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Postscript
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Postscript: Cosmopolitanism and Comparative Philosophy QED. That is what I would like to say. That which was to be demonstrated has been demonstrated. Philosophy is not like that. Demonstration is for mathematics, where if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. If the definitions of terms (number, point, line) are rigorous, the axioms self-evident (parallels never intersect), and logical rules are followed, then the conclusion is true necessarily. A theorem states a certainty. In a right triangle, any right triangle, any conceivable right triangle, it is necessary that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sums of the squares of the other two sides. What are the theorems of eudaimonics, the study of human flourishing? What are the relations between wisdom, virtue, and happiness—three sides of a human life well lived, a human life with the right sort of structure? There are some reliable relations among these three components of human life but there are no necessary connections. Spinoza, or so it seems, was wise, happy, and good. But he is exceptional. There are ignorant, unreflective souls who are good and happy, Tolstoy’s Christian peasants, perhaps. There are wise and happy Übermenschen, like Plato’s character Callicles, who are smart and well educated, who live heroically, as strong poets, brilliantly even, but not, in many cases, compassionately. There are tortured souls, like Nietzsche, who see ever so deeply and are as wise as a person can be, but who pay the price of surrendering their prospects for happiness and for finding a stable moral orientation. Empirical inquiry into human well-being—eudaimonics—has never, not once, in the history of human reflection yielded a theorem about living well, not one claim about necessary connections among wisdom, virtue, and happiness. It has made claims about necessary connections, several of which I have discussed. But in every case there are the exceptions. On one side, there are the extraordinarily good souls like Euripides’s Hecuba, who despite her great nobility, her enormous decency and reliability, cannot prevent coming undone when fate 204 Postscript skewers her again and again, and then eventually, one time too many, at which point the center, which in her case is her beautiful and resilient character , cannot hold, things fall apart, and she becomes a homicidal maniac. And on the other side there are the Calliclean types who despite walking all over more pedestrian souls, consuming their being as necessary, are nonetheless rewarded with the shiny coat of a beast who flourishes. That said, philosophy has yielded some wisdom about certain typical or reliable connections among the components of a life well lived, a good life, between wisdom, virtue, and happiness. Uncertainty rather than logical surety is life’s usual accompanist. Living is risk, a matter of self-expression under uncertainty, a psychopoetic performance with a troupe of other actors who know—to varying degrees—the norms of a tradition, but all of whom are engaged mostly in improvisation. Living is not a matter of executing an algorithm, or if it is, we are clueless as to what algorithm we are executing. A good life is a matter of living and being a certain way, or more likely, living and being in one of the multifarious ways that are worthy, which lead to flourishing and, if we are very lucky, to happiness. We are heirs and heiresses to the wisdom of the ages, to the results of numerous previous experiments in living. It is natural to wonder: Which ways of being and living are better or worse among the tried and tested ways? If the ways of living that produce flourishing were a subset of all the possibilities, it would be good to know what the good ones are. Here Buddhism turns up on the radar—as do a host of other ways of being and living; indeed most ways that have been tried, most experiments that have been tried and lasted some, have some merits. Perhaps there are several right answers to the question , How ought I to live? Perhaps there are many answers. Perhaps only a few of the best ideas have been tried. This is what I think. Philosophical reflection such as we have been engaged in here aims for truth and truthful speaking about flourishing, it aims at wisdom, not proof, deduction, or demonstration, not a set of theorem-like recipes for how to live well. So what can I claim to have accomplished in this...