Key Arguments

• She asserts 'the enormous superiority of contemplation over activity of any kind ... is not Christian in origin.'
• In Plato, political reorganization aims at enabling the philosopher’s contemplative life; Aristotle’s typology is guided by contemplation.
• Christianity 'conferred a religious sanction upon the abasement of the' active life to a secondary position, but the order itself coincided with the discovery of contemplation in late antiquity.

Source Quotes

It was, rather, the other way round: action was now also reckoned among the necessities of earthly life, so that contemplation (the , translated into the ) was left as the only truly free way of life. However, the enormous superiority of contemplation over activity of any kind, action not excluded, is not Christian in origin. We find it in Plato’s political philosophy, where the whole utopian reorganization of life is not only directed by the superior insight of the philosopher but has no aim other than to make possible the philosopher’s way of life.

However, the enormous superiority of contemplation over activity of any kind, action not excluded, is not Christian in origin. We find it in Plato’s political philosophy, where the whole utopian reorganization of life is not only directed by the superior insight of the philosopher but has no aim other than to make possible the philosopher’s way of life. Aristotle’s very articulation of the different ways of life, in whose order the life of pleasure plays a minor role, is clearly guided by the ideal of contemplation ( ).

Aristotle’s very articulation of the different ways of life, in whose order the life of pleasure plays a minor role, is clearly guided by the ideal of contemplation ( ). To the ancient freedom from the necessities of life and from compulsion by others, the philosophers added freedom and surcease from political activity ( ), so that the later Christian claim to be free from entanglement in worldly affairs, from all the busi ness of this world, was preceded by and originated in the philosophic of late antiquity. What had been demanded only by the few was now considered to be a right of all.

Traditionally, therefore, the term receives its meaning from the ; its very restricted dignity is bestowed upon it because it serves the needs and wants of contemplation in a living body. Christianity, with its belief in a hereafter whose joys announce themselves in the delights of contemplation, conferred a religious sanction upon the abasement of the to its derivative, secondary position; but the determination of the order itself coincided with the very discovery of contemplation ( ) as a human faculty, distinctly different from thought and reasoning, which occurred in the Socratic school and from then on has ruled metaphysical and political thought throughout our tradition. It seems unnecessary to my present purpose to discuss the reasons for this tradition.

Key Concepts

• the enormous superiority of contemplation over activity of any kind, action not excluded, is not Christian in origin.
• the whole utopian reorganization of life is not only directed by the superior insight of the philosopher
• To the ancient freedom from the necessities of life and from compulsion by others, the philosophers added freedom and surcease from political activity ( ),
• conferred a religious sanction upon the abasement of the to its derivative, secondary position;

Context

2 THE TERM Vita Activa: Genealogy of the contemplative ideal through ancient philosophy and its later Christian reinforcement.