Aristotle’s short statements become more useful when you can see the question they answer. What makes a life go well? How does character develop? What makes a sequence of events a whole? These passages introduce three arguments, with the translator and location kept visible so you can read further.
Happiness concerns the activity of a life
activity of soul in accordance with virtue
In Book I, chapter 7 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle reaches this phrase through an argument about the distinctive activity of a human being and what it would mean to perform it well. He adds that the account concerns a complete life. The subject is larger than a passing feeling of pleasure.
The Greek term eudaimonia is rendered “happiness” in Ross’s translation. Keep Aristotle’s question about living and acting well in view when reading that English word. In chapter 8 he also considers the contribution of external goods; the surrounding argument gives circumstances a role.
As a reading prompt, distinguish a pleasant moment, a valued activity and an assessment of a life. Which of those is the passage trying to explain? Return to the chapter whenever the ordinary meaning of “happy” seems to pull the discussion in another direction.
Repeated action helps form a disposition
we become just by doing just acts
Book II opens by distinguishing the development of intellectual and moral virtue. Aristotle compares learning to act well with learning a craft: activities help produce the corresponding capacities and habits. The quality of the practice matters, since practice can also form poor habits.
Chapter 4 adds a further distinction. An act with a just outcome and an act performed as a just person would perform it involve different questions. Aristotle considers knowledge, deliberate choice and a stable disposition. That continuation gives the brief quotation its necessary depth.
A whole depends on how events connect
A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
In chapter VII of the Poetics, Aristotle is considering the structure of a tragic plot. The following definitions describe the relations between events: what can start an action, what follows from something else, and what brings the sequence to a conclusion.
The observation therefore does more than name three positions. Read a short story and ask why its ending follows from its earlier actions. If a scene can be removed without changing the sequence’s intelligibility, consider what other work that scene performs: establishing atmosphere, introducing a voice or shaping expectation.
This is a way to examine one account of unity. Its original discussion concerns tragedy, so applying it to another form requires an argument about what the comparison illuminates.
Keep the arguments distinct
- Living well: what activity and span of life are being evaluated?
- Character: how do repeated choices and the manner of acting relate?
- Plot: what gives a sequence of actions its order and completeness?
A useful note begins with the question a passage addresses. Add the reasoning immediately before it and the qualification immediately after it. This prevents an attractive sentence from taking on a broader meaning than its argument supports.
For a literary comparison, explore the Bildungsroman and the changing judgment of a protagonist. For other meanings of living well, read the Happiness selections in context.
Name the translation and the location
The ethics passages use W. D. Ross; the Poetics passage uses S. H. Butcher. These credits identify the English wording displayed here. Another translation may choose different terms while discussing the same Greek passage.
Record the work, book and chapter, translator and edition. Page numbers alone travel poorly between editions. When an edition supplies the standard reference numbers used in Aristotle scholarship, retain those as well. Keep your explanation separate from the words you quote.
About these selections
Source notes identify the wording and edition used. Short excerpts remain attached to their works; interpretations and exercises are Yenra’s. Follow the linked text when citing or comparing a passage.