Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Group 3 Section 16

In our group we discussed Aristotle and his view on true happiness.  In our reading we discovered that Aristotle's of true happiness is different than what most of us would consider happy.  In our society most look at being happy as having a good time with friends and family or going out to a party, but in Aristotle's eyes that isn't true happiness. He believed that you had to do the right things in life and be a good person to fulfill true happiness.  This philosophy points out that you can never proclaim yourself truely happy. Only after you're gone can you be truely happy.  He said you need to feel the right kind of emotions at the right time and that will lead to behaving well. We also discussed about if Aristotle and civilization of that time was aware of mental illness. That raised the question could someone that is mentally disabled or have disabilities that prevent them from certain goals, could they achieve true happiness in their life in Aristotle's eyes?

7 comments:

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  2. John Addison1:44 PM CST

    Though I missed this last discussion, my thoughts on the reading of aristotle's perception of true happiness coincides with what you all discussed, except for that last part pertaining to mental illness, which was a good question by the way. My main disagreement with Aristotle's view is the part about only being truly happy after you're gone and never being able to proclaim yourself truely happy. I'd say you can be truely happy once you've lived through a good deal of your life doing the right things as often as you can, while also having been the best person you believe you could have been.

    So this leads me to say, I agree more with Epicurus' idea that once you are gone, you're gone.. His views say there is no feeling of anything after you're dead, but I do believe the act of dying can be an experience, unlike what Epicurus' stated, when it isn't either passing away in your sleep or an instantaneous occurance, like a bullet straight through the brain or maybe having your head chopped off like the good ole' days.

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  3. Brock Wilkes1:56 PM CST

    I think this is all well-put.... pretty much sums up the discussion. Aristotle didn't really seem to think anyone could achieve true happiness like you mentioned above; and I'm on the same page as you with regards to the whole "living a good life makes you happy" thing as well. To me, Aristotle's understanding of the physical world was the most impressive but his position on happiness was just confusing/a little depressing...

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  4. The whole conversation leads me to believe that Aristotle's entire argument is subjective to the "philosophy" of the person interpreting. Views on the afterlife, depending on your religion, will affect how you view aristotle's thoughts. If you are part of a religion that values works than what you do will give you true "happiness." However if you are from a religion that believes in a personal relationship with a higher being instead of deeds, than your "happiness" will be achieved though that medium. I would be interested to hear if Dr. Oliver feels that this could be a possible assimilation for happiness.

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  5. For sure, religious precepts qualify & condition what people will entertain as possible sources of personal happiness. Aristotle would still insist that the good life of eudaimonia transcendsxreligious particularity. He always sought "the good life for man" in general.

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  6. Brittany9:50 AM CST

    I think people are only temporarily happy. We are never truly happy with everything we are given in life. In the end, I believe we all have moments of reflection and truly believe we were happy with the way certain situations and circumstances proceeded because it "made us the person we are today." Do we reflect back to reassure ourselves that we were happy or do we reflect back because we realize that we could have been happy if we behaved rationally?

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  7. I honestly believe life is what you make it, long or short. Its your life, no one can decide for you if your going to be truly happy at the end or not but yourself and you really dont have to live a so called "good life" to be truly happy either, a good life to you could be a horrible life to someone else. Its the way YOU live YOUR life the way YOU want to live it.

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