scholarly journals Aristotle’s Criticism of the Platonic Idea of the Good in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 309-342
Author(s):  
Melina G. Mouzala
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Relational Goods ◽  
Absolute Good ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Eudemian Ethics

In Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, Aristotle directs his criticism not only against the Platonic Idea of the Good but also against the notion of a universal Good. In this paper, I also examine some of the most interesting aspects of his criticism of the Platonic Good and the universal Good in Eudemian Ethics 1.8. In the EN, after using a series of disputable ontological arguments, Aristotle’s criticism culminates in a strong ethical or rather practical and, simultaneously, epistemological argument, from which a dialectical postulatum emerges. This argument aims to show that we have to discover the dialectical stages or grades which constitute the relation between the ultimate End, i.e., the Good simpliciter or the absolute Good, and the relational goods till the last prakton good in which each specific praxis ends. According to the present reading, Aristotle sets out to establish a kind of Dialectic of the ends (Dialektikē tōn telōn) or Dialectic of the goods (Dialektikē tōn agathōn), which puts emphasis on the descent to the specific good, which is appropriate to and cognate with each individual, be that a person, praxis, science or craft. It is also suggested that this might be relevant to Aristotle’s tendency to establish a separation of phronēsis, i.e., practical wisdom, from sophia, i.e., wisdom, in the Nicomachean Ethics.

scholarly journals Aristotle’s Criticism of the Platonic Idea of the Good in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6

2017 ◽  
pp. 309-342
Author(s):  
Melina G. Mouzala
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Relational Goods ◽  
Absolute Good ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Eudemian Ethics

In Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, Aristotle directs his criticism not only against the Platonic Idea of the Good but also against the notion of a universal Good. In this paper, I also examine some of the most interesting aspects of his criticism of the Platonic Good and the universal Good in Eudemian Ethics 1.8. In the EN, after using a series of disputable ontological arguments, Aristotle’s criticism culminates in a strong ethical or rather practical and, simultaneously, epistemological argument, from which a dialectical postulatum emerges. This argument aims to show that we have to discover the dialectical stages or grades which constitute the relation between the ultimate End, i.e., the Good simpliciter or the absolute Good, and the relational goods till the last prakton good in which each specific praxis ends. According to the present reading, Aristotle sets out to establish a kind of Dialectic of the ends (Dialektikē tōn telōn) or Dialectic of the goods (Dialektikē tōn agathōn), which puts emphasis on the descent to the specific good, which is appropriate to and cognate with each individual, be that a person, praxis, science or craft. It is also suggested that this might be relevant to Aristotle’s tendency to establish a separation of phronēsis, i.e., practical wisdom, from sophia, i.e., wisdom, in the Nicomachean Ethics.

Kalokagathia and the Unity of the Virtues in the Eudemian Ethics

Apeiron ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-57
Author(s):  
Giulia Bonasio
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Strong Version ◽  
The Common ◽  
Eudemian Ethics ◽  
Theoretical Thinking ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

AbstractIn this paper, I argue that in the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle proposes a strong version of the unity of the virtues. Evidence in favor of this strong version of the unity of the virtues results from reading the common books within the EE rather than as part of the Nicomachean Ethics. The unity of the virtues as defended in the EE includes not only practical wisdom and the character virtues, but also all the virtues of practical and theoretical thinking. Closely related, in the EE, Aristotle proposes a different best agent from the one of the NE. The best agent of the EE is the kalos kagathos. The person who is kalos kagathos has “all” the virtues. Kalokagathia is a whole and the virtues are its parts. I investigate how we should understand this whole and the relation between the individual virtues within this whole.

scholarly journals I FATTORI DELLA VIRTÙ E LA CRONOLOGIA DELLE ETICHE DI ARISTOTELE

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierluigi Donini
Keyword(s):  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Joint Effect ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Eudemian Ethics ◽  
Made In

In this paper the author summarizes the main contentions made in his new book Abitudine e saggezza. Aristotele dall’Etica Eudemia all’Etica Nicomachea. In the Eudemian Ethics Aristotle makes moral virtue as the joint effect of reason and the gifts of nature, but in the Nicomachean Ethics, on the contrary, he does not even name nature and sees virtue as the product of habits and education. On this very point the NE quotes and praises Plato’s Laws, which Aristotle did not know when writing the EE. It seems clear, then, that in the interval between the two Ethics he had known Plato’s last work.

Converging Aristotelian faculties: a note on Eth. Nic. VI xi 2–3 1143a 25–35

1979 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 158-160
Author(s):  
Troels Engberg-Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Total State ◽  
Theoretical Wisdom ◽  
The One ◽  
States Of Knowledge

(2)Εἰσὶ δὲ πᾶσαι αἱ ἕξεις εὐλόγως εἰς ταὐτὸ τείνουσαι 25 λέγομεν γὰρ γνώμην καὶ σύνεσιν καὶ φρόνησιν καὶ νοῦν ἐπὶ τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἐπιφέροντες γνώμην ἔχειν καὶ νοῦν ἤδη καὶ φρονίμους καὶ συνετούς. πᾶσαι γὰρ αἱ δυνάμεις αὗται τῶν ἐσχάτων εἰσὶ καὶ τῶν καθ᾿ ἕκαστον καὶ ἐν μὲν τῷ 29 κριτικὸς εἶναι περὶ ὧν ὁ φρόνιμος, συνετὸς καὶ εὐγνώμων ἢ συγγνώμων τὰ γὰρ ἐπιεικῆ κοινὰ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἁπάντων ἐστὶν ἐν τῷ πρὸς ἄλλον. (3) ἔστι δὲ τῶν καθ᾿ ἔκαστα καὶ τῶν ἐσχάτων ἅπαντα τὰ πρακτά καὶ γὰρ τὸν φρόνιμον δεῖ ψινώσκειν αὐτά, καὶ ἡ σύνεσις καὶ ἡ γνώμη περὶ τὰ 34 πρακτά, ταῦτα δ᾿ ἔσχατα. (4) καὶ ὁ νοῦς τῶν ἐσχάτων ἐπ᾿ ἀμφότερα καὶ γὰρ… VI xi 2–4The structure of book VI of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is not pellucid. The general purpose of the book is to define the concept of practical wisdom or φρόνησις and the method by which Aristotle attempts to reach his aim is that of contrasting practical wisdom with other seemingly relevant concepts. The main contrast here, underlying the book as a whole, is that between practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom (σοφία) or ‘science’ (ἐπιστήμη).Another, less general, contrast is the one drawn in chapters ix–xi, from which the above quotation is taken, between practical wisdom and a series of three fairly specific states of knowledge, or capacities: excellence in deliberation (єὐβουλία, ix), ‘understanding’ (σύνєσις, x) and ‘judgement’ (γνώμη, xi 1). These are practical abilities and hence are closely connected with practical (as opposed to theoretical) wisdom but they are not identical with that type of knowledge. The exact way in which they differ from practical wisdom is left somewhat in the dark, but it is possible, I believe, to see them as distinguishing parts of the total state of knowledge which is practical wisdom.

The Absolute Good and the Human Goods

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 117-126
Author(s):  
R. Ferber ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Absolute Good ◽  
The Absolute

On the So-Called Common Books of the Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics

Phronesis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-116
Author(s):  
Dorothea Frede
Keyword(s):  
Self Control ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
The Common ◽  
Eudemian Ethics ◽  
Aristotle's Ethics

AbstractIn recent decades the view that the disputed central books of Aristotle’s ethics are an integral part of the Eudemian rather than of the Nicomachean Ethics has gained ground for both historical and systematic reasons. This article contests that view, arguing not only that the Nicomachean Ethics represented Aristotle’s central text throughout antiquity, but that the discussion in the common books of such crucial concepts as justice, practical and theoretical reason, self-control and lack of self-control, are more compatible with the undisputed books of the Nicomachean Ethics than with those of the Eudemian Ethics.

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