Friendship

Aristotle claimed that friendship is“only possible with a few people; moreover it can only really exist between good people" (106).  But I question if that is a truly valid statement. The idea of only good people having true friends is an understandable statement. If you met someone and started to get to know them and then found out that you did not agree with how they acted towards you or any other people you would probably not continue to see them or would only remain acquaintances with them. In this manner friendships are more likely to be formed, and remain in good standing, if each party sees the other as 'a good person.' As for the idea of only being able to be friends with a few people: I believe that it would depend on how good of a person you are towards others and how many good people you actually are able to meet.

I'm Not Listening

When talking about how Aristotle was rather narrow minded when it came to slavery, women and "barbarians" the authors make a very interesting statement towards the reader. They write: "But this should not prejudice us against the rest of [Aristotle's] thinking" (97). This got me thinking about how often people tend to do that. You will learn that a person disagrees with you on idea like religion, women's rights or in this case slavery, and dismiss every other idea that they believe. We turn away and say "I'm not listening to another word," no matter how valid their other ideas may be. In a way it is a very childish thing to do and yet we see it happen everyday with adults, even country to country. For instance, there are many Middle Eastern countries that we disagree with on how a country should run, but if we looked past our discrepancies we may see that women have been appointed countless times as president or prime minister while back in the United States women are horribly represented in our government. So even though you and another person may not to see eye to eye on every issue there is no reason to discredit every single one of their ideas.    

Response to Osa: The Cave

Here is link to the original post: http://thenatureofhumannature-osa.blogspot.com/2012/02/cave.html

I believe that if you compare many religions, beliefs or philosophies, you can find similarities. Many of these world religions are based around the idea of finding some sort of truth, whether it be in the form of reason or freedom of sins. No matter what we believe, we are almost always striving to find some explanation for our lives on this earth. We desperately want to explain what we do not know. Why are we here? What happens after we die? To try to cope with and answer these unknowns we prescribe a way of life. Plato said that we need to follow reason to let ourselves out of "the cave." In Christianity people are taught to not sin (or ask for forgiveness when you do) and follow the word of the Lord.  When you do these things you are leading the "perfect life," understanding the ultimate truth (leading an examined life) or gaining the favor of the Lord and therefore a favorable afterlife. 

So yes I do see the similarities and if you look closer at other beliefs, religion or philosophy, you will find even more.

What about different views?

Plato envisioned that in a perfect society philosophers would rule and ultimately govern over the less intelligent and reasonable people. These philosopher kings were supposed to be lovers of wisdom who would not ,because of their knowledge and reasoning, give in to temptation. We would hope that all of these philosopher kings would come from different backgrounds and there fore have different ideas and opinions on problems. But Plato is a little vague on how exactly these kings would work together. For instance what if the philosopher kings disagree on how to solve a problem? Who is supposed to decide which is correct? When addressing this idea the book says: "Plato hopes to use rational argument... But when someone thinks they know the ultimate truth about such questions of value and policy, they may be intolerant of anyone who disagrees, and may feel justified in forcing their view on others" (86). If all of these kings are supposed to have an ultimate understanding of things and reason has brought them to that very conclusion there is no one to decide which of the king's has the best solution and which truth should be accepted by all. This is one of the fatal flaws in Plato's plans that he seems to neglect to acknowledge or solve.

Passing of Reason

Plato said that his Philosopher Kings would be selected to breed and their children would then be raised by the community and nurses. Even if the true parent of one of these children ever met their child, neither party would know that they were related. According to Plato's plan these children would be raised within a life of reason, but Plato himself said that we need a balance of Reason, Spirit, and Appetite in order to be well rounded individuals. In the situation that Plato describes, the children of the Philosopher Kings would most likely have a very weak Spirit and Appetite because they would never have a solid parental figure to learn from and have emotions towards, a relationship that it has been agreed upon in many studies that children need. (While you do not necessarily need your actual biological parent to have any part in your life I do believe you need some sort of stable mentor figure.) Even if this did work and the child grew up with perfectly reasonable emotions there is nothing to say that they would have the same amount of reason or intellect as their parents, especially if they were never allowed to be taught by them. However good Plato's intentions were with this proposition it simply would not work the way he hoped.

A Little Flaw

In chapter four it is mentioned that: "Plato thought it absurd to give every person an equal say, when most people- in his view- do not know what is best" (83) in relationship with democracy. Although I believe Plato takes the idea much too far, he does bring up a valid point. Our government's system is built off of everyone getting a equal say and all participating in voting and voicing their opinions. But what happens when an uneducated person votes? What if they only know what they have seen on TV commercials for the candidates? When that happens and people vote without truly knowing anything about their options they might as well be picking a name randomly out of a hat. I am not trying to say that people should not be allowed to vote, instead I urge that before anyone even considers actually going to the polls to vote, that they truly know what they are choosing for their state or country.

Turning Away from Death

Our class discussion on science reminded me of a very similar idea in sociology. We discussed that science, as a whole, can never be 100% proven. Scientists can only work from what they can observe and although the can make assumptions based on those observations there are always factors that will be unknown. Even so, people tend to take up these theories and ideas and hold them as the absolute truth. When evidence is presented to them that could possibly prove them wrong they try to ignore them or give reason that it is invalid. This act of turning away from anything that could disprove your believes is something parts of humanity have perfected. In sociology it has been observed that almost every culture or religion was based off a way of dealing with death. Being the only species that can not only reflect on our past, but also idealize our future, we forever have the knowledge that we will eventually die, at the same time we don't know what happens next. To help us deal with this we build up ideas and methods to deal with this unknown. As a society, when these ideas of ours are challenged in any way we commonly feel threatened and do anything to defend out ideas. Our first reaction is to simply ignore them, dismiss the challenger as 'crazy' or hopeless and turn away from them. If that doesn't work we try to covert them, convince them that we are right. As a last result we  resort to violence, we see no other option but than to eliminate those who are opposing us. I'm am certain that if you look deeply  into the history of many wars you will find  that the sides fighting had different ideals and cultures in one way or another. Perhaps it is in part our nature to stubbornly stand by our ideals, no matter what evidence is there to prove us wrong.