Golden mean (philosophy)

From New World Encyclopedia

In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency.

To the Greek mentality, it was an attribute of beauty. Both ancients and moderns realized that "there is a close association in mathematics between beauty and truth." The poet John Keats, in his Ode on a Grecian Urn, put it this way:

Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

The Greeks believed there to be three 'ingredients' to beauty: symmetry, proportion, and harmony. This triad of principles infused their life. They were very much attuned to beauty as an object of love and something that was to be imitated and reproduced in their lives, architecture, Paideia and politics. They judged life by this mentality.

Greek tradition before Socrates

Crete

The earliest representation of this idea in culture is probably in the mythological Cretan tale of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus, a famous artist of his time, built feathered wings for himself and his son so that they might escape the clutches of King Minos. Daedalus warns his son to "fly the middle course," between the sea spray and the sun's heat. Icarus did not heed his father; he flew up and up until the sun melted the wax off his wings.

Delphi

Another early elaboration is the Doric saying carved on the front of the temple at Delphi: "Nothing in Excess."

Pythagoreans

The first work on the golden mean is often attributed to Theano, a student of Pythagorus.[1]

Socrates

Socrates teaches that a man "must know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible."

In education, Socrates asks us to consider the effect of either an exclusive devotion to gymnastics or an exclusive devotion to music. It either "produced a temper of hardness and ferocity, (or) the other of softness and effeminacy." Having both qualities, he believed, produces harmony; i.e., beauty and goodness. He additionally stresses the importance of mathematics in education for the understanding of beauty and truth.

Plato

Something disproportionate was evil and therefore to be despised. Plato says, "If we disregard due proportion by giving anything what is too much for it; too much canvas to a boat, too much nutriment to a body, too much authority to a soul, the consequence is always shipwreck."

In the Laws, Plato applies this principle to electing a government in the ideal state: "Conducted in this way, the election will strike a mean between monarchy and democracy …"

Aristotle

In the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle writes on the virtues. His constant phrase is, "… is the Middle state between …." His psychology of the soul and its virtues is based on the golden mean between the extremes. In the Politics, Aristotle criticizes the Spartan Polity by critiquing the disproportionate elements of the constitution; e.g., they trained the men and not the women, and they trained for war but not peace. This disharmony produced difficulties which he elaborates on in his work. See also the discussion in the Nicomachean Ethics of the golden mean, and Aristotelian ethics in general.

Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean consists of three pillars that work together to form a complete account. First, there is a sort of equilibrium that the good person is in (1106a). This is related to a medical idea that a healthy person is in a balanced state. For example, one’s body temperature is neither too high nor too low. Related to ethics, one’s character does not go to extremes. For example, one does not overreact to situations, but rather keeps his composure. Equilibrium is the right feelings at the right time about the right things, toward the right people, for the right end, and in the right way (1106b). The second pillar states that the mean we should strive for is relative to us. The intermediate of an object is unchanging; if twelve is excess and four is deficiency, then roughly eight is the intermediate in that object. Aristotle proposes something different for finding an intermediate relative to oneself. Aristotle’s ethics are not a one-size-fits-all system; what he is looking for is the mean that is good for a particular individual. For example, watering a small plant with a gallon of water is excessive but watering a tree with a gallon of water is deficient. This is because different plants have different needs for water intake and if the requirements for each plant are not met, the plant will die from root rot (excess) or dehydration (deficiency). The third pillar is that each virtue falls between two vices. Virtue is like the mean because it is the intermediate between two vices. On this model a triad is formed with one vice on either end (excess or deficiency) and the virtue as the intermediate. If one’s character is too near either vice, then the person will incur blame but if one’s character is near the intermediate, the person deserves praise. Proper participation in each of these three pillars is necessary for a person to lead a virtuous and therefore happy life.

As stated in the inscription at the temple at the Oracle at Delphi, a person should do nothing to excess. The inscription should have also included the words, "find the mean." Temperance is the virtue that is the mean in order to control emotions, courage is the mean when seeking honor, and wisdom is the mean when seeking knowledge.

A general must seek to find courage, the mean between cowardice and foolhardiness, in order to gain honor. A person who seeks pleasure through drinking must find the mean between becoming a drunkard and not drinking at all. A person who seeks pleasure through eating must find the mean between being a glutton and starving. A person who seeks pleasure through sex must find the mean between abstinence and nymphomania. A person who seeks honor through knowledge must find the mean between ignorance and seeking knowledge to excess. Excess knowledge is not wisdom, but the mind turned to cunning.

We must not understand Aristotle to mean that virtue lies exactly at the centre of two vices. Aristotle only means that virtue is in between the two vices. Different degrees are needed for different situations. Knowing exactly what is appropriate in a given situation is difficult and that is why we need a long moral training. For example, being very angry at the fact that your wife is murdered is appropriate even though the state is closer to extreme anger (a vice) than it is to indifference (a vice). In that case, it is right for the virtuous man to be angry. However, if some water has been spilt in the garden by accident then the virtuous response is much closer to indifference.

Aristotle cited epikairekakia as part of his classifaction of virtues and emotions.[2] The philosopher uses a three part classification of virtues and emotions.[2] In this case, epicaricacy is the opposite of phthonos and nemesis occupies the mean. Nemesis is "a painful response to another's undeserved good fortune," while phthonos is "a painful response to any good fortune," deserved or not. The epikhairekakos person, actually takes pleasure in another's ill fortune.[2][3]

Quotations

  • "In many things the middle have the best / Be mine a middle station."
    — Phocylides
  • "When Coleridge tried to define beauty, he returned always to one deep thought; beauty, he said, is unity in variety! Science is nothing else than the search to discover unity in the wild variety of nature,—or, more exactly, in the variety of our experience. Poetry, painting, the arts are the same search, in Coleridge’s phrase, for unity in variety."
    — J. Bronowski
  • "…but for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following."
    Henri Poincaré.
  • "If a man finds that his nature tends or is disposed to one of these extremes..., he should turn back and improve, so as to walk in the way of good people, which is the right way. The right way is the mean in each group of dispositions common to humanity; namely, that disposition which is equally distant from the two extremes in its class, not being nearer to the one than to the other."
    Maimonides

Miscellanea

  • Jacques Maritain, throughout his Introduction to Philosophy, uses the idea of the golden mean to place Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy between the deficiencies and extremes of other philosophers and systems.
  • Confucius in the Analects taught excess is similar to deficiency(過猶不及). A way of living in the mean is the way of Zhongyong(中庸之道).
  • Gautama Buddha taught middle Way.
  • Zhuangzi had a similar idea.
  • Hu Shi wrote an article 'the tales of Mr. Chabuduo'(差不多先生傳) on people who did not mind accuracy on matters.

See also

Notes

  1. Lynn M. Osen (1975). Women in Mathematics. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262650090. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Pedrick, Victoria and Oberhelman, Steven M. (2006). The Soul of Tragedy: Essays on Athenian Drama. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN-13: 978-0226653068. 
  3. 2.7.1108b1-10

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton, W. W. Norton & Co., NY, l993.
  • Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, Why the Greeks Matter, Thomas Cahill, Nan A. Talese an imprint of Doubleday, NY, 2003.
  • Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985.
  • Nicomachean Ethics: Aristotle with an introduction by Hye-Kyung Kim, translated by F.H. Peters in Oxford, 1893. (Barnes & Noble, 2004)
  • Dowling, Mike. "Dynasty". The Electronic Passport to Chinese History. April 30, 2002. Accessed: 22, 23 October 2008.http://www.mrdowling.com/613chinesehistory.html
  • Gardner, Daniel. "Confucian Commentary and Chinese Intellectual History". The Journal of Asian Studies 57.2 (1998): 397-.
  • Hare, John. "The Chinese Classics". Internet Sacred Text Archive. 2008. Accessed: 14, 20, 22, 23, 26, 27 October 2008. http://www.sacred-texts.com/cfu/index.htm
  • Riegel, Jeffrey. "Confucius". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006. Accessed: 23 October 2008. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/
  • Pound, Ezra (translation and commentary). "The Great Digest & Unwobbling Pivot". New York, NY, USA: New Directions, 1951.
  • Smith, Huston. "The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions". New York, NY, USA: HarperCollins, 1991.
  • Williams, Edward T. "Ancient China" The Harvard Theological Review vol.9, no.3 (1916): 258-268.
  • Wing-Tsit Chan. "Neo-Confucianism: New Ideas on Old Terminology" Philosophy East and West vol.17, no. 1/4 (1967): 15-35.
  • "Zhongyong". Encyclopaedia Brittanica.2008. Encyclopaedia Brittanica Online. Accessed: 27 Oct.2008 http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9082544

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.