I could be wrong but one of the things that I think that we have lost especially over the past ten years or so, is any kind of political notion of Eudaimonia. It used to be for a while that have witnessed and participated in the worst kinds of horrors that mankind inflicted on itself, we as a world were forced to take a good hard look at ourselves and quite rightly be very very scared of the human condition.
At the centre of human nature, I think that it is self-evident that the centre of the universe is ourselves. The centre of the observable universe is always from the observer's standpoint and because we can see no other, that invariably must mean that selfishness is the default position.
The outworking of that standpoint, in the earlier part of last century resulted in the destruction of 100 million people in two bouts of global unpleasantness; culminating in the literal vapourisation of people by the means of atomic extinction device, not once but twice.
In the wake of the second bout of unpleasantness, a short period of trying to rebuild the world in a spirit of Eudaimonia took hold. Suddenly, the old Aristotlean idea of Eudaimonia or the state or condition of 'good spirit' ('eu' good + 'daimon' tutelary deity) generally comes out as either 'happiness' or perhaps 'welfare'. In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, eudaimonia is seen as the the highest good for humans and that living a 'good' life and living 'well' is the highest purpose (even though philosophy generally likes to argue longly and loudly about what kind of live being lead and how it is lead, counts as living well).
I would like to posit that there are several elements which hint at what might be taken to living a good life and that all of these can be examined and more importantly, practiced for their own sake. I think that there would be few people who disagree about the value of these things.
Eudaimonia - Element I - Truth.
Aristotle likes to use the word Aletheia; which is a-lethe or 'without concealment'. Truth is that which can be proven, which is self-evident, which can be demonstrated, or which is factual about the nature of reality. Likewise, Alethiology as the study of truth, is different to epistemology which is concerned with the study of knowledge. Granted that there is a semantic difference but it must be said that what is true is a far narrower field than what can be known and how it is known.
Generally speaking, truth is nominally coherent. That is, the facts which go together to make up a true statement or a truth in itself, must all be integrated into something which is at least logical. Admittedly as small and limited beings, we are not actually in possession of all facts and so in a lot of cases, the best fit or explanation which reconciles all known facts is more likely to describe a truth.
I suppose that it might be possible to construct a truth from things which are incoherent but I fail to see how that works by definition. Usually incoherence and being illogical go together. On the face of it, proposing an argument from incoherence, validates it and that doesn't hold up internally.
One of the things which helps if you are trying to establish something as true, is how many people will consent to it. Now obviously just because people agree to a thing doesn't make a thing true, such as saying that the earth is flat when it just isn't, but some things must depend upon the consent of an individual to establishing whether or not a thing is true.
A thing can be taken to be true if when a series of arguments and statements follow each other in a way in strict consistency. If P=Q and Q=R then it can be taken that P=R. This kind of logic however, falls over if the premises require an a priori standpoint or another test to prove any of the elements. If a thing is able to demonstrate consistency with the facts it considers, then it follows that all possible facts must also be able to demonstrate that same consistency in order to be considered as truth; regardless of how they might affect the theory. A lot of science is based on the principle of trying to look for something to break the system because once broken, a thing does not hold up to being true any more.
Having said that, things might very well be true if they appear to contradict each other but are not necessarily related. The real value of a proof makes itself known which it can reconcile seemingly disparate and unconnected and possibly contradictory facts into a coherent and cohesive whole.
In general if things are cohesive, consistent and people will consent to them, then not only do you get closer to establishing what is true but you also get closer to establishing harmony and peace. Most people will agree that it is not a good idea to murder people, to use violence against people, or to steal from them, and if all of these things are true, then avoiding these things produces the collective good of peace and harmony. That which is peaceful and in harmony, gets closer to what we might call 'good'.
Especially in the realm of politics, the amount of disharmony and disunity which has erupted, has been less to do with merely people yelling at each other but the abandonment of truth and the repeated propagation of lies. It does not help that news outlets which may once have been the big gatekeepers of collective truth, have decided to disseminate lies in the name of profits. Moreover, the internet which has the ability to connect anyone to anything that they choose to select in their own personal nest of statements, doesn't really do a good job of demarcating the sacred and the silly and fact from fiction. Whereas once in a newspaper the physical sections of the paper kept those things separate, today they are paraded along side each other. Worse, social media which makes no judgement on the value of anything, parades everything in one giant doomscroll.
Science and Religion and Art all in their own way teach us something about the nature of reality, about the nature of the human condition, and about the nature of ourselves and how we fit into it. It is worth thinking about what it is true, why it is true, whether or not that truth can be broken, or whether or not it can be fashioned into something which is better. Until we've repaid for the dreams we've bought with our lies, we'll be cast away alone under stormy skies.
"In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
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