Tag Archives: Happiness

Arts, Literature, Philosophy

(Philosophy): Aristotle’s teaching of ‘happiness’

HAPPINESS

Aristotle (384–322 BC): ‘Happiness is the highest good, being a realisation and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it.’

The term “polymath” is often used in a somewhat hyperbolic sense to describe a significant figure who excels in several different disciplines. In modern parlance, for example, a sportsperson who writes a newspaper column, has an interest in current affairs and wins a televised ballroom-dancing competition is often erroneously described as being a polymath.

The sheer range and depth of Aristotle’s contribution to Western philosophy cannot be underestimated. Aristotle wrote on subjects as varied as physics, metaphysics, poetry, theatre, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology, while still finding the time to study under Plato, found his own academy – the Lyceum – and act as a private tutor to the young Alexander the Great. Aristotle’s main contribution to philosophy concerns his work on the study of formal logic, collected together in a series of texts known as The Organon, and the use of “syllogisms” in deductive reasoning. In basic terms, a syllogism is a method for arriving at a conclusion through constructing a three-step series of premises, usually a major premise, A, followed by a minor premise, B, via which it is possible to deduce a proposition, C.

    For example:
    Major premise: All men are mortal.
    Minor premise: Socrates is a man.
    Conclusion/proposition: Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

In order for step C to be a viable logical proposition, step A and step B must be true.

Aristotle is often credited with “inventing” the form, although in truth he was probably just one of the first people to explore formal logic in this manner, especially the way in which logic must proceed to avoid fallacies and false knowledge. Aristotle’s systematic approach to all of the disciplines to which he turned his enquiring mind displayed a love of classification and definition, and it is possible that where words did not exist for a philosophical phenomenon, Aristotle simply made them up.

The quote at the beginning of this article about “happiness is the highest good” comes from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, a series of ten scrolls believed to be based on notes taken from his lectures at the Lyceum. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle addresses the question of what constitutes a good and virtuous life. Aristotle equates the concept of happiness with the Greek word eudaimonia, although this is not happiness in an abstract or hedonistic sense, but rather “excellence” and “well-being”. To live well, then, is to aim at doing good or the best one can, for every human activity has an outcome or cause, the good at which it aims to achieve. If humans strive to be happy, the highest good should be the aim of all actions, not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.

In this regard, Aristotle saw the pursuit of happiness as “being a realisation and perfect practice of virtue”, which could be achieved by applying reason and intellect to control one’s desires. In his view, the satisfaction of desires and the acquisition of material goods are less important than the achievement of virtue. A happy person will apply conformity and moderation to achieve a natural and appropriate balance between reason and desire, as virtue itself should be its own reward. True happiness can therefore be attained only through the cultivation of the virtues that make a human life complete. Aristotle also pointed out that the exercise of perfect virtue should be consistent throughout a person’s life: “To be happy takes a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring.”

The Nicomachean Ethics is widely considered to have had a profound effect on the development of Christian theology in the Middle Ages, largely through the work of Thomas Aquinas, who produced several important studies of Aristotle that synthesised his ideas with doctrines concerning cardinal virtues. Similarly, Aristotle’s works also had an important role to play in early Islamic philosophy, where Aristotle was revered as “The First Teacher”.

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Arts, History, Literature, Philosophy

(Philosophy): Plato on ‘play’

HAPPINESS

Plato (427–347 BC): ‘You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.’

THE authorship of this quote, often attributed to Plato, remains controversial, as it does not appear in any of the great Greek philosopher’s surviving works. Part of the issue centres on the fact that on the surface, the promotion of ‘play’ as being more indicative of truth than conversation flies in the face of the dialectic method that Plato held so dear. For Plato and Socrates, truth was the highest ideal and could only be arrived at through the exchange of rational and reasoned arguments. The purpose of the dialectic method of reasoning is the resolution of disagreement through discussion, with the aim of acquiring knowledge and establishing fact through the examination of assumptions.

Indeed, the quote seems to imply that people show their true selves more readily while playing than while conversing. It is certainly true that natural reticence and guardedness drops when one is engaged in pleasurable pursuits. However, the reverse could also be true, as competitiveness in sport and games can drive human beings to behave extremely irrationally, exhibiting passions and motivations that may not be readily discernible in everyday situations. Plato also seems to be saying that people do not always do what they say or, to use a well-worn commonplace, ‘practice what they preach’.

Perhaps, though, Plato (assuming, for the sake of argument, the quote is derived from him) is using the term ‘play’ to describe indulging the human imagination? Children play naturally from an early age and learn about the world and the society around them through imaginative play and imitation, while their understanding of play is uninhibited by adult values and constructs. One of the greatest attributes of play is the opportunity it affords for learning to live without knowing. Human beings learn through trial and error, and play is a non-threatening way to cope with new learning while still retaining self-esteem. In adulthood, human beings, encumbered with other concerns, forget how to play or indulge their imagination for its own sake. So perhaps Plato is here recommending we rediscover the pure, uncorrupted sense of the self that only play can release and reflect. This doesn’t solve the contradiction evident in the quote’s seeming rejection of the dialectical method, but is a comforting idea nonetheless.

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