Aristotle+B+p.+101

__**Translate each section separately. Make sure that you summarize and get to the heart of his logical argument.

Section 4.**__

Aristotle begins by reviewing that all knowledge or pursuit aims to a "good" end. He asserts that the highest level of achievement for all types of men is happiness and to "identify living well and doing well with being happy". However the meaning of happiness differs between the general run of men and the wise. The general men think that happiness is an "obvious thing like pleasure, wealth, or honor". Their meaning of happiness can also vary for the same person. For example, when one is sick, one will find happiness in good health, when one is poor, in wealth, etc. Although man is "conscious of their ignorance, they admire those who proclaim some great ideal that is above their comprehension". In other words, the "average" man will blindly accept knowledge or wisdom from their superiors even if they are not completely able to understand it. Aristotle then goes on to say that "there is a difference between arguments from and those to the first principles". Some ideas about what happiness truly is is held without qualification even though the starting point for knowledge is fact. In order to find what the meaning of happiness is, one must have a desire to know. It is better if one doesn't know but is willing to listen and learn "when men counsel right" than one who neither knows nor wants to know. Aristotle says that those who do not get the starting points are useless because even if they are told what is right, they won't care to understand it. If man cannot find these starting points, than he will never find the real happiness. --Lainie Keper edited by Pooja

Aristotle argues that to all forms, there is an end, and to reach this end one must pursue and aim at some good. However, he asserts that "things are objects of knowledge in two senses-some to us, some without qualification"(101). To every man, there is a personal value and perception of happiness that should, in theory, assimilate with the pursued good of all men. He says that each form has its own entelechy, and that of humans should be the same for each, given that they share the same form. Brittany Krepak

At the end of the section he also quotes Hesiod, saying "Far best is he who knows all things himself/Good, he that hearkens when men council right/But he who neither knows, nor lays to heart/Another's wisdom, is a useless wight." Here he is saying to everyone who "neither has nor can get [starting points]" that the best way to conduct things and go about business is to do it yourself, and find out from your very own firsthand experience. Almost as good, he says, is taking advice from others but only when the advice is wise ("men who council right"). However, if you do neither of these things then you're just wasting your time since you are without a starting point, and any sort of wisdom that would propel you to an end, that being happieness, which you so far don't even have. This can also be taken as ignorance, since he who refuses to experience the world for himself, or vicariously through others' wisdom, is essentially ignorant to the world and is therefore getting nowhere. - Olga Goroshko

Section 4, first sentence, Aristotle states that "knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good", and the people of "superior refinement" states that happiness is living well and doing well. Between the different types of people, the definition of happiness differ. Idetifying the differences and recognizing them is what we need to do in order to define the overall goodness/happiness. Then there is the difference between the turning point in our lives and what makes us go back to the way we were. The paragraph, "far best he who knows all things himself": it is better to know our 'physche' ourself, "good, he that hearkens when men counsel right;": good enough when knowing self is wrong and knowing the right, "but he who niether knows, nor lays to heart, another's widson, is a useless wight": but those who neither have the knowledge of recognizing him/herself and/or his rights and wrongs, is useless. - So Jeong Kim

__**Section 5.**__

Aristotle then explains that most men "men of the most vulgar type" relate good and happiness with whatever gives them pleasure. This explains why these men "love the life of enjoyment". Then he categorizes three main types of life: life of enjoyment, "the political, and thirdly the contemplative life". Most men fall into the first category and are slaves to their senses, "preferring a life suitable to beasts". These are men that are ruled mainly by their appetite and they justify their reasoning on the fact that they share "the tastes of Sardanapallus". Aristotle then explains that "people of superior refinement" relate happiness with honor, since that is what they aim to have possess at the __//end//__ of their political life. However, since honor can be easily taken from men, it is not //the// good. Aristotle then states that men "seem to pursue honor in order that they may be assured of their goodness". It is by practical wisodm that they desire to be honored and "on the ground of their virtue". Aristotles states that one could say that virtue, instead of honor, could be the end of the political life. However, since a life of a virtuous man seems to have suggest great suffereing and misfortunes, no one would call that a happy life and thus this conclusion is incomplete. This digs deeper into the idea of happiness is the end of the functional human form. Aristotle explains that one who is happy is one that is always happy, and can therefore never be unnerved or deformed in a sense of a lapse of happiness. He says that possessing happiness cannot be going back and forth between moods, so to speak, and that it has to be a constant, overall state. Men are distracted from "hapiness" because they are confused as to what to what hapiness means by Aristotle's definition. He skips the contemplative life and concludes by saying that it is complusion that casuses people to live for wealth. Since wealth is useful for "the sake of something else" it is not //the// ultimate good. Then objects that are loved from themselves might seem to be ends, but he quickly dismisses this too. He says "And so one might rather take the aforenamed objects to be ends." Aristotle describes that objects seem to be the end/ hapiness/ telos for men. However men are misled by the distraction of wealth in their persuit toward their telos which is hapiness or the ultimate good life. -Pooja Singh edited by Oliver Rose & Brittany Krepak

To define happiness, one must first understand it in it's intended form.