We begin chapter four entitled: Personal fulfilment through knowledge and action. The first section looks and the role of knowledge for acquiring virtue. Knowledge is explained as occurring on three levels: the biological, the emotional and the spiritual level.
We read to the end of chapter 3. This section discusses happiness as harmony. Returning to the image of an orchestra, five aspects of the human person are identified where harmony is a good leading to fulfilment : 1. Interior harmony 2. Harmony with others 3. Harmony with creation 4. Harmony with God and 5. Existential harmony.
Today we look briefly at happiness in St. Thomas Aquinas. The reading explains that the Angelic Doctor incorporated the Aristotelian perspective but goes further to state that happiness in ultimately in the afterlife.
We begin chapter three entitled: The goal of human life: True happiness. The text explains that there is a subjective element to happiness but this must be evaluated to see if it proceeds from a place of internal harmony. This is a condition for true happiness.