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Believed by the Wise: Socrates, Pragmatic Arguments, and Pascal’s Wager
I’ve been wrestling with an aphorism that I can’t pin down. I want to say this: ‘The wise believe what is good and true, the clever only what is proven.’ But I can’t. The tone may be right, but the content is wrong: or rather, not wrong but factually inaccurate.
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Cynicism, Joy, and Baloo the Bear
I don’t often speak about joy; I think it’s silly. (I don’t know why I think this.) But recently I’ve been troubled by troubles of my own making, and this coincided fortuitously with my daughter’s discovery of Disney’s The Jungle Book and with that Baloo the bear. What a picture of a Cynic: contentedly resting at ease with just the bare necessities. It’s a healthy correction.
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Natural Self-Interest
Over the ages, many philosophers have looked to ground ethics in our natural and apparently innate tendency towards self-preservation. It is often termed ‘self-love’: we have a deep need to look after our own interests. An infant cries when its needs are not met; an adult wants what pleases it. This would seem to be a truth so universal that we would call it a natural law, like gravity. […]
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Translation Matters: The Happiness of Stoicism
The meaning of the word ‘happiness’ has never been straightforward. Most of us aren’t clear what it means in our own language, let alone what it meant in an ancient one. This makes translation difficult. Most widely-available translations of ancient Stoic works think it easier to just say ‘happy’ and trust that people will understand more or less the right thing by that. But I think it’s an important word, and I’m not sure ‘happy’ is good enough. […]
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Happiness, According to Aristotle
If everything we do, we do for the sake of happiness, what is happiness? What is it to live well? What is it we are aiming for? Aristotle’s answer here depends on his metaphysical categories. That’s enough to put some people off. But even if we are not on board with his metaphysical reasoning, the answer he gives is profoundly insightful and has been tremendously influential. It’s very much worth some serious consideration. […]
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The Purpose of Life, According to Aristotle
What is a good life? What is ‘Good’? Socrates and Plato would say that these are very difficult questions to answer, requiring an almost other-worldly kind of wisdom. Not so for Aristotle, whose method brings us right down-to-earth. What is ‘Good’? Well, look around, what do you point at and say ‘that is good’? […]
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What is a Good Life?
This is a difficult question. To answer it, you need to make sure you’re asking the right question in the right way. Consider any part of what you might traditionally (or stereotypically) think of as being essential to living a good life: wealth, property, success, family, love, confidence, popularity, freedom, power, status, productivity, etc., etc. These are the things that most people aim for […]
An experiment with philosophy as a way of life
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