Abstract

This chapter asks why Aristotle insists that happiness takes time, as he does when he likens it to spring (_EN_ I 7, 1098a16–20). Rejecting an interpretation relying on Aristotle’s distinction between activity (_energeia_) and process (_kinesis_), the chapter argues that virtuous action is something habitual: only as a form of life can it amount to happiness. Furthermore, even if the parties might want to become friends more quickly, developing the knowledge of the other’s goodness in the habitual, stable sense that characterizes virtue friendship is something that takes time. Similarly, knowing one’s own stable and good qualities also takes time, and without such self-knowledge as an integral aspect of one’s activity, one is not fully eudaimôn.