Reading through Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" again this evening. Quoted below is Section 1 of Book 1 from the W.D. Ross translation. It may not considered the "best" translation but it has a particular lyricism that is enjoyable. Where the word science is employed, the base or original word is "episteme". Episteme may be thought of as closer to knowledge or understanding more than a modern conception of science. Aristotle explores the idea and derivation of knowledge at length in his text "Posterior Analytics".
Philosophy can be daunting for modern readers, and perhaps even irrelevant to their lives - but this is likely an unfortunate opinion, that ignores a potential vector for personal and intellectual self-development. Aristotle is perhaps one of the finest philosophers to labor over, Saint Thomas Aquinas labeled him "the Philosopher." Aristotle employs a systemic categorical analysis - building from fundamental principles, with examples, and methodically constructs more complex ideas. Following this process, working to understand the concepts and reasoning (and sometimes the words), can help train our own minds to reason more carefully and systematically.
In the passage below Aristotle discuss human activity in the context of it's purpose "some good", and the ends (or goals) of master as contrasted with subsidiary arts. Take the time to read through the passage. Consider what might be the ends of a feature on Inleo, or the ends of paricular post or thread, Inleo is to some extent a form of a city state within Hive; the analogies and comparisons may useful for mapping concepts from philosophy to a an existent example or model.
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 Section 1
"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. But a certain difference is found among ends; some are activities, others are products apart from the activities that produce them. Where there are ends apart from the actions, it is the nature of the products to be better than the activities. Now, as there are many actions, arts, and sciences, their ends also are many; the end of the medical art is health, that of shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory, that of economics wealth. But where such arts fall under a single capacity- as bridle-making and the other arts concerned with the equipment of horses fall under the art of riding, and this and every military action under strategy, in the same way other arts fall under yet others- in all of these the ends of the master arts are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends; for it is for the sake of the former that the latter are pursued. It makes no difference whether the activities themselves are the ends of the actions, or something else apart from the activities, as in the case of the sciences just mentioned."
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