Abstract
Aristotle's NE X claim that the best human life is one devoted to contemplation (theoria) seems in tension with his emphasis elsewhere on our essentially political nature, and more specifically, his claim that friendship is necessary for our flourishing. For, if our good can be in principle realized apart from the human community, there seems little reason to suggest we 'need' friends, as he clearly does in NE VIII & IX. I argue that central to Aristotle's NE X discussion of contemplation is the claim that our chief good accords with whatever is 'most divine' in us, viz. our rational nature (NE 1177b2-18). Thus, the best human life involves the excellent exercise of our rational capacities. I distinguish two ways in which human beings flourish through exercising their rationality. The first is in the activity of theoria. The second, I argue, can be found in the virtuous activity of complete friendship (teleia philia). For Aristotle the truest form of friendship is an expression of rationality. It is characterized not merely by our living together, but conversing, and sharing one another's thoughts (NE 1170b12-14). Examining Aristotle's notion of a friend as 'another self (alios autos), I argue that through friendship human beings come to better know themselves and the world in which they live. Complete friendship involves a (uniquely human) second-order awareness of oneself in another, and through this awareness our understanding of ourselves and the world in which we live is enriched, confirmed, and enjoyed through the presence of other minds. Thus, the highest form of Aristotelian friendship is an intellectual activity through which we attain an analogue of the divine contemplation of the unmoved mover, thereby living with respect to what is most divine in us, but doing so in accordance with our uniquely rational-political nature.
Highlights
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (NE) X claim that the best human life is one devoted to contemplation seems in tension with his emphasis elsewhere on our essentially political nature, and his claim that friendship is necessary for our flourishing
For the life of the gods is blessedly happy throughout, while that of human beings is so to the extent that there belongs to it some kind of semblance of this sort of activity. (NE 1178b25-27)2
Of human beings as the good of a political animal, and one that is realized in the context of other political animals
Summary
When describing the practical life Aristotle is not concerned with the contemplation of the human species under the aspect of eternity, but with the time and energy required of us here and in living a life devoted to practical affairs This is evident in the examples he provides of the concerns belonging to the practical life, but on his continued insistence that the life of theōria is more leisurely than the life of political activity (EN 1177b4-26). The end of ethical inquiry is not attaining theoretical knowledge about the good human life, but living a life of activity in accordance with virtue Fundamental is this point that Sarah Broadie suggests that if we miss it we cannot even join Aristotle in his ethical inquiry: “We may examine his ethical doctrines and read and write books about them in order to understand and explain what he is saying. The first is found in the contemplation of first principles (theōria), the second, I will argue, is found in perfect friendship (teleia philia)
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