Allah Attacks Aristotle: The Philosophical Roots of 9-11

[CAPITALISMMAGAZINE.COM] How do you get young Middle Eastern men to fly a jet full of Americans into the side of a skyscraper? You tell them their creator will love them for it and reward them beyond their wildest dreams. But they have to believe in such a creator first.

To instill this belief you educate them from a very young age. You tell them things like: in death, the true believer lives. In life, the true believer, when directed by god, kills unbelievers. In both death and life, a true believer's happiness is fulfilled by a grateful and all-powerful god. You keep these thoughts alive by training them to pray five times a day.

To make sure they don't stray you give them a book of Absolute Truth and provide interpretation along with it. Since all men by nature desire to know, as Aristotle claimed, a book with all the answers will be a lifelong treasure.

Of course, when Aristotle wrote those words in ancient Greece he had something a bit different in mind. He sought to understand the world we live in through reason -- the practice of non-contradictory identification. Reality, for Aristotle, was the here and now, not some otherworldly realm ruled by a moral dictator. Aristotle's corpus became a kind of unmoved mover in itself, setting in motion a chain of events that, in later centuries, freed men from intellectual prohibitions and eventually sparked the American Revolution.

But we narrowly missed disaster. His most important works were lost for centuries, and only rediscovered when, ironically, the followers of Mohammed came upon them during a military campaign in Syria.

In the years following Aristotle's death in 322 B. C., the independent Greek city-states fell victim to Rome's imperium. By 146 B.C. Greece had become a Roman province and was eventually rolled up into the Empire.

When the small city-state was sovereign, men generally had the feeling of being able to work out their own fate. But "in a large-scale organization like the Empire," philosophy historian W. T. Jones notes, "it was obvious one did not control one's own destiny." People became passive and withdrawn. Over time, their focus shifted from this life to the one they believed would follow.

Mystery cults flourished in ancient Rome, one of them forming the seeds of Christianity. How different were Jesus and Aristotle? Aristotle's focus was man, his tool reason; Jesus' focus was god, his tool revelation. Aristotle saw man as a responsible adult, Jesus saw him as a child. The good life for Aristotle was realizing one's potential; for Jesus, it was pleasing god. Aristotle spoke of the importance of courage, a virtue about which Jesus had nothing to say. For Aristotle pride was the greatest virtue, while Jesus taught it was a grievous sin. (To be precise, Aristotle encouraged "proper pride," a mean between "empty vanity" and "undue humility.")

When the Empire collapsed in 410, only Aristotle's early works survived, and those in poor translation. Philosophers in the centuries that followed became little more than religious scholars who studied and debated fine points of scripture, always fearful of straying outside the bounds of orthodoxy under threat of eternal damnation.

Early Christians believed the end of the world was imminent and thus focused their efforts on their relationship with god. As the centuries passed and the sun still shined, and as men gradually rebuilt culture and civilization, an interest in the things of this world began to grow. The thinkers of this era asked: how do you resolve the conflicting claims of faith and reason? A fortuitous discovery provided a possible answer.

During the 12th century Arabic armies swept into Syria and other parts of Asia Minor, a predominantly Greek culture emanating from the conquests of Alexander the Great. There they found the works of the Classical philosophers, which they translated from Syriac or Hebraic into Arabic and took with them as they continued their march into North Africa and Spain.

As the Christians arrived in Spain, especially in Toledo, the two cultures met, and Christian scholars began translating the Arabic works into Latin to make them accessible to the West. Included were Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, and De Anima -- three major treatises.

"Men began to feel the temper of Aristotle's mind," Jones writes. "Here was a method radically different from the authoritarian debates of earlier medieval scholarship. It was sensationally empirical compared with anything the West then knew."

Borrowing Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, generally regarded as the era's greatest intellect, attempted to reconcile faith and reason, dressing Christian dogma in the respectability of rational argument. Duns Scotus, in trying to improve Thomas, ended up achieving what he wanted to avoid: the further isolation of faith from reason. William of Occam, whose famous razor still guides scientific thought ("What can be explained on fewer principles is explained needlessly by more"), completed the separation of faith and reason and released Aristotle's thought unencumbered by religion into a world starving for knowledge.

Many commentators play down Aristotle's role in leading the West into the Renaissance, but in fact the assimilation of his thoughts was a watershed in mankind's history. In stark contrast to Christian doctrine of the Middle Ages, Aristotle did not believe in a personal god, he did not threaten man (in the name of love) with eternal torture for disagreeing with him, he did not see people as "crooked, sordid, bespotted, and ulcerous," as Augustine and his followers did. Though his philosophy was incomplete and not without flaws, Aristotle became man's liberator, showing him how to use reason to live the best possible life.

Both East and West held the "bomb" of Aristotle's philosophy, but only in the West did it detonate. While Arabic culture flourished in many fields, Greek learning never found a secure institutional home under Islam. For true believers, nothing is more important than salvation. Fundamentalists came to rule Islamic society and have never lost their grip.

In revolutionary America, when Aristotle's ethics were dominant politically, we had the moral courage to fight for our independence. As Christian ethics intervened in the years that followed, our freedom bowed out to the welfare state and a suicidal foreign policy.

Mix a repudiation of Western values on one side with a proud display of such on the other, and getting fundamentalists to fly planes into our heart is surprisingly easy.

If only the Arabs had still embraced Aristotle as we did, what kind of world would we have today?

References:

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.2.ii..html - Nicomachean Ethics, Book II
W. T. Jones, Classical Mind (History of Western Philosophy), Vol. I, (Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New York, 1952)

-- George Smith lives in Atlanta where he is busy writing screenplays and articles on liberty. In addition to parenting, he enjoys staying fit, tomato gardening, and making the occasional "killer sandwich."

Reading over this article again I was reminded of Cicero's comment in his De Finibus (On Moral Ends) when he responded to Torquatus talking about Epicurean philosophy:

I believe, however, much as I enjoyed hearing him speak uninterrupted, that it is none the less more manegeable if one stops after each individual point and ascertains what each of the listeners is happy to concede, and what they would reject. One can then draw the inference one wishes from the points conceded and reach one's own conclusions. When, on the other hand, the speech races on like a torrent, carrying with it all manner of material then there is nothing the listener can grasp at or get hold of. There is no way to check the raging flood.

What is the supreme good for Aristotle?

Political Science has for its object the Supreme Good But such is manifestly the science of Politics; for it is this that ordains which of the sciences are to exist in states, and what branches of knowledge the different classes of the citizens are to learn, and up to what point . . . Therefore, the Good of man must be the end of the science of Politics. For even though it be the case that the Good is the same for the individual and for the state, nevertheless, the good of the state is manifestly greater and more perfect good . . To secure the good of one person only is better than nothing; but to secure the good of anation or a state is a nobler and more divine achievement.

p.s. Aristotle was neither obese nor an atheist.

. Though his philosophy was incomplete and not without flaws, Aristotle became man's liberator, showing him how to use reason to live the best possible life.

Yes...yes of course. Humans would do well to take God out of the equation of governance. We would have the utopia of the Soviet Union and China. Only around 60 million people were killed in the name of atheism last century. Many, many more times the amount of people killed in the name of religion from that century and the one preceding it.

Here's another interesting passage from Aristotle where he addresses the same notions you raise:

And we must not overlook the distinction between arguments that start from first principles and those that lead to first principles. It was a good practice of Plato to raise this question, and to enquire whether the right procedure was to start from or to lead up to the first principles . . . Now no doubt it is proper to start from the known. EN 1095a30

Kant, an important Enlightenment philosopher, made a (now) famous statement in his Critique of Pure Reason, "There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience." He then adds a bit later, "but though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience."

Aristotle's estimation of the Intellectual Virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics shows that he too recognizes sources of knowledge other mere sense experience.

Aristotle, however, was more historically conscious. Kant and the Enlightenment had great difficulty with history.

Humans would do well to take God out of the equation of governance.

Cicero dealt with this problem. He inherited--in fact--saw himself as a chief translator of Aristotle and Greek ethics into the Roman world. While Aristotle could not take it out, neither did Cicero, even though he was influenced by Stoicism and the skepticism of the Academic school. He could not because no political science that is true to the human condition can afford to.

If I understand it correctly, the bump lists will be transformed into topics, and you can add them to the topic list when you post. My only concern is that posters can also add articles to the topic list (or whatever it's going to be called). I'm hoping that's still going to be possible.

Only around 60 million people were killed in the name of atheism last century.
They were killed in the name of 'brotherhood' and 'social good' and everything else the Democrats are known for today. To say that these are athesitic traits is absurd.

He could not because no political science that is true to the human condition can afford to.

You mean he could not take God out of the equation of governance? What exactly do you mean by "the human condition" that makes it impossible to take God out of it?

They were killed in the name of 'brotherhood' and 'social good' and everything else the Democrats are known for today. To say that these are athesitic traits is absurd.

I don't think it is all that absurd and I'm by no means implying that all those who claim they area atheists kill for the betterment of humanity. What I am saying is that there are evil people and some commit acts of violence in the name of some diety while some will do it because they beleive there is no God. I was simply stating the FACT that millions of more people were killed last century by atheistic countries than countries that beleive in a God.

I just get a little tired of the foolishness that states that it is religion that causes more violence in the world. It is wicked people not religion or the lack thereof.

Cordially

And what might that supreme good be for Aristotle?

The same as it is for you; to exist.

I see you must have meant something else. I mean, this is obvious, isn't it?

Hank

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