One-Day National Seminar on “Aristotle and the Good Life”

UNESCO has declared 2016 the Aristotle Anniversary Year to mark the philosopher’s 2,400th birthday. The 38th session of the UNESCO General Conference held in Paris, was declared Jubilee year 2016 year of Aristotle. Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato’s teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle’s writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that what we seek is eudaimonia, a term translated in this reading as “happiness.” Eudaimonia is better expressed as “well-being” or “excellence of performing the proper function.” When Aristotle explains human virtue, he is not discussing what we now refer to as (Victorian) virtue. He is clarifying the peculiar excellence of human beings in the same manner as we often speak of the peculiar excellence attributable to the nature of a thing. For example, a tool is useful in virtue of the fact that it performs its function well. Aristotle’s purpose in the Nicomachean Ethics is not just to explain the philosophy of the excellence for human beings but also to demonstrate specifically how human beings can lead lives of excellence as activity in accordance with practical and theoretical reason. Mankind will commemorate the anniversary of the famous philosopher activities worldwide. In this continuation, the Post Graduate Govt. College for Girls, Sector-11, Chandigarh proposed one-day seminar on this great philosopher.

Sub-themes: 

The following sub-themes are selected for paper presentation for the seminar:

1. Aristotle’s Idea of Good Life
2. Aristotle’s Idea of Happiness
3. The Highest Human Good
4. Aristotle’s Notion of Virtues
5. Aristotle’s Ideas of Justice
6. Intellectual Virtues and Ethical Virtues
7. Aristotle’s The Concept of Golden Mean
8. Aristotle’s Concept of Pleasure
9. Aristotle on Friendship
10. Relation of Ethics and Politics
11. Relation of Ethics and Society
12. Educational Implications of Aristotle’s Ethics
13. Relation between Reason and the Virtues
14. Practical applications of Aristotle’s ethics
15. Aristotle and Modern Ethical Thoughts
16. Any other relevant theme.

 Call for Papers:

Research papers are invited from faculty members and research scholars on the thrust area of the seminar with an abstract of 200 words and full paper about 2500-3000 words by post or email to [email protected] latest by 25thMarch, 2017.