Aristotle (2024) Nicomachean Ethics 1.4

Aristotle (2024). Nicomachean Ethics. Second Edition. Translated With Introduction and Notes By C. D. C. Reeve Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company

 

1.4 Views about happiness

Let us, then, resume our account. Since every sort of knowledge and every deliberate choice reaches after some good, let us say what it is that politics aims at—that is, what the topmost of all the good things doable in action is.

About its name, most people are pretty much agreed; for both ordinary people^[각주:1]  and sophisticated ones say it is happiness and suppose that living well and doing well are the same as being happy. Concerning happiness, however, and what it is, they are in dispute, and ordinary people do not give the same answer as wise ones. For ordinary people think it is one of the plainly evident things, such as pleasure or wealth or honor—some tak ing it to be one thing, others another. And often even the same person thinks it is different things; for when he gets a disease, it is health, while when he is poor, it is wealth. But when these people are conscious of their own ignorance they are wonder-struck by those who proclaim some great thing that is over their heads. And some people used to think that, beyond these many good things, there is another intrinsically^[각주:2] good one that causes all of them to be good.

It is presumably^[각주:3] quite pointless to inquire into all these beliefs, and enough to inquire into those that are most prevalent or that seem to have some argument for them^[각주:4].

We must not let it escape our notice, however, that arguments leading from starting-points^[각주:5] and arguments leading to starting-points are different. For Plato too was rightly puzzled about this and was inquiring whether the route was leading from starting-points or to starting-points—as, in a stadium racecourse, that of the athletes may lead away from the starting point toward the boundary or in the reverse direction. For we must start from things that are known. But things are known in two ways; for some are known to us, some unconditionally.^[각주:6] Presumably, then, one must start from things known to us.

That is why one must be nobly brought up if, where noble things, just things, and the subject matter of politics as a whole are concerned, one is to be an adequate listener.28 For the starting-point is the that and, if this is sufficiently evident, we do not also need the why.^[각주:7] A person who is nobly brought up, then, either has the starting-points or can easily get hold of them. And as for the one who neither has nor can get hold of them, he must listen to Hesiod:

Best of all is the one who understands everything himself, Good too is that person who is persuaded by one that has spoken well. But he who neither understands it himself nor by listening to another Takes it to heart, that one is a useless man.^[각주:8]

 

1. Ordinary people: Sometimes Aristotle uses hoi polloi (literally, “the many,” “the multitude”) to refer simply to a majority of people of whatever sort—to most people. But quite often, as here, he uses it somewhat pejoratively to refer to the unrefined masses (1095b16) in contrast to cultivated, sophisticated, or wise people (1095a21). “Ordinary people” is intended to capture both uses. [본문으로]
2. Intrinsically: Something is F intrinsically (kath’ hauto or auto kath’ hauto), or “all by itself,” or in its own right, or (Latin) per se, if it is F unconditionally, or because of what it itself essentially is. Thus, Socrates is intrinsically rational, since being rational is part of being human and Socrates is essentially human, but he is not intrinsically musical, since being musical is not part of what it is to be human. [본문으로]
3. Presumably: Isôs sometimes, as here, signals a presumption or probability that such-and-such is the case, and is translated as “presumably.” But sometimes it sig nals tentativeness and is translated as “perhaps.” [본문으로]
4. Seem to have some argument for them: “To examine all the beliefs that certain people hold about happiness is superfluous; for young children, the sick, and those who are deranged appear to have many such beliefs, but no one—at any rate, no one with understanding—would go through puzzles about these; for what these people need is not arguments but in some cases the change that comes with age, in others a medical or political corrective; for drugs are no less a corrective than blows. Likewise there is no need to investigate the beliefs of ordinary people (for they speak at random about pretty much everything, and especially about hap piness); for it would be absurd to present an argument to those who need not arguments, but rather to have things happen to them. But since there are puzzles proper to each work, it is clear that there are those concerning the most excellent life and best way of living too. These, then, are the beliefs it is well to examine; for the refutations of those who dispute [them] are demonstrations of the contrary arguments” (EE 1214b28–1215a7). [본문으로]
5. Starting-point: “Starting-points though small in size are great in capacity; for this is what it is for something to be a starting-point (archê), namely, that it is itself the cause of many things, with nothing else above it being a cause of it” (GA 788a14–16) [본문으로]
6. Some are known to us, some unconditionally: “It advances the work to pro ceed toward what is better known. For learning comes about for all in this way— through things by nature less well known toward ones that are better known. And just as with things in the sphere of action the work is to begin from things that are good for each particular person and make things that are wholly good, good for each particular person, so too the work here is to begin from things better known to oneself and make the ones that are known by nature known to oneself. But the things that are known and primary for particular groups of people are often only slightly known and have little or nothing of being in them. The things that are known and primary for particular groups of people are often only slightly known and have little or nothing of the being in them. Nonetheless, beginning from things that are poorly knowable but knowable to ourselves, we must try to know the ones that are wholly knowable, proceeding, as has just been said, through the former” (Met. 1029b3–12). [본문으로]
7. The that . . . the why: If we have been brought up with sufficiently good habits, we will accept that certain things are noble and good without explanation, as a gardener recognizes that certain plants are nettles or thistles: “experienced people know the that but do not know the why, while craftsmen know the why, that is, the cause” (Met. 981a28–30). At that point, we are ready to look for causal explanations (EE 1216b26–39). [본문으로]
8. Hesiod: One of the oldest (c. 700 BC) known Greek poets, author of the Theogony, Works and Days (of which Aristotle cites lines 293, 295–297), and the Catalogue of Women. His works, like those of Homer, played a substantial role in Greek education. [본문으로]