Ideas from Aristotle

Ideas from Aristotle

1. What does it mean to be happy and to live a good life?

   • How do we focus on what matters and live up to our own potential?
     • Why do some people succeed while others merely get by?

2. These simple questions have been with us for millennia and most of us find ourselves wondering about them as we mature.

3. 3 basic things of Aristotelian ethics

   • Eudaimonia
     • The best way to translate it is good demons
       • But "Well- being" and "Flourishing" are closer to what Aristotle means.
         • According to Aristotle, all humans seek to flourish. It’s the proper and desired end of all of our actions.
           • In Aristotle’s schema, there are four aspects of human nature. How do we get four different aspects out of “rational creature who lives in societies?
             • We are physical beings (because we are animals)
             • We are emotional being
             • We are social beings (because humans live in groups)
               • The irony here is that he founded a way of thinking that ultimately gave us tools to show that many of his final conclusions were wrong.
             • We are rational beings
   • What virtue is
     • A virtue is a trait of character that enables a person to flourish
       • The Doctrine of the Mean
         • the virtuous trait is that which is between the deficiency of that trait and the excess of that trait.
           • Specific Virtues
             • Temperance
             • Wittiness
             • Spiritedness
             • Indignant
             • Benevolence
             • How Are All of the Virtues Related?
               • What links all of the virtues is phronesis
                 • It's like knowing what the mean is in the particular circumstance you’re in. How does one know what to do in a particular circumstance?
   • We become better person throught practice
     • We Become More Virtuous Through Education and Habit
       • we’re brought up in an environment where the adults around us teach us how to be virtuous
         • -two ways-
           • After we reach a certain age of maturity, they can start to teach us why it’s good to have the habits that they’ve been inculcating
           • by training us to have habits that enable us to flourish