarding the Platonic ideas or identifying them with the numbers – they clearly loved mathematics.

Followers of Aristotle took the opposite route and followed their master in concluding that numbers cannot be the primary explanation of all things: after all, how could unchanging numbers explain world of change around us. Instead, followers of Aristotle, such as Theophrastus, thought that their teacher's notion of a desire for ultimate perfection as the primary cause of all change and movement was at least more promising first principle. That doesn't meant that e.g. Theophrastus would have accepted his teacher's philosophy wholesale. Indeed, Theophrastus might not have accepted even the Aristotelian perfect being as the prime mover: why would an urge to perfection cause many different kinds of movement? Instead, Theophrastus suggests that perhaps e.g. stars do not move, because of an urge to perfect themselves, but because it is in their nature to move in a certain manner.

Despite their differences, Aristotle and Theophrastus shared some clear methodological elements. The most important is their acceptance of reliable experience as a source for testing metaphysical theories. It is then no wonder that Theophrastus spent quite a large part of his life in empirical studies of e.g. plants. But it is not Theophrastus and his even lesser known followers philosophers think of, when they are considering the time after Plato and Aristotle. Instead, it is Epicureanism and Stoicism that come to mind as the epitomes of philosophy in the so-called Hellenistic period of history.

Of these two schools, the Epicureanism was more faithful to its founder Epicurus, and indeed, some of its followers boasted that they still held the original ideas of Epicurus; their critics retorted that initiation in the Epicurean wisdom was like castration in its irreversibility. Stoics, on the other hand, were not so attached to the doctrines of the founder, Zeno, and even if they did not straightforwardly contradict him, they surely attempted to develop his views and emphasized different parts of philosophy according to their own interests.

Just like we saw in Aristotle, philosophy was not seen anymore as an undivided unity, but as consisting of interconnected modules that could be studied independently of one another, although there was a clear hierarchy of more and less important modules. Both Epicureans and Stoics were interested of the question of determining the basic modules and organizing them into a systematic whole. In Stoic school especially, number of schemes were suggested, but soon both school appear to have settled to a the three-part division of philosophy, where different parts answered different basic questions. The first question of the proper way to reveal truth was studied by Epicurean canonic and Stoic logic, while the second question of the structure of the world was studied in both schools by physics, and finally ethics investigated how one should live one's life.

Following Aristotle, both Hellenistic schools conceded that search for knowledge must begin from sensations or perceptions. In fact, they perhaps went a bit further and stated that perceptions were the necessary basis of knowledge, while Aristotle has emphasized the human capacity to recognize basic truths common to all experiences. Epicureans went even so far as to declare all information given to us by senses as true: if we see red, then we definitely see red. It is only when we start to interpret our sensations that mistakes start to happen, for instance, when I assume that there is a real red object causing the red sensation, if it just a hallucination. Still, even in these cases the mistake can be revealed only by other sensations, for instance, by our touch showing that there's nothing but air in front of us.

On the other hand, Stoics emphasized that not all perceptions are trustworthy as such: if I hallucinate, I have the misleading tendency to believe that what I hallucinate is really there. Thus, only some perceptions are to be accepted as reliable indicators of something that truly exists, and it is only such reliable perceptions we can accept as the foundation of truth.

For Epicureans, sensations were enough for knowledge. True, some reasoning might be in order to reveal things that we cannot directly experience, but even here one must be careful and admit the limits of human mind. Thus, they felt no need to carefully determine the intricacies of reasoning: why bother, when it is always better to directly perceive than to reason things.

For Stoics, on the contrary, the perceptions were only the basis of the truth and they had to still be transformed into the form of rational thought, that is, they had to be given a linguistic shape. In this part of their logic Stoics clearly shared common ground with Aristotle and his methodology: Stoics begin by defining how words are produced, how they are combined in e.g. statements and how statements can be deduced from one another. The main difference between Stoic and Aristotelian logic is that Stoics were far more interested of deductions based on the form of the whole statement: for instance, Stoics noted that a statement of the form ”if A, then B” could be used to deduce statement B from statement A.

In addition to a methods of finding or ascertaining truths, Stoic logic also contained practice for disseminating truths in form of speeches and writings. Epicureans were here also willing to ignore the subtleties and recommend only the use of every-day parlance so that truth would not be hidden behind lofty words.

Both Epicureans and Stoics were in a sense materialistic compared to Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies. This was especially true of Epicureans who had borrowed their worldview from atomists. The Epicurean world consisted mostly of material things, and these things required a container or empty space for movement. As Epicureans could not conceive how bodies might exist and be infinitely divisible, they supposed all division must end at a final point of hard and unbreakable atoms, of which all the other bodies were then composed. Furthermore, they could not conceive any limits for the world, and because in an infinite world, a finite number of atoms would quickly disperse and form no complex bodies, they also supposed an infinity of atoms.

This was as far as Epicureans were willing to let reason guide them. Beyond that, they assumed that the atoms must have somehow coalesced into such wholes as the cosmos we see around us – in fact, there probably were infinity of such wholes in existence. Yet, of the further happenings of such a cosmos, nothing certain could be said – perhaps lightning was caused by these reasons, perhaps by others.

Like in their logic, Stoics leaned in physics also to similar considerations as Aristotle, that is, they assumed that everything in the world consisted ultimately of a featureless material substance, sort of primordial slime. To make this substance into concrete things, an active force was required, on the one hand, to divide the original substance into pieces, on the other hand, to give different characteristics to different parts of the substance.

The Stoic active force was then nothing inseparable from the material substance, but was necessarily incorporated within matter. Some Stoics identified it with a particular thing, such as Sun, others thought only the whole cosmos could suffice as the body of this activity. Needless to say, this materialized force organizing everything played the role of God: it had created the cosmos as we knew it, and one day, when the current world was destroyed by fire, it would build everything anew.

The difference between Epicurean and Stoic notion of the origin of cosmos led to a completely different manners of looking at the world. While Epicureans admitted the impossibility of certainty on individual physical questions, they were eager to note that at least we did not need to assume any divine origin for phenomena: lightning was probably not caused by the wrath of Zeus. Epicureans did not deny the existence of divinities, although they insisted that gods must also be material. Still, they assumed that such perfect beings must be completely uninterested of anything beyond their own never-ending pleasure and thus could not be the cause of physical events. In this manner Epicureans wished to show how irrational it is to fear thunder and other physical events or try to appease gods.

Stoics were, understandably, of the opposite opinion. True, their original divinity was not supernatural either, but it was apparently very interested of the world around it. The cosmos had a purpose and it must show traces of divine influence all around. Stoics went even so far that they accepted traditional forms of divination as more or less reliable methods of ascertaining divine will.

The doctrines of the Epicureans and Stoics concerning the world as a whole reflected also their view of the human beings. Epicureans supposed that human beings must consist of atoms and that within the hard shell of human body existed a finer collection of atoms capable of sensing emanations from other atoms. Without this indwelling finer body, the external body would be just a lifeless heap, but furthermore, without its shell, the finer body would quickly scatter in the wind. No part of human beings could then exist without the body, but Epicureans saw no reason for sadness in this fact. Indeed, they even applauded the thought that human beings had no reason to fear eternal torture after death.

Stoics also shared the idea of two parts within human beings, but with them this view was better justified by their general doctrines. Just like world was passive matter controlled by an active force, all particular beings had a part of both the universal matter and the universal force. In case of humans, this embodied force could be called soul. Stoics were not really sure what happened to this force after the death of human beings. Perhaps it continued its individual existence for some time, if it just found some embodiment beyond its original body, but at least when the whole world was destroyed, the individual souls would return to the original life force and be swallowed in it.

But is is not logic or physics we remember when we speak of Hellenistic philosophy, but ethics. Indeed, both Epicureans and Stoics thought that the aim of philosophy was to show how we should live. As with their physical doctrines, in ethics both schools were influenced by previous philosophers, but they also developed the ideas of their predecessors considerably.

Epicureans were often disparaged as followers of Cyrenaic school, but they were quick to distinguish their views from the views of their hedonistic predecessors. True, Epicureans also admitted that pleasure was the end of good human life, but their pleasure resembled more what Aristotle had called happiness. Epicureans assumed that not all pleasures were of equal rank, because some of them involved pain and uneasiness, just like drinking too much wine results in a headache

Indeed, Epicureans thought it best to search for stable pleasures, like aesthetic enjoyment of art and delight on the presence of good friends, and pleasure that were necessary for human life, such as eating nourishing food when truly hungry. Especially they strived for painless life, and this quest for removing pain required also intellectual capacities. Because bad luck could strike anyone, a capacity to accept and endure even unpleasant states was also required. A truly happy man would then not just live the most pleasant life as possible in the circumstances, but he must also be wise and virtuous.

Stoics were said to have been influenced by Cynics, and indeed, Zeno was apparently thought by a Cynic. Thus, they shared something of the austere way of life favoured by Cynic and especially endorsed the ideal of living according to nature. But unlike Cynics, Stoics had a developed theory of the world and its denizens, and in this case, of the living beings. The aim of every living thing, according to Stoics, is to maintain itself, and therefore even plants feed themselves. While plants are senseless, animals can sense and feel things and therefore they can even feel when they have stumbled on something useful for their own maintenance: in that case they feel pleasure. Humans, on the other hand, have developed even further and have rational abilities to analyse their situation. Thus, they need not pleasure to know what to do, and instead, they should live by the guidance of their reason.

Now, reason and life according to it are then the only truly good thing, without which life would be full of misery. Compared to rationality, all else is useless: you might have fancy clothes or not, and it would not affect the quality of your life. Needless to says, Stoic were quite skeptical of emotions, which were more like a remnant of animal life. Especially negative emotions are to be avoided, and an ideally wise person would at most enjoy life, be cautious of dangers and wish for a good future.

This figure of an ideally acting person or wise sage was then important for both Epicureans and Stoics, and while one emphasized pleasures and other life according to reason, they both accepted that a life of a wise person would be both pleasant and rational. Stoics especially emphasized how different sages were from ordinary people. Radically they insisted that all people who were not sages would live badly, that is, there was no mediate stages between complete wisdom and utter depravity. Then again, becoming a sage was apparently an incontrovertible revolution, and once you knew how to live properly, you couldn't turn back.

Even though both Epicureans and Stoics spoke of ideals of wise persons, their ideals were also different in important points. Epicurean wise man was still in a sense an egoist, because it was only the pleasure of his own and his close friends that interested him mostly. Epicureans were doubtful of all communal efforts beyond association of friends, and they even felt family life to be a hindrance. Still, they suggested that even a wise person should follow the customs of his living environment, just as long as they were not completely against good reason.

The ideas of Stoics provide an interesting contrast to Epicurean views, because while latter accepted social norms, at least early representatives of the Stoic school were apparently still closer to the Cynic teachers, as they insisted that a wise person could ignore common customs, if it was rational to do so: if a sage wanted to cannibalize his companions, then it was good to do so. Later Stoics were, on the contrary, eager to point out that even sages lived usually customary life – they just did it better than others. On the other hand, communal life was far more important for Stoics than it was for Epicureans. Early Stoics spoke even of founding a community of wise people, which apparently resembled in some measure Plato's ideal community, because, for instance, instead of individual marriages, all wise shared their spouses with one another. Even later Stoics admitted that the life of a sage contained working, parenting children and taking part in communal endeavours – no wonder then that Stoicism was more accepted in the state-oriented Roman empire.

Progress in philosophy

We no longer believe in any clear pattern in the philosophy of history – we do not see it as an inevitable progression, where the ideas of one philosopher lead naturally to its overcoming by the next philosopher and finally perhaps to some Philosophy itself where all the problems of previous millenia have been solved. Science may go forward, but philosophy seems like a mere endless bickering over the very same questions as before.

The era of ancient philosophy I have studied in the previous texts was earlier taken as a clear example of such inevitable progression. Thus, we see Hegel putting all the pre-Socratics in a neat order, where every link adds some important philosophical concept to the development, placing Socrates in the middle with his addition of ethics and method of discussion and topping it all with the works of Plato and Aristotle encompassing all that has gone before.

Such tales of progression could be easily criticized: for instance, there's no clear line of influence leading from one pre-Socratic to another, because their live overlapped with one another and some of them lived indeed even to the times of Socrates. Furthermore, it is not clear that anyone living at the time of Plato and Aristotle would have considered their philosophy to be the ultimate solution to all the questions of previous philosophers. Indeed, there were many philosophical schools, like Cynics, that Hegel places before Plato and Aristotle, which were still live and well and would have contested Hegel's reasoning. It is only the later times that raised the status of the two masters – and it's impossible to tell, how justified this raising is, because we have no full works of their contemporary rivals.

Still, we might discern at least some lines of influence leading up to Plato and Aristotle – although they were not the only ends of these lines. I remarked already at the beginning of my studies that the Ionians begun by stating theories based on studies of nature: theories concerning the constitution of world, its generation and possible future destruction and the constitution of the worldly things. Such studies were probably continued by a number of persons, although such empirical studies were not part of any profession in those days. We can discern features of such studies in some of the pre-Socratics and especially in stories recounting their lives. Plato confronted such empirical information in his Timaeus, alhtough he was clearly skeptical of its certainty. Finally Aristotle collected lot of this ”empirical science” and probably made also personal contributions, especially in his studies of animals. Because works of Aristotle were the first extant works containing this empirical treasure trove, he was often considered to have actually started many of the empirical sciences.

It is much harder to determine whether there were any development of religious type. I have suggested that several of the pre-Socratics were actively interested of religious issues: certainly Pythagoras and Xenophanes, possibly even Heracleitus – we may perhaps discern some religious strands even in Parmenidian idea of the unity behind everything. Most influential religious notion was still the idea of world as on the whole good and wisely governed: Anaxagoras thought there was a reason governing everything and Plato based his whole philosophy on supreme idea of goodness. Even Aristotle held on to this idea, when he noted that all existing things tried to imitate, as best as they could, the perfect being or God living in eternal bliss.

Empirical findings and religious ideas seem somewhat extrinsic to philosophy itself, but there were already a number of essentially philosophical questions. The eldest of these was probably the Parmenidian challenge: can we allow the existence of motion and multiplicity? This question was probably discussed by Empedocles, Anaxagoras and atomists, and it was definitely on the agenda of Plato and Aristotle. The common assumption of all these philosophers was that Eleatic school was wrong and there really was motion and multiplicity, and even the basic answer was same – there is some stability, but this still allows for the variability of some issues.

Study of nature began with Ionians, interest in religious issues originated with Pythagorians and metaphysical questions started with Eleatics. It was common in ancient times to ascribe the invention of ethics to Socrates, which is true only partially. Certainly there were people interested in the Socratic question: how should we live well, both individually and collectively? Indeed, the seven wise men of Greek history were supposedly wise just because they knew answers to these questions. In imitation of these wise men, sophists named themselves also ”wise men”, but at least some of them appeared to understood the required wisdom in the sense of a capacity to find means for required goals.

Socrates noted that before determining means, one should at first determine what one should aim at and take as one's goal. Furthermore, he took as his explicit task to find out what goals really deserved to be goals, while as far as we know, his predecessors in ethical issues were content just to proclaim what is good. Just like after Parmenidian establishment of metaphysics, no single line of development captivated the mind's of people. Still, the question itself connected various ethical doctrines, and it became in some circles the most important question of them all. Indeed, Plato at least begun by trying to find solutions for moral problems, even if answering these problems meant discussing also metaphysics. Aristotle forms an interesting exception, as ethics forms with him only a secondary topic and the true wisdom is to be found in a mystical contemplation of the origin and archetype of goodness.

The one thing were there has been evident development is methodology. Unfortunately, most of the earliest philosophers left no record as to how they arrived to theories they presented. Still, we might find interest in arguments at least starting from the Eleatic school. By the time of sophists, such argumentation had been dressed in ornate decoration and flowery rhetoric – the development of rhetoric was probably influenced by a need to master public speeches in city councils and courts. While rhetorical speeches tried to convince passive listeners, Socrates raised the listener into a bit more active role by making him a partner in discussion, although the true control was still in the hands of the clever interrogator. Plato generalized then this style of arguing into a proper methodology for seeking truth. He also distinguished this dialectical method clearly from mere rhetoric: it had more in common with mathematical argumentation than convincing people in courts. Aristotle then completed this development by noting that certain figures of argumentation or syllogisms worked always so that one had no choice but to accept their conclusion if one just accepted their premisses  He could thus envision the possibility of presenting human knowledge in a style, where statements expressing the essence of something led to further truths through valid deductions.

How to do things with words

The highest point in practical investigations for Aristotle was investigating the final end of all human endeavours  that is, happiness of individuals and communities. The final aim of such investigation was action for the sake of action, but usually activities aim at producing something. Because the end of these actions is something else than the action itself, a science investigating such an action will be lower in status than the science investigating happiness. Thus, we get a third class of sciences, which Aristotle calls poetic.

Now, the easiest examples of such productive activities are perhaps handicrafts: we do not pay for a tailor to continue his activities indefinitely, but to make clothes for us. Aristotle, like any good Greek gentleman, in all likelihood felt that such menial activities are beneath him and thus worthy of no interest. Still, he did study some productive activities, that is, those to do with language.

In one sense we have already seen Aristotle tackle one such productive science, namely, in his methodological writings: after all, the point of scientific method is not the method itself, but its result or science. Even more clear example is provided by rhetoric or the investigation of how to make eloquent and convincing speeches.

Rhetoric shares some features with scientific methodology and even more with debating on scientific and philosophic matters. Yet, the aim of rhetoric is not to find truth, but to convince others that something is true. Hence, a speaker must do something more than just spin out intricate proofs. The speaker must, for instance, make the impression that she is a reliable and trustworthy character. In order to do so, she must know what sort of characters e.g. persons of different age or of different social status have.

In addition to showing a good front to her audience, the speaker must also use some proofs. Yet, the proofs of a speaker must be less intricate than full scientific proofs. Thus, a speaker often leaves some of the assumptions of her proofs implicit, so that she will not appear a bore repeating self-evident matters. Furthermore, a speaker must often rely on mere probabilities and leave the search of certainty for philosophers. Finally, a speaker cannot usually go through all possible individual cases, if she wants to justify some general proposition, but she must be satisfied with few paradigmatic examples.

Mere knowledge of argument forms is not enough to set up a proof, and speaker must therefore be acquainted with a variety of topics, depending on what she is speaking of. Speeches were used in Aristotle's time for convincing citizens of a community to decide on future actions in certain manner. Thus, a speaker should know politics: she should understand what a community and its citizens are striving for, how different communities work and how to achieve desired ends. She should also have clear understanding of what is possible and what is not.

Speeches could also be used to praise or damn persons either living or dead. Because a speaker should already have the ability to make her own character to look good, she should have no trouble convincing people that a character of someone else is good or bad. Furthermore, she should be able to augment or diminish the worth of things and persons, whatever the case requires.

A third use of speeches beyond planning for the future and praising of present persons is convincing court officials that a certain event has or has not happened in the past, e.g. that someone has committed a crime. Thus, speakers should know a thing or two about motives of human beings, especially as it comes to unjust actions, and also be acquainted with the laws in question. In addition, some basic knowledge of how to establish past events is required.

In addition to proving things through their own speech, especially in courts the speakers can have sometimes recourse to other sort of evidence. One example are witnesses, but a good speaker must also know when to use witnesses, how to make them look reliable and how to discredit witnesses of the opponent.

A speaker should not just know human character and modes of reasoning, but also human passions: that is, how certain emotions arise and what are they targeted at. Thus, she should be able to, for instance, make people pity a person and thus look at him in favourable light, or on the contrary, envy and therefore despise him.

The core of a speech should consist of the justification of the statement to be defended. In addition to this, usually just the statement itself is necessary, Aristotle thinks. At least one does not need a long prologue just to awaken the interest of the listener – usually the listener is most apprehensive in the beginning, while the attention starts to lag only after a while. The end of the speech might require a recapitulation of the main points, if the justification has been long.

Aristotle also considers the style in which the speech should be made. He is somewhat reluctant to speak of the topic, because style is something extraneous to the matter to be discussed. Still, the speaker must know stylistic issues, because these affect the listeners. Even so, complex and too poetic style should be avoided, as it just makes listeners confused.

If rhetoric is just hindered by too ornate language, a second productive science studied by Aristotle or poetic thrives in metaphors. Poetry is one species of activities characterized by the desire to capture natural and social life in presentations – nowadays we would speak of arts. Such arts use many different media, Aristotle notes: for instance, some use musical instruments, others painting. The medium specific for poetry is language, which imitates events of real social life through words.

Now, poetry itself falls into different categories. On the one hand, we can differentiate types of poetry or literature through objects they imitate: some of them describe lives of noble persons, such as legendary heroes, while others describe lives of commoners and even rabble – Aristotle was apparently used to seeing such characters only in comedies. On the other hand, we can differentiate types according to the literary strategies used in them. In this respect tragedies as dramatic texts are closer to comedies than to epics, which described heroes as well as Greek tragedies.

While Plato had disparaged poets and denied letting them in his ideal society, Aristotle had a more positive idea of poetry. As pieces of art poetic texts were meant to imitate, but even imitations may have beneficial results. Indeed, poetic works produced emotions of sympathy and thus purified human mind from all repressed feelings.

Aristotle is interested not just to describe poetic works, but also to find some rules how to make better literature and especially dramas. His answer is that one should concentrate on the most important element of dramas or the plot – all other elements, such as character building are subservient to the plot, and especially means for the actual theatrical production of a play are completely superfluous in comparison. Because of the importance of the plot, the play should be small enough so that the spectator couldn't forget all the intricacies of the events. Thus, good dramas should concentrate on one problematic and not use many plot strands, unlike epics which allowed for a more variety.

The role of dramas and especially tragedies was to purge emotions by showing events of tragic nature, which then aroused feelings of pity toward the characters in play. Aristotle noted that misfortunes of bad persons do not arouse pity, because the spectator feels that bad person deserves bad luck. Indeed, seeing bad persons get lucky is also not tragic, but an outrage. Furthermore, when an incomparably good person faces misfortune, we are bound to feel horrified instead of pitying him. It is then only misfortunes of persons like or slightly more better than us, caused by mistakes that we ourselves could have also made, which cause most pity and thus form the most suitable topic of tragedies.

Aristotle also considered the problem whether tragedies were of more value than epics. He admitted that the theatrical form of tragedies appeared to hinder the true enjoyment of their literary qualities. Yet, this is more of a question of bad stagecraft, which concentrates on more spectacular aspects of theater. Even tragedies merely as read fare better than epics, Aristotle contested, because they could unravel and analyse one incident more completely than epic, which had to use many different plot strands to keep the reader awake. Thus, tragedies as a whole, as pieces of literature and combined with stagecraft, are much more dignified than epics.

The proper way of living

Physics that studies things that change in some manner, mathematics that studies invariable properties of these changing things and theology that studies invariable and perfect things are all according to Aristotle meant only to produce knowledge – after I learn how the universe is shaped, I can just enjoy my knowledge. Now, other type of learning changes not just the condition of our knowledge, but also makes us do something. Such practical studies are in Aristotle's opinion lower in status than the former, theoretical studies, because the practical studies are subservient to some external end – you don't study e.g. horseback riding just for the pleasure of study, but for the sake of learning to ride.

Now, all the practical studies form a sort of hierarchy – an art of riding horses might e.g. be subservient to the military science, because horses are ridden because of their usefulness in wars. Clearly, if there is some final end, which is desired for its own sake and towards which all human endeavors strive, there must also be the highest practical field of study, to which all other are subservient. Aristotle suggests that this highest practical study would obviously try to show how people should in general live. Of course, it would not go into details, but it would attempt to discern some general patterns peculiar to a decent living.

What then is the highest type of life for human beings? Aristotle first criticizes some views of contemporary thinkers. Many people would undoubtedly say that human beings life perfectly when they can satisfy all their lusts and desires. Aristotle rejects this possibility lightly: it is fit more for pigs than for human beings. Money is even worse contender for the proper satisfaction of life, because it is required only for the sake of obtaining something else, e.g. a decent living. Honour and reputation fair somewhat better, but these are too reliant on other persons, while a humanly perfect life should be as independent as possible of external influences. Finally, even having capacities is not enough for a fulfilling life – what if one never had to use them?

Another possibility Aristotle considers is the Platonistic idea that there is some perfectly good thing that somehow also makes other things good. Aristotle's dismissal is short. He merely points out that goodness has various meanings, but that such hypothetical source of goodness beyond what we can see and hear has really no relevancy to our life in concrete and diverse surroundings, but that the latter is what we as human beings want to obtain.

Aristotle's own theory starts from the idea that all animal species have some peculiar type of perfection that only they can fulfill. Thus, all plants nourish themselves and most of the animals use senses, and therefore these capacities cannot be the highest state of human being. Then again, the higher, more rational aspect of the human mind should on this account be an essential part of perfect human living. In general this perfection would consist of use and not just enjoyment of various human capacities: true purpose of humans lies in action.

Aristotle also suggests that the life of activity is not just what we should do, but also feels good, that is, if one is a person who lives well – pleasure is something that accompanies activity. True, some pleasures are corruptive, if they go to extremes, but still, pleasure in general wins its opposite or pain. Even bodily pleasures are good, when enjoyed in moderation, and a pleasure of a good life cannot be enjoyed too much. A good person is used to feeling pleasant sensations and emotions only for something perfect – otherwise, she would merely pretend to live a good life. Thus, she will also find her perfect activity a fulfilling and pleasurable experience.

Famous Greek thinkers had suggested that a person's life can never be perfect and a person can never be truly happy before her death – who knows what calamities would befall on a seemingly content person. And even when the person in question has lived her life perfectly her descendants might still do something horrible and stain the name of the family. Aristotle's answer is that a perfect life is almost completely unreliant on such matters of luck, because even in bad situations the person would use what is given to her in the best possible manner. Of course, the more livelihood a person has, the more opportunities for good action she has, but true virtue is shown by how a person uses what he has been given. Furthermore, the woes of the descendants cannot be criterion by which to decide the happiness of one's own life. On the other hand, mere lucky coincidences cannot on the long run serve the needs of a good life.

Activity is then the highest point of human experience. Aristotle continues by discussing various types of such a good life. The nutritive functions of our body are automatic, thus, not under our control and therefore not a concern of the search for highest human good. Then again, the functions peculiar to animals are in our control and are at least potentially in combat with the highest function of human being – reasoning. Thus, a good life consists partly in making one's sensuous impulses obey one's reason. Furthermore, a good use of reasoning forms the other part of good life.

Considering the first element of good life or the subservience of senses to reason, Aristotle notes that it is a matter of habituation to make one's impulses perfectly obey reason. One must e.g. venture into situations requiring courage in order to make oneself more courageous. Then again, merely doing courageous acts does not make one courageous, but one must understand that the action one is doing requires some courage.

In addition, one must voluntarily decide to act in a courageous manner to be truly courageous. That is, firstly, one must not be compelled to do the courageous thing by some external circumstances or by other persons – then again, one might be compelled to do it by one's desires and wants. Secondly, one must understand the nature of the courageous thing one is beginning to do – indeed, if a person regretted what he did after learning the true nature of his actions, he would clearly have acted against her true volition.

In fact, the courageous act must not be just voluntary, but one should have also chosen it. By choice Aristotle does not mean a mere wish that might or might not become real, but an action preceded by a process of deliberation. In such a deliberation person considers things that are under her own power and selects one possible course of action that she will take for a certain purpose. It is such deliberate choices that a person makes that are under moral scrutiny, not the actions that might be forced by external events, such as a threat of death.

Furthermore, one cannot recognize e.g. a courageous or otherwise virtuous person by her state of mind – such a state of mind, like anger or excitement, is itself neutral. On the other hand, a mere capacity for having certain state of mind is also not a good criterion, because such capacities are shared by all human beings. The true criterion is that the states of mind and actions of a person should be based on her stable character – a courageous person is disposed to act in a certain manner.

Just like with the general pattern of good life, we cannot exactly say when a student of virtue has found complete perfection in some area of life nor whether a particular action was completely what was required to do. What one can say, Aristotle continues, is to point out that one can fail in activity either by doing something too much or doing the same thing too few times. Thus, good habits can be seen as a sort of mean between two bad extremes. A person is then to be commended, if it is in her character to choose to do the proper action in a proper time.

Although a student of good life should try too veer away from both ”too much” and ”too little”, often it is natural for human beings to approach one direction. It is such natural aberrations that should especially be avoided, Aristotle says. For instance, it is far more natural to have too little courage than too much courage, thus, one should be more careful about being a coward than about being overly confident.

Aristotelian list of good things to do in bodily matters is clearly based on the standards and values of Greek society. Thus, Aristotle considers that one ought to control one's fear in grave dangers and especially during battle – although it is of course not good to attack enemies without any fear like barbarians. Furthermore, Aristotle commends persons who can control their desire for bodily pleasures like eating, drinking and having sex – still, he also admits that people can and should accept all natural forms of pleasure, because that is part of what being human means.

Courage in battle and resistance of pleasures are virtues of a warrior society, but Aristotle also considers more civilized activities. One should not hold on to every penny, but spend one's money on proper occasions and for noble purposes, although losing all for frivolities is foolish. One should strive for honour, but only by doing honorable things. One should not get angry on small things, but one should still not accept all insults without a say. One should not seek quarrels with other people, but one should still not be afraid of saying the truth, even if it hurts. One should not exaggerate one's merits nor should one understate them. One should know how to laugh and make others laugh, but still avoid cheap laughs. This rather long list of social virtues does not include modesty, because the habit of being ashamed suits only minors, while on Aristotle's opinion adults should have learned to refrain from shameful activities.

The second aspect necessary for good life is the use of one's intellect. The lowest form of this is when a person has the capacity to produce something, such as an artist who can make statues – this is the lowest form, because it requires meddling with things that have a tendency to change in various manners.

The highest form we met in the previous text: it is the Aristotelian wisdom, that is, a combination of an intuitive grasping of general unchanging principles governing everything and of a deductive system based on these principles. It is also, Aristotle says, highest form of good life, which also the Aristotelian divinity enjoys. Contemplation of eternal truths requires very little from a person, and therefore philosophers need not even the company of others when they use their wisdom. In comparison, less eminent virtues require a society in which they could be applied.

Between the capacity of production and wisdom lies the capacity peculiar for practical science, namely, the combination of an intuitive grasp of what is good and proper and of a capacity to apply this grasp in variable circumstances for determining suitable course of action. Aristotle notes that without this practical intelligence one cannot live a truly good life. One might still have an instinctual feeling of proper actions, which would be like a gift from God and thus not a mere coincidental piece of good luck – it is based on the nature and character of the person and not on accidental circumstances. Still, a mere instinct is not enough for life of rational human beings.

By defining what is a good way of life, Aristotle has also determined what sort of life is to be avoided. Now, there are two different manners of straying from the proper happiness of human beings. Firstly, one might be ignorant of true happiness, and for instance, think that excessive life of luxury will make one perfectly happy. Secondly, one might have a correct understanding of good life, but due to violent emotions or other conditions affecting one's mind fail to apply this knowledge – for example, a person addicted to alcohol might be in a state of mind where she can think of nothing else, but the immediate pleasure of drinking, although she would at other times well know the bad effects of over-drinking  Generally, it is especially the pleasures of the body that disturb such a weak character. Still, the weak character at least knows what she should really do and is thus more able to correct her way of life, while a truly bad character cannot even accept that she is doing something detrimental.

Corresponding to the two bad characters, there are two possible manners of living well. Firstly, one may be just so well habituated to the proper way of life that one will not even feel any temptation to go astray. Secondly, one might have all sorts of temptations, but one might still resist them, because one knows that these temptations will be bad – just like a person who desires to eat candies, but refrains from doing it, because it is bad for health.

The bad and the weak person are both governed by natural impulses, which have just become too excessive. Beyond these characters are persons who are governed by impulses for such unnatural actions as cannibalism – such persons cannot really be even condemned, Aristotle says, because they are completely without reason, although their actions are horrifying and inhuman. Aristotle also mentions that there is a corresponding level of goodness, where person's worth exceeds everything that is humanly possible.

Making people live a good life is for Aristotle an essentially social endeavour. Only a minority will follow the proper way of living because of ethical theories, while rest will need some help in breaking out of their bad habits. In large scale, such moral education should be provided by the community, although in practice this task is often left for the parents. Even they should have some knowledge of social relations, although Aristotle despairs of finding proper teachers for this topic: practical politicians have not theoretical capacities for explaining their practices, while sophists who present themselves as teachers of this topic have actually no idea of it.

Social life, on the other hand, is possible only because human beings sometimes want to do good things to one another. Sometimes they just feel sympathy for another person, but at other times they also actively try to improve the other's condition. Indeed, such mutually agreeable social relations Aristotle deems to be an essential part of a good life – others might help you through bad times, and you might gain honour by helping others. Thus, one has to see what things bind humans together in this manner.

One obvious answer is that people often have mutual interests and must thus act like business partners – this happens especially with more mature persons, who think carefully of what is useful to them. Such partnerships based on mutual profit often lead to arguments whether one has gained what one should have – and they very easily break down when their usefulness has ended.

Another reason for partnerships is that the persons involved find their intercourse somehow pleasant – perhaps they like the witty conversation or perhaps they have erotic feelings toward one another. Such partnerships occur most often among young people, who are more easily driven by their feelings. Such partnership or friendship is more lasting than one based on mere mutual profit, but can break down, if the interests and the feelings of the former friends change.

The most perfect form of partnership lies between two persons living a good life. Because they both can recognise how perfect a life the other lives, they must respect and like one another – thus, they will have a desire to interact with one another and to help the other if he happens to be in need. Such a friendship is based on the stable characters of the two persons and last therefore longest, although even they might break, if the moral character of one person should abruptly change for the worse or better. Yet, they are also the rarest sort of partnership, because the multitude of humanity does not understand what it means to live a good life.

The three types of partnerships are all based on the mutual similarity of the persons involved – they have mutual interests, share pleasures or are both good persons. Yet, also persons of unequal status do frequent one another's company. A person may be more useful to another than the other to him, he may give more pleasure to his friend or he may help the other to become a better person. In all such cases the person giving more should get in return more honour from his actions.

On the other hand, affection for oneself could be seen as a sort of limiting case of partnership. Such self-approval comes actually in two forms, Aristotle says. One might approve one's sensuous desires, and such self-approval should be despised. Then again, a person living a good life should surely also like oneself in the perfect sense of the partnership – after all, who would be more closer to one than oneself.

An important element of good social life is that all goods should be distributed according to the merits of the persons – the more a person gives to the community, the more she should also get from community. Here one could get more than one deserves and thus have an unfair advantage, or one could get less than one deserves and suffer injustice. The mean state is then where a person gets her just desserts. Just person is then one aiming always for that mean state.

The just distribution of goods is based on the worth of the persons involved, but justice in another sense is not related to this personal worth. That is, sometimes a person has in full awareness or accidentally got something that belongs to another person or in other way hurt that other person – for instance, she might have robbed and beaten someone. It is then a task of some mediator or judge to mitigate the wrong experienced by the other – and the judge should make her decision based on the act and not the character of the persons involved. A just judge is then one that can give correctly balanced retributions.

Both forms of justice presuppose some standard by which the goods and the bads can be measured. In general, we must be able to say e.g. how much one shoe is in comparison with one horse. Thus, societies have found it convenient to assign some items a task of serving as a measure of exchange – shoe pays for 5 coins, horse pays for 50 coins, thus, you could get a horse with ten shoes. It is then at least somewhat conventional what is just and what is not – in some cultures horses might be valued less and a just price of them would be less. Still, Aristotle thinks that there are some inherently just or unjust actions, although he does not clearly explain what they would be.

Furthermore, justice in general requires that the persons involved should be free of one another, Aristotle continues. Thus, if a person is property of another, the owner cannot fault the owned. Still, one can speak analogically also of just conduct towards slaves, children and wives, although it is not justice in the proper sense.

Justice occurs also only between two persons, although Plato had figuratively spoken of a balance between various characteristics of mind as justice. Aristotle's point is that justice/injustice requires at least two persons, one of whom tries to correct some harms she has suffered. If the two persons would actually be one and the same person, some of the gains of the person would actually be also her losses. This is actually an instance of a wider area of expertise: immoral actions cannot happen towards oneself. A suicide appears to be a counter example, but actually one must note that in suicide it is the community that has something to say about the death itself.

A special field of interpersonal relations is the household, which mostly consists of partnerships between unequals. The economy of Greek city states was based on slavery, and Aristotle was thus bound to accept that people had slaves, who had to obey their masters in all things. He justified the keeping of slaves by suggesting that some persons are naturally meant to be ruled, because they lack the proper resources of managing themselves and their own affairs. Natural masters, on the other hand, have a knack for seeing where the work of the slaves could be used best. Not surprisingly, Aristotle felt that non-Greeks on the whole had a more slavish nature than Greeks. Aristotle also admitted that often persons who had a natural right to be free were in fact enslaved – this happened especially in war, where all defeated were enslaved, although they would have the constitution of a ruler.

Just like masters were supposedly fit to rule natural slaves, Aristotle thought that adults have an essentially higher status than their children. Children have an untrained and raw constitution and therefore adults have the duty to raise them to be independent adults. Aristotle thought also that husband is naturally a better and more able person than his wife, from whom the husband should distinguish himself through his natural superiority. The closest to a true friendship of equals comes the relation of two brothers – and even here one brother is older and thus more respected.

Maintaining a household is not restricted to just governing the interpersonal relations in it, but one must also care for the material needs of the household by acquiring sufficient goods. Aristotle felt that the most natural way to acquire useful goods was to procure them with one's own efforts, e.g. through agriculture. If all needs could not be satisfied by oneself, one could also trade one's own products with those of others. These forms of acquiring goodness have natural limits determined by human needs, but there are also unnatural forms, whereby one e.g. uses money to gain more money – for instance, by giving loans with a interest. As the quest for more money can never be fulfilled, Aristotle commends ignoring it.

The existence of many different interpersonal relations causes the potential problem of preference: which relations should matter most when one cannot fully serve all of them, e.g. when the needs of one friend go against the needs of another? Aristotle notes that no hard and fast rules could be given for all cases, although some relations are more important than others, for instances, close relatives are usually to be respected more than other people.

The final step in the attachment of persons to one another is the creation of a community of several persons, where such a community could feel a similar concord as two friends or relatives. Aristotle felt that the drive towards forming communities is inherent in human nature. As community then is a natural whole, it will be in a sense more important than the individuals forming it – community is the end of the individuals and not the other way around. Even so, in a common type of community a completely perfect life cannot be lived, Aristotle continues: usually people have to take turns when to rule and when to be ruled in a community, while a perfect life would consist only of ruling.

An important question Aristotle considers is whom should we consider as members of any community. He rejected the idea that a community would consist of all people living in a certain area – then even slaves and foreign visitors should be considered part of the community. Indeed, a community is not just a collection of people, but a common undertaking of people for a good and noble life.

A true criterion of citizenship, according to Aristotle, is that a member or citizen of the community should take some part in the official proceedings of the community – thus, even children fail to be true citizens, before they grow up. A peculiar consequence of Aristotle's definition is that a community is automatically changed whenever the power relations between people change – still, Aristotle notes, the new community might have a duty to take care of some of the old community's debts.

Aristotle thought that a community should be large enough to be independent of other communities, but small enough to be governed in a reasonable manner. It should be close to sea to facilitate trade, although care should be taken that the foreigners wouldn't bring with them any bad influences. Climatewise Greece is an ideal place for communities, because it is warm enough to make intellectual life possible, but not so warm as to encourage luxurious life.

Now, the management of the community could be managed in several manners. A question of the best possible constitution for a community was a topic much discussed at the time, and Aristotle had lot to say on the various suggestions. Many people thought that e.g. the constitution of Sparta was the most optimal in existence. Aristotle did admit that there is much to commend in the Spartan manner of living, but still saw too many failings to be perfectly happy with it. The main problem was that Spartans had shaped their community for the sake of warfare, but had then ignored the actual management of the community's day-to-day affairs. The result was that the community didn't spare efforts for making its soldiers brave and skilled in martial arts, but did not take care that its rulers wouldn't take personal advantage of the spoils of war.

Plato's theorizing of an ideal community Aristotle found even more unsatisfactory. A particular piece of criticism concerned Plato's suggestion that the rulers of an ideal community should form a one big family, in which all wives and children would be shared. Aristotle notes that a community should not form as close a unity as a family – then it would not be a community, but a family. Furthermore, he was also convinced that Plato's scheme would not really make the bonds of the rulers as close as the bonds of family members – if affection was to be shared in a big group, it would be bound to be diluted, Aristotle thought.

Aristotle was thus not satisfied with mere theoretical categorizing of possible types of community, but he made careful research on what forms of government the different Greek cities had and how they had developed over time. Only on the basis of these investigations did he then construct a schematic classification of all possible governments.

Besides describing different communities, Aristotle also tried to discover how these communities collapsed and were replaced by other types and how such a collapse might be prevented. Plato had also theorised about the collapse of societies, but Aristotle felt Plato's ideas were lacking: Plato saw only a one line of progression from a constitution to another, while Aristotle admitted that there were several possible ways a community could change. Moreover, he was certain that communities sometimes changed only partially and might even keep the type of constitution, if the change in question was minor.

The primary principle Aristotle followed is that there is not a single recipe that all communities should follow, but that there are many possible options of governing a community: although one type of community would be best, it might not work for all communities. For instance, a rule of the best and the brightest can be justified by professionals knowing things better than laymen, but then again power of common people can also be justified by the argument that many eyes see things better than just one or few eyes. Furthermore, a rigid law is usually more stable than reliance on an unpredictable individual – still, if a person of a remarkable mental stature surpassing all laws were found, we would have to either banish him or relinquish all laws and make him the rightful king.

Thus, according to Aristotle's classification, the community could have a single leader caring for the well-being of his subjects – such a community would resemble the rule of a father towards his children. The paradigmatic case of such a monarchical community is a perfect absolute ruler knowing best what is good for everyone – an ideal community under an ideal governor with full authority. Still, there are monarchies, where the role of the king is more restricted and regulated through laws. In some cases king is just a fancy name for a master of ceremonies.

The main lack in the kingly rule is that it is too much based on the goodness of the ruler. If the ruler was somehow corrupted or if his follower had not the same qualities, the state of the community would quickly deteriorate  Aristotle therefore suggested that the rule of the king should be divided among many officials.

A single individual might err from a correct path, but several individuals could then correct the mistakes of one. Thus, one possibility for managing the community is that the governing should be left to a number of able men. These rulers would have a nature superior to their subjects, just like husbands are, according to Aristotle, wiser than their wives. If these able men were just like the divine ruler in the absolute monarchy, we would have another variation of the ideal community. Because of their worth, the rulers should be free of menial work. The number of the rulers would be kept limited through abortions and slaying of handicapped babies – a brutal practice common in Greek societies.

An important aspect of an ideal community was to be an education of future rulers – a task so important that it shouldn't be left to private citizens. The aim of the education shouldn't be warfare, but peaceful community life. Thus, the rulers should not just be trained in sports, but also in music – not so much to play, but to listen music. The education should begin by training the body and only then personality. In personality we should first educate the habits of the future rulers, and last the most important aspect of human life or intellect. After education is over, the citizens would at first spend a couple of years serving in military. In full maturity, they would become governors, and in old age, they would tend of religious cults.

In a somewhat less ideal type of constitution, the governors would be elected among the most able men of the rich and the noble. All constitutions based on a minority rule face the same problem – the group of truly able people is usually smaller than the group of people thinking they are able, which might thus lead to factions and civil disorder.

The final possibility is a constitution in which all citizens are at least in some measure able to control their lives – such a community would resemble the relation of brothers to one another. A majority of a community cannot be ideal rulers, hence, this sort of community could not be ideal. Still, it could be best that is possible in all circumstances and for all types of people. In this realistic option, no unfair advantage should be given either to the poor or to the rich. The poor would be encouraged to take part in politics by donating them money when they took part in public meetings, while the rich would be discouraged to shy away from politics by appointing fines if they avoided public meetings. Furthermore, Aristotle thinks that a strong middle class would be an essential element in keeping such a constitution in order – the middle class would have no desire to give too much power to either the poor or the rich. The problem is, of course, to guarantee that the balancing act works and doesn't tip to either extreme.

Indeed, these relatively good forms of government could also turn into caricatyric types, where the rulers would care only for themselves and not others. The search of a just share of votes might be replaced by the masses wanting to search gain for themselves. The poorer the masses are, the more extreme such a government would be. In milder forms of mass government, there are still laws that are followed, but in more extreme forms the whims of the rabble and demagogues exciting it rule everything. Such a rule of the rabble might quite easily descend into a complete tyranny, if the people gave their power to a single ruler. Instead, one should try to have more upper class people involved in the government, so that the rich would not be afraid that the poor will use the state to take away their money. Indeed, a good democracy should make all citizens more wealthy, so that no discontent factions would arise.

Then again, the aristocratic constitution based on the goodness of the governors could be changed into a community ruled by most powerful and wealthy – in a household such an event might occur, if e.g. a wife would be allowed to govern her man because of the money she owns. In some cases the upper classes might allow a movement upwards in the society, if the person involved would acquire the necessary financial means. In the worst case, one group of wealthy people would take complete control of the community and prevent anyone else having anything to do with government. The wealthy people might then turn into factions fighting one another. Then again, the rich might aggravate the poor to revolt their rule. If the rich wanted to make their rule stable, they should let even the less rich have some means of taking part in government. Furthermore, the governors should use their wealth to make the community as a whole a better place to live.

Finally, a king might become a tyrant, who rules everyone like master commands his slaves. Even such a tyrannical rule might be tempered by customs and laws, but in the most extreme case, one man would govern anything according to his own wishes and desires. Tyrannical communities are the least stable of governments – its weak points include the possibility of another person grapping hold of the tyrant's position and the possibility of the poor leading a revolution. The tyrant might improve his chances by using literally tyrannical methods and e.g confiscating the property of suspicious individuals. Another possibility would be to make tyranny into a more king-like constitution by showing good example to all citizens.