The Happy Human Life In dialogue with Plato and Aristotle

This volume contains the map of a journey in search of happiness. A journey on an absolutely fascinating theme, one that every human being cannot help but run with enthusiasm; a "dreamlike" journey, and yet at times tortuous and uncomfortable; a journey for which the reflections of Plato and Aristotle prove to be irreplaceable compasses. It begins with happiness understood as a question and more precisely as an original question, as the source of every other question and of every desire, to arrive at the notion of happiness as fullness, as the conferring of meaning to every fabric of existence. Happiness, Plato and Aristotle teach us, never happens by chance, but is the product of a long and conscious construction. Therefore, it is also a task that each individual, starting from their own unmistakable individuality, is called to to carry out and with which one must come to grips. Day after day. This is why happiness, the authentic "tailored suit" of our existence, is defined by two ancient philosophers as the happiness of the entire life, the complete life, bíos téleios. Within this fundamental theoretical framework are the crucial notions of aréte and phrónesis, which constitute the cornerstone of that harmonious whole (despite the numerous disharmonies that characterize it) that is the happy human life. Finally, for Plato and Aristotle, happy is he who knows how to "enjoy life" in the literal sense of the term, that is, to savor it in the right way. As the only being in the world capable of being eudaimonic, humans have the duty to take the risk inherent in every great undertaking. They have the duty to consciously assume the element of unpredictability that characterizes every eudaimonistic strategy. Based on this assumption, they have the duty to fully commit themselves to playing their own game.