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Aristotle – How to live a good life

by thread_id on 8/16/24, 7:20 AM with 167 comments

by harimau777 on 8/16/24, 1:10 PM
It seems to me that this either underemphasizes the importance of happiness or assumes that happiness will be an inevitable byproduct of virtue; even if we define happiness very broadly to include things like "satisfaction" or a "sense of purpose".
Part of me suspects that may be because Aristotle was likely upper class and therefore already had success and/or wealth. I'm not sure that I think his arguments work for people who are suffering or struggling to get by.
by w10-1 on 8/16/24, 9:36 AM
It's good to try to boil Aristotle down to some topological order, because it is latent there.
But to get the order right, this presentation needs some background in the Greek terms Aristotle is using. E.g., focus on the first few lines of the Nichomachean Ethics, about all beings having a good for themselves; that pulls in his metaphysics, some logic, and orients you to the argument structure.
(Personally, I'm not fond of the moving images.)
by rubymamis on 8/16/24, 8:53 AM
> We cannot study rules for proper behaviour. Instead, we must train our character through habituation to find the right mean appropriate to the circumstances.
> Are we born with those virtues?
> No.
Well, Aristotle also speaks about "starting points" and claims there's a great weight for "habituation" as much as those "starting points" (your genetics, your talents, your environment growing up). So that's important also to say.
"People like that [with the right upbringing] either already have, or can easily grasp, [the right] principles. If neither of those applies to you... well, Hesiod says it best:
Best of them all is a man
```
                 who relies on his own understanding.
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Next best, someone who knows
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                 how to take good advice when he hears it.
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So, if you're clueless yourself,
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                 and unwilling to listen to others,
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taking to heart what they say -
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                 then, sorry, you're pretty much hopeless."
```
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Chapter 4, 1095b
by samirillian on 8/16/24, 9:14 AM
I just really liked this.
There’s a lot of wisdom in Aristotle even if you don’t accept his entire system.
For example, in his politics he says mechanics are not capable of practicing virtue. An interesting claim!
by pmzy on 8/16/24, 1:19 PM
I've never seen anything like this article. True, simple art. Really well executed.
I can't say that I agree fully with it, but knowing the virtues you want to abide to is a good idea.
by tbirdny on 8/16/24, 4:42 PM
Just looking at the page and all the animation is fun. It looks nice, but trying to read it with all the distraction is very difficult for me.
by mistercheph on 8/16/24, 5:26 PM
Don't read blog post that completely misrepresents Aristotle, just read Aristotle:
https://www.amazon.com/Aristotles-Nicomachean-Ethics-Philoso...
by hasbot on 8/16/24, 2:10 PM
> Aristotle says that humans have a capacity to be good, but it is up to us to develop our character. This is best achieved through study and habit.
Cool. So, then I just draw the rest of the owl? I have no idea where to begin to develop my character.
by resource_waste on 8/16/24, 1:12 PM
I read nicomachean ethics, can I skip the article?
My criticism of Aristotle: Living the golden mean, like a happy person isnt going to help when your country is invaded.
This is my number 1 criticism of Temperance as a virtue. There is a reason we grind in college so hard, there is a reason why at some points in our career we work absurd hours and gain weight/become unhealthy.
Aristotle's golden mean (or Temperance) does not account for this.
"But Wisdom would say that this is acceptable to sacrifice health at points"
Does it? How do you weight these virtues as one better than another? Calling for some perfect Platonic form that answers all these questions correctly is a bit of a cop-out.
by cauliflower99 on 8/16/24, 9:23 AM
Great article. Anybody know how can I make graphics like this?
by garyclarke27 on 8/16/24, 9:11 AM
Nice Article, always good to be reminded of the fundamentals - Love the Graphics
by theusus on 8/16/24, 5:37 PM
It's pretty congruent to Stoic principles.
by quonn on 8/16/24, 8:37 AM
> First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function.
Like a nuclear weapon?
by pvinis on 8/16/24, 9:30 AM
OK but the animations are amazing!!
by Ahmed_rza on 8/16/24, 10:33 AM
it feels good when reading but it's not easy when applies to real life
by moose44 on 8/16/24, 3:41 PM
This was a great read.
by lo_zamoyski on 8/16/24, 2:18 PM
One thing you have to notice is the centrality of the nature of a thing, which is to say its telos, or end. Fulfillment is, after all, defined by our nature; it is a matter of proceeding from potential to actuality, as determined by our nature. What is good advances a person according to one's nature (in our case, human nature), what is bad acts against it. Telos, or finality, also gives morality its proper and objective ground: what is morally right or wrong follows, ultimately, from one's nature. Since we are humans, we are therefore persons, which is to say animals who can understand their actions and choose between apprehended alternatives, and therefore moral agents. We must therefore choose to act in accord with our nature as free and rational agents, which is to say according to right reason. Our rationality allows us to tackle the question of what it means to be human and to therefore determine what is good.
A tragedy of the crudeness of materialism is that it obliterates telos, and in doing so, destroys the only possible objective ground for morality and the good. Married to philosophical liberalism, morality becomes a mystery cult rooted in desire that evades explanation. Yyou cannot square the existence of desires--which can be good or bad, in accord with reason, or deviant or depraved--with a purely materialist universe; even Descartes had to tack on the disembodied ghost of the Cartesian mind to account for all sorts of phenomena. So you end up with an irrational gnosticism as a result.
But the fact of the matter is that even the most mundane varieties of efficient causality presuppose telos, as telos is not the same as conscious intent (which is a particular variety), but fundamentally, the ordering of a cause toward an effect. The only reason efficient causality is intelligible at all is because the relation between cause is ordered toward an effect by virtue of the nature of the thing, and not arbitrarily related. Striking a match predictably results in fire, not nothing, nor the appearance of the Titanic or whatever.
We are seeing an increased, if modest interest in broadly Aristotelian thought (which some refer to as "Neo-Aristotelian"), however. As the materialist dinosaurs pass from this earth, fresh blood is willing to reexamine the nihilistic, dehumanizing, materialist dogmas of the last two or three centuries. It was never the case that materialism overthrew the prior intellectual tradition by discrediting it. Rather, it began with the perilous decision to "start from scratch". Putting aside the dubiousness of the notion, what we can expect from starting from scratch is a repetition of the same errors. There are eerie similarities between modern ideas and the pre-Socratic philosophers, for example, of which Aristotle was very much aware and to which he was responding.
by z3t4 on 8/16/24, 8:25 AM
My empirical study of happy people comes down to these three points:
```
    * Have low expectations
    * Enjoy simple things
    * Don't care too much
```
by Almondsetat on 8/16/24, 10:33 AM
The very beginning of this post contains a critical passage.
What makes a good knife? Of course, a good knife is a knife that cuts well.
But what does it mean to cut well? Just the sharpness of the blade? What about grip comfort? And balancing? And stickiness? And weight? And what about the thing being cut? Can a knife cut everything well?
As you can see, we are already dead in our tracks, as asking what makes a knife good is basically on the same level of complexity of asking the same thing about a human, and this is why ancient philosophers, many of whom didn't really explore nuance, should be critically studied, without falling for simplistic "this is my hero" behavior
by vasco on 8/16/24, 8:27 AM
> 2400 years ago Aristotle found out how to be happy.
Citation needed
> First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function.
Something can be good or even the best without being unique, in fact we can only say things are good relatively to other things in a similar category, otherwise we cannot know. Good or bad only makes sense by comparison and uniqueness is rarely the factor.
> what is unique about humans: We have a soul that thinks and feels
Have you ever interacted with a dog for more than 30 seconds?
Philosophers are very good at telling others how to be happy while living miserable lives.
by simonmysun on 8/16/24, 9:02 AM
Aristotle lives in the old versions of the Earth. The outdated concepts may not stand up to modern thinking, but are sufficient for dealing with a simple life. Unfortunately, most people's lives are not simple.