Aristotle and Dante: philosophical comparison and influence

Aristotle Dante

Goodness According to Aristotle and Alighieri

In the perpetually ongoing discourse of philosophy, the most frequently referenced pursuits with regard to the human experience are knowledge, goodness and happiness. These are qualities which seem to be inextricably linked to one another, bridging the oft incongruous perspectives emergent in the crucial works provided by Dante's Inferno and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, both of which tangle with the issues of human nature and morality but from two distinctly different historical and cultural contexts. For the author of the former, Dante Alighieri, the time of his work's composition would weigh heavily on the perspective and virtues of goodness there extolled. In this regard, it would bear a moral relationship to the pretenses of Christian faith during the middle ages. Where Aristotle would be primarily concerned with the practical dynamic of relationships between behavior and human interaction, Inferno's preoccupation is far more codified. The rationality of Nicomachean ethics plays a part in the intellectual disposition of the Inferno, which takes as part of discussion on goodness the nuance concerning the difference in interacting human wills. But equally as much, if not more so, the influence of Christian indoctrination of society bleeds through in Aligheiri's impression of that which it means spiritually moral

The outcome is that the two works have a great of textual commonality in the focus of their respective works but that ultimately, there is a religious conceit to Dante's Inferno that is communicated in its dense literary constructions, where philosophical examination of that which is meant by goodness is more pointedly elaborated by Aristotlte. Especially in contrast to the wave of Christianity which would sweep through the world in the time of Augustus -- giving historical root to Dante Alighieri's work, this time demonstrates the impact of religious establishments as they stoke or stifle the creation of moral ideals. Referring to the Alighieri text, the description which closes out Dante's passage through the First Circle of Hell is of the greatest scholars which in history predated the commencement of monotheistic philosophy. Essentially, this is a reinforcement of the steadfast rules of Christianity as they apply to justice and goodness in the specific work. This is particularly illuminating of the era of which it is representative. Hegemonic European entities as those which dominated the Middle Ages are most notably characterized by their inextricable association between religion, law and royalty. Dante's Inferno is illustrative of the Church's dominant role in the creation of morality, with a measured sentence being doled to those virtuous and even great men who may or may not have adopted the tenets of Christianity. The pervasive influence of Christian justice is independent from the justices of philosophy, human morality or good will, so much so that it is pointedly reinforced in the didactic elaborations of this particular text.

Characterizing the sullen masses who stood at the shores of the River Acheron, unwittingly following the weakness of desire into Hell, as "the people dolorous, who have foregone the good of intellect," Dante's Inferno proposes to argue that there is a strict logic to evasion of or commitment to the eternal underworld. (Alighieri, Canto III) but as exploration of his work illustrates, the 'good of intellect' to which he refers is represented not in the formulation of a core morality but in the acquiescence to good as it is defined by the Christian ideology. That is, his work illustrates a disposition by the educated minority of his time to view the canon of Christianity as tantamount to rightness in terms of intellectuality, ingenuity and most certainly morality. This is indicative of a sense of good which is explained under practical terms but which is couched in the arbitrary machinations of religion. or, we might deduce, this is how such might be perceived by Aristotle.

Indeed, morality is the underlying matter of consideration in Dante's Inferno, with the human interaction being an extension of Christian justice. Any divergence therefrom represented an idea that, while not necessarily erroneous in its nature, was presented to be an emanation from error. The unwavering and mathematically unbiased law of God as in Dante's work is the body to which human beings are the nearly vestigial extremities. As Socrates' and Plato's presence in Hell illustrates, such extremities could often even be counter-intuitive to the necessary functions of this body.

The does, of course, separate such a work form the terms offered by Aristotle. Yet it cannot be said that Alighieri has not written with Aristotle in mind. The common ground manifests in a convincing argument in favor of the concept of happiness as something which must ultimately, while occupying innumerable incarnations, be at the crux of any thought or action. Aristotle recognizes the variances which appear to define our establishment of the means to pursuing happiness, musing that "the characteristics that are looked for in happiness seem also, all of them, to belong to what we have defined happiness as being. For some identify happiness with virtue, some with practical wisdom, others with a kind of philosophic wisdom, others with these, or one of these, accompanied by pleasure or not without pleasure; while others include also external prosperity." (Aristotle, I: 8) Aristotle uses this as a divining rod for dissecting the various relationships which are perpetuated amongst men. It is thus that Aristotle offers the most useful of discussion to reemerge in the Alighieri text, providing our discussion with a motivator for human behaviors of all variety. The relationship which he sites between goodness and happiness, or pleasure and virtue, assumes a certain logic that underscores many of the terms of morality identified as broken by some parties in Dante's Inferno. Here, Aristotle's practicality is of particular relevance, with his semantic explication of terms for the relationship between virtue and happiness offering a rather thorough template for human morality. Aristotle contends that "verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing, like pleasure, wealth, or honour; they differ, however, from one another- and often even the same man identifies it with different things, with health when he is ill, with wealth when he is poor; but, conscious of their ignorance, they admire those who proclaim some great ideal that is above their comprehension." (Aristotle, I:4) This is a definition from which he immediately dispatches to his discussion on how this, as an extension of the pursuit of happiness, can help to direct the discussion on goodness. This is a leap which Alighieri also borrows from Aristotle. And again, given that Aristotle's definition of good and his well argued leap from that to the topic of, it can be proceeded on Dante's logic to the next point without further deconstruction of the lack of effectiveness which accompanies his conception of good, provided that we can argue that Christian morality is also precipitated on some idea of the pursuit of happiness as well.

Dante's concurrence with Aristotle on the nature of the human experience as it flows from 'happiness' to 'goodness' points to a resolution that ends which accompany actions and are not complimented by the presence of goodness do not then forge a true path to happiness. Indeed, so much is this a point of Christian morality that misery and a complete detainment from happiness are the ultimately penalties.