Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness

>He thought some humans were slaves by nature and women were naturally inferior to men.

These are unfortunately still all too common beliefs. The latter has mostly been folded into racial essentialism and racial realist beliefs, because slavery is no longer legal (13th amendment loophole notwithstanding) and you can still find people arguing women are intellectually inferior and incapable of rational thought.

The whole anti-DEI movement is based on the premise that non-whites and women categorically don't deserve the same status in the workforce as white men, and the only reason they have "equality" is due to anti-white racism.

Specifically, meaning making. The same situation can be perceived as negative, neutral, or positive all depending on how the individual interprets it.

The classic example that's a bit wrong is a glass of water half empty or half full.

The true optimist doesn't see it as half full, he sees it as full. Half with water, half with air (being grateful for the air as well.)

The neutral person sees it as half full, and the depressive sees it as half empty.

It's helpful to read the ethics in light of the metaphysics. Beings aren't fixed but actualize their (possibly-growing) capabilities. Happiness lies in friendship, not fame or power or wealth, not because they're not good to have, but because for we humans as intelligent, social, self-aware beings, we can only actualize our craft and self-understanding in the context of others with some understanding of the craft and insight into each other, particularly with respect to building character, one's own and others'.

The first section is simple but profound: all beings strive for the good for themselves, so we have a starting point to address the good of each and possibly all even across fundamental differences.

> he has some pretty messed up and weird views

They do, but by insisting on rationalizing any view rather than leaving it as a religious given, he sets the stage for destroying bias. Remember, Aristotle trained Alexander, and Alexander's military was successful because they embraced rather than destroying the people conquered (if they didn't fight back), and they even lost a fair bit of his Greek ways.

> 11. “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

That's a poor way of framing his beliefs about this. The correct framing is more like “Virtue and being a Good Human Being is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

Happiness should stem from being a good human being; happiness itself is not the origin of virtue or purpose.

If personal sacrifice brings genuine well-being to your family or community, that could be a very virtuous and rewarding thing to do, and as such, should make you content and satisfied with your actions and their outcomes. That's how you find eudaemonia; that state of 'happiness' he's describing. While you haven't sought out your immediate personal happiness or gratification, you can still feel good in a morally derivative, intellectual manner (which could also make you genuinely happy or content, too). The bible is big on this theme, as well.

Humans are political animals to Aristotle, and our prosociality and duty to others was crucial to how we measured ourselves and our obligations to society. Personal happiness in a contemporary, conventional sense wasn't very important in that scope. Our ability to be satisfied with, and take gratification from, our service to others was a major part of how you'd derive that contentedness and eudaimonic state of mind.

It seems important to make that distinction, because most people's interpretation of that quote (I don't think it's an actual quote) would be relatively hedonic or epicurean. Everything you do should be in the pursuit of feeling good.

Women and men have identical dental anatomy, so no, it's not wisdom teeth. Women would technically be earlier and thus have more, if you get into the details.

Aristotle has flaws, that's all.

I love his work on happiness. On the academic side of Philosophy, I believe his conception stands alongside what is typically called "Hedonism" defining the two major schools of thought, obviously with modern takes and twists. See the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on "Happiness" if you're interested.