[ChocMontePy]

I think Aristotle had the greatest mind of any human who ever lived.

The older I get the more I realize that there are a thousand true and intelligent things you can say about any topic. Magazines, journals, and libraries are full to the brim of intelligent people writing intelligent things. But an extremely minuscule portion of that huge mass is made of writing that gets right to the heart of the matter.

And Aristotle is the writer I've encountered the most who constantly gets right to the essence or core of what he's discussing, moving past the trivialities and the unessential to illuminate deep truths in a logical way. It's why a short essay like his Poetics--which in many ways is a limited work for the modern day because it deals wiih a very specific type of ancient literature--is still pored over by modern writers and screenwriters because of the deep dramatic truths it lays out.

[tokai]

On the other hand deification of Aristotle's intellect and thought hampered the development of physics for almost 1500 years.

[geye1234]

This is not (really) true. Well there's an element of truth in it, but only an element.

European philosophy was not really Aristotelian until the re-arrival of his work in the 12C, so it's hardly fair to 'blame' him for the lack of scientific development that period. When it did arrive, it was extremely controversial, and it took the genius of Aquinas (and even then, only just) for Aristotle to be accepted in Christian thought.

In the 17C, there was a much greater interest in quantitative methods than there had been previously. And some of his physics was obviously found to be wrong. But there was no discovery (and remains no discovery) that falsified broad swathes of his work. The change of interest and focus was far more important in the progress of what we now call science than the supposed rejection of Aristotle.

This is described in E.A. Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science.

Pre-modern people were far more interested in living a morally good life (a happy life, in the Aristotelian sense of the word) than they were in controlling nature. That changed in the 17C.

[PittleyDunkin]

I think Avicenna also deserves a mention as another way educated people would naturally interact with Aristotelian thought.

[geye1234]

Oh yeah definitely, and Averroes and the other medieval Islamic scholars as well. Absolute intellectual giants.

[hackandthink]

You may be interested in:

"Aristotle's Physics: a Physicist's Look"

My take is that it was hard to find a better theory, the usual explanation of scholastical dogmatism is to shallow.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057

[samatman]

Insofar as that's true, it isn't a fact about Aristotle, it's a fact about the mindset of scholars who came after him.

[lukan]

Well, their mindset evolved at least partly around the question, how far they can go with free thinking, before making the transition to free burning.

[mykowebhn]

I agree. Look, for example, at his work on Logic, especially Categories, On Interpretation, and the Prior and Posterior Analytics.

Of course, the fields of Philosophical and Mathematical Logic have advanced since Aristotle, especially starting with the work of Frege, but that took approximately 2000 years. And before Aristotle, no work on Logic came close to what Aristotle discovered and developed. Aristotle's work on Logic was sui generis and hardly any advancement in logic occurred until Frege 2000 years later.

I feel his work in Logic alone makes him one of the greatest minds who ever lived. That doesn't take into account his contributions in other areas of philosophy, which were also significant.

[optimalsolver]

Great mind? I don't think so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_slavery

[mbivert]

Most contemporary people can't freely dispose of their time. Their ability to move in space is restricted likewise. Aren't they essentially [part-time] slaves? That is, by comparison with people who can dispose of themselves freely.

Note that I'm assuming an objective/neutral definition of "slavery", and not the usual "slavery=bad thing".

Now, we could argue that it's a matter of education, circumstances, etc. But surely you must have met people who would obstinately refuse to listen to reason, entertaining their own misery. At least IME, it's sadly a common trait.

[optimalsolver]

So, just to be clear, you believe slavery and employment are just a difference in degree, not a difference in kind?

[mbivert]

At least when defining "slavery" as "restricting people to dispose freely of their time, space (or goods…)", and when considering the way most people on Earth are employed today, yes.

Of course, if we define "slavery" as "harsh, senseless, cruel, violent, selfish abuse of other humans", then (I hope in the vast majority of cases), no, contemporary employment and slavery are different in kind.

But I do think there are reasons to doubt this second definition to have been systematically accurate.

For example, it makes no sense, from a cost-effectiveness point of view, for a slave owner to mistreat his slaves that much: it's in his best interest to make sure they live decently. Or, in a society where slavery is culturally acceptable, hence widespread, many slave owners must not have been this inhumane.

I'm not saying it never occurred, merely that there are good reasons to think that it wasn't as systematic as we tend to believe.

[optimalsolver]

> from a cost-effectiveness point of view

What's the cost-effectiveness of a master selling one of his female slave's children away from her, which was a regular occurrence?

[mbivert]

I meant in general: I'd expect moderately happy slaves to perform better, and the cost of keeping them moderately happy lower than acquiring new slaves over and over; creating slaves has a cost.

Accurately answering your question requires writing a thesis: one needs extensive access to accurate data spanning thousands of years, a solid grasp of history, psychology, ancient customs, etc. Those situations are full of subtle nuances; what historians currently understand might not even be that accurate.

OTOH, casting reasonable doubts by assuming a fair amount of people weren't too stupid is less bold of a position than "slave owners were living devil", but at least it's honest.

(Which doesn't imply that "slave owners were living devil" isn't true, merely that it's dishonest to say that it's true, because it's too difficult to know for sure).

[aspenmayer]

By that metric, Jesus didn’t free the slaves, either, and he said slaves should obey their masters.

[optimalsolver]

That would suck if Jesus wasn't some random cult leader.

[cgh]

This is addressed in the article.

[optimalsolver]

Addressed how? Just a meek claim that Artistotle may have been misinterpreted. Meek because the author knowingly can't argue with Aristotle's own stringent defense of the "right kind" of slavery.

[Boogie_Man]

Is the unstated central thrust of your statement that someone who philosophically supported slavery at a time when it was a widespread practice must necessarily be of average or below average intelligence? If so, I'd argue that you're committing two common missteps I see frequently:

1. Conflating intellectual greatness with moral goodness. These are separate categories.

2. Applying current moral standards to a previous time. You must compare him to others if his time.

Slavery is unquestionably immoral, and it's perfectly reasonable to argue that someone completing philosophical work to support slavery is committing a moral wrong, but you have to keep in mind the society into which this person was enculturated and the time at which he lived.

[optimalsolver]

>must necessarily be of average or below average intelligence

Literally yes. A mind too dense to see he was drafting his arguments in support of whatever happened to be personally convenient.

Considering he had to pen this screed in the first place, we can tell his view wasn't the exclusive one.

[jumpoddly]

For the sake of recognizing a hill I too would be proud to die on, and so you know there are others who feel the same: I agree with you.

I like to think the negative feedback you are receiving is due to the ambiguity, and so, the multitude of definitions for “intelligence” that each of us has.

I know I have met people who others have touted as “intelligent” that I thought were too deplorable to be given such an accolade.

I am with you, one of my measures of intelligence is how one recognizes the collective fate of all life.

Debating such a subject leaves me with too much ire to articulate sufficiently so I will lean on the eloquence of Martin Luther King Jr:

> Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

[geye1234]

Couple of points:

- I think taking interest on a (full-recourse) loan is a form of fraud. Or rather, it is to fraud what robbery is to larceny. I also think it produces, in practice, ownership in a share of a person, such that it can be usefully compared with slavery. I think I can make good arguments in support of this. But I don't think people who argue otherwise are dumb, or arguing from self-interest; I just think they haven't fully thought through it. You might extend the same leeway to someone widely acknowledge as one of the greatest minds in history.

- Please let me know of any anti-slavery arguments from that period you're aware of.

- Whether acknowledged or not, all anti-slavery arguments use Aristotelian concepts (as will any attempt at rational discourse, or any attempt at discussion of morals).

[Boogie_Man]

Do you feel that Caesar must necessarily have been militarily and politically dense because of the war crimes he committed?