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Every once in a while I post a recipe here, almost as much for my own reference as for sharing. Because several people have asked me about my whole wheat pancakes recently, I figured I'd write up how I make them.
There are two sets of ingredients, five wet and five dry:
In a large mixing bowl, whisk all the dry ingredients. In a smaller mixing bowl, whisk all the wet ingredients. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just mixed and no dry spots remain. Spoon out ¼ cup of batter at a time onto a warm pan or griddle, flip when bubbles start to appear, and serve with maple syrup or your favorite sweetener (orange marmalade is a great choice). Makes 16-18 pancakes.
I use heavy cream because I prefer thick pancakes - substitute with milk if you prefer them thinner. And for a delightfully nutty flavor, use walnut oil instead of canola oil.
Enjoy!
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So much of what one reads online these days consists of social and cultural criticism, even when it avoids the cesspool of partisan vitriol. Case in point: over the last few days I've run across several essays that bemoan the decline of reading and the seemingly inexorable emergence of a post-literate society. Although I've made similar observations over the years, it strikes me that at a personal level such forms of criticism are nearly devoid of value. Instead, what matters are the practices that I cultivate in my own life. I grant that exposing oneself to social and cultural criticism can, at times, inspire a change in behavior; yet, all too often, criticism without cultivation is "sound and fury, signifying nothing". Marx proclaimed that "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." Yet I agree more with Tolstoy, who contended that "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." If you ask me, changing oneself is the true function of philosophy.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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Early on in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle observed that thrivings and corruptions of character are centrally concerned with managing life's pleasures and pains, joys and distresses; as two examples, the cowardly person fails to act courageously out of a desire to avoid even necessary pains, whereas the decadent person fails to act moderately out of a desire to pursue even unnecessary pleasures. Here in Book VII, Aristotle expands on those observations and provides a stronger foundation for his claims.
The key insight is that pleasures and pains are bound up with the activities they accompany, since activities have their own inherent pleasures. The pleasure of, say, solving a challenging math problem is quite different from the pleasure of drinking a big glass of cold water after working outside in the hot sun. More specifically, not all pleasures involve satisfying a craving (e.g., eating sweets) or relieving a pain (e.g., recovering from an illness), for some pleasures arise simply from activating a capacity (e.g., learning a skill) or exercising a natural faculty (e.g., seeing). Because the latter pleasures are not dependent on an outcome whose value lies outside the activity itself, they are good in themselves; they can even be beautifully right (1151b19, 1154a9). Thus Aristotle defines enjoyment or pleasure as the natural, unimpeded activity [energeia] of an acquired trait [hexis], of which he identifies at least six: craft [technē], understanding [epistēmē], insight [nous], wisdom [phronēsis], sagacity [sophia], and the various forms of ethical thriving [aretē]. (The status of craft here is somewhat ambiguous; I'll write about that some other time.)
According to Aristotle, the pleasures that are good in themselves cannot really be taken to excess (1154a13-14); however, his argument isn't clear to me. He might be saying that although you could engage in too much thinking or seeing or what have you (to the exclusion of other important activities), you can't pursue the pleasures of thinking or seeing to excess because those pleasures arise and are pursued only in and through activities that are good in themselves since they are constituents of human fulfillment [eudaimonia] and also are natural manifestations of deeply human capacities and traits. By contrast, the pleasures of eating, drinking, and sex can be taken to excess (which is why we need the virtue of moderation) since they are bound up with activities that human beings share with the other animals and thus are not distinctively human.
Similarly, Aristotle's focus on unimpeded activity is intriguing, but I don't fully understand it yet, either. What are the impediments to the natural activities of our acquired traits? Are they purely external (e.g., physical, social, political) or can they also be internal (e.g., psychological)? Does the lack of impediments lead to what Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi called the state of flow?
These matters might become clearer when we get to Book X, where Aristotle presents a separate and somewhat different account of pleasure. But first we'll go through Books VIII and IX, which provide Aristotle's highly influential analysis of human relationships, especially the activity he calls philia (usually rendered as "friendship" even though it includes love, acquaintanceship, brotherhood, etc.).
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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At the end of Nicomachean Ethics Book VI, Aristotle sketched out an ideal of human flourishing, in the form of the seriously good person who seamlessly combines excellence of mind and character, practical wisdom [phronēsis] and ethical thriving [aretē]. Yet human experience is not always so seamless. There are many ways to go astray in life, which in Book VII Aristotle boils down to three: corruption [mochthēria] of character, lack of self-restraint [akrasia], and, rarely, a deficient state that borders on an animal-like existence [theriotēs].
Aristotle spends most of Book VII puzzling over akrasia, commonly translated as unrestraint (e.g., by Joe Sachs), lack of self-restraint, weakness of the will, moral weakness, or (my current preference) self-indulgence. Unlike the ethically corrupted person, who has a settled commitment to doing what's repulsively wrong [aischros] in one or more domains of life, the akratic person has an understanding of and commitment to what is beautifully right [kalos], yet doesn't always follow through in action. Aristotle adduces two main reasons for this kind of self-indulgence: impulsiveness [propeteia] and weakness [asthenia]. He says that impulsive people don't deliberate about their activities in the first place because they live by emotion; by contrast, weak-willed people, although they deliberate ahead of time, get carried away by their emotions and thus in the end stand aside from their deliberations and commitments. He seems to imply that self-indulgent behavior is especially common in the young, whose character traits and practices are not yet fully formed, although it could manifest itself in immature people of all ages.
Just as the self-indulgent person is different from the ethically corrupted person, so the self-restrained person [enkratēs] is different from the ethically thriving person. Unlike the self-indulgent person, the self-restrained person doesn't give in to their unworthy passions and emotions but instead stands by their deliberations and commitments; yet unlike the seriously good person, whose thoughts and actions and emotions are in harmony, the self-restrained person has unworthy passions and emotions that need to be actively, even steadfastly overcome.
At some level, all three of these - the ethically thriving person, the self-restrained person, and the self-indulgent person - know what's right; yet they differ in their ability to act on what they know. Socrates thought it was impossible to know what's right and not act aright, so he held that weakness of the will doesn't exist: the self-indulgent person may seem to know, but doesn't really know (in their bones, as we would say). Aristotle gets through this impasse by drawing a distinction between having knowledge and actively using that knowledge; thus he argues that in the heat of the moment the self-indulgent person doesn't maintain awareness [theōria] of what's beautifully right [kalos] and of what makes a human life complete [teleia] and fulfilled [eudaimōn]. He likens an episode of self-indulgence to falling asleep, getting drunk, or a bout of insanity: in all of these cases, one is temporarily under the influence of something - a passion (anger, lust, etc.), fatigue, a drug, or a malady - from which one needs to recover, awaken, sober up, or heal before one's knowledge is fully activated and at work [energein] again in the authoritative sense [kurios].
How do wise people [phronimoi] - ethically serious people [spoudaioi] - avoid such episodes? Aristotle provides two clues. First, they foresee the snares of unworthy passions ahead of time and thus awaken themselves and their reasoning (1150b23-24) so that they are prepared to counteract the influence of such passions, rather as Odysseus prepared his crew for their encounter with the Sirens. Second, over time they cultivate settled traits [hexeis] and practices of beautifully right behavior, so that they don't need to face each situation as if it were something completely new; instead, as they mature and become more complete, their deliberations and commitments and activities become consistent and reliable, like a second nature (1152a31).
In the remainder of Book VII, Aristotle turns to an analysis of pleasures/joys and pains/distresses, since character is bound up with how we handle positive and negative emotions in life. We'll discuss those topics in the next section of our walk with Aristotle.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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Here's another of my renderings from the Tao Te Ching:
To know others is intelligence
To know yourself is enlightenment
To master others is strength
To master yourself is power
To be content is wealth
To act with vigor is will
To hold onto the source is endurance
To die unforgotten is ageless life
Wisdom about the value of self-knowledge is spread throughout the world, even if the reality of its practice is far less common...
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
In the final two chapters of Nicomachean Ethics Book VI, Aristotle asks some probing questions about thrivings of mind and character.
First, although sagacity [sophia] provides understanding [epistēmē] and insight [nous] into the sources and causes of things, is it of any use in the pursuit of fulfillment [eudaimonia]? Actually, yes. Aristotle reasons that even if sagacity and wisdom did not have practical uses, still they would be valuable because they are excellences of their respective parts or tasks of the thinking soul: grasping the nature of what is in the case of sagacity, and deliberating about how to act in the case of wisdom. Eudaimonia is not merely a feeling (or even a series of positive emotional experiences extended over a lifetime), but the complete development and thriving of your core human capacities, i.e., not happiness in the modern sense but deep and true fulfillment.
Second, because excellences of character like courage and moderation are acquired traits [hexeis], can they function well enough simply with occasional external guidance from others, thus obviating the need to individually cultivate practical wisdom [phronēsis]? Well, no: the task of living a fully human life is brought to completion by one's own wisdom of mind and excellence of character. Specifically, virtue [aretē] establishes the correctness of the target [skopos] you're trying to hit in life, and wisdom establishes the correctness of what brings you closer to doing so.
To further explain the role of wisdom, Aristotle contrasts it with mere cleverness [deinotēs]. The clever person can figure out how to achieve any goal, no matter whether it's beautifully right [kalos] or repulsively wrong [aischros]. The wise person has this ability, too, but it operates in service of the ultimate source [archē] of action, which is the completion [telos] of human capacities and the best thing achievable in action. Whereas corruption [mochthēria] of character warps a person's insights into the source of human action and goodness, excellence [aretē] of character preserves and reinforces such insights, along with the actions that flow from them. Thus Aristotle maintains that it is impossible to be wise without being good.
A similar contrast can be drawn between virtue in the authoritative sense [kurios] and inborn [phusikos] virtue. Some people seem to be naturally courageous or temperate or generous - isn't that good enough? No, because the person who has such inborn virtues can easily go astray without insight [nous]. Indeed, these natural propensities to action merely resemble the excellences of character, whereas virtue in the authoritative sense comes about only through the direction of practical wisdom and the correct account [orthos logos] of one's activities. Yet Aristotle takes things even one step further than Socrates, who said that there is no virtue without wisdom: for he claims that virtue is utterly suffused with the correct account [meta tou orthou logou]. Thus Aristotle concludes not only that is it impossible to be wise without being good, but also that it is impossible to be good without being wise.
Notice that Aristotle formulates no rules for action, nor does he say exactly what the correct account or best form of practical reasoning [sullogismos] is. As I see it, that's because the person who takes life seriously - the spoudaios - uses both sagacity and wisdom to gain insight into the universal sources of the human good and into the particular opportunities for manifesting the good in specific situations. Although it certainly helps to grasp some general patterns of human behavior and principles for action (that's what the excellences of character are all about), there are no hard-and-fast rules for bridging the gap because each situation is unique. This is especially true in human relationships, which are fundamental to the good life because we are social animals; we'll see this come to fruition in Books VIII and IX, a little farther along in our walk with Aristotle.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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