Furthermore, mind and psyche are different. Mind is an independent, indestructible substance implanted within a psyche which moves the body and is characterised by sensation, feeling and motivation. Mind, on the other hand, has the higher function of thinking and has no relation to the body and the senses. Psyche contains rational and irrational elements. When we think rationally we are united through logic and valid reasoning; when we think irrationally we are separated from each other because we lack a common ground on which to conduct ourselves through language. As Aristotle says, we partake of the divine through the glory of rational thinking and, if successful, our egoism is eliminated and we find comfort in the greater force of intelligent community. Personal power resides in the capacity to think and act rationally.
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle emphasises his distance from Plato. Our object is not that we may know what virtue is, but that we may become virtuous. Humans are political animals, and while self-sufficiency is an important human achievement, it must be embedded in a web of social and political obligations since man is born for citizenship.
Humans are teleological creatures: their acts are performed for some purpose. The ultimate goal of human life is happiness and our function is to engage in an activity of the psyche which is in accordance with virtue and which follows a rational principle. Virtue takes two forms: intellectual and moral. A character is morally virtuous if it moves towards a ‘golden mean of moderation’. For example, when facing danger we can act in either of two extreme ways: in a cowardly or foolhardy fashion. The mean of moderation would be to act courageously and we learn to act courageously by the exercise of choice and trial and error elimination. Intellectual virtue derives from inheritance and education and the highest virtue is associated with the exercise of pure reason which is achieved through disinterested thought, the goal of which is philosophical wisdom. Since we are political animals we need to combine theorising with practical matters. Here Aristotle anticipates Kurt Lewin’s famous quip that there is nothing as practical as a good theory.
Sadly there are obstacles to the achievement of happiness. Before we can pursue happiness through philosophical activity we need: good friends, riches, political power, good health, good birth, good children, and leisure. While he acknowledges that there are alternatives to the philosophical life, Aristotle clearly favours a life based on a rational ‘I’. We may, for example, pursue a life of pleasure and amusement (like children and animals), or we may pursue a life of virtuous public service. He discounts the life of pleasure and amusement because it fails to elevate men above the animals and thus denies what is quintessentially human. He respects those who choose a life of virtuous public service but praises above all else the philosophical life because it informs the life of public service.
We reveal ourselves by the way of life we choose. Our choices should be based on careful deliberation and not on desire or impulse. We reveal our character by what we do voluntarily and for which we are responsible. Our virtue is especially revealed by rational control over our irrational emotions. If we cannot control our emotions we are immature and morally weak. In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle has much to say about the qualities of noble individuals who are good in the highest degree because they deserve more than the average person. They are pleased at honours that are conferred by good people, but they despise honours from unimportant people and on trifling grounds. When in danger they are unsparing in their lives, knowing that there are conditions in which life is not worth having. They are dignified towards people who enjoy a high position but unassuming towards those of the lower class. They are open in their hate and in their love, for they believe it is cowardly to conceal their feelings. They speak their thoughts because they tell the truth except when they speak ironically to vulgar people. They are people who possess beautiful and profitless things rather than profitable and useful ones. It is their duty to promote logic and noble rhetoric which seeks to perfect individuals by showing them better versions of themselves, whereas base rhetoric influences people in the direction of evil.
Obviously Aristotle’s description of noble individuals does not apply to the majority of people and so the question arises as to whether we can regard as morally enlightened a society that confines the noble philosophical life to the few. While Plato and Aristotle suffer no doubts about this issue, Stoics and Christians disagree arguing that virtue is for all people, and democrats agree although they add qualifications about power and property. Aristotle is clear: the aim of the State is to promote and produce ‘cultured, noble gentlemen’. After the French Revolution of 1789, industrialism, the world wars of the first half of the twentieth century, modernism and postmodernism, the days of the cultured, noble gentlemen have, for good or ill, passed.
3
Why does cynicism have such a bad reputation? Arguably, it is because cynics delight in exposing naked emperors, or in showing that there are no emperors. Cynics are professional critics of convention and thus upset those who seek balance and harmony in their relationships. Cynics have a bad reputation because, like Diogenes of Sinope, they deface the currency, mock, tease and upset others. A day that passes without upsetting somebody is a bad day for a Cynic.
For 800 years the Cynics – the dogs – roamed the streets of Greece and Rome, defacing the currency, upsetting their colleagues and unsettling customs and conventions. In modern times, however, the word cynic has a different connotation. Hypocrisy, deceitfulness, unrestrained egoism, rampant materialism and Machiavellian ruthlessness characterise modern cynics. Yet it was not always so.
The man who inaugurated the ancient school of Cynicism was Antisthenes, an Athenian and pupil of Gorgias, the rhetorician. After encountering Socrates he was so impressed that he advised his pupils to debate with him. From Socrates he learned his frugal way of living, including his disregard of feeling, and he went so far as to demonstrate that pain is a good thing stating that he would rather be mad than feel pleasure. When a priest spoke glowingly about the delights of Hades, he suggested the priest go there sooner rather than later.
Diogenes Laertius tells us that he was a stern teacher who was particularly suspicious of flatterers, remarking that it is better to fall in with crows than with flatterers: the former devour you when you are dead, the latter when you are alive. And when applauded by thieves, he said he was horribly afraid he had done something wrong. When asked what is so good about a life of philosophising he replied: ‘The ability to talk with myself’. He was critical of Plato who, in turn, regularly slandered him. He taunted Plato with being conceited and when he visited his sick-bed, he pointed to the basin into which Plato had vomited and said: ‘The bile I see, but not the pride’.
Antisthenes believes virtue can be taught and nobility belongs only to the virtuous. Virtue is sufficient to ensure happiness: if we are wise we are self-sufficient and will be guided not by the laws of the land but by virtue and thus happiness. If we are wise we know who is worthy of love and make friends of men who are brave and just. We pay attention to our enemies because they are the first to discover our mistakes, acknowledge that virtue is the same for women as for men, count all evil as alien and believe that wisdom can neither be removed nor betrayed.
When he lay dying of consumption his friend, Diogenes, responded to his cries of pain by drawing his dagger. Antisthenes insisted that he wanted relief from pain, not from life. This story, from Laertius, is important in the history of Cynicism because it reveals the symbolic handing over of the keys of the cynical kingdom to Diogenes. Antisthenes, the old dog, hands over the secrets of the cynical philosophy to the pup, Diogenes, a ‘Socrates gone mad’, as Plato called him.
Cynicism, then, was a school of philosophy founded by Antisthenes and developed by Diogenes who chose to live like a canine. Diogenes explained that he was called a dog because he fawned on those who gave him anything, yelped at those who refused, and sank his teeth into rascals. He held up the life of animals as a model for humankind, advocated free love and did in public what is normally done in private, and even what is