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The other day I found a photo of me reading Hobbes' Leviathan at the foot of Rodin's Thinker outside Philosophy Hall on the campus of Columbia University circa 1986 (the photo was used in advertisements for Columbia's Summer School in the New York Times). This brought back memories of my university studies and my unorthodox attitude toward philosophy even back then.
As I've recounted before, my first philosophical act was ceasing to believe in god when I was nine years old. I had no broader explanation for a godless universe, which is why I was primed to fall so strongly under the influence of Ayn Rand when I first read The Fountainhead at age 12. Here was a comprehensive worldview that could replace Christianity - and, being of both a passionate and an intellectual bent, I was certainly susceptible to that kind of theory. Yet much of what drew me to Rand was that her "Objectivism" was, as she put it, "a philosophy for living on earth" - something not merely theoretical but also eminently practical in the search for joy and reason and meaning in life.
When I studied philosophy more formally at Columbia - reading Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Spinoza, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and such - I felt that something essential was missing. I had a visceral dislike for analytic philosophy of language and as I recall I got a C in symbolic logic. What I wanted were not quasi-mathematical formulations of abstract syllogisms, but insights into how to live the best life I possibly could as a human being. What I was searching for was philosophy as a way of life, but I didn't discover Pierre Hadot's resurrection of that approach until 15 years ago. In the intervening 25 years I was on my own, rummaging through Aristotle, Epicurus, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Lao Tzu, Confucius, and the like while continuing to work my way through and out of Rand. None of this was a full-time pursuit because I had decided not to pursue a Ph.D. in ancient philosophy, instead plunging into the hard realities of making a living in the business world and then stumbling onto a career in Internet technologies when I was 30.
As the years have flown by, my conception of philosophy as the passionate pursuit of wisdom has become ever clearer, but it is rooted in my early encounters with great thinkers and, even before that, in my childhood wonderings about the universe and my lifelong yearning to be a good or even extraordinary person. I'm still working at it...
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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(Previous: Eudemian Ethics II.4.)
Excellence is assumed to be the sort of trait from which arises the ability to do what is best and which guides one to being oriented in the finest way toward what is best, where what's best and finest is directed by straight-and-true thinking, which is the middle way in relation to us between going too far and falling short. Thus in each case excellence of character must be a midpoint and is all about some middle way in pleasures and pains as well as things that are pleasant and things that are painful. The midpoint will sometimes exist in pleasures (that is, between going too far and falling short), sometimes in pains, and sometimes both. For the person who goes too far in being delighted goes too far in pleasures and the person who goes too far in being pained goes too far in the opposite direction, and this either full stop or in relation to some boundary marker - for instance, not doing as most people do, whereas the good person does as one should.
Since there is no specific trait as a result of having which a person will in some situations display a tendency to go too far and in others to fall short, it must be that, just as these extremes are opposed to each other and to the middle way, so also the associated traits are opposed to each other and to excellence. Yet it can happen that while sometimes all the oppositions are plain to see, at other times the oppositions lean more toward going too far or to falling short. Because the distance from or nearness to the middle way is not always the same, in some cases one passes more easily to the middle trait from that of going too far and in other cases from that of falling short, so that the one which is farther removed seems to be the more opposed. For instance, with regard to the body, going too far in exercising is healthier than falling short and more akin to the middle way, whereas falling short in eating is healthier and more akin to the middle way than going too far. Thus also the traits of commitment to being passionate about exercise and health will vary depending on the domain of choice involved: in the first case those more prone to much exercise, in the second those more prone to withstanding privation; that is, in the first case the person who exercises not at all is opposed to due measure, to what straight-and-true thinking urges, and to the other two characters, whereas in the second case it is the pleasure-seeking person and not the person who goes hungry. This happens because right from birth our nature is not equidistant from the middle way in all cases: we are not fond of exercise but instead seek pleasure.
Likewise with personhood: we set down as opposed to due measure and what straight-and-true thinking urges the trait through which we and most people are more likely to go astray, whereas the other trait escapes our notice as if it didn't exist (it goes unnoticed because it's rare). For instance, rage is opposed to mildness and the belligerent to the mild, yet one can also go too far in being kindly and conciliatory and not getting angry when attacked. But such people are rare, since everyone inclines more in the opposite direction, which is why anger is vengeful.
At this point we have grasped an enumeration of the traits that go too far and fall short in relation to each of the feelings, as well as the traits opposed to these through which people are directed by straight-and-true thinking. (As to what straight-and-true thinking is, along with the standard to which we should look in saying what the middle way is, we will investigate this later.) Thus it is plain that all the excellences and deficiencies of character are matters of going too far and falling short about pleasures and pains, and that these pleasures and pains arise from the traits and feelings we have mentioned. But in each case the best trait is the middle way; clearly, then, the excellences - either all of them or some of them - will be matters of the midpoints.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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(Previous: Eudemian Ethics II.3.)
Having grasped these things, next we must say that since there are two aspects of personhood, the excellences too are distinguished according to these: those of the aspect having thought are excellences of thinking things through, whose task is truth about how things are and how they come about, whereas those of the unthinking aspect that yearns after things (for not every aspect of personhood has yearning, if indeed personhood is divisible) determine whether character is worthless or outstanding by pursuing or avoiding certain pleasures and pains. This is clear from the distinctions among feelings, capacities, and traits, for capacities and traits are about feelings - and feelings are distinguished by being painful or pleasant. Thus from these things and from what we set down earlier, excellence of character is all about pleasures and pains, for all personhood naturally becomes worse or better through such things, and its pleasure and pain are oriented toward them and are all about them. And it is due to pleasures and pains that we say people are worthless by pursuing and avoiding either how they shouldn't or what they shouldn't. Hence also everyone declares in an offhand way that excellence is being unaffected or keeping one's equilibrium about pleasures and pains, and that deficiency comes from the opposite.
(Next: Eudemian Ethics II.5.)
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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Here is an intriguing quote from an early work by Jane Austen (Catharine, or The Bower):
They retired to their rooms in high Spirits on Wednesday night, but Kitty awoke the next morning with a violent Toothake. It was in vain that she endeavoured at first to deceive herself; her feelings were witnesses too acute of it's reality; with as little success did she try to sleep it off, for the pain she suffered prevented her closing her Eyes. She then summoned her Maid and with the Assistance of the Housekeeper, every remedy that the receipt book or the head of the latter contained, was tried, but ineffectually; for though a short time relieved by them, the pain still returned. She was now obliged to give up the endeavour, and to reconcile herself not only to the pain of a Toothake, but to the loss of a Ball; and though she had with so much eagerness looked forward to the day of its arrival, had received such pleasure in the necessary preparations, and promised herself so much delight in it, Yet she was not so totally void of philosophy as many Girls her age, might have been in her situation. She considered that there were Misfortunes of a much greater magnitude than the loss of a Ball, experienced every day by some part of Mortality, and that the time might come when She would herself look back with Wonder and perhaps with Envy on her having known no greater vexation. By such reflections as these, she soon reasoned herself into as much Resignation and Patience as the pain she suffered, would allow of, which after all was the greatest Misfortune of the two, and told the sad Story when she entered the Breakfast room, with tolerable Composure.
This is a fine example of philosophy as the sweet milk of adversity, a notion which Austen might have inherited from her immersion in the works of Shakespeare. There's nothing abstruse or academic here, just everyday reflection on one's situation in search of practical wisdom and emotional equilibrium.
By the way, having recently gone on a Jane Austen binge, I plan to write an essay on the theme of self-knowledge in her novels. In his book After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre claims that Austen advocated "Christian self-knowledge" as opposed to "Socratic self-knowledge", but I am skeptical that the distinction is valid and suspect that, as a committed Thomist, MacIntyre might have been engaged in a bit of motivated reasoning. We'll see what the text reveals...
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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In one of our recent psy-phi dialogues, my friend Adrian Lory mentioned a book by Japanese-American psychologist Shige Oishi entitled Life in Three Dimensions. In addition to the dimensions of happiness and of meaning, Oishi adduces a third dimension of life experience: psychological richness. It's perhaps no coincidence that someone from Japan had this insight, because if you ask me richness is something like the psychological counterpart of umami in cooking: the savory taste produced by the proteins essential to life.
Naturally, there are countless ways to slice up human experience, but I'm rather attracted to the notion that psychological richness is like our taste for savory flavors. Following this analogy, we could see happiness or pleasure as similar to our taste for sweetness (indeed, the ancient Greek word for pleasure is derived from one of their words for sweetness). I'm not sure what the analogies are for the other three basic tastes - salty, sour, and bitter - but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader, while noting that somewhere in his voluminous writings Nietzsche says you can't experience the greatest joy without also opening yourself up to the greatest sorrow.
Coming back to Shige Oishi, I'll observe that he provides some actionable advice about how to make your life more psychologically rich: for instance, to be more playful and spontaneous. I've been experimenting along those lines in my own life, with some measure of success. For instance, about a month ago I had to drive from Rockland, Maine to Boston and instead of driving straight through I visited the Portland Museum of Art, walked along the ocean from Pine Point in Scarborough to Old Orchard Beach, and then explored Newburyport, Massachusetts for a while. That made for a much more rich, interesting day. I think I'll continue to salt such spontaneity into my days going forward.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
"Don't anticipate. Just participate." ~ Keith Jarrett in the liner notes to his trio album Inside Out
Although I don't like to talk about myself, once in a while I venture to write in a more confessional mode, mostly because it helps me understand myself but also because friends have told me that they appreciate my personal insights. So here goes.
Six months ago I was in a dark place, turning inward while I grieved over the death of my wife Elisa. As Michael Cholbi explores in his book Grief: A Philosophical Guide, much of the grieving process consists in forging a new identity under radically changed circumstances. That's certainly been the case for me. As previously mentioned, one discovery I made over the summer is that freehearted giving is central to my personality - and that, for someone like me, the best way to grieve is to give. Going even further, lately I've noticed that I spend a great deal of time connecting with friends, family, neighbors, and other people who are important to me; every week I have hours and hours of phone calls, video calls, lunches, dinners, walks, and in-person visits. It's a truism that in the end all we really have is the people in our lives, and I've come to realize that in a very visceral way. Far from continuing the inward turn that oppressed me six months ago, more and more I've been turning outward, with overwhelmingly positive results.
Holding a celebration of life for Elisa also settled me in ways I didn't fully expect. I wouldn't exactly call it closure (a concept that I find somewhat suspect), but I have come to a kind of peace with the 35 years of my relationship with Elisa, which I see as something like the organizing principle underlying the second phase of my all-too-brief existence on this earth. Saying farewell at the celebration of life has freed me to focus now on the final third of my life in a spontaneous way - welcoming and nurturing the beautiful possibilities that have come into view over the last few months. At the same time, I'm trying not to anticipate too much about where things might be leading, but instead to participate wholeheartedly in the magical experiences that are unfolding for me. Admittedly, at this I am not always successful since I am tremendously inspired by an extraordinary person who, through what feels like destiny, has come back into my life after a gap of several decades. However, I won't say any more about her because I'm a very private person who keeps strict limits on what I share in public. Suffice it to say that, quite possibly, I have never been this happy.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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