In Confessions By Saint Augustine He Recognizes That...

In Confessions by Saint Augustine he recognizes that friendships are necessities to human life because they bring people happiness and during the course of his life he ponders the role of happiness plays in his life. The philosophical term for happiness is Eudaimonia which is imperative to creating a whole person. Friends help strengthen and encourage Augustine to find a sense of community and belonging. He evaluates his friendships over the course of the three life stages. These stages in his life are adolescence, early adulthood and adulthood. In Augustine’s life he became a close friend to many, and at different stages of his life, they leave him questioning his own morals. They contributed to Augustine’s life because of the different†¦show more content†¦During Augustine’s adolescence, all of his friendships were based off of utility because they were all self centered and did not last longer than adolescence. Also during this point in Augustine s li fe he is not religious and he does not yet have a relationship with God. The friends are only surface level friendships, serving Augustine at the moment bringing him temporal satisfaction. When he interacted with them, they deteriorated him from his morals and his beliefs leading him in the wrong path. Augustine continued to pursue these friendships because they brought him enjoyment. They did not bring him happiness because when he was surrounded with these friends Augustine felt peer pressure to do things that did not align with his morals. One day he and his friends sought out to steal pears from a neighbor s pear tree. They received no pleasure out of stealing and when they stole they did not even want the pears and they tossed them to the pigs. Augustine says, [I]ran wild,...in the jungle of erotic adventures...and became putrid in [God s] sight. Augustine reflects on this time period is his most sinful. He did not feel that it was not the pears that made him happy, but it was the sense of camaraderie he felt when he was with his friends. This shows at this point in life his conception of friendship and happiness was doing what your friends toldShow MoreRelated Happiness in the Fourth Epistle of Alexander Popes An Essay on Man5580 Words   |  23 Pagescreature, it was necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being. For Pope, drawing on a venerable ideal from antiquity onwards, the end and purpose of humanity was happiness.1 As he exclaims at the very beginning of the fourth epistle, The heritage of the supremacy of happiness is impressive. For example, Aristotle believed that happiness was mans strongest desire which involved an activity of the soul in accordance with virtueRead MoreLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pages........................... 553 Exercises .......................................................................................................................................... 555 1 C H A P T E R 1 How to Reason Logically T he goal of this book is to improve your logical-reasoning skills. Your logical-reasoning skills are a complex weave of abilities that help you get someones point, generate reasons for your own point, evaluate the reasons given by others, decide what