by Aristotle
[B 44] It is not at all strange, then, if it [sc. understanding] does not show itself useful or advantageous; for we call it not advantageous but good, and it should be chosen not for the sake of something else but for itself. For as we travel to Olympia for the sake of the spectacle itself, even if nothing more were to follow from it (for the spectacle itself is worth more than much money), and as we view the Dionysia not in order to gain anything from the actors (indeed, we spend money on them), and as there are many other spectacles we should prefer to much money, so too the contemplation of the universe is to be honoured above all things that are thought useful. For surely we should not take great pains to go to see men imitating women and slaves, or fighting and running, and yet not think it right to view without payment the nature and reality of things.
(Iamblichus, Protrepticus 54.10–56.12 Pistelli):
[B 46] But that contemplative understanding is also of the greatest usefulness to us for our practical life can easily be seen from the arts. For as clever doctors and most experts in physical training pretty well agree that those who are to be good doctors or trainers must have a general knowledge of nature, so good lawmakers too must have a general knowledge of nature—and indeed much more than the former. For the former only produce excellence in the body, while the latter, being concerned with the excellences of the soul and claiming to teach about the happiness and misery of the state, need philosophy still more. [B 47] For just as in the ordinary crafts the best tools were discovered from nature, as for instance in the builder’s art the plumbline, the ruler and the compasses—for some come from water, others from light and the rays of the sun—, and it is by reference to these that we determine what is to the senses sufficiently straight and smooth, in the same way the statesman must have certain boundary-markers taken from nature itself and from truth by reference to which he will determine what is just, what is good, and what is expedient. For just as there these tools excel all others, so too the best law is that which has the greatest possible conformity to nature.
[B 48] Nobody, however, who has not practised philosophy and learned truth is able to do this. Furthermore, in the other arts and crafts men do not take their tools and their most accurate reasonings from first principles and so attain something approaching knowledge: they take them from what is second or third hand or at a distant remove, and base their reasonings on experience. The philosopher alone imitates that which is exact; for he looks at the exact things themselves, not at imitations. [B 49] Consequently, as a man is not a good builder if he does not use the ruler or any other such instrument but takes his measure from other buildings, so presumably if a man either lays down laws for cities or performs actions by looking at and imitating other human actions or constitutions, whether of Sparta or Crete or of any other state, he is not a good or serious lawgiver; for an imitation of what is not good cannot be good, nor can an imitation of what is not divine and stable in its nature be immortal and stable. But it is clear that to the philosopher alone among craftsmen belong laws that are stable and actions that are right and noble. [B 50] For he alone lives by looking at nature and the divine. Like a good helmsman he moors his life to that which is eternal and unchanging, drops his anchor there, and lives his own master.
[B 51] This knowledge is indeed contemplative, but it enables us to frame all our practice in accordance with it. For just as sight makes and shapes nothing (since its only work is to judge and to show us everything than can be seen), yet enables us to act as it directs and gives us the greatest assistance towards action (for we should be almost entirely motionless if deprived of it), so it is clear that, though knowledge is contemplative, yet we do innumerable things in accordance with it, choose some things and avoid others, and in general gain as a result of it everything that is good.
F 52 R3 (Iamblichus, de communi mathematica scientia 79.15–80.1 Festa):
[B 52] Now he who is to consider these matters must not forget that all things good and useful for human life reside in use and action, not in mere knowledge; for we become healthy not by knowing the things that produce health but by applying them to our bodies; we become wealthy not by knowing wealth but by possessing much property; most important of all, we live well not by knowing something of that which exists, but by doing well; for this is true happiness. It follows that philosophy too, if it is useful, must be either a doing of good things or useful as a means to such acts.
(Iamblichus, Protrepticus 40.1–41.5 Pistelli):
[B 53] Now we ought not to flee philosophy if it is, as we think, the acquisition and exercise of wisdom, and wisdom is among the greatest goods; and if in pursuit of gain we run many risks by sailing to the pillars of Hercules, we should not shrink from labour or expense in the pursuit of understanding. It is slave-like to desire to live rather than to live well, to follow the opinions of the many instead of expecting the many to follow one’s own, to seek money but show no concern at all for what is noble.
[B 54] As to the value and the greatness of the thing, I think we have sufficiently proved our case; that the acquisition of wisdom is much easier than that of other goods, one might be convinced by the following arguments. [B 55] The fact that those who pursue philosophy get no reward from men to spur them to the considerable efforts they make, and1 that having spent much on acquiring other skills, nevertheless in a short time their progress in exact knowledge is rapid, seems to me a sign of the easiness of philosophy. [B 56] So too that all men feel at home in philosophy and wish to spend their lives in the pursuit of it, leaving all other cares, is no small evidence that it is pleasant to sit down to it; for no-one is willing to work hard for a long time. Besides, the exercise of philosophy differs very much from all other labours: those who practise it need no tools or places for their work; wherever in the whole world one sets one’s thought to work, one is everywhere equally able to grasp the truth as if it were actually present. [B 57] Thus it has been proved that philosophy is possible, that it is the greatest of goods, and that it is easy to acquire; so that on all counts it is fitting that we should eagerly lay hold of it.
(Iamblichus, Protrepticus 41.15–42.29 Pistelli):
[B 59] Further, part of us is soul, part body; the one rules, the other is ruled; the one uses, the other is present as its instrument. Again, the use of that which is ruled, i.e. the instrument, is always arranged to fit that which rules and uses. [B 60] Of the soul one part is reason (which by nature rules and judges in matters concerning ourselves), the other part follows and is of a nature such as to be ruled; everything is well arranged in accordance with its appropriate excellence—for to attain this is good. [B 61] And indeed, when the most authoritative and most honourable parts attain their excellence, then it is well arranged; now the natural excellence of that which is naturally better is the better, and that which is by nature more fit to rule and more authoritative is better, as man is in relation to the other animals; consequently soul is better than body (for it is fitter to rule), and of soul, that part which has reason and thought (for such is that which commands and forbids and says that we ought or ought not to act). [B 62] Whatever excellence, then, is the excellence of this part must be, for all beings in general and for us, the most desirable of all things; for one would, I think, maintain that we are this part, either alone or especially.
[B 63] Further, when a thing best produces that which is—not by accident but in itself—its product, then that thing must be said to be good too, and that excellence in virtue of which each thing can achieve precisely this result must be termed its supreme excellence. [B 64] Now that which is composite and divisible into parts has several different activities; but that which is by nature simple and whose substance does not consist in a relation to something else must have only one proper excellence of its own. [B 65] If, then, man is a simple animal and his substance is ordered according to reason and mind, he has no other product than the most exact truth and a true account of the things that exist; but if he is composed of several faculties, it is clear
that when someone can produce several things, the best of them is always his product, e.g. health is of the doctor and safety of the helmsman. Now we can name no better product of thought and the thinking part of the soul than truth. Truth therefore is the supreme product of this part of the soul.
[B 66] Now this it does, generally speaking, by knowledge, and more so by knowledge of a more perfect kind; and the supreme end of this is contemplation. For when of two things one is desirable for the sake of the other, the latter is better and more desirable for the same reason as the other is desirable; e.g. pleasure than pleasant things, health than healthy things; for these are said to be productive of those. [B 67] Now nothing is more worthy of choice, when one state is compared with another, than understanding, which we maintain to be the faculty of the supreme element in us; for the cognitive part, whether taken alone or in combination with the other parts, is better than all the rest of the soul; and its excellence is knowledge.
[B 68] Therefore none of what are called the particular excellences is its product; for it is better than all of them and the end produced is always better than the knowledge that produces it. Nor is every excellence of the soul in this way its product; nor is happiness. For if it is to be productive, it will produce results different from itself; as the art of building produces a house but is not part of a house. But understanding is part of excellence and of happiness; for we say that happiness either comes from it or is it. [B 69] According to this argument too, then, it cannot be a productive knowledge; for the end must be better than that which is coming to be and nothing is better than understanding, unless it is one of the things we have named—and none of these is a product distinct from it. Therefore we must say that this form of knowledge is contemplative, since it is impossible that its end should be production.
[B 70] Hence understanding and contemplation are the product of the soul, and this is of all things the most desirable for men, comparable, I think, to eyesight. For one would choose to have sight even if nothing other than sight itself were to result from it. [B 71] Again, if we love one thing because something else necessarily results from it, clearly we shall wish more for that which possesses this quality more fully; e.g. if a man chooses walking because it is healthy but finds that running is more healthy and that he can get it, he will prefer running and, if he knows, would choose to run. If, therefore, true opinion is similar to understanding, and if true opinion is desirable precisely according to the manner and extent to which it is like understanding by reason of being true, then if this is found more in understanding, understanding is more desirable than believing truly.
(Iamblichus, Protrepticus 43.25–27 Pistelli):
[B 72] Again, if we love sight for its own sake, that is sufficient evidence that all men love understanding and knowing most of all.
(Iamblichus, Protrepticus 44.26–45.3 Pistelli):
[B 73] For in loving life they love understanding and knowing; they value life for no other reason than for the sake of perception, and above all for the sake of sight; they evidently love this faculty in the highest degree because it is, in comparison with the other senses, simply a kind of knowledge.
(Iamblichus, Protrepticus 44.9–26 Pistelli):
[B 74] Indeed, living is distinguished from not living by perception, and life is determined by its presence and power: if this is taken away life is not worth living; it is as though life itself were removed by the loss of perception. [B 75] Now of perceptions the power of sight is distinguished by being the clearest, and it is for this reason that we prefer it to the other senses; but every sense is a cognitive power which works through the body, as hearing perceives sound through the ears. [B 76] Therefore, if life is desirable for the sake of perception and perception is a kind of knowing, and if it is because the soul can come to know by means of it that we desire to live; [B 77] further, if, as we said just now, of two things, the one which possesses the desirable quality more fully is always more desirable, then of the senses sight must be the most desirable and honourable; and understanding is more desirable than it and than all the other senses, and than life itself, since it has a stronger grasp of truth; hence all men aim at understanding, most of all things.
(Iamblichus, Protrepticus 56.13–59.17 Pistelli):
[B 78] That those who have chosen to live according to mind also enjoy life most will be clear from the following argument. [B 79] Things are said to be alive in two senses, in virtue of a potentiality and in virtue of an actuality; for we describe as seeing both those animals which have sight and are naturally capable of seeing, even if they happen to have their eyes shut, and those which are using this faculty and are looking at something. Similarly with knowing and cognition: we sometimes mean by it the use of the faculty and contemplation, sometimes the possession of the faculty and having knowledge. [B 80] If, then, we distinguish life from non-life by the possession of perception, and perceiving has two senses—properly of using one’s senses, in another way of being able to use them (it is for this reason, it seems, that we say even of a sleeping man that he perceives)—it is clear that living will correspondingly be taken in two senses: a waking man must be said to live in the true and proper sense; as for a sleeping man, because he is capable of passing into the activity in virtue of which we say that a man is waking and perceiving something, it is for this reason and with reference to this that we describe him as living. [B 81] When, therefore, each of two things is called by the same term, the one by being active the other by being passive, we shall say that the former possesses the property to a greater degree; e.g. we shall say that a man who uses knowledge knows to a greater degree than a man who possesses knowledge, and that a man who is looking at something sees to a greater degree than one who can do so. [B 82] For we use ‘to a greater degree’ not only in virtue of an excess (in the case of things which share a single account) but also in virtue of priority and posteriority; e.g. we say that health is good to a greater degree than healthy things, and that what is by its own nature desirable is so to a greater degree than what is productive of this; yet we see that there is not a single account1 predicated of both when we say both of useful things and of excellence that each is good. [B 83] Thus we say that a waking man lives to a greater degree than a sleeping man, and that a man who is exercising his soul lives to a greater degree than a man who possesses it; for it is because of the former that we say that the latter lives, because he is such as to be active or passive in this manner. [B 84] The use of anything, then, is this: if the capacity is for a single thing, then it is doing just that thing; if it is for several things, then it is doing whichever is the best of these. E.g. a flute: a man uses a flute only or especially when he plays it—for the other cases presumably also fit here. Thus we must say that he who uses a thing aright uses it to a greater degree; for he who uses something well and accurately uses it for the natural end and in the natural way.
[B 85] Now thinking and reasoning are, either alone or above everything else, the products of the soul. It is now simple and easy for anyone to infer that the man who thinks aright lives to a greater degree, and that he who reaches truth in the highest degree lives in the highest degree, and that this is the man who understands and contemplates according to the most precise knowledge; and it is then and to these men that perfect life must be ascribed—to those who understand and are men of understanding. [B 86] Now if for every animal to live is the same as to exist, it is clear that the man of understanding will exist to the highest degree and in the most proper sense, and most of all when he is exercising this faculty and contemplating what is most knowable of all things.
[B 87] Again, perfect and unimpeded activity contains in itself delight; so that the activity of contemplation must be the most pleasant of all. [B 88] Further, there is a difference between enjoying oneself while drinking and enjoying drinking; for there is nothing to prevent a man who is not thirsty, or is not getting the drink he enjoys, from enjoying himself while drinking—not because he is drinking but because he h
appens at the same time to be looking at something or to be looked at as he sits. So we shall say that such a man enjoys himself, and enjoys himself while drinking, but not that he does so because he is drinking, nor that he is enjoying drinking. In the same way we shall say that walking, sitting down, learning, any activity, is pleasant or painful, not if we happen to feel pain or pleasure in the presence of these activities, but if we are all pained or pleased by their presence. [B 89] Similarly, we shall call that life pleasant whose presence is pleasant to those who have it; and we shall say that not all who have pleasure while living enjoy living, but only those to whom living is itself pleasant and who rejoice in the pleasure that comes from life.