What Aristotle Actually Said About Presence
All 4 Aristotle passages on presence, in full — what each one claims, what holds them together, and who argues the other way.
Aristotle returns to presence four times in thinkr's library — more often than to almost anything else. Student of Plato, tutor of Alexander. His Nicomachean Ethics defines virtue as the mean between extremes, and happiness as activity of soul in accord with virtue.
What follows is every one of those passages, in full, with what each is actually claiming. The language is ancient, but the question underneath is not: what is presence for, and what does it ask of you?
Every Aristotle passage on presence
“The essential nature (concerning the soul) cannot be corporeal, yet it is also clear that this soul is present in a particular bodily part, and this one of the parts having control over the rest (heart).”
“Music directly represents the passion of the soul. If one listens to the wrong kind of music, he will become the wrong kind of person.”
“There are three lines of life which stand out prominently to view: the life of pleasure, the political life, and the life of reflection.”
“Now the mass of mankind are plainly... choosing a life like that of brute animals... (Bk. 1, Chapter III)”
What holds these together
Read in sequence rather than one at a time, the passages stop being separate aphorisms. Aristotle is not offering four opinions about presence; the lines are facets of one position, and the repetition is the argument. The shortest of them — “Now the mass of mankind are plainly... choosing a life like that of brute animals... (Bk. 1, Chapter III)” — is the version you can carry, and the longer ones are what it unpacks into.
Aristotle applied to a real decision
Quotation is the easy part. The harder test is what the position actually does when it meets a situation where every option costs something. thinkr puts two such cases to Aristotle.
A friend asks if they made the right choice. They didn't.
Argued as aristotelian judgment: You are choosing practical wisdom over a rule. The aim is not maximum honesty or maximum comfort, but the right truth at the right time.
Someone you love is wrong in public.
Argued as practical wisdom: You are separating the need to be right from the need to help. The risk is allowing falsehood to stand when silence has a cost.
Work through these yourself
- A friend asks if they made the right choice. They didn't. — argued from aristotelian judgment and several competing positions
- Someone you love is wrong in public. — argued from practical wisdom and several competing positions
Who disagrees
Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Mahatma Gandhi and Confucius all address presence too, and they do not converge. Reading Aristotle alone gives you a coherent position; reading Aristotle against Marcus Aurelius shows you what the position is actually choosing against.