Session Information
Session 2, Childhood
Papers
Time:
2004-09-22
17:00-18:30
Room:
Chair:
Volker Kraft
Discussant:
Volker Kraft
Contribution
"Happiness, then, is something final and self- sufficient, and is the end of action." 1097b 20- 21This is Aristotle's famous argument in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics. Happiness - eudeimonia - is the highest good and also the goal of human - telos. The human good is activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and Aristotle adds, that if there is more than one virtue, then the human good is activity of soul in accordance with the best and most complete (1098a16-18). The virtues we get by exercising them and this means by education. In order to be good a man must have been properly educated and trained, and must subsequently continue to follow virtuous habits of life, and to do nothing base whether voluntarily or involuntarily (1180a15 - 16). In other words, he needs education through reason and through habit. Human cannot be good or happy nor have virtues without education. One of the most important conclusions of Aristotle's philosophy of ethics is that education is one of the most important aspects of human life. All this has no problems on the perspective of modern view or modern educators. Of course education is the most important element in human's life. But my argument is, that it was too important, because the child and childhood is quit loss in Aristotle's idea of education. Aristotle thought that child cannot have happiness likewise an ox or horse or any other animal cannot have, because none of these is able to participate in noble activities. (1099b 33-35) We take happily Aristotle's idea of importance of education and we do not make question of the virtues of the child, because we look Aristotle's philosophy through Kantian spectacles. Martha Nussbaum presents the idea of influence of Kantian distinction between moral and non-moral value in her book The fragility of goodness. Nussbaum suggest that our post-Kantian perspective neglect many issues on Greek ethics. My argument is that Nussbaum idea is not far from Martin Heidegger's concept of hermeneutical situation, even Heidegger has quit his own way to read Greek philosophy. In my paper I will consider if there is possibility to generate modern virtues of the child by using Aristotle's ethics, Nussbaum's perspective and Heidegger's idea of hermeneutical situation.
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