Knowledge - Only a virtue?

[Aeroue]

So I have to write an essay on Aristotle and his doctrine of the mean. Now I am not bein a lame trying to get you lot to write it for me I only want opinions on a specific part.

Anyhow if you are not aware Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is a way to live our life in a virtuous way i.e. as a good person. You do this by making sure you do not over or under react in situations, you find the mean(as in average), the middle ground. For example if someone annoys you killing them would be an over reaction, asking them to stop would be the mean and putting up with it would be an under reaction. A good person would ask them to stop a flawed pwerson would act incorrectly.

So this is meant to apply to all vices and virtues. They are on a scale.

Brash-------Courageous---------------Coward

The question is whether they all do.

My question does it apply to knowledge/understanding. Can you ever know or understand too much for it to cease being a good thing? Or can the accumulation of knowledge and ability to understand only ever be good?

If there is any interest I will post my ideas.

[alooha from hell]

because of the rational principle, knowledge is not a virtue, but a part of life which all humans have - it is the ability to contemplate and acquire knowledge which allows us to find the median.

however, aristotle also believe that there were natural born slaves, and that woman are on the same level. these people obviously are not animals because the have some sort of reason principle - but they do not have the ability to be apart of the state, or apart of the household. these people are those who work under the virtuous, and allow the virtuous to work in politics, or something else.

[Aeroue]

Knowledge is the ability to contemplate and acquire knowledge? Make sense much?

Aristotle on slavery is irrelevant, anyhow he did not simply mean slavery in the sense we do today. Aristotle thought slavery is just only when the rule of master over slave is beneficial for both parties.

[alooha from hell]

Originally Posted by Aeroue

Aristotle on slavery is irrelevant, anyhow he did not simply mean slavery in the sense we do today. Aristotle thought slavery is just only when the rule of master over slave is beneficial for both parties.

the people who were meant to be slaves were the ones who did not have the rational principle, and therefore could not be virtuous. he thought these types of people were like this when they were born, meaning that they will never be able to rationally pick out the mean or temperate choice out of the situations.

thus, knowledge is directly linked to a persons ability to perform virtuous actions in aristotelian ethics. knowledge > knowing the virtuous actions > actual performance of over time > attain and percieved by others as virtuous.

[Aeroue]

That makes more sense

And I suppose it does make it fit in with the doctrine. Just not as a virtue, although that is what I am trying to do as my lecturer did not have a way, I want to come up with one. I have thought about knowledge not actually being a true virtue however the capacity to understand surely counts as one and has the same problems. Or do you disagree?


I have tried to justify it by too much knowledge being knowledge that appears correct but is not. For example debunked scientific theories, the application of which leading to further accumulations of incorrect knowledge. However I question this because is this knowledge truly knowledge? I mean it is false. Another way is by too much knowledge of a situation colouring your point of view and making you biased. But then this could be interpreted as not enough meaning it is not in fact application of too much knowledge. You just havn't got neough info on the other perspective. Lastly knowledge that does us more harm than good, for example atomic bombs, but then that is not the application of knowledge causing the harm directly.

These can all be re-worded for understanding easily except for the first one. Which is harder, but if explained in terms of Hume's explanation of why it is harder to believe in more complex ideas and easier to believe what is simple. In his explanation of why scepticism will never be used to live in real life, as he wrote in the Treatise, I think it has a strong point. Basically the less intelligent you are the less able you are to understand complex ideas completely. If you cannot completely understand something you will not be able to form a full believe in it. So, someone who believes in scientific theories which will one day be proven false is only able to because of his developed ability to understand. Enabling the virtue of capacity to understand fit into the triadic structure.

[raohiwaq]

You might want to check out John Locke's essay Concerning Human Understanding.

[alooha from hell]

even socrates was the master of questioning all knowledge by asking questions. he proved we can never really be sure about absolutely everything, although we can be right 99.9% of the time.

makes one think that the world isn't determined, but random.

[Aeroue]

Originally Posted by raohiwaq

You might want to check out John Locke's essay Concerning Human Understanding.

Did that last month