happiness is one of the oldest and most elusive topics in the history of philosophy philosophers from the ancient Greek socres to the Contemporary American Martha nbal have tried to answer the question what is happiness yet only a handful seem to have been successful in this video we will explore one of the classic views on happiness that of the medieval philosopher St Thomas aquinus and hopefully find some guidance on how to achieve it aquinas's view of the universe is teleological from the Greek word tellas meaning end or purpose he believes that every event in it from
the blossoming of a flower to the revolution of a planet occurs because there is some end or purpose toward which it is directed thus following Aristotle he claims that all agents that is those beings capable of moving or acting act for the sake of an end for without an end or purpose their action would be a product of mere chance and thus not make any sense like the rest of nature human beings according to aquinus have their own ends and all genuine actions they make are directed towards them for example a student studies because he
has the end of passing an exam a mother cooks because she wants to feed her family and a carpenter Cuts wood in order to make a table a points out however that not all ends human beings pursue are the same there is what he calls an ultimate end or that end or purpose which they pursue for its own sake and not as a means toward some further end in other words it is this ultimate end that entirely satisfies their desires in the example earlier passing the exam cannot be considered as the student's ultimate end since
this end is not pursued for its own sake but rather as a means toward some further end that is to pass the course he is currently taking according to aquinus again following Aristotle all human beings only have one ultimate end happiness despite having only one such end though he acknowledges that humans disagree among themselves as to what it consists in some think that happiness consists in wealth others in pleasure still others in good health Etc in the face of such conflicting claims on happiness aquinus points out that happiness has at least two objective truths first
it must consist in an activity that is unique to human beings who are by Nature rational and that is intellectual contemplation second the object of such activity must be the best possible object that is the highest truth and the greatest good God thus for aquinus happiness consists in in a human being's complete intellectual and volitional Union with God what he calls the beatific Vision it is important to note however that because human beings do not experience God fully in this world they can only experience what aquinus calls imperfect human happiness perfect happiness according to him
is only experienced by the angels and Saints in Heaven by pursuing intellectual contemplation of God in this world humans are still able to experience exp erience some form of happiness since they are able to actualize their intellectual capacities transform themselves into their best and contribute in making the universe as good as it can be to download a written summary of this video check out the link in the description below also please support our Channel by buying our merch donating it by Mia coffee or watching our other content thank you and see you in our next
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