Philosophy by commentary

As we have seen, a very common style of writing among late ancient philosophers, whether pagan or Christian, was commentary. Especially the Greek-speaking pagan philosophers of the last days of antiquity have left us mostly commentaries, although we cannot be sure if this tells more of the interests of the East-Romans and Arabs curating texts of antiquity. The outlook of these commentators, as with most of the philosophers of late antiquity, could be described as broadly Platonic and often even Neo-Platonic.

A good example is Hierocles of Alexandria, who wrote a commentary of the Golden Verses, a poem attributed to none other than Pythagoras. As is often the case, Hierocles’ commentary is a rather original interpretation of the poem and engages themes that are not that apparent in the poem itself. To put it briefly, Hierocles sees the poem as an instruction how humans can purify oneself from the corporeal life to a life resembling divinities.

First step on this road, Hierocles explains, is to understand the hierarchy of beings, with the top places being occupied by divinities with a constant and unwavering awareness of Creator, the lowest places being occupied by mortal humans, who often fail to remember Creator, and the places in between being occupied by intermediary beings, who are constantly aware of Creator, but in a variable measure. This hierarchy has been assigned by Creator, Hierocles says, because it is proper that there should be beings of all possible levels.

The beings of lower levels should then honour the beings in the higher levels, not by any gifts, but by imitating them in their own life, Hierocles continues. In the case of the divine level, this means relying on the Creator and other gods and respecting the order generated by them. It also means not invoking them too often, but only at appropriate times. In case of the intermediary level, Hierocles adds, this honouring means knowing the internal hierarchy of that level, which reflects the order of the whole hierarchy: nearest to gods are angels, nearer to humans are heroes and between them are demons. It also means trying to imitate the dedication of these intermediary entities in their unwavering thinking of divinity.

Honour should be shown also to some humans, Hierocles notes. The foremost of these are those called in the Golden Verses the terrestrial demons - they are humans (terrestrial), who resemble the beings of higher levels (demons) in their knowledge, Hierocles interprets. In addition, honour is to be given to one’s parents, Hierocles adds, because they connect us through a natural line of generation to higher levels of being. This honouring means doing what our parents ask us to do, except in the case if they command us to break divine laws.

We should also honour our friends, Hierocles says, but we should first take care that we choose only friends who deserve such honouring. When we do have friends, he continues, we should deal with them with the same love as the Creator deals with us. Indeed, we should treat everyone with love, so that the Creator will treat us favourably.

This is what Hierocles has to say about us comporting to all the other entities. In addition, he notes that we should discipline ourselves, restrict our passions and let our reason rule us. Hierocles refers here to the familiar four Platonic virtues – wisdom, courage, temperance and justice – which he sees as different aspects of self-discipline. This self-discipline, he continues, is dependent on our knowing ourselves as immortal and independent of the body – otherwise, we wouldn’t have enough of a motive to resist our bodily impulses. This knowledge will help us to stay determined in our pursuit of a loftier shape of life.

Another motivating point for virtuous life, Hierocles says, is the certainty that the divine order will eventually reward a life of reason and punish a life of unreason. The rewards are not good as such, just like punishments are not true evil - truly good is only good life, just like truly evil is bad life, Hierocles explains. Still, the rewards and punishments can serve as motives for living good. Then again, Hierocles says, no one can blame Creator for misfortunes, since they are ultimately caused by earlier bad actions. Hierocles also notes that this cycle of reward and punishment is relevant only to humans, while irrational animals live only by the rule of the material world.

Motivation for virtue is thus dependent on proper beliefs. This implies, Hierocles notes, that we must be able to distinguish good arguments leading to truth from deceptive arguments that lead to falsities. One key element here, he says, is to recognise that we are first and foremost disembodied entities or souls. Thus, threats against our bodies or even further removed externalities, like our property, should serve as no argument for us.

Furthermore, Hierocles continues, we should not follow the instigations of irrational desires. Instead, we should follow the guidance of our reason and deliberate on our future actions, as well as repent the irrational actions we’ve committed. If we lack enough information to decide, we should refrain from action, but if we do have, we should definitely do the good thing.

One part of a reasonable life, Hierocles tells, is to care for the instrument given to serve us, that is, our bodies. An important part of this care is to keep the body healthy by moderating eating and drinking and by training the body through exercises. Hierocles advises moderation also for life in general: one should not try to hoard goods or be envious to people who have more than us. Furthermore, one should constantly consider one’s actions in order to become aware if one has transgressed some principle of good life.

Guidelines Hierocles have presented this far have been meant to tell us how to live as humans and to distinguish us from animals. Next step, he says, is to make us as divine and as close to the Creator as possible. Here the first thing to do, Hierocles notes, is to admit that one’s abilities are not enough, but one has to pray for divine help to rise from earthly level.

Again, Hierocles continues, one has to understand the position of humans in the hierarchy of being as the least of rational beings, incapable of becoming literally a god - such an attempt would be futile - but different also from mere material beings, like animals and plants - if one tries to imitate an ass, one becomes asinine. One’s condition is then ultimately up to one’s own choice. If one remains bound to the changes of the material world, one is bound to feel the pain inherent in that world. On the other hand, if one chooses to live one’s life in imitation of gods, like a true philosopher, one will not be touched by those pains.

If the first part of philosophy was meant to make us behave like good humans and the second one was meant to give us the knowledge of a philosopher, the final part, Hierocles says, should give the final touch of divinity. Human souls do not just care for a material body, Hierocles insists, but they are also equipped with a luminous body, like stars. Both of these bodies require purification, which is of a ritualistic nature. Thus Hierocles says, a person seeking perfection should train their material body with ever hardening abstinence, but in addition they should train their luminous body with mathematics. Through this purification, the human soul can be admitted to the order of divinities - not as if the human soul would change its natural essence, Hierocles explains, but as an honour bestowed upon the person in question.

Probably the most commented philosopher in late antiquity - or at least the one with most commentaries preserved for us - is Aristotle. There certainly were commentators who placed Aristotle as the highest among philosophers. This is true of Themistius, who at least on occasion was more of a government official than a philosopher - or at least he had to defend himself against accusations of living a life engaged with matters unsuitable for a philosopher. Themistius’ own outlook on what was to be a philosopher focused more on the practical affairs than that of Neo-Platonists, such as how to find and keep friends and even the virtues of farming. It is no wonder then that he favoured Aristotle over Plato.

Themistius’ commentaries were apparently one source of his renown, but he himself considered them to be mere unoriginal summaries of what Aristotle had written. He did try to make the latter’s writings into a continuous course of philosophy, replacing uncertain ponderings with definite dogmas and so constructing a coherent whole out of disparate writings. Thus, Themistius would begin with Aristotle’s logical writings, as they would teach a student the methodology by which the rest of the philosophy would continue. Then, he would move on to the consideration of the ultimate foundation of all that happens in nature in Aristotle’s Physics. This foundation would provide an explanation for all the natural phenomena, but would at first have to be extrapolated from what we know of these phenomena.

Following Aristotle’s lead, Themistius rejects the Eleatic idea that there really is only one changeless being, which would lead to a denial of all natural phenomena we seem to experience, and also Anaxagoras’ suggestion that unlimited kinds of natural stuff consist of small parts of all of these unlimited kinds of natural stuff, since that suggestion would make all explanation pointless. Instead, Themistius and Aristotle preferred the idea of many ancient philosophers who tried to reduce all natural phenomena into two opposites, between which all natural changes occurred.

The correct kernel in this attempted reduction was, according to Themistius and Aristotle, that all natural changes, whether they were generations of completely new things, like birth of an animal, or just changes of a thing’s properties, like the growth of the same animal, moved toward a result from a state, where the result did not yet occur. In addition, something always remained during these changes, even in cases where something new was generated: both a foetus and an animal share some substances.

Of course, what the result or the form and the identical element or the matter is varies according to the change in question. Now, Aristotle had made suggestions that behind all natural changes might be something that always remained the same or prime matter. Themistius takes the existence of prime matter as a given. The prime matter has no features in the sense that it can sustain any feature whatsoever. Yet, it does not lack features in the sense that a beginning of some change does: otherwise, it would be destroyed by the change. Indeed, Themistius suggests, the prime matter strives to structure itself and move to more ordered forms, which also gives the natural changes an intrinsic end. Still, the prime matter is incapable of sustaining these forms indefinitely and it keeps falling to a lack of form, which then could be described as the state of badness.

Themistius’ development of the notion of prime matter is compatible with the general Aristotelian notion that natural things are to be primarily explained by the forms that are the end of natural processes, such as generation of new individuals of a species of animals, although the nature of the matter might hinder the actualisation of these forms (for instance, in the birth of degenerate animals). Here, a number of important points of Aristotelian physics are involved, for instance, that all changes are essentially movements toward actualisation of some potentialities still passively latent before the change and that matter with its potentially infinite parts is given determinate quantitative limits by the very form that makes matter into a complete and finite universe.

Themistius paraphrased also Aristotle’s writings on one particular part of the physical universe, namely, that of ensouled or living things. He follows Aristotle in criticising thinkers who thought that the essence of this soul animating living things would lie in moving constantly: whatever soul is, it is not body and thus cannot be meaningfully said to move or change in the Aristotelian sense. Themistius notes that there might be a lexical confusion involved, because when e.g. followers of Plato appear to say that soul moves itself, they might actually mean that soul is active, for instance, in moving other things, without truly changing into anything.

Themistius also criticises, like Aristotle, thinkers who identify soul with a certain harmonious blend or attunement of the bodily parts: while such an attunement would be dependent on the body, soul should be more like something that causes this harmonious attunement in the body. Themistius even seriously considers the possibility that by soul is just meant a universal vivifying force that spurs bodies of particular kinds into lives of their own kinds.

Themistius follows the official Aristotelian stand that by soul is meant the set of capacities and activities that are peculiar to a living being. These capacities and activities include at least those of sustaining and reproducing oneself, which are common to all living beings.

All animals, furthermore, also have various capacities for sense perception. In sense perception, Themistius continues, sense organs are not really changed, but they receive imprints or likenesses of what is perceived. In addition, sense perception requires some medium, such as air, which transmits the imprint of what is sensed (say, a colour) to the sense organ (here, an eye). This is even true for touch, Themistius interprets Aristotle, since here flesh plays the role of the medium, while the real sense organ is internal to the body.

Themistius follows Aristotle in discerning five different senses - touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing - of which touch is the only one found in all animals. Other commentators had suggested that Aristotle required also yet another sense, which helps to recognise features common to many senses, such as the shape and size of an object, and generally the fact that perceived features belong to the same object (rose being both red and sweet smelling). Themistius criticises this view, because it wouldn’t explain how what is perceived by this “common sense” would then be combined to what is perceived by individual senses. Instead, he suggests that the individual senses, as it were, are themselves linked, so that outputs of each sense are combined into wholes by a single faculty that uses individual senses as means for perception. In the physical body, this link should then be seen as all sense organs connecting to the same pneumatic fluid taking care of sensation.

While sensation is common to all animals, Themistius says, imagination or the ability to consider mental images of things not present is restricted only to more complex animals. It is this imagination that, for instance, creates our dreams. Imagination is also used by many animals for activities that humans use reason for. Especially together with desire, it takes care of animals’ voluntary motions.

Above imagination in Aristotelian philosophy lies intelligence, Themistius points out. Intelligence is for Aristotle, as interpreted by Themistius, an ability clearly separate from sensation and imagination, and unlike either of them, occurs in no other animals, but humans. Intelligence is also the only ability, according to Themistius, without any material base to support it.

In fact, Themistius notes that in Aristotelian philosophy there exists more than one intelligence in human beings. Clearly, we humans do not always think and even less do we always think of the same thing. Instead, our intellect is at times only dormant, waiting for something to activate its thinking. Despite being passive, even this dormant intellect is something separate from our bodies and thus immortal.

That which activates the dormant or potential intellect Aristotle called an active intellect, and the relation of these two intellects was a topic of great debate among his commentators. Themistius compares the active intellect to sunlight, which illuminates our eyes. Just like the sunlight, the active intellect is common to all human beings, while the potential intellect, analogously to an eye, is distinct to each individual. Active intellect is thus even further removed from the human body and of course also immortal.

Somewhat paradoxically, Themistius insists that it is the active intellect, just because of its being the active part of the relation, that should be most identified with ourselves. This does not mean that the active intellect would remember our individual lives after our death. In this particular life, we humans are intellects combined from the active and potential intellect and the various bodily activities, like sensation and imagination. When we die, this particular combination vanishes and with it all our memories.

We humans are thus for Aristotle, as interpreted by Themistius, a people of two realms, bodily and intellectual. Above us lie divine pure intellects. Even these are not completely disembodied - indeed, it is the stars that Themistius is talking about. These stars just do not require the more bodily abilities of humans, like sensations, but manage everything through their intellect. Themistius suggests that even without sensations stars can be aware of one another, just like a mother can be aware of her children without actually perceiving them.

While Themistius placed Aristotle in the highest rank of philosophers, Neo-Platonist commentators, like Syrianus, were of a different opinion: compared to divine philosophers, like Plato, Aristotle was just on the rank of demons or lower spiritual beings. Still, Syrianus found it still worthwhile to read Aristotle’s works and to see where he had gone wrong. Using Aristotle’s list of philosophical problems in his Metaphysics, Syrianus outlines his own idea of the highest kind of knowledge or wisdom.

This wisdom, Syrianus says, describes all causes affecting what things are like, such as the ultimate good. He is adamant that such a science exists and that there is a single science studying all kinds of causes and that it is precisely the highest science that studies them. Syrianus answers the possible objection that a highest science should study eternal things that do not have all kinds of causes, e.g. final causes, by insisting that eternal things must have final causes, because they are good and beautiful.

Wisdom also describes the ultimate principles or axioms, from which to deduce all truths, Syrianus says. For instance, it must know the law of non-contradiction, because it is the basis of all knowledge. The possible objection that axioms like the law of non-contradiction cannot be known by one science, because they are used in all sciences, Syrianus solves by pointing out that wisdom knows these axioms in a different manner, that is, through a direct intuition of ultimate truths.

Although incapable of a proper demonstration, due to being the foundation of all demonstration, Syrianus notes, one can argue for the law of non-contradiction. Thus, he says, a person denying this law cannot really speak, because none of his words have any definite meaning, since e.g. what they call black might as well be called not-black. Indeed, whenever a person actually does something, e.g. flee from danger, they implicitly accept the law, since they think that danger is something definite to flee from. A person denying the principle would thus be reduced to a life of a mere plant.

Syrianus also ponders why some people are willing to reject the law of contradiction. He briefly considers Aristotle's suggestion that the denial of the principle would follow from Protagoras' relativism, but rejects the idea: Protagoras merely supposed that a thing can be something for a person and something else for another person, but not that it would be both for the same person. What the deniers of the law of contradiction are probably thinking, Syrianus concludes, is matter and material objects, which can become e.g. both black and not-black. Even then they forget that they cannot be both at the same time and that amidst all their changes something always stays stable.

Furthermore, he notes that not all axioms endorsed by Aristotle were actually universally applicable. Thus, while the law of non-contradiction holds with everything, the law of the excluded middle doesn’t, Syrianus argues, because the ultimate, primordial unity cannot really be described in any words, whether affirmative or negative.

While Aristotle considered it an essential problem whether there are beings beyond those we can see. Syrianus turns this problem around: true beings are those we cannot perceive, while perceivable things are always changing and so maybe not beings in the primary sense of the word. Despite not physically moving, the universe of imperceptible things is still alive and thus in a sense active.

Furthermore, Syrianus insists that the hierarchy of being has more rungs than just these two, for instance, imperceivable beings having many different subtypes - there is a perfect model of reality in the mind of a Creative Intelligence and an incomplete image of that in human souls, which still is more perfect than the physical world. Aristotle had questioned whether such a multiplication of beings would entail a similar multiplication of sciences dealing with them. Syrianus answers positively: physical land measurement deals with physical entities that only resemble ideal geometric figures considered by pure mathematics.

One could say, Syrianus notes, that wisdom, being the study of both all causes and ultimate principles, concerns all types of being, while particular sciences proceeding from it concentrate on a certain type of being. If one would want to assign a particular realm of being as the object of wisdom, it would have to be something determining the rest of the beings. Thus, like Aristotle had hinted, Syrianus thinks that, for instance, instead of qualities, wisdom is concerned more with what has qualities. In the end, wisdom is for Syrianus especially a study of paradigmatic being or the Creative Intelligence.

Aristotle noted a possible objection that wisdom being concerned with all kinds of beings would mean that it would then study all the essential properties of every being. Syrianus simply points out that this is true, but only if we speak of such essential properties that are common to all forms of being. Wisdom would then use two methods: it would define what is and then demonstrate the properties that what is has. At the highest levels of the hierarchy of being there are beings, which are so simple that there is nothing to define nor to demonstrate in them, but they just have to be apprehended as they are.

Wisdom, Syrinaus continues, is not just concerned with what there is, but also their relations. Everything is derived from primal unity, which creates identities, equalities and similarities among all things. Then again, Syrianus adds, among highest principles there’s also an original duality, which creates divisions and dissimilarities in the classes of things. In addition to these very general relations, which Aristotle admits as a topic to be dealt with in the highest philosophy, Syrianus mentions Platonic notions of motion and rest, which, Syrianus says, also affect all beings, even those we cannot perceive.

For Aristotle, individuals were prior to their genera, which exist only in concrete individuals. Syrianus notes that Aristotle was in a sense right: if by genera we mean abstractions from concrete individuals, then certainly e.g. humanity is something dependent on concrete humans. Then again, Syrianus adds, by genera we can also mean general forces that e.g. create and regulate humans and so are prior to individuals. Such general forces exist, he continues, because material individuals that come and go presuppose, firstly, a formless and eternal matter, and secondly, something that forms individuals out of this matter. This implies, Syrianus concludes, that there is something beyond mere material things - the Platonic forms, as present in the mind of the intelligence fashioning the material world.

Syrianus also attempts to avoid the so-called problem of the third man, which Aristotle used to criticise Plato. Syrianus’ answer is that the problem is not generated, because the forms that determine the material world are of different sort than the things fashioned by them: only one model human is required by the intelligence to form material humans. Still, Syrianus adds, not everything in the material world is determined by these forms, because e.g. there is no Platonic form for ugliness.

Aristotle had also raised the question about the status of the mathematical objects. Syrianus notes that there are several kinds of mathematical objects. The proper numbers of the ideal world, he says, are substantial things determining also the perceived world. Then again, he adds, there are also mathematical objects that are mere abstractions from material objects.

Some of Aristotle’s questions Syrianus finds somewhat inappropriate. For instance, Aristotle had inquired whether principles of everything have some concrete number, just like material elements are numbered four. Syrianus notes that the question is partly meaningless. The Platonic forms determining the material world must have some determinate number, Syrianus admits, but the ultimate primal unity beyond even the Platonic forms is also beyond numbers. Thus, one might say that the primal unity is one, but at the same time it contains in itself implicitly everything. Similarly, Syrianus says, the highest principles are beyond the distinction of universals and particulars and the distinction of action and passion.

The realm of ungenerated beings, Syrianus notes, is determined only by ungenerated principles. The effect of these ungenerated principles, he continues, is not restricted to the ungenerated beings, but they affect even generated beings of the world of perception. Then again, generated beings do have also generated causes, for instance, humans are conceived by humans.

Still, Syrianus says, it is the ungenerated principles that are the more essential causes than the generated ones. Indeed, going against what Aristotle had said, the highest types of being - those directly under the primal unity beyond even being - are not just something that other beings try to imitate but also something that give being to everything else. These are, Syrianus notes, the Empedoclean powers of Love and Strife or the Pythagorean unity and duality, first combining everything into a whole and the second producing innumerable differences. Below these two, Syrianus continues, are the traditional gods in heaven, which are immortal, but still temporal and so have a duty to govern the temporal world.

Like all Neo-Platonists, Syrianus does note that there is something beyond this hierarchy - the primal unity or the ultimate source of goodness, which is beyond all opposition to multiplicity. He finds Aristotle somewhat ambiguous about the existence of such unity. Firstly, Syrianus agrees with Aristotle’s argument that since there are universal forces shaping material entities, there must be unity as the highest universal making everything else unified. Then again, when Aristotle asks how anything else and in general multiplicity could exist beside such a Parmenidean unity, Syrianus counters that multiplicity is nothing only in comparison with the higher type of existence of primal unity and that the the existence of multiple entities are even founded on the primal unity.

Indeed, Syrianus goes expressly against Aristotle's statement that being and unity mean essentially the same thing. Instead, Syrianus insists that while all beings require unity, the primal unity is beyond being as we normally understand it. Thus, while wisdom can reach everything else, it cannot reach the primal unity, because beyond being this unity is also beyond knowledge.

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.

The moment of perfection

According to Aristotle, the progress from sense perception through memory and experience to true knowledge involves growing generalisation: while in perception we see only singular appearances, in experience we become acquainted with a number of objects of the same sort and in knowledge we can finally recognise that objects of certain sort necessarily have certain characteristics. The generalisation means loss of some concreteness – ”animal in general” is not coloured or at least does not have any peculiar colour. Still, it also allows us to deal with a set of various objects in a conveniently short manner.

Aristotle envisioned that the generalisation progress would have a limiting point, which he described as the first philosophy – not first in the order of learning, but first in the sense of importance. This first philosophy would be farthest from concrete experiences, but still deserves the name wisdom as the final aim of human endeavours. Note how Aristotle here moves away from the original meaning of wisdom as the capacity to know how humans should live – Aristotelian wisdom is far above such pragmatic concerns.

In this primary field of inquiry one should e.g. determine what facets of an object are required for its proper description. Aristotle noted that most of the earliest philosophers had exhaustively described how every-day objects are made out of materials like water and air. Only some had had the idea of describing basic forces that were supposed to activate the combination and recombination of materials. Platonists had had some inkling that describing the structures of the things would help in explaining them, although they had apparently thought of these structures as things independent of the every-day things, thus needlessly multiplying the number of entities. Finally, many of the previous thinkers and poets had emphasised how the world was good or in accord with some purposes. These four facets – materials out of which things are made of, forces changing the things, structures characterising the things and the purpose for the sake of which things exist – are then the only things required for a complete description of a thing and its processes.

Aristotle also noted that description of all the four facets must end at some point. If a statue is made of bronze, bronze is made of further elements and so on, this progression of constitution must end at some ultimate material, which is not made of anything. Similarly, everything embodies various structures – it is e.g. brazen, statue, likeness of a Greek philosopher etc. – but some structure of the thing is full in the sense that the thing cannot be modified or structured any further. Furthermore, changes of a thing must begin from some first change, and the changes must have some ultimate goal, which has not been striven for because of a further goal.

There would then have to be four different sorts of ultimate principles, from which all explanations and descriptions should begin. The problem is whether all of the four principles should be investigated by the same field of philosophy or whether they all should have their own disciplines. The problem boils down to the question what is the common topic uniting all the four major principles. Aristotle's answer is that as they are principles required when describing anything there is, the primary philosophy should study literally everything there is – trees, humans beings, lakes and everything else. Yet, the primary philosophy should not be interested of characteristics peculiar e.g. to trees, but only of characteristics common to all things there are.

What should the primary philosophy investigate then? Aristotle noted that the phrase ”being” might well have different meanings – we may say even that there are holes in my sock, although holes are things of very different sort from socks. Still, Aristotle thought that we could find some primary meaning of being, to which all other meanings of the word would be related. After all, there wouldn't be any holes without socks or other ”holed” objects – thus, there are clear levels of primacy among different beings, and presumably, a most primary level of beings.

A further problematic concerns the question what are the actual characteristics that are to be found in this primary level of things. Aristotle himself started from the fact that – at least in Greek – adding the phrase ”one” added nothing to the meaning of a word: ”one man” means precisely same as mere ”man”. Thus, any object studied by primary philosophy should also be in some sense ”one”: that is, a distinct unity. Aristotle also recognised that things could be ”one” or same in many different senses – some things are unified by belonging to same class, others by having been made of same stuff, that is, by being the exactly same thing. Furthermore, any discipline studying a characteristic like unity should also discuss the lack of this characteristic, which in this case should apparently be plurality, which also has many senses like oneness. Aristotle then suggested that all characteristics definable through the concepts of unity and plurality should be part of the primary philosophy. For instance, a thing is something else than a given thing, if they are made of different stuff, and they differ, if they don't have same qualities.

Furthermore, Aristotle stated that the primary philosophy should also study the primary truths from which all other truths are to be derived, because these truths should be valid for all beings. Aristotle does not mean that the primary philosophy should literally prove these truths, because they in fact should be presupposed by all demonstrations. Yet, the primary philosophy could still in some measure at least defend these truths. Thus, one could defend the most primary truth of them all: that nothing can both be and not be something at the same time and in the same respect. Aristotle is not so much concerned of people who deny this principle in some cases: one might very well say that e.g. an object looks white and does not look white, that is, depending on the perspective from which the object is looked at. Even in these cases people would mostly admit that there is some primary level of discussion in which the principle does hold – for instance, the statement saying that an object looks differently coloured from different perspectives might be true in all contexts, while its opposite would be false in all contexts.

It is the person denying the validity of the principle in all cases Aristotle worries most. In effect, the denial would mean the denial of any absolute standpoint – all statements would be true in some sense and false in another. Aristotle himself pointed out that such a position would rule out all meaningful discussion. Indeed, it would make everything a complete chaos. Furthermore, it would make all decisions pointless: because I would always both exist and not exist, it would be just as same if I just would go and throw myself off a cliff.

The denial of contradictions appears then to be required at least in some primary level, and similarly one should accept the statement that all things either have a characteristic or not, Aristotle continued. True, one could suggest that the process of changing from one characteristic to another would constitute a third possibility. Yet, one would still have at least some definite possible characteristics of which a thing should have at least one – definitely being something, definitely not being something and being in a process of changing from one state to another. The only other possibility would be to accept an indefinitely numerous set of mediating states – a process from a state of being something to a state of changing this state, a process from the original state of being something to the the previous process etc. Thus, the statement of definite options should be also accepted at least in some level.

The primary truths apply then at least to the primary level of beings, but the question is, what this primary level consists of. The problem is deepened by the ambiguity in the use of the word ”being”. Firstly, ”being” is used in phrases like ”this is so and so”, where we affirm that some statement is true, that is, that certain thing can be characterised in a particular manner. Yet, true statements are clearly not as essential as the things that we state something about – statements are dependent on human beings, while things in general might not be.

Secondly, in a related sense, we might say simply ”it's this”, when we just apprehend some thing. This is also a true statement, but true in the sense of coming in contact with something: an opposite state would not be an assertion of false statement, but a state of not coming in contact with the thing. Still, even here the statetement is not as essential as the thing contacted. Thus, truth in general does not constitute the primary level of being.

Furthermore, we could speak of a thing being something accidentally, just like a quack might manage to cure his patient, if he gets lucky. Such accidences cannot be systematically studied, just because they are mere accidences – we cannot say why it was a quack who did the curing, because his quackness had nothing to do with the curing, and indeed, quacks usually don't cure people. The primary level is then not to be identified with any mere accidental features that might change from one situation to another.

Now, in all changes there is something that remains same throughout the whole process: for instance, when a piece of bronze is made into a statue, the statue is still a thing made of bronze, although its original shape has changed. We might thus suppose that what remains constant in all possible changes constitutes the primary level of being. Then again, this constant element would not be in itself cut into individual pieces, because this would require a further structurisation of this ”prime matter”. Yet, it appears evident that the primary entities are individual things of some sort and thus not a mere shapeless unity of matter.

It then might appear that structured pieces of this stable element underlying all changes would fit the role of primary beings. This is what we actually suppose normally, because cats, planets and rocks are just such structured pieces of matter. One could say that even abstract geometrical entities - such as lines, triangles and cubes – are structured pieces of a stable space and so also fit this supposed definition of primary level. In fact, all things that can be defined (e.g. human being) can be analysed as being further structurations (rational) of a stable element capable of being structured in several manners (animal). Only indefinable primary concepts cannot be described in this manner.

The problem is that these structured pieces are obviously dependent on the stable element and on the structure. Indeed, the most familiar of these structured pieces are suspectible to destruction, just as they have been generated, e.g. a cat is born and dies. The case of generation and destruction actually suggests that the structures are more stable than the structured things. In case of living beings, a living being that begins the process of generating another living being uses some material by giving it a similar structure to what it itself has, just like a cat is conceived by other cats. In artificial production, on the other hand, the producer at least thinks of the structure she wants to embody and uses the materials for producing this embodiment. Furthermore, there is the third possibility that something accidental begins a process of generation, but even then the structured element must have had a capacity for being structured in this manner. While ordinary things come and go, their structures remain, and it even seems meaningless to ask how e.g. a structure of life could be destroyed.

Aristotle finds other reasons for upholding the primacy of the structures. People can express wonder for various things: say, ”cow – sick?”, ”thunder – tonight?” or ”Madonna – in Moscow?”. These expressions of wonder, which could be turned into why-questions, have the same shape: they express wonder of a feature that some thing has. The wonder might be answered by determining the factor causing the feature – what made the cow sick or generated thunder tonight – or by determining the purpose for the feature – for what reason Madonna chose to travel to Moscow.

Aristotle then noted that one could also express wonder of the thing itself and not just its feature. In one sense such wonder is irrational: it is self-evident that e.g. horses are what they are. Yet, the wonder in this case is explicable – we are wondering e.g. what makes these bones, blood and other tissues into a unitary being that we can call a horse. Aristotle notes that it is simply that these constituents take on a certain structure, that is, the structure of a horse.

It appears then that it is the structure that is the most primary constituent: in other words, the important question is not what something is made of, but what it is made into, i.e. what its essential nature is. Of course, there are also secondary structures. Hence, we could speak of the structure of whiteness and we might even find a suitable definition for something being white. Yet, just like such accidental features are not beings in the primary sense, also only the things of primary level have a structure in a much stronger manner.

Furthermore, individual things cannot really be captured merely by their structure, because in addition to their structure, the things have also the material from which they have been made. Of course, we could add to the definition of a thing the material, but this would still not individuate the thing enough – even if we would have two structurally identical statues made of bronze, they both would still be made of a different pieze of bronze and would still be different things.

Structures thus appear to be something that could be shared by a number of things, but this has its own problems, because the primary things are usually thought as individuals. One possibility might be to assume that the structures would be indeed independent individuals, which would somehow make material objects assume shapes resembling themselves, somewhat like in Plato's theory of ideas. Yet, Aristotle at once points out the dilemma that such an assumption just begs the question: what then structurises these supposed ideal structures?

Aristotle's final answer is that the primary level of beings depends on the context. The stable element common to various things has the capacity to become any of these things, just like bronze can take various shapes. When the capacities are activated, a certain concrete thing is generated, and when the activating element is removed, the concrete thing is destroyed – thus, we might say that a shapeless blop of bronze is less primary or less active than a statue made of it. Finally, what makes the stable element into a concrete thing and thus activates its capacities is the structure. One might still ask what then combines the stable element and the structure. Aristotle's answer is that they just are defined as being necessary complements to one another: the stable element has the capacity to be structurised in some manner, if suitable external influences affect it, while the structure is just the activation of this potential capacity.

Because the components of the primary level are explained through concepts of potential capacity and its activation, Aristotle accordingly proceeds to analyse these terms. He notes that potentiality in Greek means primarily something that can be changed by some external element, just like a piece of bronze can be sculpted into a statue. More generally even things that cause changes may be said to have potential capacities, just like fire has the capacity of burning a forest.

In many cases, capacities belong to inanimate things or to animals incapable of choosing their own actions. Such capacities can only be passively activated by suitable circumstances, just like fire grows when oxygen is present and a starving animal starts to salivate when it senses food. Then again, a free agent with a capacity – say, a doctor – can choose not to use her activities and might even use it for contrary purposes, just like the doctor might use her medical knowledge for killing a person.

When does then a thing have a capacity for something? Megarian school had suggested that a thing had potential capacities only when it truly used them. Aristotle noted that this idea would lead to obvious absurdities: whenever we were not doing sums, we would lose our capacity for arithmetic. Aristotle himself noted that some capacities were inherent in natural properties of some things, just like eyes have the capacity for seeing. Then again, acquired capacities were usually received in whole when one for the first time used them, just like a practicing architect could be said to have the capacity for building only when she has built a house.

In rare cases Aristotle accepts capacities that do not have a corresponding actual result, for instance, a capacity for infinite divisibility of matter can never be wholly activated, because there is no final point at which the divisibility would end. Most of the time, an activation of capacity results in something that differs from the capacity, but also from the process of activation: this process is limited by the actual result. The result might be a thing generated through the activation of the capacity, such as a house made by an architect. In more important cases, the result of the activation is itself an activity, just like the activation of generative processes of life causes the beginning of a new process of life of a living individual. Such an activity would have no external end it would try to acheive, unlike the process of activation.

Aristotle notes that we cannot really speak of the capacity without mentioning the result of its activation – capacity of sight is just a capacity for seeing something. Then again, the result can be mentioned without mentioning the capacity. In general, the result is more essential than the capacity: the capacity is desired for the sake of acheiving the result, and not the other way around. True, capacities do appear to be prior in time, because one must have the capacity, before one can activate it. Yet, the result must often exist before the capacity in another individiual thing – thus, although a fetus might have the capacity to become a horse, the fetus itself is preceded by other horses which have conceived the fetus.

The primary level of being has thus been discovered, but it is not yet clear what classes this primary level is divided into. We know already from the Aristotelian physics that there are things that have a tendency to change in various ways, when left to their own devices. Some of them, the earthly things, changed in an irregular manner, while the celestial objects appeared to move eternally in a constant manner. An interesting problem lies in the question whether only those things studied by the physics exist: if this would be so, the primary philosophy would be only the most general stage of physics.

Aristotle does appear to accept beyond physical things also mathematical objects, which cannot be physical, because the do not change their nature – a triangle has always three sides, as long as it is a triangle. Yet, these objects cannot really be independent objects, because then the connection of mathematics with actual triangles would become incomprehensible. Instead, objects of mathematics are only physical things, when we disregard their material substrate and consider only their geometric form and quantity – there is no abstract heaven of triangles, but only actual triangles, which can e.g. change their shape. Other possible candidates for non-physical or invariable objects would be Platonic ideas. Yet, accepting such objects as independent of the natural things causes several problems, for instance, it unpurposefully adds a layer of objects beyond what we can see and hear.

Still, the eternal motion of stars does require something beyond mere physical things that will keep the heavenly spheres moving – and the stars must move eternally, or otherwise we must presuppose a sudden point of time in which everything in the world started inexplicably. Even a mere potential capacity for moving the stars would not be sufficient, because such a capacity might accidentally stop working. Instead, this moving principle should be constantly active in the same manner.

Because it cannot then change its state, it must be in the most perfect state possible for it and indeed for anything. Yet, it would still be constantly active, but its action would have no other goal beyond its own self-satisfaction – the perfect thing would live in an enduring orgastic moment. Aristotle suggested that the nearest we can ever come to feel the same as the perfect thing is when we without any external purpose think some fairly abstract philosophical issues and take pleasure in our capacities for handling such difficulties.

Aristotle deplored the idea that this epitome of perfection would go on turning the crank that moved the universe: this would make it seem like this perfect thing or God would want something by causing the movement happen. Instead, the God does not will to move the universe, but merely inspires the universe to move with its very existence – it is so perfect that the sphere of the stars tries to imitate it by its own constant movement, and from the heavens the movement the passes to Earth.

Aristotle also appeared to waver in the question, whether there are only one or more of these perfections. On the one hand, all the planets appeared to need their own governing principles that kept their movement going on. On the other hand, there are various difficulties in accepting more than one perfect being. The sensible things can be differentiated at least through their different matter: even two pieces with the same structure can be made of different materials or at least different pieces of the same stuff. Now, material of structures was to be analysed in terms of potential capacities: bronze is just something that can be used for brazwn objects. But the perfect being would have no potentialities and thus it could not have any individuating matter. Hence, it appears that there could be only one perfect thing.

Whatever the case, the perfect being would be the apex of a hierarchy based on the notion of perfection, high above mere mortals. Indeed, this perfect being would be the source of all perfection and goodness in the world – the perfect thing inspires others. So, the primary philosophy lies in close connection with these theological speculations – all beings receive their meaning from the perfect being.