How Could Aristotle Defend The Self-sufficiency Of Political Life While Claiming The Superiority Of Contemplative Life?

Year 2016, Issue: 3 - 2016, 13 - 26, 30.09.2016

Serdar Tekin

Abstract

In Nicomachean Ethics X.7, Aristotle argues that perfect happiness
consists in contemplation alone. The question that I want to take up in this essay
is whether the superiority of contemplative life fits with Aristotle’s argument for
the self-sufficiency of the political life, according to which politics can lead us
to happiness without being guided by philosophical knowledge of the highest
sort. My basic argument is that, paradoxical as it may seem, Aristotle is led to
acknowledge that contemplative life is superior to political life by the same strand
of argumentation which makes him plea for the self-sufficiency of the political life
in the first place. In order to show how this argument unfolds, I take my point of
departure from Aristotle’s analysis of phronēsis as stated in Nicomachean Ethics VI
and bring it to bear on his discussion of the respective virtues of the contemplative
and political ways of life in Politics VII. 

Keywords

phronēsis, practical reason, contemplative life, political life, Aristoteles

How Could Aristotle Defend The Self-sufficiency Of Political Life While Claiming The Superiority Of Contemplative Life?

Abstract

Aristoteles Nikomakhos’a Etik X.7’de en yüksek mutluluğun teorik yaşamda bulunduğu görüşünü dile getirir. Bu yazı, söz konusu görüşün, politik yaşamın kendine yeterli olduğu―yani en yüksek türdeki felsefi bilginin kılavuzluğuna ihtiyaç duymaksızın insansal mutluluğu temin edebileceği―şeklindeki bir diğer Aristotelesçi görüşle uyumlu olup olmadığı sorununu ele alıyor. Yazının temel savı şu şekilde ifade edilebilir: Aristoteles, her ne kadar paradoksal gibi görünse de, teorik yaşamın üstünlüğünü ve politik yaşamın kendine yeterliliğini aynı felsefi zeminden hareketle savunmaktadır. Söz konusu felsefi zemini serimlemek üzere, yazıda ilk olarak Nikomakhos’a Etik VI’daki phronēsis analizi, ardından da Politika VII’deki teorik ve politik yaşam karşılaştırması inceleniyor.

Keywords

phronēsis, pratik akıl, teorik yaşam, politik yaşam, Aristoteles

References

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