"Aristotle and Sigmund Freud gave us disparate but compelling pictures of the human condition. With Jonathan Lear, we scrutinize these thinkers' attempts to explain human behavior in terms of a higher principle." "Aristotle attempted to ground ethical life in human striving for happiness, yet he didn't understand what happiness is any better than we do. Freud fared no better when he tried to ground human striving, aggression, and destructiveness in the death drive."--BOOK JACKET.