more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
It is because contemplation is an activity that is not also a process that Aristotle identifies it as the most final good.
Gist of Idea
Contemplation is final because it is an activity which is not a process
Source
Christine M. Korsgaard (Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value [1986], 8 'Activity')
Book Ref
Korsgaard,Christine M.: 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [CUP 1996], p.239
A Reaction
Quite a helpful way of labelling what Aristotle has in mind. So should we not aspire to be involved in processes, except reluctantly? I take the mind itself to be a process, so that may be difficult!
Related Idea
Idea 18239 What is contemplated must have a higher value than contemplation [Kant, by Korsgaard]
18231 | Anaxagoras said a person would choose to be born to contemplate the ordered heavens [Anaxagoras] |
18229 | Only contemplation is sought for its own sake; practical activity always offers some gain [Aristotle] |
104 | Contemplation (with the means to achieve it) is the perfect happiness for man [Aristotle] |
5272 | The intellectual life is divine in comparison with ordinary human life [Aristotle] |
105 | We should aspire to immortality, and live by what is highest in us [Aristotle] |
18232 | The gods live, but action is unworthy of them, so that only leaves contemplation? [Aristotle] |
110 | Lower animals cannot be happy, because they cannot contemplate [Aristotle] |
111 | The more people contemplate, the happier they are [Aristotle] |
621 | Contemplation is a supreme pleasure and excellence [Aristotle] |
4012 | The Stoics rejected entirely the high value that had been placed on contemplation [Stoic school, by Taylor,C] |
7071 | Life and rationality are pointless if we can only contemplate the freedom of our own ego [Jacobi] |
18233 | Contemplation is final because it is an activity which is not a process [Korsgaard] |
18226 | For Aristotle, contemplation consists purely of understanding [Korsgaard] |