Happiness and Contemplation

By Josef Pieper

“The ultimate of human happiness is to be found in contemplation.” In offering this proposition of Thomas Aquinas to our thought, Josef Pieper uses traditional wisdom in order to throw light on present-day reality and present-day psychological problems. What, in fact, does one pursue in pursuing happiness? What, in the consensus of the wisdom of the early Greeks, of Plato and Aristotle, of the New Testament, of Augustine and Aquinas, is that condition of perfect bliss toward which all life and effort tend by nature? In this profound and illuminating inquiry, Pieper considers the nature of contemplation, and the meaning and goal of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: St. Augustines Press
• Release date: Apr 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781587313721

Josef Pieper

Josef Pieper, perhaps the most popular Thomist philosopher of the twentieth century, was schooled in the Greek classics and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. He also studied philosophy, law, and sociology, and he was a professor at the University of Munster, West Germany. His numerous books have been widely praised by both the secular and religious press.

Book preview

Other books by Josef Pieper from St. Augustine’s Press

The Christian Idea of Man, preface by John Haldane, trans. by Dan Farrelly

The Concept of Sin, trans. by Edward R. Oakes, S.J.

Death and Immortality, trans. by Richard and Clara Winston

Enthusiasm and Divine Madness: On the Platonic Dialogue Phaedrus, trans. by Richard and Clara Winson

The Silence of Goethe, preface by Ralph McInerny, trans. by Dan Farrelly

In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity, trans. by Richard and Clara Winston

The Silence of St. Thomas, trans. by John Murray, S.J., and Daniel O’Connor

The Platonic Myths, introduction by James V. Schall, trans. by Dan Farrelly

Scholasticism: Personalities and Problems of Medieval Philosophy, trans. by Richard and Clara Winston

Tradition: Concept and Claim, trans. by E. Christian Kopff

Tradition as Challenge: Essays and Speeches, trans. by Dan Farrelly

with Heinz Raskop, What Catholics Believe, introduction by Gerald B. Phelan, trans. by Christopher Huntington

Happiness & Contemplation

JOSEF PIEPER

Introduction by

Ralph McInerny

Translated by

Richard and Clara Winston

ST. AUGUSTINE’S PRESS

South Bend, Indiana

Copyright © 1979 by Kösel-Verlag

Translation copyright © 1958 by Pantheon Books Inc.

Introduction copyright © 1998 by St. Augustine’s Press, Inc.

Original German title: Glück und Kontemplation from Kösel-Verlag, Munich

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of St. Augustine’s Press.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

5  6  7  8  27  26  25  24  23  22  21  20  19

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Piepe, Josef, 1904–

     [Glück und Kontemplation. English]

     Happiness and Contemplation / Josef Pieper: introduced by Ralph McInerny; translated by Richard and Clara Winston

                    p.    cm.

     Originally published: New York: Pantheon c 1958. with new introd.

     Includes bibliographical references (p.   )

     ISBN 1-890318-30-2 (cloth: alk. paper) –

     ISBN 1-890318-31-0 (pbk.: alk. paper

     1. Contemplation. 2. Happiness.  I. Title

           BV5091.C7P513    1998

           248.3’4 – dc21              98-18476

∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Science – Permanence of Paper for Printed Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1984

ST. AUGUSTINE’S PRESS

www.staugustine.net

ISBN-13: 978-1-58731-372-1 (electronic)

CONTENTS

Introduction by Ralph McInerny

I

The ultimate of human happiness is to be found in contemplation. We use happiness to denote what men ordinarily mean by this term. To be sure, in all languages the term tends toward banality. Nevertheless, we can always detect the relationship which links all gratification of any thirst with ultimate beatitude.

II

Man desires happiness by nature, that is, in the same manner as the falling stone seeks the depths. By nature means: by virtue of his creation. Freedom and unfreedom in the craving for happiness. The locus of this craving is the realm of the mind. No one can make himself happy. Happiness is a gift. One cannot imagine the perfectly happy man.

III

God and happiness are the same. The staggering conclusion: God’s beatitude is not troubled by evil in the historical world. But salvation would be inconceivable if there were not, at the source of reality, this infinitely unimpaired divine Being. The great divine joy the only reality.

IV

The whole energy of human nature: hunger and thirst. Happiness as a drink, happiness as drinking. Satiation is expected from somewhere else. The whole good. The finite spirit is by virtue of his nature insatiable—unless he partake of God Himself.

V

Happiness and joy are two different things. Joy is essentially secondary, the response to happiness. The goods which we seek even at the cost of joy. Nevertheless joy has no purpose beyond itself.

VI

Happiness means: attaining the whole good. But what is meant by attaining? Happiness as a result of acting and doing. Three fundamental propositions: happiness mean perfection; perfection means realization; realization comes by acting. Acting that remains within. The work does not absorb the creator.

VII

The wholly happy man is one who sees. The opposing argument: Do we love in order to know? Knowing as the noblest form of possession. Augustine, too, says, Our whole reward is seeing. Possession of the beloved object is knowing it. This is the Eternal Life.

VIII

The two modes of the act of love: longing and joy. To know in the Biblical sense: closest presence. Happy is the man who sees what he loves. Where love is, there is the eye too. Contemplation as awareness of the beloved object.

IX

What constitutes contemplation? First: silent perception of reality. Second: not thinking, but intuition; intuition is knowledge of what is present. Third: knowing accompanied by amazement. Only one who does not see the whole can be amazed.

X

Earthly contemplation based on the premise that intuition is possible for physical man also, and that he can somehow comprehend the drink called happiness. There is no nonreligious contemplation. But awareness of the divine element can be kindled by virtually anything encountered. The obscure and simultaneously commonplace forms of contemplation and the need that they may be recognized for what they are. Gerard Manley Hopkins. The message experienced by intuition is not communicable.

XI

Reply to the counterarguments of the practical man: In what does life itself consist once the means of livelihood have been won? Morality points beyond itself. Loving means: to desire the beloved to be happy; and happiness is intuition. It is not possible to rest ultimately content in the felicity of the active life. Contemplation as the goal of politics. Practice becomes meaningless as soon as it is thought to be an end in itself. The practice of the artist: When something is finished, it must be perfect—but what then? Is desiring-to-possess more than possession? Is joy more important than its reason? Anaxagoras: We are born for seeing.

XII

The same characteristics are to be found in the intuitive and the happy man. Simplicity. The step out of time. Seeing in itself makes for happiness. The closed sphere. Freedom from fetters. George Santayana: crowning in intuition.

XIII

Ought the high-minded person renounce the escape of happiness? Refusal of consent to the world. It is not our merit that the possibility of happiness exists. The dark night on the way of contemplation. The sight of the historical Gethsemane. Happiness founded on sorrow. Its blessing and dazzling light.

Notes

Introduction

One need not be a philosopher to wonder what it all means but perhaps only a philosopher would suggest that our deepest longing is for contemplation. It is the major merit of Josef Pieper’s Happiness and Contemplation that he makes this surprising claim seem like sweet reason itself. As it is.

The opening line of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is this: All men by nature desire to know. This will not seem like the first thought that would pop into your mind down at McDonald’s or in Row 12 of a boxing match. Remembering some of our relatives might seem to render Aristotle’s claim a bad joke. Indeed we might wonder if it covers even ourselves. Yet his is an unqualifiedly universal claim. To be a human being is to want to know.

Aristotle, as it happens,

Reviews for Happiness and Contemplation

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What does the pursuit of happiness have to do with contemplation. Why do we need both and what do the ancients up to and including Aquinas have to say that will inform us in our search for the good life? These and other issues are explored in this somewhat unique study of what it means to live a fulfilled human life.