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Depth

Knowledge Comment [6]

Depth is in the Eye of the Beholder.

It is difficult for me to accept this concept, perhaps as a result of my involuntary scientific approach to all studies. The question is concerned with our study of literature and the validity of various analyses and interpretations if the author’s original intentions are not known. For example, entire papers are written about a particular symbol in a single scene. Should this paper be discounted if we were to somehow learn that the author had made no such symbolic connection?

The Function Argument

Knowledge Comment [4]

Aristotle’s quest to determine what eudaimonia or “happiness” is in the Nicomachean ethics leads him to the question of the function of human beings. This question is especially difficult because of the change in the general meaning of certain terms such as “function” since the text was written. The best translation given by the professor of the human function was his/her “characteristic work”. What is the action that defines a human being?

Seeking Exactness

Knowledge Comment [7]

It is only the first assignment for my philosophy course and I have already encountered an interesting topic. In Book 1, Chapter 3 (1094b.13) of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he discusses how topics differ and the exactness of truth or results within these topics also differs.

For the educated person seeks exactness in each area to the extent that the nature of the subject allows; for apparently it is just as mistaken to demand demonstrations from a rhetorician as to accept [merely] persuasive arguments from a mathematician.

I believe that a mindset such as this would be…convenient, but it cannot be the best way to approach a topic. If one were to study a topic with the knowledge that they could not achieve a clear, final result, it would definitely depress the drive for success and quality of any achievements.

Also, how would you decide the exactness of a particular topic? How could you choose a point at which the particular topic’s answers have reached their limit of exactness? Would this not make at least some people arrive at a premature and inconclusive result?

I see no point in inquiring into a topic if there can be no definitive “answer”, and it seems counterproductive to believe otherwise.

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