Deep Spirits

A little bit of statistical information that may be of interest. Currently by far the most people that come to the Deep Spirits site come through the Animated Short Movies page. The Tao Te Ching seems to raise a lot of interest as well.
I was also surprised (at least a little) to see that the George Carlin vs. Woody Allen dilemma befell a few more people than I anticipated. I am always happy when I see that someone researches something and checks the available information to find real answers.
An active or pro-active approach is laudable in my book.
"In my book" is a phrase I picked up from Ryan, by the way.

Ever since Deep Spirits started there has been a constant flow towards the Akhenaten and Imhotep pages. Talking of the ancient sages, Aristotle was a misogynist, did you know?
Why is he even there, among the ancient sages? He obviously couldn't have been that smart.

Sabina

Sabina wrote: Talking of the ancient sages, Aristotle was a misogynist, did you know?
Why is he even there, among the ancient sages? He obviously couldn't have been that smart.

Sabina

Wasn't Socrates the teacher of Aristotle in human anatomy teaching that the female body did not need to be studied because it was just an incomplete male body.... ?????

Well, no, he couldn't have been. Socrates died before Aristotle was born. Socrates was Plato's teacher and Plato was Aristotle's teacher, however Aristotle turned against him already in Plato's lifetime.
I have checked now again and I didn't find anything. It seems to me that Socrates and Plato were the truly great ones, Aristotle on the other hand had a lot of knowledge to offer, but no light.

Sabina

Thank you Sabina I stand corrected .... But Socrates did teach that woman was only an incomplete male therefor did not teach female anatomy. Or have i forgotten to much of my history ?

Actually, I am not sure about Socrates. I know that Plato saw men and women as equals.
He considered his model of state to include women, and not just on one level, but on all levels, including the ruler or Philosopher King (King or Queen). You can imagine how well that was received back then. So, Plato was a complete revolutionary in that regard.

"While Socrates allows women to enter the ruling class, he affirms that they will always be weaker than men. But Plato "grants woman importance merely because the psyche in itself has no sex and is capable of dwelling in a body of either sex."

So, I looked around a bit, about Aristotle specifically.

Aristotle believed that women are colder than men and thus a lower form of life. His assumption carried forward unexamined to Galen and others for almost two thousand years until the 16th century.

He also believed that females could not be fully human. On the other hand, Aristotle gave equal weight to women's happiness as he did to men's, and commented in his Rhetoric that a society cannot be happy unless women are happy too. In places like Sparta where the lot of women is bad, there can only be half-happiness in society.

There you go.. women should be happy. All hail Aristotle...

Basically I couldn't find anything that points to Aristotle being influenced by Socrates or Plato when it comes to women. You are correct in that Aristotle did preach the female to be an incomplete male... but, that was all him... Aristotle and Aristotle only.

And Pat.. I feel very inspired right now. A cross comparison of the ancient sages... shall we do it? lol

Surely George has something to say on this topic????

Here are some information about Socrates.
Plato Republic 5 (449a-471c)
The Equality of Women (450c-457b)
Women, Socrates argues, are equal to men in all ways except in strength. They should therefore have the same responsibilities as men. If they are to share the responsibilities of being Guardians, then they will need the same type of education and training as male Guardians (451d).
Female guardians would therefore need to be trained music and gymnastics as well as the art of war alongside the male counterparts
Socrates anticipates the objection that the sight of women exercising naked with men might very well seem ridiculous according to conventional Greek customs. If, however, such an arrangement is advantageous to the city as a whole, it doesn't matter if it flies in the face of custom (452).
Socrates presupposes a conservative objection to his belief in the fundamental equality of women (253a-c). The argument that he raises is something like the following:
Premise 1: According to the principle of specialization, each person should work according to his/her own nature.
Premise 2: women and men have different nature
Conclusion: Therefore they should have different functions in society
e.g., men, who are aggressive by nature, should act as rulers and warriors, and women, who have nurturing natures, should act as mothers and teachers
Socrates is presupposing that others may very well accuse him of contradicting himself, since the principle of specialization seems to preclude the equality of the sexes (453b). In his response, therefore, he needs to demonstrate, that, despite their different anatomies, men and women do not have different natures. His argument (453e-454c) is as follows:
Do bald men and hairy men have different nature? no: the difference between them is accidental (superficial), not essential
The same therefore can be said of men and women: the difference between them is not essential to their abilities to do the work of ruling and protecting the polis.
Plato is using the term nature here as a kind of aptitude, or the ability to do a certain kinds of work. A physician and a carpenter, according to this view, would have different natures, and therefore should play different roles in the polis (454d).

Gender, on the other hand, is irrelevant to men and women's abilities to do the work demanded of Guardians
The only real objection that can be raised to having women in the ranks of the guardians is that they have the possibility of having children, and raising children is a full-time job that preludes all other kinds of work.
Plato's solution to this problem, as we shall see, is to devise a radically model of child raising that can free women to perform other kinds of work in the polis.

Aeschines Socraticus (c. 425 – c. 350 B.C.E.) was in his youth a follower of Socrates and therefore called Aeschines Socraticus. His works give a clear account of the teachings of Socrates. According to him that Socrates considered women to have equal political and intellectual value with men.

PS: By the way, this is very nice idea Sabina.

Dermot, I think the study of the female body is something I need more research in.

I must start a rumor about Aristotle's reason for
believing women are different then men.

It seems he preached that women are different then men
because women have LESS teeth then men do.
wait this truth may have been some other philosopher's truth
because Aristotle had a wife so he could NOT have made this
mistake. Being extra smart he would have opened her mouth
and counted her teeth and had someone count his teeth.

Geez Alvino.......you identify a woman by counting her teeth?
d.