Human Nature According To Aristotle

Human Nature
According to
Aristotle
Ms. Saadia Panni
Disclaimer
• In the preparation of this lecturer /slides references were taken from

different material available online in the form of book, articles,
website, web page and presentations etc. the author does not has any
intentions to take ant benefit of these in his own name. The only
purpose of this slide is educational.
Introduction
• Aristotle (384-322 BCE) was a student of Plato and the teacher
of Alexander the Great.
• Aristotle’s background in biological subjects made him more of
an observer as compared to the mathematician
Plato’s rationalism.
• Aristotle attended Plato’s academy but founded his own school,
the Lyceum, later in his life.
• Aristotle wrote on an amazing range of topics:
1. Biology
2. Psychology 8. Metaphysics
3. Ethics 9. Physics
4. Politics
10.Epistemology
5. Law
6. Poetics 11.Astronomy
7. Logic 12.Meteorology
We can say that Aristotle influenced more subjects for a longer period of time than any
thinker in the history. His scientific ideas were accepted for 2000 years, his logic is still
used, and his influence in many areas of philosophy is still felt.
Theory of Human Nature
• The Soul as a Set of Faculties, Including Rationality:
• Plato was a dualist who believed that we are composed of two substances, a
material body and immaterial mind. Aristotle rejects this.
• As a biologist, Aristotle recognized that living things include plants as well as
human and non-human animals.
• He says that plants have a vegetative structure (a way of functioning) which is
primarily about taking in nutrients, reproducing, and the like.
• Non-human animals have this structure plus a sensitive structure which uses
senses to interact with the environment and initiates desires.
• Human animals add to this a rational structure which makes them unique.] Each
different thing then has a different structure or form.
• This is its formal cause in his language. Thus some things have a richer or more
complex form than other things.
• Thus the form of something does not exist independently; it is not an entity in
itself. Rather it is the specific pattern or structure or form of a thing which defines
how it exists and functions. [It is different to be structured as a rock, tree, dog, or
human.]
• Thus for Aristotle it makes no sense to talk of a soul or mind without a body, for
the essence of a person is embedded and intertwined with their matter. You can’t
take it out of the body.
• The only exception is that divine intellectual functioning may take place without a
body.
• Yet it is hard to see how this could be the case. For example, even if computers
think without bodies their thought still depends on material components.
• A disembodied thought is conceptually problematic, although many Christians

and Islamists who followed Aristotle welcomed the possibility.
• As for ordinary embodied human beings, Aristotle’s major
distinction is between their rational component and their
emotions and desires. He also distinguished
between theoretical and practical reasoning.
• Aristotle also held that humans are social and political creatures
who have activities common to all.
• He also thought that we can only reach our full development in
societies.
Ideal and Diagnosis:
• Rather than diagnosing a flaw in human nature and proposing a remedy,
Aristotle gives us an account of the end, purpose or meaning of life and
how one might achieve it.
• Rather than offer an otherworldly account of salvation, he offers one for
this world—one more akin to Confucianism or Buddhism.
• Aristotle begins by asking if there is one thing at which all action aims; if
there is one thing all action seeks for its own sake. Aristotle says
that eudaimonia is that thing.
• Eudaimonia is translated as happiness, flourishing, well-being, living well,
fulfillment, or perfection. In his own words “the human good turns out to
be activity in the soul [mind] in accordance with excellence.”
• In other words, the good life is activity that involves rationality and
embodying excellence over an entire lifetime.
• Anything, even inanimate things, can function excellently. A good
pen or a good dog functions as they are supposed to.
• Humans have both excellences of intellect—theoretical and

practical reason—and excellences of character—virtues
(excellences) like practical wisdom, knowing what to do in real-life
situations by having learned from experience, as well as
temperance, courage, and justice.
• In general, he presents these virtues as “the mean between the

extremes.”
• A life of virtue (excellences of character) is the ideal for human life.
[Like Plato he emphasizes moral and intellectual virtue.]
Realization or Prescription: Political
Expertise and Intellectual Contemplation
• A key is that vice and virtue result from habits, which themselves are
the result of past actions and environment, including the social and
political environment. [Aristotle says that political science is the science
which studies the good for humans.]
• This leads us to Aristotle’s conception of government and society.
• In brief, Aristotle believed that societies can only survive and flourish if
there is some basic agreement about issues of private morality. [The
founders of the USA thought that individual moral and religious
pluralism was allowable, as long as the public, secular good took
precedence.]
• In thinking about the ideal life, Aristotle contrasts lives of pleasure,
honor, and intellectual reflection.
• Not surprisingly he felt the latter was superior.
• He thought that intellectual contemplation was the highest and

best human activity. [Plato argued that intellectual pleasures are
better than physical ones.
• He says you can confirm this by asking anyone who has

experienced both types, and they will prefer intellectual pleasures.]
But Aristotle doesn’t seem to account for how much one’s station
in life affects their ability to live well.

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Human Nature

• In the preparation of this lecturer /slides references were taken from

• A disembodied thought is conceptually problematic, although many Christians

• Humans have both excellences of intellect—theoretical and

• In general, he presents these virtues as “the mean between the

• This leads us to Aristotle’s conception of government and society.

• Not surprisingly he felt the latter was superior.

• He thought that intellectual contemplation was the highest and

• He says you can confirm this by asking anyone who has

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