Perennial Lives | Stoics, Saints, and Sages
The Perennial Lives series explores the life and philosophy of 12 figures (one per week), from Socrates (470—399 BC) to St. Thomas Aquinas (1225—1274). To assist us in our journey, we’ll turn to resources like Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, along with more recent works like Examined Lives by James Miller, Socrates’ Children by Peter Kreeft, and Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, and many others.
Today’s meditation is Part VII of the Perennial Lives series — The Art of Living: From Socrates to Aquinas. Previously, we discussed The Art of Living: From Socrates to Aquinas (Part I), How to Live — Like Socrates (Part II), The Life and Philosophy of Confucius (Part III), The Wisdom of Jesus (Part IV), and The Teachings of the Buddha (Part V), and How to Live — Like Lao Tzu (Part VI).
The Way of Aristotle
Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in the Macedonian town of Stagira on the north coast of the Aegean Sea. His father was a physician in the court of the King of Macedonia. The King’s grandson became Alexander the Great, to whom Aristotle later became both tutor and friend. At the age of eighteen, Aristotle took up residence in Athens and enrolled in Plato’s Academy as a student of philosophy.
In his book Aristotle for Everybody, the American philosopher Mortimer J. Adler wrote,
“Why philosophy? Why should everyone learn how to think philosophically—how to ask the kind of searching questions that children and philosophers ask and that philosophers sometimes answer? I have long been of the opinion that philosophy is everybody’s business—but not in order to get more information about the world, our society, and ourselves. For that purpose, it would be better to turn to the natural and the social sciences and to history. It is in another way that philosophy is useful—to help us to understand things we already know, understand them better than we now understand them. That is why I think everyone should learn how to think philosophically.”
“There is no better teacher than Aristotle,” according to Adler. Plato raised almost all the questions that everyone should face; Aristotle raised them too and, in addition, gave us more precise answers to them. Plato taught Aristotle how to think philosophically, but Aristotle learned the lesson so well that he is the better teacher for all of us.
Similarly, the modern-day philosopher Peter Kreeft explains in his new series Socrates’ Children that Plato is the archetype of the radical, surprising philosopher who comes to one Big Idea—while Aristotle is the archetype of well-rounded common sense.
On Living and Living Well
Socrates, who was Plato’s teacher as Plato was Aristotle’s, said that an unexamined life is not worth living. Aristotle went further and said that an unplanned life is not worth examining, for an unplanned life is one in which we do not know what we are trying to do or why and one in which we do not know where we are trying to get or how to get there, writes Adler.
In addition to not being worth examining, an unplanned life is not worth living because it cannot be lived well. To plan one’s life is to be thoughtful about it, which means thinking about ends to be pursued and the means for achieving them. Living thoughtlessly is like acting aimlessly.
Aristotle thinks that that should be obvious to all of us. He also thinks that our everyday experience shows that we all agree about it. The word he uses for living well (or for a good life) is usually translated into English as happiness (or flourishing).
Aristotle’s Ethics
According to Kreeft, “There are three fundamental ethical concepts that naturally occur to our minds, three doors through which we can enter the realm of ethics: the good, the right, and the ought.” Here is an extremely brief overview of Aristotle’s ethics:
“Good” is the most basic term in ethics, for it is only because there is a real ethical (moral) good that there are real natural rights (for we have a right to what is good, not evil) and real natural moral laws (to define goods and evils). It is only because there is a real good that there are real obligations or personal duties (for we have obligations to do good and shun evil). At the beginning of his classic Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines good as the object of desire, and as truth is the object of knowledge. When we desire something evil, that can be only because it appears as good (desirable) in some way, even though it may not really be. Thus, the desired is not necessarily the same as the desirable. […]
Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of goods: ends and means. Ends are things desired for themselves, like pleasure, beauty, or understanding. Means are things desired only for the sake of other things, to attain other things. … Since many ends are also means to further ends, the question naturally arises, then: Is there one final end of everything we desire and do? If so, what is it? What is the end of ends, the greatest good (the summum bonum), the point and purpose and goal of human life? […]
In one sense, the answer is easy, writes Kreeft. It’s what everybody seeks as the end of everything else, and never as a means to anything else. It’s happiness. But the Greek word eudaimonia that Aristotle uses here means not just subjective satisfaction or contentment but objective perfection or blessedness. It is not just feeling good but being good. It is objectively real goodness, or well-being, and not merely the mental awareness of it and the felt pleasure of it, which are the effects of its real presence to us. […]
Aristotle believed everyone seeks happiness as the end, for no one wants to be happy as a means to another end, writes Kreeft, while everyone seeks other things because they believe they will bring happiness as their end.
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Final Thoughts
The way of Aristotle can help us live a flourishing life. To be “happy,” in Aristotle’s sense, is to fulfill your human potentialities, to perfect your human nature. “Aristotle’s ethics focuses on character more than actions, laws, duties, or rights. It centers on becoming a good person,” suggests Kreeft.
How does one become a good person? Practice.
Virtue is a habit; therefore, it is acquired by practice, by repeated right choices and actions. It is neither part of human nature from the beginning nor is it against nature, but it makes up our “second nature.” We are neither innately virtuous nor innately vicious. That’s why moral education is so essential for Aristotle.
In their book The Good Life Method, Meghan Sullivan and Paul Blaschko (previous podcast guests) write,
In the fourth century BC, Aristotle opened his course on happiness by telling students, ‘We are conducting an examination . . . so that we may become good, since otherwise, there would be no benefit from it.’ You might associate philosophy with studying very abstract theories of logic, human nature, and the universe. But Aristotle thought he was teaching his students the most practical subject on earth—how they could become better at being human by learning to direct their lives toward worthy goals.
As with all of the figures throughout our perennial lives series, we merely scratched the surface of the life and philosophy of Aristotle. I hope this provided a brief reminder/introduction and inspired you to learn more!
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
P.S. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or make suggestions!
It a long long time since I read anything around Aristotle! This has sparked me to look again in my more advanced years ... but then there’s always time to learn a bit more !