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What is the good life? Aristotle answers that everyone seeks happiness, eudaimonia, and that it lies not in pleasure, wealth or honour but in activity in…
What is the good life? Aristotle answers that everyone seeks happiness, eudaimonia, and that it lies not in pleasure, wealth or honour but in activity in accordance with virtue, over a whole life. He explains virtue as a habit formed by practice, a mean between two extremes, as courage lies between cowardice and recklessness, and goes on to discuss justice, practical wisdom, self-control and friendship, which fills two of the ten books, ending with the life of contemplation.
Context and significance
Named after Aristotle's son Nicomachus, who may have edited it, the work probably grew from his lectures at the Lyceum in Athens in the fourth century BC. It was central to ethics in the Islamic world, where Ibn Rushd (Averroes) wrote a commentary on it, and in medieval Europe, and it is widely read again today. It leads on to his Politics; see his life.
About the author
Aristotle (384–322 BC), the son of a doctor from Stagira in northern Greece, studied at Plato's Academy for twenty years, tutored the young Alexander the Great and then founded his own school in Athens, the Lyceum, where he is said to have taught while walking.
He wrote on almost everything: logic, physics, biology, ethics, politics, rhetoric and poetry, and his works became the foundation of learning for two thousand years. In the Arabic tradition he was called the First Teacher, and the great commentaries of Ibn Rushd carried his thought back to medieval Europe.