Eudaimonia and the Indian distinction between Shreyas and Preyas

In much of modern Western thought, ethics has increasingly come to be identified with morality. It is approached primarily as a domain of rules, obligations, and judgments concerning right and wrong. Even where ethics is treated as practical philosophy, action is often understood as derived from beliefs, values, or moral principles. By contrast, in the older Aristotelian understanding, ethics concerns the question of how to live well. Oriented toward eudaimonia—often translated as human flourishing—it belongs…

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Classics and Ways of Thinking

Initiating students into classics has long been considered central to the idea of a liberal education. These works are deemed “classics” because a tradition (or culture) confers upon them the status of greatness. Classics set standards and are taken to represent the most significant and refined reflections of that tradition. To recognize a work as a classic is also to acknowledge that it has taken part in our intellectual and cultural formation and continues to…

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