Maui Philosophers

October 12 - We are reading the middle of chapter 7 of NE VII, which elaborates on self-control and steadfastness. Self-control (whether having or lacking) and steadfastness (whether holding or losing) have to do with, respectively, pleasure and pain. In proportion, how are they compared and contrasted with the virtue moderation and its twin vices of being appetite-lacking and being gluttonous-and-lecherous?
.
For example, when a person has acknowledged firmly to himself that he should no longer spend time on one-night-stand hookups but who in the next evening does the very thing affirmed to avoid, then he is the person who has a weakness of will--or lacking self-control--according to Aristotle.
.
If that is a lack of self-control, under what scenario should we identify someone as being soft-pampered {malakia}? And under what scenario is someone to be considered as being endurant-steadfast {karteria}? Let's follow Aristotle's train of thought.
.
We will read multiple translations starting at 1150a16.
.
We are live-reading and discussing Aristotle's ~Nicomachean Ethics~, book VII, which is about troubleshooting the virtues.
.
The prerequisite to this book is our answering for ourselves these questions from the prior books, to which we will briefly review:
.
1. What is a virtue of character {ēthikē aretē}?
2. How does one come to acquire it? (E.g. [Aristotle’s], ambition, bravery, gentlemanliness, generosity, candor, …)
3. From a first-person perspective in being virtuous, how does one feel and what does one see (differently, discursively) in a given situation of everyday living?
4. From a third-person perspective, how is the virtuous person (of a specific virtue) to be characterized?
.
.
The project's cloud drive is here, at which you'll find the reading texts, notes, and slideshows.

(* Robin Smith, author of SEP's 2022 entry "Aristotle's Logic," argues that Rhetoric should be part of the Organon.)

Whenever we do any human thing, we can either do it well or do it poorly. With instruments, we can do things either better, faster, and more; or worse, slower, and less. That is, with instruments they either augment or diminish our doings.

Do thinking and speaking (and writing and listening) require instruments? Yes. We do need physical instruments like microphones, megaphones, pens, papers, computers. But we also need mental instruments: grammar, vocabulary words, evidence-gathering techniques, big-picture integration methods, persuasion strategies. Thinking while sitting meditatively all day in a lotus position doesn't require much instrumentation of any kind, but thinking and speaking well in the sense of project planning, problem-solving, negotiating, arguing, deliberating--that is, the active doings in the world (whether romantic, social, commercial, or political)--do require well-honed mental instruments. That's the Organon in a nutshell.

Are you an up-and-coming human being, a doer, go-getter, achiever, or at least you're choosing to become one? You need to wield the Organon.

Join us.

We are live-reading and discussing Aristotle's ~Nicomachean Ethics~, book VII, which is about troubleshooting the virtues.
.
The prerequisite to this book is our answering for ourselves these questions from the prior books, to which we will briefly review:
.
1. What is a virtue of character {ēthikē aretē}?
2. How does one come to acquire it? (E.g. [Aristotle’s], ambition, bravery, gentlemanliness, generosity, candor, …)
3. From a first-person perspective in being virtuous, how does one feel and what does one see (differently, discursively) in a given situation of everyday living?
4. From a third-person perspective, how is the virtuous person (of a specific virtue) to be characterized?
.
.
The project's cloud drive is here, at which you'll find the reading texts, notes, and slideshows.