ABSTRACT
One of the basic issues in Aristotle is the distinction between practical and theoretical wisdom. Yet the distinction is within the context of the Good and happiness. For Aristotle, theoretical wisdom is a form of knowledge. The first property of wisdom, the universality of knowledge, is undermined because the mind’s functioning remains most often anonymous for Aristotle. One is not happy without wisdom, and therefore wisdom is necessary for happiness. This chapter engages Aristotle and Husserl on the issue of the fragility of the connection of wisdom and happiness as well as on the fragility and/or self-sufficiency of wisdom. It shows how Husserl’s thought on this matter returns to the primacy of the theoretical. Husserl moves toward the quest of rooting the possibility of a “reflective joy” in a theoretical insight. Husserl’s phenomenological theology never reached completion. And insofar as this completion was necessary for wisdom one may wonder to what extent these thinkers, in their own eyes, achieved wisdom.
