Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

(campion.edu.au)

39 points | by teleforce 1 hour ago

10 comments

  • geye1234 1 hour ago
    The level of precision a subject can reach is peculiar to that subject, but it doesn't follow that nothing can be accurately predicated of it:

    "It is characteristic of such knowledge [ethics] that it should be deficient in “exactness,” in precision of statement, and closeness of logical concatenation. We must not look for a mathematics of conduct. The subject-matter of Human Conduct is not governed by necessary and uniform laws. But this does not mean that it is subject to no laws."

    "[T]he man of education will seek exactness so far in each subject as the nature of the thing admits, it being plainly much the same absurdity to put up with a mathematician who tries to persuade instead of proving, and to demand strict demonstrative reasoning of a Rhetorician."

    https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8438/8438-h/8438-h.htm

  • al_be_back 12 minutes ago
    > 2. "Happiness depends upon ourselves."

    he's quiet possibly referring to happiness as a relationship (with family, friends, colleagues, citizens etc) rather than just by oneself / isolation / individual. he famously said "man by nature is a political animal" (or social if you prefer)

  • great_wubwub 5 minutes ago
    “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

    Aristotle never said this. It's Will Durant.

    https://medium.com/the-mission/my-favourite-quote-of-all-tim...

    https://old.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/s2n3s/source...

    This invalidates the post for me, it takes it from academic research to fanboy posting.

  • technics256 46 minutes ago
    The first quote is not even a quote from Aristotle but from Will Durant’s book, The Story of Philosophy (1926)
  • notorandit 56 minutes ago
    If you ever wondered, those are among the things that made that single person standing out of the crowd od Humanity for more than two thousands years.<3
  • pinnate 17 minutes ago
    Much of this is either simply not Aristotle, or a paraphrase from one of his works incorrectly attributed to another.

    My slop meter is pinging.

  • ignoramous 21 minutes ago

      The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
    
    Reminds me of Charlie Munger's Inversion principle that he borrowed from German mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi's man muss immer umkehren. https://fs.blog/inversion/

      We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
    
    As counter points, read Cedirc Chin's Problems with deliberate practice, https://commoncog.com/the-problems-with-deliberate-practice/ and Sensemaking as the heart of expertise, https://commoncog.com/sensemaking-heart-of-expertise/

      It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
    
    This Amjad Masad comment lives rent-free in my head: "Tolerating some amount of cognitive dissonance is one of the best things that I was able to develop in myself ... people don't update their beliefs when new evidence comes to light ... The drive to avoid cognitive dissonance shackles you to your existing beliefs (see confirmation bias)". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11799477 (2016).

    cf. Why people that are often right change their minds often, https://fs.blog/some-advice-from-jeff-bezos/

  • whjte 37 minutes ago
    it do be like that
  • potentdream 54 minutes ago
    Nice!
  • andsoitis 1 hour ago
    “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
    • pmdulaney 59 minutes ago
      From Aristotle?

      Along the same lines: "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." -- Robert Frost

      • john_strinlai 54 minutes ago
        >From Aristotle?

        apparently not, actually:

        "The earliest that this quotation appears in print is in Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (1959) by Lowell Bennion."

        or

        "First attributed to Aristotle in Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (1959). Unfound as such.

        Sometimes thought (though I feel it's a bit of a stretch) a misinterpretation of Nicomachean Ethics 1.3.4 (1094b): "For it is the mark of an educated person to search for the same kind of clarity in each topic to the extent that the nature of the matter accepts it.""

      • notorandit 56 minutes ago
        Maybe, yes "maybe" Robert got inspiration from a guy who lived two thousands years earlier.