That reminds me: Telos has the same ambiguity in Greek that “end” has in English. In the Physics Aristotle says something like “The poet was being unintentionally humorous when he wrote [of a dead man], ‘He has now reached the telos for which he was born,’ for it is not just any final stage that counts as a telos [i.e., in this context, i.e. a telos-FOR-WHICH], but only the best.”
In 1978, at the first Cato Summer Seminar, I scrawled on the blackboard, “The end of politics is the end of politics.” Of course, by one notion of politics, this isn’t true.
Thomas Paine’s use of the phrase from Common Sense is a bit more involved but works just as well: Wherefore security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows , that whatever form it thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.
Unintentionally hilarious.
That’s excellent. I can’t believe no one noticed that before.
That reminds me: Telos has the same ambiguity in Greek that “end” has in English. In the Physics Aristotle says something like “The poet was being unintentionally humorous when he wrote [of a dead man], ‘He has now reached the telos for which he was born,’ for it is not just any final stage that counts as a telos [i.e., in this context, i.e. a telos-FOR-WHICH], but only the best.”
Isn’t that sentence a direct quote from the Politeia? I seem to remember reading something equally ambiguous there.
In 1978, at the first Cato Summer Seminar, I scrawled on the blackboard, “The end of politics is the end of politics.” Of course, by one notion of politics, this isn’t true.
Yeah, and “end” in the goal-oriented sense is likewise ambiguous between goals actually pursued and goals that should be pursued.
“Liberty ought to be the direct end of your government.”—Patrick Henry
I remember reading this quote to a friend from here: http://blog.mises.org/archives/006628.asp And my friend was puzzled until I explained the ambiguity away.
Thomas Paine’s use of the phrase from Common Sense is a bit more involved but works just as well: Wherefore security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows , that whatever form it thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.
A true end of government will be security.