In book one, Aristotle draws a distinction between two kinds of purposes: some are outcomes, while others are simply activities. He states that a good life for humans is an activity, not an outcome. He also evaluates several forms of life to decide whether these activities (pleasure, money, consumption, etc.) contribute to a human's "good life" and states how they're not essential to human flourishing. So, what makes for a good human life? How do we know? Aristotle leaves us with the insight that exercising excellent traits are what makes the best life for humans, it is not activities that lead us to our best life. Or at least that's what I got from it.
I commented on Hannah & Darby's.
I think that he is showing that "good" cannot truly exist in human life. We catch glimpses of "good" things, but we equate goodness to pleasure, happiness, or material items, and often forget that goodness goes far beyond our limited perceptions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Natalie. I think that what Aristotle is explaining is similar to the argument from Plato's dialogue, Meno, where Meno keeps giving examples of virtuous things, but not the overall definition.
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