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We return to José Ortega y Gasset and another quote from his book What Is Philosophy?, simultaneously making a connection to his previously-cited book of essays On Love:
[T]heorizing, philosophizing are, properly speaking, not living - precisely because they are a form of living; the theoretic life, the contemplative life ... Theory, and its extreme form, philosophy, are the attempt which life makes to transcend itself; it is to de-occupy oneself, to de-live, to cease to be interested in things. But this dis-interesting of oneself is not a passive process. On the contrary, it is a form of being interested: for instance, to be interested in something while cutting the intro-vital threads which link it to me - saving it from its immersion in my life, leaving it alone, in pure reference to its own self, seeking in it its very being. To be dis-interested is, then, to be interested in the inner self of each individual thing, to dower it with independence, with substance, one might almost say with personality - putting myself in a position to look at it from within its own point of view, not from mine. Contemplation is an attempt at transmigration. But that - to seek in a thing what it has of the absolute and to cut off all other partial interest of my own toward it, to cease to make use of it, to cease to wish that it serves me, but to serve it myself as an impartial eye so that it may see itself and find itself and be its very own self and for itself - this - this - is this not love? Then is contemplation, at root, and act of love, in that in loving as differentiated from desiring, we are trying to live from within the other and we un-live outselves for the sake of the other?
First I'd like to translate these insights into some of the alternative renderings I am using in my translations of Aristotle. To theorize or to be interested or to contemplate (to engage in θεωρία) is to give attention; to de-occupy oneself is to be at ease or at leisure (i.e., to engage in σχολή, in contrast to the pre-occupation of ἀσχολία); personality or personhood is ψυχή (traditionally translated as soul) - the aliveness which Aristotle attributes not only to humans but also to the other animals and to plants; that something exists for itself is what Aristotle calls "that for the sake of which" (τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα) in the sense of both the aim of its actions and the beneficiary of its actions; and love is φιλία in all its forms (including the love and affection of parents, children, siblings, spouses, friends, even fellow citizens).
Second, I'd like to personalize and humanize these insights even more deeply. Yes, I can gaze out my window in meditation and dower with independence the squirrels scampering up and down the ponderosa pine trees in my yard, and I can even do this with the trees themselves, which sprouted before I was born and which will be here long after I have passed from the pageant of life; these beings don't exist to serve my purposes but to live for their own sake. Yet when I cultivate the attitude of "being interested in the inner self of each individual thing", that applies most significantly not to arbitrary things out in the world but especially to my fellow human beings, and most especially to those with whom I have close personal relationships. A friend, a sibling, a lover - these wonderful people don't exist for my sake but for their own sake, aiming primarily at their own fulfillment, not mine. I can enjoy their presence in my life and gratefully receive whatever they freely wish to give, but I feel a great responsibility to do so both without taking them for granted and with the utmost respect for their independence and autonomy.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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(Previous: Eudemian Ethics I.8.)
Making a fresh start, after this we must speak about the following. All good things are either outside or inside personhood, and the most preferable are inside (as we have also noted in our popular writings): wisdom and excellence and enjoyment are all inside personhood, and everyone deems one or all of these to be our completion. Of the good things which are inside personhood some are traits or abilities, whereas others are activities and processes of change.
Let that be assumed, and also let it be assumed about excellence that it is the best condition or trait or ability of each thing which has a use or task. This is clear from bringing in witnesses and precedents (indeed we set this down about everything). For instance, there is an excellence of a cloak, for it has a task and a use, and the best trait of a cloak is its excellence. Likewise with a ship and a house and everything else, and also with personhood, for it too has a task.
Let us also assume that a better trait has a better task, that as the traits are related to each other so also are the tasks arising from it related, and that the completion of each is its task.
From these assumptions, plainly the task is better than the trait, for the completion, being complete, is best, since the completion is best and ultimate, all other things being for its sake.
Clearly, then, the task is better than the trait and the condition. But "task" is said in two ways. Of some traits and conditions there is a certain other task beyond their exercise, for instance the task of house-building is a house rather than the activity of building and the task of medicine is health rather than the activity of healing or curing. Of others the exercise is the task, for instance the task of sight is seeing and the task of mathematical understanding is giving attention. In cases where the exercise is the task, necessarily the exercise is better than the trait.
Having made these distinctions, let us say that a thing and its excellence have the same task but in different ways. For instance, the task of the shoemaker's craft and of the activity of shoemaking is a sandal, so that if there is an excellence to the shoemaker's craft and of an outstanding shoemaker, the task of this excellence is an outstanding sandal. And the same goes in other cases.
Furthermore, let the task of aliveness be to bring about living, and let the task of living be exercise and wakefulness (for sleep is a kind of inactivity and quietude). Therefore, since the task of aliveness and of its excellence must be one and the same, the task of its excellence must be an outstanding life. This, then, is the complete good, which as we saw is fulfillment. This is clear from our assumptions: that fulfillment is what's best, that things which complete us are inside personhood and are the best of the good things, and that what's inside personhood is either a trait or an activity. Since an activity is better than a condition and the best activity is that of the best trait, the activity of personhood's excellence is what's best. Fulfillment was also best, so fulfillment is the activity of good personhood. Since fulfillment was something complete, and life can be complete or incomplete, and thus also can excellence (it can be either whole or partial), and the activity of something incomplete is itself incomplete, therefore fulfillment would be the activity of a complete life directed by complete excellence.
As witness to the fact that the kind and definition of fulfillment are beautifully stated, there are views we all hold: that doing well and living well are the same as finding fulfillment, that each of these (both living and taking action) is an exercise and an activity (for a life of taking action is a life of use - a smith makes a bridle and a horse uses it), and that a person can't be fulfilled for a single day or as a child or at every season of life (thus Solon beautifully said to call no one fulfilled until their life was complete, since nothing incomplete is fulfilled, but only something whole).
Furthermore, praise is given to excellences because of deeds, and eulogies too are made about deeds. And it is the victors who receive the crown, not those who could have won but didn't. And someone's quality is discerned based on their deeds. Moreover, why is fulfillment not praised? Because other things are praised on account of fulfillment, either by leading up to it or by being a part of it. This is why congratulating, praising, and eulogizing are different things: eulogizing is speech about a particular deed, praising is about someone in general, and congratulating is about their being complete.
These considerations clear up an impasse that some people raise: that outstanding people are no better than worthless people for half the course of life, given that everyone is alike while sleeping. This is grounded in the fact that sleep is an inactivity of aliveness, not an activity. Thus also if there is another aspect of aliveness, such as the one having to do with mere subsistence, its excellence is not an aspect of the excellence of the whole person, just as with the excellence of the body. The subsistent aspect is more active duing sleep, whereas awareness and yearning are not brought to completion during sleep. Yet to the extent that these aspects of aliveness have some share in bringing about changes, even the impressions of outstanding people will be better, unless they are due to illness or injury.
After these matters we must turn our attention to personhood, for excellence is of personhood and doesn't just exist by-the-way. Since we are looking into human excellence, let us assume that there are two aspects of personhood that have a share in reason, although these do not share in reason in the same way: for one does so by giving orders and the other does so by being of a nature to heed and to follow. (If there is some other aspect of personhood that is unthinking in another way, let us pass that by.) It makes no difference if personhood is divisible or indivisible, because even so it has distinct capabilities including those we've mentioned, just as in a curve the convex is inseparable from the concave, and as a straight line may be white but the straight is not the white except by-the-way, rather than in its very being. And if there is some other aspect of aliveness, such as the aspect having to do with keeping alive, let us disregard that, for it is the aspects we've mention that are characteristic of human personhood. Thus the excellences of the aspects having to do with keeping alive and with growing are not human excellences. For if there is an aspect of a human being insofar as being human, present within it must be thinking as a ruling force, and taking action too. And what thinking rules is not thinking itself but yearning and feelings, so that personhood must have these aspects as well. And just as being in good shape comes together from the excellences of various aspects, so also does the excellence of personhood insofar as it is a completion.
There are two forms of excellence: that having to do with character and that having to do with thinking things through, for we praise not only those who are just but also those who are intelligent and sagacious. We assumed that what's praised are excellences and tasks, yet those are not active, although there exist activations of them. Since the excellences of thinking things through are suffused with reason, they belong to that aspect of personhood which has a share in reason, and this is the aspect of personhood which gives orders insofar as it has a share in reason; whereas the excellences of character belong to that aspect of personhood which is unthinking and naturally heeds the aspect that has a share in reason. (We do not say that character is a quality such as being sagacious or clever, but of being gentle or bold.)
After these matters, we must look into excellence of character: what it is, what sort of parts it has (which amounts to the same thing), and what brings it into being. As everyone does in other domains, we must search with some hold of that which we seek - always attempting, from what is said truly but unclearly, to grasp what is both true and clear. Right now our hold is like holding that health is the best condition of the body or that Coriscus is the swarthiest man in the marketplace: we don't know what each of these things is, but the hold conduces to the task of knowing them.
First let us assume that the best condition arises out of the best things, and that the finest actions flow from the excellence of each (for instance, the finest forms of exertion and nutrition put you in good shape, and from being in good shape flows the highest level of performance). Furthermore, every condition is generated and destroyed by the same things applied in certain ways, as health is from nutrition and exertion and climate. These things are clear from bringing in witnesses and precedents.
Excellence, then, is the sort of condition which arises out of the finest changes within personhood and which activates the finest deeds and feelings of personhood. From the same things excellence is in one way generated and in another way destroyed, and it is exercised in relation to the things from which it is developed and destroyed, and which arrange what's best. A sign of this is that both excellences and deficiencies are all about pleasures and pains - for (as in other cases) correction is a kind of healing that works through opposites.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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In a comment on my last post, my friend Kurt Keefner wonders whether Socrates really should be considered a paradigm of the philosopher, since he never wrote a word - and philosophic arguments can't be properly weighed unless they're written down. It just so happens that this very topic was of great concern to Socrates and his student Plato - there's a reason why Plato wrote dialogues as representations of the true path to philosophical insight. In an essay on the philosopher as spiritual guide, Ilsetraut Hadot (wife of Pierre Hadot and a formidable scholar in her own right) just happens to have provided a compelling consideration of this matter, which I've been wanting to comment on for the last few months:
[W]hat is desired is not knowledge, but rather knowledge as habitus [i.e., ἕξις or a settled trait - PSA], the transformation of the individual through knowledge. The heterodox Stoic Ariston, who, in the statement cited here, agrees with all ancient philosophers except the Skeptics, states: "Philosophy is divided into knowledge and state of mind. For one who has learned and understood what he should do and avoid is not a wise man until his mind is metamorphosed into the shape of that which he has learned." (Ariston in Seneca Epistulae Morales 94.48) First of all, the elements of knowledge must be appropriated, which is a purely intellectual process. Then, knowledge must be impressed upon the mind in such a way that it is always at hand and that it cannot be limited or lost on account of any external circumstances - in other words, in such a way that it becomes one with the individual and a constituent part of the person's being. This second stage can be attained only through practice and habituation with the incorporation of one's emotional components. Let us take as an example the dogma "Death is not an evil," which was professed by all the ancient schools of philosophy. The philosopher-spiritual guide knows that it is not sufficient to know this and to be familiar with and to have grasped intellectually the philosophical proofs that are the foundation for this statement; one must be convinced to such a degree that one's whole inner nature is penetrated by it.
For the ancient philosophers, the goal was to attain a state of mind in which one's entire soul is suffused with wisdom. For instance, Aristotle distinguished between action κατὰ λόγον or "directed by / in accord with reason" and action μετὰ λόγου or "suffused with reason"; he also distinguished between knowledge or understanding that is a mere possession and knowledge or understanding that is actively kept in awareness and put into practice (he uses the latter distinction in his account of self-indulgence, which occurs when someone knows the right thing to do but doesn't act on that knowledge). Similarly, I've previously drawn attention to Plato's dialogue Laches, wherein the Athenian general Nikias observes that Socrates always pressed his interlocutors to "give an account" (λόγος) of how they lived. All of this is consistent with Pierre Hadot's reconstruction of philosophy as a way of life, since on that conception what's primary is how you live, whereas abstract speculation is decidedly secondary. Indeed, according to the ancients people like Cato and even Marcus Aurelius were philosophers even if they didn't generate any novel theories (do recall that the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius were merely notes to himself, never meant for publication). The point is not to know things intellectually, but to know them in your bones.
It is not only the ancients who have had such insights; just recently I noted an aphorism formulated by José Ortega y Gasset: "The easiest thing to do about anything is to write a book about it. The hard thing is to live it." What philosophy as a way of life proposes is that "living it" can itself be a philosophical act, since wisdom and sagacity are not static formulae but active practices of understanding how to live in the world with all your own particularity.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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In Chapter 11 of his book What Is Philosophy?, José Ortega y Gasset writes as follows:
[T]he Greeks, having no books which could properly be called philosophic, when asked by someone like Plato, "What is philosophy?" - thought of man, of the philosopher, of life. For them, philosophizing was first of all βίος θεωρητικός, a theory of life. Strictly speaking, the first philosophic books which they had were books of the lives of the seven sakes, biographies. All that which does not define philosophy as philosophizing, and philosophizing as an essential type of life, is neither sufficient nor basic.
This passage corroborates my thesis that the unit of greatness in philosophy is not a book but a life. Socrates is often thought to be the greatest philosopher in the Western tradition - at the very least, the thinker who (despite his predecessors) kicked off the entire tradition - yet he wrote nothing. What comes before philosophy is the philosopher, who philosophically speaking is the primary reality. And we can all be philosophers, we can all philosophize, we can all strive after wisdom and sagacity in our own lives. That is the promise of philosophy not merely as an academic career but as a joyous, passionate way of life.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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In my experience, one of the beautiful things about friendship (broadly speaking - I've always liked the fact that the ancient Greek word φιλία covers a very wide range of personal relationships) is that each friend brings out different facets of my personality (sometimes latent facets or even facets I didn’t know I had!). And these facets can be quite particular: for instance, I am a musical person, but different friends of mine might prefer classical, folk, blues, jazz, rock, or pop, all of which appeal to me if the artists are good (as Duke Ellington said, "there are two kinds of music: the good kind and the other kind"!). Some friends might be more spontaneous, more emotionally sensitive, more organized, more philosophical, more creative, more athletic, or what have you - and they might bring out those qualities in myself when we interact or when they inspire me to try new things. This is why there really is an art of friendship and of great conversation. As I turn more and more away from abstractions and universals, I find myself giving ever closer attention to the private, personal, practical, passionate, and particular. This is where life really happens, and where I find the greatest wisdom and joy.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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Following up on yesterday's post about facets of personhood, I thought I'd write briefly about the more scientific topic of facets in personality psychology. Although I am far from an expert in this field, longtime readers know that I'm skeptical about the popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and prefer the five-factor "OCEAN" model of personality theory (although the six-factor "HEXACO" model seems quite good, too). The five factors are: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (HEXACO adds a factor for Honesty and Humility).
Boiling down all of human personality to five or six factors is conceptually convenient because we humans can't handle too many mental units at once, but in fact the original theorists of the five-factor model identified six specific facets under each factor, which results a larger list of thirty facets, as follows:
Because research shows that the specific facets are more directly correlated with certain life outcomes, in practice they might be more useful than the broad factors. Consider, for instance, a person who reliably shows up for work on time but isn't especially thorough in completing tasks; or a person who is curious about a wide range of topics but doesn't make original contributions in any of them.
Yet of course we have many more than thirty personality-related adjectives in English; lexical research has generated lists as large as ~18,000 (Allport and Odbert 1936), reduced to ~2,800 (Norman 1967) or ~1,710 (Goldberg 1982) and so on. Studies in languages as diverse as Dutch, French, Czech, Hungarian, and Korean have resulted in five-factor or six-factor models similar to OCEAN and HEXACO, with some interesting nuances (e.g., a greater weighting on the Honesty and Humility factor). These larger lists do greater justice to the complexity of human personality, albeit at the cost of being rather overwhelming (is that extraverted person best described as outgoing, jolly, bubbly, talkative, conversational, peppy, merry, effervescent, vocal, frisky, sparkling, lively, frolicsome, vibrant, or perky?). In pursuit of self-knowledge, the thirty facets seem like a good place to start, since they're detailed enough to be descriptive without being so detailed as to be unusable.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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