Pierre Hadot: What Is Ancient Philosophy?
Aristotle's school, Lyceum, trained people only for the philosophical life. Aristotle distinguishes between the happiness man can find in political life, in active life, and philosophical happiness, which corresponds to theoria---a kind of life devoted entirely to the activity of the mind. Political and practical happiness is happiness only in a secondary way. Philosophical happiness is found in life according to the mind, which is situated in man's highest excellence and virtue. This virtue corresponds to the mind, the highest part of man, and is free of inconveniences brought by the active life. It is not subject to the intermittent nature of action, and does not produce fatigue. It brings marvelous pleasures, which are unmixed with pain or impurity and are stable and solid. These pleasures are greater for those who reach reality and truth than for those who are still searching for them. It ensures independence from others, insofar as we otherwise assured of independence with regard to material things. A person who devotes himself to the activity of the mind depends only on himself. Perhaps his intellectual activity will be of higher quality if he has collaborators; but the more a sage he is, the more he will be able to be alone. Life in accordance with the mind does not seek any result other than itself, and is therefore loved for itself. It is its own goal and its own reward.
The life of the mind also eliminates worry. By practicing the moral virtues, we find ourselves involved in a struggle against the passions and also mired in material cares. In order to act within the city, we must become involved in political struggles; in order to help others, we must have money; in order to practice courage, we must go to war. The philosophical life, by contrast, can be lived only in leisure and in detachment from material worries.
This form of life represents the highest form of human happiness. Yet it can also be said that such happiness is superhuman: "Then, man no longer lives qua man, but insofar as there is something divine about him." This paradox corresponds to Aristotle's paradoxical and enigmatic view of the mind and the intellect: the intellect is what is most essential in man, yet at the same time it is something divine which enters into him; what transcends man constitutes his true personality. It is as if man's true essence consisted in being above himself: "The mind is our self, insofar as it represents that which decides and which is best."
We must take into consideration the distance which separates man from the deity; and Aristotle admits that we can attain it only in infrequent moments. If the deity is perpetually in a state of joy comparable to that in which we sometimes find ourselves, that is admirable. If he is in a state of still greater joy, then that is still more marvelous. Thus, the summit of philosophical happiness and the of the activity of the mind, that is, the contemplation of the divine intellect is accessible to man only in rare moments, for the proprium of the human condition is that it cannot be continuously in actuality. This implies that for the rest of the time, the philosopher must be content with the inferior grade of happiness which consists in searching.
Aristotle uses the word "theoretical" to designate, on one hand, the mode of knowledge whose goal is knowledge for knowledge's sake, and not some goal outside itself; and on the other, the way of life which consists in devoting one's life to this mode of knowledge. The word is not opposed to "practical." "Theoretical" can be applied to a philosophy which is practiced, lived, and active, and which brings happiness. Aristotle hints that the mode of contemplative action is the deity and the universe, which exert no action directed toward the outside ut take themselves as the object of their action. It appears that the model of a knowledge which does not seek any gaol other than itself is the divine Intellect, which has no interest in anything else. So theoretical praxis consists in choosing no goal other than knowledge. It means wanting knowledge for its own sake, without pursuing any other particular, egoistic interest which would be alien to knowledge. This is an ethics of disinterestedness and of objectivity.
Kant: "To take an immediate interest in the beauties of nature...is always the sign of a good soul."
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