Feminists would love this!

One more time, I find Aristotle’s thinking very interesting. In the reading “Aristotle: On a good wife”, he finds a way to describe, something that nowadays would sound completely misogynic, in a beautiful way. In the present time, if that reading went public, it would cause a huge controversy. Feminists and women in general, would freak out and complain because the reading seems to portray women as if they were worth less than men. But I am pretty sure that in the ancient times, this was written to persuade women to be good wives and to empower them.
Throughout the whole reading he expresses the obligations, qualities and characteristics that a good wife must have. He refers to women as the ones that control the house and everything that go on inside their homes. Women are also in charge of raising the children well. If you think about it, the most important things in their lives and their families were completely ruled by women. In those ancient times men thought that women weren’t as smart as them and for this reason women weren’t expected to make decisions. But inside their homes they had control over everything; men weren’t even expected to have knowledge all the passes within the house.
“Her husband’s wishes are as laws appointed for her by divine will”, this was like a law back then, but is it really that different nowadays?
I found it interesting that women would take care of the house, manage home finances and serve their husbands, all of this in exchange for loyalty, love and guidance from their husbands. A good wife deserved to be loved and be treated with respect, and men had that clear in their minds.
Nowadays, women keep trying to prove men their independence by not dedicating their whole time to their homes and children. Women feel empowered when they have the option to face the world just as men do. My question is: which family structure works better? Should independent working women not have a family and just dedicate their time to their professional life? Is there an actual balance?

My hero!

While reading about the Punic wars I kept following the story as if it was a movie. I could picture how Rome was getting stronger by acquiring knowledge from the war. How they learned to make war at sea, how they made their war tools more effective by improving their technology and how these things helped them to conduct war in a massive scale. Rome seemed to be unstoppable until a “hero” showed up. Hannibal was truly amazing for me, just like a legendary hero in a movie would be. He began by taking the after Hamilcar’s (his father) death, and took the Carthaginian war to another level. His brilliant plan was to get Rome’s allies on his side because he knew they were unhappy. He wanted to show them that he could protect and take care of them as long as they stood by his side. Hannibal’s army was very small; invading Italy seemed to be an impossible task. The Romans thought that they could contain Hannibal in Spain, and because of their enormous power they didn’t feel a threat. But Hannibal proved them wrong. When he escaped from Spain he surprised the Roman armies by slipping northward, crossing the river by pontoons and swimming. They crossed using elephants as their transportation. He defeated the Roman army on Gaul. Now his biggest challenge came across, he needed to cross The Alps, and of course he did. But it wasn’t easy, the crossing cost him the death of most of the elephants and many men. When he arrived to Italy the task of convincing the allies to join him began. When the Roman senate realized this, they targeted the same objective. The following battles were with the purpose of proving to the allies who could take better care of them, whoever would achieve having the allies on their side would become the most powerful. Another amazing victory, totally movie hero like, was the Battle of Cannae. The Roman’s army outnumbered Hannibal’s army by a large amount, but Hannibal had the perfect plan to defeat them. “Out of the 70,000 Romans that took the field, only 10,000 survived” (The Punic Wars, Battle of Cannae). Hannibal was unbeatable, he was becoming a legend and everyone fear and respected him. But like every hero, his victories had to come to an end. He faced an enemy that was as clever and tricky as him, Scipio, who defeated him and his army in the battle of Zama. Hannibal surrender and advised Carthage to surrender as well. Hannibal died before his time, it was very possible that he was poisoned. But like a hero he remained in history, his memory brought fear to the Romans even after his death.
Learning about these legendary heroes brought up the following question for me: Why don’t we have this type of heroes nowadays? How big of a change in our society and government a hero like Hannibal would make?

WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE #1

In the article they explain how Ancient Greek Philosophy was a great influence for modern philosophy. The article begins by explaining the thought of the pre-socratic philosophers, who were concerned with what exists, how and where it comes from.
The article focuses mainly in Socrates, Aristotle and Plato. Socrates thought that a person should always try to do well by knowing ourselves. He taught Plato, who was one of the most influential philosophers in Western thought. He expressed his view on ethics, metaphysics, reason, knowledge and human life. Plato taught Aristotle who better earned the label of empiricist. He developed the Scientific method.
The article also takes us to see the influence of the Greek Philosophy into other cultures.



1. The article is 1358 words long.
2. I used Greek Philosophy as the search term and the article’s name is “Greek Philosophy”
3. There was no disambiguation link for this Wikipedia article.
4. In the discussion page I found many interesting comments about disagreements with the article. The one that stood out the most was a guy that made a correction to whoever wrote the Article. The author stated that Socrates taught both Aristotle and Plato. The reader made the correction that Socrates only taught Plato and Plato, with Socrates’ influence, taught Aristotle. The author corrected the article.
5. There have been 500 changes made to the article. The first change was on 1/19/2003 and the last change on 9/8/2008.
6. There are 2 external links provided.
7. There are 7 references listed.

I would recommend this article to someone that it is interested in just knowing the basics about Greek Philosophy. This article has very superficial information, especially when it comes to describe the biography and input of Socrates, Aristotle and Plato on philosophy.

Rule or Ruled?

Once again I find Aristotle’s opinion very interesting. In “The Politics---On Slavery” Aristotle mentions that slavery is necessary for a well-functioned society. The superior beings must rule over the inferiors. According to him there are three ways to determine who must rule and who must be ruled over.

Before explaining the three ways, I must say that it is understandable that he had this opinion because of the way the society worked back in the Ancient Greek culture, but nowadays his views wouldn’t apply.

First, he says that men are by nature marked to rule over women. In the Ancient Greek culture, women were not allowed to make important decisions or even have an opinion when it came to serious matters like politics, economy, military, etc. Those things were completely controlled by men. The few women that dared to have an opinion or rebelled to the men were called evil and dangerous and usually exiled or punished. It was a society merely ruled by men.

Second, he mentioned that depending on the physical and mental capabilities men were marked to rule or be ruled over. Some men had the body to do physical work, but not the brain to discuss politics and war and vice versa.

And third slavery by law, which means that whatever is taken from war, belongs to the victorious. If nation has a stronger army or forces, has the power to rule over the weaker ones.

My opinion is that nobody is born to rule or be ruled over. Women have the intelligence and strength to be as or more powerful than men. Humans have the same mental and physical abilities to acquire any kind of knowledge and experience to make important decisions and take action. But I understand that back in the day, government forms were just being formed and for them to actually work, they needed to really stand out and define who was to rule and who to be ruled.

Equality,,,why not?

While reading “Aristotle: The Polis, from Politics” I came to realize how important and beneficial would be to live in a society where the middle class would be the predominant.  I came to realize that not only in the ancient times, but nowadays, the people with better looks, more money and better social status are more powerful and have more influence in the way the society is ruled than the ones that lack of these “qualities”.  Aristotle mentions that the ideal state would be constituted by individuals who are equal and similar.  This wouldn’t prevent the society from so much negative competition, envy and violence caused by the huge pressure that we have to obtain a higher social status.  Like Aristotle mentions: “It has now become a habit among the citizens of the state, not even to care about equality, all men are seeking for dominion, or, if conquered, are willing to submit”.  Why are we afraid of equality?

The idea that the state is created by nature is very interesting too.  I never saw this point of view about our social structure.  As Aristotle says, “A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature”, we were created with the ability to speak and with the need to coexist with others.  And a state is formed by that relationship between individuals and the social needs and circumstances of each of them.