Ryan writes:

a sample of real life

after filling space with juvenile movie reviews and sappy seventh-grade-ish love poetry, i figured i'd throw in a paragraph of a paper i submitted last night comparing elements of the political philosophies of Aristotle and Hobbes. as many of ya'll don't know, i am a student at the Graduate Institute at St. John's College in Annapolis. here is a tasty morsel of my spring semester:

The first point at which they differ is in the basic understanding of the end, or purpose, of man. While Aristotle sees the end of man as happiness, which is only attained through living a life of virtue, Hobbes believes that man's foremost concern is his own preservation and safety. Aristotle asserts that happiness is the private end of man, brought about by action in accordance with virtue or excellence. In addition, he believes that life in community is foundational to human existence, with his declaration that "man is by nature a social and political being." The life of happiness, then, can only be attained through living the life of virtue within the presence of others. The basic end of an individual man requires the presence of other individuals. As Aristotle states in his Politics: "The state is both natural and prior to the individual."

this was my first paper as a graduate student, and, since i haven't had it scored yet, it may have proved to be rubbish. we'll see. feel free to tell me if, indeed, it is crap. -peace.