that
y
. But most “ends” are just, themselves, means to other ends. We gas up our car to go to the store, go to the store to buy printer paper, buy printer paper to send out our résumé, send out our résumé to get a job, get a job to make money, make money to buy food, buy food to stay alive, stay alive to … well, what, exactly, is the goal of
living
?
There’s one end, only one, Aristotle says, which doesn’t give way to some other end behind it. The name for this end, εuδauovia in Greek—we write it “eudaimonia”—has various translations: “happiness” is the most common, and “success” and “flourishing” are others. Etymologically, it means something along the lines of “well-being of spirit.” I like “flourishing” best as a translation—it doesn’t allow for the superficially hedonistic or passive pleasures that can sometimes sneak in under the umbrella of “happiness” (eating Fritos often makes me “happy,” but it’s not clear that I “flourish” by doing so), nor the superficially competitive and potentially cutthroat aspects of“success” (I might “succeed” by beating my middle school classmate at paper football, or by getting away with massive investor fraud, or by killing a rival in a duel, but again, none of these seems to have much to do with “flourishing”). Like the botanical metaphor underneath it, “flourishing” suggests transience, ephemerality, a kind of process-over-product emphasis, as well as the sense—which is crucial in Aristotle—of doing what one is meant to do, fulfilling one’s promise and potential.
Another critical strike against “happiness”—and a reason that it’s slightly closer to “success”—is that the Greeks don’t appear to care about what you actually
feel
. Eudaimonia is eudaimonia, whether you recognize and experience it or not. You can think you have it and be wrong; you can think you
don’t
have it and be wrong. 8
Crucial to eudaimonia is—“arete”—translated as “excellence” and “fulfillment of purpose.” Arete applies equally to the organic and the inorganic: a blossoming tree in the spring has arete, and a sharp kitchen knife chopping a carrot has it.
To borrow from a radically different philosopher—Nietzsche—“There is nothing better than what is good! and that is: to have a certain kind of capacity and to use it.” In a gentler, slightly more botanical sense, this is Aristotle’s point too. And so the task he sets out for himself is to figure out the capacity of humans. Flowers are meant to bloom; knives are meant to cut; what are we meant to do?
Aristotle’s Sentence; Aristotle’s Sentence Fails
Aristotle took what I think is a pretty reasonable approach and decided to address the question of humans’ purpose by looking atwhat capacities they had that animals lacked. Plants could derive nourishment and thrive physically; animals seemed to have wills and desires, and could move and run and hunt and create basic social structures; but only humans, it seemed, could
reason
.
Thus, says Aristotle, the human arete lies in contemplation—“perfect happiness is a kind of contemplative activity,” he says, adding for good measure that “the activity of the gods … must be a form of contemplation.” We can only imagine how unbelievably convenient a conclusion this is for a
professional philosopher
to draw—and we may rightly suspect a conflict of interest. Then again, it’s hard to say whether his conclusions derived from his lifestyle or his lifestyle derived from his conclusions, and so we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Plus, who among us wouldn’t have some self-interest in describing their notion of “the most human human”? Still, despite the grain of salt that “thinkers’ praise of thinking” should have been taken with, the emphasis they placed on reason seemed to stick.
The Cogito
The emphasis on reason has its backers in Greek thought, not just with Aristotle.
y
. But most “ends” are just, themselves, means to other ends. We gas up our car to go to the store, go to the store to buy printer paper, buy printer paper to send out our résumé, send out our résumé to get a job, get a job to make money, make money to buy food, buy food to stay alive, stay alive to … well, what, exactly, is the goal of
living
?
There’s one end, only one, Aristotle says, which doesn’t give way to some other end behind it. The name for this end, εuδauovia in Greek—we write it “eudaimonia”—has various translations: “happiness” is the most common, and “success” and “flourishing” are others. Etymologically, it means something along the lines of “well-being of spirit.” I like “flourishing” best as a translation—it doesn’t allow for the superficially hedonistic or passive pleasures that can sometimes sneak in under the umbrella of “happiness” (eating Fritos often makes me “happy,” but it’s not clear that I “flourish” by doing so), nor the superficially competitive and potentially cutthroat aspects of“success” (I might “succeed” by beating my middle school classmate at paper football, or by getting away with massive investor fraud, or by killing a rival in a duel, but again, none of these seems to have much to do with “flourishing”). Like the botanical metaphor underneath it, “flourishing” suggests transience, ephemerality, a kind of process-over-product emphasis, as well as the sense—which is crucial in Aristotle—of doing what one is meant to do, fulfilling one’s promise and potential.
Another critical strike against “happiness”—and a reason that it’s slightly closer to “success”—is that the Greeks don’t appear to care about what you actually
feel
. Eudaimonia is eudaimonia, whether you recognize and experience it or not. You can think you have it and be wrong; you can think you
don’t
have it and be wrong. 8
Crucial to eudaimonia is—“arete”—translated as “excellence” and “fulfillment of purpose.” Arete applies equally to the organic and the inorganic: a blossoming tree in the spring has arete, and a sharp kitchen knife chopping a carrot has it.
To borrow from a radically different philosopher—Nietzsche—“There is nothing better than what is good! and that is: to have a certain kind of capacity and to use it.” In a gentler, slightly more botanical sense, this is Aristotle’s point too. And so the task he sets out for himself is to figure out the capacity of humans. Flowers are meant to bloom; knives are meant to cut; what are we meant to do?
Aristotle’s Sentence; Aristotle’s Sentence Fails
Aristotle took what I think is a pretty reasonable approach and decided to address the question of humans’ purpose by looking atwhat capacities they had that animals lacked. Plants could derive nourishment and thrive physically; animals seemed to have wills and desires, and could move and run and hunt and create basic social structures; but only humans, it seemed, could
reason
.
Thus, says Aristotle, the human arete lies in contemplation—“perfect happiness is a kind of contemplative activity,” he says, adding for good measure that “the activity of the gods … must be a form of contemplation.” We can only imagine how unbelievably convenient a conclusion this is for a
professional philosopher
to draw—and we may rightly suspect a conflict of interest. Then again, it’s hard to say whether his conclusions derived from his lifestyle or his lifestyle derived from his conclusions, and so we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Plus, who among us wouldn’t have some self-interest in describing their notion of “the most human human”? Still, despite the grain of salt that “thinkers’ praise of thinking” should have been taken with, the emphasis they placed on reason seemed to stick.
The Cogito
The emphasis on reason has its backers in Greek thought, not just with Aristotle.
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