Dialogues on women; images of women in the history of philosophy

L.D. Derksen

ISBN 9053834605

I have described various images of women and ideas concerning roles for women as they are presented by some of the main thinkers in the history of philosophy. For me, the most surprising result of this research is the fact that so much of what has been said about women in the philosophical tradition is "the same". By "the same" I mean that philosophers, when speaking about women, leave no cliché unturned. Women are seen as less rational than men, belong in the home, and are to be excluded from the public and intellectuallife of society. The female is seen as functioning within and symbolically representing the cyclical, naturalorder, the male as standing for and achieving things in the historical, cultural order. With respect to the male order, that of the female is inferior. The Pythagorean women, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Bacon, Rousseau, Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche are all to some extent of this opinion. Plato is the only philosopher on this list who wanted to break out of this pattern, but as we saw, his efforts are at best ambiguous.

Some of the other philosophers discussed, Christine de Pizan, Descartes, and Mary Wollstonecraft, have in common a desire to increase the scope of the concept of human nature and to see women as equal to men and as being capable of achievements in the realms traditionally called male. Irigaray is perhaps in her own category, in that she wishes to reformulate the question of the relationship between a general concept of human nature and the valuation of the masculine and feminine by combining the notions of difference and equality.

As Plato and Aristotle already indicated, the main point around which the gender discussion revolves concerns the view ofthe nature of women and their role in society. Are men and women "naturally" "the same" or are they "different"? If men and women can be seen as having their own "natural" characteristics, what does that say about their roles in society? Should men and women have different/unequal or the same/equal social status and roles? Should we follow Irigaray's suggestion that there be a positive appreciation in society of femininity as "different"? Or should we see male and female as different from each other but at the same time as having "equal" human and social rights in a political and legal sense? Or should we make use ofother theoretical models to express the relationship between the two genders? For example, a promising area might be that ofthe study ofthe social and political aspects of modern pluralism in philosophy and anthropology. Could we describe male and female as different "cultures" which should be treated in light of an ethics of pluralism?

Underlying these questions is another question. How can we separate our viewsofmale and female nature from the socialisation processes in which such views take shape? And perhaps the deepest question is: why do humans make so many distinctions and judgments concerning the ideology of gender in the first place?

In this concluding chapter, I would like to discuss the nature-culture distinction as it applies to the creation of male-female images and give the beginning of an answer to the question of why humans make ideological distinctions between males and females.

Nature, Culture and Society

Traditionally, there are rwo possible approaches to answering questions about how human beings come to be the way they are. One can take a historical-cultural point of view, seeing human beings as formed by socialisation processes and analysing the valuation and exclusion of individuals in cultural contexts. One can also take nature as the point of departure, searching for the reasons for the way we are in human nature, biology and instincts. In this book, dealing as it does with the history of ideas, cultural aspects ofthe valuation ofthe male and female have been discussed. Yet, as we also saw in this book, the concept of human nature, male and female nature, is very important to philosophers because "nature" can function as a foundation and therefore as a justification for certain "cultural" views. To some extent, all the philosophers we have discussed revert to a notion of human nature as underlying speaking about male and female on a cultural level. The appeal to a foundation in nature for cultural conclusions is expressed most clearly by Aristotle. For him, a social order is a "correct" order when it reflects the natural characteristics of those participating in it.

For Plato, there is a link between natural characteristics and social roles, but in a weaker sense than for Aristotle. As Plato states in the Republic, it is at least theoretically possible to reconsider ideas concerning the nature of people, a process which implies the possibility of a reconsideration of the existing social order. Conservative thinkers such as Aristotle tend to put more emphasis on human nature and natural characteristics in order to strengthen their presuppositions about male and female. Thinkers such as Plato who are open to alternative ideas and the possibility of change in the way society operates will argue that "natural" characteristics may be sodally coloured and hence subject to reinterpretation in different social contexts.

I think that we can draw two conclusions from the nature-culture discussions we have encountered in this book. Firstly, nature and culture are both important factors in forming people. Through socialisation, we become human, that is,we develop the capadty to experience human feelings, to respond to people and situations in typically human ways, to reason and use language to express ourselves about ourselves and the world: all attitudes and responses which are only possible because of the fact that other humans have taught us to use reason and language. Secondly, we can conclude that socialisation is only possible because humans have specific abilities, biological "givens". These "givens" can vary from person to person and between the genders, but this does not make them less necessary conditions for the possibility of human society.

All the philosophers discussed in this book agree that male and female are by nature human beings and that our shared humanity is"the basis on which relationships between the genders are built. I wish to point to this fact because I sometimes encounter statements to the effect that there are philosophers in the mainstream of the history ofwestern philosophy who deny that women have rationality, souls, or humanity. This is a misunderstanding caused by reading philosophers on the wrong level. Philosophers often do claim that women are less rational and hence less "human" than men, but this distinction is not made on the fundamental plane of rationality, soul and humanity but on the secondary level of gender spedfic characteristics.

Gender Typing

I think that the most promising of present day attempts to answer questions concerning the patterns which occur in the creation ofimages of men and women, the nature-culture discussion, and the roles men and women are to have in society is the theory that people "gender type" themselves.I By "gender typing" is meant that people have a basic need to identify with a certain gender and this is done by describing and prescribing sexual roles, characteristics and ideals. The aim is to form sexual-social identity. Sexuality in this view is something which is not just given, but which is constantly expressed and reinforeed in individual lives and in culture.

The main categories in which people place gender types are "male" and "female" for gender and "heterosexual" and "homosexual" for sexual orientation. Both categories are crude types because they may in fact be hopelessly inadequate for describing the wide variations which can occur in human gender identity and sexuality. What is interesting is that people want to believe that these categories apply and that they think that it is somehow important to dassify human beings in this way. In gend.er typing, people create "ideal types" which are dear and easy to apply, aiding them in categorizing people and making their social-sexual world ordered and manageable. People attribute certain values and ideals to these types: a man who sees himself as fitting in the ideal category "male" feels he must live up to certain male images and he becomes convineed that he cannot then say that he would be just as weIl off with female ones. The perception of the value (a perception which can slide into a feeling ofsuperiority) of one's own type is precisely the function of the exemplary nature of such images in the first place.

Gender typing can occur between men and women in order to identify a sexual mate as suitable and it can also occur in within groups of males or females themselves. People are evaluated within their own type on the basis ofhow "rnasculine" or "feminine" they seem to other members of the type. Gender typing can be used by a certain gender to make distinctions between people of that gender and certain typologies are presented to the other gender as attractive. The other gender in turn enforces, influences or changes the perception ofwhat the ideal characteristics of the opposite sex are. Looking at this phenomenon from out of an evolutionary, sexual selection point of view, it means rhat men and women compete within their type and select outside of their type in such a way that certain characteristics ofeach gender are selected and passed on to the next generation.

Gender typing also plays a role in social-sexual development. Freud pointed out the importance of gender typing in the Oedipus and Electra phases of sexual development. Freud concentrated primarily on the pivotal nature ofthe first origins ofsexual identification during what he calls the prehistorical phase in the life of a child, that is, the first three years of life.' At that age, the child' s sexual orientation is developed through a complex reaction to its male and female role models, usually parents. In later variations on the Freudian theory of gender typing, created by his followers, the entire lifespan ofpeople is seen as a process of sexual identification. In addition, Freud also pointed out that there are intellectual and cultural manifestations of gender typing which emerge through the process of sublimation. Culture can then be seen as both formed by sexual identification processesand in turn reinforcing the sexual identity of people.

If one wishes to account for differences in male-female nature and social roles in terms ofthe valuation ofone' s own type and the exclusion or downpiaying of other types, the question remains as to what makes this process so incredibly powerful. Male-female cultural patterns and sex/gender taboos are so strong that they can be maintained over millennia. We often assume that ifthe creation and maintaining ofsuch patterns is due to "nature" it means that the patterns are very set and difficult to change. But if we conclude that an important carrier of gender typing is culture, this means that culture, based on the expression of very fundamental human tendencies, is also extremely difficult to change. Perhaps culture, being so interdependent on nature is changed differently from the way nature changes but is equally difficult to change.

Feminism can be seen as an effort to alter gender typing rules and procedures. As we saw, Christine de Pizan, Mary Wollstonecraft and Luce Irigaray keep askingwhywomen have been characterised in certain ways and excluded from certain realms. Feminists ask over and over again "why are women typed the way they are"?What enabled men to create certain ideologies about themselves and about women and why did women never manage to break through the exclusionary forces of the male system? As Simone de Beauvoir wonders, are there not two guilty parties, the men who created these images and the women who also created them and accepted them"

Women have the distinct feeling that a number of characteristics which males appropriate to themselves (rationality or having careers, for example) are not specifically male characteristics at all and that male efforts to demonstrate thatwomen are not good at these things or should not be participating in such activities at all are offensive. Feminists therefore wish to change the rules for typing male and female nature and social roles. But, assuming that despite the great strength of traditional typologies it is possible to change them, what criteria are there for such change? This is the issue with which society and feminism is now being faced.

Science and the Social Good

Who can and should how gender is to be typed and on what basisshould such decisions be made? Men, women, science or the social-political agenda concerned with "the social good"? Women often claim that men haveslways been the ones who decided these matters and that this is not right or fair. Women themselves should have more ofa voice in the gender typing process, a task many have taken on in western society. Is philosophy an area in which theories should be developed to support this effort or are we better offlooking to other fields to arrive at answers? I will first look at two non-philosophical areas in which people [ook for answers to these questions and will then look at the efforts made in contemporary philosophy to analyse and promote the cause ofwomen.

Are there scientifically "objective" criteria to settle the disputes? Perhaps scientific research could give neutral answers to what fits in best with male and female nature and what social-political role divisions would create a more perfect society? At the moment, a great amount of scientific research is being done in order to find factual answers to questions concerning male and female nature. Because of the complexity of the matter, science has not yet come to the point where it can give definitive answers.

It seems to me that the only general message coming out ofscientific research is that a certain percentage ofour make-up is different in male and female, a certain percentage the same. This is the case on both a genetic, biologicallevel as well as on asocial, intellectuallevel. Biologically, female and male are variations on one fundamental genetic pattern. Anthropological intercultural surveys have shown that males and females in widely varying cultures will show similar behavioural patterns and preferences but will differ in some respects due to cultural norms. Studies in cognitive theory and neurophysiology on the functioning of the brains of males and females show that males and females may make different use of some parts of their brains, accounting for phenomena such as the fact that males seem to be better in rnath, females in languages. On the other hand, not all males are better in math or worse in languages than all females and vice versa. It has also been shown that in different circumstances, for example, if males receive more attention with respect to language skills at school and females with math, the differences in test results also become smaller. These results would seem to confirm that there are no absolute differences between males and females and that influences on the functioning of the two genders is part nature, part culture.

Since research into areas such as biology, anthropology, cognitive theory and brain physiology apparently cannot at this time create firm theories to explain and predict the differences in the functioning ofmen and women, such research, when applied to everyday life, does not seem to be able to take us beyond the commonly held perception that describing gender differences takes us into a murky, grey area of sameness and difference. Perhaps what we need is a less scientific and more general and pragmatic means of distinguishing images and roles of men and women: we could look for criteria on a social-political-level.

One could attempt to take one's point of departure in the concrete results ofrecent changes in gender roles in western culture and to project from that what the best way is to organise male and female roles in society in the future. But here too, we lack helpful answers. Our society is faced at present with a broad social agenda formulated by those who would like to give concrete expression to the notion of women's liberation. Some ofthe items on this agenda are: altering perceptions of social roles, having men care for children and the home, seeing to it that women are as well educated and as prepared for society as possible, helping women who get into difficulties with the male social and political order, and working on making society aware of damaging patterns of behaviour of males towards females. The problem with analysing this social agenda is that it does not form one coherent whole, Some of these initiatives serve to maintain traditional structures and serve the needs of women, for example, increased awareness of and proteetion against spousal abuse. Other points on the social agenda concern matters such as equal job opportunities, equal pay, and positive action to help women catch up with men in the workplace. It seems to me that pragmatism and responding to the needs ofwomen governs the "progressive" social agenda, rather than abstract theories. This is of course a very good thing because it means that women are getting the practical support which they need. For theory formation, however, it becomes quite a muddie for someone looking for dear theories to determine what the leading ideas of such social reform are.

Another difficulty with using the present liberating social agenda to create guidelines for the future is that it is difficult to estimate what the impact is of the changes being made or their consequences for society and male-female relationships. Views on this differ widely. Some say that liberating women will mean the downfall ofvalues, the family, and society. This seems to me an overly pessimistic view. Moreover, it is one-sided in the sense that it blames many social ills on the changing roles ef.morhers in the family while ignoring other factors which may lead to malaise in a society, induding matters such as the economie situation of a country, job opportunities, dedining values, and generations of absent fathers. Others say the impact ofwomen's liberation is not positive because in the end it will have only minimal results. Of those who say that, the most pessimistic view is that we need po do a great deal more to ensure that the process of the liberation ofwomen is not bogged down or even turned back in ever changing social conditions and perceptions. Betty Friedan, for example, in her book The Second Stage warns against being overly optimistic about the achievements of the women's movement. She argues against optimism by referring to the historicallesson ofthe dedine ofthe first feminist movement in the early years of our century, when women gained the right to vote. After that right was won, the women's movement dedined, only being revived in the 1960's because of new social conditions in western countries."

In the 1990's, Friedan's warning seems apt. There seems to be quite an onslaught on the women's movement at present. Outside the movement, a new image battle seems to have arisen, one which can be called in gender typing terminology "reverting to type". If gender typing depends on the creation of clear and stabie types, as has been argued, there will be astrong tendency to reject complex variations on the type and to revert to old types. (This is the case not only in male-female typing but also in the related area mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, that of ethnicity). The result of this reversion is that feminists are once more being depicted as unattractive and out ofdate and/or that the people who were never convineed by feminism in the first place can now openly make this claim. Inaddition, the old strategy of"divide and conquer" has re-emerged. Women are being divided once more by the promise of equal opportunities and careers for those women who conform to increasingly conservative standards. Feminists have also been remorselessly attacked with the new catch phrase of the 90's, "political correctness". Under this label, feminism has been identified with petty tyrrany arising from the desire to promote the interests of a minority; of reacting in an unreasonable way to the standards set up by a presumably reasonable, intelligent and tolerant society; and in its most extreme form, the political correctness attack takes the self-pitying form of a clearly powerful majority claiming to be themselves repressed by feminism. These tendencies are, moreover, not harmless rhetoric: the recent revoking of legislation concerning positive action in various states of the USA is a grim reminder to women and minorities that their social-political power is limited and hence that their tights can easily be taken away.

Besides the battle for ideas, images, and the future ofsociety, women are (rightly or wrongly) internalising the social problems of our tjrne and culture. The crumbling of social structures and of traditional morality in many western countries has led to neo-Conservative movements promising redemption in traditional family values and calling on women to uphold these values. Since women are once more being held responsible for the family and blamed for its failures, this places a burden on the feminist conscience. In addition, women themselves have have turned inward to reconsider their attitude towards family values for a practical reason: being faced with the toll on themselves of combining raising a family with a career.

These developments must surely serve as a warning that a lot still needs to be done to ensure that women have the freedom to determine their own livesand fate. We must once more be cautious about thinking that the bartles for equal opportunities and equality have been won. At the same time, the criticisms which have been made of feminism and the practical difficulties resulting from some points on the feminist agenda have served to moderate the movement. In our time, there is a growing awareness on the part offeminism that there are no guarantees that the course people set out to attain matters such as freedom and equality will be the best course: women can only fight for what they think is best. In the 1990's, the realisation has grown that there is no gender utopia and no easy answers to be found by looking at the present social situation.

The Task of Philosophy

In this climate, what can philosophy mean for the women's movement? The discussion ofthe history ofviews ofphilosophers on women in this book may help to analyse what some of the problems are in the way men and women see each other and in the way they assign roles to each other. In this sense, this book can be regarded as a consciousness raising session. But what can philosophy mean for the women's movement in the rnture? Can philosophy tell us whether the issues discussed in this book will always be with us or if they can be resolved through social change? Can it shed light on the question ofwhetherwomen will remain for a long time to come in the present limbo between traditional roles and liberation from them?

Philosophy can contribute to the women's movement by analyzing theoretically what is going on in society and in those areas in which academie research on women is being done. Besides taking up the role of diagnostician, the philosopher can also attempt to develop theorieson women within all the various philosophical fields. Perhaps the most worthwhile and challenging task for philosophers is the creation of a philosophical ethics of how to see women and their roles in society. Philosophers on the whole have felt so threatened by the women's movement that they have failed to understand that the primary impulse ofthis movement is an ethical one. In this sense, the women's movement is part of the more general social tendeney to realise ethical ideals by fighting for specific causes. Examples of this tendency is the support people give to Amnesty International, the environmental movement, and the development of the third world.'

Can philosophy aid both society and the women's movement by developing an "ethics of sexual difference", to quote Irigaray? Philosophy cannot and may not teU people what to do, but because of its theoretical strength, it can aid in clarifying ethical positions and formulating which values would fit into a consistent pattern and argue for the importance of having certain values. In the present philosophical debate, two positions are already crystalizing. One is the choice for traditional liberal values such as freedom of speech, respect for others, and the freedom of self-expression and self-fulfiUment, free from domination. Another option is to argue for an ethics of compassion, concern and care, an ethics ofself-sacrifice,which can form the basis for male-female relationships as weU as the attitude of people to others in society.

There are, however, a number ofdrawbacks to such a project. In the first place, philosophy has, as Hegel pointed out, the woeful fate of alwayscoming into action after the event. Whether philosophical-theoretical purists like it or not, society and interest groups inside it are already diagnosing problems and making decisions to solve them. This is of course a good thing because society cannot wait for philosophy to come up with solutions. Besides, the fact that philosophy comes after the eventean be an advantage because it can then place practise in the context of theory. A second difficulty is that the male philosophical establishment is not very interested in supporting the development of an ethics of sexual difference because it is seen as something women should develop in their own philosophical sub-class and which only applies to them. Men have the tendency to apply themselves to these matters only when they feel that there is either status at stake or a crisis which needs their attention. In all other cases, women are seen as responsible for theory formation on women, the family, and the role of women in society. Lastly, another barrier to overcome is to create a philosophy which applies to all women, not only a small number of well-educated middle class western women. Is it possible to create a philosophical ethics of sexual difference which would transeend these boundaries?

The task of philosophy in theoretically supporting and furthering the women's movement is, luckily, not something which has to begin from point zero. It has been argued that the most revolutionary, pervasive movement for change in western society in the latter part of the 20th century has been the women's movement. This movement can provide philosophers with a vast resource of new theoretical concepts. The task of philosophy is to take up these concepts and to make something of them which will provide society with asolid theoretical basis for its decisions on male and female.

Women today owe much to the wornen's movement, whether they regard themselves as part of that movement or not. The women's movement has been a great ethical accomplishment because it has succeeded in identifying and to some extent taking down the barriers that have been put up for women in the public realm. It is also responsible for the creation ofmore positive self-imagesofwomen. Men have learned to accept women as more equal to them than in the past and hopefully will continue to make progress in this area. Women can rightly be proud of having brought about these changes, for many of them have been due to their own efforts, hard fought for by women for themselves and for other women.

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Poetics by Aristotle

Aristotle approaches poetry with the same scientific method with which he treats physics and biology. He begins by collecting and categorizing all the data available to him and then he draws certain conclusions and advances certain theses in accordance with his analysis. In the case of tragedy, this means he divides it into six parts, identifies plot as the most important part, and examines the different elements of plot and character that seem to characterize successful tragedies. He tentatively suggests that tragedy ultimately aims at the arousal of pity and fear and at the katharsis of these emotions. Then he begins to lay out certain theories as to what makes a good tragedy: it must focus on a certain type of hero who must follow a certain trajectory within a plot that is tightly unified, etc. Aristotle's conclusions, then, are based less on personal taste and more on an observation of what tends to produce the most powerful effects.

Aristotle's method raises the fundamental question of whether poetry can be studied in the same way as the natural sciences. Though there are some benefits to Aristotle's method, the ultimate answer seems to be "no." The scientific method relies on the assumption that there are certain regularities or laws that govern the behavior of the phenomena being investigated. This method has been particularly successful in the physical sciences: Isaac Newton, for example, managed to reduce all mechanical behavior to three simple laws. However, art does not seem to be governed by unchanging, unquestionable laws in the same way that nature is. Art often thrives and progresses by questioning the assumptions or laws that a previous generation has accepted. While Aristotle insisted on the primacy and unity of plot, Samuel Beckett has achieved fame as one of this century's greatest playwrights by constructing plays that arguably have no plot at all. Closer to Aristotle's time, Euripides often violated the Aristotelian principles of structure and balance in a conscious effort to depict a universe that is neither structured nor balanced. Not surprisingly, Aristotle seems to have preferred Sophocles to Euripides.

These remarks on Sophocles and Euripides bring us to another problem of interpreting Aristotle: we have a very limited stock of Greek tragedies against which to test Aristotle's theories. Aristotle could have been familiar with hundreds, or even thousands, of tragedies. All we have today are thirty-three plays by three tragedians. As a result, it is difficult to say to what extent most tragedies fit Aristotle's observations. Those that we have, however, often grossly violate Aristotle's requirement. The best example we have of an Aristotelian tragedy is Oedipus Rex , so it is no wonder that Aristotle makes such frequent reference to it in his examples.

Three points stand out as probably the most important in the Poetics: (1) the interpretation of poetry as mimesis, (2) the insistence on the primacy and unity of mythos, or plot, and (3) the view that tragedy serves to arouse the emotions of pity and fear and then to effect a katharsis of these emotions.

Further, narrative is essential to Aristotle's definition of poetry. Not only comedy and tragedy, but also the epic poetry of the Greeks tells stories, as we find in the Iliad and the Odyssey . Both drama and epic poetry are fictional accounts that imitate real life in some way. On the other hand, a great deal of poetry in the modern world does not imitate life in any obvious way. For instance, the Robert Burns line, "My love is like a red, red rose" may be said to "imitate" or represent the poet's love for a woman, but by that token, Empedocles' verses might be said to "imitate" or represent certain philosophical concepts.

Aristotle is not trying to condemn Robert Burns for writing love poems; he is simply trying to catalog the different kinds of poetry that existed in his time. They all employ language, rhythm, and harmony in some way or another, they all deal with people who are engaging in certain kinds of action, and they all involve some sort of direct or indirect narrative. Whether something is an epic poem, a comedy, or a tragedy depends on how it fits within these categories. For instance, a tragedy is a composite of language, rhythm, and harmony that deals with agents who are on the whole better than us, and the poet speaks directly through these agents.

Aristotle further elaborates on the value of the mimetic arts with his assertion that we are naturally imitative creatures who delight in imitation. Aristotle relates this claim to our ability to learn and reason: we exercise our reason when seeing something as an imitation of something else. It takes a certain level of recognition to see a bunch of men dancing and singing in masks as imitations of characters from ancient myths, to see stylized gestures as imitations of real action, or to see the emotional intensity generated both by actors and audience as an imitation of the emotional intensity that would have been felt if the action on stage were transpiring in real life. Aristotle defines humans as rational animals, suggesting that our rationality is what distinguishes us from other creatures. If the ability to recognize an imitation and understand what it is meant to represent requires reasoning, then we are delighting in that very faculty that makes us human.

Aristotle's account of the origin of tragedy seems on the whole quite sound. The sparseness of archaeological and other evidence has long frustrated scholars, but it seems that Aristotle's suggestion that tragedy evolved from the dithyramb is as good as any we have. Dionysus is the Greek god of vegetation and wine, and the dithyrambs in honor of him are thought to have been part of festivals celebrating the harvest and the changing of the seasons. These songs were thus part of religious ceremonies, and the speaker that accompanied the large chorus was probably a priest of some sort. Though initially improvised, these dithyrambs developed a more rigid structure, and the speaker often engaged in dialogue with the chorus. Aeschylus is generally credited with the innovation of adding a second actor, which transformed choral singing into dialogue, ritual into drama. In short, Aeschylus invented tragedy and is the first great playwright of the Western tradition.

Aristotle elaborates on what he means when he says that the action of a tragedy is complete in itself and with magnitude. For a plot to be a complete whole, it must have a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is a point that does not necessarily follow from anything else, which naturally has consequences following from it. The end is a point that naturally follows from preceding events but does not have any necessary consequences following it. The middle is a point that is naturally connected both to events before and after it.

The magnitude of a story is important, as it is in any art. Paintings are neither infinitesimally small nor monstrously big because they must be of such a size as to be taken in by the eye. Similarly, a tragedy must be of a moderate length so as to be taken in by the memory. Usually, time limits are set by the audience or other outside factors, but Aristotle suggests that the longer the play the greater the magnitude, provided the poet can hold the tragedy together as one coherent statement. As a general rule of thumb, he suggests the action should be long enough to allow the main character to pass through a number of necessary or probable steps that take him from fortune to misfortune or vice versa.

The Politics by Aristotle

In many ways, the Politics is a companion volume to the “Nicomachean Ethics”, in which Aristotle defines a life of good quality and sets about describing how it should be achieved. The Politics, to a large extent, is an effort to describe the kind of political association that would best facilitate the ends described in the Ethics.

However, the Politics is not subservient to the Ethics. Aristotle's claim is not that cities must exist to serve the ends of individuals. Rather, he claims that individuals are to a large extent defined by the cities they live in and that man can be fully human (i.e. fully rational) only by participating in the city. The city is a complete whole and each individual is a mere part. The city is thus more important than the individual.

The tension between practical and speculative reasoning is central to the Politics. Practical reasoning is necessary for political and social matters, while speculative reasoning is necessary for theoretical and philosophical problems. Ultimately, Aristotle concludes in both the Ethics and the Politics that speculative reasoning is superior, as it is through a proper exercise of this faculty that man achieves true happiness

Whereas Aristotle views the exercise of speculative reasoning as and end in itself, he considers the exercise of practical reasoning an integral means to this end. Because an individual cannot learn to exercise his reason properly outside the confines of the city, and because the city is able to function only as a result of man's practical reasoning, practical reasoning is thus a prerequisite for the exercise of speculative reasoning.

Interestingly, Aristotle never concerns himself with questions of how much authority the state should have over the individual. A central question of modern political philosophy is the extent to which the state should be able to impose itself on the freedom of the individual. This question would not have made sense to Aristotle because he saw the goal of the city and the goal of the individual as identical. While his assertion—that the individual is only a subservient part of the state—might seem mildly totalitarian, his view was that the individual could have no truly rational needs or interests outside the confines of the state. As a result, it would be absurd to desire any kind of individual freedom in opposition to the state.

"Justice" might seem an odd term for what is essentially the right to hold more distinguished public offices. It is important to remember, however, that in a Greek city-state, serving in public office was essential to citizenship and was a high distinction. Further, those who occupied places of high distinction were more likely to enjoy other benefits as well.

Aristotle's method, here and elsewhere, is largely descriptive. He conducts extensive surveys of the different forms of government and theory and his own theory is less of a creative endeavor than Plato's in the “Republic”. Rather, it is a series of recommendations based on what he has observed. None of Aristotle's practical advice is particularly novel; his insights are more a synthesis of analyses by a man who has studied politics extensively.

***

Though the Politics ends quite abruptly with the discussion of some minor points of interest in regard to music, there is no reason to believe that some further section of the text has been lost. The Politics was compiled as lecture notes from the courses Aristotle taught at the Lyceum and was not intended for publication. The likely explanation for this ending, then, is that it marks the end of a specific lecture, though Aristotle perhaps taught further topics in political theory at another time.

Aristotle's firm stance against any kind of skill or knowledge that comes to be utilized for someone else's sake epitomizes his means-end dichotomy. Practical reasoning serves the entire city, of which each individual is a part, and speculative reasoning serves one's own happiness; each type of reasoning has its end in the self. When an individual engages in an activity whose end is to please others, such as playing music, however, that individual becomes a means for others to achieve leisure, ceasing to be an end in himself.

The aristocratic amateurism that Aristotle espouses evidences his elitist conception of class differences. Citizens should look down upon musicians and other such practitioners of arts because they practice their skill for the sake of others. Aristotle considers these practitioners simply a means for citizens to the end of leisure. As such, he inherently disparages the value of art for its own sake and the importance of art as self-expression—two notions integral to the modern conception of the self. Of course, ancient Greece was very different from the modern world. Citizens felt contempt for non-citizen manual laborers because their existence had worth only in the service of others. Their skills were not ends in themselves but rather means to others' ends.

Aristotle's discussion of music is difficult to understand for a number of reasons. Foremost among these is that very little is known about what Greek music actually sounded like. Historians know what instruments the Greeks played and that they based their melodies on different modal arrangements, which they felt were expressive of different states of character or emotion. Historians also know that music was very important to the Greeks: they felt that certain harmonies were divine and that music could express character and moral virtues better than any other medium. Aristotle believes that music can serve moral purposes because it can, quite literally, "represent" states of character just as paintings can represent trees and houses. By representing a virtuous character, music can serve as a very powerful tool for moral instruction.

Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle

As the successor of Socrates and Plato, Aristotle was the last of the great Greek philosophers. Philosophy first flourished in Greece sometime in the early sixth century b.c. as inquisitive thinkers began developing rational methods for investigating the mysteries of nature and mathematics. These pre-Socratic thinkers were as much scientists and mathematicians as they were philosophers.

While there is significant pre-Socratic influence in Aristotle’s work, primarily in the sciences and metaphysics, his most significant influence was undoubtedly Plato (427–347 B.C.). Plato’s philosophy was centered on his famous Theory of Forms, or Theory of Ideas. The theory is based on the observation that there must be some universal quality that all things classed under a single name share in common. For instance, a flower is beautiful in a very different way from a human, but both the flower and the human must share something in common if we are to call them both “beautiful.” Plato’s answer is that they share in common the “Form of Beauty,” which is itself invisible, unchanging, and eternal. Anything that we perceive in this world as beautiful is beautiful because it participates in some way in the Form of Beauty.

But while beautiful flowers will wilt and beautiful humans will grow old and die, the Form of Beauty is everlasting and unchanging. Plato theorizes that our world of sensible experience, with its changes and disappointments, is but a poor reflection of the ideal world of pure Forms that underlies our experience. The goal of philosophy, then, is to train the mind to see beyond the veil of experience and to contemplate the true reality of Forms that lies behind it.

While Aristotle was undoubtedly influenced by Plato, this influence was mostly negative. Most of his works, including the Nicomachean Ethics,contain involved refutations of many of Plato’s theories. Aristotle himself was an empirical scientist who felt that true wisdom comes from examining the objects of experience and not from trying to look beyond them. In the Ethics, he is primarily critical of Plato’s Form of Good. According to Aristotle, there is not a single Form by virtue of which all good things are good. Instead, he discusses at length the multiplicity of the various virtues.

Aristotle’s work in the Ethics is deeply informed by his own work in the sciences and metaphysics. Properly describing the breadth of Aristotle’s impressive system is far beyond the scope of this Spark-Note, but Jonathan Barnes’s Aristotle (2000) provides an excellent and brief introduction to Aristotelian philosophy.

In terms of impact on the Ethics, perhaps Aristotle’s most significant concept is that of the teleology of nature. According to Aristotle, nature works toward a telos, or end goal. His biological work aims constantly at the question of what purpose different aspects of plants and animals serve. He classifies humans as “rational animals,” meaning that our telosis rational. In other words, our function in life is to realize our full potential as rational beings. If we are not fully rational, we are falling short of our true nature.

This teleological view gives Aristotle’s Ethics a clear sense of direction. Our goal in life is to achieve our true nature, and this true nature consists essentially of rationality. The purpose of a moral education, then, is to teach us how we may become perfectly rational and immune to the temptations of our lower animalistic parts.

Ethics is just one of a number of fields that Aristotle classifies as “practical science.” Unlike the natural sciences, which examine the world around us, these sciences deal with the practical aspects of human society and how best to arrange this society. The practical sciences are all closely connected, and Aristotle frequently expounds on the connection between the good life for the individual and the kind of state that could make this good life possible. Hence, Aristotle’s Politics is an important companion and sequel to his Ethics.

While the Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle’s most popular work on ethics, there is a second work called the Eudemian Ethics, which is far less widely read. Most scholars agree that the Eudemian Ethics was written earlier in Aristotle’s career and represents a less mature view. Books V, VI, and VII of the Nicomachean Ethics are also found in the Eudemian Ethics.

Aristotle’s influence on Western philosophy is difficult to exaggerate. While his works were lost to the West for many centuries, they were slowly transmitted back into Europe by Arab scholars during the Middle Ages. Thanks mostly to the influence of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Aristotelian philosophy became accepted almost as dogmatically as the Bible during the late Middle Ages. While modern philosophy broke significantly from the scholastic tradition of the Middle Ages, Aristotle’s influence remains undiminished. In particular, his emphasis on scientific reasoning and experimentation has been a cornerstone of modern empiricist philosophy.