Aristotle and his biases?

William Gonzalez3 said:I didn't say they only deal with studying the soul.

Fine, then tell me—what the hell does philosophy actually do?

Just start by telling me what, I don't know, Platonic Phaedo and the state are even about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy 👍

Thanks for the link, 🙂

Anyway, if I may go back to my little obsessive mantra for a moment...

The > focuses on proving that the soul is immortal.

The > deals with the division of the soul and its corresponding division within the > itself.

The fundamental gateway into philosophy is *gnothi seauton*—knowing oneself, or rather, knowing one's own soul.

I suspect that all those broader social, ethical, and similar theories proposed by philosophers were really just extensions of studying the self.

But, at its core, I believe the true essence of philosophy is precisely the study of the soul.

Do you have anything else to say that’s actually on-topic? 😉

I’m not really focusing too much on the main topic here.

To me, it’s a bit like road signs.

They're just suggestions.

A conversation feels much more natural when it isn't strictly tethered to one single area, but instead wanders through a few related ones—it’s almost inevitable, I suppose.
Limiting a discussion to just one specific subject feels a bit like clinical dissection.
It's as if we were trying to spend years analyzing a tree—trying to figure out its exact age, what its branches looked like, how tall it grew, who cut it down and when, all of that.

It just doesn't work that way. In my view, if you want to have an honest conversation about something, you have to be willing to look at the bigger picture.

William Gonzalez3 said:I'm not really paying much attention to the main topic here.

So, you actually agree that we started out with a female soul?😉

NEVER

In the beginning, there wasn't any at all.

A faster soul belongs to the male.

It’s much like how things work with sperm cells.

Generally speaking, the male soul tends to occupy the body first.

The female soul stays preoccupied—I suppose—while deciding on things like fashion sense, color coordination, makeup styles, cooking skills, or even her level of idealism.

William Gonzalez3 said:basically, the male soul is the one that inhabits the body first.

While the female soul gets hung up on picking out clothes, color coordination, makeup skills, cooking abilities, how much idealism she has, and all that stuff.

Look, I hate being a broken record here, but here we go:

Walter Myers4 said:let's break this down a bit:

Soul is defined by Aristotle as the perfect expression or realization of a natural body. From this definition it follows that there is a close connection between psychological states, and physiological processes. Body and soul are unified in the same way that wax and an impression stamped on it are unified. Philosophers before Aristotle discussed The Soul abstractly without Any regard to The bodily environment ; this, Aristotle believes, was a mistake. At the same time, Aristotle regards The Soul or mind not as The product of The physiological conditions of The body, but as the truth of the body -- the substance in which only the bodily conditions gain their real meaning.

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/a/aristotl.htm

And how exactly do you think a male soul can "occupy" a female body—where new life is literally being formed—faster than the female soul that's already living in it?🙂 It’s a total contradiction in terms! I mean, the soul doesn't have a gender, right? Or does it? 😉

I think I’ll just focus my response on the second part of your question.

Up until about the 40th day, there isn't really any soul present in the fetus.
Neither male nor female.

That is when the male soul arrives.
The physical bodies that those male souls don't choose to inhabit simply remain empty—they develop without any real direction, I suppose. It's almost capricious... sort of aimless, if you can call it that.
Then, after roughly 80 days of that emptiness, a female soul arrives and occupies the body.

And, yes—the soul does have a gender.

Otherwise, how else could we explain women who find themselves trapped in male bodies?

Bloodthirsty said:For now, I’m only gonna address the second half of your question.

Up until day 40, there isn't any soul in a fetus.
Doesn't matter if it's male or female.

Then, a male soul arrives.
The bodies that those male souls don't want to inhabit just sit there empty, developing without any real direction. It's totally random. Just a chaotic mess of nothingness.
Then, after 80 days of all that emptiness, a female soul comes along and takes over the body.

And yeah, souls have a gender.

How else are you gonna explain women trapped in men's bodies?

Look, please try discussing this using Aristotle's theory on the indivisibility of the soul and the body.👍
And how can you claim there's no soul in a fetus when, if nothing else, it is literally SURROUNDED by one? Use your head for once. 😉
Also, are you seriously suggesting that "male souls" are just sperm cells?? 😕

We can be surrounded by anything we desire—but if we don't possess something within ourselves, then truly, we don't have it at all.

Aristotle argues that the soul doesn't actually arrive until the 40th or perhaps even the 80th day.
According to this view, a fetus simply doesn't possess a soul before that window passes.
I’ve added my own thought to this—that souls might carry a specific gender—but I suppose that's just a side note.
Where exactly am I stepping outside the bounds of his theory?

The soul and the body are inseparable, yet that doesn't mean a child possesses a soul the very moment conception occurs.
The soul, it seems, arrives a bit later.

Quincy:

I can't even deal with this right now. Seriously. Every time I turn around, there’s some new nonsense going on that makes me want to put my head through a wall. It's just constant. Just one thing after another, and honestly? I'm exhausted. Everyone's acting like this is normal, but it's absolutely ridiculous. I've had enough. I can't even begin to deal with this right now. Seriously. It’s like people just don't listen. They hear what they want to hear and then act like they've discovered fire. I was sitting there, just trying to get through my morning coffee, and I see this absolute nonsense being peddled as fact. It makes my blood boil! You can't just make things up because it sounds good in your head. It doesn't work that way! Honestly, I'm exhausted just thinking about how much nonsense we have to wade through every single day. Just... ugh. Give me a break. Honestly, I don’t get it. It’s like some women just lack that basic instinct for everything. You see them struggling to pick out an outfit, staring at a closet full of clothes like they’ve never seen color before. And don't even get me started on their sense of style—the makeup, the way they try to coordinate colors... it's a total mess most of the time. It’s not just fashion, either. It’s the cooking, too. Sometimes you watch someone in the kitchen and you just think, "How is this happening?" It’s like they have zero common sense when it comes to practical skills. And the idealism? Ugh. They’ll be floating around in these ridiculous, unrealistic fantasies, completely disconnected from how the real world actually works. It's exhausting to watch.

Oh yeah, totally forgot to mention—it was actually hilarious.👍 🤣

Bloodline said:We can be surrounded by whatever we want. If we don't actually own something, then we just don't have it.

So, Aristotle argues that souls don't actually arrive until the 40th or even the 80th day.
Basically, before that window hits, the fetus doesn't even have a soul.
Now, I’ll throw in my own little theory that souls have a gender, but so what?
In what way am I even stepping outside his logic here?

Look, the soul and the body are inseparable, sure, but that doesn't mean a child gets a soul the very second conception happens.
The soul shows up later.

And where exactly does it come from, excuse me?

So, what exactly was he trying to get at there? That men are more valuable because their souls somehow exist forty days longer than women's? As if having a soul tucked away in a uterus provides some sort of advantage. Or do you all actually believe there’s some sort of developmental head start occurring during those forty days?

madwoman said:What do you guys actually make of what that guy was trying to get at? That men are somehow "more valuable" just because their souls supposedly exist 40 days longer than women's? As if having a soul tucked away in a uterus matters. You really think it does? Like it’s somehow gaining some sort of head start or developing extra perks during those 40 days?

Look, we've already been through this. We covered how Aristotle's original premise—whether he meant it or not—got totally twisted and misinterpreted back during the era of the Spanish Inquisition...

madwoman said:what do you all think he was actually trying to get at here? that men are somehow more valuable because they supposedly have souls that last forty days longer than women's?

Why even ask when the answer seems pretty obvious?

That’s just how things used to be back then...

but honestly, it isn't like that anymore.

Today, thanks to the first wave of feminism, we've achieved equality.
yet, thanks to this modern neo-feminism, we've ended up being different.

(I suppose the only issue is that we're the ones striving for equality—you guys can be as "different" as you want to be.)

madwoman said:I read somewhere that Aristotle claimed the soul enters a male fetus at 40 days, but for females, it doesn't happen until day 80. Can someone explain this to me? I'm curious about how he actually calculated those numbers and why he was so damn sure about it.

And another thing... Now it looks like I might be mixing him up with Plato (or so my brother claims), but I somehow remember that Aristotle was against slavery even though he was actually enslaved himself for a while. My brother insists he was a slave owner, and that Plato was the one who became a slave because of *something* (some fight with a king, maybe?) but then managed to escape after a few years..??

Help me get my head straight here, everything is getting totally jumbled up😵 😳

Look, lady, do you even know what you're asking? What does female pregnancy have to do with slavery? Just take a second to listen to yourself before you post again.👍
We've been trying to explain the topic for three whole pages and then you just drop this nonsense on us...
Seriously, just check out this link once more http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/a/aristotl.htm and stop bothering us, please.😉

Natch said:What does female pregnancy have to do with slavery?

Absolutely none. That was an entirely separate issue.

My apologies for being such a nuisance, and thanks for the replies. Is there any point in apologizing for a foolish question? Perhaps not, but here we are. Forgive me.

madwoman said:not at all, that was a completely separate issue.

Look, you’re not actually hitting the nail on the head here. You’re obsessed with WHY Aristotle laid things out the way he did. It trips you out that he supposedly claimed a male soul enters a fetus before a female one. But can we please look at these confusing takes without constantly judging them by today's social standards? I know it sounds ridiculous to argue in those terms now, but wouldn't it be more interesting to actually step into Aristotle’s shoes for a second? Try to imagine what kind of experiments he was running or what logic led him to such bizarre conclusions. That’s literally what we were talking about in the other thread.
Anyway, I honestly think that before anyone starts any big debate, they need to actually learn the basics of Aristotle’s teachings and catch up on modern scientific breakthroughs. We have actual insight into pregnancy now—stuff he couldn't dream of—so let's at least have some baseline knowledge before we start talking. 😉

Silayn said:In his essays on education, Bertrand Russell uses a little anecdote about Aristotle to make a point. He’s illustrating that specific moment when philosophy finally moved away from using experimentation as its main method...
Aristotle actually claimed women have fewer teeth than men. He supposedly had a wife right there next to him that he could just count... 😁He went on claiming kids would be healthier if they were conceived while the north wind was blowing. Then there was the bit about how a mouse bite is more dangerous to a horse if she’s pregnant. And apparently, you can cure an elephant's insomnia by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water. And so on... 😁

He was a decent enough guy, regardless... 👍 😁

Hmm. Looking at this post—and honestly, quite a few others here—it feels like there’s this deep, superficial Western misunderstanding of Greek culture and its true spirit. People are just throwing around trivia they picked up from some tabloid like the New York Post...

Despite all those massive wins in philosophy and logic, ancient culture was actually built on much more than just pure reason. It leaned heavily on the Mystic, magic, prophecy, and initiation... Take Pythagoras, for instance. One of the greatest mathematicians ever, yet he was also a major religious mystic.

Schooling and general education usually focus on nothing but the rational side of things... it fits the modern American spirit, I guess. So most people around here only ever encounter the religious or more mystical aspects through the Iliad and the Odyssey...

It just ends up being a one-sided, stripped-down, and totally distorted imitation of the ancient Greek spirit...

I feel like these women tend to trivialize the whole thing.

But, what was Aristotle actually getting at when he suggested that the soul enters a male fetus 40 days after conception, whereas for a female, it’s 80?

In what kind of context did he even bring that up?

I’d love to dig into this myself—I just haven't been able to track down the specific book—and whenever I look online, everyone seems to frame it strictly around topics like miscarriage and things of that nature.