Why Would I Trust Aristotle, Essay Example

I have long been learning to play the piano. In fact, it seems to me now that I have been doing it for as long as I remember myself. My parents who are convinced that even if a person is not a musician, he / she should master one of the instruments as an irreplaceable element of proper accomplishment made me take my first music classes when I was four. Naturally, when I was that small I did not consider the perspective of not learning music. I could imagine no alternative. However, as I grew older I started noticing that my lifestyle was quite different from the one of other children of my age. They did not have to exercise diligence and patience spending hours at the piano. While I was working hard and often unsuccessfully trying to stretch and train my childish fingers, other kids could do anything – they could watch cartoons, go out and play. As I became more mature and earned some close devoted friends, I still noticed that I could not spend as much time with them as I wanted and as they spared for each other. Moreover, I soon discovered that they had watched more films and read more books and been to more places than I. No wonder that I blamed music for everything I had missed out on. Still, my parents were asking me not to abandon music after all those years, the more so since I was making quite a good musician, although this was not what I was going to do in life. The dilemma was obvious: I could give up music and live a more relaxed life or I could continue exercising at the expense of foregoing some pleasures of communication and hobbies.

I can imagine being advised on it by Aristotle. Aristotle was a great philosopher of Greece, one of the major founding figures of Western philosophy as a whole. He lived in the fourth century BC. Unlike Socrates, Aristotle was a member of Greek aristocracy, well-educated and acknowledged so much as to be invited to teach future Alexander the Great.

Why would I trust Aristotle? Why not choose a more modern philosopher? First of all, I find ancient philosophers men of action. Their philosophy was natural in the sense that it grew out of life itself, out of practice and not out of works of numerous predecessors. I also find ancient philosophy more applicable to daily problems like mine because ancient wise men seemed to be less concerned with questioning the reasons for leaving and other existential problems. Their philosophy is more optimistic and practical. Why did I choose Aristotle and not Socrates or Plato? Although I am really impressed by some parts of Socratic and Platonic teachings, I admire Aristotle for being a scientist as well as a philosopher in the modern meaning of the word. I know that his works in physics, biology and medicine were a great contribution to human knowledge in the fields. It means that Aristotle was a person of unlimited interests and knew better than anyone else that a human can only be knowledgeable in a tiny part of what the world has to offer; he must have been amazed by the beauty, diversity and wisdom of nature and very broad-minded.

I picture Aristotle telling me that an ability to learn to play music and exercise constantly is what makes me human. In fact, this is one of the realizations of my Rational Soul, the one that I do not share with animals unlike Nutritive or Perceptive Souls. My Rational Soul is my ability to reason. I should indulge in practicing human abilities and thus realize my nature. He would say that by “ascertaining the specific function of man” I would find highest happiness, which is the goal of every creature. Aristotle deemed flute players, sculptors and all craftsmen, i.e. all who have some function and activity, “good” and “excellent” because they could reside in their function.

However, I would argue that music is not my primary function and by giving it up I would spare more time for other human activities like communicating, working, or relaxing and enjoying myself. Furthermore, I would say, you said that a person strives for achieving “the highest good”.

But Aristotle would contradict and say that the highest good is only achieved through virtuous life. He would call me a continent person. Although I am not virtuous enough to always know the right thing to do and never doubt, I still tend to choose the right thing after some hesitation and inner conflicts. It can be proved by the fact that I had not given up music by this time and opted for idleness, i.e. I am not an incontinent person who tends to choose the evil thing to do after arguing with him/herself. And I am not a vicious person who does the evil things without reservations. This is surely not my merit but my parents’ because, according to Aristotle, a person should rely on good habits which he / she was taught as a child. After when human reason is fully developed, a person starts combining ethical virtues with practical reasoning. In fact, ethical virtue is responsible for setting a task – determining what the right thing to do is, while practical reason is to help on the way of achieving it. As a person who strives for the good, I should direct my every skill and inquiry, every action and choice of action at some good object. It does not require special efforts from me. Knowing the good, I would do it subconsciously. Aristotle calls the good “the object of all endeavor” and does not emphasize how difficult it might be to choose the good.

Aristotle would also ask me no to view the highest good as thoughtless amusement. He would say it would be absurd if human goal were only amusement and if “trouble and hardship throughout life would all be for the sake of amusing oneself”. It is a strong argument for continuing my music lessons and not preferring communication and amusement.

But I value Aristotle so much because he was not categorical in his judgments. He understood that while some experience is worth having, other is not. It would be extremely unwise to make my music classes an absolute and sacrifice all my social life for it. It would lead me to a number of vices in Aristotle’s classification. First of all, I would risk developing standoffishness turning away from my friends and being unsympathetic to their troubles. It would impede living virtuously and isolate me from society. As a result, my chances of acquiring happiness would be really slim. I would also risk developing stinginess as I would begrudge my closest people the most precious commodity – time. I would also be likely to become a dull person for a simple reason that all work and no play finally turns a human into one. On top of everything, constant work and exercise would not help me develop intellectual virtue since the limited scope of my activity would not allow me to understand the universe and humans’ institutions in all their complexity.

Perhaps, in the end Aristotle would advise me to find the Golden Mean – real virtue that lies between deficiency and excess and is the only option left for achieving the highest good. I can surmise that in my case this real virtue would lie in a harmonious balance between continuing my musical studies and perfecting my human abilities and developing other sides of my personality through my hobbies and interaction with more people. After all, it is practice, not theory that gives us a possibility to exercise real virtue.

It might be wise for me to cut down the time I spend on music so that I would not suffer from the lack of communication and feel that the life is going past me. But I do not think it would be right to complain about the lack of time. I love a saying that when God was creating time, he created enough of it. It means that we cannot have more time than we do and it is our responsibility to use it to advantage. In its turn, a good method to do it is to always try and find the Golden Mean, i.e. strike a delicate balance between various human activities, and choose the right thing to do not to suffer from remorse and regrets later.