Philosophy 101

Dipping a first toe into the deep, dark pool of philosophical thought leads me to believe that the meaning of life according to many a philosopher might be able to be summed up as - commit yourself to a life of goodness and of studying to be good and eventually you will become one with the goodness and no longer be a slave to your emotions or human appetites, thus attaining freedom from suffering. Only it seems that they couldn't agree as to the actual meaning or definition of this 'good'.

Plato and his followers taught that the meaning of life was to be found in attainment of the highest form of knowledge, or good, this higher good being the source of all things worthy and of value. Furthermore, they argued that this 'good' could not be found unless the seeker involved themselves in philosophical reasoning.

Aristotle was a man of action and favoured practice in addition to study, as a path to 'goodness'. In other words, Plato said that if you went to the library every day and studied your 'good' books you would be qualified to fill a well paying job in that area. Aristotle on the other hand took a more modern approach and would have suggested that you spend your final semester working in an office down town where you would make the tea, collect the post, arrange couriers to bring packages to low-level clients and correct the spelling of your superior's email correspondence, prior to graduating to a path of virtuosity.

But Aristotle argued that each and every one of these actions must have a goal with good as its object (subtract 'support of the brand' or 'increase in overall revenues' for good and one will note the similarity between Aristotle's thinking and the teachings of latter-day marketing consultants). The problem is that if each action must have a goal, then that goal too must have a goal and so on and so forth and where does that leave us? ie. if one consistently places the company logo in the same position on each and every communication from the company to clients and the public, those people know where to find the company logo and will not be confused, the company logo tells them something about the company's brand, that brand communicates what the company stands for...

Aristotle's answer to this eternal question was summon bonum, or the highest good. This highest good was thought to be the most important and ultimate aim of human existence and was considered to be an end that explained our existence.

This idea of a highest good is present in both western and eastern traditions. In the west, Christian tradition associated the idea of highest good with a righteous life, lived in accordance with the teachings of God. In this tradition, happiness and virtue are often presented as being mutually exclusive, but it is understood that happiness is found in the knowledge that one is working for the higher good.

In eastern traditions the idea of highest good is expressed in a variety of ways and understood by means of varied interpretations. For example, dharma is the idea of one's own virtuous duty or path, by which one should live to achieve the state of bliss. Tao, which translates as 'way' or 'path' is considered to be the source of the universe, while also being in every physical manifestation of that universe. In taoism it is believed that one cannot control the tao, but that one should be good and true in order to follow the tao. Moksha or mukti refers to the liberation from the cycle of reincarnation (the cycle of life, death and re-birth known as samsara) after the atman (soul or true self, other than how we understand it through its physical manifestation) becomes one with parataman (the supreme spirit). Moksha has a similar meaning to nirvana, which is a state of freedom achieved by quenching all greed, hatred and delusion.

Self-realization is understood as liberation from samsara but is also an important idea within western psychology, specifically within psychosynthesis. Psychosynthesis is a branch of psychology that diverged from Freud's focus upon the ego and our fantasies about having sex with our parents and encompassed the idea of transpersonal development. Transpersonal development is similar to self-actualisation and its importance within psychosynthesis means that this branch of psychology focuses on allowing us to develop into not just functioning human beings, but good old self-realised souls who follow whatever calling we feel we have and live up to our greatest potential.

I have not even begun to discuss the cynics who taught that we should all be self sufficient and become happy by living a natural life (yes more of that you-will-find-peace-in-the-trees-my-son philosophy, but this time from some people who've clearly given it a lot of thought). Or to get into Cyrenaicism, which was all about indulgence and abandoning oneself to the joys of immediate gratification and short-term pleasures.

As it turns out, much to our detriment, we lived the hedonistic life all through the naughty nouties and have found out the hard way that short term pleasures often cost more in the longer term and lead to unemployment, disenchantment and large mortgages.

Epicurus had an answer to this, which was that stalwart of successful dieting - moderation. He taught that we would attain happiness by enjoyment of modest pleasure, friendship and virtuous living. According to him, the meaning of life was to take joy in the little things and not to allow stressful and negative thoughts to overcome the soul. Good for Epicurus.

Stoics were all about accepting one's lot, living a rational, reasonable life and achieving 'goodness' by living in harmony with the divine order of the universe. They suggested that one should seek meaning through rational contemplation and diligently practiced logic.

Essentially, although they cannot agree upon the essence of goodness, most philosophers suggest that to achieve it, and happiness, much study and concentrated effort are required and this, I fear, is why we are often tempted the way of cyrenaicism and hedonism.

If you're young, commitment to the study of virtue may seem like an enormous risk - forgo all the fun and games that abound, on the off chance that the ramblings of some old guy/lady with a beard will lead to eternal happiness? What if he/she is wrong and we only realise this after many years of goodness and study? By that point we may no longer have the will or the energy to enjoy whatever fun times are to be had. Thus, it can seem much more sensible to have our fun now and study virtue later. Only sometimes, as we recently learnt, the fun takes all the good out of it and we're left with an awfully big mess to clean up. In such cases some of us may be so bored by our joblessness and the fact that we can no longer afford to have much fun that we might even turn to seeking the meaning of life to get us through, end up reading about philosophy and, damn... those philosophers and their diligent-pursuit-of-knowledge thing will get you in the end, whether you like it or not.