Scholars have often thought that a monistic reading of Aristotle’s definition of the human good – in particular, one on which “best and most teleios virtue” refers to theoretical wisdom – cannot follow from the premises of the ergon argument. I explain how a monistic reading can follow from the premises, and I argue that this interpretation gives the correct rationale for Aristotle’s definition. I then explain that even though the best and most teleios virtue must be a single virtue, (...) that virtue could in principle be a whole virtue that arises from the combination of all the others. I also clarify that the definition of the human good aims at capturing the nature of human eudaimonia only in its primary case. (shrink)

Aristotle’s theory of human happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics explicitly depends on the claim that contemplation (theôria) is peculiar to human beings, whether it is our function or only part of it. But there is a notorious problem: Aristotle says that divine beings also contemplate. Various solutions have been proposed, but each has difficulties. Drawing on an analysis of what divine contemplation involves according to Aristotle, I identify an assumption common to all of these proposals and argue for rejecting it. (...) This allows a straightforward solution to the problem and there is evidence that Aristotle would have adopted it. (shrink)

El presente libro se enfrenta al problema de cómo es posible concebir la filosofía aristotélica como una forma de vida, y no como una disciplina o profesión. Si en alguno de sus textos se pueden encontrar sus preocupaciones más vitales, sería en sus tratados prácticos, en los que defiende una filosofía de lo humano. Pero, pese a esto, Aristóteles insiste en que la filosofía, en su mayor grado, parece ser la filosofía primera a la que parece referirse con la contemplación (...) propuesta al final de la Ética nicomaquea. ¿Cómo entender esta tensión entre una filosofía humana y una filosofía primera? ¿A qué dio Aristóteles prelación para el buen vivir? Lo que queremos defender es que no hay una dicotomía entre vida activa y vida contemplativa m´ás allá del análisis puramente conceptual. Por el contrario, lo que propone Aristóteles es que es imposible decidir entre la acción y la contemplación sin recurrir a la filosofía misma. El intelecto, en su papel de rector de la vida, requiere contemplación para orientar a la acción, así como el médico requiere de la ciencia natural para orientar su acción. (shrink)

We can clarify a certain difficulty with regard to the phrase ‘the best and most perfect virtue’ in Aristotle’s definition of the human good in Nicomachean Ethics I 7 if we make use of two related distinctions: Donnellan’s attributive–referential distinction and Kripke’s distinction between speaker’s reference and semantic reference. I suggest that Aristotle is using the phrase ‘the best and most perfect virtue’ attributively, not referentially, and further that even though the phrase may refer to a specific virtue (semantic reference), (...) Aristotle is not using the phrase to refer to a specific virtue (speaker’s reference). (shrink)

This book faces the problem of how is it possible to conceive Aristotelian philosophy as a way of life, and not as a discipline or profession. If there are any of his texts where this concerns are to be found, it is in his practical treatises, in which he defends a philosophy of human affairs. However, Aristotle insists on the fact that philosophy, in its greatest expression, is the first philosophy, to which the idea of contemplation seems to refer to, (...) at the end of the Nicomachean ethics. How is this tension between human and first philosophy to be understood? Which one was more important in Aristotle’s conception of the good life? What will we be claiming here is that there’s no dichotomy between active and contemplative life beyond the conceptual analysis. On the contrary, the Aristotelian proposal is that choosing between action and contemplation is impossible without appealing to philosophy itself. The intellect, in his role as ruler of life, requires contemplation to lead action, in the same way as a medical practitioner requires natural science in order to guide his deeds. (shrink)

이 글은 플래내건(Flanagan)이 자신의 저서 『보살의 뇌』(2011)에서 신경물리주의와 주관적 실재론을 기반으로 제시한 행복학과 자연화된 불교의 타당성을 비판적으로 검토한다. 논의는 다음과 같은 순서로 진행된다. 먼저 2장은 플래내건의 신경철학을 그것과 경쟁 관계에 있는 환원론적 물리주의와 신경현상학과 관련하여 논의한다. 3장은 아리스토텔레스의 유다이모니아 개념의 발생론적 근원을 논의하고 이어서 플래내건이 제시한 불교적 유다이모니아와 불교적 행복의 내용과 그 양자 간의 관계를 검토한다. 4장은 플래내건이 제시한 자연화된 불교를 검토한다. 플래내건은 초자연적 실재와 개념을 포함하지 않은 자연화된 불교의 중심 내용으로서 사성제, 삼독, 삼학을 제시하고 있는데 그가 제시한 자연화된 불교의 (...) 내용 중 문제가 있는 부분이 지적되고 자연화의 필요성과 효용성을 검토한다. 마지막으로 5장은 플래내건의 신경철학이 안고 있는 한계를 극복할 수 있는 대안으로서 행화주의를 논의하고 그 두 가지 이론의 차이점과 더불어 신경현상학에 대한 플래내건의 이해 중 문제가 있는 부분을 지적한다. (shrink)

In this paper, I challenge the standard reading of complete virtue (ἀρετή τελεία) in those disputed passages of Nicomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics. I argue that, for Aristotle, complete virtue is neither (i) wisdom nor (ii) a whole set of all virtues. Rather, it is a term used by Aristotle to denote any virtue that is in its complete or perfect form. In light of this reading, I offer a pluralist interpretation of Aristotelian happiness. I argue that for Aristotle, the (...) life-long exercise of a predominant virtue—as long as it is exercised in its complete or perfect form—will suffice for human happiness. The so-called inclusivist and intellectualist notions of Aristotelian happiness, thus understood, are merely two forms (viz. the composite and the non-composite form) of the pluralist notion of Aristotelian happiness. And if I am right, my pluralist interpretation provides an alternative, if not better, solution to the long-standing problem of “dual happiness” in Aristotle. (shrink)

This project explores the topic of dependency of happiness on external goods in Nicomachean Ethics. In this project I defend the following thesis: the dependency of happiness on external goods, in EN, is interpreted in the light of its political self-sufficiency, and in the light of our political humanity; this dependency is of three kinds: 1) enhancing-instrumental, 2) constitutive, and 3) subsistent. The political self-sufficiency of happiness means that, the ultimate good of man, the good of the ruling science of (...) Politics, is self-sufficient based on the self-sufficiency of the city. According to Aristotle, every human being, by nature, is political. The nature of every human being is fundamentally relational. We are what we are, among and with others in the city. This constitutive political human nature functions best only in the city. Based on this political anthropology I interpret the dependency of the human political good on external goods in EN. (shrink)

This thesis comprises a study of the ethical thought of Iris Murdoch with special emphasis, as evidenced by the title, on how morality is intimately connected to self-improvement aiming at perfection and how the study of fiction has an important role to play in our strive towards bettering ourselves within the framework set by Murdoch’s moral philosophy.

The view of happiness that I propose in this article and derive on the basis of Aristotle’s and Henri Bergson’s ideas recommends that we must first understand life as an activity – not as a sum of accumulated experiences and things; nor a set of projects; nor fateful or haphazard events that befall us, but as a formative activity in which we play a key role. Ἐνέργεια or de l’action are at the core of life and it is by getting (...) a hold of this creative core that we stand to live happily (Aristotle) or joyously (Bergson). For both thinkers, the possibility of happiness and joy comes to the fore, to no small extent, as a certain orientation in our thinking, i.e., as φρόνησις and θεωρία, for Aristotle, and as philosophy for Bergson. Our thoughts inform our choices and actions as well as our view of the world, grounding our sense of meaning, purpose, and value of action. It is by reckoning with the ever-unfolding act of life and with our own actions in it (actions which can be vicious, senseless, and unexamined or creative and constitutive of a life well-lived) that we also take hold of the possibility of happiness and joy. (shrink)

I argue that given a plausible reading of John Williams’s Stoner (2012 [1965]) the novel throws light on the demands and costs of pursuing a strategy for self-realisation along Platonic lines which seeks unification through the adoption of a single exclusive end in a manner that emulates the Socratic maieutic teacher. The novel does not explicitly argue either for or against such a strategy but rather vividly depicts its difficulties, appeal, and limitations, thus leaving the ultimate evaluation up to the (...) reader. (shrink)

El presente artículo se enfrenta al problema clásico sobre cómo interpretar lo que Aristóteles, en de An. III, 5, denomina “el intelecto que produce todas las cosas”, llamado comúnmente intelecto agente. Históricamente, se han presentado dos lecturas: una, que se remonta a Alejandro de Afrodisia, que lo asocia con el motor inmóvil y con la divinidad y otra, asociada a Teofrasto pero que tiene en Filópono y St. Tomás de Aquino a sus principales representantes, que lo considera una facultad puramente (...) humana. Esta última interpretación ha sido históricamente la más sostenida; sin embargo, en tiempos recientes ha habido un resurgimiento de interpretaciones del intelecto agente como “divino”. Lo que queremos mostrar en este texto es que este resurgimiento se debe, más que a una reinterpretación del intelecto agente, a una comprensión diferente de la divinidad en la filosofía aristotélica, con características inmanentes y más próximas al intelecto humano. (shrink)