Anaximander

Can I appreciate comedy? Can I ridicule tragedy?

My first time celebrating Passover with Jews and non-Jews at Julia's. Becca, Julia, Mary, Adrian, Sean, Rose, Kasha (from Poland), Danielle, Aya Ruthwell, another girl, and I all sat on the floor around a coffee table in the living room. Here are some of the new vocabulary I learnt (I am not able to spell all their names so I looked some of them up in Wikipedia): Matzos, Matzo Brittle-Julia showed me how to make it, ten plagues, Seder, Maror, Four cups of Wine, Afikoman, Haggadah, Charoset, boiled eggs, Manischewitz Kosher wine. I got to be the Wise Child. I also held Afikoman for ransom, which was a box of blackberries. Julia, Becca, and Rose sang a lot during the dinner. Everybody brought a bottle of wine over, and there were a lot of laughter. 

Isabella Tianzi Cai
PH300 Ancient Philosophy
April 10, 2009

Aristotle states that happiness is the best good for human beings. There are two reasons. First, whatever things we do, we do “for the sake of our happiness” (1097b5). Second, happiness is complete (1097b5). We may think that to exercise regularly makes us healthy; however, Aristotle will argue that health is not the end goal in this case but our wellbeing or happiness. As for the second reason, Aristotle argues that it is absurd to think of happiness as lacking something because we cannot increase our happiness when we are happy.

Once Aristotle pins down happiness as human beings’ ultimate pursuit, he seeks to clarify what it is exactly by looking at “the function of a human being” (1097b25). To understand “the function of a human being,” we have to distinguish human beings from plants and animals first. The function of plants or animals should not overlap with the unique function of human beings. From this, Aristotle concludes that human beings must value reason above all other activities and treat reason as the ultimate route to our unique happiness. In Aristotle own words, “we take the human function to be a certain kind of life, and take this life to be the soul’s activity and action that express reason” (1098a10). Aristotle also replaces “reason” with “virtue” in his writing (1098b15); the replacement can be read as a further narrowing down of this unique happiness that human beings should pursue, namely, to live a moral life.

Aristotle has a clear conception of how happiness should manifest itself on human beings. Although I know that he is right, I also know that people have this urge to challenge a notion once it is stated clearly and distinctly. Human beings love clarity as well as vagueness. We need orderliness but at the same time also cannot live without messiness. I think that Aristotle’s arguments will probably face more challenges from scientists who do research in animal behaviors, but I do not think that Aristotle’s conclusion that human beings’ ultimate pursuit to be happiness is wrong.