Page 18 - GALIET OF BEAUTIFUL UNOIA AND EUDAIMONIA: ARISTOTLE IV

only it is “pure” and “enduring” but it is also pursued for its own sake. Reason, Aristotle, says is “the best thing in us” for the “objects of reason are the best of knowable objects” and philosophical contemplation, through reason, is the most permanent and continuous because “we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything else” (1177a 21- 24). It is the reflective, rational life spent devoted to the contemplation of the first and most important things, it is the life of the blessed 3⁄4 who emulate the “activity of God” (X 8 1178b 22) 3⁄4 for the gods do the things out of the sheer pleasure of doing them, for their own sake and not for the sake of anything else that Aristotle so strongly advocates. One does not do things because one is to be appointed president, or because one’s stock options will increase, or because one is going to receive an award; one does things because of the sheer joy they give us. “Happiness”, Aristotle says, “extends just so far as contemplation does” (X 8 1178b 28) and for this reason, it belongs strictly to humans and not the animal kingdom7. However, for Aristotle, this pursuit and cultivation of the art of contemplation does not precisely mean inactivity, but activity,
7 One can argue this point on the basis that animals do have a lower consciousness, not as rationally conscious as we are.
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