MODULE 8 : The Good Life

Midterm

Plato

He thought that things in this world are not real and are only copies of the real in the world of forms.

Change is so perplexing that it can only make sense if there are two realities: the world of forms and the world of matter.

World of matter

Things are changing and impermanent

World of forms

The entities are only copies of the ideal and the models, and the forms are the only real entities

Aristotle

He forwarded the idea that there is no reality over and above what the senses can perceive, claiming that this world is all there is to it and that this world is the only reality we can all access.

Eudaimonia

• Greek word that means human flourishing or happiness.

• The highest good for humans, the ultimate goal of life.

Arete

• A Greek term that means “excellence of any kind in terms of intellectual and moral virtues”.

• Intellectual virtue is achieved through education and experience. On the other hand, moral virtue is developed through the constant practice of an action that promotes a good life.

Telos

Every human person, according to Aristotle, aspires for an end. This end is happiness or human flourishing. Claims that happiness is the be all and end all of everything that we do. Human flourishing, a kind of contentment in knowing that one is getting the best out of life.

Materialism

• The first of them were the atomists in Ancient Greece.

• The world is made up of and is controlled by the tiny indivisible units in the world called “atomos” or seeds.

Materialism

• For Democritus and his disciples, the world, including humans, is made up of matter.

• In terms of human flourishing, matter is what makes us attain heppiness

Hedonism

• Sees the end goal of life in acquiring pleasure

• Life is about obtaining and indulging in pleasure because life is limited

• “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die”

Stoicism

• The idea that to generate happiness, one must learn to distance oneself and be apathetic

• Happiness can only be attained by a practice of apathy

Theism

• The communion with a god or gods

• The world where we are in is only just a temporary reality where we have to maneuver around while waiting for the ultimate return to the hands of deities.

Humanism

• The freedom of man to carve his own destiny and to legislate his own laws, free from the shackles of a God that monitors and controls

• See themselves not merely as stewards of creation but as individuals who are in control of themselves and the world outside them