Martha Nussbaum on Aristotle: Section 1

In this program, the far-reaching philosophical ideas of Plato's star pupil are examined by noted Brown University professor Martha Nussbaum. Aristotle overcomes Plato's dualism of the intelligible and sensible worlds with his principle of inseparable nature of eternal matter and form. The principles of potentiality and actuality are examined, along with Aristotle's theory of the four causes—material, formal, efficient, and final—which account for changes in all things. These theories of constancy and change are credited with the progress of scientific inquiry over the ages.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Bryan
• Magee
• Martha
• Nussbaum
• Philosophy
• Aristotle
• Plato
• Potentiality

[northofforty68]

Most of the comments here are proof that America is devolving into a country dominated by functionally illiterate white trash morons and fundamentalist conservative boobs with closet deviant sexual urges. Get out while you can.

[SwordInAir]

Is anyone else so glad they watched this instead of some shit on TV?

[German1184]

@djorkaef (Part 3) Now, when Martha Nussbaum says: “He [Aristotle] would say that actually we never can coherently go beyond our experience: the only project that we can really undertake is the mapping, the investigating, of the area of our experience.”

Whatever is outside all *possibility* of experience for us can be nothing to us. Aristotle did not believe that we could find any firm ground *outside* this realm on which to stand.

[German1184]

@djorkaef (Part2) It’s very important to notice that “experience”, in this context, is a broad and general notion of experience, meaning what can be *possible* perceived by us (community of rational beings) plus our ordinary discourse about the world.

So, even if no one ever experienced it, “thunder” (or “white”) is in the area of our experience, since, “to have the perception of a thunder” is in the sphere of all *possibility* of experience for us.

[German1184]

@djorkaef (Part 1) Aristotle thought there is only one realm: this realm we live in and experience, i.e. the world of appearances. And ‘appearances’, as Martha Nussbaum says, “is a broad and general notion of experience, of how the world strikes us. This covers both our perceptual experience of the world and our ordinary sayings and beliefs.”

[djorkaef]

I dont understand, she sais Aristoleles said: we cant actually talk about things that haven't entered our experience at all. She does a comparison with thunder or white. So we could never have talked about thunder or white if no one ever first experienced it. Then what about things like string theory or the big bang theory? Should we also watch those as theory's that are built on experiences while they never been proven? Or are they meaningless nonsense talk?

[FatManDan156]

@northofforty68 you can't be serious

[MeiSaraiat271]

lol bin reich aber einsam

[iiNDiTC]

@iiNDiTC Averroes can be seen on the left (with a mustache and turban) with his head leaning on the edge.

[iiNDiTC]

@WaywardSun Little do many people know but Averroes, the Muslim polymath who inspired Thomas Aquinas to make the distinction between faith and reason (the pillar of thought in the Islamic golden age) is also in that painting as a symbol of the indebtedness of Europe to islam and the middle east.

[iiNDiTC]

@northofforty68 devolving? when had it ever evolved?