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Contemplation in (and of) the Nicomachean Ethics: Understanding Aristotle’s Philosophical Project

The objectives of this paper are twofold. The first is to lay out an understanding of Aristotle’s conception of the relationship between virtuous practical activity and rational contemplation, along with difficulties that come with situating said relationship in his conception of the self-sufficiency of the good life as laid out in the Nicomachean Ethics. In this section, I will lay out a potential way of reconciling this difficulty rooted in Aristotle’s beliefs on mortality and the human place in the polity. The second is to understand why these difficulties arise, not simply in terms of the formal aspects of the arguments laid out, but in terms of the philosophical project at the heart of the Nicomachean Ethics that led to these arguments being made in the first place. Through an account of Aristotle’s conclusions on the life of contemplation in the Nicomachean Ethics, I hope to offer a useful window into the nature of the work as a whole, as a philosophical project.

An Account of Contemplation

I will begin by laying out what Aristotle conceives of as the merits of contemplation, which I will divide into three categories*: its self-sufficiency, its connection with human nature***, and its correspondence with typical wisdom about what a good life looks like.

Self-sufficiency, Aristotle holds, “belongs most to the contemplative activity. For while a philosopher, as well as just man or one possessing any other virtue needs the necessaries of life, when they are sufficiently equipped with things of that sort the just man needs people whom and with whom he shall act justly… but the philosopher, even when by himself, can contemplate truth” (1176b29-33). In this particular passage, Aristotle gives a special importance to contemplation insofar as it is minimally dependent on external goods. While there are certain basic preconditions that allow for contemplation (the basic needs for life), it is not dependent on other people or things in the way other virtues are: a courageous person can only be courageous in certain situations; a magnificent person can only spend if they have money; a contemplative person is able to engage in virtuous activity less conditionally. Hereafter, I will refer to this version of self-sufficiency as independence – I will return to differing concepts of self-sufficiency later in this section. A related concept seems to be important to this account, though: that contemplation “alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, which from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action” (1177b1-3). Here, contemplation is different insofar as it is an end in itself. Unlike practical activity, Aristotle holds, it is for its own sake. Hereafter, I will refer to this concept as being end-like.

One might raise an objection to the claim that all contemplation is end-like in this sense. There are two types of contemplation, “one by which we contemplate the kind of things whose originative causes are invariable, and one by which we contemplate variable things” (1139a7-9) and deliberation is contemplation about the variable (1139a13-15), including that which conduces to the good life, which (when done well) Aristotle refers to as practical wisdom (1140a25-28). Practical wisdom, despite being a type of contemplation, is not end-like, by definition: “We deliberate not about ends but about means” (1112b12). It is a means (insofar as it gives us an actionable path) to an end in itself: the good life.

To this objection I would suggest that deliberative contemplation is not the sort of contemplation Aristotle has in mind when he exalts the life of contemplation. He posits that “[i]f we were to run through them all, the circumstances of action would be found trivial and unworthy of gods. Still, everyone supposed that they live and therefore that they are active… Now if you take away from a living being action, and still more production, what is left but contemplation?” (1178b18-21). In Aristotle’s mind, the life of contemplation for the gods is a life that is free of action, and therefore means-based practical wisdom. If the activities of the gods are taken to be the happiest, then the human activity that most resembles god-activity must also be the happiest. Thus, it seems that the happy and contemplative life Aristotle imagines refers to contemplation about the invariable rather than deliberative contemplation.

This raises another objection, though. If the contemplative life lies outside of the domain of action and practical activity and is simultaneously meant to be end-like, then it would seem to follow that virtuous practical activity cannot be a part of what goes well in the happiest life: contemplation on its own is the end. Furthermore, the final good has to be self-sufficient in a sense different from independence, which I will refer to as strict self-sufficiency: “when isolated[, it] makes life desirable and lacking in nothing… and further we think it most desirable of all things, not a thing counted as one good thing among other – if it were so counted it would be clearly be made more desirable by the addition of even the least of goods” (1097b15-19). Aristotle, though, seems to hold virtual practical ethics – which are not part of contemplation – do make a life more desirable, dedicating much of the Nicomachean Ethics to accounts of the nature of various practical virtues outside of contemplation. This seems to contradict the idea that contemplation is the strictly self-sufficient final good.

To this objection I would suggest the following response: if we reject the statement in Book X that the only thing that can be loved in itself is contemplation (1177b1-3, qtd. above), and instead accept the contradictory statement in Book VI that “good action,” Aristotle holds, “itself is its end” (1140b7), then virtuous action has merit insofar as it is end-like. However, it is not the highest good – and this brings in the second of the three categories of the merits of contemplation – because of its connection with human nature. “We must, being men… think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things” (1177b33). I would suggest putting it the other way. We must, being mortal, think of mortal things and being human, do so in a human (political) way. We are dependent on others to provide us with the means of life, and as a result live with others in a polity. Our response to our mortality is our political humanity; political humanity demands good action. Good action, therefore, is inextricably linked with a non-distinct** part of our nature: our mortality. To know whether something is strictly self-sufficient, one must isolate it from all else and assess its properties. But we are mortal! Isolating contemplation from all else is an empirical impossibility. Based on the previously quoted exploration of the nature of gods (1178b18-21), however, one can conclude a priori that if it were isolated – or “when isolated” (1097b15) a priori – contemplation is strictly self-sufficient. But this does not contradict the fact that human life can be improved by virtuous practical activity. Rather, these facts must coexist as a result of our empirical nature as mortal, political beings. Contemplation, for Aristotle, is “superior to our composite nature” (1177b28-29), we must seek “to live in accordance with the best thing in us… that which is proper by nature to each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for each thing; for man, therefore, the life according to reason to reason is best and pleasantest, since reason more than anything span class="italic">is man” (1177b32-1178a8). Returning to the merits mentioned at the beginning of the section, then, the life of contemplation is distinctly good in that it consists in the flourishing of what Aristotle sees as the defining factor of human nature.

The third and final merit of the life of contemplation in Aristotle’s eyes, simply enough, is that it seems to correspond to some notion of typical wisdom about what the good life should be. After enumerating all the reasons why the life of contemplation is the best, Aristotle concludes that “all other attributes ascribed to supremely happy man are evidently those connected with this activity” (1177b27-28). Aristotle’s ethics concern themselves with generalized ascriptions of what it means to be happy. Whereas this may seem trivial, it is important in understanding Aristotle’s overarching philosophical project.

Aristotle's Philsophical Project

Each of the three aforementioned merits of contemplation in Aristotle’s account appear to be reflective of three more fundamental imperatives in his philosophical project, which might explain the presence of two conflicting accounts of whether actions are end-like and the difficulty in placing action in the good life.

Starting with the correspondence to typical wisdom, Aristotle lays the groundwork for his methods by stating “we must begin with what is evident, things are evident in two ways – some to us, some without qualification. Presumably, then, we must begin with things evident to us. Hence anyone who is to listen intelligently to lectures about what is noble and just, and, generally about the subjects of political science must have been brought up in good habits” (1095b1-5). Here, Aristotle seems to take for granted the essentially contestable claim that an ethics ought not to be informed by that which is evident without qualification – i.e. a priori truths – and instead informed by a posteriori truths that seem in some way related to political life. This initial methodological statement sheds light on why Aristotle comes to the sorts of conclusions he comes to: if Aristotle holds that the “[the] science of the human good is politics” (1094a19, the very title of I.2), if his ethics are inextricably linked with political life, then surely they must include a component that involves human-to-human action. How could a political approach be coherent otherwise?

Aristotle’s imperative to derive the good life from what is distinct about human nature, however, pulls his account in the other direction. What is good in life, he holds, “might perhaps be given, if we could first ascertain the function of man…what is peculiar to man. Let us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and growth. Next there would be a life of perception, but it also seems to be shared even by the horse, the ox, and every animal. There remains, then, an active life of the element that has reason… in the sense of possessing reason and exercising thought” (1098a1-4). Again, this initial imperative provides insight with regards to his conclusion in Book X: if Aristotle holds that the distinct element of human nature is our ability to reason, if he wants to derive his ethics from that distinct element – or, in his eyes, the “function” of humans – then surely he must give reason (which contemplation is a form of) a primary importance that the political sphere cannot wholly circumscribe.

While these two imperatives seem to pull in opposite directions, they are not irreconcilable. Aristotle’s third – and perhaps most fundamental – imperative, though, complicates things. Aristotle holds that “there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain****), clearly this must be the good and the chief good… If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is, and of which of the sciences or capacities it is the object” (1094a19-23). In Aristotle’s conception of things, desire and therefore action would be vain if there is no one good towards which all action is aimed. Looking to avoid an ethics that implies that human action is vain, he therefore – as mentioned in the previous section – holds that the human good has to be strictly self-sufficient (1097b15-19).

While the primacy of contemplation can be saved by the idea that its strict self-sufficiency is not an empirical reality but an a priori aspect of its nature, it seems Aristotle’s account is nonetheless troubled by conflicting accounts of the importance of human-to-human action (1177b1-3 and 1140b7, both quoted above).

Such is the result of the difficulty of Aristotle’s project: two of its imperatives point in different directions, the third mandates that they point in one.

*While suggesting and addressing some objections along the way.

**Unlike reason, which for Aristotle is distinct to humans among other animals.

***Interestingly, also an a posteriori endeavor.

****An interesting tension arises when looking at each of these three imperatives and their relationship with optimism about human life. The imperative to appeal to typical wisdom may, on a very superficial level, seem to be optimistic insofar as it puts faith in human experience to provide insight. However, Aristotle is abundantly clear that typical wisdom is by no means popular wisdom. To those who are not “well brought up”, who (supposedly) do not have the “starting-points” to understand ethics or political science, Aristotle quotes Hesiod: “Another’s wisdom, is a useless weight” (1095b1-14). Aristotle does not have faith in people to acquire wisdom through their own effort or volition, it can only be imparted on them by being well brought up, whatever this is meant to mean. At the same time, Aristotle does not like the idea that human desire and action could have a non-terminating chain of causality; he feels an account of human life must have a single end, lest it be in vain. Thus, he has faith in a human end, a human purpose. He is even optimistic about from where this purpose should be derived: an essential component of why contemplation takes primacy over action is because it is most god-like. While the justification for this is because reason is the human function (which he argues based on the fact that it is distinct from other animals), one could construe an alternative conception of what is distinct about human life as the following: our capacity to organize as a polity. Because humans are mortal and interdependent for the necessities of life, we organize in polities that provide for those needs in a way no other living beings do. An ethics based on such a conception of human nature could even align with the political, human action-based direction implied by Aristotle’s imperative to think in terms of typical wisdom! He doesn’t take this direction, though, because such a conception of human nature emphasizes our mortality, whereas his reason-based human nature emphasizes our (partial) god-like nature. Why, if he – in a certain sense – seems to commit to that in his mission, does he deny access to that supposedly god-like nature to the countless souls who were not well brought up? It is attempting to understand and reconcile these three imperatives, their nature, and their underlying reasoning that makes reading the Nicomachean Ethics such an interesting philosophical project.

Bibliography

Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Edited by Lesley Brown. Translated by Sir David Ross, Oxford University Press, 2009.