Aristotelian (The Lyceum)
Ἀριστοτέλης
384 – 322 BCE · Stagira, Macedonia
Aristotle studied at Plato's Academy for twenty years, tutored the young Alexander, and founded the Lyceum. His Nicomachean Ethics argues that eudaimonia is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue over a complete life.
“For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.”
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I.7, 1098a18–20 · trans. W. D. Ross (1908) · source
Wording awaiting editorial check against the source.
Ross translation; confirm wording and the US public-domain status of the 1908 edition before publication.
“…we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, II.1, 1103a34–b2 · trans. W. D. Ross (1908) · source
Wording awaiting editorial check against the source.
Ross translation; confirm exact wording against the source text.
Aristotle describes virtue as a settled disposition to choose the mean relative to us: courage lies between rashness and cowardice, generosity between wastefulness and meanness. Hitting the mean, at the right time, toward the right people and in the right way, is hard, which is why goodness is rare and praiseworthy.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, II.6–9, 1106b–1109b
Aristotle surveys three common lives: the life of enjoyment, the political life aimed at honour, and the life of contemplation, and argues that pleasure alone is a goal fit for grazing animals.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I.5, 1095b14–1096a5
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Without friends, Aristotle says, no one would choose to live, even if they had all other goods.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VIII.1, 1155a5–6
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Aristotle argues that happiness needs some external goods too: it is hard to act nobly without resources, and someone utterly friendless, childless or ugly is not likely to be called happy.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I.8, 1099a31–b8
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Here Aristotle differs from the Stoics, who held virtue alone sufficient.
In Book X Aristotle concludes that the most complete happiness is the activity of contemplation, the most divine thing in us.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, X.7, 1177a12–1178a8
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Scholars debate how this fits with the earlier emphasis on the life of practical virtue.
Aristotle considers Solon’s advice to call no one happy until they are dead, and asks whether fortune after death can still affect a life.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I.10–11, 1100a10–1101b9
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
A human being is by nature a political animal; one who needs no community is either a beast or a god.
Aristotle, Politics, I.2, 1253a2–29
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Practical wisdom is the ability to deliberate well about what is good for living well as a whole, not just about some narrow matter.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VI.5, 1140a24–b30
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Aristotelian (The Lyceum) (4th c. BCE onward). Flourishing (eudaimonia) as a whole life of activity in accordance with virtue, built through habit and practical wisdom.