The Joy of Human Curiosity - Essay Example

Aristotle- The Joy of Human Curiosity of the Philosophy of the Concerned June 5, Aristotle- The Joy of Human Curiosity Introduction The essence of philosophy tends to be a predilection towards celebrating human curiosity and cherishing the joy inherent in it. I believe that curiosity is the seed from which emanates any viable philosophical enquiry. Curiosity pushes the human mind in an active mode and nudges the human intellect to ask questions and seek answers. It is the curiosity that enables the human mind to be observant of new perspectives on seemingly ordinary and mundane things and opens up a whole world of novel possibilities both in the realm of matter and the mind. Therefore the mark of a true philosopher needs to be traced to one’s capacity for entertaining and exploiting human curiosity, for it is curiosity that makes this world an interesting place and endows it with a meaning, order and relevance. In that context any student of philosophy, interested in compiling and extending form to a personal sense of meaning and direction simply could not ignore Aristotle. Aristotle indeed happened to be one of the most important Western philosophers, going by the expansiveness and diversity of his innate curiosity, which gets amply manifested in his contributions in the domain of logic, ethics, metaphysics, science, astronomy, psychology, mathematics and an array of disciplines (Ackrill, 1981). I believe that even if one sets aside the philosophical contributions of this amazing mind, a strong affiliation to the human sense of curiosity that he signified, is a must for leading a meaningful and wholesome life. Metaphysics There is no denying the fact that ‘existence’ happens to be the primary and most gripping human reality that needs to be analyzed, meditated upon and extended an ideational from and meaning. In a personal context I believe that the primary purpose of the human life is to understand the nature and relevance of human ‘existence’ and to endow it with a sense of purpose and direction. In that context, the thing that needs to be noted is that the parameters and space within which an individual explores the mystery of existence determines to a large extent the focus of one’s approach towards life. For instance the attempts of the pre-Socratic philosophers like Thales who traced the essence of ‘existence’ in water, or Anaximenes who pronounced air to be the crux of ‘existence’, or Heraclitus who traced the essence of ‘existence’ to be fire, denigrated the mystery and charm inherent in’ existence’ to abject and base elemental origins (Osborne, 2004, p. 29). The essence of life does not have to have purely ephemeral and mystical foundations, yet demoting something as pithy and valuable an entity as ‘existence’ to purely elemental constituents is indeed abject and gross. However, I do not believe that in order to extend a form and substance to the mystery of being, one ought to resort to a purely ephemeral and mystical line of argument as adhered to by Plato. The Platonic solution to the queries posed by metaphysics that material objects happen to be in a state of mutation and do not happen to be real, but are rather inclined to an eternal and immutable form that could be grasped solely by the intellect and that happens to be pragmatically unachievable, may sound poetic, but they handover the onus and responsibility of ‘existence’ to the realm of imagination and impracticality (Harte, 2005). I believe that it was Aristotle who evinced the remarkable philosophical ingenuity to extend a more realistic, material and scientific space in which to analyze, contain and explain the enigma of ‘existence’ while minimally depriving this entity of its innate beauty, aesthetics and charm. The very focus of Aristotle on tracing the light of truth in the machinations and intricacies of the material world and diverting the flow of the human intellect towards facilitating an understanding of it and contriving ones place in it, furnishes a viable direction for mediating and mulling on the mystery of ‘existence’ and ‘being’, without stealing an iota of its charm, mysticism and spirituality. There is no denying the fact that irrespective of the unpredictable nature of ‘being’, the universe is subservient to some cardinal laws and principles and the Aristotelian thrust on building an understanding of ‘existence’ and ‘being’, within the framework of these cardinal and universal principles is imbued with much pragmatism and commonsense. This approach towards metaphysics makes the mystery of ‘being’ amply defined, graspable and finite. Thereby, Aristotle happened to be one of the most important Western philosophers who limited the queries of metaphysic to the constraints of observable and established universal principles, while stealing nothing from the nebulous and mystical aspects of the human intellect. He happened to be one of the few Western philosophers who hinted towards contriving a balance between the real and the abstract, the mystical and the concrete, the spiritual and the worldly, the ephemeral and the stolid. It is this beauty of the Aristotelian philosophical methods that shun a simplistic approach towards adhering to the extremes, and rather tend to understand the unexplainable and vague in correlation to what is apparent and concrete, which bring out the sophistication and integrity inherent in his philosophical vision. Epistemology I believe that knowledge retains its meaning and integrity if it is held subservient to and understood within the context of some irrefutable truths. It is these irrefutable truths that constitute the ossified framework that supports something as vast and uncontainable as knowledge. The body of knowledge in any field of human endeavor is built over the foundations of some irrefutable principles that are held to be sacrosanct and immutable. This is how knowledge grows and advances. The human intellect tries to understand and explain the phenomenon, by using these universal truths as the foundation, and this in turn leads to the discovery and compilation of more fundamental principles, which extend the available body of knowledge in any field. The minute when does away with these universal truths, the entire concept of knowledge begins to get vast, nebulous, vague, intimidating and unwieldy. Thereby, I feel really heartening to acknowledge that my epistemological views tremendously affiliate to those of Aristotle. In fact it is really interesting to notice that Aristotle was perhaps the first Western philosopher who formally laid down the foundations of foundationalist epistemology (Lee, 2005, p. 199). The mark of Aristotle’s ingenuity lies in his ability to grasp the fact that knowledge does need a substratum of some sacrosanct principles to rest and germinate on, a view that retained its veracity from Newton to Einstein. It was Aristotle who declared that the claims in the domain of knowledge need to be justified on the basis of ‘first principles’, which are infallible truths that do not invite any argument (Irwin, 1990, p. 18). Amazingly, Aristotle showed the farsightedness to classify these truths as ‘axioms’ which are the universal truths and ‘posits’ which are the truths confined to specific disciplines (Barnes, 2000, p. 39). The foundationalism of Aristotle continued to reverberate in the assertions of later day philosophers like Descartes, who held that, that which is true defies all doubt and skepticism, which in a way happened to be an indirect application of the Aristotelian creed of universal truths (Hoffman, 2009). Ethics I believe that the purpose of ethics is to bring in a measure of predictability and stability to the otherwise expansive and vast human existence. It goes without saying that ethics happen to be a social construct. If an individual is leading an unsocial or wild existence, the concept of ethics does not happen to have any relevance. It is only when a person starts moving about in a social construct that the need for trust and thereby predictability arises. Hence, the trustworthiness of an individual does have a direct correlation to the extent to which one abides by an ethical social existence. A direct continuum of this line of argument will be the extent to which a society happens to be stable has a direct correlation to whether a threshold pool of individuals in it subscribe to an ethical code of conduct. It is indeed heartening to say that Aristotle directly linked the pursuit of happiness to ethics (Broadie, 1991). It was Aristotle who enunciated that the purpose of human existence was happiness and human happiness has to do with virtue. Aristotle held that by repeat exercise of virtue, individuals develop an inclination for exercising virtue in their conduct. Hence, the hallmark of Aristotelian ethics is that they tend to value and cherish virtue for its own sake, rather than attaching it to some selfish stake or objective (Broadie, 1991). In that context it would not be wrong to say that the Aristotelian ethics do happen to be utterly society oriented and pragmatic in their approach towards the human happiness in the sense that the human virtue they hinge on happens to be a social construct, and thereby happens to be a notion that relies on the affiliation of a social majority. Aristotle’s virtue ethics lack the ambiguity and scope for error inherent in the approaches of other ethical thinkers like John Stuart Mill, who hold social stability hostage to vague and ambiguous conditions “greatest happiness’. Aristotle’s approach towards ethics retains its innate nobility, without losing the need for pragmatism. Society One simply cannot deny the fact that a viable and happy society ought to be based on the principle of justice. Justice is essential to the attainment of a stable society in the sense that it assures that no social segment feels deprived or cheated. In a society in which justice is lacking soon gives on to social grudges and social disenchantment amongst some sections of that society, which sooner or later leads to social instability. One of the fundamental principle of social justice was laid down by Aristotle, more than two thousand years ago and that principle was, “equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally (Simpson, 1997).” In a modern context this principle means that two individuals placed in a similar social situation need to be treated same, unless they tend to differ in ways which are relevant in the given situation. For instance if there are two people employed in an office on the same post and they do the same work, however, one of them is a man and the other is a woman. In that case if the organization under consideration pays less salary to the female employee and more salary to the male employee, this will constitute an act of injustice against the female employee. One cannot help marveling at the wisdom of Aristotle, who went ahead to further classify justice into distributive and remedial justice, where one pertains to a fair distribution of resources, while the other pertains to rectifying the wrongs done. The ramblings of Aristotle’s notions of justice are discernibly traceable in many historical texts like the Declaration of Independence, whose idea of “unalienable Rights” do sync much with the Aristotelian notions of justice. Philosophy of Religion Any reasonable and logical inquiry into the attributes of God automatically leads to the conclusion that there can be but only one God who happens to reign supreme over other contending powers, and that God by virtue of being the most superior power is bound to have the best of all attributes, qualities, potencies and virtues like omnipotence, omniscience, etc. In that sense it would be true to say that Aristotle’s philosophy of religion moves most closely to the idea of a one and supreme God. While Socrates adhered to an idea of multiple Gods, Plato’s God is nearer to the Christian concept of God. However it is Aristotle, whose notion of the “unmoved mover” is most akin to the views of Christian thinkers like St Augustine, who talk about the “ground of all being” (Furley, 1999, p. 150) Conclusion It would certainly not be wrong to say that before Aristotle, in the domain of human intellect there existed nothing but philosophy. It was Aristotle who brought in certainty, form, predictability and logic into the realm of philosophy. Even a person like me, being a denizen of the contemporary civilization and being conversant with the ideas so popular in the liberal Western democracies, simply cannot help marveling at the expansiveness and farsightedness of his philosophical thought. Aristotle rationalized what the philosophers before him either simplified to abject elemental attributes or mystified to the extent of being vague and un-pragmatic. In the moments marked by philosophical introspections, it is indeed satisfying to realize that I can always rely on the ideas of this great master, to eke out a sense of direction and purpose. References Ackrill, J.L. (1981). Aristotle the Philosopher. New York: Clarendon Press. Barnes. J. (2009). Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Broadie, S. (1991). Ethics with Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Furley, D. (1999). From Aristotle to Augustine. New York: Routledge. Harte, V. (2005). Plato on Parts and Wholes. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. Hoffman, P. (2009). Essays on Descartes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Irwin, T. (1990). Aristotle’s First Principles. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lee, M. (2005). Epistemology after Protagoras. New York: Clarendon Press. Osborne, C. (2004). Pre-Socratic Philosophy. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Simpson, P.L.P. (1997). The Politics of Aristotle. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Read More