Ethics, Happiness, Philosophy

Wisdom, Virtue, and Happiness: A Reflection on Eudaemonia

by Dave Seng

True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods. – Aristotle, Politics

I promise I will get back to explicating Aristotle’s understanding of metaphysics as the love of wisdom. However, I recently attended a lecture by Dr. Arthur Brooks (former president of the American Enterprise Institute and Professor of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School) on the topic of happiness. Dr. Brooks beautifully and elegantly laid out the significant factors that aided and developed human happiness. As a sociologist, he presented his case with support from studies and statistics and laid out the science of human happiness. Further, Dr. Brooks explained the elements that go into a life of deep and long-lasting happiness. It was a well-attended lecture and Dr. Brooks said many important things. At the end of the presentation, however, I realized that Dr. Brooks never actually gave the definition of happiness. So, during the question and answer period, I asked him what his definition of human happiness is. He gave me a wry smile, made a few jokes about the difficulty of finding such an answer, and then answered the question in terms of Aristotle’s concept of eudaemonia and Thomas Aquinas’ explication of the idea (I’ll explain eudaemonism below). Of course, I perked up at his answer, and although the concept of eudaemonia is not new to me, Dr. Brooks helped me to think about it new ways.

As someone deeply interested in the nature of reality, I wondered if there was a connection between a correct understanding of reality, or being, and human happiness? So, after the lecture, I began to think about the connection between metaphysics, wisdom, and happiness, and what that might mean for human flourishing. What, if any, is the connection between metaphysics, the pursuit of wisdom, and happiness? What have the great philosophers said about the intersection of these topics and are they relevant to us in our own time and place? As a philosopher, I began to wonder—could a right understanding of reality promote and lay the intellectual groundwork for individual happiness and the betterment of society as a whole? If one were to have a better grasp of the truth of things and the world around them, would they then be able to live a more meaningful, significant, and purposeful life? How does one integrate these concepts? Fortunately for us, many excellent thinkers throughout history have said important things about the connection between philosophy, wisdom, and happiness. It will take some time, and many posts, but I hope to ultimately (and in various ways) make the connection between Aristotle’s definition of philosophy as the love wisdom, the importance of first principles, and human happiness. The following are some general thoughts and I hope to tie these ideas into my future posts as I explicate Aristotle’s conception of metaphysics as wisdom. What might happiness actually be and how is that tied to wisdom?

Happiness, like most other words, has different meanings and here we will focus on two of them. One is psychological or having to do with a state of mind or a pleasurable experience. This is the kind of contentment when one receives something desired. It is a pleasurable experience and often fleeting. Aristotle never denies that pleasurable experiences, if they are achieved in the right way and the right amount, have a certain kind of benefit to one’s well being. He also indicates that a certain amount of good fortune in life is helpful. But in each and every case, this kind of happiness is psychologically experiential, temporary, impermanent, and provisional. The other is based on what classical philosophers call eudaemonia or eudaemonism.

Eudemonia is the classical Greek word for happiness. Eudemonism is the study of the kind of happiness that is deeply significant and enduring. Although Plato had significant things to say about happiness, the concept of eudaemonia is attributed to Aristotle, since he was a strong advocate of the idea. Aristotle argued that the life of reason will lead to the best well balanced, meaningful, and happy life. He believes that thoughtful reflection and careful analysis will guide one to the most beneficial pleasures which will augment the balanced contemplative life. Eudaemonism, then, is the idea that the life of reason and careful analysis is the best path for happiness and self-fulfillment—it is human flourishing through the right use of reason. Also, remember, Aristotle was the great philosopher of balance and consonancy. For example, he was neither an ontological materialist nor a pure immaterialist as both belong together in the unity of life. There are harmony and agreement among the components of a well-lived life. He did not deny that a certain amount of life’s legitimate needs must be attained. Everyone needs food, clothing, shelter, etc. Nonetheless, eudaemonism teaches that the best approach to a meaningful existence also attends to the life of the mind and reason. Through reason, one can achieve the deepest and most long-lasting form of happiness because it attends to both the mind and body—not just the body alone.

Such a definition of happiness, then, as understood as eudaemonia, includes the moral and ethical dimension of life. Many philosophers speak about happiness as a life well lived. It refers to one’s whole life, a kind of deep and significant happiness which is the product of careful reasoning about life’s ultimate ends and then integration of virtue—the habit of right desire to achieve those ends. As the philosopher, Mortimer Adler explains, in this sense, it is not about an experience or something we can feel. It can be said that one is becoming happy or that one is on the path to happiness. Only when your life is over can someone else commenting on your life declare that you had lived a good life and can be described as a person who had achieved happiness. A happy life is a life which has a good ending. This is why wisdom teaches us to think carefully about the first principles of the world around us and what happiness means as the end, purpose, and final cause of our lives.

Culture, Metaphysics, Philosophy

Does Ontology Matter?

by Dave Seng

Due to my teaching load and doctoral research, I won’t be able to give the follow up to my previous post regarding the nature of wisdom right now. However, I hope to do so in a week or two. In light of that, I’ll just present this thought …

Making the case that metaphysics—or more specifically—that ontology matters in our current cultural climate can be a tricky affair. Not many have the patience or interest in such things. And most, I imagine, are caught up in daily concerns that take up their time and energy. This is completely understandable. Nor is everyone called to be a philosopher. But there are those who believe that Max Planck was correct when he said, “there is a metaphysical reality behind everything that human experience shows to be real.” He also explained that, “metaphysical reality does not stand spatially behind what is given in experience, but lies fully within it.” There seems to be a fixed order of reality that lies within the sequence of phenomena in experience (what Aristotelian-Thomists call hylomorphism and we’ll get to that term later). How we understand these first principles determine how we understand and live in the world around us. What the great metaphysicians of the Western intellectual tradition are trying to get at is this—reality is the determinate of order, and understanding this order has implications for our personal lives, social concerns, and what it means for civilization to genuinely thrive. Wisdom is the virtue of using our metaphysical and ontological knowledge well.

Metaphysics, Philosophy

Introduction to Metaphysics part One: The Primacy of Wisdom

by Dave Seng

discover

The study of philosophy is that we may know not what men have taught but what the truth of things are – St. Thomas Aquinas

Metaphysics is a particularly challenging field because it underlies all we understand to be regarding the ultimate questions of life and reality and, further because it has such a long history. It is said that the literature covering the field of philosophy is the largest of all academic fields. Metaphysics, as a sub-discipline of philosophy, is the rational and critical investigation of Being or reality. It is held by the classical philosophers and those throughout the middle ages that metaphysics is the pursuit of wisdom through the intellectual discovery of the first principles and causes of reality. Aristotle explains that the genuinely wise individual is one who knows the first principles of something—not just that something exists but why and provides the example that it is one thing to know that fire is hot, but it is more significant to know why fire is hot. True wisdom goes beyond the knowledge which sense perception provides (because everyone to some extent has common sense perception) but to the rational understanding and ultimate wisdom of why something is the case. This post is the first in a series which will serve as a basic introduction to the field of metaphysics. Using Aristotle as our guide, we will discover why the understanding of metaphysics, or the study of reality, is the first and primary sort of wisdom.

In the Western intellectual trajectory, from the time of Plato and Aristotle, and through the middle ages, metaphysics was the chief end of philosophy. From about the Enlightenment to the modern period, metaphysics has fallen on hard times (modern-day critics come from various schools of thought known as “deconstruction”, “poststructuralism”, “critical theory” or other forms of postmodernism). Nonetheless, if a philosopher can’t speak intelligently about metaphysics there is nothing of significance left for a philosopher to discuss. For example, if a philosopher is a strict materialist, then he or she is not doing philosophy but, rather, science—no matter how creative or ingenious their argument might be. Science is a good and worthwhile enterprise but it is not philosophy.

The first book ever entitled “Metaphysics” comes from Aristotle. Aristotle’s Metaphysics examines the principles, axioms, and properties that underlie all reality and which apply to all fields of study. That is why he calls metaphysics “first philosophy” or the study of the most universal principles. I will point out that the skeptic cannot doubt the existence of Being. When one asks the question, “does something exist”? The skeptic might say “no” but miss the point that the question itself is something that exists and needs rational inquiry. Plato follows this line of thought in his dialogue entitled “Gorgias” and concludes that the skeptic can never say anything positive regarding reality. Try as one might, the fact of Being, or reality, cannot be denied.

When Aristotle refers to the content of his Metaphysics as “first philosophy” or simply “sophia” he is speaking about wisdom. From an Aristotelian stance, all of philosophy is said to be the love of “first philosophy” and should be inspired by the love of wisdom, which is the love of metaphysics. So what is this wisdom which should inspire all of philosophy? Further, why should reality be the primary starting point for the search of wisdom? And why should anyone be interested in this approach to wisdom in the first place? The answer to these kinds of questions rests, like most things in human life, in the ends or purpose of the enterprise. The end or purpose of metaphysics is to explain the most universal principles of reality, to offer a comprehensive view of all that exists, and through this inquiry offer wisdom regarding reality and the highest good of human existence.

Metaphysics speaks to the ultimate questions which no one can really avoid. Questions such as “is all reality ultimately in flux and change as Bergson, the process philosophers, and some of the pre-Socratics suggest, or is there a basic order and natural rhythm to the universe as other classical and contemporary philosophers claim? If there is a determined order to the universe, where is the place for human freedom, intuition, and non-rational ways of knowing? What is the origin, destiny, and fabric of reality? Is it always wrong to torture babies for fun?” We all have notions and ideas about the nature of reality, human nature, and the role of ethics in our lives. Far from being purely semantic or academic concerns, questions of metaphysics are part of our everyday experience and are ultimately grounded in our understanding of reality. In these introductory discussions, we’ll discover why we start with metaphysics and why it is unwise to let epistemology drive metaphysics. The point of metaphysics, then, is to illuminate our understanding of reality and offer a course to wisdom. The purpose (or end) of metaphysics, is to offer wisdom regarding the ultimate nature of reality and through rational deliberation, we can then apply this wisdom with intention and purpose to our own lives. This is why many have thought that wisdom is the highest good of the human mind.

For a more complete treatment see: Kane, Robert. “The Ends of Metaphysics.” International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. XXXI., No. 4, Issue No. 132, 1993, 413-428. Kane’s article served as an inspiration to this post.

Culture, Education, Philosophy

Postmodernism Today

by Dave Seng

metaphysical truth

More than one person has told me that postmodernism is dead. I do not share that position. Recently, I conducted a quick scan of books and journal articles that were published in the past several years (of course one can find postmodern theory going back to the 1960s or even earlier, but I wanted to keep the search current), and found a quick sampling of the following titles. For books, I found Pixar’s Boy Stories: Masculinity in a Postmodern Age, Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner, and Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern. For academic journal articles, I found these: Heidegger’s Wrong Turn (Heidegger is sometimes used as a stepping stone to postmodernism), Postmodern Truth?, and the oddest of all, Toward a Postmodern Pragmatic Discourse Semioethics for Brain Injury Care: Empirically Driven Group Inquiry as a Dialogical Practice in Pursuit of the Peircean Aesthetic Ideal of ‘Reasonableness.’ This is a small selection, of course, but the point is, postmodernism is far from dead. To augment this assertion, search for terms like “deconstruction,” “poststructralism,” and “critical theory” in any academic database and you will find more than enough articles speaking to postmodernism’s current state.

But what is postmodernism and why do I think it is alive and well, against the opinions of my respected friends and colleagues? According to philosopher Ed Miller, postmodernism is “a contemporary interdisciplinary movement stressing the pragmatic, historically relative, and theory-laden character of judgments and knowledge” (Questions That Matter, pg. 589). Bruce Thornton explains postmodernism as a cultural and intellectual mood that denies “a stable creative order that can substitute for the fragmented social world and provide an alternative foundation for human meaning and identity,” for the postmodernist, “there are no foundations, neither for human meaning, identity, art, nor morality. Everything is fragmented and free-floating, including artistic forms, which are now completely open to unbridled experimentation, and the individual, who is no longer psychologically integrated but rather a bundle of neuroses, complexes, and multiple identities battered by indifferent cosmic, historical, and social forces” (Humanities Handbook, pg. 101). Postmodernism, therefore, encompasses a whole host of critical theories such as poststructuralism, postcolonialism, Marxism, and various literary interpretive schools generally based on racial, class, gender, and social justice issues. The most popular postmodern theorists at least during the 1990s were Rorty, Lyotard, Derrida, and Foucault. Many others can be cited as well. One can go back further, of course, and discover that in various ways Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Dewey, William James, and Heidegger were forerunners of postmodernism and one of the reasons I believe postmodernism is alive is that most academics have been trained in schools of thought founded by one or more of these thinkers. (I think it is a legitimate line of inquiry to ask what genuine needs of contemporary society help to explain the prevalence and acceptance of these philosophical doctrines. But that will be a topic for another post.) The idea that there are no facts, just interpretations, and all interpretations are equally valid—is part of our current postmodern condition. These core convictions of the last 50 years have not changed. Going further back in time, it is easy to see how Kant’s idealism, Hegel’s historicism, Nietzsche’s perspectivalism and even Kierkegaard’s subjective epistemology all share a postmodern anti-realism, and frankly, a conceptually incoherent approach to truth and reality. In the larger cultural and intellectual sphere, however, I don’t really see individuals or society comprehending or assimilating the logical implications of the law of non-contradiction or accepting absolutes in their lives, even when everyone functions from the assumptions of absolutes in all aspects of reality and the world (even if, ironically, the only absolute that one can accept is that there are no absolutes). In our current postmodern (or should I say postphilosophical?) cultural climate it is often forgotten that the cars we drive, the building we work and live in, the technology we use and consume, and the very economic lives we lead are built on and created by very strict standards.

There are, however, some interesting cases to be explored regarding the failure of postmodernism in some fields, and this might explain why my friends think postmodernism as an academic fad is over. It is true that some fields have returned to a common sense understanding of reality. Take the field of literature, for example. After a period from about the 1970s to 2000, when experimentation with plot structure was all the rage, imaginative literature returned to narrative and largely looks like the structure Aristotle set out in his poetics. Admittedly, this was largely due to fact that people stopped buying novels without a plot or were in other ways inscrutable. But even fields such as anthropology and sociology have experienced some misgivings of postmodernism. When I was a graduate student completing my second master’s degree, I attended a lecture by a senior anthropologist who also taught in the Honors School of the institution I was attending. This instructor gave a decidedly structural view of social order (this was a younger professor, not an older one or of a conservative bent. He was simply well versed in postmodernism but rejected it). After the lecture, I told this professor that many poststructuralists would have been sorely disappointed with his lecture. He responded to me quickly that a poststructuralist is someone who has never recovered from a head injury. The point is not that it is necessary to be intellectually mean-spirited to postmodernists but rather poststructuralism is not the final court of appeal in some academic circles. When a literature professor tells me that postmodernism is dead, what she is really saying is that the whole experimentation with plot and confused narrative is over. On the other hand, however, the racial, class, and gender struggles which are so popular today and really have their foundations in late modernity (just read Hemingway, Faulkner, or Fitzgerald on these issues) are now the adopted children of postmodernism. As an academic appellation, postmodernism may not be as fashionable as it once was. Nonetheless, the idea that all reality is historically and culturally determined is far from absent—both in academics and popular culture.