ce all actions must come to a stop at some point. Not only is it continuous, but also the pleasantest, the most self-sufficient, aims at no end beyond itself and involves leisure. But it is the self-sufficiency that Aristotle focuses on as the most important. His claim is that all virtuous people need the good things for life, and even when these things are supplied, the just person needs other people to be just to. The wise person in comparison does not need any other person, because he is able to study without anyone (1177a30). Ronna Burger, in her essay Aristotles Exclusive Account of Happiness: Contemplative Wisdom as a Guise of the Political Philosopher comments on his claim of self-sufficiency:The self-sufficiency that was supposed to belong to happiness as a final good is the criterion, above all, that makes the thesis of the tenth book so unconvincing: if the self-sufficient is that which on its own makes life choiceworthy and lacking nothing, how could contemplation by itself possibly fulfill that demand? But no such claim is in fact made in the tenth book. What is said to belong most of all to theoretical activity is so-called self-sufficiency(X.7 1177a26-28), and this no longer means the capacity of an activity by itself to make life complete, but only the capacity for that activity to be carried on independently of necessary conditions (Ronna Burger, p89) Its superiority lies in that a human beings complete happiness will be this activity, if it receives a complete span of life, since nothing incomplete is proper to happiness(1175b25). This possible achievement of happiness would maintain a divine element to it. Living this sort of life is more a god-like life and allows humans to get closer to the gods. Aristotle remarks that one should not follow the proverb to think mortal because you are mortal, but to attempt at every chance to go further since it alone surpasses everything (11787a1).In theorizing about the...
