The question of the good life, I imagine, was simple in the days before cities. It was having enough to eat, a place to sleep, clothing, tools, family and a tribal affiliation. So the good life was one of freedom from want and hardship. However, once the necessaries were provided, human beings wanted more out of life. Theories arose about how life ought to be lived.
Those who had the time and inclination to think more deeply about the good life for human beings were, first, the religious poets and prophets, and, then, the philosophers. Religion taught people to live a good life as defined by a religious teaching. Religion, as it were, does the thinking for the people who do not have time to think things through for themselves. Philosophy, however, asks people to think for themselves, to question doubtful premises and assumptions using reason, logic, and experience to provide the best arguments for their own position, while being able to put forward objections to rival arguments, and to answer objections to their own.
Every familiar religion embodies a code of conduct, notions of purity and impurity, moral standards, and a strong link with something considered Divine. In some forms of Christianity, for example, the good life is one that is lived in loving obedience to God’s commands and in the belief that Jesus is the personal savior of humankind. This is a life of self-renunciation, service to others and asceticism. We know of it because of Divine revelation. We accept it on faith as a dogma of the religion. Other religions have other dogmas.
The philosophers I respect proceed non-dogmatically. They want us to examine the views that have been advanced, compare them, and then decide which conclusion is supported by the best argument. Looking around, the early philosophers saw that people pursue different things in life depending upon their desires. Some pursue pleasure, others wealth, fame, or power over others. It is the same today.
It turns out, upon philosophical reflection, that the satisfaction of these desires does not, in the end, make people happy. Those who pursue pleasure become jaded. The wealthy become habituated to their luxurious lifestyle. Fame palls and one is forced to live in the gaze of others. The quest for power breeds fear and suspicion in the powerful and in their subordinates.
Finally, there are some people who appear to pursue truth and wisdom rather than pleasure, riches, fame or power. These, of course, are the philosophers. To be honest, when philosophers talk about the good life, they stack the deck in their own favor. Whenever they discuss it, the good life is the philosophical life. This does not mean that they are wrong, but we should be cautious how we receive their arguments. There is no such thing as the good life for everyone, and neither philosophers nor religious expositors have any right to lay down the law about it.
Nevertheless, with this caveat, there are a number of things that the philosophical life has to recommend it. As Aristotle tells us, it begins in wonder at the universe and the spectacle of life. It proceeds through the cultivation of learning and reason, through the dialectical give and take of discussion, through awareness of varying points of view, and through understanding the pertinent questions to ask. Philosophers use conversation as a means of investigating reality. It is an integral part of the philosophical life. The Socratic method of questioning is a perfect example. In fact, Socrates embodies a certain take on the philosophical life. It is one that includes having a good memory for what people say, inexhaustible curiosity, and a desire to get to the bottom of things. Another key element is Socratic ignorance. A keen sense of how little we know is a valued asset in the philosophical life, as is a skeptical attitude toward all dogmatic religious or philosophical speculations. Finally, the philosopher requires a kind of courage to pursue arguments to their conclusions, whether those conclusions are welcomed or not.
As to the way philosophers should live, Aristotle puts it well in his Golden Mean: All things in moderation; nothing to excess. And we may add: Eat right, exercise and acquire habits of feeling, thought and action that lead to moral and intellectual excellence. The good life is a life devoted to the discovery and communication of truth within a community of like-minded people possessing moral integrity and a genuine desire to learn.
“…acquire habits of feeling, thought and action that lead to moral and intellectual excellence. ”
This seems to be the crux of it, and maybe one of the most demanding endeavors ever. Do you think everyone is cut out for it?
“It proceeds through the cultivation of learning and reason, through the dialectical give and take of discussion, through awareness of varying points of view, and through understanding the pertinent questions to ask.”
I think we all probably deal with people a decent amount of the time who don’t seem up to performing this task very well. Will they require a different path to the good life? Please don’t take me as biased one way or the other, because your post resonates really well with me. I’m here reading philosophy blogs, anyway. Thanks.
“The good life is a life devoted to the discovery and communication of truth within a community of like-minded people possessing moral integrity and a genuine desire to learn.”
This was my favorite part of the post. It has been my lifelong goal to seek out these people.
If some of these statements are to be taken historically, I agree that religion arose first, but not that it was devoid of reflection. “Come, let us reason it out, saith the Lord”, “I speak as unto wise men, judge ye what I say” etc. Neither can I agree that early philosophy was undogmatic: Moses and Pythagoras are about equal on authoritative pronouncements, for example.
You then qualify this by talking of “the philosophers I respect”, which implicitly concedes some of the above. Much of what you say I go along with, roughly speaking.
“HABITS of FEELING, thought and action”
Aye there’s the rub.
From the author: Thanks for the posts. A couple of responses:
First is from Michael F who says, “I think we all probably deal with people a decent amount of the time who don’t seem up to performing this task very well., Will they require a different path to the good life?”
The task in question is dialectical investigation. I agree that not everyone wants to go into for philosophical questioning and analysis. That is why I tried to be careful and say that no one can lay down the law on what is the good life for everyone. An interesting question here is the role of discursive intelligence in the good life. For instance, Homer Simpson thinks the good life is drinking beer while watching TV. Perhaps this is a good life for him. Are we being snobbish if we insist on intelligence and learning as part of the good life?
The second is from Stephen Cowley
“If some of these statements are to be taken historically, I agree that religion arose first, but not that it was devoid of reflection. “Come, let us reason it out, saith the Lord”, “I speak as unto wise men, judge ye what I say” etc. Neither can I agree that early philosophy was undogmatic: Moses and Pythagoras are about equal on authoritative pronouncements, for example.”
These are good points. I like hearing passages like the ones quoted. There is so much in religious texts and thinking that pull against each other, of not contradict each other outright. However, I wonder if there is not a limit in religious thinking where reasoning things out has to take a back seat to faith. Your other point is also well taken. There are many dogmatic philosophers, and many who are fairly undogmatic in many ways and yet have a few dogmas at their core. That’s why I put in the phrase “philosophers I respect.” We are not in a realm of objective judgments here. There comes a point where Kierkegaard is right and truth is subjective, not in the sense of a skeptical relativism, but in the sense that the truth has to make sense to you before it becomes your truth. There is as much decision here are recognition.
I hope the good life is not confined to like minded people discovering a truth (for them) and a moral integrity (for them). Is not that the great problem of a complacent retreat into dogma. This is a cosy doctrine that we can no longer comfort ourselves with. The good life (for me (oops)), strives to reach for truths that unite mankind not a sub set (I hope). The open objective and challenge is to understand unlike minds. Whether this ends up with a one God or none is a risk we need to take.
Aren’t truths universal? I was under the impression that truths unite mankind period. If it’s not universal then it is an idea or an opinion, not a truth.
Understanding unlike minds sounds more like psychology or sociology to me. Philosophy would be used to get those unlike minds to approach truth, but the methods used would be the same because those methods should be based on truth. As an example: the Socratic method would be used to convince two unlike minds of the same truth, the difference would be in the questions asked.
There is one huge problem for philosophers if they wanna live like Aristotle said it. What would most people say is the sense of life? I guess it’s love.
“As to the way philosophers should live, Aristotle puts it well in his Golden Mean: All things in moderation; nothing to excess. ”
Loving is everything but moderate.
Personal attachment: I loved a girl once and god knows I was in seventh heaven. I would do everything to get that feeling back. But I was so crazy about her that her letting me down struck me so hard that I experienced the biggest sadness of my life. After that experience, I subconsciously decided never to admire someone that much again.
Now my life is one big moderation, my passion is gone and it sucks.
ps: I’m sorry if that was inappropriate.
I think you are getting love confused with attraction and other feelings involved in relationships.
Love is unconditional. It is pure and would be directed at all mankind, not just a handful of people (friends, family, lovers). It has no ego. Metaphysical books like “The Power of Now” explain the differences quite well IMHO.
In therapy they tell you that any action that comes from a place of love and compassion can never be wrong. The trick is in identifying that place and not confusing it with what the ego wants and fears like attention, control, possession, self-gratification, loneliness, etc.
I hope that makes sense.
The point here is that religion, for all its dogmaticity, provides people with a psychological refugee at certain unfavourable moments, and thus helpfully gives them a sense of direction, purpose and certainty (this last one may be the most important to most people)
whilst philosophy, as most who have laid their hands on it can be aware, seems to be a never-ending process of intelletual self-denial and seeking a foodhold among a plethora of principles through comparistion, reason, logic, argument or whatever method. So between psychological peace and intellectual confusion, which is better and fit to choose?
I like your post., anyway.
To say that philosophy begins in an experience of wonder IS ancient and so conducive to totally outdated ‘ivory tower’ thoughts like the good life being realisable in a community of like-minded individuals.
In a violently unjust world (following Simon Critchley’s lead in “Infinitely Demanding”), I think we’re better off admitting from the start that philosophy begins in disappointment, ” … with the indeterminate but palpable sense that something desired has not been fulfilled …”
Whilst wonder is admirable, it’s more this religious and political disappointment with existing conditions that’s going to make us really get up out of our armchairs and look around: feel the emptiness of the same old comforts of privelege and the likeminded all around; open ourselves up to the not always pleasant reality of drastically differing conditions and views.
Maybe then philosophers interested in the good life would be better able to start asking the kinds of questions that help find truths, which unite and don’t just keep us feeling more and more divided in our own little fish-bowls or what Jonathan (above) would call our ’sub-sets’.
And how, I ask, could the challenge of having to embrace all this ‘otherness’ not be good? Whereas ‘wonder’ could very well prove be too exclusive an experience, more likely to knock us off our critically thinking toes.
[...] I’m a regular reader of about two dozen blogs. One of my favorites is Talking Philosophy, which recently featured a really compelling post by Jeff Mason, entitled “Philosophy and the Good Life.” [...]
On the Fish-bowl Philosophy:
There might be one pre-condition for our sharing the common bowl of truth: If you think eating from the same bowl is not hygienic, while I think this way of eating can promote and solidify the sense of community, we will end up in being divided in our little fish-bowls.
So like-mindedness does not necessarily refer to consensus that is reached, but, more importantly, to the desire to compromise and seek solutions together.
Recently I have read The Biography of Montaigne by Stefan Zweig and really felt much touched. The literary philosopher has confined himself to the tower doing the free thinking (critically thinking toes, in your terms) for ten years, but his courage to following the gudiance of the unchangeable truth intead of that of the changeable people and their theories, the institutions and social climate, is really admirable, in my view. In his later life, Montaigne is keen on travelling and welcomes diversity, which is admirable all the same, because of this desire to understand.
So, in this sense, whether wonder or disappointments should be the prima inspiration for seeking the truth seems not so important. In Montaigne’s case, both factors have receded into the background against his desire to learn and to know the truth.
I still remember our philosophy teacher once told us that the purpose of an argument is not to show off your knowledge or defeat your opponnent, but to get at truth together. This proves to be a very imporant lesson in philosophy (and the most important perhaps). With this understanding, I know it is not a shame whehter I am doing armchair / toe learning or am going to, hopefully, embrace “otherness” and explore diversity in the foreign soil in the latter half of the year, so long as I have the right wish.
“The good life is a life devoted to the discovery and communication of truth within a community of like-minded people possessing *moral integrity* and a genuine desire to learn.”
This statement brings with it the age old debate of ethics. What are you talking about when you say “moral Integrity”. Who’s morality are you talking about? Is there any such thing as morality? If there is, from where does this morality come? If there is not, how can there be a “community of like-minded people” possessing this moral integrity?
To assume like minded, moral integrity is to assume a whole lot of other stuff including (possibly and arguably) religious aspects.
How much more ‘psychological peace’ there is to be gained from the objective ‘intellectual confusion’ compared with the subjective projection of one’s own feelings onto the world around, is possibly immeasurable.
1.No doubt philosphy can develop “the ability to know,” but can it cultivate “the ability to feel” (which is psycholigical rather than cognitive)? One possiblility is, the holistic “subjective” feelings will, more often than not, be reducded to incoherent fragments by the philosophers’ analytical tools, and the “psychological peace” will thereby be lost in this process.
2.How more “objective” is the judgment / knowledge derived from the “intellectual confusion” than the “subjective” projections of feelings? The former is perhaps but a subjective fallacy articulated in an alternative form? This althernative form, as we consciously know, is perpetually subject to investigation and is of little certainty, how can we say it has provided us with “immesurable psychological peace”?
3.We often smugly think we have “acquired” good knowledge of a preson, a thing or a situation, and can thereby render safe judgements, but how good or accurate is that knowledge? If this knowledge / judgment turns out to be unreliable, how much peace can our psychology really enjoy?
4.Is there a realm in which reasoning fails to function as a reliable means to know, and another means, say, “leap of faith”, has to be resorted to in knowing? If so, perhaps the “psychological peace” derived from the “intellectual confusion” should not be given such a weighty consideration?
In response to BW.
1. Don’t all sciences, including philosophy, rely to some extent on subjective feelings to come up with ideas and theories. I mean that’s how we come up with theories right? Someone asks the question that hasn’t been asked before. When you ask “What happens if?” you don’t have the “ability to know” what the answer is because if you did then you wouldn’t have to ask the question.
3. I don’t think the goal is to “acquire knowledge” of a person to “render judgements”. The goal should be to keep knowing a person and working on that. Not rendering a judgement and be done with it. That’s the whole thing about philosophy. You are never done because you can never be satisfied that you know “everything” about anything or anyone. It’s like therapy. If the therapist made a snap judgement about you and treated you inflexibly after that then you wouldn’t get too far. But rather the therapist has to keep asking questions to dig deeper until you slowly start to work on the issues together. As you change, so does the therapy (or philosophical discussion in this instance).
Anything else involved into the change in this process of therapy, besides those mentioned?
Sorry. I don’t understand the question. If you mean the comment about snap judgements then I was trying to explain that a therapists assessment of the patient changes constantly, much like a philosopher’s understanding of truths. It’s the pursuit of these things that brings peace, not the attainment of it. That would be nirvana, or whatever people call it in their own religions.
Could I understand the assertion “It’s the pursuit of these things that brings peace, not the attainment of it.” in this way:
1. Psycholgoical / spiritual peace comes from the want of sth., not the attainment of it. If so, it would mean that the state of being hungry brings more “peace” than the moment hunger is satisfied. Seems this sounds not right (assertion not practically felicitous). But on the other hand, I agree to the assertion “if you want to destroy someone, just satisfy all his needs.” The above two statements bring me much confusion, but I don’t know at which point the confusion lies. Can you help identify what kind of problem it is (is it a langauage problem, or logic problem., etc…)? Or is this a pseudo-problem? What is a pseudo-problem? Can a pseudo-problem example in philosophy be given?
2. By that question I raised in aother post, I mean the most significant change involved in “therapy” process goes to the therapist, because the therapist has gradually built up self-knowledge: during the process of “knowing”, he/she has to correct opinions, change perspectives of thinking and observing, and will develop an awareness that they CAN be wrong. I think this error-awareness can explain your assertion “It’s the pursuit of these things that brings peace, not the attainment of it.” Therefore, the pleasure of knowing lies in the character-training aspect, not in the mind-training aspect. I am surpsised that in your explanation, you didn’t deal with the self-knowledge and chararacter-training aspect of philophy, but have placed too much emphasis on the “change” aspect instead . That is why I have raised that question. But I could be wrong.
I believe it’s more an issue of mans need to take control ,to have security as to his future based upon the percieved control of that which effects it.Problem is, ( to our peril)a perception and not A reality .We were smart enough to see we could make a decision but too stupid to see its ramifications.Smart enough to get into trouble, too dumb to get out of it !
So what’s the relationship between philosophy and life? To me philosophical inquiry is ever sharpening our willing desire to be guided by what is the best and the most beautiful (sublimity? AMC? ). The ennobling sentiment makes the investigation become a constructive progress of building up other and self. Instead of getting around problems, it helps build a bridge spanning the bog and transcend Many real and potential perils. It equips us with a correct motive of feeling, a beneficial perspective of thinking, and the right direction of behaving.
To BW. Sorry it took so long to respond. I hope you read this.
1. The confusion probably lies in my incomplete statements. I was trying to say that the pursuit of truths is where peace comes from. The “enjoying the journey” type thing. The end of the journey is death or nirvana or whatever you call it. I think that people set themselves up for failure and disappointment when they place their happiness at the end of the rainbow / goal.
2. By “Character Training” aspect are you referring to ethics? I’m not exactly clear on the question. Both therapist and subject go through ‘changes’. The difference is the growth of the therapist is in the area of teacher/mentor/guide. The growth of the subject is in the area of student/mentee/follower. It’s a symbiotic relationship, not a one way thing.
It happened that I am surfing on-line for sth. worth reading, when I found this response.
In fact I agree with you that happiness should not be projected onto the end; rather, it consists in the process. But the process sometimes is too painful, and there is a breaking point, I suppose. I am wondering whether knowledge should always be obtained at this cost. .
I feel quite confused why mutual understanding is so difficult a thing, with all those guesses and misunderstanding arising. It really sucked!
By character-building, I mean it is sth. to improve our character, to know how limited we are in both knowledge and knowing, to be humbled (modest), to be more understanding, aside from those mind-building aspects such as insight, etc. (BW, still.)
Wow. That was fast.
I do not agree that there has to be a breaking point. The field of psychotherapy is responsible for addressing these issues. As long as people continue to seek help they will come out okay. If not we would not survive long as a species. Knowledge does not cause the harm. It is all in the perspective of the person acquiring it.
Being humble is a good trait to have. But that is a whole different topic.
So psychotherapy must be humane and allow a time of recovery, esp. in the case of an overdose.
As for the issue of survival, everyone, in fact the whole human, more than human, inclu. every species is facing this problem. Self-knowledge, oh, my!