Aristotle viewed human nature as comprised of both body and soul, with the rational soul being unique to humans. He believed the function and goal of both individuals and the state is happiness, which is achieved through living virtuously according to reason. Aristotle analyzed politics, ethics, and different forms of government, but some of his views on slavery and the roles of citizens are seen as problematic today.

1. Human Nature
Not by SUBSTANCE but by ESSENCE;
Not by BODY but by SOUL

2. OBJECTIVES
• Present a brief and precise biography of Aristotle.
• Discuss the principles of human nature in the
Aristotlean point of view.
• Discuss Aristotle’s view on politics and government.
• Give an overview on Aristotle’s view on the strand of
ethics in human nature.

3. Aristotle ( 384–322 B.C)

4. Aristotle
• Aristotle was born at Stagira in
Chalcidice in northern Greece. His father was a doctor
whose patients included Amyntas, King of Macedonia.
• At the age of 17, Aristotle went to Athens to study under
Plato, and remained at the Academy for nearly twenty
years until Plato’s death in 348/7
• When Speusippus succeeded Plato as its head, Aristotle
left Athens, lived for a while in Assos and Mytilene, and
then was invited to return to Macedonia by Philip to tutor
Alexander

5. Aristotle
• Aristotle returned to Athens in 335 at the age of 49, and
founded his own philosophical school.
• He worked there for twelve years until Alexander’s death
in 32 3, when the Athenians in strongly anti-Macedonian
mood brought a formal charge of impiety against him.
• Aristotle escaped with his life to Chalcis, but died there in
the following year at the age of 62. He married twice, and
had a son, Nicomachus, by his second wife

6. Aristotle
• Aristotle’s philosophical interests covered an extremely
wide area. He composed major studies of logic, ethics,
and metaphysics, but also wrote on epistemology,
physics, biology, meteorology, dynamics, mathematics,
psychology, rhetoric, dialectic, aesthetics, and politics
• Many of his treatises constitute an attempt to see the
topics studied through the perspective of one set of
fundamental concepts and ideas.

7. Aristotle
• All reflect similar virtues: a careful
weighing of arguments and considerations, acute
insight, a sense of what is philosophically
plausible, and a desire to separate and classify
distinct issues and phenomena.
• They also exhibit considerable reflection on the
nature of philosophical activity and the goals of
philosophy itself.

8. The Human Nature
“Man is a rational animal.’’
Aristotle

9. Soul
Body
Human

11. SOUL
Vegetative
Soul
Lowest type Of
soul which is
found in all
living things esp.
in plants.
Rational
Soul
Exist only
among
animals
Sensitive
Soul
Exist only in
man (human)
Illustration of the three kinds of soul

12. Rational
Sensitive
Vegetative

13. REASON
Reason distinguishes man
from other forms of life-
possessing beings like
plants and brutes.

14. Grades of Being Kinds of Soul
MAN Rational
Animals/Brutes Sensitive
Plant/Vegetation Vegetative

15. QUESTION ON PLATO’S
OTHER WORLDLINESS

16. Forms
Material
Plato

18. • If forms are essence to
things, how can they exist
separated from things from
things?
• If they cause of things, how
can they are cause of
things, how can exist in
different world?
Aristotle

19. Stability was
an illusion
Motion was
an illusion
ParamedisHeraclitus

20. • The former world is
unstable and transient
realm of visible.
• The latter world
intelligible composed of the
eternally unchanging form,
which themselves are
poorly reflected in the
transitory word of visible.

21. Form Matter

22. Distinction between
Matter and Form.
Matter
• Object’s matter is unique to
that object.
• It is called the object’s
“thisness”
• Matter is the principle of
individuation.
Form
• Forms are not separate
entities.
• They embedded in
particular things.
• A particular object must
have matter and form.
• Its Universal?
• The objects form is called
the “whatnes”.

23. Distinction between
Matter and Form.
Matter Form
• The form is a things
essence, or nature
• It is related to the things
function.

24. Form MatterSUBSTANCE

25. Substance
FORMAL
cause
MATERIAL
cause
Final cause
Efficient
cause

26. The Four Causes
• 1 Material cause: what x is made of or comes from, for
example, the bronze in a bronze statue of Hermes.
• 2 Formal cause: the shape or structure of x, what x is
essentially, for example the Hermes-shape of a bronze
statue of Hermes.
• 3 Efficient cause: what puts the form in the matter, for
example, the sculpting of the sculptor Praxiteles as he
en-formed the bronze with a Hermes-shape.
• 4 Final: the purpose or end of x, for example, the
bronze statue of Hermes is for honouring Hermes.

27. Aristotle on Politics

28. MORAL
VALUE
HAPPINESS
The function or goal of every individual, so
is the function of the state. He agree with
Plato that humans are endowed of social
instinct.

29. State
• The state (polis)is natural to human
organization whose goal is to maximize its
happiness for its citizen.
• In fact ,the state is more natural than a family
because it is only the social climate produced
by community can human nature be truly self-
actualized.

30. Distinction between
Nature and Convention
SOPHIST
• Somewhat artificial
• Laws are natural to
humans.
• Just as humans are
naturally social, so is
their desire to political
body as innate
disposition.
Aristotle
• Different constitutional
basis creates dfiferent
kind of state.
• As long as citizens is
designed for the cmmon
well being (eudaimonia)
of all its citizen.

31. Question on his Modified
Democracy
• His division of labor within the state was as harsh as
Plato’s great number of inhabitants of the state – perhaps
the majority-would be slave.
• Aristotle provide a tortured argument trying to proved
that individuals are natural slaves and s innate tools.
• Even those individual who are citizens but our laborers
are debarred from full participation in the advantages of
the citizenship.
• Freedom is severely restricted for all members of the
polis.

32. Question on his Modified
Democracy
• Aristotle believe that the desire the desire to accumulate
wealth is based on natural instinct and should be allowed
expression, although the state should control the excesses
produced by giving free reign to that instinct.
• His political point of view is more attracted than Plato
today but this advantage was diminished by Aristotle’s
assumption that the wealth of the state will based on slave
labor, by his disfranchisement of female citizen, by
debasing the class of blue collar workers in his republic.

33. Ethics as a background to
his study of Politics.

34. • 1. A city state has as its goal well-being, and
the ideal constitution is one in which every
citizen achieves wellbeing.
• 2. In practice, *democracy is preferable to
oligarchy because it is more stable and its
judgements are likely to be wiser since
individuals when grouped together have more
wisdom than a few.

35. • 3. The practice of slavery, with regard to both
‘natural’ and ‘non-natural’ slaves required to till
the soil and maintain the state (1 330a 32–3), is
justifiable.
• 4. Plato’s ‘communist’ society of guardians in the
Republic is to be condemned because it leads to
social disturbances, undermines private property
and friendship, which is the greatest safeguard
against revolution’, and is unobtainable.

36. Perfectionist Goals

37. Social
Harmony
Stability

38. ?
FAILURE
-fails to spell this out or to specify
in detail the distributional policies
which are to be implemented by
the wise rulers who hold power in
his preferred constitution.

39. Politics
• Politics contains many influential
remarks, such as those condemning the
practice of lending money for profit and
analysing the nature of revolutions, it is
incomplete as a work of political theory

40. Politics
• It also exhibits some of the less attractive
aspects of perfectionist theory: if people
lack the abilities required for a life of
excellence, they are natural slaves
rightfully deprived of the basic freedoms
enjoyed by those with higher-grade
capacities.
• EXAMPLE

41. Politics
• In conclusion, Aristotle does not
seriously address the intuitions of liberty
or equality of treatment which run
contrary to the demands of perfectionist
theory in these cases.

43. Strands of Ethics

44. Strands of Ethics
• 1. It aims to give a reflective understanding of well
being or the good life for humans.

45. Strands of Ethics
• 2. It suggests that well-being consists in excellent
activity such as intellectual contemplation and
virtuous actions stemming from a virtuous
character. Virtuous action is what the person with
practical wisdom would choose; and the
practically wise are those who can deliberate
successfully towards well-being. This might be
termed the Aristotelian circle, as the key terms
(well-being, virtue, and practical wisdom) appear
to be inter-defined.

46. Strands of Ethics
• 3. It develops a theory of virtue (*arete¯) which aims
to explain the fact that what is good seems so to the
virtuous.
• . This is a study in moral psychology and
epistemology, involving detailed discussion of
particular virtues involved in the good life.

47. Theory of Virtue
Desire
Imagination
Goals
Intentional
virtuous of
actions
Intuiti
on in
the
choice

48. Self
Control
Incontinence
Self
Indulgence

49. Human Nature and Ethics
• Sometimes it appears that the self-
sufficient contemplation (of truth) by the
individual sage constitutes the ideal good
life, but elsewhere man is represented as
a ‘political animal’ who needs friendship
and other-directed virtues (such as
courage, generosity, and justice) if he is
to achieve human well being

50. Human Nature and Ethics
• On occasion, Aristotle seems to found
his account of the good life on
background assumptions about human
nature, but elsewhere bases his account
of human nature on what it is good for
humans to achieve.

51. Human Nature and Ethics
• He remarks that the virtuous see what is
good, but elsewhere writes that what is
good is so because it appears good to the
virtuous.