Quotation
Last reviewed:
“The good and happiness are one and the same.”
Boethius · Late Roman philosophy · Medieval · c. 524
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the identification as the hinge of book three: what people seek under the name of happiness is the good, and the perfect good is not one pleasure among others but that which lacks nothing. Philosophy will identify that good with God. A rival reading hears a verbal trick, two words declared synonymous so that a theological conclusion can be smuggled in. The argument tries to earn the identity by showing that partial goods, wealth, fame, pleasure, fail as happiness; It is prose 10, after the critique of those partial goods.
Did Boethius really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A standard sense of Philosophy's argument in Consolation, book three, prose 10, where the perfect good and happiness are shown to coincide, and then identified with God. English translations differ in the exact sentence. This wording is a translation of that claim.
Where it comes from
Consolation of Philosophy III, prose 10
Approximate date: c. 524.
How to use it
A promotion in a council office in Derby that was supposed to be happiness, and that arrives as more email, is one of the partial goods the book has just deflated. The sentence does not say the promotion is worthless. It says it is not the good that would count as happiness in the strict sense, the state that leaves nothing further to be sought; Expecting the email to be that state is the confusion Philosophy is diagnosing.
A mindset reading
Identity claims in philosophy are where the work is hidden, and this one is doing heavy work. If happiness just means whatever one currently wants, the sentence is false to ordinary speech. He is revising the meaning, toward a completeness nothing partial can have; A rival use quotes the identity as a ban on enjoying partial goods at all; The book is more interested in stopping them being mistaken for the whole.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is the good, the complete end that happiness was a name for, which prose 10 argues cannot be less than God if it is truly complete. Book three has already shown why money, honour, power, fame, and pleasure do not suffice. The Consolation's Platonism is at full strength here. Translations differ, and this English gives the sense of the identity rather than a unique canonical sentence.
- happiness
- virtue
- meaning
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the identification as the hinge of book three: what people seek under the name of happiness is the good, and the perfect good is not one pleasure among others but that which lacks nothing. Philosophy will identify that good with God. A rival reading hears a verbal trick, two words declared synonymous so that a theological conclusion can be smuggled in. The argument tries to earn the identity by showing that partial goods, wealth, fame, pleasure, fail as happiness; It is prose 10, after the critique of those partial goods.
Did Boethius really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A standard sense of Philosophy's argument in Consolation, book three, prose 10, where the perfect good and happiness are shown to coincide, and then identified with God. English translations differ in the exact sentence. This wording is a translation of that claim.
Which work is it in?
Consolation of Philosophy III, prose 10 Approximate date: c. 524.