welcome back to Carnegie Zork today we're gonna be continuing with our series dumbfounding definitions dizzying distinctions and diabolical doctrines a series sorting through some the jargon of philosophy in this video we're looking at what is eudaimonia now the word eudaimonia is an ancient Greek word that appears in many philosophical texts historically it has been translated as happiness in philosophical context thought can mean wealth prosperity or good fortune in other contexts however most modern historians claim that this is an inaccurate translation eudaimonia is not thought of as an emotion or an affective state in the way we might think of happiness or joy being it's more kind of a constant state of being or something to be achieved that exists throughout your life literally the parts of the word translate into well and spirit this has given rise to other proposed translations of living well the good life or flourishing or just having your life together well closer to the real meaning some translators often still just leave the word in the original Greek to signal to readers that don't have the historical context the difference between ancient and modern notions of happiness because as we'll see you die Minea doesn't perfectly map on to what we think of as happiness so while many ancient Greek philosophers claimed that eudaimonia constitutes the goal of humanity they disagreed exactly as to what you died Minea consists in Aristotle famously claimed that virtue is necessary but not sufficient for eudaimonia he argued that to live well is to successfully use one's rational faculties to correctly apply the virtues to moral dilemmas simply being virtuous isn't enough the strokes on the other hand claim that eudaimonia meant living in accordance with nature this meant rationally understanding our place in nature and fitting into the good flow of life to the use of our practical reason and understanding of the universe and our place in it a more concrete description of the Stoics position was that the Stoics claimed that virtue was necessary and sufficient for the good life for eudaimonia that you didn't need to have other things on top simply being virtuous was enough but confusingly there were other elements of life such as wealth or health which were preferable to have you'd rather have them than not but weren't necessary or sufficient to be having the good life they're not necessarily part of having a good life but you'd rather have them than not have them but you can be sick and poor and still live a good life the Epicureans on the other hand defined eudaimonia in terms of pleasure however this was not necessarily bodily pleasures is often confused as these according to the Epicureans often brought about unpleasurable consequences if you think someone going out for a night drinking wine in the Agora might suffer some unpleasurable consequences in the morning for Epicureans it was more about the absence of pain and the absence of mental concerns or worries check out my videos both on Epicurus and Epicureanism for more on the broad epicurean philosophy as well as some of the understanding of why Epicurus advocated for happiness as a form of absence of pain or absence of worry cyrenaic on the other hand claimed that eudaimonia was not the ultimate goal but rather that physical hedonic pleasure was this position is often confused with the epicurean position this furthers the case that a kind of utilitarian view of happiness or a modern view of happiness that happiness is something that you experience or that pleasure is what we're talking about is not really what the ancient Greeks meant by eudaimonia and the cyrenaic is actually advocated for pleasure not eudaimonia as the ultimate goal it wasn't about living this full expansive life it was really about experiencing good things and good pleasures check out my video on siren ace ism for more the missing agent school is of course the sceptics but they did not believe anything or they believed that you couldn't know anything depending on which school you're looking at and so had no beliefs about the end goal life however the followers of Pierrot did make the case that lacking all beliefs would lead to a state of ataraxia or freedom from concerns what do you think what is the goal of life as much as this eudaimonia is kind of an archaic philosophical term this is a central question in philosophy and for most people that have kind of existential crises is virtue sufficient for happiness or for having a good life if you're a good person does that mean that you have the good life or your flourishing what about freedom from pain or concern is carnal pleasure the only good that really matters leave your thoughts in the comments below watch this video and more here at cardi's org and stay skeptical everybody