Live and die in Aristotle's works.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Some of you read with me 40 years ago a portion of Aristotle's Ethics, a selection of passages that describe his idea of happiness. You may not remember too well.
In Aristotle the mind, regarded as the principle of life, divides into nutrition, sensation, and faculty of thought, corresponding to the inner most important stages in the succession of vital phenomena.
The last part, the part you're now approaching, was for Aristotle the most important for happiness.
To live is to die.
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
Basically, Aristotle believed that every time you behaved unkind and immorally - performing actions your soul was not proud of - you tarnished your soul. The worst shape your soul became in, the worst shape your mood and spirit.
The doctrine of immortality rests upon human affection. We love; therefore, we wish to live.
From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.
In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show.
I would like to be refered to as 'The Big Aristotle'.