Golden mean (philosophy)
The golden mean or golden middle way is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. It appeared in Greek thought at least as early as the Delphic maxim "nothing in excess", which was discussed in Plato's Philebus. Aristotle analyzed the golden mean in the Nicomachean Ethics Book II: That virtues of character can be described as means. It was subsequently emphasized in Aristotelian virtue ethics.[1] For example, in the Aristotelian view, courage is a virtue, but if taken to excess would manifest as recklessness, and, in deficiency, cowardice. The Middle Way form of government for Aristotle was a blend between monarchy, democracy and aristocracy.
Gnome (good sense) – passing judgment, "sympathetic understanding": VI.11
[4]
Synesis (understanding) – comprehending what others say, does not issue commands
(practical wisdom) – knowledge of what to do, knowledge of changing truths, issues commands[4]: VI.8
Phronesis
Techne (art, craftsmanship): VI.4
[4]
"In many things the middle have the best / Be mine a middle station."
—
Phocylides
"When tried to define beauty, he returned always to one deep thought; beauty, he said, is unity in variety! Science is nothing else than the search to discover unity in the wild variety of nature,—or, more exactly, in the variety of our experience. Poetry, painting, the arts are the same search, in Coleridge’s phrase, for unity in variety."
— Jacob Bronowski
Coleridge
"…but for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following."
— .
Henri Poincaré
"If a man finds that his nature tends or is disposed to one of these extremes..., he should turn back and improve, so as to walk in the way of good people, which is the right way. The right way is the mean in each group of dispositions common to humanity; namely, that disposition which is equally distant from the two extremes in its class, not being nearer to the one than to the other."
—
Maimonides
"What is wanted is a balance between extravagance and miserliness through moderation, with the goal of distance between both extremes."
—
al-Ghazali
Apatheia
Centrism
Neutrality
The Golden mean in virtue ethics
Argument to moderation
Third Way
(Buddhist analog)
Middle Way
(Middle Knowledge)
Molinism
(Confucian analog)
Doctrine of the Mean
(golden mean applied to aesthetics, mathematics, geometry)
Golden ratio
Mathematical optimization
Goldilocks principle
, 1233b15
Eudemian Ethics
, 691c, 756e–757a
Laws
, 1106a–b
Nicomachean Ethics
, 1270a and 1271b
Politics
, 619
Republic (Plato)
The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton, W. W. Norton & Co., NY, 1993.
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, Why the Greeks Matter, Thomas Cahill, Nan A. Talese an imprint of Doubleday, NY, 2003.