Aristotle Archives - Chris Carosa

Busting The ‘If We Ain’t Growing, We’re Dying’ Myth

By Chris Carosa on November 16, 2021

Daedalus carefully showed his son how to apply the wax to affix the feathers to his shoulders and arms. “These wings will work,” he said. “We will finally be free of this prison.”

Ironically, it was Daedalus himself who had created the Labyrinth, a vexing array of “intricate passageways and blind alleys” (at least according to Merriam-Webster). Anyone – or anything – imprisoned in this complicated maze found it nearly impossible to escape. Indeed, mythology claimed only Theseus was able to find his way out of Daedalus’ Labyrinth (primarily because Daedalus gave him a big hint).

Why did Daedalus build the Labyrinth? To imprison the Minotaur, a half-man/half-bull monster (whose origin story is not fit to print in a family newspaper). BTW, Theseus went into the Labyrinth to kill the Minotaur (something to do with the ancient Greek version of Continue Reading “Busting The ‘If We Ain’t Growing, We’re Dying’ Myth”

Posted in Business Tips, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged acquisition, Ariadne, Aristotle, business strategy, Daedalus, debt, Doctrine of the Mean, growth, Icarus, Labyrinth, Minos, Minotaur, risk, The Nicomachean Ethics, Theseus, virtue

The Italian-American Triumvirate: #1 – God

By Chris Carosa on October 5, 2021

Each October we celebrate Italian-American Heritage Month. The month is obviously chosen in honor of the Italian that most influenced America: Christopher Columbus. Of course, Columbus’ discovery of the New World predated the creation of the United States by about three centuries, but our country long ago adopted his journey as an inspiration for the nation.

Columbus has since been joined by many Italian immigrants who would become Italian-Americans.

That’s an important distinction: “Italian-American.” It recognizes that you are, in fact, an Continue Reading “The Italian-American Triumvirate: #1 – God”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged and Gold, Aristotle, Baptism, Catholic, Christian, Christopher Columbus, church, Confirmation, Crassius, diocese, Ethos, First Holy Communion, First Triumvirate, Fontecchio, Gaius Julius Caesar, Glory, God, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, Italian American, Italy, jesuit, John F. Kennedy, Ku Klux Klan, Logos, Marriage, Mass, Modes of Persuasion, New England, Pathos, Pompey, Protestant Ethic, rhetoric, Roman Republic, Rule of Three, Spain, SPanish, Three Kings, trium virorum, unification of Italy

Criminal Hubris: It Gets Them Every TIME

By Chris Carosa on February 9, 2021

Search for the term “criminal hubris” and chances are you won’t find anything (except, hopefully, this woeful column). We know what a criminal is. We know what hubris is. But there is no definition of “criminal hubris.”

Yet there is, and it’s staring at us right in the face. Metaphorically, it’s all around us. Cinematographically, it resides on the screens we watch. Its roots, however, lie within the body of literature – both philosophical and dramatic – we ought to be most familiar with.

Whether as a metaphor for real-life, a character in a story, or an actual crime, “criminal hubris” is easy to spot (if you’ve got a trained eye), hard to avoid (if you’re arrogant), and, best of all, wonderful to watch (because it hoists offenders with their own petard quite regularly).

Before I reveal the “7 Steps of Criminal Hubris” let’s explore the origins of “hubris” and Continue Reading “Criminal Hubris: It Gets Them Every TIME”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Aristotle, contempt, criminal, Greek, Hamlet, hubris, insolence, James Bond, James Cagney, Kuzco, Macbeth, O.J. Simpson, rhetoric, Shakespeare, slighting, spite, Superbowl, The Emperor's New Groove, Time Magazine, White Heat, World Series

It Can’t Be Both: It’s Either Science or Marketing

By Chris Carosa on July 14, 2020

This is going to sound like it’s coming out of left field, but it isn’t.

It is somewhat related to this day in history (July 16^th).

No, it’s not that it’s the day after my birthday. It’s the anniversary of the liftoff of Apollo 11. Man’s landing on the moon should be the greatest case study of inspiration, project management, and engineering. It already stands as the greatest achievement in the history of mankind.

Think about the above paragraph as you read this column.

Now, on to the real story.

Again, it’s going to sound like I’m coming out of left field, but don’t give up. Keep reading and the dots will coalesce into a constellation that makes it all clear.Continue Reading “It Can’t Be Both: It’s Either Science or Marketing”

Posted in Business Tips, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Apollo 11, Aristotle, Einstein, Galileo, marketing, Millennial, NASA, Newton, science, stock, Zoom

The Liberty of the Ad Lib

By Chris Carosa on August 20, 2019

Did you see what I did there?

“Liberty”…

“Ad Lib”…

Get it?

OK. I have to admit. It is a bit of a stretch. At least from a literal standpoint. The “lib” of “ad lib” doesn’t stand for “liberty.” It’s actually the short form of the Latin phrase ad libitum.

Ad libitum literally translates to “at one’s pleasure.” There’s no “liberty” in it at all. Our word “liberty” derives from the Latin word liber. In Latin, liber and libitum mean two different, albeit not wholly unrelated, things.

The Latin liber means “free” or “unrestricted.” You can easily see how we get “liberty” from Continue Reading “The Liberty of the Ad Lib”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged America, Aristotle, Bill Murray, Caddyshack, Chevy Chase, comedians, comedy, Foundiing Fathers, freedom, Grateful Dead, John Locke, Kodak Center, Libertarian, Marx Brothers, Natural Rights, Rodney Danferfield, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine

This is What Public Speakers Can Learn from Aristotle’s Greatest Mistake

By Chris Carosa on January 15, 2019

Spoiler Alert: I can only reveal once you fully appreciate the useful parts of Aristotle’s idea.

Have you ever had to – or will you ever have to – speak in front of an audience? It could have been (or be) an audience of one hundred or an audience of one. In either case, you may have noticed what happens when you’re in the audience watching other people speak. Sometimes you enjoy the presentation, sometimes you’re bored to tears. And it’s not based on the nature of the subject.

Here’s why.

Most speakers employ some variation of Aristotle’s Model of Communication. While roughly based on his Treatise on Rhetoric, it does not directly incorporate the persuasive tools Aristotle outlines in that classic volume. Indeed, neither does it involve the five canons of rhetoric, although this makes more sense since Cicero identified them centuries after Aristotle’s death.

Still, despite the lack of these important communication components, there’s another, more important, reason why Aristotle’s Model of Communication often fails. To best grasp the reason for this failure – and how to either avoid it or take advantage of it – you need to understand why this model has been both popular and effective.Continue Reading “This is What Public Speakers Can Learn from Aristotle’s Greatest Mistake”

Posted in Great Speaking Tips, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Advertising, Aristotle, audience, communication, effect, Harold D. Lasswell, Institutio Oratoria, Marcus Fabius Quntinlianus, Model of Communication, occasion, Persuasion, Quintilian, rhetoric, Speaker, Speech, Treatise on Rhetoric

Are You an Instigator, a Skeptic, or Merely Somebody Else’s Tool?

By Chris Carosa on November 14, 2017

They say the world is made up of two types of people. They’re wrong. The world consists of three types of people, but two of those types get all the press.

Journalists like to frame issues in a binary fashion – one side against another. That’s simple. It’s black and white. It’s A versus B. Reporters don’t do this because they can’t handle the complexity of multiple opposing points of view. They structure their stories as a duel between competing interests because readers find those stories easiest to digest. The audience finds such pairings quite familiar. Literature is replete with examples: Ahab vs. Moby Dick, Sherlock Holmes vs. Professor Moriarty, and Bambi vs. Godzilla, to name a few.

It’s not just drama. Philosophy often has an attraction to complimentary combinations. We see this most markedly in the Taoist notion of “dualistic-monism” as expressed in the Continue Reading “Are You an Instigator, a Skeptic, or Merely Somebody Else’s Tool?”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Ahab, Anaximander, argumentum ad populum, Aristotle, Bambi, Civil War, complementarity, dualistic-monism, Einstein, Founding Fathers, Galileo, Godzilla, Heraclitus, Instigator, journalism, Loyalists, Moby Dick, Moriarty, Newton, Oneness, quantum physics, Relativity, Revolutionary War, Sherlock Holmes, Skeptic, Star Wars, Taoism, Tool, watchdog, yang, yin

Deeds, Not Words

By Chris Carosa on February 23, 2016

If you think that title might sound heretical coming from a wordsmith, just wait ‘til you read the rest of this column.

Say what you will about former Buffalo Bills coach Doug Marrone (I never thought he was cut out for the job), but he did leave one indelible mark in my brain: “Don’t confuse effort with results.” This was one of the bromides that he posted on the walls of the Ralph Wilson Fieldhouse for all his players (and Bills fans) to stare at. In a nutshell, it’s what Yoda told Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back: “Do or do not, there is no try.”

We’re all told to try our best. That’s fine. But we need to accept that it’s not good enough. When you try something, the result is you either succeed or fail. That’s all there is to it. There is Continue Reading “Deeds, Not Words”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged accomplishment, Aristotle, Buffalo Bills, Civilization, Doug Marrone, effort, Einstein, Galileo, Luke Skywalker, Newton, Ralph Wilsdon FieldHouse, success, The Empire Strikes Back, Thomas Edison, Yoda

Summertime Stargazing

By Chris Carosa on July 7, 2011

[This Commentary originally appeared in the July 5, 1990 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

I love the summer. Longer daylight hours means we can do a lot more. It also means, after a good day’s work, we can still spend some relaxing time with our family and neighbors.

Sitting on the porch gently taking in the sights and sounds of nature and our community, we savor the twilight of the day. The last lick of sunlight long since set, we slowly mellow with the sky. Our light conversation goes as smoothly as the transition from dusk to dark.

It is this time of day I enjoy the best. Surrounded by close comrades and all the chores done, I can now look heavenward. For some reason, I still get a kick out of finding the Continue Reading “Summertime Stargazing”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Antares, Aquila, Aristotle, astronomy, astronomytop100, Cygnus, Kant, Lyra, Mars, Milky Way, philosophy, Plato, Sagittarius, Scorpio, Summer Triangle

3 Critical Points Every Great Speaker Must Address

By Chris Carosa on November 6, 2009

Every speaker wants to know the answer to this question: How do I make my presentation more effective, more memorable and more exciting for the audience. Aristotle said it best in his book The Art of Rhetoric (ca 350BC):

Podium

Pathos – A passion for the subject.

Logos – A thorough knowledge of the subject.

Ethos – The acknowledged credibility to comment on the subject (requires Pathos and Logos).

Every aspect of speaking must address at least one (if not all three) of these areas. I hope to tell stories of how I used these in the many successful presentations I have offered to appreciative audiences.

Posted in Great Speaking Tips Tagged Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric, believable, credibility, credible, emotion, Ethos, knowledge, logic, Logos, passion, Pathos, reason, rhetoric, Speaker, Speaking, Speech, The Art of Rhetoric