[MD] Eudaimonia

[X Acto]

Eudaimonia the ancient Greek ideal of actively pursuing excellence or "human flourishing"
Was touched upon by Sam Norton some years back in his essay
entitled:
The Eudaimonic MoQ:
A proposal for reconceiving the fourth level
Sam Norton - April 2003

It seemed Sam was troubled by Bodvars SOL immediately, coloring and driving his
re-interpretation and clarification of the 4th level. But that has little to do with his attempt
at the association of Eudaimonia with intellect. After recently arriving at the conclusion
of the parallel between the Zen Koan and the Socratic method with a hearty re-reading
of Plato's Socratic dialogs, I have come to the conclusion that Sam was close but
misread Plato. 
Sam explains:
"The excellences which were enumerated above were considered by different thinkers, and were each considered to be a part of the good life. Until Socrates came along. 
The problem is that attachment to these various excellences - like loving a specific 
person; spending time developing a musical skill; delight in bodily achievement - 
were subject to change and decay over time, and consequently, those who spent time 
devoted to such activities exposed themselves to the pain of loss. And 
the pain of loss suggested that these excellences weren't quite such a 
constituent part of the good life after all. Socrates (as presented by Plato, 
especially in the Republic) argued that this pain and loss could not be a part of 
the good life (could not be part of eudaimonia) and that the pursuit of the good 
life needed to travel in a different direction - the life of the intellect. It was 
through the development of the intellect, and contemplation of intellectual values, 
pre-eminently mathematics, that the good life was achieved. All that was associated 
with emotional qualities (especially love) was to be repudiated in 
order to achieve a state of unsullied contemplation of the eternal Forms."
 
Socrates valued the love of wisdom above all else, this was Eudaimonia.
The love of wisdom has no attachments and requires a lifetime of practice
this "desire" was the highest good.
 
" Aristotle seems never to have understood what Socrates was doing, as Plato presents him, 
which shows most obviously in the difference between Socrates' robust conception of dialectic 
and the feeble and relatively trivial analogue of that as it appears in Aristotle. The root 
of their difference was in the logical wedge which Aristotle introduced by distinguishing 
epistêmê from technê. In Socratic-Platonic usage "epistêmê" expresses a craft conception 
of knowledge, and epistêmê and technê have the same logical grammar, whereas in Aristotle 
craft is relegated to an inferior status because it involves production. This makes it 
impossible for the virtues to be treated as crafts, and thus disconnects sophia from 
technê, too. Epistêmê is associated primarily with formally (syllogistically) structured 
understanding rather than regarded as a know how of argumentation, and sophia is 
identified with epistêmê plus nous (intuition of the truth of
 first premises). Thus begins the tradition of conceiving science as the systematically 
arranged product of inquiry rather than the critically controlled process of inquiry, 
and with that the implicit canonization of epistemologically conceived theory of 
understanding, which is concerned with the principles of assessment of putative 
products of inquiry to ascertain whether or not they truly deserve treatment as 
being knowledge in virtue of their method of derivation". -Joseph Ransdell "Peirce
and Socratic tradition"

This is a superficial discrepancy in Sams conclusion but bears extreme weight in drawing direct paralells between east/west, science/religion.

Sam concludes:
I think that the MoQ would benefit from greater clarity about how to characterise the 
fourth level. As it presently stands, it cannot sustain rigorous intellectual scrutiny. 
This paper is an attempt to reformulate the MoQ, around the idea of 'eudaimonia' as 
the governing value of the fourth level, which operates on the 'choosing unit' of the 
autonomous individual. My proposal can be seen in the form of a table here.
I find this conception to have higher quality than the standard account, and to 
cohere more with the evidence and my own scale of values. I should mention that my 
own scale of values are Christian, and, indeed, I think this 'eudaimonic MoQ' is 
compatible with a Christian faith. Indeed, it gives a good account of why certain 
individuals, the saints, would be surrounded by haloes - the glow of DQ from those 
who have been 'born again' into the fourth level. I think there are also profound 
compatibilities between this account and the mystical path - but that is the subject 
for another paper."

I think Sam concludes rather well and in accordance with the highest intellectual patterns
and that Eudaimonia is the highest state of desire or love throughout the MoQ's 4 levels.
That if one aligns  with the highest inorganic patterns in the love of life and the highest
organic patterns the love of our own bodies of social the love of our fellow human beings
and intellect the love of wisdom (intellectual notion of Eudaimonia ) human flourishing,
excellence, happiness is crafted. Socrates stated that this was the preparation for death.

Although Sam and I would differ on the opinion of Christian paralellel vs. Christian misinterpetation
of Greek philosophy, the ideas remain solid and draw a distinct line between east and west in
terms of Koan, love/desire, intent and the transcendance of cultural assumptions of "knowledge".
Met with the mystics aspect and pragmatism, a complete picture may be formed with a total
concept of MoQ which is supported throughout the human history of civilisation.