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Book 4, Chapters 3 & 4

PostPosted: December 22nd, 2005, 9:19 pm
by magpie

Re: Book 4, Chapters 3 & 4

PostPosted: December 31st, 2005, 2:55 pm
by Kolbitar
::This argument only holds if one accepts the premise that happiness and the good are interchangeable essences, a premise which not only flies in the face of a great deal of human experience, but one which also has denigrating implications for the "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," the true God (not merely a god) who "became flesh and dwelt among us."

Hold on there, this is a common misunderstanding -- one which would have the Founding Fathers, with their "pursuit of hapiness," as complete subjectivists.

That is not what adherents to the perennial philosophy mean by "happiness": we moderns have warped it's meaning to resemble our own immediate-pleasure-seeking lives.

"(T)his insight...Boethius...expresses in an oft repeated characterization of happiness as "a life made perfect by the possession in aggregate of all good things." So conceived, happiness is not a particular good itself, but the sum of goods." --Mortimer Adler

There's a vast difference between being happy at one particular moment -- having the psychological contentment accompanying the possession of a good -- and the quality of happiness pursuing a good life. The latter is a disposition, a habitual inclination, and does not primarily refer to the fleeting emotions of sorrow, anger, contented happiness, etc. The opposite of a happy life as Boethius, Aristotle, or other natural philosophers conceive it, is a tragic life. To explain what Boethius means about our own rewards and punishments, we have to make a further distinction, because as you note Christ did not live a life replete, as a long string of happy emotions -- Boethius does not have this in mind. Nor could we call Christ's life happy, as opposed to tragic, as a whole. What then does Boethius have in mind? The answer is to make the distinction between limited and unlimited goods: those not within our power to possess, and those that are -- outside circumstances, and inner dispositions. The opposite of happiness in this sense is neurosis. A happy person in this sense can have unhappy feelings yet still have an inner disposition which enables him to make virtuous decisions (and become a god). What of the self-deluded who think their possession of one good to the exclusion of all others makes them happy? Well, as Mill said, “…if the fool…(is) of a different opinion, it is because (he) only know(s) (his) own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.” It would be self-evident to anyone thus shown, experientially, the “other side” (the wicked shown what it means to be good) that he was a “fool.”

Jesse

re: Book 4, Chapters 3 & 4

PostPosted: January 25th, 2006, 7:28 pm
by magpie