The New Lifetime Reading Plan

Today we would say he was of upper-middle-class origin. At seventeen or eighteen he left his small native town of Stagira for Athens. Here for twenty years he studied at Plato^ Academy. The influence of Plato is marked in his work (often by disagreement or development), but we know nothing about the personal relations between the two greatest philosophers of antiquity.

After Plato's death Aristotle sojourned for five years in Asia Minor and Lesbos, possibly engaged in biological research, for his mental bent was scientific and investigative, rather than artistic and speculative. In 343/2 B.c.E. he went to Macedon to tutor the future Alexander the Great. There is no evidence, despite ali the sentimental romancing, that he greatly influ- enced Alexanders mind. The one great Alexandrian idea, that of a world imperium, is not Aristotelian.

In 335/4 B.c.E. Aristotle returned to Athens; organized his own school, the Lyceum; taught, wrote, investigated. In 323 B.c.E., perhaps because of his suspect connections with the Macedonian party, he found it expedient to exile himself from Athens. A year or so later the mere man Aristotle died in Chalcis, in Euboea. His influence, however, though it has had great downward swoops, has never died.

We cannot comment here on his crucial pioneering in logic—he is credited with inventing the syllogism—or in scien­tific method or in the biological and cosmological sciences or in esthetics. His Poetics, an analysis of classic Greek tragedy, has had a profound and continuing effect on literary criticism. In general we may say that his whole approach to life is more earthbound than Plato^, less utopian, certainly more geared to the actual nature and abilities of the ordinary man or woman.

This is borne out by a reading of the Ethics and the Politics.

The Ethics tries to answer the basic question, What is the Good? It involves an inquiry into happiness and the conditions that attend it; and into virtuous actions, thought of as means between two extremes of conduct. The "Golden Mean" is an Aristotelian catchword.

Ethics is a part of politics, for to Aristotle (and the Greek citizen in general) the individual cannot be thought of fruitfully except as a social and political animal. The Politics deals specif- ically with men in association. Much of our twenty-four hun- dred years of speculation as to the best form of government, whether ideal or contingent upon circumstances, traces back to ideas found in the Politics. This is not to say that Aristotle gives us universal political "truths"—for example, his views on slav- ery (as on women) are conditioned by his era. But his classifi- cation of the forms of government; his sense of the state as a development, not an imposed system; and his notion that the state must have a moral aim beyond that of a mere freezing of power: ali this makes him alive and pertinent today.

The serious reader (and for Aristotle no other kind is possi- ble) can handle ali of the Ethics. Take it slowly. You might con- centrate on Books I, II, III, VI, and X. Of the Politics, possibly the first and third of the eight books are the easiest of access.

C.F.

14

MENCIUS

ca. 400-320 B.C.E. The Book of Mencius

Mencius was the second great philosopher of the Confucian school, exceeded in importance and historical reputation only by Confucius [4] himself. Mencius—his Chinese name was Meng-tzu [Mengzi]—was the disciple of a disciple's disciple, placing him doctrinally in a direct line of descent from the

Master in a society where the relationship between teacher and pupil was almost as important as that between father and son. The prestige and moral authority that Mencius enjoyed as a spiritual heir of Confucius helps to explain how he survived insulting a king to his face; the incident is described in the famous opening passage of the Book of Mencius.

Mencius, who like others of his class made his living as a wandering philosopher offering advice to the rulers of China^ warring states, visited King Hui of the state of Liang. The king received him graciously, remarking that since Mencius had taken the trouble to come such a long way, he must have brought something that would profit his kingdom. Mencius responded with a wholly un-Confucian vehemence, verging on rudeness: "My teachings are concerned solely with benevo- lence and righteousness,^,> he thundered. "How can there be any talk of 'proAн?'" What are we to make of this response?