Essay

Essay

HUM 123
Oct 04, 2011

Analyze the Truth and Logic
      This paper will be concerned with the views on happiness expressed by three notable writers from the past: the philosopher Aristotle, the playwright Sophocles, and the psychologist Freud. Each of these writers had a different perspective on what happiness is and the best way to achieve it. In this paper, the truth and logic of their arguments will be analyzed. It will be argued that a certain amount of truth and logic can be found in the claims of each man. When their views are taken together, we are able to get an overall idea of what happiness means to human beings.
      According to Aristotle, all people seek happiness. As claimed by Aristotle, happiness as the "common aim" of all human beings. This statement makes a great deal of sense. After all, nobody wants to be unhappy. Aristotle further argues that happiness is obtained when people have "virtue". The best kind of virtue involves not going to extremes. For example, people who worry too much will not be happy. However, people who worry too little will also not be happy.
 

In order to experience happiness, people need to be balanced in such things. Aristotle also makes the logical argument that true happiness is "self-sufficient". In other words, true happiness is a way of life as opposed to something that we feel temporarily.
      Like Aristotle, Freud points out that people seek to be happy and to avoid feelings of pain or displeasure. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud describes various ways that people seek to find happiness. However, in contrast to Aristotle, Freud takes a pessimistic view on this topic. As argued by Freud, "by none of these paths can we attain all that we desire". This part of Freud’s argument does not seem to be entirely true. He seems to be disagreeing with Aristotle’s idea that it is possible for people to have a "self-sufficient" happiness that they experience all the time rather than merely temporarily....