'Excellence is an art won by training and habituation...'

02 Aug 1994 | Habituation & Aristotle 💛

#memoriesfromdiaries 😍

Through today’s blogpost based on a past diary entry [of some 27 years ago], me thought of discussing certain salients on the concept of habituation, from one of our earliest and loveliest of philosophers – Aristotle!

Well, let me also confess that, whenever I open my diaries past, I get completely lost… 😍

Yes! Lost in the ‘pastness of the past’, in a period of time that once was, and never more shall be...!

I also feel those good ol’ days coming alive in full flesh and blood right in front of my eyes! Sometimes even my dreams are busy lined up with those memorable school day events that I’ve jotted down in my diaries past!

02 August 1994 - diary jottings

A reflective trip down memory lane proves a real therapeutic trip as well!

That apart, the trip also offers you wise counsel that comes across to you in flashes and snatches, whenever you go into those good ol’ ‘vivid recollections’ mode!

One such thought that quick flashed upon my inward eye, through the sages of ages past, is the concept of ‘habituation’ through the eyes of the wise Aristotle himself!

To Aristotle, it is not arguments that make a person good!

Then what pray, makes a person good?

Aristotle, (and he gently begs to differ from Socrates on this aspect) says,

Habituation!

Habituation – a form of non-associative learning – is then ‘a process of acquiring ‘habits’ by repeatedly engaging in actions of a similar type!’.

Iakovos Vasiliou, Professor of Philosophy, City University of New York, in his article titled, “Virtue and Argument in Aristotle’s Ethics” says that,

The type of habituated state a person acquires is determined by the type of actions she engages in: for example, one becomes brave by engaging in brave actions. Habituated states of character are not states we are born with.

Rather, we are born with the ability to acquire such states, states that form a person’s “second nature” and that are difficult, though perhaps not impossible, to change.

The more frequently a person does a certain type of action, the more one becomes that sort of person; and then, in turn, the more one becomes that type of person, the more one is liable to do that sort of action.

In other words, momentum is a significant force in the initial formation or subsequent alteration of character!

Although it may be quite difficult to begin to acquire a new habit, it will, if one continues on the same course, get easier and easier, and correspondingly more and more difficult to act contrary to the newly acquired habit.

For this reason Aristotle emphasizes that it is most important to acquire the right sort of habits right from youth.

Aristotle’s account of habituation is not simply the mindless training of one’s appetites – training that, for example, might apply equally well to a dog.

A person’s habituation does not simply leave him with desires and motivations to do certain sorts of actions and avoid others, but it provides him also with some sort of cognitive content or ability, although commentators vary greatly about just what this amounts to!

To Aristotle, then, becoming good, which is the goal and task of ethics, takes hard work and practice.

Ethics is about action, not knowledge. Most people, however, prefer to discuss what being virtuous is, and falsely think that they are thereby making themselves good and engaging in philosophy.

I have tried to establish quickly a connection between Aristotle’s idea that ethics is about action, not knowledge, and his idea that people are made good not by argument and teaching, but by habituation.

Habituation then, is the ‘formation and development of character’.

How important it is to get habituated into such states of character!

In fact, as children, all of us had been habituated into certain states of character!

Like brushing our teeth, doing our bed, etc.

Some of these acquired habits, thus become our ‘second nature!’

This diary entry of 27 years ago is ample evidence to this statement!

Some of the habits that have sweetly stuck to me for years and years! –

Like having my coffee first thing in the morning,

Reading the day’s newspaper even before going to our classes,

Morning walks (alone or in good company),

Evening tea time & snacks

Leaving for class only after making sure our cubicles (in dormitories) are cleaned up, and left spick and span!

Night’s routine study time

When I recollect some of these habituated actions that have formed my ‘second nature’ this long, I warmly recollect the wise sage’s wonderful line,

It is most important to acquire the right sort of habits right from youth!

The sages are never wrong, you see!

Let’s then try and sum up this post, with Will – Will Durant’s paraphrasing of Aristotle’s lines, in his 1926 book titled, The Story of Philosophy: the Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers –

Says Will – Will Durant,

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit;

for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy’.

On a similar vein, says Edgar Rice Burroughs -

We are, all of us, creatures of habit, and when the seeming necessity for schooling ourselves in new ways ceases to exist, we fall naturally and easily into the manner and customs which long usage has implanted ineradicably within us.

Says James Clear, in his much popular book titled, Atomic Habits,

You get what you repeat!

Trueproves to a tee, the legends and their words!

You may want to read a little review of Atomic Habits by James Clear, HERE, on our past blogpost!