Open AccessTHE IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE IN ARISTOTLE AND CONFUCIUS
Author(s) -
John Gabriel Mendie,
Stephen Nwanaokuo Udofia
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
jurnal sosialisasi: jurnal hasil pemikiran, penelitian dan pengembangan keilmuan sosiologi pendidikan/jurnal sosialisasi: jurnal hasil pemikiran, penelitian and pengembangan keilmuan sosiologi pendidikan
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2722-3086
pISSN - 2356-0886
DOI - 10.26858/sosialisasi.v0i1.14529
Subject(s) - utopia , ideal (ethics) , the good life , mythology , publicity , aesthetics , form of the good , philosophy , epistemology , sociology , literature , history , law , art , art history , political science
Man, by nature, desires to live a good and happy life. But often times, the enduring quest for the blissful and delightful, eludes man. This constant questing and concurrent yearning make man restless, until his hopes and aspirations of the good or happy life, are crowned with an éclat. But, can man ever attain or realize this feat in the society? Is the idea of the good life, a mirage, a myth or reality? Even more seriously, what does the good life really entail? Is it predicated on material things, that is, on the mundane? Or is the good life, a kind of utopia, an ideal that seeks to bring to the glare of publicity, the “oughts” of life as the case may be? Since the idea of the good life is something well-defined, does it also imply that there is such a thing as the bad life? If, such exist, what would it consist of? Armed with these cogitations, this paper, attempts an expository-comparative study of the good life, its constitutive elements and its attainability in the thoughts of two distinguished philosophers: Confucius (in the East) and Aristotle (in the West).