Lesson plan
Ambition
Ambition is a character trait that describes people who are driven to better their station or to succeed at lofty goals. It has been categorized both as a virtue and as a vice. The use of the word "ambitious" in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1599), for example, points to its use to describe someone who is ruthless in seeking out positions of power and influence: : The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault. Today, however, someone may be described as "ambitious" who has more benevolent aspirations: someone who has lofty goals, drive, initiative, tenacity, and the pursuit of excellence. Aristotle encountered the same ambiguity in Greek, where philotimos (φιλότιμος) (ambition) and aphilotimos (ἀφιλότιμος) (lack of ambition) each had positive or negative connotations depending on the context. He was unable to discover a good term that unambiguously described the desirable golden mean for this trait: "as there is no recognized term for the observance of the mean, the extremes fight, so to speak, for what seems an empty place".
Article summary
Ambition is a character trait that describes people who are driven to better their station or to succeed at lofty goals. It has been categorized both as a virtue and as a vice. The use of the word "ambitious" in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1599), for example, points to its use to describe someone who is ruthless in seeking out positions of power and influence: : The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault. Today, however, someone may be described as "ambitious" who has more benevolent aspirations: someone who has lofty goals, drive, initiative, tenacity, and the pursuit of excellence. Aristotle encountered the same ambiguity in Greek, where philotimos (φιλότιμος) (ambition) and aphilotimos (ἀφιλότιμος) (lack of ambition) each had positive or negative connotations depending on the context. He was unable to discover a good term that unambiguously described the desirable golden mean for this trait: "as there is no recognized term for the observance of the mean, the extremes fight, so to speak, for what seems an empty place".
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.