What is Truth? Aristotle and the Rational Mind

Aristotle claims there are four personality types: the Virtuous, the Continent, the Incontinent, and the Vicious. The first three are individuals with a rational mind. The fourth, the Vicious, describes a person with no rational mind. All four personality types, as described by Aristotle, are can be described in terms of varying relationships between the rational mind and the non-rational appetitive mind. Again, I stress to my students Aristotle’s concept of the relationship between the rational and the non-rational mind. Like psychology and sociology, the very relationship within the language of Aristotle can reveal for us a common theme or a Sacramental image of relationship. Aristotle writes that the Virtuous is the happiest of all personality types. That is, eudaimonia is achieved by living a Virtuous life. Aristotle describes it in terms of the relationship between the rational mind and the appetitive mind. That is, the appetite has been formed or habituated to want the same eudaimonia the rational mind wants. This process will be described later in this blog.

The Ascension of Jesus in St. Mary's Pro Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland. The relationship between Jesus and the remaining eleven Apostles becomes a context by which we have Hope for greater happiness than we can imagine. If Jesus is fully human an He can ascend by the power of the Father, then so can we. (photo P. Smith).

The Continent and Incontinent Personalities represent the varying degrees to which the rational mind is developed and to which the appetite is controlled to achieve the Virtuous personality, and therefore, eudaimonia. Essentially, the Continent mind has a developed rational mind (although not as developed as a Virtuous Personality) that is capable of directing the Appetitive mind. The Continent personality has an Appetitive mind that has been fairly well-habituated, (although not as well as in the Virtuous personality). The Incontinent lacks the same level of development of the Continent Personality and often allows the non-rational appetitive mind to control actions. The Vicious Personality lacks any form of rationality and therefore is completely controlled by the non-rational appetitive mind. The Vicious Mind has no concept of anything outside the Pit. Aristotle admits that there seems to be no Hope for the Vicious Personality for there is no rational mind to control the appetite and as the appetite is without a rationality, it is entirely self-serving and cannot develop enduring relationships and therefore has no place in society. My students shudder a bit when I tell them that Aristotle actually believed Vicious human beings should be executed so as to protect society. It is the development of the Virtuous Personality as a harmonious relationship between the rational mind and the non-rational appetitive mind that concerns Aristotle for it is in that relationship that Aristotle claims eudaimonia can be achieved, namely through a logical progression from the rational mind, to prudence, to habituation, to virtue, to ethics, and to Peaceful and enduring human relationship. I mention to students that 1600 years later, St. Thomas Aquinas and the Catholic Church will see this logic as fundamental human movement toward relationship with self and others and, ultimately, the Authentic Self.