Aristotle, Temperance, Pleasure, and Pain :: Philosophy Research Papers

Aristotle, Temperance, Pleasure, and Pain(1) ABSTRACT: Aristotle argues that temperance is the mean concerned with pleasure and pain (NE 1107b5-9 and 1117b25-27). Most commentators focus on the moderation of pleasures and hardly discuss how this virtue relates to pain. In what follows, I consider the place of pain in Aristotle’s discussion of temperance and resolve contradictory interpretations by turning to the following question: is temperance ever properly painful? In part one, I examine the textual evidence and conclude that Aristotle would answer no to our question. The temperate person does not feel pain at the absence of appropriately desired objects. In parts two and three, I reconstruct some reasons why Aristotle would hold such a view based. My discussion here is based upon Aristotle’s discussion of continence and the unity of the virtues. While the accounts of temperance in the Eudemian Ethics and the Nichomachean Ethics share some similarities, the treatment of the topic in the latter is much more developed.(2) As Charles Young argues, Aristotle draws a distinction between common appetites and peculiar appetites. The appetite for food when one hasn’t eaten for several hours is a common, natural appetite. The appetite for a particular food or a particular amount is peculiar. Temperance most properly concerns the peculiar appetites, because, Aristotle says, people don’t tend to go wrong about common appetites since the appetite disappears with replenishment (NE 1118b15-19).(3) A further refinement in the Nicomachean account comes at 1119a16-20. Here Aristotle distinguishes between pleasures conducive to health (called healthful foods by Young) and pleasures that do not interfere with health (called treats by Young). On this more positive account of temperance, one has temperance just in case one’s peculiar appetites for food, sex, and drink are determined by judgments about the contribution to or compatibility with healthfulness.(4) One nice result of this account is that temperance loses any connotations of austerity that it might have had. For a temperate person, on Aristotle’s account, enjoys treats to the extent that they are compatible with health. This quick summary of the Nicomachean and Eudemian treatments of temperance, while showing some of the subtlety of Aristotle’s position, has selectively omitted a range of issues. The focus has been on pleasure rather than pain. Clearly the intemperate person enjoys consuming foods to an excess. However, it also surely is true that the intemperate person is pained by the absence of those peculiar things he desires.

Assessing Young Learners’ Speaking Ability in the Fifth Grade of Three Elementary Schools in Padang Essay

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Problem Communicative view development in English learning makes the focus on English teaching changed. What once became structurally focused, it now moves toward meaningful language-focused. Students are not asked to memorize structure-based dialogues without knowing the meaning anymore. There are no more grammatically controlled sentences for students’ meaningless repetition. Dialogues, if used, center around communicative functions and are not normally memorized (Richards & Rodgers, 1986). That makes the teaching of speaking becomes the core part of English teaching. Just like the adults, young learners today are also taught speaking meaningfully and communicatively. However, young learners have distinctive characteristics compared with adult learners. One of them is children are still developing cognitively, linguistically, socially, emotionally, and physically (Teaching Knowledge Test Young Learners: Handbook for Teachers, 2010). In other words, in teaching speaking to them, teachers need to consider children’s development of skills in the native language first. Young learners also enjoy rhythmic and repetitive language more than adults do. They are more likely to play with language than adults are, and they can be more effectively engaged through stories and games (Peck, 2009). The different techniques and approaches in teaching speaking to young learners lead to different ways in the speaking assessment. This is the problem faced by Indonesian young learners’ teachers nowadays. Most teachers do not know how they should assess their young learners’ speaking ability; some finally choose to skip the speaking assessment and focus on pencil-paper-tests. Thus, this research is conducted to discover and reveal ways of assessing young learners’ speaking ability. B. Identification of the Problem Based on the background above, the speaking assessment techniques used for young learners should be different from the adult. It should be suited with their cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical development. As we looked upon Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices by Brown (2010) and integrated it with curriculum standard in Indonesia, KTSP 2006, young learners will be better to be assessed in imitative and intensive speaking categories, such as imitating teachers’ saying, directed response tasks, read-aloud tasks, and dialogue completion tasks. Alternative assessments such as interviews and conferences can also be applied for them. C. Limitation of the Problem In this research, the problem will be focused on the speaking assessment techniques in the fifth grade of three selected elementary schools in Padang. D. Formulation of the Problem * What kind of speaking assessment technique used by elementary school English teachers? * Why do they use such techniques? E. Purpose of the Research The purpose of this research is to discover and reveal the technique used by English teachers to assess elementary school students’ speaking ability. F. Significance of the Research Theoretically, this research is aimed to give a description of how speaking assessment for young learners done in Indonesia. Practically, some techniques used by English teachers provided here can be a source of alternative speaking assessment. CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE A. The Nature of Assessment There has been various explanation of what assessment is. Brindley (as stated in Linse, 2005) refers assessment as â€Å"collecting information and making judgments on a learner’s knowledge†. It means that in assessing students, we need to find out what students know about the subject being taught and how far that understanding has reached the learning indicator. In the same line with Brindley but with an addition, Brown (2010) states assessment as â€Å"an ongoing process of collecting information about a given object of interest according to procedures that are systematic and substantively grounded.† In his statement above, Brown implies that the process of collecting and judging students’ understanding is not done orderly in one single time; it is done continuously. Harris and McCann (1994) also give an essential note that in doing assessment teachers have to measure the performance of their students and the progress they make, as well as diagnose the problems they have and provide useful feedback. In other words, collecting and judging students’ intelligence is not enough; finding out what becomes students’ problem and giving advice to them to overcome the problems is also important to create a more successful learning process. Based on the theories above, it can be seen that assessment involves collecting information about students’ knowledge and judging their understanding in order to diagnose the learning problems they have so that students can get useful feedback to be more-successful learners. B. The Nature of Speaking As stated in the previous chapter, today’s English teaching focuses more on communicative purpose of language learning than in the past. It leads to the more important consideration of speaking skills than in previous time. Just like assessment, there is also various definition of speaking. One of them is from Lingua Links (1998) that defines speaking as productive skill in the oral mode that involves more than just pronouncing words. Referring to today’s communicative view, of course speaking cannot be thought as just pronouncing words; it needs to be meaningful, and communicative. Furthermore, Noonan (2003) states that, if pronunciation included, speaking involves three areas: mechanics (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary), functions (transaction and interaction), and social cultural norms and rules (turn-taking, rate of speech, etc). All of them are connected to each other and prove that speaking is not only about what is uttered, but also the meaning and social purpose. C. The Nature of Young Learners Young learner is a child who is in their first six year of formal education, from age 6 to 12 (Teaching Knowledge Test Young Learners: Handbook for Teachers, 2010). Many experts argue that it is beneficial to teach the children English since young age. TKT Young Learners (2010) notes one of the advantages that those children will have positive self-esteem toward English and it will help them to learn English more once they are adult. That is why teaching English to young learners considered important today. However, young learners have characteristics that make them different from the adults (Teaching Knowledge Test Young Learners: Handbook for Teachers, 2010). First, they are still morally, cognitively, psychologically developed. Based on Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, children in age 6-12 years old are still in concrete operational thought stage, they already have the ability to do logical reasoning and understand reversibility with the help of concrete objects (Santrock, 1998). It means that explaining theory will not do for them, we need to make them move, do games, sing, etc. Second, young learners often have no obvious reason for learning English. Unlike adults who want to do it because of the career-related reasons or teenagers that do it to pass an exam, young learners do not have concrete reason why they must learn English. However, it does not mean they are not motivated to learn English; their goodwill, energy, and curiosity to learning overcome that. Third, they may not always have well-developed literacy skills to support their learning of English. Many children in the age of 6-12 years old are just getting to know their first language. It means that as a teacher we need to not have too-high expectation and do more. Fourth, young learners often learn slowly and forget quickly. It is related to the first characteristic that young learners are still developed morally, socially, and cognitively. Their still-ongoing developments in those basic things make them forget easily and learn slowly. This is why songs, agmes, and chants do best for them. D. Principles of Assessing Young Learners According to METU Open Course Ware (2006), principles of assessing children’s language learning are: 1. Assessment should be seen from a learning-centered perspective. It means that we cannot get a true assessment by testing kids what they can do alone. It has been stated by many experts that the goal of learning English is to be able to communicate meaningfully in English. Testing students, let alone young children, as a tool to get true assessment will not congruent with the real goal of English learning and it will just be wasting time. 2. Assessment should support learning and teaching. This is something that is not also becomes a problem with young learners, but also with the adult. Before performance-based assessment is introduced, teachers chose paper-and-pencil tests as their source of assessing (Puppin, 2006). It becomes a problematic then since students do not see the connection between the learning and the test they are doing, ; they see them as two different incongruent things. If the assessment done is congruent with the learning they did, children will feel that what they have learned is useful. 3. Children and parents should understand assessment issues. Their understanding will make the assessment process more meaningful since they can participate and supports greatly on behave of children’s English development. On the other hand, if they do not understand why the teacher does this and that, there will be no good communication between these three subjects to help children’s development. E. Techniques of Speaking Assessment Brown (2010) states some techniques of speaking assessment based on students’ language development level: Imitative Speaking This kind of assessment is intended to see whether students can imitate saying in English correctly. Eventhough it focuses on the accuracy of repeating words, it does not mean that it cannot be communicative and meaningful. Besides, in recent years many experts have discovered that an overemphasis on fluency can sometimes lead to the decline of accuracy in speech. Intensive Speaking There are four tasks in this kind of assessing: directed response task, oral questionnaire, and picture-cued task. In oral questionnaires, students are first given time to read the dialogue to get its main idea and to think about the appropriate lines to fill in. Then, as the tape, teacher produces one part orally; the students respond. In directed response task, students elicit a particular grammatical form of a transformation of a sentence. Such tasks are clearly mechanical and not communicative, but they do require minimal processing of meaning in order to produce the correct grammatical output. Picture-cued task requires a description from the students. Pictures may be very simple, designed to elicit a word or a phrase, or composed of a series that tells a story or incident. This task is meaningful since sometime a little sense of humor is injected. Responsive Speaking Assessment of responsive tasks involves brief interactions with an interlocutor, differing from intensive tasks in increased creativity given to the student and from interactive tasks by somewhat limited length of utterances. The kinds of this assessment are question and answer, giving instructions and directions, and paraphrasing. Questions and answers involve oral interaction with teacher.

The After-Life of Slavery - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1149 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2019/07/03 Category Literature Essay Level High school Tags: Beloved Essay Slavery Essay Did you like this example? The After-life of Slavery In the book beloved, we are introduced to many different characters the setting is after slavery to a home where Sethe lives in. Before Sethe moved to 124 home, she lived on the plantation sweet home. She escapes from the underground railroad by the help of a woman. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The After-Life of Slavery" essay for you Create order Before, Sethe didnt want to have her children go through slavery as she did. Throughout the book beloved, you see it focused on her older daughter, which she called Beloved. Throughout the book, you see the different relationships in the book to where you see the characters try to move forward after slavery. You will see how Beloved affected her life after slavery, making Sethe more emotional and guiltier through the time of her freedom. Firstly, in the first chapter in the book, you get a little background about the characters. We are introduced to Baby Suggs, which is Sethe mother-in-law. She is very sad after slavery because she lost all her children besides Halle. Baby Suggs doesnt know where Halle is. Paul D is introduced. A friend of Sethe and Halle at the plantation Sweet home. We see a very deep connection and relationship with Paul D and Sethe. When Paul D escape from sweet home the goes to 124. This was a friendly relationship he had with her. When Sethe was talking to her other daughter Denver. Denver asked what her mother was thinking about. Sethe told Denver she was thinking about the memories she has. Sethe seems to believe that the past will repeat itself. The one thing to see in the novel is how Sethe is trying to protect her children from the world. She thought killing Beloved was the best choice she has because she didnt want her children going through a life of slavery as she did. Even though they are free Sethe tries to protect Denver in the same context by informing her that the past can repeat itself. Sethe is trying to move forward into freedom and wants her daughter to make the right decisions in the future. Also, Sethe way of relaxing was a place called Clearing. She takes Denver and Beloved with her. Before Baby Suggs became depressed. Sethe blames herself because she left Halle behind. She would cry and la ugh to make herself feel better. She also wanted to love herself for who she was. This was Sethe way of moving forward to freedom with her Daughter Denver. To let go of all the things she didnt love about herself and try to let them go in these moments. She continues to talk about her past with Denver, how she escapes slavery while she was pregnant with her. She describes how she was protected and how she got to 124. We see Denver and Sethe Relationship change one, because of Beloved and two because of Paul D. Denver didnt care too much for Paul D and Sethe relationship, this made things difficult as they tried to move forward. We see the relationship of moving forward with Baby Suggs and Sethe after she escapes. She sits with Baby Suggs, Sethe seems to be calling at her mother-in-law as if she needs to be comforted. Once Sethe tries to turn for her Baby Suggs for comfort she finds that she is being strangled by her. Beloved comes to confront her and make sure she is okay. Sethe pushed Beloved from her. Denver is thinking that Beloved is the one strangled Sethe. Baby Suggs has a connection with Sethe because of Baby Suggs Son Halle, which Sethe wanted to marry. Baby Sugg wanted to know where her son is, and this is how the relationship between Sethe and Baby Sugg started. Sethe and Baby Suggs were both sad of the lost. Baby Suggs didnt know where Halle is and Sethe is morn for Beloved. Moving forward they found ways to clear their thoughts. Baby Suggs later fell into a deep depression and died because of the effects of slavery Secondly, you see the afterlife of slavery through beloved. Throughout the novel, you are to believe she still alive but actually, she isnt. Sethe is still grieving the loss of her daughter and see Sethe. As beloved is living with Sethe and Denver they start to care for her. Even though she doesnt seem to be sick or anything. It shows that Sethe has sympathy for Beloved. Sethe tries to be more caring for Beloved than anyone else. Throughout the entire novel, you see that Sethe try to put the death of her daughter so deep back where she actually forgets and take her in to care for her. This shows how mentally slavery affected people even after slavery ended. Sethe becomes more open with her daughters about her past and the choice she made. Part of the reason why is because Beloved is back in her life. The choices she made with Beloved make her realized that she has to be more open with her other daughter Denver. Beloved starts to hang around the house more epically with Denver. Once Denver sees Beloved actions she starts to wonder if she can Stop Beloved from hurting Sethe. Paul D seems to want to be more than just friends with Sethe. When he is free, the first thing he does is try to find Sethe. Once they reconnected you see them trying to move forward after slavery, even though they still shared stories about the plantation. Even though they shared their hard times they still want to move forward with their lives. Paul D, Denver, and Sethe goes to a carnival for Blacks enjoy themselves. At this point they all are happy. After Paul D discovered what Sethe did to her eldest daughter he left to figure out what is next from him. He tries to make Beloved understand why her mother killed her. Paul D tries to find comfort with Sethe because of he like her. He wanted to move forward with her and realize that what he wanted after slavery wasnt all he wanted to be. It was difficult after slavery finding love and what was next for them. In conclusion, Through Beloved, we see how difficult life after slavery affected everyone. From moving forward to where to go, with moving on from the emotional pain of the death of Sethe oldest Daughter. Even though slavery ended, it was still a challenge for African Americans to move forward with their lives. It took Sethe 18 years after and some to grieve her daughter death. In the book, Paul D talks to Sethe. Sethe said, She was my best thing (). You see Sethe is more caring for Beloved after slavery, while Sethe and Denver explained the events leading up to when they came to 124. Beloved makes everyone question the past, while they still try to move forward. She is the after life for them.