Online Greek Text of Aristotle’s Physics

If you happen to be looking for an online version of the Greek text of Aristotle's Physics, you'll look in vain on Perseus or any of the other standard sites. So I was very glad to discover that there's a version available out on Remacle.org. It doesn't have the Bekker numbers, unfortunately, and of course it doesn't have the Perseus grammatical and vocabulary helps, but it's otherwise quite usable.

Whoops

Wow, not smart. These executives are living in a new world – they just don't know it. The CEO's from GM, Chrysler and Ford may have just put the final nail in the American economy by choosing to fly their corporate jets to DC to ask for more money. I think the auto-makers need a bailout, that the American economy will suffer if we don't give them one, and I fully realize that the $20K it cost to fly the jet will be less than a rounding error on their red ink this quarter – but still. I think the automakers just lost out on any opportunity to get help from the government. When people here about this, I don't think there's any way that Congress is going to be able to vote for a bailout.

Wendell Berry

I've just discovered Wendell Berry. I found him recommended in a book by Stanley Hauerwas, and I've been reading through his marvelous book of essays Standing By Words. He has a great deal in common with both Lewis and Chesterton, and crafts lovely, precise sentences that make my own seem somewhat silly and pedantic in comparison. For a book whose ostensible object is literary criticism, it has far more to do with my interests in technology than I would have thought.

A few examples:

Value and technology can meet only on the ground of restraint. (p. 57)

Only the action that is moved by love for the good at hand has the hope of being responsible and generous. Desire for the future produces words that cannot be stood by. But love makes language exact, because one loves only what one knows. One cannot love the future or anything in it, for nothing is known there. And one cannot unselfishly make a future for someone else. Love for the future is self-love – love for the present self, projected and magnified into the future, and it is an irremediable loneliness. (p. 61)

We know that people stay married for different reasons than those for which they get married, and that the later reasons will have to be discovered. (p. 67)

The standard of decorum calls all available art and learning and experience into its service; that of "originality," as often construed, calls only for self-importance, irreverence, and recklessness – the "daring" of the manifestoes and reviews. (p. 85)

The right function of abstraction is to give appropriate clarity and distinction to the particular. (p. 105)

A product that exists for its own sake is a debased and a debasing product. (p. 111)

Temperance, not gluttony, is the safeguard of abundance; sexual discipline, not promiscuity, safeguards fecundity. (p. 126)

The great economic discovery of modern times is that vast numbers of people can be made to believe that "we might be all/We dream of…," and that, though there may be no correspondence whatever between this belief and any history or hope, people so believing will buy things. (p. 167)

Three Visions of the Good Life: Aquinas

Common Ground

The debt that Thomas Aquinas owes Aristotle is widely known. The extent of this debt is acknowledged perhaps most eloquently by Aquinas himself, who refers to Aristotle simply as "the Philosopher". Still, while Aristotle's philosophy provided much of his conceptual framework and vocabulary, Aquinas was not afraid to disagree with his master. An exegete far less subtle than Aquinas could realize that Aristotle and Paul did not always point in the same direction. When Aristotle's philosophy differed substantially from the Christian and Pauline tradition Aquinas was attempting to elaborate, Aquinas was forced either to reframe Aristotle's analysis, to extend it, or on rare occasions, to disagree with it outright. Aquinas indeed plundered Aristotle as the fleeing Israelites had spoiled the Egyptians , but Siger of Brabant was evidence enough that golden calves could be smelted from that same Aristotelian gold.

Divine Happiness

The degree to which Thomas was dependent on Aristotle, and the reasons for his occasional departure, can be seen clearly in their mutual accounts of the good life. With Aristotle, for instance, Aquinas agrees that the "good" is "that for the sake of which all else is done" (Comm. Nic. Eth., I, lect. 9), that happiness is the ultimate end of a human being (Compendium Theologiae, 106; Comm. Sent. lib. 3 d.27 q.2 a.2 co), and that happiness is an activity of the soul (Debated Questions, VIII, q.9 a.1; Sum. Theol. Iª-IIae q.3 a.2 s.c.). However, Aquinas differs from Aristotle on two important points, and in both of these instances, he departs from Aristotle for typically Pauline reasons.

First, for Aquinas, true happiness is not contemplation per se, but rather, contemplation of God in the beatific vision. As noted above, Aristotle's account of the good life is teleological, but not eschatological: he argues that we are happy when we are oriented towards the good, but he has no reason to believe that we will ever meet that good face to face. Following Paul, however, Aquinas believed that it was the destiny of creation not merely to travel hopefully, but actually to arrive. Aristotle perceived that there is something of divine origin in contemplation, but Aquinas goes further, saying that God is our true happiness, and that we may one day contemplate Him directly.

To be sure, God may not be known unless He directly enlightens the human intellect. Although we can only know the essence of an object through its species, we may know an object incompletely if we know a related genus: we might have never seen an ibex, but we can know something about it if we're told that it's like a deer. However, no creature has anything generically in common with God, so it is impossible for us to know His essence in this way. Aquinas' solution is elegant and incarnational, and turns Aristotle's epistemology on its head: "Therefore, so that God Himself can be known in His essence, it is necessary that God become the form of the knowing intellect, and join Himself to it" (Compendium Theologiae, 106). However, when God does so, this satisfies our natural desire for knowledge completely; this intellectual vision of God is thus the "end of our desire". "The act by which we are primarily united to Him is originally and essentially our happiness" (Quodlibetal Questions VIII, q.9 a.1 co). Or as Paul would have it, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, what God has in store for those who love Him" (1 Cor. 2:9; see Is. 64:4).

Second, Aquinas places love on an equal footing with knowledge in his account of happiness. Unlike Paul, Aquinas is careful to never deprecate the importance of scientia: he acknowledges, for instance, that we are primarily united to God "per actum intellectus" (Quodlibetal Questions VIII, q.9 a.1 co), and in that sense he is not far from Aristotle. However, while Aristotle can provide a nearly complete account of the good life without mentioning love , this would be impossible for anyone who regarded Paul's epistles as Scripture. Choosing Ephesians 3:19 as his proof-text ("supereminentem scientiae caritatem Christi"), Aquinas fundamentally relativizes the importance of the life of the intellect: "With respect to things that are above the soul, love (amor) is higher and nobler than knowledge; whereas in respect to those things that are below the soul, knowledge (cognitio) is more important" (Comm. Sent., lib.3 d.27 q.1 a.4 co).

Natural Justice

Justitia is also an important part of Aquinas' perspective on the good life. In the Summa, Aquinas closely follows Aristotle's understanding of justice: like Aristotle, he defines justice as a "state of character" (Gr. ἕξις; Lat. habitus; IIª-IIae q.58 a.1 co), and hence a virtue (IIª-IIae q. 58 a. 2), which is concerned with equality between two parties (IIª-IIae q.58 a.2). Similarly, Aquinas divides justice into "general" and "particular" (IIª-IIae q.58 a.7), the latter consisting of "a certain proportion of equality between the external thing and the external person" (IIª-IIae q.58 a.10 co), and similarly divides particular justice into the two species of "justitia distributiva" and "justitia commutativa" (IIª-IIae q.61 a.1; Super Sent. lib. 4 d.17 q.1 a.1 qc.1 co).

However, beyond "general" and "particular", Aquinas introduces a third meaning of justitia, "a certain rectitude of order in the interior disposition of a man" ("rectitudinem quandam ordinis in ipsa interiori dispositione hominis", Iª-IIae q.113 a.1 co). He finds this definition tucked into Aristotle (NE V.13.1138b4), but while Aristotle makes little use of it in his Ethics, it's critical to Aquinas, allowing him to reconcile Aristotle with Paul's account of a God who "justifies the ungodly" (Rom. 4:5). Building on this definition, Aquinas argues that justificatio impii consists of a movement from internal disorder to right order. This movement comes entirely from God, though human free will cooperates: "He so infuses the gift of justifying grace that at the same time He moves the free will to accept the gift of grace" (Iª-IIae q. 113 a. 3 co). "God gives grace to none but to the worthy, not that they were previously worthy, but that by His grace He makes them worthy" (Iª-IIae q. 114 a. 5 ad 2). In this way, at least in theory, Aquinas maintains the Pauline order of receiving and then giving.

However, in practice, Aquinas' writings provide rather less opportunity for women and slaves than Paul allowed for. With Aristotle, he presents an extensive account of the inferiority of women, arguing that they are "deficiens et occasionatus" (Iª q.92 a.1). He similarly offers a basis for the institution of slavery as beneficial for the slave ("utile est huic quod regatur a sapientiori", IIª-IIae q.57 a.3 ad 2). Aquinas says that anyone who talks a slave into escaping is guilty of theft, because a slave is property (IIª-IIae q.61 a.3 co), and for this same reason, a slave cannot lawfully receive the sacrament of Orders (Supp. q.39 a.3).

Nevertheless, these exclusive tendencies are somewhat modified by statements which point toward a more inclusive perspective. For instance, Aquinas acknowledges that women are not naturally deficient with regard to general human nature (as opposed to their individual human nature, Iª q.92 a.1 ad 1). Similarly, he contends (IIª-IIae q.57 a.3 ad 2) that slavery belongs to "positive law" (jus positivum, laws originated by human beings), and not to "natural law" (jus naturale, laws originating in human nature). Consequently, because marriage is a matter of nature and not of human convention, slaves can marry without their masters' consent (Supp. q.52 a.2). Moreover, while the condition of slavery may affect the legality of the sacrament of Orders, it does not affect its efficacy (Supp. q.39 a.3 ad.5): divine grace is as available to slaves as to free. Aquinas does not perhaps make the same room for excluded classes that Paul does, but he clearly modifies Aristotle's doctrine of the "natural slave" in a more humane and inclusive direction.

The Beatific Vision

Aquinas follows Paul in asserting that divine love is our ultimate goal. In a rather startling passage, Aquinas argues for a nearly complete mutuality of love between God and human beings. Paul had exulted in the fact that we are "more than conquerors through Him who loved us" (Rom. 8:37), but Aquinas goes even further. Noting that Aristotle describes friendship as enjoyment of each other's company and a common pursuit of delightful activities (NE 1171b30-1172a5), Aquinas concludes that this may adequately describe not merely our love of God, but God's love for us: "It is therefore appropriate to acknowledge a certain friendship (amicitia) with God, by which we live together; and this is charity" (Comm. Sent., lib.3 d.27 q.2 a.2 co).

For Thomas, as for Paul, God is our end, and thus our happiness. In this beatific vision, both cognitio (as an act of the intellect) and amor (as an act of the will) are united. Because our wills desire God as their object, there is a sense in which the happiness of the beatific vision consists of our love for God. However, because this love is fulfilled only when our intellects actually perceive God, there is another sense in which the happiness of the beatific vision consists of our knowledge of God. Aristotle said that "pleasure perfects the activity" (NE 1174b20-1175a1), and Thomas uses this definition to merge these two conceptions: "Because this action [of perceiving God by the intellect] is most perfect and the object most worthy, the greatest joy follows, crowning this action and perfecting it, as beauty does youth" (Quodlibetal Questions VIII, q.9 a.1 co). The essence and source of happiness is thus in the intellect's vision, but the form and completion of happiness is in the will's joy and love.

Conclusion

Although Aristotle occasionally refers to God (or the gods), his moral philosophy is fundamentally secular in nature. The God who is the end of all things is nevertheless abstract and unknowable. If every reference to the divine were removed, Aristotle's ethics would for all practical purposes remain unchanged.

Paul would certainly have been sympathetic to some of Aristotle's positions, but the structure of Paul's gospel is fundamentally incompatible with Aristotle's secular perspective. For Paul, the good life has its beginning and its end in a God who loved His creation enough to become a part of it. As a result of the Incarnation and Resurrection, God's creation has changed absolutely and permanently. Paul's ethics are always and everywhere a response to God's action in human history and in our lives.

Aquinas plainly finds Aristotle's conceptual analysis helpful: he accepts much of Aristotle's ethical framework, borrows extensively from his vocabulary, and agrees with many of his conclusions, on occasion even when those conclusions stand in some tension with the New Testament. However, Aquinas is unable to accept any conception of happiness which does not have its origin and goal in God, and which is not finally expressed in love. As a result, he constructs a new framework around Aristotle's ethical theory by redefining happiness as a vision of God which completes itself in joyous love. With this one change, which has its origins in Paul's apocalyptic and inclusive theology of redemption, he is able to retain very nearly the rest of Aristotle's ethical theory.

Three Visions of the Good Life: Paul

Initial Difficulties

Any attempt to place Paul's vision of the good life next to Aristotle must deal with several complicating factors. The first is the dramatically different vocabulary of the two authors: like England and America in Shaw's quip, Paul and Aristotle are two writers divided by a common language. The single most important word in Aristotle's ethical vocabulary, ἐυδαιμονία, does not occur in the New Testament, and Paul uses other critical terms like λόγος or ἀρετὴ either infrequently or with dissimilar meanings. Any comparison of the two must focus on the concepts they communicate, and not on the words they use to express them.

The second difficulty is that Paul was not a philosopher, nor even a theologian in anything like the modern sense. If the typical form of an Aristotelian argument was a syllogism, Paul's writings were closer to a diatribe (Stowers 1992). Paul saw himself as an apostle, an envoy with an assigned mission, and even his most systematic writings are occasional in both form and substance. To put it in Aristotelian terms, the τέλος of Paul's letters was not clear exposition of a system of categories, but rather the edification and expansion of the body of Christ. Comparisons between the Aristotelian and Pauline worldviews will thus remain somewhat inexact, and must depend to a great deal on inference and sympathetic extrapolation. Nevertheless, the two writers are not incommensurable, and a discussion of their similarities and differences is possible.

A third difficulty is that, apart from the letters which are undoubtedly Pauline (1 Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Philippians, and Philemon), there is little agreement on the authorship of the remainder of the Pauline corpus. My current view is that the evidence, on balance, favors Pauline authorship even for the so-called deutero-Pauline letters, but addressing that question is somewhat beyond our current scope. For the purposes of this paper "Paul" means simply "the individual or individuals who stand behind the letters traditionally thought to be authored by Paul."

Common Ground

Not surprisingly, Paul would have found a great deal to affirm in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics . For Paul as for Aristotle, the good life is bound up tightly with community and fellowship (see Rom. 12:9-21; 1 Cor. 16:1-4; and many other places). Furthermore, Paul would agree with Aristotle's critiques of naked hedonism (NE III.11; X.2): while Paul has nothing against physical pleasures in the right context (1 Cor. 7:1-9), he would deny that they define the good life. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die", Paul quotes, with obvious disapproval (1 Cor. 15:32; see Is. 22:13). Virtue is the result of practice and self-discipline (1 Cor. 9:24-27; NE II.1). Both shared an appreciation for σωφροσύνη (Titus 2:12; NE III.10-12) and disapproved of homosexuality (Rom. 1:26-27; NE 1148b30). Nature is often the standard in Aristotle, as "nothing that is contrary to nature is noble" (Politics 1325b10), and Paul periodically employs φύσις in a similar fashion. Homosexuality is wrong because it abandons "τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν τῆς θηλείας" (Rom. 1:27), and "ἠ φύσις αὐτὴ" teaches us that long hair is dishonorable for men (1 Cor. 11:14). While Paul only sometimes shares Aristotle's teleological vocabulary, it's clear that his ethical standards are oriented towards normative goals. "Having been enslaved to God, your fruit is sanctification, and your goal [τέλος] is eternal life" (Rom. 6:22). "Through the Spirit, and by faith, we await [ἀπεκδεχόμεθα] the hope of righteousness" (Gal. 5:5).

Eschatological Happiness

Nevertheless, the "infrastructure" supporting Paul's vision of the good life differs dramatically from Aristotle's. How Aristotle arrives at his eudaimonism is quite typical for an Aristotelian treatise: he surveys the common views, discusses the difficulties to which they give rise, and then provides an overarching, a-historical account which preserves as much common sense as possible and yet solves the noted difficulties. In contrast, Paul's account is profoundly historical in character, and takes its cue directly from the narrative structure of the life of Christ. As a Jew, Paul's theological vision presumes the narrative of the Hebrew Bible: creation, fall, covenant, exodus, law, kingdom, exile, and restoration. But Paul rereads each of these narrative events through the lens of Jesus Christ. All things were made through Christ (Col. 1:16). The human race is now represented by Christ in redemption, as it was once represented by Adam in failure (Rom. 5:12-21). Christ's sacrifice initiates a "καινὴ διαθήκη" (1 Cor. 11:25) which supersedes the covenant at Sinai (Jer. 31:33ff). Jesus is the "τέλος νόμου" (Rom. 10:4), the anointed son of David (Rom. 1:3), and Israel's hope in exile (Rom. 10:16-21). In Jesus, the messianic age, the age of the Spirit, has been inaugurated (Rom. 8:1ff).

Crucially, Paul applies this narrative framework to the life of each Christian. Christians are, of course, "in Christ" , and as such, they participate in his life, death and resurrection. We have been baptized into Christ's death, Paul says, and will be united with him in his resurrection (Rom. 6:1-10). "Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι", Paul reiterates in Galatians 2:19, and seems to mean it. Thus the cosmic narrative which backgrounds Jesus' history corresponds to the personal narrative of each Christian. As the human race first sinned then found redemption in Christ, so each of us has a story which begins in sin but may be followed by repentance and membership in the body of Christ. Both the cosmic and personal narratives find their fulfillment, their τέλος and their ἔσχατον, in Christ: not only Christians, but all of creation, longs for this final redemption to be achieved (Rom. 8:23). Thus if Aristotle's account is primarily teleological, it may be said that Paul's is ultimately eschatological: the good life is to be united with Christ in his death, to experience proleptically in this life the power of the Spirit, and to live in the new creation with the full power of Christ's resurrection.

The specific content of this apocalyptic narrative of divine action accounts for many of the differences in detail between Paul and Aristotle. Because Jesus humbled himself and assumed the form of a slave (Phil. 2:7), not only craftsmen (1 Cor. 4:12; Eph. 4:28) but even slaves are full members of the body of Christ (Gal. 3:28; Philemon 15-16). Because participation in Christ's life, death and resurrection is sheer gift, the haughtiness Aristotle praised in the μεγαλοψυχός (NE 1124a19) is excluded entirely (Eph. 2:8-9; Rom. 3:27). Because we share in the death of Christ, and will one day share in His resurrection, Christians rejoice even in their sufferings (2 Cor. 11:16-12:10), and count external goods as worthless in comparison to the glory that they will one day share (Phil. 3:2-11; Rom. 8:18). Because Christ loved us and gave himself for us, love is the ultimate virtue: it is more valuable even than σοφία or γνώσις (1 Cor. 1:18-2:16; 8:1-2), and is the closest we may approach to the divine (1 Cor. 13).

Ecclesiastical Justice

Paul's apocalyptic theology also leads him to understand justice, and the good life which arises from its application, in a dramatically different fashion from Aristotle. Unlike Aristotle, Paul never provides a precise definition of this critical term, nor does he use it in an entirely consistent fashion. Nevertheless, certain key aspects of what Paul intends when he uses δικαιοσύνη and its cognates may be discerned and elaborated.

In Paul's writings, God possesses δικαιοσύνη in an exemplary fashion, and because of His justice He will necessarily judge the sinful human race (Rom. 3:9-20), both now (Rom. 1:18) and in the age to come (1 Cor. 3:12-15). Nevertheless, because of the sacrificial death of Christ, God's justice has been made available to all who believe (Rom. 3:21-26), and in this sense, God's justice is revealed not simply in His judgment, but also in the mercy proclaimed by the Gospel: "δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ἀποκαλύπτεται ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν" (Rom. 1:17). Indeed, Jesus Christ is our justice (1 Cor. 1:30). When Paul uses δικαιοσύνη in these contexts, it's clear that he doesn't mean "a fair distribution of goods" as in Aristotle, or even "righteousness" as many English translations have it, but rather something like "right standing before the righteous judge". When we possess this justice, we are "justified" (δικαιοῦσθαι, Rom. 3:28), or as Calvin phrases it, "clothed in righteousness" (Institutes, III.11.2). On the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment is revealed, those who have accepted this justice will be shown to be truly just.

For Paul as for Aristotle, justice is the basis for community. However, the ἐκκλησία is composed not of those who have contributed something of value, as in the πόλις Aristotle describes, but rather, consists of those to whom God has given δικαιοσύνη as an unmerited gift. Consequently, those who have received this gift are obligated to live a life characterized by self-giving love (Gal. 5:13-26; 1 Cor. 12-13; Eph. 2:19-21; 5:28-32), and the members of the Church are to use the gifts they have received from God for mutual edification (Eph. 4:1-16). Similarly, because slaves and masters alike, women and men, Jews and Greeks have all received this gift, participation in the community is extended to all impartially (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:9-11), and even slaves deserve "justice and equality" (τὸ δίκαιον καὶ τὴν ἰσότητα, Col. 4:1).

It should be acknowledged that Paul never makes an explicit effort to undermine the institution of slavery. On the contrary, he encourages slaves to be obedient to their masters (Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22), and once even sent a runaway Christian slave back to his Christian master (Philemon 8-18). But his inclusion of slaves as full members of the Christian community undercuts any conceivable justification for one human being to own another. Paul addresses slaves as much as their masters as full moral agents, and there is nowhere any hint of Aristotle's φύσει δουλος, a human being who lacks a moral or deliberative capacity. "Any slave called by the Lord is the Lord's freed man, and any free man called by the Lord is Christ's slave" (1 Cor. 7:21-24). Paul believed that the time until the day of judgment was short, and from this eschatological perspective, even slavery was of secondary concern (1 Cor. 7:29-31).

Like Aristotle, Paul is concerned with ἰσότης, but the form of this concern becomes clear in his second letter to the church at Corinth. Paul had long encouraged Gentile Christians to donate to famine relief in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1-4; Rom. 15:25-28; cf. Acts 11:27-30), but after a promising start, contributions from the Corinthian Christians had been underwhelming. Their lackluster response was apparently due to a perception that they were being expected to contribute unfairly, and in 2 Cor. 8:13-14, Paul addresses this concern: "Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality [ἰσότης]. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality [ἰσότης]."

In this light, Paul's account of justice can perhaps be summarized with an equation similar to Aristotle's: , i.e., the value of the gifts [g()] given by God to A stands to the value of the gifts given to B as the response [r()] from A should stand to the response from B.

Two key claims are included in Aristotle's account of political justice: (1) The benefits of political participation should be restricted to classes which contribute appropriately to the community, and (2) fairness is maintained when members of that class receive the rewards of citizenship according to their individual contribution. Paul's theory, however, turns Aristotle on his head: (1) The benefits of participation in the community should be extended universally to anyone who has received the gift of justification from God, and (2) each member of the church should contribute according to how they have received. In other words, for Aristotle, the logical order of distributive justice is giving followed by receiving; for Paul, it is receiving and then giving.

The Redeemed Life

One way to summarize these differences is to imagine Paul's response if he were presented with Aristotle's definition of the good life. As noted above, Aristotle defined happiness as "an action of the soul in accordance with virtue." Paul would likely be satisfied with this definition only if he could add substantial qualifications: "The good life," one can imagine Paul insisting, "is an action of the redeemed soul in accordance with virtue, as a response to God's free and loving gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, and oriented towards the Spirit's actualization of the New Creation in the Church."

Three Visions of the Good Life: Aristotle

The next three posts will be from the paper that I turned in as my "writing sample" for my grad school applications. It's going to be significantly more, well, academic than my recent posts, but if I haven't written anything on my blog in a while, it's because I've been putting this paper together. This first post is on Aristotle's vision of the good life; post #2 will be on Paul's, and post #3 will be on Thomas Aquinas'. Feel free to ignore it if it's not your cup of tea.

Introduction

Aristotle's eudaimonistic account of the good life is notable on many levels. It is subtle and sophisticated, but nevertheless makes a successful appeal to common sense. More than two millennia later, it remains plausible, interesting, and provocative.

Still, Aristotle's ethical perspective differs significantly from the view of the good life assumed and proclaimed by the New Testament, and by Paul in particular. Paul was of course influenced by Hellenism in various ways, but his Jewish heritage, transformed by his encounter with the life and death of Jesus Christ, was ultimately determinative in his outlook. For Paul, the only adequate account of the good life was one which placed God's gift of His son, Jesus Christ, firmly at the center.

Like us, Thomas Aquinas was heir to both the Hellenistic and the Judeo-Christian traditions, and struggled to reconcile their divergent perspectives. While Aristotle provided a philosophical vocabulary and a great deal of content for Thomas, the New Testament was divine in origin and thus ultimately authoritative. And of course, these two primary sources for his ethical theory at times differed significantly from each other in both form and substance. An overview and critique of Thomas' attempts to synthesize the Pauline and Aristotelian accounts of the good life may be informative and helpful as we struggle with similar challenges in our own modern context.

Aristotle's Account of the Good Life

Teleological Happiness

At the heart of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is his contention that the ultimate good for humans is "happiness", or in Greek, εὐδαιμονία. His reasoning is fairly simple: the good is that at which all things aim; and all human beings aim primarily at happiness.

Of course, neither culturally nor linguistically is "happiness" quite the right English translation. Our psychological age is obsessed with emotions, and while Aristotle is quite clear that εὐδαιμονία is connected with the παθήματα, it is not in itself a feeling, and may even at times involve painful emotions. Etymologically, εὐδαιμονία seems to refer to the spirit, or δαίμον, which every individual was believed to possess; and it ascribes either to this daemon or to its bearer a certain state of wellness (Liddell 564). Generally, therefore, εὐδαιμονία should be understood as a state of human well-being or flourishing.

However, Aristotle also has a somewhat more specific definition in mind: "an activity of soul in accordance with virtue" (ψυχῆς ἐνέργεια κατ᾽ ἀρετήν) (NE 1098a15). How he arrives at this definition is worth some exploration. In Aristotle's view, the good of an object resides in its ἔργον, or function: the ἔργον of a flute is to produce music, the ἔργον of a hammer is to pound nails, and similarly the function of a human being is a certain kind of action (NE 1097b27). Furthermore, the defining attribute of a human being, according to Aristotle, is rationality: our genus is animal, the differentia is rationality, and the resulting species is a "rational animal". Thus, the appropriate function of a human being is rationality (NE 1098a5): this is the "action of the soul" that partially constitutes happiness.

Τhe nature of this action is further elaborated in the second part of Aristotle's definition, that happiness is an action of the soul in accordance with virtue (ἄρετη, or excellence). The function of a flute is to play music, but its τέλος, its ultimate good, is to play music in an excellent manner (NE 1098a10). Because humans are rational animals, their ἀρετὴ is to be found when their rational soul acts in an excellent manner, and consequently, the τέλος of a human being (and thus human good, and thus happiness) is the action of our soul in accordance with virtue. Throughout books 2-9 of the Ethics, Aristotle continues to build on this basic understanding of virtue. In book 2, he argues that human moral virtue is κατὰ λόγον in the sense that it obeys the law of the mean. A virtuous action will always be less than an error in the maximal direction, and more than the opposite error in the minimal direction (NE 1106b). He works through the individual moral virtues in this way, showing (sometimes more successfully than others) that courage (ἀνδρεία) is the rational mean between cowardice and unwarranted confidence, that temperance (σωφροσύνη) is the mean between self-indulgence and insensibility, that liberality (ἐλευθεριότης) is the mean between prodigality and meanness, and so on, through proper pride (μεγαλοψυχία), gentleness (πραότης), friendliness (φιλία), truthfulness (ἀληθεία), ready wit (εὐτραπελία), and justice (δικαιοσύνη).

As an activity of the soul, happiness is ἐνέργεια, active and not passive: to be happy in an Aristotelian sense requires doing something. Whether in the military or in politics, a life well lived is a life of activity. Consequently, the context in which the good life may be pursued is critical. Aristotle is no Stoic: a truly virtuous man needs the economic resources that enable him to do virtuous acts. As he says repeatedly throughout both the Ethics and Politics, "[Happiness] needs the external goods as well; for it is impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper equipment" (NE 1099a31). In addition, the good life is always politically situated, for "man is a political animal" (Politics 1253a5). Aristotle notoriously excludes slaves, farmers and craftsmen from happiness (NE 1177a8; Politics 1328b38; see below), but not even full citizens of a πόλις are necessarily candidates for the virtuous life. "The virtue of a citizen must be suited to his constitution" (Politics 1276b29), and though Aristotle does not state it explicitly, the implication is that a citizen residing in an imperfect πολιτέια must necessarily possess virtue imperfectly.

Political Justice

Because the life of virtue depends to a great degree on its social context, Aristotle's account of happiness is similarly dependent on his account of justice (δικαιοσύνη). In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle introduces his discussion with a popular definition that he seems to largely accept: "Everybody means by justice that state of character [ἕξις] which makes people disposed to do what is just and makes them act justly and wish for what is just" (1125b3). He then proceeds to distinguish between the senses in which the word "justice" is used. The most basic distinction is between "universal justice" (δικαιοσύνη ὅλη), that aspect of virtue which has to do with the law and therefore relates to our neighbor (1129b15), and "particular justice" (δικαιοσύνη κατὰ μέρος), that aspect of universal justice which specifically has to do with fairness (1130b8-15). Within particular justice, Aristotle distinguishes two additional senses: distributive justice, which is concerned with the proper distribution of honors in a community, and corrective justice, which is concerned with fairness in transactions (συνάλλαγμα, 1130b30-1131a9). If I purchase stock in AT&T, it is according to distributive justice that I receive a dividend; if I select AT&T as my mobile carrier and pay my bills, it is according to corrective justice that I'm able to make calls.

Both distributive and corrective justice share a concern with fairness and equality (το ἴσον), but Aristotle uses different mathematical models to describe their key features. If A and B are the two parties concerned and were initially equal, and N is that which has been wrongfully taken from A, then corrective justice says that the situation may be returned to a state of justice if half of the amount by which B now exceeds A is returned to A; and the amount returned will be equal to N (1132a25-1132b12). The model for distributive justice, in contrast, can be expressed as , i.e., the quality or worth [q()] of A stands to the quality of B as the value [v()] of the thing distributed [t()] to A should stand to the value of that which is distributed to B (1131a24-1131b17; see also Keyt 57). Or to put it another way, if A and B are the two shareholders in a company, and A has invested $25 and B has invested $75, and the company sells for $1000, then A should receive $250 and B should receive $750.

This concept of distributive justice is at the heart of Aristotle's political philosophy, and he uses it as both an analytical and a prescriptive tool. In any constitution, the primary honor to be distributed is citizenship, and the primary difference between the various constitutions he describes (monarchy/tyranny, aristocracy/oligarchy, polity/democracy) is how they account for the content of q() in the formula above (Keyt 59). Democracies, for instance, define q() as freedom, and thus contend that all free men should receive citizenship and its associated honors equally. Oligarchies, in contrast, base q() on wealth, and distribute offices to their citizens in proportion to their net worth. Aristotle argues (Politics III.7) that correct constitutions should restrict citizenship to those who contribute virtue to the community, whether military virtue in a polity, ordinary virtue in an aristocracy, or superhuman virtue in a monarchy (Keyt 72); this is, in effect, an argument for several specific ideal values of q().

Slaves and non-Greeks, of course, are excluded entirely from the political life, because they have nothing of independent value to contribute. Slaves are natural slaves (φύσει δοῦλοι): they belong to someone else because they can belong to someone else. A slave "shares in reason [λόγος] to the extent of understanding it, but does not have it himself" (Politics 1254b16-1255a2). Consequently, although slaves can enjoy bodily pleasures, they have no real virtue, no share in human life, and hence no true happiness (NE 1177a8).

The Contemplative Life

In the end, however, the ideal for Aristotle is not a life of physical or even political activity, but a life of contemplation (βίος θεορέτικος). Aristotle argues (NE 1177a10-1178a9) that the life of σοφία must be the best, because it exercises the highest parts of ourselves, is the most pleasant, self-sufficient and leisured, and is virtually divine in origin (θεῖόν τι ἐν ἀυτῳ ὑπάρχει). Indeed, the activity of God must consist solely in contemplation, and to the extent that we engage in it ourselves, we attain to something like the life of God (NE 1178b31). "If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more" (Meta. 1072b25). Xenophanes once joked that cows would draw gods that looked like themselves (Fairbanks 67), and it must be remarked that Aristotle's God looks suspiciously like a philosopher.

Perseus Running Locally

I didn't think I'd ever quite get there, but I've managed to get Perseus running on my local machine.

For those of you who don't know or don't care, Perseus is the Tufts University project which has put pretty much all ancient Greek literature online, and quite a bit of other stuff besides. The problem is that it's a complicated, resource-intensive system, with a lot of users. And so during the day, it's pretty darned slow. Starting back in May, they began offering up an open-source version you could run locally, which I initially thought was very cool, right up until the point when I started trying to install it.

I got past the requirement for a Linux machine by loading up Sun's VirtualBox on my main desktop, and then proceeded to spend the next week downloading, compiling and loading up the required texts, indexes, source code and required support systems. I'm frankly pretty darned astonished that it works at all, but despite the fact that I'm pretty much a Linux newbie, by following the reasonably good directions included in the source code download, it's now up and running. And I feel reasonably good about that.