Cooking Up the Good Life with Socrates

2019 ◽  
pp. 235-252
Author(s):  
Russell E. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Important Ingredient ◽  
Pure Knowledge ◽  
The Way

At Philebus 59d10–64c4, Socrates offers a recipe for the good life. His recipe reveals pure knowledge as the most important ingredient. Not only is pure knowledge valuable on its own, but it must be present for the other ingredients to make their own distinctive contributions to the good life. It determines which other ingredients are to be included, and in what manner and what amounts. The passage thus prepares the way for knowledge, and particularly pure knowledge, to be ranked ahead of pleasure as most responsible for the good life.

scholarly journals Seeing the Other Side of the Coin: (Re)Constructing the Normative Flipside to Marx’s Sociology.

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel A. Butler
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Salient Points ◽  
Ethical Project ◽  
The Way

This paper argues that, Marx’s insistences notwithstanding, there is an ethical core to Marx’s critique of capitalism. I attempt to establish this claim through presenting salient points of Marx’s critique. From this basis, I move on to discuss Marx’s conception of human nature and the way in which it is typically frustrated under pre-communist societies. This frustration is the basis for a moral preference for communism. After pausing briefly to consider the possible criticism that this moral preference is mere ideology, I conclude with the normative heart of the matter. This is addressed by underscoring principal similarities between Marx’s work and Aristotle’s ethical project, insofar as each comprehends an intuitive description of the good life and an analysis of the prerequisites for obtaining it. A grasp of this similarity opens the door to understanding the normative flip side of Marx’s intellectual project.

The Fourfold Division of Beings

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Mary Louise Gill
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Good Life

The fourfold division in Plato’s Philebus develops machinery to decide the contest between pleasure and reason for second place after the mixture in the debate about the good life. The machinery consists of the limit, the unlimited, the mixture of limit and unlimited, and cause of the mixture. Plato’s Socrates collects instances of the unlimited and mixture to determine their unified nature and marks off the cause from the other three kinds and argues for its priority. We gain understanding of the limit by considering its operation in relation to the other three kinds. The limit is responsible for external and internal boundaries in an unlimited, bringing definiteness either by marking something off from things outside it or by providing internal structure. Chapter 5 argues that one key function of the limit is omitted in the fourfold division: guaranteeing the goodness of a mixture.

Prosperity and Prophecy in African Pentecostalism

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Quayesi-Amakye
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Good Life

AbstractThis essay discusses how prosperity is understood and articulated in Ghanaian Pentecostal prophetic circles. It seeks to show that in the peripheral prophetism of Pentecostalism, prosperity is perceived as the good life Christ offers those who believe in him. The good life is a religious and social quest of Ghanaians. The bad life is a privation of goodness in this life. Coping with the bad life has necessitated the patronage of Ghanaian prophetic services where rituals of transformation are employed to negotiate evil and suffering in the life of the faithful. Critical in the discussion is the role of the 'Other' who creates conditions of impoverishment for people and who justifies the necessity of prophetic negotiation. The paper also analyses the content of the bad life and finally attempts to show that Christ's parables in Luke 16 propose a guiding paradigm for conceiving prosperity as a tool for harmonious interhuman relations.

Nordic urban history and urban historians in the last decade

Urban History ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 65-77
Author(s):  
Jan Eivind Myhre
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Conference Report ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Urban Settlements ◽  
Hans Magnus Enzensberger

To people from the Continent, like the German essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Norwegians seem to be something of an urban puzzle. While crowding in towns and cities — about three-quarters of the population now live in urban settlements — the minds and lifestyles of Norwegians, their concept of the good life, are stubbornly rural. More or less the same applies to the Finns. The Danes, on the other hand, are conceived as quite the opposite, a fundamentally urban nation. The Swedes fall somewhere in between.Differences in urban attitudes, as well as other diversities between the Nordic countries, are cherished among the inhabitants themselves, although most people are well aware that the culturally unifying elements are strong, too. The variations are real, however, and different urban experiences may partly account for them. Take the case of nineteenth-century urbanization, with examples extracted from the 1977 Trondheim Nordic history conference report on urbanization.

scholarly journals Creatures Bound for Glory: Biotechnological Enhancement and Visions of Human Flourishing

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Burdett ◽  
Victoria Lorrimar
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Human Enhancement ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The One ◽  
Secular Humanist ◽  
Grand Vision

The human enhancement debate is fundamentally based on divergent ideals of human flourishing. Using the complementary, though often contrasting, foci of creaturehood and deification as fundamental to the good life, we examine these visions of human flourishing inherent in transhumanist, secular humanist and critical posthumanist positions on human enhancement. We argue that the theological anthropologies that respond to human enhancement and these other ideologies tend to emphasise either creaturehood or deification to the neglect or detriment of the other. We propose in response that understanding humans as creatures bound for glory integrates both dimensions of the human being into the one grand vision of flourishing God has for humanity.

The Good Life and the Good Lives of Others

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Annas
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Good Lives ◽  
The Way

It is well-known that in recent years, alongside the familiar forms of modern ethical theory, such as consequentialism, deontology, and rights theory, there has been a resurgence of interest in what goes by the name of “virtue ethics” — forms of ethical theory which give a prominent status to the virtues, and to the idea that an agent has a “final end” which the virtues enable her to achieve. With this has come an increase of theoretical (as opposed to antiquarian) interest in ancient ethical theories, particularly Aristotle's, an interest which has made a marked difference in the way ethics is pursued in the Anglo-Saxon and European intellectual worlds.In this essay, I shall not be discussing modern virtue ethics, which is notably protean in form and difficult to pin down. I shall be focusing on ancient eudaimonistic ethical theories, for in their case we can achieve a clearer discussion of the problem I wish to discuss (a problem which arises also for modern versions of virtue ethics which hark back to the ancient theories in their form).

Death as a Hermeneutic

Horizons ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-117
Author(s):  
John Carmody
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Global Ethics ◽  
Recent Meeting ◽  
John's Gospel ◽  
The Way

During a recent meeting of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians in Graz, Austria, as various speakers discussed the concept of the good life, on the way to preparing a statement on global ethics, I found thoughts of death shifting the horizon within which I was considering the different arguments. Similarly, during recent work on a Jectio divina of John's Gospel, I felt myself drawn to images magnifying the theme, “in him was life,” because I wanted help contending with death. The following brief elaboration of these two experiences may illustrate concretely Nietzsche's dictum that all who philosophize defend themselves. As well, it may expose the roots of a thesis that deeper interpretation is usually religious, because usually we forge it at the crossroads of our contingency and the necessity that there be more. Following the exposition of these two possibilities, I shall suggest a few implications for pedagogy.

scholarly journals Paradox in Plato's ‘Phaedrus’

1982 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 64-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Margaret Mackenzie
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Verbal Content ◽  
The Way

A paradox is like a pun. It is also like a Delphic oracle. For in all three cases, we escape puzzlement, or spoil the joke, when we interpret, when we follow the tracks of the words and disentangle their meaning. So paradoxes are about words - either about the relation between one word and another, or about the relation between words and the world; and the punch of the paradox is delivered by its verbal content. Thus it is characteristic of a good paradox that its verbal content is vicious: paradoxes are very often self-referential, such as ‘Please ignore this notice’.Paradoxes may be classified according to two main types. Firstly, there are the innocuous paradoxes which tell - or point the way to - a surprising truth. The Socratic Paradoxes, for example, are paradoxical because to say ‘No-one does wrong willingly’ is to contradict the phenomena. But deeper reflection upon Socrates' moral psychology and his account of the good life, might make us concede the truth of his dictum. Certainly it is Socrates' view that we all hold beliefs that entail his thesis. Similarly Heracleitus tells the truth that we cannot step into the same (in all respects) river twice; although if we concede that the waters may flow without damaging the identity of the river, what he says is false. Thus ordinary paradoxes tend to have two faces - their initial, paradoxical one, where they appear false, and their truth, apparent upon reflection.

scholarly journals Gerakan Anti-Globalisasi dan Pengaruhnya terhadap Perkembangan Demokratisasi di Indonesia

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Havidz Ageng Prakoso ◽  
Ahmad Juhairi
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Multinational Corporation ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World

AbstrakGlobalisasi, dalam klaim para globalis, akan membawa kehidupan demokratis ke seluruh dunia sebagai wujud kehidupan yang paling baik. Namun kenyataannya justru sangat kontradiktif, globalisasi telah menciptakan kekuasaan-kekuasaan global yang bersifat  otoriter-oligarkis melalui Lembaga-Lembaga Keuangan Internasional dan Perusahaan-Perusahaan Multinasional yang bekerja sama dengan negara-negara kaya. Karena itu, yang berdaulat dalam era globalisasi bukanlah rakyat sebagaimana dikehendaki demokratisasi, tetapi korporasi-korporasi internasional dan lembaga-lembaga keuangan internasional. Ada dua perspektif yang dapat menjelaskan hubungan demokratisasi dan gerakan anti-globalisasi, yaitu: perspektif anti- globalisasi dan perspektif demokratisasi. Anti-globalisasi adalah sebuah ideologi perlawanan untuk mengakhiri kekuatan korporasi multinasional, IMF, Bank Dunia, dan WTO sebagai instrumen kesepakatan global untuk pertumbuhan ekonomi. Sedangkan demokratisasi adalah realitas faktual perluasan demokrasi sebagai solusi bagi penciptaan kehidupan manusia yang lebih adil dan sejahtera. Gerakan Anti-Globalisasi lahir sebagai koreksi besar terhadap klaim para globalis. Gerakan ini menghendaki terwujudnya demokratisasi yang seutuhnya, yaitu, terwujudnya kedaulatan rakyat yang telah hilang akibat globalisasi dan terpenuhinya kesejahteraan sosial-ekonomi rakyat dan terjaminnya hak-hak sipil mereka.Kata Kunci: Anti-Globalisasi, Demokratisasi, Gerakan AbstractGlobalization in Globalist claim will make the better life in the world. But, in fact the reality is difference because globalization was made the dominance actors in the world which authoritarian-oligarchy like international financial organizations and multinational corporations in cooperation with developed countries. Therefore, in globalization era the sovereignty is always in international financial organizations and Multinational corporation hand, not in the society like what in democratization perspective. There are two prespectives explain about the relation between democratization and anti-globalization movement that is democratization perspective and anti-globalization perspective. Anti-globalization is the ideology which describe the opponent movement to finished the hegemony of Multinational Corporations, IMF, World Bank and WTO in economy consensus. Democratization in the other hand is the reality which explain that the enlargement of democracy is the solution to make the good life for peoples in the world. Anti-globalization movement is born as the correction to globalist claim. This movement has the purposes to make the sovereignty over the peoples which lost because of the globalization and in the other hand to fulfill their social welfare and civil right.Key Words: Anti-Globalization, Democratization, Movement

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document