Aristotle’s philosophy

Here is the write-up I submitted on Aristotle for my institute elective, Philosophy of Life.

Aristotle raises the question of what is a meaningful life. To answer this, he analyzes the nature of man. According to Aristotle, man is a rational being. Reason is universal to humans, ie. all individuals have the faculty of reason, though different individuals may use this faculty up to different capacities. The faculty of reason is a-temporal and a-spacial.

There are three parts of human soul. Starting from the most the basic to the complex, they are

1. Vegetative – It governs the needs of man
2. Spirited – It governs the desires and passions
3. Rational – Its object is to govern the other two governing souls. This is what makes humans unique and different from animals.

Since, man is a rational being, every action he takes has a direction, not just a movement and has a meaning attached to it. Every action is performed aimed at some end or goal. Action entails choice which further entails reason to make that choice. Hence, man is an agent whose every action follows the path of choice, reason, judgment and finally the act. An action is a means to some end, which may further translate to some other means and so on. Aristotle argues that this cycle of means and ends must have an ultimate end, otherwise there would be a fallacy of infinite regression or a fallacy of circularity and the ends would be meaningless. This pursuit of ends is represented like a pyramid with its top as the end-in-itself.

This ultimate goal of life is called eudaimonia and translated as happiness. There are two demands of end-it-self:

1. Self-sufficiency – It should be complete in itself
2. Absolute/eternal/universal  and non-transferable

Using the above two demands, he establishes that other claimants like pleasure, honor and wealth cannot be end-in-itself. According to Aristotle, happiness is a state of being, an existence in totality, towards which all actions should be aimed at.

Though man is a rational being, reason may not always be the dominant governing force. Man is usually governed by his desires and passions (animal aspect of soul). Humans have a weakness of will, called akrasia. The true and supreme nature of man is one with rationality. Only a life in harmony with nature can be meaningful. Humans are agents and involve in judgments. All judgments have a notion of “good” (ethical good). Hence we all operate with a notion of “good”. A meaningful life is one composed of rational actions. Humans have to be rational about their animal spirit. Desires and passions are a-rational and if left to themselves they can be extreme. Thus Aristotle proposes the theory of golden mean for a meaningful life. Here mean is one between rational and animal aspect of soul and a moderation based on rationality.