GRIPh lunch lecture: Aristotle on the Pleasure of Contemplation

The next GRIPh (bring-your-own) lunch lecture will be given by Hannah Laurens.

In Nicomachean Ethics book 10 Aristotle claims that the best life that human beings can achieve is the philosopher’s life: a life of contemplation. This intellectually virtuous life ranks higher than the practically virtuous life because, amongst other things, it is more pleasant. But what is the pleasure that makes contemplation so enjoyable? I argue that this pleasure is nothing less than the very pleasure that characterizes the Prime Mover or God: a self-thinking being whose state of maximum pleasure, according to Aristotle, makes it desirable to the entire universe. It is God’s thinking we come to participate in during contemplation, and it is therefore God’s pleasure that we come to experience. This divine pleasure amounts to the highest form of self-awareness possible, i.e. the highest enjoyment of our own being alive, and that is why, ultimately, contemplation fulfils us most.