Essay on "Aristotle Today"

Essay 5 pages (1846 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Body and/or its Senses in Intellectual Life.

Aristotle today

When we consider the broader range of purposes that are associated to intellectual life in different places and time, such as collective consciousness, understanding of oneself, overcoming prejudice, cosmopolitan rationality, deepening oneself, component of political or social practice, cultivating an inner life, reproducing tradition, casting off tradition, investing in human capital, therapy and many others. As a an important matter within the society, intellectual life might fall under several distinct activities, such as amateur science, religion, political participation, travel, fandom, collecting, psychological self-help, social climbing, professional development, entrepreneurship, conspiracy theorizing, trivial gathering, family genealogy, intellectual hobby relating to one's profession, involvement in the art world, and among others.

Intellectual life should not look 'intellectual' in a stereotyped sense. More so, not that introspective people are the only who have intellectual life, even people who stays immersed in practical action and mixing with others might find it of equally relevant. Music, television, and fiction can form part of intellectual life, without considering those parts which are not intended. In United States intellectual life (in form of the various cultural projects), they entail the growing movement aiming at reuniting the black as well as white descendants of slaves owners. Depending on the various kinds of intellectual life, it can have various architectures, begging from armchair to the teenage bedroom to the cafe table, or to the airplane seats and laptop, not forgetting digital librarians than are capable of inspiring in delivering information services that tend to be fitted to the customs and form of every of the locales. Where we study religious text form a very significant site to apply digital libraries.

Considering the diverse insertion of intellectual life, we can say that prevailing images of intellectual life seems to abstract it from, histories, feelings, conversations, and relationships, (Philip E. Agre, 2001). However, intellectual life is somehow a space apart and our consideration will be how? When we use colloquial will treat a single life within the various emotional, professional, and social. Such live might be having many qualities that are in conflict, integrated, compartmentalized. Some individual may devote disproportionate efforts towards part of them, and on the other hand some atrophy having in mind that atrophy belonging to ant life is always regarded as unhealthy. It is possible for an intellectual life to become stale the same as professional. Some of the scholars have differentiated intellectual life from many instrumental concepts like training where an individual follows questions whenever they go. Hence will never follow question for the sake, for question always come up leading an individual beyond a given profession or task.

Within an intellectual life is where these questions are followed not knowing the way the effort will pay off. Acting as space apart, an intellectual life defines vividly payoffs or purposes. It forms a cauldron on fire, source of perspective ballast. It will always prevent an individual within up and down of daily life. The emerging ideas through intellectual reflection might seem more compared to the problems of life, as well as the efforts that can be used to understand them should be amortized over an unclear stretch into the future, (Aristotle,1976).

There are possibilities of intellectual life becoming pathological due to trying to live in one's head or the ideas themselves are disturbed, failing to consider the inconvenient complexities of real life. Descartes is accused of this after having traced from a philosophical tradition of unhealthy detachment from involvement messily with real things and people. The requirement of an intellectual life is a safe space among the like-minded or solitary. It can offer a respite from the real world or engagement resources with it. There is possibility of individual's intellectual life evolving to its own language in trying to express things that one has conceive or seen while several translation is much needed in order to make this observation becomes useful again in the world.

Due to the fact that we tend to be finite species, we always need fresh intellectual fuel. In line with this and others the description of intellectual life becomes a place just a half way apart; it cannot be considered a distant planet but just a separate room that is walled to be sure, but has been controlled in trafficking way with the world at large. Some of the aspects that have been considered as places apart are the intellectual institutions, for example the university, their structure have been internalized as a cognitive structure.

Sometimes we can refer intellectuals as a separate society that if in case live by judgment of each other, then their separately grows. Though this separateness is inevitable, it is harmless to an extent. Of course, there are uses of abstraction, and can make distant connections that might not have been made in the thick of real life. Yet, we can space a part intellectual life using other ways. Not that people with leisure are the ones meant for leisure for there can be invention of new forms that can fit into busier ways of life. Maybe there should be some adjustment to life. In case the road to social advancement is dependant to education, the real haves as well as the have-nots will not see the sense to study, and that is a challenging aspect.

Based on the fact that intellectual life is a process, we find that it does not become wholly methodic or wholly goal-driven, but it has to be pursued actively for it to keep moving. When we talk of a theory of the intellectual life, in other word we are saying a theory of cognition; a theory of interaction involving cultural forms of intellectual, innate mental capacities, and the practical as well as intellectual environment, (Tad Beckman, 1999). Usually intellectual life tries to unfold in a set of independent strands; every one of them is liable to be called to mind by a life-situation, a thought, a text that it might have spoken to. Therefore, in short-term, intellectual life is essentially fragmentary. Many times we encounter fragments of thought, and unless they are shared in a conversation or captured in writing, they get lost. This idea of capturing such fragments provide the fragment with package quality, a discrete, over time, however effort and practice might be needed for an individual's fragmentary thoughts, but not losing oneself within the object of thoughts. Although there is possibility of diverting the object of thought, when another object is engaged with in a sustained way, then it is capable of serving as a sort of oracle, directing thought in a similarly directions like telling about the thicker.

For that to still be of essence at the end there should be externalization of thoughts, such as within letters or note books. When one externalize an idea, he is compelled to provide it with form and structure by use of diagrams or language or whichever practice of representational. After externalization, the thought can now become available for inspection. Using it attained new form, somehow de-familiarized, it suggests further thoughts. As it articulates a thought through grammatical structures of language can cause it analysis into parts varied separate parts, therefore, it then provides the basis for unanticipated connections. This fact bout externalizing a thought to some extent rubs it from the mind, which captures either from the memory or from the fear regarding forgetting it, and provides room for extra. Such forms of iterative externalizing of ideas have been centralized to design work. Engaging in fragment collections in a permanent medium like paper as well makes it easier to notice patterns among them.

Most of the new thoughts associate with analogies between distant ideas, if not they will apply the already existing idea to an unexpected object. There will be no spontaneous draw of abstract structural analogies by the mind between differently expressed ideas; nevertheless, it proves to be much efficient in establishing connections between similar or overlapping expressed ideas. Using 'transfer' in putting the point in a psychological language, may not map complex formal structures automatically against the other, hence production of fresh ideas rely largely on the terms by which someone use in expressing the old ideas, (G E.M. Anscombe,1958) . Therefore just an ordinary conceptual framework may bring a massive heuristic value upon its use in analyzing various problems within different fields, it does not matter whether the concept fails to dictate any answers, and they have the room to mediate analogies suggesting answers through framing such issues within unexpected light. Such method is usually applied within businesses, such as where concepts can be expressed using simple two-by-two matrices.

The emerging connection within intellectual work always takes one back to previous reading. A single purpose text that is read, will always becomes significant using fresh connection; a question that is new and can be addressed. The reading should be accompanied by new question in mind, and then the text provides new answers. This is the reason… READ MORE

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