Jonathan Lear sums up Aristotle's views accurately by claiming Aristotle suggests "What is best about being human is the opportunity to break out of being human." This quote illustrates how Aristotle was more focused on human agency in the pursuit of happiness. IF we can break out of being our normal, imperfect selves, happiness may be attained. Aristotle lists the certain virtues one must posses in order to achieve "secondary" happiness, for true happiness lies with the gods and contemplation. However, Aristotle's rationale also includes the acknowledgement of luck and fortune. Aristotle could not deny that some of the virtues listed are out of our control. For example, physical beauty. This is why Aristotle's basically "chosen few" who could MAYBE achieve only "secondary" happiness are inadvertently telling us that happiness is unattainable, therefore all of our lives are imperfect.
Supposedly Aristotle's views apply to more of the majority than Socrates outlook which basically three people could ever comprehend (himself included), but how does Aristotle really address the common folk? All he seems to do is tell us that the majority are condemned to misery and the lives the majority lead are imperfect. Seems like more of an offhand reference to me. Only a select few can ever even achieve "secondary" happiness? So the rest of us are screwed because we don't have every characteristic on Aristotle's laundry list of virtues? I got the impression that unless we posses every virtue AND have luck on our side, we have no chance.
Correct. I think Aristotle is starting to be on the right track as far as inclusion is concerned, but elitist connotations and undertones are still heavily implied. Having said that, Aristotle's views at least take into account the masses, even if in only some infinitesimal way, whereas Socrates did not at all.
Question: The book mentioned that Socrates along with most of the people of his time believed that humans can control their own lives in order to be happy. To what extent is this true and do people still believe this today? I’d say that most people today think that they have control over their life and therefore their happiness. I think that you can control how happy you are to an extent, but there are some things that you simply can’t control. If something bad happens to you though, what you make out of the situation can also determine your happiness, but this again has limits. Are there things that are so bad that they completely destroy someone’s happiness or are people always capable of making the best out of a situation and deciding for themselves if they are happy? Of course there are terrible things in this world that can take away our happiness, but I think we first allow those things to make us unhappy. We have the ability to keep those things from changing our happiness.
I agree with this but Socrates conception of and method of attainment for happiness are WAY different than most others. How did most Greeks seek "happiness?" Think of the Symposium...
Before Socrates, most Greeks thought happiness was attained by material or external factors and they saw happiness in the symposium as a sort of escape from their usual, miserable life. Socrates' ideas were also different because he saw happiness as a goal that was more universally attainable. Before this, most saw happiness as godlike or only a select few could get it. What I found interesting was that today in class we brought up that Socrates decided later in his life that it was actually true that only certain people could understand happiness...
I agree with what you said, Sydney, about people controlling their own happiness today. In our world today, people like to be in control of their own lives and feel threatened or uncomfortable when they are unable to do so. I do think that all people have the ability to control their own happiness in any situation. It is true that terrible things can happen to anyone, but they can still be happy even if bad things happen to them. For me personally, I believe that everyone has the ability to be happy. If sone thing terrible happens, people can do one of two things: let themselves be engulfed in their sadness or anger or they can allow themselves to cope and move on. When I say "move on", I do not mean completely forget about the event. It is important to not forget what happened because that is a part of your life. By "moving on", you should allow yourself to learn/grow from the experience. For example, a death of a person close to you is never easy to handle. But, instead of focusing on the loss of the person, you should focus on all the good aspects of them and try to help them live on through you. When I die, the last thing I want is for my family to be so focused on my leaving that they forget to live. Bad things will happen, but in order to grow and become stronger, we need to let them go. So, basically what I'm trying to say (sorry for the long tangent) is that no matter what people will be able to be happy. No obstacle is too large.
Quote: "Do the pleasures we know now suffice to quell our longings, or do they incite us, embolden us, to long for more?” The book talked a lot about how Socrates introduced the idea that humans have a natural desire for happiness. But if we are always looking to be happier, is there ever a point where we can stop and say that we are completely happy? And is there some kind of limit? If we are continuously looking to be happier how can we ever be happy at the point where we are? I think that you have to personally decide that you are happy, because if you continue to look for more happiness, you can never be happy with what you have. I think most people always want to be improving and always want more – we are never satisfied with where we are. For example, new iPhones continue to be made and released and people continue to buy the newer version. People look for a newer, better version of things that we believe will somehow be better. I’m not saying that the iPhone is a good example of happiness, but I think in the same way that we look for new and better phones, we are always searching for something bigger and better than what we have. This is a problem because we seem to never be happy with what we have, but others might say that this is a good thing because we have to continue to improve. If we aren’t happy with what we have, we try to make it better, which brings about improvements to our society. But will this cycle ever end? If we continue to do this, can we ever be happy with what we already have?
Sydney, I definitely agree with what you are saying. However, I think the idea of always wanting more CAN be a form of happiness...if that makes sense. As we drilled into the ground endlessly, the definition of happiness is subjective, so if complacency is one's definition of happiness, the idea of always wanting more is no so entreating. In contrast, if one's definition of happiness IS always wanting more and searching for bigger and better things, then more power to them I guess, but then the whole idea of happiness being a state which one enters is thrown out of whack because of the constant motion searching entails. If one can reach a state of satisfaction, the searching ends...but if searching is what makes you happy, then what? Now I've just confused myself by trying to make an argument out of nothing. But I agree with you, in any case.
Kyle, can you explain more clearly why "always wanting more" can be happiness? I am not sure if I can agree with that. Lack of satisfaction has been to shown to be one the greatest causes of NOT being happy in research.
Maybe a clearer explanation would be that people find happiness in the journey. In the adventure, overcoming obstacles I guess can make people happy. Looking back, I don't know really. I think I was trying to make an argument out of nothing.
In the Well Tempered Symposium on pages 30-32 Plato speaks of the ideal meeting f great minds void of "hard or forced drinking" or "flute girls". The men of the symposium begin to talk about Eros the God of desire and decide that he is "an immensely powerful God whose force is intimately bound up with the yearning for human happiness". The idea of desire being a powerful force is not new or void in society. Many a time in stories today or even in mythology such as Hercules saving Megara (really a servant of Hades) we see what man will do to quench desire. The guy saves the girl (or tries) and the little girls works all summer at her lemonade stand so she can buy a pogo stick. We do crazy stuff for desire, crazy stuff. Many a time, as the quote above says, we do these crazy things for the pursuit of happiness. We want that girl to see how strong we are and also possibly have some baby Herculi (i think thats right)... so we will risk our lives defeating monsters and nearly getting smashed in the process. That is dangerous. Happiness alone is not dangerous. The things that we will do to get a glimpse of it are. Eros can make us do anything he wants because he has our dream in captivity. He holds the chain connected to our happiness, and wether we like it or not, by proxy he holds a chain connected to us. Can we truly break these chains, or are they intertwined just as Plato says.
Think again of how Socrates (Plato) conceives of Eros and how it is different. This may hold the key to your chains. Why does Plato have every speak before Socrates in the Symposium and then why does ?Agathon? (can't remember the name right now) come in to the party hammered at the end?
Love. The helpless romantic in me recoils and sighs at the same time upon hearing that word. The philosopher Aristophanes says that "in the successful pursuit of love, desire or Eros is the overlord who will "[return us to our original condition, healing us, and making us perfectly happy " (McMahon 33) ... or so we think. Can something so perfect and potent really exist in this world as supposedly it will be the end all be all to our happiness conundrum. I'm going to very honest right now. I don't think loving anyone else in my life has ever made me happy (romantically). Every time I begin to love, even if the circumstances are fantastic and pure, i have always been letdown. At times i feel as though Love is a foolish hope and a scarce occurrence in the world today. Sure, you may be in a relationship. You may enjoy the other person. However, how many of you are perfectly happy? How many of you are truly at peace because you're in love. I believe the thing that makes love strong is actually the common lack of perfection and by association, happiness. The thing that makes relationships strong is unhappiness and pain and tribulation. Love doesn't bring happiness, instead it seems to brings tests. Are you in love? Oh well take this, fight over the remote for a bit because you want to watch football and he wants to watch project runway! That is Love. it is either snuffed out by challenges or it is forged like steel and becomes worthy of possible enjoyment. We must come to terms that love is not the end all be all. You will have some enjoyment and that may be fantastic, yet love is not limited to positive things.
Maybe it is your view on love. if i interpreted it correctly, you stated that love cannot bring you perfect happiness because it is either broken by conflict or strengthened by getting through said conflict. what if one where to study love as an emotion not a piece of muscle that can be trained and strength-end till it meets its limit. Love is the emotional and spiritual feeling that two people feel for each other. It has the power to make one care for the other more than themselves. Love is the bond that is still strong as ever in the middle of the conflict. In true pure love you don't look at your relationship as if we cant agree on a TV show we are not compatible. True love is not buying second TV or watching your shows at different time. Love is watching that Project Runway and learning to like it for your love. When you are in love there is no i, only we. And when one find this other person to be "we" with, there will be true happiness. and those challenges that you get through will not strengthen your relationship, it will form you and the other person little by little into that one person who has reached pure happiness.
Interesting, yet i believe that in the context of the book and the form of love that i was addressing... this love is not ideal. Love is not ideal. If you still believe in ideal love consider this. Today's marriage rate, 6.8 per 1000 people Today's divorce rate, 3.6 per 1000 people
It seems as though today's love, the supposed reason we get married, is not very strong or sucessful.
i see where you are coming from yes, but you still are looking at love as an object that can be kept in a box and taken away or broke. Pure love is a spiritual connection of finding the other half of you. There fore these divorce rates are signs that people are getting married, yet are not truly in love. one could go an entire lifetime and wake up one morning that they do not love the person they have wed. while you are right in saying love is not ideal form of bringing happiness . Finding true love is probably one of the hardest was to reach happiness next to learning to find the beauty in all the world. But, it is one of the more rewarding and satisfying routes to happiness. While it is not ideal it still grants happiness to those that have it in its purest form.
Jack, you have to keep in mind that a lot of people who marry marry for the wrong reasons. It does not always have to be for love. It could be for money or for fame to just name a couple. And people who married for love might have lost their love for their spouse, or their spouse could have done something to completely break the trust between the two, which could always lead to divorce. Maybe they didnt love eachother, but they loved a mutual thing they shared, like a love of sports, or food, or travel. Maybe it wasn't actually love that the couple felt for each other before they got married, but rather a temporary affection, or puppy love, that was outgrown or worn through, like clothes.
You both just added to the point that i made, thank you.
Thank you Connor for reminding us that love is not guaranteed a duration and that when it comes to cessation, it can cause a great revelation (usually through the form of pain and sorrow). Often times this can break us and because of our past desire for love, we get slapped in the face when we realize that the love we thought we had is gone.
Frank, thank you for exposing the impurity of today's notion of love! As you said, " a lot of people who marry marry for the wrong reasons". This is so terribly true however, if we are referring to the common definition of marriage as established by Wang, society traditionally idealizes marriage as the union of two humans out of love. So yes, many people marry for the wrong reasons and in doing so, trample upon the sacred idea of marriage and in turn, love. This must bring anguish for the couple as they must come to terms that their union is fake and that they are doomed to live with this person they don't have great feelings for or face a nasty divorce (as is true with those who marry for money and fame and have to deal with monetary distribution and the incessant criticism of the press). Oh how flawed love is, you both are so right... and i guess i am too.
No Mr. Heintz, i believe that the current definition of love being assessed is that of a modern day form. They Ancient Greeks were most likely more interested in the process and quality of sexual intercourse/ the perks that were associated with the union. I would imagine that they also used the idea of love to categorize the pure blissful and ecstatic state of lust rather than a feeling for one person. I could be wrong though.
In Aristotle's Ethics, he states that "...in every action and decision it is the end, since it is for the sake of the end that everyone does the other things." I found this to contradict Aristotle's beliefs of happiness, as depicted in Raphael's The School Of Athens. In this masterpiece, Aristotle, in "harmonious tension" with Plato, has his hand "steady in the plane of the Earth." This gesture implies that Aristotle thinks of happiness as worldly, or something that we can attain here on this Earth through our own actions. After contemplating the above paragraph, I’ve concluded that Aristotle was not, after all, contradicting himself. Instead, he was describing two forms of happiness. The first, and most important, is the form that we all strive for in the end: to live a successful life in which all of the aspects he points out in the Rhetoric come together. Since the overwhelming majority of humans do not possess all of these aspects, it is impossible, therefore, for most of us to achieve this paramount form. Besides the impossibility to achieve the primary form of happiness, all humans still desire to satisfy themselves. This is the secondary form of happiness. This is the form in which one can directly affect one’s happiness level through one’s own actions. However, this perceived form of happiness will only be momentary, therefore making it not happiness, but joyfulness. And joyfulness it should be, because it is a state of emotion one can bring upon oneself, rather than a state of being one uses to describe the lives of other people who are deceased. This joyfulness is what Aristotle is actually gesturing towards in Raphael’s painting, not the full-fledged happiness towards which Plato is doing the same.
Frank, I agree with you about the two forms of happiness, but do you agree with me that the "secondary" happiness is merely a distraction as to how to achieve true happiness? All these fleshy, earthly desires prove entrancing in the wrong way. For example, the symposium seems to serve as means to simply distract us from the fact that we are indeed inadequate. Honestly, I would probably do this too though if someone (Aristotle) put the task of true happiness seemingly out of reach even for the greatest of beings. His laundry list of characteristics are not only nearly impossible to possess, at least possess all of them, but Aristotle himself admits luck is a fairly important factor. Seems to me that lining up all of these characteristics is highly improbable, if not impossible. Do you agree? A symposium to me was the best bet the ancient Greeks had. I mean they had no real shot a Aristotle's "true" happiness, so why not get drunk, have sex, and commiserate?
Kyle, A "distraction" is the best word that I can think of to describe my perspective of "secondary" happiness. I’ve thought of it as when you're playing video games, then your little brother or sister comes along and wants to play, too. What do you do? You give them a controller that isn't plugged in, so that they FEEL like they’re playing and being included, but in reality, they're not. In the same way, Aristotle just gave his inadequate siblings a useless controller. I feel like he made himself seem like the good guy who brought happiness to everybody, but he just took the natural human desires, repackaged them, and tossed it to people like beads on mardi gras.
On page 47, McMahon says that fortune plays a role in determining happiness. But, in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Lazarus finds happiness in Heaven with Abraham, even though he was far from fortunate in his life on Earth. Truly, the happiness Lazarus experiences is of the primary form which I mentioned in my last post, but he has none of the aspects required for happiness as outlined by Aristotle. Lazarus’ happiness is most likely emotional, but not momentary, because Heaven is forever, so it has to be more than just joy. Then, how can Lazarus experience the primary form of happiness if he didn’t lead a successful life? Is there a “first-and-a-half” form of happiness that we aren’t aware of? There must be, because there is no denying that Lazarus is happy.
Lazarus and Aristotle likely view happiness and the world very differently. They are from different worlds and to impose the ideals of one on the other (both just lightly documented historically) makes a great intellectual exercise (like this!) but a faulty one in the long one. It is like asking an atheist if he would find happiness in God's heaven...
When two men have different views of happiness and the world, does that keep one man from having an opinion of the other? What would Aristotle's opinion of Lazarus be?
I think Aristotle's primary and Lazarus's "heavenly" happiness are similar in that both are viewed as the grand, end-all of happiness but one is intellectual (Aristotle) and the other is spiritual (Lazarus). One is achieved through contemplation and the other was through God's mercy. That is human agency vs. passivity, a stark difference. In addition, emotion is generally seen as a very base and temporary thing and of this world for the Greeks so it may not be the best way to think of happiness -- that is fleeting and temporary.
So I've got a question. While reading about Aristotle, I found that I kept wanting to ask where he got his philosophies from. I found that his blanket statements seemed to have a lot of loopholes. For example, virtue = happiness, but some who are virtuous are unhappy. Aristotle seems to shrug this off and say, in essence, "Oh well, it's a paradox!" Maybe I'm being too rigid in my requirements for the answer to the unanswerable, or maybe I feel argumentative because I'm more-than-slightly miffed at Aristotle for calling women "natural slaves" who are "deficient in reason" and therefore "deficient in the capacity for virtue" (I know I know, different times, different social norms, but still...). But when Aristotle states that a godlike life, a.k.a the life of contemplation, makes for happiness, I want to know why he can assume that to be godlike is to be happy. It's an illogical syllogism. How can we just assume that gods are inherently good and therefore happy? And why is contemplation a godlike action? Why is the word blessed a synonym for happy?
I don't think that it's right to assume that to be like the gods--or God, depending--we must be contemplative. Though I suppose this gets into theological philosophy, I don't believe that higher powers need to think, they know, right? That's why they're the omniscient ones. Also, how do we know that divine equates to happy? Is it because happiness is the ultimate goal and so is heaven, so we can call them equal? I feel as though a distinction should be made between divine power and euphoric power. Maybe that's just me.
Let me post this -- Aristotle thinks reason (thinking) is what separates us from the plants and animals and makes us closest to the gods. Thus, you need to exercise that to become god-like (to know).
I loved what you said in this posts! I have been thinking about this for a long time in an effort to come up with some sort of response to your questions. I completely agree that is odd how we automatically equate godliness to happiness and how Aristotle creates a gaping hole in his philosophy.
These are some of my thoughts:
To start, Coach Heinz made a great point. If you know more, then you are closer to being a god in Aristotle's view. Adding on to this, if a god is one that is omnipotent and all knowing, then isn't he or she a philosopher king? With his or her abundance of knowledge, he or she would be able to discover pure beauty or the truth in the Socratic view. If they obtained the truth, then they are technically happy. So to clarify: gods=philosopher kings, philosopher kings=happy. With Aristotle's understanding of this Socratic philosophy, one can understand how he has come to believe that the gods are happy by default.
Serena, When Aristotle discusses being contemplative in order to be like the gods, given his perspective that sees the gods as supremely powerful beings, I think his point is that in order to be anywhere close to the gods, we must be contemplative. The gods in Aristotle's time knew more than he or anyone else did; the only way that humans could become like them was to strive for that knowledge through contemplation. And to be like the gods was to be happy, because to be like the gods was to have power. The gods, in earlier definitions of happiness, were the ones who could control human fate and determine if their lives would eventually reach happiness; if the humans were able, through contemplation, to create that kind of power for themselves, they could gain complete control of their lives and therefore make themselves happy. In our modern perspective today, to be like the God that most Christians believe in is different; it's more about having the truth and goodness that he is associated with at the core of their being- it's less power driven. But through that truth and goodness, which are associated with prayer (perhaps divine contemplation?), Christians are promised the ultimate good -heaven- where their all-powerful God grants them eternal happiness with him. I think the main difference between Aristotelian attitudes towards becoming like the gods and Christian's goal for being like God is that the earlier gods were more attainable; power like theirs was something that the humans hoped to gain for control in their lives, while being like God today is more about earning favor from God so that he grants you happiness your afterlife accordingly.
Will, I appreciate your point about philosopher kings being all knowing, but I seem to recall discussing in class (I think it was Serena's point, in fact) that they were still human, just the closest that humans could come to being divine.
In Mr, Marrier's discussion, he brought up how Socrates believed that it's not the wealth one has, but what one does with that wealth that really matters. He believed that the course of your actions determines and can lead to happiness. He has the revolutionary idea that it is not all luck and fate that determines your happiness once you die, but ultimately your actions. However, when Mr. Marrier described that Socrates was ugly, poor, and job-less, I began to think that this may have been his reasoning behind his ground-breaking thoughts. The fact that he didn't have the external factors that the ancient Greeks believed led to happiness, Socrates could very well have felt excluded and created a way in which he could also obtain happiness. He turn happiness into a goal in which all humans can obtain rather than only the elite, good-looking people could reach after death. This was one of my thoughts as I heard the story of Socrates by Mr. Marrier.
Plato, similar to Socrates, believed that his thoughts are "apt to suggest that we yearn for more than our wealth and precious freedoms can provide." He refused to accept fate/luck as the ultimate agent in which determines our happiness. He believed, as Socrates, that we are not defined by the external factors that suggest happiness like "wealth and precious freedoms."
"Part human, Eros is incomplete- he yearns; part god, he yearns for what is godlike; happiness." If only happiness will make us whole, then will most of us live as incomplete all of our lives? Is this potentially our purpose in the world: to find what makes us whole again (happiness)?
Socrates = ugly - good possible justification and great question regarding motivation/intent. However, Socrates had the opportunity to acquire wealth/power/etc. (not beauty haha) and he chose not too. This complicates the issue.
Hey Taylor! Try going to the top right corner, dashboard, top right corner again, then account settings to change your name. That might fix it.
Also, I really like your post! I'm thinking that maybe there is more than one type of happiness, or at least levels of happiness. Like that the external, tangible things that bring us happiness bring us to this minor level of fleeting joy, whereas there's some other level closer to euphoria that you achieve with honor or death or something bigger than, say, a new car. Just some thoughts!
McMahon cites Aristotle's Ethics as beginning with, "every craft and every investigation, and likewise every action and decision, seems to aim at some good" (43). In this way, Aristotle seems to claim that everything has a purpose to produce some good- either a selfish good (as one could find in acts seeking pleasure or gain) or a good for others (found in selfless acts). As McMahon continues to elaborate, we see that in Aristotle's view, man is similar to these actions; he too, has a purpose of living in accordance with reason, which should produce "some good". This purpose is determined for him before he sets foot on the earth; as a man (and strictly a man, unfortunately), he is destined to produce good in his life, both in his craft but also in the fact that he is ultimately a man, made with said purpose in mind. In this way we can almost see Aristotle thinking of man's life as predetermined; mapped out by every action (each action is defined by its purpose) within a pre-purposed life, meant only to produce this end result of goodness. This goodness, in turn, leads to man's true goal and over-arching purpose: happiness. Within each purpose-driven action and defined by the pre-requisites required to make goodness (or the final happiness) even attainable, a man's life can almost be predicted. In a simpler circle of logic: man's purpose is to live through reason, which will produce goodness and therefore happiness. Man's purpose is therefore to produce happiness. Man's happiness is determined through his virtuous actions, coupled with the requirements one must meet in order to make happiness attainable. Therefore, with knowledge of his actions and his position in society and, in turn, how close one is to being able to attain contemplation (the only way to true happiness), man's happiness can be predetermined. And since happiness is man's purpose, his life, drive, and sole reason for living can therefore be predetermined.
Beautiful analysis, synopsis and reflection. Unfortunately, the connection to predetermination isn't strong enough. Argue it again. Or it is possible that our definitions of predetermined may be different. Aristotle is teleologically driven (purpose driven) for much of his argument but one has to choose his (or her in my opinion!) actions -- the antithesis of predetermination.
What a person has to do to become happy is predetermined though and this is where your beautiful analysis comes into play. Live through reason for the most part...
Quote: On page 47, McMahon talks about how Aristotle believe "External goods… are all frankly accepted as necessary components of happiness." Aristotle is basically teaching that people need money and to be popular and to be pretty to be happy. This is very similar to our culture today. Many people think that they need the latest iPhone or makeup to be happy. Isn't it a bit sad how people haven't progressed since the ancient world? I know that Aristotle said that "pleasure is by no means the sole constituent of happiness", but he still said it was a factor. Yes, I agree that having nice things and being popular is nice, but it is not everything. It is whether or not you appreciate the thing you have that will make you happy. If a person does not appreciate what they have then they will never be satisfied and always want more. I don't think that material things should be included in our definition of happiness because a person may have all of the money in the world as and still never be truly happy.
I agree with Mr. Heintz's point to an extent. I do not believe human beings can give up every good thing in this world and still be happy. Having said this, I come back to your post Emma. I believe that you have the right idea, but I think the path to happiness is slightly different. I do not think that over indulgence will lead to any real happiness either. I think that, as Aristotle taught, there is a way to achieve happiness that lies between these two extremes. Basically what I am trying to say is that human beings cannot achieve happiness through austerities, nor can we achieve happiness though over indulgence. Instead the path to happiness must lie somewhere in the middle. Somewhere that we can enjoy the good things our world have to offer, but still abstain from enjoying too much of them.
I don't think that having possessions is a bad thing at all. The point I was trying to make was just that materials aren't everything. I would definitely not want to give up all that I have. I think it is fine for people to have things, but having things doesn't guarantee happiness. A person could have only a few possessions and still be happy. I feel that it is more about how much you appreciate what you have rather than just having. Yes, I have many possessions, but I am thankful for every single one of them. Now, people who have a lot of possessions and don't appreciate them will never find true happiness because they will always want more and never be satisfied. To obtain happiness through possessions only isn't possible, but having them certainly helps if you appreciate what you have.
In terms of questions, I find that Aristotle seems to contradict himself in terms of how only certain men can achieve happiness; he states that women, like other "natural slaves" cannot attain the elusive concept he struggles to define; likewise, children and those without sufficient resources to educate themselves and live leisurely cannot reach his exclusive goals. Yet he also claims that "What is best about being human is the opportunity to break out of being human." All these exclusionary groups that Aristotle creates are made up of humans; they are not men, true, or at least not educated, philosophical men that Aristotle idealizes, but they are human nonetheless and therefore, should, through a transitive sort of comparison, be able to break out of the hu/man/ restrictions that Aristotle places on his unattainable ideals, should they not? Given that the Greek gods were both male and female (and also only the truly happy beings), couldn't these minority groups that Aristotle excludes from realizing any happiness at all (not even the "secondary happiness" to which most men are resigned) break out of the categories Aristotle has so easily confined them to? If the best part of being human is the opportunity to change and challenge that fact, can it really be restricted to only some humans?
Question: With all the talk in the book about parties and this "YOLO" mentality, I wonder why the view on happiness is so unsatisfying. Aristotle teaches about how the best people can strive for is "secondary happiness" and how happiness is "unattainable" and "imperfect." That just does not seem to fit with the happy-go-lucky feeling I got from reading about the parties and festivals that seemed to be a big part of life, for the elites at least. Now, this view of happiness may have been focused more towards the lower classes or the "normal" people in society because they would not have partaken in the crazy parties.Why is it that in the ancient world, happiness always seems to be this goal that people strive for but can never manage to achieve it? Happiness seems like it it was so far away and impossible that people would have given up and settled with the fact that they were going to be miserable for their entire life. Unless, they were to die right as they were on the brink of joy. It just seems pretty depressing to me.
I agree, I think it's really depressing. We have to remember, though, that the greeks lived in a much more tragic time than we do now. The reason they partied so much and lived so hedonistically was because they lived in a time of tragedy. They used pleasure to combat the pain. Likewise, the whole idea of living while you can came from the fact that death was very prominent in their culture. The likeliness of an ancient Greek dying was higher than it is for us now, so they figured if they could die any day, they should live more intensely. Because they lived in a time of such suffering, the ancient greeks had reason to be pessimistic.
For the most part, I agree with what you're saying, Gracie. The Greeks DID live in a tragic world in which death took center stage. However, we as a society like to party hard, get hammered, and get high, also, to take the edge off. The edge that's sharpened every day by the stresses of school, the pressures of "fitting in," and the woes of everyday (modern) life. Although the likelihood of an ancient Greek dying IS much more likely than it is now, to say that the ancient Greeks lived in a time with much more suffering, I would say, is inaccurate. We too live in a time with suffering, it's just a different suffering. It is brought upon ourselves, rather than brought upon by mother nature like the Greeks dealt with.
Watch out. Your community might be wiped out by pestilence or hunger. Ah everybody hide, bloody warfare is right outside your doorstep... oh wait... all of the men go out and fight in that bloody mess. Oh you say you can't? Well then, you will become a bloody mess through public beheading. Maybe boiling alive inside of a giant copper bull? being dragged behind a horse? Im just glad you made it past your fifth birthday, because a lot of toddlers die every year in your village due to lack of medical help and deformation. Oh whats that... we don't live in ancient greek times. Your right our life is harder.
Yes Emma, it does sound terribly depressing. Maybe the reason that they had such a YOLO ideology is because they had, like you said, accepted that their life couldn't really get much worse. They did give up and decided that they had nothing to lose... so they partied. A sad, depressed, last ditch effort at trying to enjoy the short life they had.
From your view today, yeah, the Greek world was terrible. It was really rough, but if you look at it from their persecutive, it was normal. For us, we know of a better life, so when we hear of anything that is worse than that, we automatically assume that everyone was miserable. But I don't think the Greeks viewed their lives to be as awful as we see it. It is true that they probably didn't enjoy the fact that there was a high chance their kids would die or they could starve, but I that was just life for them. I'm sure in a thousand years people will look back and think "Oh, how horrible life must have been in the 21st century!" It's all relative. So, I think they did party and have a good time with flute boys to distract themselves, but they were just distracting themselves from normal life, not some terrible existence. They probably didn't see their lives as super short because a short life span was just the norm. So, I don't think that you can use the "carpe diem" excuse for their "living more intensely" (as Gracie said). Along the same lives, they probably didn't view their world as a tragedy. To them, it was what it was. They didn't know a better or worse world (unless you count them seeing the world of the Gods as a better world). So, I also don't think you can use them viewing their world as tragic as an explanation either.
Great response Emma. I wonder if the Greeks would be highly critical of our super structured lives, always connected attitudes, and frankly, no free time for symposia! Greek folk may think the 21st century USA was worse than pestilence...
**Remember, Marier, Socrates and Plato are possible too...I am impressed by all this Aristotle stuff -- most don't like him and get drunk on Platonic ideals (I usually do!)
Since no one has really touched Thursday's talk yet, I'm going to take my quote from Mr. Marier (which is actually a question. But this is my quote post!). When talking about happiness and freedom and their correlation to one another, he asked, "How happy can you be when you live in a situation threatening to human freedom?" Mr. Marier went on to cite Nazi Germany and strict tyrannical rules as examples. The immediate response, at least to me, is to say "Well, not very." But when you really think about it, maybe there is something in being controlled that keeps people happy. It's along the lines of that whole ignorance is bliss ideal. No, I'm sure people in concentration camps weren't happy by any definition (well, unless you look at it with the ancient Greek view in that one can't be happy until death and they were getting closer to death. Morbid and seemingly backwards, but I digress.). There's an element of stress that comes with freedom that isn't there when someone is thinking for you. I'm thinking sort of the ideology of a perfect communist society. The idea is that if there is economic and social control, then the pursuit of happiness for all becomes somewhat more equal making for happier people. For the record, this is speculation. It's easy to see how freedom begets happiness; we all love having choices and being independent. However, if you look at the flip side, there's a way happiness can come out of non-autonomous control as well.
I agree with Serena. Having no freedom can bring us happiness because in some ways it relives the stress and burdens. We don't have the choice, therefore we cant worry about the choice. How ever, i think that the majority of people today would rather have a stressed filed life with choices, than one with none and no stress.
I think that being controlled could make us think we're happy for a time, but after a while we would run into issues. It is so much easier to have the burden of choice and responsibility taken from you, but then again, it's not nearly as good as having the choice to do what you want. If someone's always making choices for you, eventually you're going to run into a situation where they make a choice that you don't agree with.
Serena, this is fantastic. It seems to me that another benefit to giving up all control is that when you do something wrong under their command or direction, you can pin the blame on them if it goes wrong. Eliminating this blame could allow for a more enjoyable life as one is not stuck pondering the ethicality of their actions, similar to the SS fighting for Hitler and then during the Nuremberg trials either denying that what they did was wrong through brainwashed justification, or simply blaming their actions on the fact that they were "just following orders". This could also suggest a no regrets lifestyle allowing for greater self esteem and a clean conscience. would you consider one of the downsides of freedom to be responsibility for ones actions. Could that idea be both the greatest and least of the benefits of freedom?
Serena, I can definitely agree with your statement that when other people are thinking for you, you're released from a sort of burden that freedom brings. This kind of burden can be in what Jack was saying- in responsibility for our actions that we make of our own free will- but also in simpler ways. In a controlled society, we are released from the stresses of having to make our own decisions on what to believe and finding for ourselves true meaning in our decisions. We can just leave the thought processes behind and move on with our lives, thinking in a uniform and dictated manner. Perhaps in this way our happiness could become easier, in a society where happiness is already decided for us. Without having to think for ourselves, we are freed from doing the "real work" of defining our own happiness- but is it true happiness when it's someone else's definition? We discussed how happiness is subjective and also how universal truths are a paradox, but given that societies like Aristotle's could have an objective right and wrong, could not a controlled society like Serena's also have an objective happiness?
I personally like the idea of destiny -- it takes the pressure off of me! If I have no control I can let go and be stress free. As I said in class, there is nothing better than having an entire evening planned for you! I think this is one of the stresses of being a parent (something you might understand later in life), but you are ALWAYS responsible for someone. It is tough at times.
Don't we say things like "it's God's will" and "everything happens for a reason" to make ourselves feel better in the event of a tragedy?
If we had control we accept guilt and responsibility. If we didn't have control, we can wash out hands of it. If it was destined by a superhuman being, we can accept the event because it has a purpose we don't understand.
Thanks for all the feedback guys! Love it! Wong, I'm with you on that life with choice + stress>>>no choice + no stress. But in the event that you had to live with the circumstances of the life you're handed, I think it's possible to be happy in the no choice situation, but maybe only if the whole "the grass is always greener" mentality isn't there. Maybe if you don't know how good you could have it, you're going to be happy regardless? Just some thoughts. Gracie, sure you may not always agree with the philosopher king or dictator or Leader of the 3rd Reich, but perhaps there's an element of happiness that still comes from the fact that you don't have to make your own choices that overrides the "Hey, I want my voice heard" thoughts. After all, even if it's propogandic, a lot of the platforms these leaders have are that their system will equate to happier times. Perhaps it's all a matter of convincing oneself what to believe. Jack, I thought about the Nuremberg trials as I was writing the post actually, and I agree that with freedom comes great responsibility (Eleanor Roosevelt totally stole that from me) and responsibility isn't always, and in fact often isn't, a happy thing. Beth, totally with you on the responsibility is a burden idea. And I think yes, controlled societies can have an objective happiness such as the happiness dictated for them. Coach Heintz, I agree! You know, with my extensive knowledge of parenting and such. And I think as fallible beings, we love playing the blame game and pointing fingers, and being released from responsibility makes it super easy for us to do so. As much as we say we want to take our lives into our own hands, sometimes it's truly liberating to let someone else do the deciding for us.
How could Aristotle's views on happiness be beneficial to anyone living in ancient Greece? Considering how difficult and unlucky life was for people living in ancient Greece, I don't see how any of Aristotle's requirements to achieve happiness would be beneficial for anyone. Aristotle makes happiness seem like it has so many requirements. He basically says that you need to be wealthy, beautiful, strong, and virtuous to be happy, and anyone without these characteristics will never be fully happy. This makes happiness virtually unattainable, so what is the point? The ancient Greeks already seemed to be generally unhappy and this view on happiness would probably make them more hopeless.
"Aristotle concedes that the virtues of character he has so assiduously expounded are, at best, capable of conferring only 'secondary' happiness." This quote confuses me because it makes happiness even less desirable to achieve. Like I said before, I don't see how anyone would want to believe Aristotle's views on happiness. He makes it nearly impossible to achieve, and then goes onto say that you also have to achieve divinity through contemplation. I think Aristotle is saying that true happiness is only obtained by the gods, and to be truly happy, you have to act like the gods. I don't see how acting like the gods will make you happy when you are a human being.
I get the point you are trying to make. I can see how Aristotle would appeal to people, though. He was the first of the big philosophers to actually make happiness seen attainable by the masses (or at least intelligent men). He taught that anyone can live virtuously. All they had to do was act in accordance with reason. If they did that, then they would have a good life. He knew that it would be difficult for some, so that is why he taught about the habituation of virtues. By doing what you know is right over and over, soon enough, you'll do the right thing because you want to and for the right reason.
While I can see how he inspired people, I also think he is a complete hypocrite. At the end of his life, he completely rewrote his teachings and decided to make happiness unattainable to basically everyone. It is confusing why he would just change like that and resort back to the ideas that he was trying to get away from. So, while I liked Aristotle's original teachings, I find it hard to trust them because of his later. After hearing of his "secondary happiness", it makes me think that he only taught about attainable happiness to get everyone's attention and have them follow him. He only did it because he wanted followers so that when he introduced his real views, people wouldn't deny him.
I agree with you as well. In the miserable state the Ancient Greeks were living in, these goals for happiness were nearly impossible for them to achieve. And even if they could achieve the goals, their happiness would still only be secondary to the true happiness.
Like we talked about in the last class, I think he was trying to motivate people to live virtuously. His "Habituation of Virtue" theory stated that if the people tried to act rightly, their actions would eventually become a part of who they are. I think this was his ultimate goal--for people to act right (hoping to find happiness), and eventually they would become better people.
The habituation principle is very appealing. Do you think if we all practiced it (along with the golden mean) that the world would be a happier place in general? I do... I am interested in those who may disagree.
How can anyone determine an overall meaning of happiness? Happiness is going to be subjective to each person and their own experiences. Like Mr. Marier said, there is a large gap between the lifestyles of the elite and the majority of the people. Elite people's definition of happiness is obviously going to be very different from others, because the world that they live in is so much different. Their view of happiness is skewed from the view of the majority. It seems impossible for one singular person to define happiness, because their definition may be completely wrong for someone else. Happiness depends on personal views, experiences, and feelings, so each person must find and define happiness for themselves.
The philosophers discussed in class and in the book are all elitists, perhaps without any understanding of the life of a regular person. Each philosopher has an elitist view on their ideas of happiness.
Aristotle claims that having virtues will bring about happiness. While this may apply to his life, it could be taken differently by the majority of people. Virtue is supposedly a matter of having the appropriate attitude towards pain and pleasure. But the pains and pleasures of a common man are far different than the pains and pleasures of an elitist. Aristotle's theory is filled with flaws and loopholes, many of which are brought about because he is elite.
I agree with your point that upper class people will have much different and probably less problems than lower class people. I think it's unfair for Aristotle to act as if they all have the same problems and the same life and I think that he would have had a very different philosophy on happiness had he been poor or less fortunate. I also think Aristotle is wrong in saying that virtue will bring about happiness for everyone because being virtuous and having the right attitude towards pain and pleasure is almost impossible for some people, and it doesn't seem like an effective way to achieve happiness
Quote: “Restricted from the outset to free men, men of means, the pool of candidates for happiness only grows smaller as we work through Aristotle’s account.” (48). A few sentences earlier, it is said that Aristotle ruled out women for the opportunity to be truly happy because they are “natural slaves” and deformed. Also, male children are ruled out because their capacity for logic and reason are not fully formed. Therefore, leaving only upper-class, wealthy males with many physical perquisites as the only ones to obtain true happiness. Aristotle believed academic study and contemplation are the keys to happiness and the only ones with enough time and resources to participate in those activities are wealthy men. Also, he agreed with the notion that one could only be deemed happy after their death. After all of these requirements, it could be said that Aristotle’s view of happiness was essentially unobtainable for the vast majority of people.
Could this be one of the reasons why the school of tjought shifted to being in control of one's own happiness, because the vast majority of people were excluded from acquiring this version of happiness?
Good thinking Frank but remember that Aristotle actually is part of the movement to human agency -- he is actually more inclusive than the philosophers that came before him. Hard to believe actually...
At the end of the period on Thursday, Mr. Marier told us that in ancient Greece, "happiness was objective". People could judge if you were happy after you died from looking at your life accomplishments. It was plain and simple. If you did good things and lived an honorable life by the time you died, you were considered to be happy. Your happiness was based on facts, instead of feelings.
Now, as Mr. Marier said, "happiness is a feeling; it's subjective". I consider happiness to be a feeling. Of course, having new things or doing honorable things can make a person feel better or more fulfilled. But it's more than just looking at the facts of someone's life. I know that I, personally, feel fleeting moments of happiness. Even though these moments may be temporary, that doesn't make them any less real. And while there are also moments of sadness or anger in my life, I still consider myself to be a happy person. I don't consider myself a happy person because of the objective things in my life. My happiness is a completely subjective matter. Another person could look at the facts of my life and think that I shouldn't be considered happy--maybe I haven't done enough honorable deeds, maybe I don't have a high enough status, etc. But I think happiness is based more off my own feelings, instead of my actions and material items.
I like how you said that we feel "fleeting moments of happiness," Ally, I think that was a really good description. I think that while happiness may not be a permanent, lasting emotion, it is real, and we each feel them during these fleeting moments in our lives. I agree that happiness is more about the subjective moments where our own feelings change, instead of objective opinions of other people.
Question: How would you explain to me in a couple of sentences what each philosopher’s view on happiness is? I am still very unsure how to summarize it, but it would go: Socrates- It is achieved in the pursuit of a higher knowledge and can only be found when men can think and discuss freely and clearly. Plato- Basically the same as Socrates because Plato was the one who published his teacher’s words and teachings. Aristotle- Completely the opposite of Plato, he believed happiness is acquired through the accumulation of knowledge from the physical world as well as the practicing of virtue.
Quote: on page 40 McMahon asks a very troubling question, "how can it be we naturally desire what we have never known?" It is a point of that i have never thought of before. how is it that we crave heaven and a spiritual resting place if we have never experienced it ourselves. We have never been to a place like heaven or meet God, so how do we now to yearn for such a thing. To be come like gods as Socrates puts it. We have never been like a god, so how do we want it. I agree with Plato when he said human desire was easily diverted or changed, but this can point us in the direction of wanting heaven or godlike state. We might be changed to yearn for the earthly distraction, for the gold and possessions. One would grow tired of just working and wanting a happiness that could only be obtained through being a perfect person. As a modern person, many times we use these earthly ideas to divert our attention back to heaven and true happiness. We are told by priests and the Bible that all of our drams and wants are in heaven with God.There fore we are taught to want it y wanting those earthly possessions and thinking we can obtain them spiritually.
Hey Wong. I may be off base here, and this isn't completely relevant to your post, but Socrates seems almost Christian to me. Basically, he says we must endure all these earthly misfortunes, and bear the load while we're here. People may make fun of us or mock us, but we just "turn the other cheek". Jesus preached the same thing. To endure the hardships of life and to turn the other cheek is Jesus' whole life in a nutshell. Jesus was executed for it, as was Socrates. Jesus was Socratic in many way I believe. What do you think?
Mr. Marier stated that "stuff doesn't automatically make you happy, you have to do good things with it." I have to disagree with this statement, because I believe you can be happy by just observing, rather than doing. When you pass a baby being pushed in a stroller on the street, it'll usually make you happy. Now, you haven't done anything with or to the baby, it just happened to cross your line of vision. Over the summer, I bought a 5 lb gummy bear that sits on my shelf. Everyone who comes over asks when I'm going to eat it, and I always shrug, saying that I don't know. Maybe I'll eat it in the future, but for now, it makes me laugh, just by sitting there, because of how ridiculously large it is. And one's feelings at the current moment are what counts, because it doesn't matter whether you were happy or will be happy, you have to deal with the emotions in the present.
Zuri, I totally agree. I think that happiness cannot be defined by your overall life accomplishments, but simply by how you feel in the present moment. Anything can initiate emotion, like a baby, or your giant gummy bear. It doesn't just have to be something you're doing. We learned in Early Childhood that there is a part in our brains that, as we watch someone do something, triggers emotions that make us feel as if we are actually doing that action. So for example, you could be watching someone else play with that baby in the stroller, and you would feel happy just as they do, because your brain processes you watching this action very similarly to you actually doing the action. So I agree that you don't necessarily have to be part of the action to feel something, I think that you will process that emotion either way. I also agree that your happiness can't be defined by an entire time period, but just in the present moment.
Mr. Marier also said that to be happy, you need "wealth, health, and good luck." What defines health? Is it strong, good relationships? Is it physical health, or is it having a stable mind? By wealth, did he mean monetary, or richness in character and intelligence? I believe he was was looking past the obvious answers, and more into the intangible ones. What good is it to have money if you're not happy with the person you are? People who are unhappy with themselves are constantly waste money on projects, materials, and gadgets trying to find the one thing that will satisfy them. Yes, the money may help them to keep trying new things until they find the one the clicks, but it also keeps them from realizing that their own self is the thing that needs to be exchanged or renovated. You can be a world-class marathon runner and still have no friends or anyone who makes you happy. People need other people in their life because we weren't meant to live in solidarity. Mental health is the root of all other forms, because when it begins to decline, so do the others. I think Mr. Marier should rephrase his expression to say, that in order to be happy, you must have high self-value, good relationships, and a plan and will to jump over anything that gets in your way.
Was Mr. Marier putting forth his own ideas or that of the ancient/Homeric Greeks? Does his statement mesh better with our time or the ancient's and why?
I think the idea of needing wealth and good luck to be happy is completely unfair to people in ancient times and even more so contemporary times. The ancient Greeks did not have much desire to be happy before Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato because they thought they didn't even have a chance of achieving it in their lifetime. But today, everyone wants to be happy. We would have a lot less happy people if being happy was as simple as being rich and lucky. Our society today would not support that belief because it only relates to a minority of people
Mr. Marier talked about how death is represented as "the highest moment" and you "can't say you're happy until you are dead." I disagree with this statement, because I think that happiness is an emotion, not just what people think when you are gone. I think that one's happiness is subjective, and constantly changing. I don't think that it is an objective thing that people can interpret by whether your death was "glorious."
I agree with you. Happiness, to me, feels like an emotion. I can feel happiness. While some objective parts of life can be fulfilling or better your character, happiness overall is a subjective part of life. I think it's a personal feeling that each person must decide for themselves.
I feel as though this theory doesnt have a place in modern thought of happiness. I don't know if it's an agree or disagree thing, since we are taking this whole ideology out of its original context. I wonder where that shift began, to a place of thought where honor in death stopped equating to happiness.
I agree with most of what you're saying Kate. I don't think that others can decide whether or not you are happy or whether your life was happy. But, at the same time I don't know if I agree with you that happiness is an emotion but rather at goal or endpoint. You can be satisfied momentarily through an action and in the moment you feel happy, but in the end that emotion will go away and what are you left with? Because all humans have this desire to stay happy all the time and be in this pure state of happiness, because you can be happy but slip back into a state of depression or be sad. In my opinion, happiness is a goal and we can strive to attain it through attempting to live a good life and when we live a good life (in our own opinion) than would have been in a state of joy (not just be happy) for joy is rather the fact that you have faith that things are going to work out.
Ah, gotcha. Well, then that begs the question how much does religion and view of a higher power/afterlife have to do with happiness (for the masses at least) and should it?
Some argue that happiness relies on external blessings such as health, wealth, and honor. However, isn't this contradicted by Socrates, who was ugly and poor? Mr. Marier said that Socrates himself was missing the "external marks of happiness," if so, then why was Socrates considered to have lived a good and happy life? Does the stuff really even matter in the grand scheme of things? I agree with Mr. Marier when he said that it is not the stuff that we have that matters, but instead what we do with it, that allows us to achieve happiness.
Mr. Marier talked about the Greek people being driven by guilt. The people believed they had to do something because it was the "right thing to do". They believed that it was the right thing to do based off of their own thoughts. This was different than before when people did things based off of what society said they should do. I believe that people still act in the same way today. Our society believes that each individual's opinion matters. While our opinions are affected by what we observe in the world, our opinions ultimately are our own. It is strange to think that humans today still think in generally the same way that they did back in the ancient times. Does that mean they got it right? I do not think we can make the claim that it is right or wrong because we do not actually understand what parameters determine if this is right or wrong.
Many Greeks believed that the way to achieve happiness was through partying. They partied, got drunk, and fooled around to forget about their lives and what made them unhappy. Do many people do that in our society today? Do people drown their sorrows in material things to escape the things in their lives that make them unhappy? I would argue that not only do people still do this but almost everyone does is. We all cut lose every now and then, and everyone looks for ways to escape their every day lives. Some get drunk, do drugs, and have sex the way the ancient Greeks did, but there are other ways that people try to escape. Many people attempt to escape the reality that makes them unhappy through role playing games and even just putting up a mask and pretending in real life. Some people act as though they are happy hoping that they will eventually be happy. Do you think their are any acceptations to this?
I don't think that the only escape from our lives are sex, alcohol, and debauchery. Some people may resort to painting or writing to momentarily forget about what's going on in their lives. Maybe this is the goal for most people. They get a job to pay for basic needs, then they want a better job for more money to spend on their activities to forget about the part where they have to be making the money. It's an endless cycle.
I agree that there are many routes of escape. I was only focusing on these few, bad routes to show the connection between our society and the society of the ancient Greeks. I think you are right by saying that all attempts at escape inevitably end in an endless cycle. I believe that this cycle can be observed in the way that people live in today's world, as well as, in the ancient world.
Quote: "NAture does not act in vain." page 43 this sentence is aristotles veiw on the world. He thinks, and i agree, that every thing on earth, from an acorn to a eagle has its purpose. they all have purpose to fulfill. they do everything for a reason.if this is true than happiness should be much easier to obtain. one can go through his or her life with no direction and purpose and never obtain happiness. we hear all the time how teens of america are "directionless" and lazy. This is apperantly why they turn to drugs and alchole like the greeks. to wash away and forget their miserable lives that lead no purpose. if you find your purpose in life, this should never happen to you. Just the knowledge that you have a purpose and belong/needed somewhere should fill ones heart with joy. Its almost predestination, because you know this is what you are supposed to be and do. If we know in our hearts that in this whole crazy giant world that we are where we belong, then i think Happiness is just around the corner.
I loved what you said about misguided teens and how you compared them to the Greeks. I mostly agreed with your post (I too accept your Aristotelian view), but I am going to disagree with one thing purely for the sake of improving my own view and shifting my paradigm. What if one never discovers their true calling? For example, Coach Heinz said today that if his calling was to play guitar, then he has been disregarding that calling for many years. From a Socratic viewpoint, one could still make the journey to happiness through the desire of logic and wisdom. My question is: What happens to these people who never discover their calling? Could they still be happy? In my opinion, discovering your purpose is only a gateway to the true discovery of happiness. If you only know your purpose and do no other contemplation on beauty or acts of good, then I believe you have only achieved partial happiness.
" We can never hope to subdue Eros (nor would we want to) but we can direct his power toward the genuinely good and genuinely beautiful, learning to love the right things in the right way"
In life, we won't like everything we see, and that includes not necessarily liking other people. A lot of times we see things in others that we dislike and that is because we see that same trait in ourselves and dislike it. It's like we talked about in class, we have to look past the things we dislike about someone and focus on the positive traits that we like that are beautiful. We must also look past physical beauty as a whole, which isn't an easy thing to do.
like we talked in class: How do you find pure beauty? Is it just to think about it? Do you have to take away ALL human desires?
It's funny how we still haven't overcome this, and it is still hard to push down all human desires and bring up "god-like" desires, because Eros is easily lead to human desires and the ability to push down your human desires is a long and difficult process.
As we read in the text and spoke about in class, Socrates' general idea about how to attain happiness was through thought. He believes that one has to attempt to shift his thought process in such a way that he will begin to see true beauty in the world. In this way, thinking contributes to the procuring of happiness. However, Ernest Hemingway once argued that, "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." This, of course, suggesting that intellectual thinking in some way leads to the lack of happiness, and possibly even pain. Perhaps Hemingway means to convey that intelligent people tend to over-think their actions and life choices, and this leads to unhappiness. My question is, does thought affect happiness? If so, how much, and in what way?
Hey Gracie, thanks for bringing this up because I was thinking the same thing! I've always thought that over thinking things ends up confusing people further. There is a certain amount that people should use contemplation in happiness. For example, people should think about their decisions before acting on them and think about whether or not that decision will make them happy. However, thinking about happiness too much could probably end up backfiring. If you are always thinking about how to be happier, one may feel like they are never truly happy. I think there is truth to the idea that "ignorance is bliss", because often, when you don't think too much, or avoid thinking about bad things, then you wouldn't even know those bad things exist in the first place. I think Hemingway is correct in saying that people often over think their life choices, because often the things that make us happy aren't a part of huge life decisions.
The ancient greeks found themselves in times of tragedy and suffering. They lived in a world where they had no control over the misfortune that may have befallen them. The way they responded to such hardships was to indulge themselves in extreme pleasure. Tragedy and celebration, "were frequently linked. Happiness might be hard to come by, but fleeting pleasures were less difficult to find. For all their talk of suffering, the Greeks knew how to enjoy themselves" (26). This idea of running to the things that give one pleasure to escape from a stressful or tragic life is not unknown to us today. There are simple pleasures of course, and pleasures that cause no harm to one's mental or physical well-being, and then there are more extreme pleasures (such as alcohol, drugs, and sex) that could potentially be harmful to a person. Often though, these are the pleasures that people run to because they provide (for most, I would argue) the most intense form of release and the deepest form of pleasure. When handled properly and not indulged in excess, pleasures such as these can be conducive to happiness. However, it seems that people are almost always going too far and letting their desires control them. The Greeks felt that they had no control, but maybe they didn't WANT control. Like Mr. Heintz said in class, it's kind of comforting to think that the gods have control over our lives. We can know if life sucks, it's not our fault. Maybe that is why the Greeks indulged so deeply in pleasures: because they felt they had no control, and it was easier to just give into desire and let it take control over their lives.
"Our unique human activity is thus to live and act in accordance to reason." (44) According to this quote, we humans are special in a way that we are not like animals, which act on instinct and do what they are born to do. We have a trait that enables us to listen to reason and then decide how we are going to take it from there. During Mr. Merier's visit, he talked about many things, but the thing that struct me the most is "How do you know when you are actually happy and its not just an illusion?" He went into further detail, explaining to us how what if everything we see before us is just an illusion. If the human mind is made to be able to understand reason, this should mean that the mind would also be able to understand the logic and reason behind what is an illusion and what is not. As we've come to know, everyone has a different opinion on what is "reasonable.", thus making the topic of happiness that much more complicated by further uncovering how much uncertainty there is in people's minds and how much more subjective happiness is. If we are unable to come to terms with what is reasonable and what is not, how can we hope to find an answer to what happiness is?
We've also touched upon how other people are the ones that define your happiness. Sure, that person may have had a happy life and did great deeds and such and seems to be a happy person by others, but what if the person is hiding back their true emotions and only seem "happy" to please others? Over the summer, I spent a lot of time on Netflix and found a movie by the name of 21 and Over. This movie follows two young adults who are coming to celebrate their old, high school friend's 21st birthday. It should be pretty obvious that things take a turn for the worst, but the thing is, Jeff Chang, the character that was turning 21 was always seen as the most cheerful of their group and everyone assumed he was happy. Everyone would look at him and give him the label of being "happy," The ugly truth was, his father was forcing him to go to med school so he could become a doctor. As the story unravels, we find out that Jeff has so much stress and pressure from having to take these med school prep classes at school and his father, constantly burdening him with having to become a doctor, otherwise he would be a failure, and eventually tries to commit suicide. In reality, I don't think that others should have the power to decide whether a person is happy or not; Personally, happiness is something that ultimately comes down to the person.
Quote: "Happiness is not hedonism" (pg. 36) While although I agree with the statement that living a perfectly hedonistic lifestyle would not ascertain happiness it can not be all that harmful can it? Throughout life people try to escape with various forms of things. Music, Books, Drugs, Alcohol, and the likes because most people want to take fleeting pleasure from the life they currently live rather than waste away worrying and contemplating everything. Granted living with Hedonism is no way to live as well. To find a medium between the struggle of existence and enjoying the pleasures in life is my interpretation of Socrates. I understand that i deviate away from the part of him talking about focusing on the worldly/training aspect of the desire *See the beauty example*but in my opinion the amount of self-determination and will that it takes deters people away to seek the more instant pleasures like Lust, Materials, and other tools for escaping. I'm not sure if my understanding strays too far away from Socrates and His original message, but i feel that finding a medium would be easier to achieve than appreciating the beauty(or whatever it is) in everything?
Question: During Mr. Marrier's Speech we sort of got that History is written by the winners, and in the book we see that nothing Socrates actually said was written by himself but rather his pupil Plato. If this is the case then how trust worthy is any source from Plato about Socrates? Because the book tells us that he disliked democracy and i feel that with these own opinions Socrates might have been perverted for Plato's own Benefit?
That's a great question and one that's been asked many times with other historical documents. We use Plato's work obviously because he studied directly under Socrates, so he must have some type genuine experiences he wrote about. However, we will be unable to answer the question on how biased Plato truly was unless we find other trustworthy documents on the subject of Socrates.
After contemplating the words of Socrates, I have been searching for various opinions on whether happiness is obtained through a fleeting moment joy or if it is the somewhat ultimate goal or endpoint. What are your ideas?
McMahon points out that Socrates believed that "the ascent to happiness will be a long and arduous process." In my opinion, happiness can be obtained to a certain extent through an individual experience, but I believe Socrates is telling us to aim at a different meaning of the word. The word in which he uses frequently: beauty. When he uses this word, he is putting to use a different definition of the word happiness than I am familiar with. If we look at the word as meaning the desire for wisdom and truth, than I do believe the ascension to receive the two will be, to say the least, challenging. Turning away from the physical meaning of the word, this specifically targets the development of the mind instead of the body. Because off Socrates description as a candidly "ugly" person, one can see how he was determined to focus more on the power of the mind.
Hey Will, In my opinion, happiness is like the second definition you gave at the top, in that it is the somewhat goal or endpoint. I think this because there is a reason why so many people over the course of history (and even now) are still seeking to find happiness. If there was a way that we could obtain this state and knew how to get it, then none of us would be here and it wouldn't be a reoccurring topic. You can be satisfied momentarily through an action and in the moment you feel happy, but in the end that emotion will go away and what are you left with? We as humans still have a desire to obtain a state of joy even after that moment passes. Thus, causing a never ending cycle of us becoming happy and then losing that emotion and attempting to find it all over again as we chase for this Pure state of "happiness"
"the man who desires something desires what is not available to him, and what he doesn't already have in his possession."
When analyzing this quote, a thought struck me. No man wants what is already currently available to him or what he has already obtained. Therefore, since we are always searching for happiness does it mean that we have not obtained it? Although, could we possibly be searching for the wrong thing and have already obtained happiness? As an example, Eros is said to have been looking for happiness in the wrong places in the text. Again, this brings about the subjectivity of happiness. Changing my definition of the word, this quote has led me to believe that happiness entails the elimination of desire or want from in the world, conflicting with the beliefs of Socrates. When one is perfectly content, one does not desire anything, so they have already obtained it. In the eyes of Socrates, happiness is the desire for knowledge and truth, but in my opinion happiness is obtained when the thirst for these and any ideas are quenched.
I like the quote you chose. I agree with it, for the most part at least. I think that it is true and we do desire the things that we do not have. However, can people not want what they already have? For example: you meet the girl of your dreams. You ask her on a date, things go well and you date for a couple years eventual you fall in love. You marry her. She stays with you and she is completely faithful for many, happy years. If you love her then can't you still desire her even though you already have her. I think that it is possible to desire things that you already have, as well as, things you do not have. I agree with you that the desire to obtain happiness is what drives us to reach for it, but I still think that people can have happiness and still want it.
Thanks for your comment Ryan. You made some really good points. I do agree with you when you say that people can have happiness but still want it, but I believe that they do not know they have happiness. This brings us back to the one true form of happiness that Socrates thought existed. Do you believe that there is one universal truth or many different forms of happiness?
I believe that there are many different forms of happiness, but those forms only apply to earthly life. I also think that there is a single universal truth to what happiness actually is; however, we, as humans, cannot fully comprehend this truth until we are dead.
Jonathan Lear sums up Aristotle's views accurately by claiming Aristotle suggests "What is best about being human is the opportunity to break out of being human." This quote illustrates how Aristotle was more focused on human agency in the pursuit of happiness. IF we can break out of being our normal, imperfect selves, happiness may be attained. Aristotle lists the certain virtues one must posses in order to achieve "secondary" happiness, for true happiness lies with the gods and contemplation. However, Aristotle's rationale also includes the acknowledgement of luck and fortune. Aristotle could not deny that some of the virtues listed are out of our control. For example, physical beauty. This is why Aristotle's basically "chosen few" who could MAYBE achieve only "secondary" happiness are inadvertently telling us that happiness is unattainable, therefore all of our lives are imperfect.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the philosophical implications for happiness if we are all living imperfect lives?
DeleteSupposedly Aristotle's views apply to more of the majority than Socrates outlook which basically three people could ever comprehend (himself included), but how does Aristotle really address the common folk? All he seems to do is tell us that the majority are condemned to misery and the lives the majority lead are imperfect. Seems like more of an offhand reference to me. Only a select few can ever even achieve "secondary" happiness? So the rest of us are screwed because we don't have every characteristic on Aristotle's laundry list of virtues? I got the impression that unless we posses every virtue AND have luck on our side, we have no chance.
ReplyDeleteIt goes back to the idea of are these a bunch of elitists writing for themselves or do they have any concept of the common man?!
DeleteCorrect. I think Aristotle is starting to be on the right track as far as inclusion is concerned, but elitist connotations and undertones are still heavily implied. Having said that, Aristotle's views at least take into account the masses, even if in only some infinitesimal way, whereas Socrates did not at all.
DeleteQuestion: The book mentioned that Socrates along with most of the people of his time believed that humans can control their own lives in order to be happy. To what extent is this true and do people still believe this today?
ReplyDeleteI’d say that most people today think that they have control over their life and therefore their happiness. I think that you can control how happy you are to an extent, but there are some things that you simply can’t control. If something bad happens to you though, what you make out of the situation can also determine your happiness, but this again has limits. Are there things that are so bad that they completely destroy someone’s happiness or are people always capable of making the best out of a situation and deciding for themselves if they are happy? Of course there are terrible things in this world that can take away our happiness, but I think we first allow those things to make us unhappy. We have the ability to keep those things from changing our happiness.
I agree with this but Socrates conception of and method of attainment for happiness are WAY different than most others. How did most Greeks seek "happiness?" Think of the Symposium...
DeleteBefore Socrates, most Greeks thought happiness was attained by material or external factors and they saw happiness in the symposium as a sort of escape from their usual, miserable life. Socrates' ideas were also different because he saw happiness as a goal that was more universally attainable. Before this, most saw happiness as godlike or only a select few could get it. What I found interesting was that today in class we brought up that Socrates decided later in his life that it was actually true that only certain people could understand happiness...
DeleteI agree with what you said, Sydney, about people controlling their own happiness today. In our world today, people like to be in control of their own lives and feel threatened or uncomfortable when they are unable to do so. I do think that all people have the ability to control their own happiness in any situation. It is true that terrible things can happen to anyone, but they can still be happy even if bad things happen to them. For me personally, I believe that everyone has the ability to be happy. If sone thing terrible happens, people can do one of two things: let themselves be engulfed in their sadness or anger or they can allow themselves to cope and move on. When I say "move on", I do not mean completely forget about the event. It is important to not forget what happened because that is a part of your life. By "moving on", you should allow yourself to learn/grow from the experience. For example, a death of a person close to you is never easy to handle. But, instead of focusing on the loss of the person, you should focus on all the good aspects of them and try to help them live on through you. When I die, the last thing I want is for my family to be so focused on my leaving that they forget to live. Bad things will happen, but in order to grow and become stronger, we need to let them go.
DeleteSo, basically what I'm trying to say (sorry for the long tangent) is that no matter what people will be able to be happy. No obstacle is too large.
Quote: "Do the pleasures we know now suffice to quell our longings, or do they incite us, embolden us, to long for more?”
ReplyDeleteThe book talked a lot about how Socrates introduced the idea that humans have a natural desire for happiness. But if we are always looking to be happier, is there ever a point where we can stop and say that we are completely happy? And is there some kind of limit? If we are continuously looking to be happier how can we ever be happy at the point where we are? I think that you have to personally decide that you are happy, because if you continue to look for more happiness, you can never be happy with what you have.
I think most people always want to be improving and always want more – we are never satisfied with where we are. For example, new iPhones continue to be made and released and people continue to buy the newer version. People look for a newer, better version of things that we believe will somehow be better. I’m not saying that the iPhone is a good example of happiness, but I think in the same way that we look for new and better phones, we are always searching for something bigger and better than what we have. This is a problem because we seem to never be happy with what we have, but others might say that this is a good thing because we have to continue to improve. If we aren’t happy with what we have, we try to make it better, which brings about improvements to our society. But will this cycle ever end? If we continue to do this, can we ever be happy with what we already have?
Sydney, I definitely agree with what you are saying. However, I think the idea of always wanting more CAN be a form of happiness...if that makes sense. As we drilled into the ground endlessly, the definition of happiness is subjective, so if complacency is one's definition of happiness, the idea of always wanting more is no so entreating. In contrast, if one's definition of happiness IS always wanting more and searching for bigger and better things, then more power to them I guess, but then the whole idea of happiness being a state which one enters is thrown out of whack because of the constant motion searching entails. If one can reach a state of satisfaction, the searching ends...but if searching is what makes you happy, then what? Now I've just confused myself by trying to make an argument out of nothing. But I agree with you, in any case.
DeleteKyle, can you explain more clearly why "always wanting more" can be happiness? I am not sure if I can agree with that. Lack of satisfaction has been to shown to be one the greatest causes of NOT being happy in research.
DeleteMaybe a clearer explanation would be that people find happiness in the journey. In the adventure, overcoming obstacles I guess can make people happy. Looking back, I don't know really. I think I was trying to make an argument out of nothing.
DeleteIn the Well Tempered Symposium on pages 30-32 Plato speaks of the ideal meeting f great minds void of "hard or forced drinking" or "flute girls". The men of the symposium begin to talk about Eros the God of desire and decide that he is "an immensely powerful God whose force is intimately bound up with the yearning for human happiness". The idea of desire being a powerful force is not new or void in society. Many a time in stories today or even in mythology such as Hercules saving Megara (really a servant of Hades) we see what man will do to quench desire. The guy saves the girl (or tries) and the little girls works all summer at her lemonade stand so she can buy a pogo stick. We do crazy stuff for desire, crazy stuff. Many a time, as the quote above says, we do these crazy things for the pursuit of happiness. We want that girl to see how strong we are and also possibly have some baby Herculi (i think thats right)... so we will risk our lives defeating monsters and nearly getting smashed in the process. That is dangerous. Happiness alone is not dangerous. The things that we will do to get a glimpse of it are. Eros can make us do anything he wants because he has our dream in captivity. He holds the chain connected to our happiness, and wether we like it or not, by proxy he holds a chain connected to us. Can we truly break these chains, or are they intertwined just as Plato says.
ReplyDeleteThink again of how Socrates (Plato) conceives of Eros and how it is different. This may hold the key to your chains. Why does Plato have every speak before Socrates in the Symposium and then why does ?Agathon? (can't remember the name right now) come in to the party hammered at the end?
DeleteAlcibiades!
DeleteThank you, i will...
DeleteLove. The helpless romantic in me recoils and sighs at the same time upon hearing that word. The philosopher Aristophanes says that "in the successful pursuit of love, desire or Eros is the overlord who will "[return us to our original condition, healing us, and making us perfectly happy " (McMahon 33) ... or so we think. Can something so perfect and potent really exist in this world as supposedly it will be the end all be all to our happiness conundrum. I'm going to very honest right now. I don't think loving anyone else in my life has ever made me happy (romantically). Every time I begin to love, even if the circumstances are fantastic and pure, i have always been letdown. At times i feel as though Love is a foolish hope and a scarce occurrence in the world today. Sure, you may be in a relationship. You may enjoy the other person. However, how many of you are perfectly happy? How many of you are truly at peace because you're in love. I believe the thing that makes love strong is actually the common lack of perfection and by association, happiness. The thing that makes relationships strong is unhappiness and pain and tribulation. Love doesn't bring happiness, instead it seems to brings tests. Are you in love? Oh well take this, fight over the remote for a bit because you want to watch football and he wants to watch project runway! That is Love. it is either snuffed out by challenges or it is forged like steel and becomes worthy of possible enjoyment. We must come to terms that love is not the end all be all. You will have some enjoyment and that may be fantastic, yet love is not limited to positive things.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it is your view on love. if i interpreted it correctly, you stated that love cannot bring you perfect happiness because it is either broken by conflict or strengthened by getting through said conflict. what if one where to study love as an emotion not a piece of muscle that can be trained and strength-end till it meets its limit. Love is the emotional and spiritual feeling that two people feel for each other. It has the power to make one care for the other more than themselves. Love is the bond that is still strong as ever in the middle of the conflict. In true pure love you don't look at your relationship as if we cant agree on a TV show we are not compatible. True love is not buying second TV or watching your shows at different time. Love is watching that Project Runway and learning to like it for your love. When you are in love there is no i, only we. And when one find this other person to be "we" with, there will be true happiness. and those challenges that you get through will not strengthen your relationship, it will form you and the other person little by little into that one person who has reached pure happiness.
DeleteInteresting, yet i believe that in the context of the book and the form of love that i was addressing... this love is not ideal. Love is not ideal. If you still believe in ideal love consider this.
DeleteToday's marriage rate, 6.8 per 1000 people
Today's divorce rate, 3.6 per 1000 people
It seems as though today's love, the supposed reason we get married, is not very strong or sucessful.
i see where you are coming from yes, but you still are looking at love as an object that can be kept in a box and taken away or broke. Pure love is a spiritual connection of finding the other half of you. There fore these divorce rates are signs that people are getting married, yet are not truly in love. one could go an entire lifetime and wake up one morning that they do not love the person they have wed. while you are right in saying love is not ideal form of bringing happiness . Finding true love is probably one of the hardest was to reach happiness next to learning to find the beauty in all the world. But, it is one of the more rewarding and satisfying routes to happiness. While it is not ideal it still grants happiness to those that have it in its purest form.
DeleteJack, you have to keep in mind that a lot of people who marry marry for the wrong reasons. It does not always have to be for love. It could be for money or for fame to just name a couple. And people who married for love might have lost their love for their spouse, or their spouse could have done something to completely break the trust between the two, which could always lead to divorce. Maybe they didnt love eachother, but they loved a mutual thing they shared, like a love of sports, or food, or travel. Maybe it wasn't actually love that the couple felt for each other before they got married, but rather a temporary affection, or puppy love, that was outgrown or worn through, like clothes.
DeleteDo any of your conceptions fit with the Ancient Greeks' or Socrates/Plato's conceptions of love?
DeleteYou both just added to the point that i made, thank you.
DeleteThank you Connor for reminding us that love is not guaranteed a duration and that when it comes to cessation, it can cause a great revelation (usually through the form of pain and sorrow). Often times this can break us and because of our past desire for love, we get slapped in the face when we realize that the love we thought we had is gone.
Frank, thank you for exposing the impurity of today's notion of love! As you said, " a lot of people who marry marry for the wrong reasons". This is so terribly true however, if we are referring to the common definition of marriage as established by Wang, society traditionally idealizes marriage as the union of two humans out of love. So yes, many people marry for the wrong reasons and in doing so, trample upon the sacred idea of marriage and in turn, love. This must bring anguish for the couple as they must come to terms that their union is fake and that they are doomed to live with this person they don't have great feelings for or face a nasty divorce (as is true with those who marry for money and fame and have to deal with monetary distribution and the incessant criticism of the press). Oh how flawed love is, you both are so right... and i guess i am too.
No Mr. Heintz, i believe that the current definition of love being assessed is that of a modern day form. They Ancient Greeks were most likely more interested in the process and quality of sexual intercourse/ the perks that were associated with the union. I would imagine that they also used the idea of love to categorize the pure blissful and ecstatic state of lust rather than a feeling for one person. I could be wrong though.
In Aristotle's Ethics, he states that "...in every action and decision it is the end, since it is for the sake of the end that everyone does the other things." I found this to contradict Aristotle's beliefs of happiness, as depicted in Raphael's The School Of Athens. In this masterpiece, Aristotle, in "harmonious tension" with Plato, has his hand "steady in the plane of the Earth." This gesture implies that Aristotle thinks of happiness as worldly, or something that we can attain here on this Earth through our own actions.
ReplyDeleteAfter contemplating the above paragraph, I’ve concluded that Aristotle was not, after all, contradicting himself. Instead, he was describing two forms of happiness. The first, and most important, is the form that we all strive for in the end: to live a successful life in which all of the aspects he points out in the Rhetoric come together. Since the overwhelming majority of humans do not possess all of these aspects, it is impossible, therefore, for most of us to achieve this paramount form.
Besides the impossibility to achieve the primary form of happiness, all humans still desire to satisfy themselves. This is the secondary form of happiness. This is the form in which one can directly affect one’s happiness level through one’s own actions. However, this perceived form of happiness will only be momentary, therefore making it not happiness, but joyfulness. And joyfulness it should be, because it is a state of emotion one can bring upon oneself, rather than a state of being one uses to describe the lives of other people who are deceased. This joyfulness is what Aristotle is actually gesturing towards in Raphael’s painting, not the full-fledged happiness towards which Plato is doing the same.
1. Did Raphael have a complete understanding of Aristotle?
Delete2. Is a painting from 1800 years later a good source for philosophical explanation
I think McMahon would admit it was a great intro to the chapter (I actually use it too) but it is admittedly a bit simplistic and contrived.
Frank, I agree with you about the two forms of happiness, but do you agree with me that the "secondary" happiness is merely a distraction as to how to achieve true happiness? All these fleshy, earthly desires prove entrancing in the wrong way. For example, the symposium seems to serve as means to simply distract us from the fact that we are indeed inadequate. Honestly, I would probably do this too though if someone (Aristotle) put the task of true happiness seemingly out of reach even for the greatest of beings. His laundry list of characteristics are not only nearly impossible to possess, at least possess all of them, but Aristotle himself admits luck is a fairly important factor. Seems to me that lining up all of these characteristics is highly improbable, if not impossible. Do you agree? A symposium to me was the best bet the ancient Greeks had. I mean they had no real shot a Aristotle's "true" happiness, so why not get drunk, have sex, and commiserate?
DeleteFrank,
DeleteI just reread your paragraph and you did a good job analyzing the two forms of happiness put forth by Aristotle. Good work!
Kyle,
DeleteA "distraction" is the best word that I can think of to describe my perspective of "secondary" happiness. I’ve thought of it as when you're playing video games, then your little brother or sister comes along and wants to play, too. What do you do? You give them a controller that isn't plugged in, so that they FEEL like they’re playing and being included, but in reality, they're not. In the same way, Aristotle just gave his inadequate siblings a useless controller. I feel like he made himself seem like the good guy who brought happiness to everybody, but he just took the natural human desires, repackaged them, and tossed it to people like beads on mardi gras.
Agreed. That's what I was saying, but very well put.
DeleteThank you Coach Heintz!
DeleteOn page 47, McMahon says that fortune plays a role in determining happiness. But, in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Lazarus finds happiness in Heaven with Abraham, even though he was far from fortunate in his life on Earth. Truly, the happiness Lazarus experiences is of the primary form which I mentioned in my last post, but he has none of the aspects required for happiness as outlined by Aristotle. Lazarus’ happiness is most likely emotional, but not momentary, because Heaven is forever, so it has to be more than just joy. Then, how can Lazarus experience the primary form of happiness if he didn’t lead a successful life? Is there a “first-and-a-half” form of happiness that we aren’t aware of? There must be, because there is no denying that Lazarus is happy.
ReplyDeleteLazarus and Aristotle likely view happiness and the world very differently. They are from different worlds and to impose the ideals of one on the other (both just lightly documented historically) makes a great intellectual exercise (like this!) but a faulty one in the long one. It is like asking an atheist if he would find happiness in God's heaven...
DeleteWhen two men have different views of happiness and the world, does that keep one man from having an opinion of the other? What would Aristotle's opinion of Lazarus be?
DeleteI think Aristotle's primary and Lazarus's "heavenly" happiness are similar in that both are viewed as the grand, end-all of happiness but one is intellectual (Aristotle) and the other is spiritual (Lazarus). One is achieved through contemplation and the other was through God's mercy. That is human agency vs. passivity, a stark difference. In addition, emotion is generally seen as a very base and temporary thing and of this world for the Greeks so it may not be the best way to think of happiness -- that is fleeting and temporary.
DeleteI smell a paper topic!!
So I've got a question. While reading about Aristotle, I found that I kept wanting to ask where he got his philosophies from. I found that his blanket statements seemed to have a lot of loopholes. For example, virtue = happiness, but some who are virtuous are unhappy. Aristotle seems to shrug this off and say, in essence, "Oh well, it's a paradox!" Maybe I'm being too rigid in my requirements for the answer to the unanswerable, or maybe I feel argumentative because I'm more-than-slightly miffed at Aristotle for calling women "natural slaves" who are "deficient in reason" and therefore "deficient in the capacity for virtue" (I know I know, different times, different social norms, but still...). But when Aristotle states that a godlike life, a.k.a the life of contemplation, makes for happiness, I want to know why he can assume that to be godlike is to be happy. It's an illogical syllogism. How can we just assume that gods are inherently good and therefore happy? And why is contemplation a godlike action? Why is the word blessed a synonym for happy?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that it's right to assume that to be like the gods--or God, depending--we must be contemplative. Though I suppose this gets into theological philosophy, I don't believe that higher powers need to think, they know, right? That's why they're the omniscient ones. Also, how do we know that divine equates to happy? Is it because happiness is the ultimate goal and so is heaven, so we can call them equal? I feel as though a distinction should be made between divine power and euphoric power. Maybe that's just me.
This will require class discussion. Bring this post to Tuesday! So many juicy points here...Thank you Serena!
DeleteLong story short: Aristotle presents two competing views on happiness.
Let me post this -- Aristotle thinks reason (thinking) is what separates us from the plants and animals and makes us closest to the gods. Thus, you need to exercise that to become god-like (to know).
DeleteHey Serena,
DeleteI loved what you said in this posts! I have been thinking about this for a long time in an effort to come up with some sort of response to your questions. I completely agree that is odd how we automatically equate godliness to happiness and how Aristotle creates a gaping hole in his philosophy.
These are some of my thoughts:
To start, Coach Heinz made a great point. If you know more, then you are closer to being a god in Aristotle's view. Adding on to this, if a god is one that is omnipotent and all knowing, then isn't he or she a philosopher king? With his or her abundance of knowledge, he or she would be able to discover pure beauty or the truth in the Socratic view. If they obtained the truth, then they are technically happy. So to clarify: gods=philosopher kings, philosopher kings=happy. With Aristotle's understanding of this Socratic philosophy, one can understand how he has come to believe that the gods are happy by default.
Serena,
DeleteWhen Aristotle discusses being contemplative in order to be like the gods, given his perspective that sees the gods as supremely powerful beings, I think his point is that in order to be anywhere close to the gods, we must be contemplative. The gods in Aristotle's time knew more than he or anyone else did; the only way that humans could become like them was to strive for that knowledge through contemplation. And to be like the gods was to be happy, because to be like the gods was to have power. The gods, in earlier definitions of happiness, were the ones who could control human fate and determine if their lives would eventually reach happiness; if the humans were able, through contemplation, to create that kind of power for themselves, they could gain complete control of their lives and therefore make themselves happy. In our modern perspective today, to be like the God that most Christians believe in is different; it's more about having the truth and goodness that he is associated with at the core of their being- it's less power driven. But through that truth and goodness, which are associated with prayer (perhaps divine contemplation?), Christians are promised the ultimate good -heaven- where their all-powerful God grants them eternal happiness with him. I think the main difference between Aristotelian attitudes towards becoming like the gods and Christian's goal for being like God is that the earlier gods were more attainable; power like theirs was something that the humans hoped to gain for control in their lives, while being like God today is more about earning favor from God so that he grants you happiness your afterlife accordingly.
Will, I appreciate your point about philosopher kings being all knowing, but I seem to recall discussing in class (I think it was Serena's point, in fact) that they were still human, just the closest that humans could come to being divine.
Well said Beth!
DeleteIn Mr, Marrier's discussion, he brought up how Socrates believed that it's not the wealth one has, but what one does with that wealth that really matters. He believed that the course of your actions determines and can lead to happiness. He has the revolutionary idea that it is not all luck and fate that determines your happiness once you die, but ultimately your actions. However, when Mr. Marrier described that Socrates was ugly, poor, and job-less, I began to think that this may have been his reasoning behind his ground-breaking thoughts. The fact that he didn't have the external factors that the ancient Greeks believed led to happiness, Socrates could very well have felt excluded and created a way in which he could also obtain happiness. He turn happiness into a goal in which all humans can obtain rather than only the elite, good-looking people could reach after death. This was one of my thoughts as I heard the story of Socrates by Mr. Marrier.
ReplyDeletePlato, similar to Socrates, believed that his thoughts are "apt to suggest that we yearn for more than our wealth and precious freedoms can provide." He refused to accept fate/luck as the ultimate agent in which determines our happiness. He believed, as Socrates, that we are not defined by the external factors that suggest happiness like "wealth and precious freedoms."
"Part human, Eros is incomplete- he yearns; part god, he yearns for what is godlike; happiness."
If only happiness will make us whole, then will most of us live as incomplete all of our lives? Is this potentially our purpose in the world: to find what makes us whole again (happiness)?
^^ Taylor Bradley (once again, I'm not sure why my name won't post as me, but I promise this is Taylor.)
DeleteSocrates = ugly - good possible justification and great question regarding motivation/intent. However, Socrates had the opportunity to acquire wealth/power/etc. (not beauty haha) and he chose not too. This complicates the issue.
DeleteHey Taylor! Try going to the top right corner, dashboard, top right corner again, then account settings to change your name. That might fix it.
DeleteAlso, I really like your post! I'm thinking that maybe there is more than one type of happiness, or at least levels of happiness. Like that the external, tangible things that bring us happiness bring us to this minor level of fleeting joy, whereas there's some other level closer to euphoria that you achieve with honor or death or something bigger than, say, a new car. Just some thoughts!
McMahon cites Aristotle's Ethics as beginning with, "every craft and every investigation, and likewise every action and decision, seems to aim at some good" (43). In this way, Aristotle seems to claim that everything has a purpose to produce some good- either a selfish good (as one could find in acts seeking pleasure or gain) or a good for others (found in selfless acts). As McMahon continues to elaborate, we see that in Aristotle's view, man is similar to these actions; he too, has a purpose of living in accordance with reason, which should produce "some good". This purpose is determined for him before he sets foot on the earth; as a man (and strictly a man, unfortunately), he is destined to produce good in his life, both in his craft but also in the fact that he is ultimately a man, made with said purpose in mind. In this way we can almost see Aristotle thinking of man's life as predetermined; mapped out by every action (each action is defined by its purpose) within a pre-purposed life, meant only to produce this end result of goodness. This goodness, in turn, leads to man's true goal and over-arching purpose: happiness. Within each purpose-driven action and defined by the pre-requisites required to make goodness (or the final happiness) even attainable, a man's life can almost be predicted. In a simpler circle of logic: man's purpose is to live through reason, which will produce goodness and therefore happiness. Man's purpose is therefore to produce happiness. Man's happiness is determined through his virtuous actions, coupled with the requirements one must meet in order to make happiness attainable. Therefore, with knowledge of his actions and his position in society and, in turn, how close one is to being able to attain contemplation (the only way to true happiness), man's happiness can be predetermined. And since happiness is man's purpose, his life, drive, and sole reason for living can therefore be predetermined.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful analysis, synopsis and reflection. Unfortunately, the connection to predetermination isn't strong enough. Argue it again. Or it is possible that our definitions of predetermined may be different. Aristotle is teleologically driven (purpose driven) for much of his argument but one has to choose his (or her in my opinion!) actions -- the antithesis of predetermination.
DeleteWhat a person has to do to become happy is predetermined though and this is where your beautiful analysis comes into play. Live through reason for the most part...
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ReplyDeleteOn page 47, McMahon talks about how Aristotle believe "External goods… are all frankly accepted as necessary components of happiness." Aristotle is basically teaching that people need money and to be popular and to be pretty to be happy. This is very similar to our culture today. Many people think that they need the latest iPhone or makeup to be happy. Isn't it a bit sad how people haven't progressed since the ancient world? I know that Aristotle said that "pleasure is by no means the sole constituent of happiness", but he still said it was a factor. Yes, I agree that having nice things and being popular is nice, but it is not everything. It is whether or not you appreciate the thing you have that will make you happy. If a person does not appreciate what they have then they will never be satisfied and always want more. I don't think that material things should be included in our definition of happiness because a person may have all of the money in the world as and still never be truly happy.
Do you really think a life lacking good things can bring happiness? Really? Would you give up all that you have for happiness?
DeleteI agree with Mr. Heintz's point to an extent. I do not believe human beings can give up every good thing in this world and still be happy. Having said this, I come back to your post Emma. I believe that you have the right idea, but I think the path to happiness is slightly different. I do not think that over indulgence will lead to any real happiness either. I think that, as Aristotle taught, there is a way to achieve happiness that lies between these two extremes. Basically what I am trying to say is that human beings cannot achieve happiness through austerities, nor can we achieve happiness though over indulgence. Instead the path to happiness must lie somewhere in the middle. Somewhere that we can enjoy the good things our world have to offer, but still abstain from enjoying too much of them.
DeleteI don't think that having possessions is a bad thing at all. The point I was trying to make was just that materials aren't everything. I would definitely not want to give up all that I have. I think it is fine for people to have things, but having things doesn't guarantee happiness. A person could have only a few possessions and still be happy. I feel that it is more about how much you appreciate what you have rather than just having. Yes, I have many possessions, but I am thankful for every single one of them. Now, people who have a lot of possessions and don't appreciate them will never find true happiness because they will always want more and never be satisfied. To obtain happiness through possessions only isn't possible, but having them certainly helps if you appreciate what you have.
DeleteIn terms of questions, I find that Aristotle seems to contradict himself in terms of how only certain men can achieve happiness; he states that women, like other "natural slaves" cannot attain the elusive concept he struggles to define; likewise, children and those without sufficient resources to educate themselves and live leisurely cannot reach his exclusive goals. Yet he also claims that "What is best about being human is the opportunity to break out of being human." All these exclusionary groups that Aristotle creates are made up of humans; they are not men, true, or at least not educated, philosophical men that Aristotle idealizes, but they are human nonetheless and therefore, should, through a transitive sort of comparison, be able to break out of the hu/man/ restrictions that Aristotle places on his unattainable ideals, should they not? Given that the Greek gods were both male and female (and also only the truly happy beings), couldn't these minority groups that Aristotle excludes from realizing any happiness at all (not even the "secondary happiness" to which most men are resigned) break out of the categories Aristotle has so easily confined them to? If the best part of being human is the opportunity to change and challenge that fact, can it really be restricted to only some humans?
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ReplyDeleteWith all the talk in the book about parties and this "YOLO" mentality, I wonder why the view on happiness is so unsatisfying. Aristotle teaches about how the best people can strive for is "secondary happiness" and how happiness is "unattainable" and "imperfect." That just does not seem to fit with the happy-go-lucky feeling I got from reading about the parties and festivals that seemed to be a big part of life, for the elites at least. Now, this view of happiness may have been focused more towards the lower classes or the "normal" people in society because they would not have partaken in the crazy parties.Why is it that in the ancient world, happiness always seems to be this goal that people strive for but can never manage to achieve it? Happiness seems like it it was so far away and impossible that people would have given up and settled with the fact that they were going to be miserable for their entire life. Unless, they were to die right as they were on the brink of joy. It just seems pretty depressing to me.
I agree, I think it's really depressing. We have to remember, though, that the greeks lived in a much more tragic time than we do now. The reason they partied so much and lived so hedonistically was because they lived in a time of tragedy. They used pleasure to combat the pain.
DeleteLikewise, the whole idea of living while you can came from the fact that death was very prominent in their culture. The likeliness of an ancient Greek dying was higher than it is for us now, so they figured if they could die any day, they should live more intensely.
Because they lived in a time of such suffering, the ancient greeks had reason to be pessimistic.
For the most part, I agree with what you're saying, Gracie. The Greeks DID live in a tragic world in which death took center stage. However, we as a society like to party hard, get hammered, and get high, also, to take the edge off. The edge that's sharpened every day by the stresses of school, the pressures of "fitting in," and the woes of everyday (modern) life. Although the likelihood of an ancient Greek dying IS much more likely than it is now, to say that the ancient Greeks lived in a time with much more suffering, I would say, is inaccurate. We too live in a time with suffering, it's just a different suffering. It is brought upon ourselves, rather than brought upon by mother nature like the Greeks dealt with.
DeleteWatch out. Your community might be wiped out by pestilence or hunger. Ah everybody hide, bloody warfare is right outside your doorstep... oh wait... all of the men go out and fight in that bloody mess. Oh you say you can't? Well then, you will become a bloody mess through public beheading. Maybe boiling alive inside of a giant copper bull? being dragged behind a horse? Im just glad you made it past your fifth birthday, because a lot of toddlers die every year in your village due to lack of medical help and deformation. Oh whats that... we don't live in ancient greek times. Your right our life is harder.
DeleteYes Emma, it does sound terribly depressing. Maybe the reason that they had such a YOLO ideology is because they had, like you said, accepted that their life couldn't really get much worse. They did give up and decided that they had nothing to lose... so they partied. A sad, depressed, last ditch effort at trying to enjoy the short life they had.
From your view today, yeah, the Greek world was terrible. It was really rough, but if you look at it from their persecutive, it was normal. For us, we know of a better life, so when we hear of anything that is worse than that, we automatically assume that everyone was miserable. But I don't think the Greeks viewed their lives to be as awful as we see it. It is true that they probably didn't enjoy the fact that there was a high chance their kids would die or they could starve, but I that was just life for them. I'm sure in a thousand years people will look back and think "Oh, how horrible life must have been in the 21st century!" It's all relative. So, I think they did party and have a good time with flute boys to distract themselves, but they were just distracting themselves from normal life, not some terrible existence. They probably didn't see their lives as super short because a short life span was just the norm. So, I don't think that you can use the "carpe diem" excuse for their "living more intensely" (as Gracie said).
DeleteAlong the same lives, they probably didn't view their world as a tragedy. To them, it was what it was. They didn't know a better or worse world (unless you count them seeing the world of the Gods as a better world). So, I also don't think you can use them viewing their world as tragic as an explanation either.
Great response Emma. I wonder if the Greeks would be highly critical of our super structured lives, always connected attitudes, and frankly, no free time for symposia! Greek folk may think the 21st century USA was worse than pestilence...
Delete**Remember, Marier, Socrates and Plato are possible too...I am impressed by all this Aristotle stuff -- most don't like him and get drunk on Platonic ideals (I usually do!)
ReplyDeleteSince no one has really touched Thursday's talk yet, I'm going to take my quote from Mr. Marier (which is actually a question. But this is my quote post!). When talking about happiness and freedom and their correlation to one another, he asked, "How happy can you be when you live in a situation threatening to human freedom?" Mr. Marier went on to cite Nazi Germany and strict tyrannical rules as examples. The immediate response, at least to me, is to say "Well, not very." But when you really think about it, maybe there is something in being controlled that keeps people happy. It's along the lines of that whole ignorance is bliss ideal. No, I'm sure people in concentration camps weren't happy by any definition (well, unless you look at it with the ancient Greek view in that one can't be happy until death and they were getting closer to death. Morbid and seemingly backwards, but I digress.). There's an element of stress that comes with freedom that isn't there when someone is thinking for you. I'm thinking sort of the ideology of a perfect communist society. The idea is that if there is economic and social control, then the pursuit of happiness for all becomes somewhat more equal making for happier people. For the record, this is speculation. It's easy to see how freedom begets happiness; we all love having choices and being independent. However, if you look at the flip side, there's a way happiness can come out of non-autonomous control as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Serena. Having no freedom can bring us happiness because in some ways it relives the stress and burdens. We don't have the choice, therefore we cant worry about the choice. How ever, i think that the majority of people today would rather have a stressed filed life with choices, than one with none and no stress.
DeleteI think that being controlled could make us think we're happy for a time, but after a while we would run into issues. It is so much easier to have the burden of choice and responsibility taken from you, but then again, it's not nearly as good as having the choice to do what you want. If someone's always making choices for you, eventually you're going to run into a situation where they make a choice that you don't agree with.
DeleteSerena, this is fantastic. It seems to me that another benefit to giving up all control is that when you do something wrong under their command or direction, you can pin the blame on them if it goes wrong. Eliminating this blame could allow for a more enjoyable life as one is not stuck pondering the ethicality of their actions, similar to the SS fighting for Hitler and then during the Nuremberg trials either denying that what they did was wrong through brainwashed justification, or simply blaming their actions on the fact that they were "just following orders". This could also suggest a no regrets lifestyle allowing for greater self esteem and a clean conscience.
Deletewould you consider one of the downsides of freedom to be responsibility for ones actions. Could that idea be both the greatest and least of the benefits of freedom?
Serena, I can definitely agree with your statement that when other people are thinking for you, you're released from a sort of burden that freedom brings. This kind of burden can be in what Jack was saying- in responsibility for our actions that we make of our own free will- but also in simpler ways. In a controlled society, we are released from the stresses of having to make our own decisions on what to believe and finding for ourselves true meaning in our decisions. We can just leave the thought processes behind and move on with our lives, thinking in a uniform and dictated manner. Perhaps in this way our happiness could become easier, in a society where happiness is already decided for us. Without having to think for ourselves, we are freed from doing the "real work" of defining our own happiness- but is it true happiness when it's someone else's definition? We discussed how happiness is subjective and also how universal truths are a paradox, but given that societies like Aristotle's could have an objective right and wrong, could not a controlled society like Serena's also have an objective happiness?
DeleteI personally like the idea of destiny -- it takes the pressure off of me! If I have no control I can let go and be stress free. As I said in class, there is nothing better than having an entire evening planned for you! I think this is one of the stresses of being a parent (something you might understand later in life), but you are ALWAYS responsible for someone. It is tough at times.
DeleteFollow up...
DeleteDon't we say things like "it's God's will" and "everything happens for a reason" to make ourselves feel better in the event of a tragedy?
If we had control we accept guilt and responsibility. If we didn't have control, we can wash out hands of it. If it was destined by a superhuman being, we can accept the event because it has a purpose we don't understand.
Thanks for all the feedback guys! Love it!
DeleteWong, I'm with you on that life with choice + stress>>>no choice + no stress. But in the event that you had to live with the circumstances of the life you're handed, I think it's possible to be happy in the no choice situation, but maybe only if the whole "the grass is always greener" mentality isn't there. Maybe if you don't know how good you could have it, you're going to be happy regardless? Just some thoughts.
Gracie, sure you may not always agree with the philosopher king or dictator or Leader of the 3rd Reich, but perhaps there's an element of happiness that still comes from the fact that you don't have to make your own choices that overrides the "Hey, I want my voice heard" thoughts. After all, even if it's propogandic, a lot of the platforms these leaders have are that their system will equate to happier times. Perhaps it's all a matter of convincing oneself what to believe.
Jack, I thought about the Nuremberg trials as I was writing the post actually, and I agree that with freedom comes great responsibility (Eleanor Roosevelt totally stole that from me) and responsibility isn't always, and in fact often isn't, a happy thing.
Beth, totally with you on the responsibility is a burden idea. And I think yes, controlled societies can have an objective happiness such as the happiness dictated for them.
Coach Heintz, I agree! You know, with my extensive knowledge of parenting and such. And I think as fallible beings, we love playing the blame game and pointing fingers, and being released from responsibility makes it super easy for us to do so. As much as we say we want to take our lives into our own hands, sometimes it's truly liberating to let someone else do the deciding for us.
How could Aristotle's views on happiness be beneficial to anyone living in ancient Greece?
ReplyDeleteConsidering how difficult and unlucky life was for people living in ancient Greece, I don't see how any of Aristotle's requirements to achieve happiness would be beneficial for anyone. Aristotle makes happiness seem like it has so many requirements. He basically says that you need to be wealthy, beautiful, strong, and virtuous to be happy, and anyone without these characteristics will never be fully happy. This makes happiness virtually unattainable, so what is the point? The ancient Greeks already seemed to be generally unhappy and this view on happiness would probably make them more hopeless.
"Aristotle concedes that the virtues of character he has so assiduously expounded are, at best, capable of conferring only 'secondary' happiness."
This quote confuses me because it makes happiness even less desirable to achieve. Like I said before, I don't see how anyone would want to believe Aristotle's views on happiness. He makes it nearly impossible to achieve, and then goes onto say that you also have to achieve divinity through contemplation. I think Aristotle is saying that true happiness is only obtained by the gods, and to be truly happy, you have to act like the gods. I don't see how acting like the gods will make you happy when you are a human being.
I get the point you are trying to make. I can see how Aristotle would appeal to people, though. He was the first of the big philosophers to actually make happiness seen attainable by the masses (or at least intelligent men). He taught that anyone can live virtuously. All they had to do was act in accordance with reason. If they did that, then they would have a good life. He knew that it would be difficult for some, so that is why he taught about the habituation of virtues. By doing what you know is right over and over, soon enough, you'll do the right thing because you want to and for the right reason.
DeleteWhile I can see how he inspired people, I also think he is a complete hypocrite. At the end of his life, he completely rewrote his teachings and decided to make happiness unattainable to basically everyone. It is confusing why he would just change like that and resort back to the ideas that he was trying to get away from. So, while I liked Aristotle's original teachings, I find it hard to trust them because of his later. After hearing of his "secondary happiness", it makes me think that he only taught about attainable happiness to get everyone's attention and have them follow him. He only did it because he wanted followers so that when he introduced his real views, people wouldn't deny him.
I agree with you as well. In the miserable state the Ancient Greeks were living in, these goals for happiness were nearly impossible for them to achieve. And even if they could achieve the goals, their happiness would still only be secondary to the true happiness.
DeleteLike we talked about in the last class, I think he was trying to motivate people to live virtuously. His "Habituation of Virtue" theory stated that if the people tried to act rightly, their actions would eventually become a part of who they are. I think this was his ultimate goal--for people to act right (hoping to find happiness), and eventually they would become better people.
The habituation principle is very appealing. Do you think if we all practiced it (along with the golden mean) that the world would be a happier place in general? I do... I am interested in those who may disagree.
DeleteHow can anyone determine an overall meaning of happiness? Happiness is going to be subjective to each person and their own experiences. Like Mr. Marier said, there is a large gap between the lifestyles of the elite and the majority of the people. Elite people's definition of happiness is obviously going to be very different from others, because the world that they live in is so much different. Their view of happiness is skewed from the view of the majority. It seems impossible for one singular person to define happiness, because their definition may be completely wrong for someone else. Happiness depends on personal views, experiences, and feelings, so each person must find and define happiness for themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe philosophers discussed in class and in the book are all elitists, perhaps without any understanding of the life of a regular person. Each philosopher has an elitist view on their ideas of happiness.
Aristotle claims that having virtues will bring about happiness. While this may apply to his life, it could be taken differently by the majority of people. Virtue is supposedly a matter of having the appropriate attitude towards pain and pleasure. But the pains and pleasures of a common man are far different than the pains and pleasures of an elitist. Aristotle's theory is filled with flaws and loopholes, many of which are brought about because he is elite.
I agree with your point that upper class people will have much different and probably less problems than lower class people. I think it's unfair for Aristotle to act as if they all have the same problems and the same life and I think that he would have had a very different philosophy on happiness had he been poor or less fortunate. I also think Aristotle is wrong in saying that virtue will bring about happiness for everyone because being virtuous and having the right attitude towards pain and pleasure is almost impossible for some people, and it doesn't seem like an effective way to achieve happiness
DeleteQuote: “Restricted from the outset to free men, men of means, the pool of candidates for happiness only grows smaller as we work through Aristotle’s account.” (48).
ReplyDeleteA few sentences earlier, it is said that Aristotle ruled out women for the opportunity to be truly happy because they are “natural slaves” and deformed. Also, male children are ruled out because their capacity for logic and reason are not fully formed. Therefore, leaving only upper-class, wealthy males with many physical perquisites as the only ones to obtain true happiness. Aristotle believed academic study and contemplation are the keys to happiness and the only ones with enough time and resources to participate in those activities are wealthy men. Also, he agreed with the notion that one could only be deemed happy after their death. After all of these requirements, it could be said that Aristotle’s view of happiness was essentially unobtainable for the vast majority of people.
Could this be one of the reasons why the school of tjought shifted to being in control of one's own happiness, because the vast majority of people were excluded from acquiring this version of happiness?
DeleteGood thinking Frank but remember that Aristotle actually is part of the movement to human agency -- he is actually more inclusive than the philosophers that came before him. Hard to believe actually...
DeleteAt the end of the period on Thursday, Mr. Marier told us that in ancient Greece, "happiness was objective". People could judge if you were happy after you died from looking at your life accomplishments. It was plain and simple. If you did good things and lived an honorable life by the time you died, you were considered to be happy. Your happiness was based on facts, instead of feelings.
ReplyDeleteNow, as Mr. Marier said, "happiness is a feeling; it's subjective". I consider happiness to be a feeling. Of course, having new things or doing honorable things can make a person feel better or more fulfilled. But it's more than just looking at the facts of someone's life. I know that I, personally, feel fleeting moments of happiness. Even though these moments may be temporary, that doesn't make them any less real. And while there are also moments of sadness or anger in my life, I still consider myself to be a happy person. I don't consider myself a happy person because of the objective things in my life. My happiness is a completely subjective matter. Another person could look at the facts of my life and think that I shouldn't be considered happy--maybe I haven't done enough honorable deeds, maybe I don't have a high enough status, etc. But I think happiness is based more off my own feelings, instead of my actions and material items.
I like how you said that we feel "fleeting moments of happiness," Ally, I think that was a really good description. I think that while happiness may not be a permanent, lasting emotion, it is real, and we each feel them during these fleeting moments in our lives. I agree that happiness is more about the subjective moments where our own feelings change, instead of objective opinions of other people.
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ReplyDeleteQuestion: How would you explain to me in a couple of sentences what each philosopher’s view on happiness is? I am still very unsure how to summarize it, but it would go:
Socrates- It is achieved in the pursuit of a higher knowledge and can only be found when men can think and discuss freely and clearly.
Plato- Basically the same as Socrates because Plato was the one who published his teacher’s words and teachings.
Aristotle- Completely the opposite of Plato, he believed happiness is acquired through the accumulation of knowledge from the physical world as well as the practicing of virtue.
Quote: on page 40 McMahon asks a very troubling question, "how can it be we naturally desire what we have never known?" It is a point of that i have never thought of before. how is it that we crave heaven and a spiritual resting place if we have never experienced it ourselves. We have never been to a place like heaven or meet God, so how do we now to yearn for such a thing. To be come like gods as Socrates puts it. We have never been like a god, so how do we want it. I agree with Plato when he said human desire was easily diverted or changed, but this can point us in the direction of wanting heaven or godlike state. We might be changed to yearn for the earthly distraction, for the gold and possessions. One would grow tired of just working and wanting a happiness that could only be obtained through being a perfect person. As a modern person, many times we use these earthly ideas to divert our attention back to heaven and true happiness. We are told by priests and the Bible that all of our drams and wants are in heaven with God.There fore we are taught to want it y wanting those earthly possessions and thinking we can obtain them spiritually.
ReplyDeleteHey Wong. I may be off base here, and this isn't completely relevant to your post, but Socrates seems almost Christian to me. Basically, he says we must endure all these earthly misfortunes, and bear the load while we're here. People may make fun of us or mock us, but we just "turn the other cheek". Jesus preached the same thing. To endure the hardships of life and to turn the other cheek is Jesus' whole life in a nutshell. Jesus was executed for it, as was Socrates. Jesus was Socratic in many way I believe. What do you think?
DeleteMr. Marier stated that "stuff doesn't automatically make you happy, you have to do good things with it." I have to disagree with this statement, because I believe you can be happy by just observing, rather than doing. When you pass a baby being pushed in a stroller on the street, it'll usually make you happy. Now, you haven't done anything with or to the baby, it just happened to cross your line of vision. Over the summer, I bought a 5 lb gummy bear that sits on my shelf. Everyone who comes over asks when I'm going to eat it, and I always shrug, saying that I don't know. Maybe I'll eat it in the future, but for now, it makes me laugh, just by sitting there, because of how ridiculously large it is. And one's feelings at the current moment are what counts, because it doesn't matter whether you were happy or will be happy, you have to deal with the emotions in the present.
ReplyDeleteZuri, I totally agree. I think that happiness cannot be defined by your overall life accomplishments, but simply by how you feel in the present moment. Anything can initiate emotion, like a baby, or your giant gummy bear. It doesn't just have to be something you're doing. We learned in Early Childhood that there is a part in our brains that, as we watch someone do something, triggers emotions that make us feel as if we are actually doing that action. So for example, you could be watching someone else play with that baby in the stroller, and you would feel happy just as they do, because your brain processes you watching this action very similarly to you actually doing the action. So I agree that you don't necessarily have to be part of the action to feel something, I think that you will process that emotion either way. I also agree that your happiness can't be defined by an entire time period, but just in the present moment.
Deletenon-sequitor -- where can I get a gummi bear like that?
DeleteMr. Marier also said that to be happy, you need "wealth, health, and good luck." What defines health? Is it strong, good relationships? Is it physical health, or is it having a stable mind? By wealth, did he mean monetary, or richness in character and intelligence?
ReplyDeleteI believe he was was looking past the obvious answers, and more into the intangible ones. What good is it to have money if you're not happy with the person you are? People who are unhappy with themselves are constantly waste money on projects, materials, and gadgets trying to find the one thing that will satisfy them. Yes, the money may help them to keep trying new things until they find the one the clicks, but it also keeps them from realizing that their own self is the thing that needs to be exchanged or renovated.
You can be a world-class marathon runner and still have no friends or anyone who makes you happy. People need other people in their life because we weren't meant to live in solidarity. Mental health is the root of all other forms, because when it begins to decline, so do the others.
I think Mr. Marier should rephrase his expression to say, that in order to be happy, you must have high self-value, good relationships, and a plan and will to jump over anything that gets in your way.
Was Mr. Marier putting forth his own ideas or that of the ancient/Homeric Greeks? Does his statement mesh better with our time or the ancient's and why?
DeleteI think the idea of needing wealth and good luck to be happy is completely unfair to people in ancient times and even more so contemporary times. The ancient Greeks did not have much desire to be happy before Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato because they thought they didn't even have a chance of achieving it in their lifetime. But today, everyone wants to be happy. We would have a lot less happy people if being happy was as simple as being rich and lucky. Our society today would not support that belief because it only relates to a minority of people
DeleteMr. Marier talked about how death is represented as "the highest moment" and you "can't say you're happy until you are dead." I disagree with this statement, because I think that happiness is an emotion, not just what people think when you are gone. I think that one's happiness is subjective, and constantly changing. I don't think that it is an objective thing that people can interpret by whether your death was "glorious."
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Happiness, to me, feels like an emotion. I can feel happiness. While some objective parts of life can be fulfilling or better your character, happiness overall is a subjective part of life. I think it's a personal feeling that each person must decide for themselves.
DeleteI feel as though this theory doesnt have a place in modern thought of happiness. I don't know if it's an agree or disagree thing, since we are taking this whole ideology out of its original context. I wonder where that shift began, to a place of thought where honor in death stopped equating to happiness.
DeleteI agree with most of what you're saying Kate. I don't think that others can decide whether or not you are happy or whether your life was happy. But, at the same time I don't know if I agree with you that happiness is an emotion but rather at goal or endpoint. You can be satisfied momentarily through an action and in the moment you feel happy, but in the end that emotion will go away and what are you left with? Because all humans have this desire to stay happy all the time and be in this pure state of happiness, because you can be happy but slip back into a state of depression or be sad. In my opinion, happiness is a goal and we can strive to attain it through attempting to live a good life and when we live a good life (in our own opinion) than would have been in a state of joy (not just be happy) for joy is rather the fact that you have faith that things are going to work out.
DeleteSerena -
Delete1. It stopped for the followers of Socrates/Plato/Aristotle/Epicurus/Zeno (the elites mostly)
2. Christianity (the masses)
Just my initial thoughts and not a scholarly answer.
Ah, gotcha. Well, then that begs the question how much does religion and view of a higher power/afterlife have to do with happiness (for the masses at least) and should it?
DeleteSome argue that happiness relies on external blessings such as health, wealth, and honor. However, isn't this contradicted by Socrates, who was ugly and poor? Mr. Marier said that Socrates himself was missing the "external marks of happiness," if so, then why was Socrates considered to have lived a good and happy life? Does the stuff really even matter in the grand scheme of things?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mr. Marier when he said that it is not the stuff that we have that matters, but instead what we do with it, that allows us to achieve happiness.
Mr. Marier talked about the Greek people being driven by guilt. The people believed they had to do something because it was the "right thing to do". They believed that it was the right thing to do based off of their own thoughts. This was different than before when people did things based off of what society said they should do. I believe that people still act in the same way today. Our society believes that each individual's opinion matters. While our opinions are affected by what we observe in the world, our opinions ultimately are our own. It is strange to think that humans today still think in generally the same way that they did back in the ancient times. Does that mean they got it right? I do not think we can make the claim that it is right or wrong because we do not actually understand what parameters determine if this is right or wrong.
ReplyDeleteMany Greeks believed that the way to achieve happiness was through partying. They partied, got drunk, and fooled around to forget about their lives and what made them unhappy. Do many people do that in our society today? Do people drown their sorrows in material things to escape the things in their lives that make them unhappy? I would argue that not only do people still do this but almost everyone does is. We all cut lose every now and then, and everyone looks for ways to escape their every day lives. Some get drunk, do drugs, and have sex the way the ancient Greeks did, but there are other ways that people try to escape. Many people attempt to escape the reality that makes them unhappy through role playing games and even just putting up a mask and pretending in real life. Some people act as though they are happy hoping that they will eventually be happy. Do you think their are any acceptations to this?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the only escape from our lives are sex, alcohol, and debauchery. Some people may resort to painting or writing to momentarily forget about what's going on in their lives. Maybe this is the goal for most people. They get a job to pay for basic needs, then they want a better job for more money to spend on their activities to forget about the part where they have to be making the money. It's an endless cycle.
DeleteI agree that there are many routes of escape. I was only focusing on these few, bad routes to show the connection between our society and the society of the ancient Greeks. I think you are right by saying that all attempts at escape inevitably end in an endless cycle. I believe that this cycle can be observed in the way that people live in today's world, as well as, in the ancient world.
DeleteQuote: "NAture does not act in vain." page 43
ReplyDeletethis sentence is aristotles veiw on the world. He thinks, and i agree, that every thing on earth, from an acorn to a eagle has its purpose. they all have purpose to fulfill. they do everything for a reason.if this is true than happiness should be much easier to obtain. one can go through his or her life with no direction and purpose and never obtain happiness. we hear all the time how teens of america are "directionless" and lazy. This is apperantly why they turn to drugs and alchole like the greeks. to wash away and forget their miserable lives that lead no purpose. if you find your purpose in life, this should never happen to you. Just the knowledge that you have a purpose and belong/needed somewhere should fill ones heart with joy. Its almost predestination, because you know this is what you are supposed to be and do. If we know in our hearts that in this whole crazy giant world that we are where we belong, then i think Happiness is just around the corner.
Hey Conor,
DeleteI loved what you said about misguided teens and how you compared them to the Greeks. I mostly agreed with your post (I too accept your Aristotelian view), but I am going to disagree with one thing purely for the sake of improving my own view and shifting my paradigm. What if one never discovers their true calling? For example, Coach Heinz said today that if his calling was to play guitar, then he has been disregarding that calling for many years. From a Socratic viewpoint, one could still make the journey to happiness through the desire of logic and wisdom. My question is: What happens to these people who never discover their calling? Could they still be happy? In my opinion, discovering your purpose is only a gateway to the true discovery of happiness. If you only know your purpose and do no other contemplation on beauty or acts of good, then I believe you have only achieved partial happiness.
" We can never hope to subdue Eros (nor would we want to) but we can direct his power toward the genuinely good and genuinely beautiful, learning to love the right things in the right way"
ReplyDeleteIn life, we won't like everything we see, and that includes not necessarily liking other people. A lot of times we see things in others that we dislike and that is because we see that same trait in ourselves and dislike it. It's like we talked about in class, we have to look past the things we dislike about someone and focus on the positive traits that we like that are beautiful. We must also look past physical beauty as a whole, which isn't an easy thing to do.
like we talked in class: How do you find pure beauty? Is it just to think about it? Do you have to take away ALL human desires?
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how we still haven't overcome this, and it is still hard to push down all human desires and bring up "god-like" desires, because Eros is easily lead to human desires and the ability to push down your human desires is a long and difficult process.
As we read in the text and spoke about in class, Socrates' general idea about how to attain happiness was through thought. He believes that one has to attempt to shift his thought process in such a way that he will begin to see true beauty in the world. In this way, thinking contributes to the procuring of happiness. However, Ernest Hemingway once argued that, "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." This, of course, suggesting that intellectual thinking in some way leads to the lack of happiness, and possibly even pain. Perhaps Hemingway means to convey that intelligent people tend to over-think their actions and life choices, and this leads to unhappiness. My question is, does thought affect happiness? If so, how much, and in what way?
ReplyDeleteHey Gracie, thanks for bringing this up because I was thinking the same thing! I've always thought that over thinking things ends up confusing people further. There is a certain amount that people should use contemplation in happiness. For example, people should think about their decisions before acting on them and think about whether or not that decision will make them happy. However, thinking about happiness too much could probably end up backfiring. If you are always thinking about how to be happier, one may feel like they are never truly happy. I think there is truth to the idea that "ignorance is bliss", because often, when you don't think too much, or avoid thinking about bad things, then you wouldn't even know those bad things exist in the first place.
DeleteI think Hemingway is correct in saying that people often over think their life choices, because often the things that make us happy aren't a part of huge life decisions.
Ignorance is bliss...
DeleteThe ancient greeks found themselves in times of tragedy and suffering. They lived in a world where they had no control over the misfortune that may have befallen them. The way they responded to such hardships was to indulge themselves in extreme pleasure. Tragedy and celebration, "were frequently linked. Happiness might be hard to come by, but fleeting pleasures were less difficult to find. For all their talk of suffering, the Greeks knew how to enjoy themselves" (26).
ReplyDeleteThis idea of running to the things that give one pleasure to escape from a stressful or tragic life is not unknown to us today. There are simple pleasures of course, and pleasures that cause no harm to one's mental or physical well-being, and then there are more extreme pleasures (such as alcohol, drugs, and sex) that could potentially be harmful to a person. Often though, these are the pleasures that people run to because they provide (for most, I would argue) the most intense form of release and the deepest form of pleasure. When handled properly and not indulged in excess, pleasures such as these can be conducive to happiness. However, it seems that people are almost always going too far and letting their desires control them.
The Greeks felt that they had no control, but maybe they didn't WANT control. Like Mr. Heintz said in class, it's kind of comforting to think that the gods have control over our lives. We can know if life sucks, it's not our fault. Maybe that is why the Greeks indulged so deeply in pleasures: because they felt they had no control, and it was easier to just give into desire and let it take control over their lives.
"Our unique human activity is thus to live and act in accordance to reason." (44)
ReplyDeleteAccording to this quote, we humans are special in a way that we are not like animals, which act on instinct and do what they are born to do. We have a trait that enables us to listen to reason and then decide how we are going to take it from there. During Mr. Merier's visit, he talked about many things, but the thing that struct me the most is "How do you know when you are actually happy and its not just an illusion?" He went into further detail, explaining to us how what if everything we see before us is just an illusion. If the human mind is made to be able to understand reason, this should mean that the mind would also be able to understand the logic and reason behind what is an illusion and what is not. As we've come to know, everyone has a different opinion on what is "reasonable.", thus making the topic of happiness that much more complicated by further uncovering how much uncertainty there is in people's minds and how much more subjective happiness is. If we are unable to come to terms with what is reasonable and what is not, how can we hope to find an answer to what happiness is?
We've also touched upon how other people are the ones that define your happiness. Sure, that person may have had a happy life and did great deeds and such and seems to be a happy person by others, but what if the person is hiding back their true emotions and only seem "happy" to please others? Over the summer, I spent a lot of time on Netflix and found a movie by the name of 21 and Over. This movie follows two young adults who are coming to celebrate their old, high school friend's 21st birthday. It should be pretty obvious that things take a turn for the worst, but the thing is, Jeff Chang, the character that was turning 21 was always seen as the most cheerful of their group and everyone assumed he was happy. Everyone would look at him and give him the label of being "happy," The ugly truth was, his father was forcing him to go to med school so he could become a doctor. As the story unravels, we find out that Jeff has so much stress and pressure from having to take these med school prep classes at school and his father, constantly burdening him with having to become a doctor, otherwise he would be a failure, and eventually tries to commit suicide. In reality, I don't think that others should have the power to decide whether a person is happy or not; Personally, happiness is something that ultimately comes down to the person.
ReplyDeleteQuote:
ReplyDelete"Happiness is not hedonism" (pg. 36)
While although I agree with the statement that living a perfectly hedonistic lifestyle would not ascertain happiness it can not be all that harmful can it? Throughout life people try to escape with various forms of things. Music, Books, Drugs, Alcohol, and the likes because most people want to take fleeting pleasure from the life they currently live rather than waste away worrying and contemplating everything.
Granted living with Hedonism is no way to live as well. To find a medium between the struggle of existence and enjoying the pleasures in life is my interpretation of Socrates. I understand that i deviate away from the part of him talking about focusing on the worldly/training aspect of the desire *See the beauty example*but in my opinion the amount of self-determination and will that it takes deters people away to seek the more instant pleasures like Lust, Materials, and other tools for escaping. I'm not sure if my understanding strays too far away from Socrates and His original message, but i feel that finding a medium would be easier to achieve than appreciating the beauty(or whatever it is) in everything?
Fitten = Finding a Medium = golden mean = Aristotle
DeleteFitten = Aristotle?
Question:
ReplyDeleteDuring Mr. Marrier's Speech we sort of got that History is written by the winners, and in the book we see that nothing Socrates actually said was written by himself but rather his pupil Plato. If this is the case then how trust worthy is any source from Plato about Socrates? Because the book tells us that he disliked democracy and i feel that with these own opinions Socrates might have been perverted for Plato's own Benefit?
That's a great question and one that's been asked many times with other historical documents. We use Plato's work obviously because he studied directly under Socrates, so he must have some type genuine experiences he wrote about. However, we will be unable to answer the question on how biased Plato truly was unless we find other trustworthy documents on the subject of Socrates.
DeleteQuestion:
ReplyDeleteAfter contemplating the words of Socrates, I have been searching for various opinions on whether happiness is obtained through a fleeting moment joy or if it is the somewhat ultimate goal or endpoint. What are your ideas?
McMahon points out that Socrates believed that "the ascent to happiness will be a long and arduous process." In my opinion, happiness can be obtained to a certain extent through an individual experience, but I believe Socrates is telling us to aim at a different meaning of the word. The word in which he uses frequently: beauty. When he uses this word, he is putting to use a different definition of the word happiness than I am familiar with. If we look at the word as meaning the desire for wisdom and truth, than I do believe the ascension to receive the two will be, to say the least, challenging. Turning away from the physical meaning of the word, this specifically targets the development of the mind instead of the body. Because off Socrates description as a candidly "ugly" person, one can see how he was determined to focus more on the power of the mind.
Hey Will,
DeleteIn my opinion, happiness is like the second definition you gave at the top, in that it is the somewhat goal or endpoint. I think this because there is a reason why so many people over the course of history (and even now) are still seeking to find happiness. If there was a way that we could obtain this state and knew how to get it, then none of us would be here and it wouldn't be a reoccurring topic. You can be satisfied momentarily through an action and in the moment you feel happy, but in the end that emotion will go away and what are you left with? We as humans still have a desire to obtain a state of joy even after that moment passes. Thus, causing a never ending cycle of us becoming happy and then losing that emotion and attempting to find it all over again as we chase for this Pure state of "happiness"
Thanks so much for your comment. I definitely agree with what you said especially the comment about "Pure" happiness.
Delete"the man who desires something desires what is not available to him, and what he doesn't already have in his possession."
ReplyDeleteWhen analyzing this quote, a thought struck me. No man wants what is already currently available to him or what he has already obtained. Therefore, since we are always searching for happiness does it mean that we have not obtained it? Although, could we possibly be searching for the wrong thing and have already obtained happiness? As an example, Eros is said to have been looking for happiness in the wrong places in the text. Again, this brings about the subjectivity of happiness. Changing my definition of the word, this quote has led me to believe that happiness entails the elimination of desire or want from in the world, conflicting with the beliefs of Socrates. When one is perfectly content, one does not desire anything, so they have already obtained it. In the eyes of Socrates, happiness is the desire for knowledge and truth, but in my opinion happiness is obtained when the thirst for these and any ideas are quenched.
I like the quote you chose. I agree with it, for the most part at least. I think that it is true and we do desire the things that we do not have. However, can people not want what they already have? For example: you meet the girl of your dreams. You ask her on a date, things go well and you date for a couple years eventual you fall in love. You marry her. She stays with you and she is completely faithful for many, happy years. If you love her then can't you still desire her even though you already have her. I think that it is possible to desire things that you already have, as well as, things you do not have. I agree with you that the desire to obtain happiness is what drives us to reach for it, but I still think that people can have happiness and still want it.
DeleteThanks for your comment Ryan. You made some really good points. I do agree with you when you say that people can have happiness but still want it, but I believe that they do not know they have happiness. This brings us back to the one true form of happiness that Socrates thought existed. Do you believe that there is one universal truth or many different forms of happiness?
DeleteI believe that there are many different forms of happiness, but those forms only apply to earthly life. I also think that there is a single universal truth to what happiness actually is; however, we, as humans, cannot fully comprehend this truth until we are dead.
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