Category: Aristotle

Freedom and Flourishing: Why We Need Both for a Good Life

5/5/2021

Freedom enables individuals to flourish in different ways, allows for growth of opportunities, and supports personal development by enabling individuals to exercise wise and well-informed self-direction.

My guest, economist Winton Bates, argues in a new book that Western freedom was more or less a happy accident of history. Loose it, and we may not get it back again.

We discuss the future of freedom, progress, personal growth, and a lot more in his new book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing.*

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Virtue Begins at Home With Intentional Family Culture

4/1/2021

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Brendan Malone, of Left Foot Media, a father of 5, gives wonderful tips on how to teach and model virtue to our children at home. One way to do this is to create an intentional family culture based on our specific moral values, that will act as a counterweight to the negative aspects of the culture that we find ourselves in.

How do we teach our children virtue? This issue was being discussed in a similar context back as far as the Enlightenment by thinkers like Locke and Rousseau. Rousseau thought that a parent's primary role is to be a buffer between their child and culture, rather than simply being an agent of the dominant culture. Rousseau described the insular and affectionate family that educated its own children as “the best counterpoison for bad morals.”

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How to Tell Right From Wrong: 3 Rules For Every Situation

3/12/2021

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Really you ask? Is it possible to tell right from wrong and to easily figure out how best to treat other people in every situation? Yes it is, and I'm about to show you how.

It turns out that there are 3 important rules we can always use to do right by others: the Silver Rule, the Golden Rule and the Platinum Rule. These 3 rules are applicable regardless of our politics, religion or culture. These moral rules also have broad support across cultures and throughout history. Let's discuss the Silver, Golden, and Platinum Rules, and how they can easily be applied to tell right from wrong when it comes to our choices and actions.

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What the Game of Thrones Ending Really Means

6/2/2019

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Some tyrants come as liberators. That is the final twist in Game of Thrones, a show known for it's shocking plot twists. This is what George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is ultimately about; what war really does to people, the difficultly of just rule, the inability to overcome personal moral failings, and the cyclical nature of tyranny.

Game of Thrones, the show based on the Song of Ice and Fire novels, is a bit more about putting spectacle over story. But Queen Daenerys as the final villain, rather than Cersei or the Night King, is George R. R. Martin's surprise ending, make no mistake about it. Viewers were naturally horrified to watch a sympathetic character turn bad, but that's the whole point! We were tricked in order to get us to understand the cruelty and horror of war by watching a character we knew and maybe liked become a tyrant.

This isn't just my hot take on it, either. George R. R. Martin was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. He acknowledges that the perception of war as something glorious is a problem. Though not a radical pacifist, he states in this interesting clip that his goal with A Song of Ice and Fire, is to show the true cost of war.

Violence under the guise of "breaking the wheel," promoting democracy, human rights, and most other justifications is still abominable. That is why we should be looking for non-violent solutions to problems rather than perpetually glorifying war and violent conflict.

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Parents! Cut Yourselves a Break

2/16/2019

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Welcome Holly Hamilton-Bleakley, a philosophy professor and mother of six, to my YouTube channel! Holly is the author of the wonderful blog, Philosophy For Parents.
Here she shares wisdom gleaned from 20 years of motherhood and her extensive knowledge of philosophy.

We discuss:

The difficulty of becoming a parent for the first time.
How to best handle the challenges of parenthood.
The strengths and virtues necessary for being a good parent.
How to slow down and cut yourself a break when you have little kids.
Dealing with the feelings of impermanence that parenting brings.
How the issue of raising children is ignored by most Western philosophers, and more.

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Video: The Best Philosophy Books For Beginning Readers

5/17/2018

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Which philosophy books are the best for people just starting out? Dr. Greg Sadler and I talk about his recent list of the 10 Best Philosophy Books for Beginners, which is now one of the most popular posts on this site.

We dicuss:

Which thinkers are average people most interested in?
The practical philosophy movement and popular philosophies like modern Stoicism and Aristotelianism that are currently being applied in people's lives.
Philosophy's relevance: the disconnect between academic versus applied philosophy, poor outreach among academic philosophers and the public.
Women philosophers - Greg's love of Mary Wollstonecraft, and why some people argue that Aynd Rand is not a philosopher.
Avoiding agenda-driven histories of philosophy and the importance of reading primary texts.
Poor pedagogy in introduction to philosophy classes - the difficulty of teaching, good versus bad teachers.
Existentialism: reading books of philosophy as a teenager and then again as an adult. What appeals to people?
Interesting tidbits about Anselm's On the Fall of the Devil and many other books.

If you like these types of videos please subscribe to my Youtube Channel.

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The 10 Best Philosophy Books For Beginners

5/7/2018

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Today's guest post is written by my friend Greg Sadler. Greg was a philosophy professor earlier in his career, and still teaches upon request for traditional academic institutions. Over the last decade, he transitioned to doing philosophy in more public and practically oriented ways. He is the president of a philosophical consulting, coaching, and tutoring company, ReasonIO. He is also the editor of Stoicism Today. His main YouTube channel contains over 1,300 videos, and has had nearly 5 million views. His personal blog is Orexis Dianoētikē. He lives with his wife and partner, Andi Sciacca, in their hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This is actually a difficult question – which philosophical texts are best for beginners? But it’s also one that I get asked pretty regularly. I typically suggest starting with Plato, and occasionally delve a bit deeper into the topic, but admittedly haven’t devoted the thought and attention it really deserves to give a proper answer. So when Leah brought it up as a matter that might be addressed, and suggested we record a conversation on her YouTube channel about it – which you can watch here – I thought writing a bit first might help me sort out my thoughts on the topic.

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The Happiness Triangle: Stoic Secret for Peace of Mind Video

3/18/2018

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What 3 things are necessary for happiness? Leah Goldrick of http://commonsenseethics.com interviews Jonas Salzgeber of http://njlifehacks.com about how to become a tower of strength through Stoic philosophy. (Please note that if you have difficulty hearing the audio, click the "CC," button on the lower right of the Youtube screen to enable subtitles).

We dicuss:

Doing your best/focusing on the process of growth and developing virtue, rather than the outcome.
Is self-compassion missing from Stoic philosophy?
How much do externals/prefered indifferents matter? Is Aristotle correct that we need some externals to be happy or are the Stoics correct that only virtue is necessary for happiness?
Is the Sage a realistic role model?
What is eudamonia?
Jonas' new book

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Wise Advice on Human Flourishing in 10 Terrific Quotes

5/1/2017

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This guest post was first published at Freedom and Flourishing by my friend Winton Bates, who curated the following wise advice based on his vast knowledge and life experience:

The quotes selected for this post are related specifically to individual flourishing or personal development. I will follow this up later with a selection of quotes relating to the social conditions that favour human flourishing.

Rather than selecting the most inspirational quotes I can think of, I have selected quotes that seem to support what I hope is a coherent set of propositions about human flourishing.

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Fake it Until You Make It: Aristotle on Becoming A Better Person

4/1/2017

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The word hexis in ancient Greek means an active condition of moral virtue. Hexis is a kind of striving or working to overcome our passive habituation by strength of character. To become good, Aristotle essentially thought that you need to "fake it 'till you make it."

Hexis, or character, is defined as one's virtues or vices - not just any habit but something that affects when we feel pleasure or pain. Since moral virtue involves pleasure or pain, it is to our advantage to choose only those actions which don't cause us pain. We become well habituated by performing virtuous actions over time. These virtuous actions become real virtue when we start to choose them deliberately - when we are motivated by internal good.

Recently my friend Dr. Greg Sadler launched the first in a series of new 45-minute webinars and in-depth online seminars developed and hosted by ReasonIO. His March webinar - which I participated in - introduces the basics of Aristotle's ethics. The video provides a short overview for those like me, who want to learn more about virtue ethics but don't have a ton of time to read. It's up on YouTube and I have embedded it below:

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<<Previous

Freedom and Flourishing: Why We Need Both for a Good Life

Virtue Begins at Home With Intentional Family Culture

How to Tell Right From Wrong: 3 Rules For Every Situation

What the Game of Thrones Ending Really Means

Parents! Cut Yourselves a Break

Video: The Best Philosophy Books For Beginning Readers

The 10 Best Philosophy Books For Beginners

The Happiness Triangle: Stoic Secret for Peace of Mind Video

Wise Advice on Human Flourishing in 10 Terrific Quotes

Fake it Until You Make It: Aristotle on Becoming A Better Person

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