Aristotle Rocks

Aristotle was ‘The Philosopher” for thousands of years. His work was pivotal in establishing the intellectual climate of Greece, Rome, Islam, and the Middle Ages. Few men can be said to have rewritten 4 civilizations in their image. His reasoning was so compelling that it exerted an almost overwhelming influence on the intellectual climate of Western Civilization for Millennia. Only Confucius, in the community of philosophers as opposed to founders of world religions, can be considered to have been of as great or greater influence. Confucius is quoted quite often in this work. This is appropriate because the work assumes that there are universal truths about human nature which must guide political philosophy and thus must be apparent in the words of Confucius as well as the writings of Aristotle. It is also appropriate because Confucian philosophy was widely studied in Europe during the ‘Enlightenment’ which preceded and set the intellectual climate of the American Revolution.

Like all things in this world, Aristotle’s influence produced negative as well as positive results. Much of what he wrote thousands of years ago is true and valid today. In those areas in which he made errors, his reasoning was so compelling that it acted almost like a strait jacket on the intellect of Western Civilization. Even today, knowing modern astronomy, the brilliance of his reasoning in his work “On the Heavens” is so seductive that you can almost believe he is right, though you know absolutely that he was wrong.

Studying Aristotle provides a wonderful tutorial in the strengths and the limitations of the human intellect. In those areas where he based his reasoning firmly on personal observation, virtually everything he said in the 4^th century BCE remains valid. Where he was forced by the lack of accurate scientific instruments or social and cultural pressures to engage in dialectic, or theorizing beyond the data, he has generally been proven wrong by time. At least one of his more famous errors will be discussed and dismissed in this volume.

Three of the most useful of Aristotle’s works today are his Ethics, Politics and Constitution of Athens. There is much in these works that is as true today as it was when he wrote them. While writing this book it became apparent in about the 3^rd month of the process that one of Aristotle’s principles would be applicable to almost every subject discussed here.

This principle was advanced in his Ethics, not his Politics, but analysis of the virtues in the American Constitution and Bill of Rights became in most instances a discussion of principles apparently in contradiction. Any principle carried to an extreme where it violated more fundamental principles which might be termed Natural Law resulted in poor government while good government lay consistently in the middle between these extremes. Plato described this situation in his “Laws” Book III,

This principle can be expressed and described formally in terms of Aristotle’s definition of virtue. Thus this single quote occurs close to the end of most of the discussions in this book. It becomes a sort of formula into which you plug in the values at either extreme and find the value in the center which embodies political virtues necessary to good government. This could be diagrammed as a line with the beginning and end points marked by the extremes and the virtue lying at the center. Political virtues will sometimes appear to be at a point where two or three lines like this cross at the center of a circle in which virtue is at the center and error is at the circumference.

This principle that virtue lies in the middle can be misunderstood. Hypothetically let us assume that the Democrats maintain as a political position that 4+4=44. If you look at them as graphics rather than numbers you could argue that this is true, but they have meaning as numbers not as graphics and it is false. Republicans, on the other hand, might maintain that 4+4=2 because each 4 is an individual unit and 4+4 is only two units and therefore 2. Much political rhetoric in the US today follows reasoning similar to this. If you take the middle between these two positions, then you would find that 4+4=21. This would be wrong. Sometimes in a political debate one side is right and the other wrong. Sometimes both sides are wrong with both erring in the same direction. Sometimes both are wrong in different directions but the truth lies closer to one side than the other. Simply assuming that a compromise somewhere in the middle is right will inevitably lead to error. It is still true that compromise is frequently closer to the truth than either extreme.

What is needed is a strong tie to reality. The range of behavior being discussed must be defined in empirical terms. The proper extremes of the behavior must be identified. An example of this from Aristotle’s Ethics is Courage.

Observing society and identifying two extremes of behavior it becomes possible to identify the virtue which lies in the middle.

Aristotle is not the only thinker who rocked the world and he is not the only author cited in these pages. This book is not supposed to be fantastically, radically, revolutionarily original. Indeed, this book is supposed to repeat fundamental truths which have been said many, many times before. Sometimes because modern society presents new challenges the same principles which suggested one solution two thousand years ago may suggest another solution today, but the basic truths supporting both solutions remain the same. If some readers consider the ideas in this book to be radical or revolutionary, it is possible that their ideas of what is normal or usual are limited by their having a greater knowledge of contemporary norms than of history. This can be paralleled by some comments made about Bruce Lee’s “Tao of Jeet Kune Do”. It has been said that nothing in his book was original, it had all been said before. Nonetheless his book is a valuable addition to the literature on the Martial Arts. Mr. Lee’s choice of what was important out of all the thousands of works he personally read and studied must be given great respect. It would be arrogant to assume that this book deserves to be placed in the same class, that is a decision each reader must make for himself. It is to be hoped that it performs a similar task, sorting the wheat from the chaff in political philosophy. The title of this book is a play on the term Bushi-Do, the way of the warrior of Japan. A way for which the author has great respect.

In this context the question of why is important. There is a difference between the results that an action produces and the reasons that people believe that an action is right. Jewish law of hygiene is credited with helping to protect the Jews from disease in various ways. Jews follow the law because it is the word of God. It protects from disease because it avoids various forms of contamination of food with germs that cause disease. Behaviors which are traditional in a culture may be performed because they are the word of God, or to avoid cursed spirits, or for many other reasons. The results they produce may originate from much different causes. Discrediting the believed why does not discredit the behavior. The behaviors are subject to evolutionary pressures. The beliefs about why originate in the minds of man, a rationalizing animal. Not believing in God does not decrease the usefulness of 7 of the 10 commandments. Not believing in God does not discredit the golden rule. Not believing in God does not discredit the Hippocratic Oath. Ethical standards evolved for reasons not always apparent to a mind limited in the scope of its understanding by unavoidable circumstance. There is the why that people invent and the why that produces results. Rarely are the twain the same.

Everything in this book depends for its validity upon reason, logic and the facts, but these facts of human nature have been apparent to the great minds of the world since man first walked the earth. If something has been true for millennia, then it must be possible to support it with quotations from the great minds of the past. Thus the poem by Kipling at the front of this book. Perceptive readers will be amused by how perfectly Kipling’s poem “A General Summary” works as a summary of this book. Here is nothing new or never said before. Instead here are fundamental truths repeated over and over through history. This book attempts to sort the fundamental truths from things less true. It attempts to find practical wisdom about government, not seductive new ideologies. “New laws are beautiful but it is wiser to obey old laws.”

Kipling has indeed become the poet of this book. Poetry and political philosophy have a long and venerable relationship. Confucius in his old age is reputed to have edited the five Ching. These with the four Shu make up the most notable of the books in the Confucian tradition. One of the five Ching was the Shih Ching, the Book of Odes a collection of poetry designed to promote virtue and propriety. This tradition, strange as it is to modern thought, is not absent in the West. Aristotle in his Politics quotes the great poets of Greece on almost every page. The Great Books of the Western World includes the poetry of Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Lucretius, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe.

Great poets have a talent for capturing the essence of human nature in a phrase. The study of human nature is fundamental to political philosophy. A political philosopher without an appreciation for great poetry is like a painter who is color blind. He might build or draw intricate structures which seem workable on paper, but because they lack the color and passion of real humanity, they fail when put into practice. This was the fault of Communism, it pretentiously ignored human nature.

Kipling, the Nobel prize winning Poet Laureate of the British Empire is an admirable choice of poets to grace this book. He is Politically Incorrect. He is judged to be a jingoistic, imperialistic, racist by the Left. There are a few of his poems which can be misinterpreted as racist. More of his poems are passionate salutes to the courage and virtues of the opponents of the British Empire regardless of their race. He was not exhorting them to defeat the Empire. He was loyal to his country in the terms of his time. He did salute their nobility and courage honestly because it simply deserved that respect and honor from a decent man. He attempted to inspire the British Empire with a moral purpose and respect for its subject peoples.

The fact that the Left equates patriotism with jingoism, and pride with racism in the world today is important to remember. Patriotism can become jingoism and pride can become racism, but they are not automatically the same. Readers will find Kipling sometimes surprisingly liberal, even occasionally, (gasp) politically correct. Kipling was a political poet addressing the events and issues of his time. This makes his poems frequently quite relevant to the issues facing the US today. These reasons make him a natural addition to this work.

It was written in the Delphic Temple in Ancient Greece, “Know Thyself” the study of history and of the works of men who studied man throughout history is fundamental to the kind of knowledge of humanity necessary for good government. Human beings have been able to observe their fellow human beings with a good level of accuracy for most of history.

To quote the James Legge translation of Confucius,

Modern science allows a better technical understanding of why humans feel and behave the way they do, but the basics of their feelings and behaviors have not changed. Aristotle, Adam Smith, the authors of “The Federalist Papers” and many others still rock. They also provide a rock steady foundation on which to build governments which work. To quote Hobbes “Leviathan”,

There is a foundation of knowledge in political philosophy found in the works of men like Aristotle, Confucius, Hobbes, and Locke which is basically as sound as that of geometry. This foundation of knowledge which crosses man’s “ambition, profit and lust” was the basis of the design of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is fundamental to the American Way. Ignoring it is fundamental to the political positions of both parties in the United States today. Both parties do exactly what Hobbes described. They appeal to custom when it suits their purpose and to reason when it suits their purpose and condemn custom and reason when they do not suit them. Custom is the result of evolution, and reason analyzes the results of practice. Reason can appeal to and evaluate Custom in these terms and this is the approach taken in this book.