How Aristotle's Lessons Can Help You Understand Yourself and Become Happier

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

An excerpt from a Ph. D. book on how to get rid of toxic feelings that poison your life.

Even those who are quite satisfied with both work and personal life sooner or later have a feeling that they are capable of more. A person who is going through difficult times - divorce, for example - or is at enmity with someone, may feel remorse and try to understand how great his share of guilt really is. For many, moral responsibility increases with the appearance of children, since parenting and selfishness are poorly compatible concepts. It happens that we begin to work on ourselves, taking as a model someone from our acquaintances who know how to make the world a better place. Aristotle's categories of vice and virtue serve self-knowledge, allowing a person to discover strengths and weaknesses in himself. By evaluating ourselves in order to then take the necessary action, multiply virtues and minimize vices, we contribute not only to the happiness of others, but also to our own.

Aristotle's most extensive recommendations concern the good qualities that a happy person cultivates - that is, the virtues - and the flaws that correlate with them. The relationship between happiness and these precious qualities is a key component of all Aristotelian ethical teaching. As noted above, for Aristotle it is self-evident that a person who is deprived of fundamental virtues cannot be happy: “After all, no one can call someone ideally happy who does not have a drop of courage, self-control, dignity, common sense, who is afraid even of a fly, but will stop at nothing to satiate his appetites, and ruins close friends for a penny."

Aristotle believed that for human well-being, justice, courage and self-control are necessary - the very qualities in connection with which in philosophy his teachings began to be called "the ethics of virtue."

The terms he used to denote "good" (aretai) and "bad" (kakiai) properties in ancient Greek are the most common everyday words, without any ethical burden. In our country, turning in the traditional translation into "virtues" and "vices", they acquire a somewhat repulsive connotation: "virtue" is associated with stiffness, and "vice" - with drug den and prostitution, while the Greek kakiai does not carry anything like that in itself. …

Actually, the very name - "ethics of virtue" - sounds quite loud and pompous. But you don’t have to tell yourself that you’re “practicing justice,” it’s enough to simply make the decision to treat everyone honestly, fulfill your responsibilities, and help others - and yourself - realize your potential. You don't have to “cultivate courage,” just strive to become aware of your fears and gradually get rid of them. Instead of taking a vow of "self-control", it is better to find a "middle ground" in the form of optimal response to strong emotions and desires and responsive behavior in interpersonal interaction (this is precisely what Aristotelian "self-control" consists in).

Aristotle's reasoning about virtues and their vicious opposites in the "Eudemian Ethics" and "Nicomachean Ethics" add up to a full-fledged practical guide to morality.

"Virtues" or "paths to happiness" are not so much character traits as habits.

Over time, after repeated repetition, they are worked out to automatism, like a skill in cycling, and therefore (at least on the outside glance) seem to be a permanent property (hexis) of the personality. This process lasts a lifetime, but many achieve significant success by middle age, when the wildest passions are easier to curb. Virtually anyone can, if they wish, improve morally.

As Aristotle argues, we are not stones, which by their nature always fall down and which cannot be "taught" to rise up, no matter how much we throw. He considers virtue to be a skill that can be mastered - like playing the harp or architecture. If you play fake, your buildings fall apart, but you do nothing to learn and improve, you will be deservedly considered clumsy. “This is the case with virtues,” says Aristotle, “after all, by doing things in mutual exchange between people, some of us become people just, and others - unjust; doing things in the midst of dangers and accustoming themselves to fear or courage, some become courageous, while others - cowardly. The same applies to attraction and anger: some become prudent and even, others loose and angry."

The easiest way is, perhaps, to disassemble this with the example of courage. Many of us have phobias and fears that we overcome through regular encounter with a frightening phenomenon, that is, gaining experience. As a child, a dog rushed at me, and since then, for many years, by hook or by crook, I tried to bypass them on the tenth road. Aristotle would advise against torturing yourself like that. My fear, like that of the man in his example, who was pathologically afraid of ferrets, stemmed from psychological trauma. But trauma is a disease, which means that it can be cured of. And only when my husband persuaded me to take a puppy and I (at first reluctantly) began to tinker with Finley, after a couple of years I could almost calmly communicate with almost any dog (although I was still against letting them near small children).

But here is a more complicated example: one friend of mine ruined all relationships with women with his own hands, because he accumulated discontent for months and endured, and then suddenly exploded and left completely, or the woman threw him first, feeling fake. And only in his fourth decade, having taught himself not to pretend to the mother of his children, he got the opportunity to discuss problems as they entered, and not months later, when it was already difficult to fix something.

Man by nature does not possess the skills on which the Aristotelian virtues are based, implying a combination of reason, emotions and social interaction, but the potential for their development. The writings that make up the "ethics of virtue" can be seen as a record of conversations that Aristotle had on walks with his students - both with Alexander in Macedonia, and later with the students of his own Lyceum in Athens - about how to be a decent and worthy person.

The path to happiness lies through the decision to become a man of great soul. To do this, it is not necessary to have the means to equip the triremes, it is not necessary to move smoothly and speak in a deep voice.

The greatness of the soul, the state of mind of a truly happy person, is a property of the very type of personality to which we all, in essence, want to belong.

Such a person does not play with fire to tickle his nerves, but is ready, if necessary, to give his life for what is truly important. He prefers to help others rather than ask for help. He does not curry favor with the rich and powerful and is always courteous with ordinary people. He is "open in love and hate", because only those who are afraid of condemnation hide true feelings. He avoids gossip, as it is usually slander. He rarely condemns others, even enemies (except in an appropriate setting, for example, at a court hearing), but you will not get praises from him either. In other words, the greatness of the soul implies humble courage, self-sufficiency, lack of sycophancy, courtesy, restraint and impartiality - to embody such a role model sincerely and convincingly is within the power of each of us. It is no less inspiring from what it was created over twenty-three centuries ago.

The next step is to self-analyze and try on all the weak and strong qualities described by Aristotle. Their list provides food for thought to anyone who knows how to be honest with himself. As the inscription carved on the temple of Apollo said: "Know thyself." Socrates, Plato's teacher, also liked to quote this maxim. If you do not “know yourself” or are not ready to admit for yourself, for example, tight-fistedness or love of gossip, then you can stop reading. Within the framework of Aristotelian ethics, it is necessary to tell oneself the bitter truth, this is not condemnation, this is an awareness of the shortcomings that can be worked on. The point is not to brand yourself and hate or fall into self-flagellation.

Aristotle considers almost all character traits and emotions to be acceptable (and even necessary for mental health), provided that they are presented in moderation.

He calls this measure the "middle", meson. Aristotle himself never spoke of her as "golden", this epithet was added only when his philosophical principle of a healthy "middle" in character traits and aspirations began to be associated with lines from the "Ades" of the ancient Roman poet Horace (2.10): "He who the golden mean [aurea mediocritas] is faithful, / Wisely avoids a poor roof, / And that in others that feeds envy - / Wondrous palaces. " Whether or not we call this "middle between excess and lack" golden does not really matter.

Sex drive (considering that a person is still an animal) is a good property, if you know when to stop. Both excess and lack of passion greatly interfere with happiness. Anger is an integral part of a healthy psyche; a person who is never angry has no guarantee that he is doing the right thing, which means that the likelihood of achieving happiness is reduced. However, excessive anger is already a disadvantage, that is, a vice. So the main thing is measure and appropriateness. Although one more saying from the walls of the Delphic temple - "Nothing beyond measure" - does not belong to Aristotle, he was the first thinker to develop a moral teaching that allows you to live in accordance with this principle.

One of the most slippery spots in ethics is the tangle of questions related to envy, anger, and vengefulness. All these qualities play a central role in the plot of the Iliad, the favorite book of Alexander the Great. He took her with him on all campaigns and discussed for a long time with his mentor Aristotle. In this epic poem, King Agamemnon, who occupies a key position in the camp of the Greeks, envies Achilles as the greatest Greek warrior. Agamemnon publicly humiliates Achilles and takes away his beloved concubine Briseis. Achilles is furious, and when the Trojan Hector kills his best friend Patroclus in battle, the anger only intensifies. To calm this anger, Agamemnon has to return Achilles Briseis and compensate for the humiliation with gifts. Achilles quenches his thirst for revenge on Hector by killing him in a duel and outraging his body, and at the same time puts to death 12 innocent Trojan youths, sacrificing them on the funeral pyre of Patroclus. This is overkill.

The three listed dark passions - envy, anger and revenge - are described by Aristotle very accurately. He himself was envied both during life and after death. When in 348 BC. Plato died, the leadership of the Academy did not go to Aristotle, who gave it 20 years and was, undoubtedly, the best philosopher of his generation. The rest of the academics faded next to this brilliant mind, so they preferred to see a nondescript mediocrity named Speusippus at the head of the Academy. Later they envied the enthusiasm and care that surrounded Aristotle (without any groveling on his part) the rulers of Macedonia and Assos in Asia Minor, where he taught for two years. As one follower of Aristotle, who wrote the history of philosophy, later put it, this great man inspired great envy only by "friendship with the kings and the absolute superiority of his writings."

The Greeks did not hesitate to express emotions that are condemned today. In Christian morality, not everyone succeeds in finding ways to cope with Aristotelian vices. Jealousy, for example, is a mortal sin, and having received an undeserved insult, a true Christian should “turn the other cheek” instead of rebuffing the offender. But even if envy is not our main quality, it will not be possible to completely avoid it.

There is no such person who at least once did not envy someone who is richer, more beautiful, more successful in love.

If you are desperate for something and cannot achieve it on your own - to heal, to have a baby, to win recognition and fame in your professional field - it can be excruciatingly painful to see how others succeed. Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein considered envy to be one of the main driving forces in our life, especially in the relationship between brothers and sisters or our social peers. We unwittingly envy those who are more fortunate than us. And in a sense, this response is helpful because it motivates us to address injustice. In the professional sphere, this can result in campaigning for gender equality in pay. Political expression for this reaction can be found in the struggle against a social order that allows an excessive gap between rich and poor.

But envy of innate talents - such as, for example, the brilliant mind of Aristotle - only hinders happiness. It deforms the personality and can develop into an obsession. It happens that an envious person begins to pursue and harass the object of his envy - in the modern world, often through cyber attacks or harassment on the Internet. In the worst case, if the envious man succeeds in cutting down the career of the persecuted, he will deprive the whole society of his genius creations.

Aristotle recommends determining what exactly you are jealous of - an unfairly inherited share of social benefits or natural giftedness. In the first case, envy can motivate you to fight for equality and justice, in the second case, it is worth considering how other people's innate talents enrich your own life. If Aristotle had been elected the head of the Academy, he would have brought it to the highest level - and so he left and eventually founded a rival educational institution in Athens, his Lyceum. Academicians themselves, little known today, would have the opportunity to bask in the rays of Aristotelian glory and thereby strengthen their own. Perhaps they, as philosophers, would eventually learn to benefit from communicating with him, and not hide resentment.

Edith Hall is a Hellenistic professor. She studies ancient Greek culture and the life of prominent figures of the time. In the book Happiness According to Aristotle, Edith shares the thoughts of the thinker and draws a parallel between antiquity and modernity.

The writer accompanies examples from the life of Aristotle with her own stories, proving that the desire for a happy life has always been and will always be relevant. The book shows that the advice that the ancient Greek philosopher gave his students still work today.