Understanding for its own sake is no luxury: it is the highest activity of which man is capable, and it need serve nothing beyond itself.

Supports

Every other activity aims at an end beyond itself: one heals for the sake of health, one governs for the sake of the city. But each time one can ask 'and that, for the sake of what?'; the chain must stop at what is wanted for its own sake.
Now understanding, grasping why things are as they are, is desired for itself alone: 'all men by nature desire to know', and the knowledge that serves nothing else is the one entirely free.
It is also the most continuous and most self-sufficient activity, the one that exercises what is highest in us, thought, upon what is highest to be known.

Therefore So philosophy fulfills its vocation by understanding: its theoria is not an escape but the end to which the rest is a means, the in us.

How far does this reasoning convince you?

Not at all

Entirely

Put to the test

Objection

Problems