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SobaViolence
04-18-2005, 08:13 PM
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

another engaging quote;

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely free.

EN[i]GMA
04-18-2005, 08:20 PM
Wise man, that Aristotle.

catatonic
04-18-2005, 10:53 PM
Thanks.

discopants
04-19-2005, 03:54 AM
You're forgetting that in Ancient Greece tyrants weren't all that bad.
Also, democracy was only enjoyed by citizens of Athens, which was pretty select, no women, foreigners or slaves.

Nice to see attention being payed to the classics though.
Read any Plato anyone?

ms.peachy
04-19-2005, 05:32 AM
You're forgetting that in Ancient Greece tyrants weren't all that bad.
Also, democracy was only enjoyed by citizens of Athens, which was pretty select, no women, foreigners or slaves.

Do you not see any apparent irony in using those two sentences contiguously?

Anyway, Aristotle was a man on to many things, and it was ever thus: (Ecclesiastes 1:3-10) What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? {4} Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. {5} The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. {6} The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. {7} All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. {8} All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. {9} What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. {10} Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.

Ali
04-19-2005, 09:23 AM
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.

David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.

Plato, they say, could stick it away--
Half a crate of whisky every day.

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram,

And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
'I drink, therefore I am.'

Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he's pissed.

Jasonik
04-19-2005, 11:57 AM
Anyway, Aristotle was a man on to many things, and it was ever thus: (Ecclesiastes 1:3-10) What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? {4} Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. {5} The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. {6} The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. {7} All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. {8} All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. {9} What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. {10} Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.

"It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world."
---Aristotle, On the Heavens, 350 BCE

The Edge of Nihilism (http://www.hope.edu/academic/religion/bandstra/RTOT/CH16/CH16_4.HTM)

SobaViolence
04-19-2005, 10:00 PM
Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
Aristotle

ms.peachy
04-20-2005, 03:53 AM
Of course, to be fair, Aristotle also placed the Earth at the center of the solar system.

Ali
04-20-2005, 04:46 AM
Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
AristotleThe Philosopher King: Socrates vision in Plato's Republic (http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/Outline_of_Great_Books_Volume_I/thephilos_bcd.html)

IT will be possible then, and only then, when kings are philosophers or philosophers kings.

The philosopher desires all knowledge. Justice, beauty, good, and so on are single, though their presentation is multiplex and variable. Curiosity about the multiplex particulars is not desire of knowledge, which is of the one constant idea--of that which is, as ignorance is of that which is not. What neither is nor is not, that which fluctuates and changes, is the subject matter of opinion, a state between knowledge and ignorance. Beauty is beauty always and everywhere; the things that look beautiful may be ugly from another point of view. Experience of beautiful things, curiosity about them, must be distinguished from knowledge of beauty; the philosopher is not to be confounded with the connoisseur, nor knowledge with opinion. The philosopher is he who has in his mind the perfect pattern of justice, beauty, truth; his is the knowledge of the eternal; he contemplates all time and all existence; no praises are too high for him. Nice try, Plato baby, let's see you back that up!"No doubt; still if that is so, why do philosophers always show themselves either fools or knaves in ordinary affairs?" Exactly! Now we've got you? Why should people so out of touch with reality be the ones to lead us?A ship's crew which does not understand that the art of navigation demands a knowledge of the stars will stigmatise a properly qualified pilot as a star-gazing idiot, and will prevent him from navigating. The world assumes that the philosopher's abstractions are folly, and rejects his guidance. The philosopher is the best kind of man; the corrupted philosopher is the worst; and the corrupting influences brought to bear are irresistible to all but the very strongest natures. The professional teachers of philosophy live not by leading popular opinion, but by pandering to it; a bastard brood trick themselves out as philosophers, while the true philosopher withdraws himself from so gross a world. Not in the soil of any existing state can philosophy grow naturally; planted in a suitable state, her divinity will be apparent.

I need no longer hesitate to say that we must make our guardians philosophers. The necessary combination of qualities is extremely rare. Our test must be thorough, for the soul must be trained up by the pursuit of all kinds of knowledge to the capacity for the pursuit of the highest--higher than justice and wisdom--the idea of the good.

The good is to the intellectual faculty what the sum is to that of vision; it is the source and cause of truth, which is the light whereby we perceive ideas; it is not truth, nor the ideas, but above them; their cause, as the sun is the source of light and the cause of growth. Damn!

Ace42
04-20-2005, 05:32 AM
Read any Plato anyone?

His "Republic". Personally I am more Socratic in persuasion.