In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle has given a tableau of the desirable virtues and their infringement through the surpassing of their limits. Thus, every virtue is framed or delimited by vices that represent either its excess or its deficiency. However, this type of defining is related to deep, metaphysical reasons: since every being, especially the liv-ing one, has its telos. Man’s telos is to practise and fulfil his human specificity, i.e. reason, and reason is the measure/quality of virtue as such; the excess or deficiency in his behaviour perverts and even stops the realisation of the humanity of man. And this humanity is, in turn, in accordance to the telos of nature, the good in and for the preser-vation of all things. If, hypothetically, persons would not be virtuous at all, this accord-ance would not be realised and man would be an accident in the logic of nature: and accidents are removed, sooner or later. The criterion of the “quantitative” moral evalua-tion is thus qualitative: a quality, the good aimed at by mindfulness applied to the con-crete particular moral relations and learned from experience.
This article states that the search for the meaning of life is possible only through an address to non-existence, and it is a sign of genuine human self-care. Religion and phi-losophy are considered as incarnation of the space of care. Philosophy here is under-stood in a broad sense, not as a rigorous science, but as search for wisdom. Based on the structure of self-care, given in Michel Foucault’s works, here are revealed peculiarities of the search for the meaning of life in respective fields. This also implies different lifestyles. The author believes that genuine self-care is available to everyone, in spite of the nature of modern mass culture.
At the beginning of Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says that “the good is the same for an individual as for a city”. The good in question is εὐδαιμονία – the highest good achievable for human beings. In Book X, we learn that contemplative activity (θεωρητική) meets best the requirements set for eudaimonia. Even if we agree that contemplative activity is the good for an individual, how should we understand the claim that contemplation is also the good for a city? I start by reminding readers that for Aristotle the Nicomachean Ethics is essentially a political enquiry and should be read together with his Politics. I focus on the teleological character of his political philosophy and the interlinking of the concepts of the good (τἀγαθόν), nature (φύσις), form (τὸ εἶδος, τὸ τί ἐστι, ἡ μορφή), end (τέλος, τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα) and function (ἔργον). Then, I look at Aristotle’s two closely-connected statements that polis exists by nature and that men are political animals. Having taken into account Aristotle’s opinion regarding the imperfection of this world, which is exemplified by the vulnerability of human lives to fortune, luck and accidents, I conclude that Alasdair MacIntyre’s concept of the political community as a common project explains well how contemplation could be the end of polis. Only very few individuals can achieve the highest good and they can do it only if they have the support of the political community. But all the inhabitants of a polis structured towards achieving the highest good benefit from living in a well-ordered community whose constitution reflects the objective hierarchy of goods.
PL
At the beginning of Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says that “the good is the same for an individual as for a city”. The good in question is εὐδαιμονία – the highest good achievable for human beings. In Book X, we learn that contemplative activity (θεωρητική) meets best the requirements set for eudaimonia. Even if we agree that contemplative activity is the good for an individual, how should we understand the claim that contemplation is also the good for a city? I start by reminding readers that for Aristotle the Nicomachean Ethics is essentially a political enquiry and should be read together with his Politics. I focus on the teleological character of his political philosophy and the interlinking of the concepts of the good (τἀγαθόν), nature (φύσις), form (τὸ εἶδος, τὸ τί ἐστι, ἡ μορφή), end (τέλος, τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα) and function (ἔργον). Then, I look at Aristotle’s two closely-connected statements that polis exists by nature and that men are political animals. Having taken into account Aristotle’s opinion regarding the imperfection of this world, which is exemplified by the vulnerability of human lives to fortune, luck and accidents, I conclude that Alasdair MacIntyre’s concept of the political community as a common project explains well how contemplation could be the end of polis. Only very few individuals can achieve the highest good and they can do it only if they have the support of the political community. But all the inhabitants of a polis structured towards achieving the highest good benefit from living in a well-ordered community whose constitution reflects the objective hierarchy of goods.
This brief paper presents an Aristotelian-inspired approach to end-of-life decision making. The account focuses on the importance of teleology, in particular, the telos of eudaimonia understood as the goal of human flourishing as well as the telos of medicine when a person’s eudaimonia is threatened by serious illness and death. We argue that an Aristotelian bioethics offers a better alternative to a “fundamentalist bioethics” since the telos of eudaimonia (i) offers a more realistic conception of the self and the realities of frailty and mortality, (ii) provides a more objective basis for making decisions regarding end-of-life treatment and care, and (iii) is better able to resist the pull of the Technological Imperative. In addition, this teleological concept is flexible enough for it to be employed in multicultural and pluralistic societies.
The paper contains a general characteristics of the relation between Lev Shestov’s philosophy of existence and transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. The analysis was largely inspired by Cezary Wodziński’s research on Shestov’s writings, including his book published in Polish Wiedza a zbawienie. Studium myśli Lwa Szestowa (1991). In 1931, inspired by Descartes’ Meditationes de prima philosophiae, Husserl began a total transformation of philosophy into a science absolutely founded, assumptionless and developed in the spirit of absolute self-responsibility. Thus, the idea of philosophy as an exact science and Descartes’ idea of a science absolutely founded became the aim. It resulted in a project of universal science which — according to Husserl — has been the aim of European philosophy from the beginning. Ultimately, this philosophy was to rebuild the whole model of European culture. Less than two years after the first edition of Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenchaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, Lev Shestov published his Athens and Jerusalem (1938) where he agrees with Husserl’s diagnosis that the whole European culture is in a stage of a deep crisis which goes to its very foundations. However, Shestov points at the radically different sources of that crisis. Paradoxically, a remarkable friendship connecting these two thinkers did not affect the similarity of their views. In fact, they are located at the opposite poles of the contemporary philosophical scene. The friendship of Shestov and Husserl was born in the atmosphere of an intense and uncompromising intellectual debate. Both thinkers are strongly convinced that the fate of European culture and European understanding what it is to be man are decided in the realm of philosophy. So, the philosophical projects they offer are two extremely critical visions of culture. At the same time they suggest a way the European culture should be thoroughly reformed at its very basis
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