Aristotle
384-322 BC · Classical Athens · Household name
Aristotle was Plato's greatest student. He founded his own school, the Lyceum, and wrote the first systems of logic, biology, ethics and politics. Ask what a thing is for and you understand it: an acorn aims at oak, a person aims at a life lived well. Virtue in his Nicomachean Ethics is a habit built by repetition, sitting between too much and too little, with practical wisdom doing the aiming.
Signature
The position Aristotle is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Purposeful
- Ethics Basis
- Virtue
Positions on the 19 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Purposeful (94 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (22 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- mildly leans Describable (32 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Beauty
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- mildly leans Vertical (31 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (81 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- leans Means (75 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- mildly leans Militarism (69 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- leans Bondage (29 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- leans Certain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Local (25 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
1 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Aristotle refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Polis Model
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue / Wisdom
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- No End
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Direct Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal First Cause
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Other
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Economy
- Distributism / Subsistence Economy
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Wisdom
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Paradox as Error
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Other
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Political Animal
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Nation / Friends
What is your primary bond and loyalty?