Concept
Eudaimonia
Overview
Eudaimonia (also spelled eudaemonia; ; Ancient Greek: εὐδαιμονία [eu̯dai̯moníaː]) is a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of good spirit, and which is commonly translated as happiness or welfare.
In the works of Aristotle, eudaimonia was the term for the highest human good in older Greek tradition. It is the aim of practical philosophy-prudence, including ethics and political philosophy, to consider and experience what this state really is and how it can be achieved. It is thus a central concept in Aristotelian ethics and subsequent Hellenistic philosophy, along with the terms aretē (most often translated as virtue or excellence) and phronesis ('practical or ethical wisdom').
Discussion of the links between ēthikē aretē (virtue of character) and eudaimonia (happiness) is one of the central concerns of ancient ethics, and a subject of disagreement. As a result, there are many varieties of eudaimonism.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
SOCRATES: And they must think or they would not say that they have pleasure. PROTARCHUS: I suppose not. SOCRATES: And yet if pleasure and the negation of pain are of distinct natures, they are wrong. PROTARCHUS: But they are undoubtedly of distinct natures. SOCRATES: Then shall we take the view that they are three, as we were just now saying, or that they are two only--the one being a state of pain, which is an…
Plato, Philebus
States what Eudaimonia is; the author is tied to Eudaimonia in the knowledge graph.
It manifests itself in power to act; for all substance consists in a certain power, and the greater the power the higher and freer the substance. But power increases in the degree that the many manifests itself from one and in one, while the one rules many from itself and transforms them into self. But unity in plurality is nothing else than harmony; and from this comes order or proportion, from which proceeds…
John Dewey, Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding
States what Eudaimonia is.
And consequently, the utilitarian standard, while it tolerates and approves those other acquired desires, up to the point beyond which they would be more injurious to the general happiness than promotive of it, enjoins and requires the cultivation of the love of virtue up to the greatest strength possible, as being above all things important to the general happiness. It results from the preceding considerations…
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
The author is tied to Eudaimonia in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Eudaimonia
- Epicurus
- Xenocrates
- Tibor Machan
- Michel Onfray
- John Finnis
- Sage (philosophy)
- Proclus
- Socrates
- Aristotle
- Giorgio Agamben
- Martha Nussbaum
- Zeno of Citium
- Plotinus
- Speusippus
- Louis Althusser
- Anaxarchus
- Hegesias of Cyrene
- Rosalind Hursthouse
- Nausiphanes
- Atticus (philosopher)
- William Desmond (philosopher)
- Eugen Dühring
Related ideas
- Epicurus
- Eusebius
- Hellenistic philosophy
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Gorgias (dialogue)
- Callicles
- Timon of Phlius
- Harvard University Press
- Princeton University Press
- Phaedo
- Pyrrhonism
- Hedonism
- Pyrrho
- Crito of Alopece
- Immanuel Kant
- J. O. Urmson
- John Stuart Mill
- Republic (Plato)
- Thrasymachus
- Eudemian Ethics
- Happiness
- Cleanthes
- Sextus Empiricus
- Positive psychology
Place in the tradition
Part of Analytic philosophy.