Aristotle – How to live a good life
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Aristotle – How to live a good life
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Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#2My empirical study of happy people comes down to these three points:
* Have low expectations
* Enjoy simple things
* Don't care too muchRe: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#3> 2400 years ago Aristotle found out how to be happy.
Citation needed
> First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function.
Something can be good or even the best without being unique, in fact we can only say things are good relatively to other things in a similar category, otherwise we cannot know. Good or bad only makes sense by comparison and uniqueness is rarely the factor.
> what is unique about humans: We have a soul that thinks and feels
Have you ever interacted with a dog for more than 30 seconds?
Philosophers are very good at telling others how to be happy while living miserable lives.
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#4> 2400 years ago Aristotle found out how to be happy. Citation needed > First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function. Something can be good or even the best without being unique, in fact we can only say things are good relatively to other things in a similar category, otherwise we cannot know. Good or bad only makes sense by comparison and uniqueness is rarely the factor. >…
May we stand judged by our own actions and words and not by SEO posts portraying them :p Aristotle is well worth reading for someone interested in philosophy, but he himself did not claim to have discovered how to be happy (he thought of himself as explicating and systematizing what everyone thinks about happiness), his notion of telos (poorly translated as 'function') is not subject to your rightly raised objection, and, though he did believe that humans are distinguished from non-human animals by possession of a rational faculty, he thought we shared with non-human animals the capacity to feel.
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#5> First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function.
Like a nuclear weapon?
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#6> First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function. Like a nuclear weapon?
Aristotle's conception of the goodness of a thing (which is not convincingly conveyed by the author) is essentially normatively neutral; a good knife qua knife for Aristotle is one that cuts well as a good nuclear weapon is one which is destructive. Using a nuclear weapon might not be good but just as a gun might be well-designed without being well-used I don't think it is too normatively concerning to be able to identify something as being a good example of its kind (a well-designed nuclear weapon), though I could be wrong!
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#7> We cannot study rules for proper behaviour. Instead, we must train our character through habituation to find the right mean appropriate to the circumstances.
> Are we born with those virtues?
> No.
Well, Aristotle also speaks about "starting points" and claims there's a great weight for "habituation" as much as those "starting points" (your genetics, your talents, your environment growing up). So that's important also to say.
"People like that [with the right upbringing] either already have, or can easily grasp, [the right] principles. If neither of those applies to you... well, Hesiod says it best:
Best of them all is a man
who relies on his own understanding.
how to take good advice when he hears it.
and unwilling to listen to others,
then, sorry, you're pretty much hopeless."
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#8> 2400 years ago Aristotle found out how to be happy. Citation needed > First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function. Something can be good or even the best without being unique, in fact we can only say things are good relatively to other things in a similar category, otherwise we cannot know. Good or bad only makes sense by comparison and uniqueness is rarely the factor. >…
You're splitting hairs and attacking choices of words that were not made by Aristotle, but the author in trying to summarize Aristotle. You need to put away this sort of sophistry if you want to engage with philosophy.
Like
> > what is unique about humans: We have a soul that thinks and feels
> Have you ever interacted with a dog for more than 30 seconds?
You're engaging with half a sentence. The important part is thinks.
Aristotle and Plato broke down the human soul into three parts. A hungry part that we share with plants, animals and other humans, an emotional part that we share with animals, and a rational "thinking" part that humans alone possess (though later thinkers like Pico della Mirandola suggest we share it with the angels).
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#9My empirical study of happy people comes down to these three points: * Have low expectations * Enjoy simple things * Don't care too much
I think it's fundamentally important to care deeply about some things e.g. your craft. As you tend to find joy when you're deep in flow state.I'd also add:
* Don't argue with people on the internet
You'd be inherently happier, also:
* Enjoy irony when you can
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#10> 2400 years ago Aristotle found out how to be happy. Citation needed > First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function. Something can be good or even the best without being unique, in fact we can only say things are good relatively to other things in a similar category, otherwise we cannot know. Good or bad only makes sense by comparison and uniqueness is rarely the factor. >…
You're splitting hairs and attacking choices of words that were not made by Aristotle, but the author in trying to summarize Aristotle. You need to put away this sort of sophistry if you want to engage with philosophy. Like > > what is unique about humans: We have a soul that thinks and feels > Have you ever interacted with a dog for more than 30 seconds? You're engaging with half a sentence. The important part is th…
Dogs think. Someone not having this basic knowledge of the world is surprising.
And I've read plenty of philosophy and engage with it just fine. I think it's perfectly fine to break apart the basic premises of something because you avoid wasting the time reading the conclusions.
And in fact my criticism is to the author, not to Aristotle or Plato, although I don't agree with all that I've read that they wrote they were much smarter than me. I just have been able to read way more than them.