Browsing by Subject "Aristotle"

This dissertation identifies 5 mayor demands regarding the role of the emotions in Aristotelian virtue theories and examines how well some contemporary psychological views of the emotions deal with these issues. The discussion of the role of emotion in Aristotelian virtue theory draws on Aristotle's texts and the works of Terence Irwin, Nancy Sherman, Martha Nussbaum, John Cooper, Rosalind Hursthouse and Arash Abizadeh. The discussion of the contemporary psychological views of the emotions is based on the work of Paul Griffiths in What Emotions Really Are, and focuses on his division of the study of emotion into affect programs and higher cognitive emotions.

The dissertation is divided in three chapters. The first chapter discusses Aristotelian definitions of emotion and outlines the following demands that psychological theories of emotion should be able to explain: (1) plausibility, (2) psychological harmony, (3) motivational support, (4) perception of moral salience and (5) training. The second chapter explains the psychological views that Griffiths focuses on, the affect program theory and the higher cognitive view, and highlights the areas relevant to the Aristotelian demands. The third chapter compares the contemporary theories of emotion discussed with Aristotelian views of emotion by taking the Aristotelian demands outlined in the first chapter and examining how the contemporary theories handle these issues. I conclude that the contemporary views do not adequately meet the Aristotelian demands and need to pay more attention to the Aristotelian view of emotion to achieve a more complete view. I argue that how a theory distinguishes between basic and higher cognitive emotions impacts the compatibility with Aristotelian notions of emotion and how it can meet its demands.

This thesis project explores Thomas Aquinas’ writings about eudaimonia (human flourishing, happiness) and its compatibility with Christian discipleship. Eudaimonia and Christian discipleship are not mutually exclusive ideas but can be synthesized in a meaningful manner. Moreover, I explore rational and theological ideas that challenge Thomistic understandings of bodily perfection in the attainment of happiness in this mortal life. In the second part of his imminent work The Summa Theologica, Aquinas seeks to integrate Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology. The cornerstone of his theoretical system is eudaimonia, human flourishing, well-being, or happiness. Aquinas ultimately concludes that perfect happiness (beatitude) cannot be achieved in this life. However, imperfect happiness is possible. Interestingly, this situates Aquinas between Aristotle, who believed in the attainability of eudaimonia in this life, and Augustine who taught that happiness was unattainable in this life. Rather, Augustine’s hope for happiness stemmed from his eschatological vision of the afterlife. The first part of my dissertation is exploratory by design, carefully examining Aquinas’ views on the essence and requirements for happiness, the dynamics of the will, the nature of intelligent substances, and the cultivation of the virtues. Through examining part II of Aquinas’ Summa Theologica and Book 3 of his Summa Contra for the Gentiles, I critically explore the unity and sometimes disunity of Aristotle's ethical paradigm with Christian discipleship. The second part of my research project consists of a four-week Bible study entitled The Quest for Happiness: A Four-Week Journey With Thomas Aquinas. In addition to teaching the bible study, I will provide reflections on my experience with the class for my growth and development as a leader. Aquinas provides his readers with a unique ontological lens for discerning the dynamics of human behavior. His perspectives are neither antithetical or hostile toward Christian discipleship but provide unique perspectives on the will, human proclivities, and morality. Aquinas’ Aristotelian analysis of the will provides hope that in achieving a deeper understanding of moral behavior, we can better achieve our ultimate telos, eudaimonia, in this life and the life beyond.

This book addresses the polarization and the erosion of liberal democratic norms and institutions that increasingly define contemporary liberal democratic politics. More specifically, it aims to address the question of how pluralistic liberal democracies ought to secure stability in a manner that both conforms to the normative contours of liberal democracy and facilitates the rectification and identification of injustices.

My broad argument is that liberal democracies can only hold themselves together and become the best possible versions of themselves when their citizens are political friends. First, I advance ‘the basic’ case for why we should appeal to political friendship. I pursue an interpretation of Aristotle’s articulation of the concept to demonstrate that the central concern of political friendship is the cultivation of a political sense of togetherness among citizens who adhere to a plurality of interests and conceptions of justice. I supplement this argument by demonstrating why alternative solutions to the problem are insufficient. Second, I think seriously about how to reinforce political friendship in conditions of modern pluralism. Specifically, I develop an understanding of political friendship that can ensure that citizens who share political sense of togetherness will be able to express their differences and disagreements manageably and equitably. This sort of political friendship draws on multiple notions of political friendship: citizens are political friends by virtue of the cognitive lens or metaphor(s) through which they consider politics and their social relations, of their common civic-national identity, and of the subset of the citizenry with whom they personally practice political friendship – a subset that can plausibly be described as representative of the citizenry as a whole.

A Christian doctrine of happiness differs greatly from contemporary and pseudo-Christian conceptions of happiness, which are measured subjectively and by the accumulation of external goods. In order to develop a fresh account with objective standards, I critique, integrate and revise Aristotle and Augustine’s accounts of happiness. Additionally, I rely heavily on scriptures to present a telos of godlikeness that in turn informs a robust account of makarios. Throughout the thesis, the argument is made that happiness (eudaimonia) and blessedness (makarios) are equivalents. Despite the skepticism of liberal theologians, Christian happiness (makarios) is promised in the New Testament and achievable in this life. Fundamentally, makarios is relational, active, constant, and dependent.

This dissertation argues that the 'realist' ontology implicit in Renaissance allegory is both Aristotelian and neoplatonic, stemming from the need to talk about transcendence in material terms in order to make it comprehensible to fallen human intelligence. At the same time dramatists at the turn of the seventeenth century undermine 'realism' altogether, contributing to the emergence of a new meaning of 'realism' as mimesis, and with it a materialism without immanent forms. My theoretical framework is provided by Aristotle's Metaphysics, Physics and Categories rather than his Poetics, because these provide a better way of translating the concerns of postmodern critics back into premodern terms. I thus avoid reducing the religious culture of premodernity to 'ideology' or 'power' and show how premodern religion can be taken seriously as a critique of secular modernity. My conclusion from readings of Aristotle, Augustine, Hooker, Perkins, Spenser, Shakespeare, Nashe, Jonson and Tourneur is that Hell is conflated with History during the transition to modernity, that sin is revalorized as individualism, and that the translatability of terms argues for the continuing need for a concept of 'substance' in this post-Aristotelian age. I end with a reading of The Cloud of Unknowing, an anonymous contemplative work from the fourteenth century that was still being read in the sixteenth century, which offers an alternative model of the sovereign individual, and helps me to argue against the view that philosophical idealism is inherently totalitarian.