tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017234.post111841867718958956..comments2023-11-16T07:12:40.867-05:00Comments on Dissoi Blogoi: Destrée's Digression on EudaimoniaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017234.post-1118451420166756402005-06-10T20:57:00.000-04:002005-06-10T20:57:00.000-04:00Forgive me if I ignore some of the strata here—Pak...Forgive me if I ignore some of the strata here—Pakaluk on Destree on Cooper revising Cooper on Aristotle criticizing Plato—and ask the readers of this forum a question about the NE that has long puzzled me.<BR/>We are all familiar with Aristotle’s exposition of the criterion of autarcheia at NE I.vii.7 ( “we take a self-sufficient thing to mean a thing which merely standing by itself alone renders life desirable and lacking in nothing” ). And we are familiar with the argument at NE X.vii.4 that theoria is self-sufficient because it requires fewer external goods or conditions than the justice or the other moral excellences. <BR/>My question—well, I guess it’s two questions:<BR/>(1) Does NE X.vii , even if we grant its claims, strike anyone as even beginning to carry the thesis that theoria is (self)sufficient for a desirable life lacking nothing? The obvious objection is that theoria is the perhaps the least autarchic activity, dependent on phronesis and many of the practical excellences ( and goods ) to give it a viable real-world existence in which theoria is an affordable leisure activity. A life of theoria is radically un-self-sufficient and non-viable for human beings ( as NE X vii-viii go on to concede ). Perhaps Aristotle came to appreciate this criticism, and so<BR/>(2) EE plumps for a happy life of arete teleia, which EE VIII.3 identifies with kalokagathia, many virtues( including theoria) practiced for their sake because they are kala. Now autarcheia has disappeared as a formal criterion of eudaemonia in EE, but isn’t a life aimed at kalokagathia self-sufficient in just the way that theoria by itself cannot be?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com