Reflect on life, just like the dispersion of light by a prism.
Happiness is acquired by virtue, and hence by our own actions, not by fortune. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle regards the highest form of human good as eudaimonia, which would be roughly translated as happiness in English. He further argues that in order to achieve such happiness, one should act with appropriate virtues over the course... Continue Reading →
From Terence Irwin's translation: "The cultivated people, those active [in politics], conceive the good as honor, since this is more or less the end [normally pursued] in the political life. This, however, appears to be too superficial to be what we are seeking, since it seems to depend more on those who honor than on... Continue Reading →
According to Aristotle, there are three species of political system, and an equal number of deviations, which are a sort of corruption of them. The first political system is kingship. And Aristotle claims that deviation from kingship is tyranny. Even though both are monarchies, kingship and tyranny could be considered as two ends of a... Continue Reading →
W. Brown writes in Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire: Man is not a “herd animal” but a “horde animal,” Freud writes at the conclusion of his lengthy critical discussion of other theorists of group psychology. A herd animal has an instinctual affinity for closeness, primary gregariousness, while the horde animal... Continue Reading →
The ongoing debate whether a state of nature, (a wild primitive state untouched by civilization, a definition by Wordink) has ever coincided with the timeline of the human history may demonstrate the immortality of the concept of governments, since the non-existence of state of nature in human history would mean that we always established authorities... Continue Reading →
It is time to turn back to the pages of History and observe an Ottoman Sultan (Emperor) which I had known little about in the past and whom I now find extremely fascinating given the fact that his name is diminished by the potency and the success of his predecessors. Abdülaziz, the 32nd (5th from... Continue Reading →
I would like to share this thought-provoking piece of Allan Bloom's interpretive essay of Plato's Republic. And reflect on how it could be understood when compared to the modern understanding of politics or ideal societies in which people try to wrap themselves in the boundaries drawn by ideologies but not one's own conscious mind. "The... Continue Reading →
The liberal writer, concerned with history and the progress of freedom rather than with forms of government, sees only differences in degree here, and ignores that authoritarian government committed to the restriction of liberty remains tied to the freedom it limits to the extent that it would lose its very substance if it abolished it... Continue Reading →
From Allan Bloom's interpretive essay: "The Republic shows us why Socrates was accused and why there was good reason to accuse him. Not only does he tell us about the good regime, but we see his effect on the young men he was said to have corrupted. Socrates, in leading them to a justice which... Continue Reading →
