Philosophy Makes Us Happy

Abstract In fragments transmitted in Iamblichus’ Protrepticus 7, Aristotle argues that philosophy is necessary for happiness because theoretical wisdom constitutes the human ergon—the work, function, or task of human beings. Like other ergon arguments in Aristotle’s works, this one approaches the nature of happiness by inquiring into the human ergon. However, the chapter focuses on three notable differences between this argument and the ergon arguments in the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics. First, the Protrepticus’ argument motivates the appeal to the human ergon in its search for the means to happiness: we are interested in the ergon of human beings because we want to know what their proper virtue is. Second, it remains explicitly neutral on whether happiness is monistic or inclusive: it identifies theoretical wisdom as the highest non-composite good, while leaving open whether it is identical with happiness or only a part of it. Third, immediately after the argument, Aristotle rejects the most common inclusive interpretation of happiness—namely, that happiness includes other goods like practical wisdom for their independent value. If happiness includes other good epistemic states, he suggests, it is only because they resemble and approximate theoretical wisdom.