A dispute · spans 4 eras
What is the Good Life?
Pleasure, virtue, contemplation, tranquillity, self-creation, defiant happiness?
Maybe the central question philosophy has ever asked. Plato: the philosopher's life of contemplation. Aristotle: the active life of virtue, in a community, with friends and modest fortune. Epicurus: a quiet garden, simple pleasures, deep friendships, no fear of death. The Stoics: virtue is sufficient; everything else is indifferent. Nietzsche: create your own values, affirm the eternal recurrence. Camus: revolt lucidly against the absurd; one must imagine Sisyphus happy. There is no consensus. The continued absence of consensus is part of what makes philosophy worth doing.
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