Revisiting the Boy-and-Girl Fallacy at Nicomachean Ethics I 2

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-294
Author(s):  
Marco Zingano
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Logical Validity ◽  
The Way

This paper proposes a new reading of Nicomachean Ethics I 2 1094a18-22 with a view to solving the problem that the argument this passage contains would be invalid because it apparently commits a quantifier shift to reach its conclusion. On the reading advocated in this paper, no fallacy is committed, and the argument is sound provided one reads the conclusion at 1094a21-22 in the way the manuscript Marcianus 213 invites us to do. Grammatical considerations are produced to shore up the logical validity of the argument.

scholarly journals A Justiça Parcial e a Ganância enquanto virtude e vício do caráter na Ética a Nicômaco: ação interpessoal, emoção e prazer

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-145
Author(s):  
André Luiz Cruz Sousa
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The People ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

The aim of this paper is to study a set of three issues related to the understanding of partial justice and partial injustice as character dispositions, namely the distinctive circumstance of action, the emotion involved therein and the pleasure or pain following it. Those points are treated in a relatively obscure way by Aristotle, especially in comparison with their treatment in the expositions of other character virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics. Building on the expression ‘capacity towards the other’ (δύναμις ἐν τῷ πρὸς ἕτερον), the paper highlights the interpersonal nature of the circumstances of just and unjust actions, and points how such nature is directly related to notions such as ‘profit’ (κέρδος) or ‘getting more’(πλεονεκτεῖν) as well as to the unusual conception of excess, defect and intermediacy in Nicomachean Ethics Book V. The interpersonal nature of just and unjust actions works also as the starting-point for the interpretation both of the pleasure briefly mentioned in 1130b4 as characterizing the greedy person and of the emotion involved in acting justly or greedy, which is mentioned in an extremely elliptical way in 1130b1-2: the paper argues, on the one hand, that the pleasure felt in acting justly or unjustly concerns not only the goods that are the object of just or unjust interactions, but also the way such interactions affect the people involved; on the other hand, it argues that the emotion actuated in just or unjust interactions relates to the agent’s concern or lack of concern with the good of those people.

The Doing of Justice and the Priority of Acting from Virtue

Phronesis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 366-401
Author(s):  
Patricio A. Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Virtuous Person ◽  
Virtuous Action ◽  
Philosophical Significance ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

Abstract Aristotle famously distinguishes between merely doing a virtuous action and acting in the way in which a virtuous person would. Against an interpretation prominent in recent scholarship, I argue that ‘acting virtuously,’ in the sense of exercising a virtue actually possessed, is prior to ‘virtuous action,’ understood generically. I propose that the latter notion is best understood as a derivative abstraction from the former, building upon a reading of a neglected distinction between per se and coincidentally just action in Nicomachean Ethics 5, and thus shed light on the meaning and philosophical significance of the priority of acting from virtue.

Virtue and Goals of Actions in Aristotle’s Ethical Treatises

2020 ◽  
pp. 191-218
Author(s):  
Hendrik Lorenz
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Eudemian Ethics ◽  
The Way

The present paper focuses on Aristotle’s claim in the Eudemian Ethics that the virtues of character are ‘states to do with decision’, by which he means that they are somehow responsible for decisions. In the paper’s first two sections, I explicate the way in which he thinks the character-virtues contribute to the correctness of the virtuous person’s decisions. In two subsequent sections, I articulate two philosophical objections to the picture that will have emerged. I defend Aristotle against the first objection. In articulating the second objection, I rely on texts from the Nicomachean Ethics and the De motu animalium that John Cooper’s work on Aristotle’s moral psychology has greatly illuminated. I argue that the second objection cannot be answered in a satisfactory way, and that it identifies a philosophical weakness in the moral psychology of the Eudemian Ethics, namely that it operates with an overly restrictive conception of practical reason.

Found in Translation

2021 ◽  
pp. 93-127
Author(s):  
Susanne Bobzien
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Philosophical Significance ◽  
General Opinion ◽  
The Way

This chapter researches the reception of the crucial sentence in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 3.5, 1113b7–8 about that which is up to us (eph’hēmin), the philosophical significance of which is the topic of the previous chapter. This sentence has markedly shaped both scholarly and general opinion with regard to Aristotle’s theory of free will. In addition, it has taken on a curious life of its own. Part One of the chapter examines the text itself. Part Two explores its reception from antiquity to the present day, including present-day popular culture, later ancient, Byzantine, Arabic, Latin Medieval, Renaissance, Victorian, and contemporary scholarship, and how it influenced the interpretation of Aristotle’s view on free will. There are some surprises on the way. (The paper also serves as an introduction to the reception of the Nicomachean Ethics from its beginnings to the present.)

Theory and Praxis in Aristotle and Heidegger

1998 ◽  
pp. 20-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catriona Hanley
Keyword(s):  
Being And Time ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
The World ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

The discussion of Heidegger's “destructive retrieve” of Aristotle has been intensified in recent years by the publication of Heidegger's courses in the years surrounding his magnum opus. Heidegger's explicit commentary on Aristotle in these courses permits one to read Being and Time with Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Metaphysics. My paper analyzes a network of differences between the two thinkers, focusing on the relationship between theory and praxis. From Aristotle to Heidegger, there is: (1) a shift from the priority of actuality to the priority of possibility. This shift, I argue, is itself the metaphysical ground of: (2) a shift from the priority of theory to the priority of praxis. This shift is seen most clearly in the way in which (3) Heidegger's notion of Theorie is a modification of his poíesis. The temporal ground of the reversal is seen in (4) Heidegger's notion of transcendence towards the world, and not towards an eternal being.

Justice in the Sermon on the Mount: An Aristotelian Reading

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 314-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Thom
Keyword(s):  
Frequent Occurrence ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Sermon On The Mount ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe frequent occurrence of the term δıκαıoσυνη ("righteousness, justice") in the Sermon of the Mount (Matt 5-7) (SM) indicates one of the main themes of the text. This impression is strengthened by the fact that the term is found in strategically important locations in the composition of the SM. This article does not, however, focus on the meaning and use of δıκαıoσυνη as such. Instead, I discuss the role justice, an important component of δıκαıoσυνη, plays in the SM. To help us gain perspective on how justice was popularly conceived, a brief survey of one of the most influential ancient analyses of justice, that by Aristotle in bk. 5 of his Nicomachean Ethics, is provided. Against this background, the way the notion of justice operates in selected passages of the SM is investigated. I try to show that the text frequently manipulates and overturns conventional conceptions of justice and that this reinforces the SM's demand for a δıκαıoσυνη exceeding popular expectations.

Generosity and Inequality in Aristotle’s Ethics

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Ward
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Inherited Wealth ◽  
Aristotle's Ethics ◽  
The Way

This article explores the virtues of generosity and magnificence in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Generosity involves private individuals giving moderately; magnificence is spending by individuals on a grand scale for public purposes. Inequality, it is argued, grounds and motivates these virtues. For Aristotle, generosity and magnificence are products of inherited wealth, and the generous and the magnificent person seek the noble in their actions rather than the benefit of their recipients. The generous and the magnificent intend to place themselves in a superior position to those who receive their gifts.Moreover, magnificence flows from a great inequality of wealth and requires that the provision of public goods be in private hands. Aristotle, this article suggests, means to critique rather than embrace these virtues by pointing to the inequality and privacy at their foundation. The way in which Aristotle’s theory of justice supplements his analysis of generosity and magnificence is also brought to light.

A Method of Resolutions: Rereading NE 7.1, 1145b2–7

Phronesis ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Gabriela Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Sophistical Refutations ◽  
The Way

Abstract This article is about the methodological remarks in Nicomachean Ethics 7.1, 1145b2–7, and the way they are carried out in the following chapters. I argue that the procedure therein described does not aim to establish consistency among a subset of endoxa, but to test and refine—by considering and resolving objections against them—endoxa that could enter into a nominal definition of continence and incontinence. The dialectical lineage of this discussion, if there is one, is to be found in the use of the critical procedure of resolution that can be traced back to Topics and Sophistical Refutations.

Self-sacrifice for in-group's history: A diachronic perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Babińska ◽  
Michal Bilewicz
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Psychology ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Emotional Events ◽  
Reciprocal Process ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe problem of extended fusion and identification can be approached from a diachronic perspective. Based on our own research, as well as findings from the fields of social, political, and clinical psychology, we argue that the way contemporary emotional events shape local fusion is similar to the way in which historical experiences shape extended fusion. We propose a reciprocal process in which historical events shape contemporary identities, whereas contemporary identities shape interpretations of past traumas.

What is the purpose of cognition?

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aba Szollosi ◽  
Ben R. Newell
Keyword(s):  
Infinite Number ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
The Way

Abstract The purpose of human cognition depends on the problem people try to solve. Defining the purpose is difficult, because people seem capable of representing problems in an infinite number of ways. The way in which the function of cognition develops needs to be central to our theories.

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