Does human nature really exist? Is there such thing as life purpose? And how is happiness achieved? These are some of the question that has been puzzling philosophers since the beginning of time. In this essay I am going to explain how the Greek philosopher Aristotle and the more contemporary French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre related to these questions. Let’s begin with discussing human nature. The concept itself is believed to have originated with Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Plato who first introduced the idea of ‘forms’ (by form they referred to the essences of all objects, the very thing that defines them, humans included, and without which the object in question would and could not be what it is) and linked that …show more content…

If we define the function of Man as a kind of life, and this life as an activity of the soul, or a course of action in comformity with reason, if the function of a good man is such activity or action of a good and noble kind, and if everything is successfully performed when it is performed in accordance with its proper excellence, it follows that the good of Man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue or, if there are more than one, in accordance with the best and most complete virtue”. (Aristotele)
So what about happiness? As I already briefly mentioned above, to Aristotele’s happiness can be seen in two different ways. Happiness as pleasure or the ultimate happiness derived by living a fulfilling, satisfying life, achieved by humans through their conduct and behavior. To him in fact if people keep asking themselves why we do everything we do, we would ultimately be lead to our path and ultimate goals. The key to achieve this, according to Aristotle is balance. As mentioned already, he considered humans as rational animals which means they have emotions and feeling. These emotions have extremes (deficiency and excess) and what life is about is finding a balance between these two opposite poles and acting virtuous to ultimately becoming a virtuous being. A happy person in Aristotle’s view is someone who has all of his emotions in check and has