Aristotle on Practical Wisdom: Nicomachean EthicsVI [Critical ed.] 9780674072107, 0674072103

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Ar­is­totle on Practical Wisdom

Aristotle on Practical Wisdom Nicomachean Ethics VI

Translated with an Introduction, Analysis, and Commentary by

C. D. C. Reeve

Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, Eng­land 2013

Copyright © 2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Ar­is­totle. [Nicomachean ethics. Book 6. Eng­lish] Ar­is­totle on practical wisdom : Nicomachean ethics VI / translated with an introduction, analysis, and commentary by C. D. C. Reeve. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-­0-­674-­07210-­7 (alk. paper) 1. Ethics.  I. Reeve, C. D. C., 1948–  II. Title.  III. Title: On practical wisdom. B430.A5R44 2013 171′.3—dc23    2012029695

For Richard Kraut

CONTENTS

Preface Abbreviations Editions, Translations, and Commentaries Introduction

ix xi xiii 1

Nicomachean Ethics VI: Translation and Analysis

43

Commentary

89

Index of Topics Index of Passages

265 269

PREFACE

This book is a presentation and discussion of the account of practical wisdom (phronêsis) that Ar­is­totle gives in Nicomachean Ethics Book VI. Its aim is to make this im­por­tant but rather complex and opaque text accessible to a wide range of readers. Some of these will be interested in Ar­is­totle or in ancient Greek philosophy more generally, others interested in ethics and its development, seeking insights into the nature of moral virtue and practical reason by studying one of the few acknowledged masterpieces to deal with these topics. The introduction provides a summary of Ar­is­totle’s account and so is somewhat reliant on the analysis and commentary. But since it locates the account in the context of Ar­is­totle’s spe­cifi­cally ethical thought, and in that of ethical thought more generally, it also goes beyond them. The analysis is intended to provide a quick guide to the plot structure of the text in such a way as to reveal the continuity of the developing argument. The commentary discusses the text more or less line by line, attempting to elucidate its meaning. Some of its proposals are more fully defended in my Action, Contemplation, and Happiness: An Essay on Ar­is­totle (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), which is a companion volume to this one. As they now stand, neither presupposes the other, but, as originally conceived, the two were parts of a single work. The occasional overlap in content is the result of their separation. The translation re­flects the interpretation proposed in the commentary (how could it be otherwise?) but tries, by being literal and consistent, not to prejudice the reader in favor of it.



x

Preface

A further component some readers might expect to find would consist of an expository and critical account of other interpretations of Nicomachean Ethics VI. So numerous, various, and complex are these, however, that such an account would tax all but the most committed, fail to convince the invested, and soon be out of date. What I have provided is one—as I hope—credible and intelligible guide to this astonishing text. The guide, like the key to all mythologies, will never exist. Comments by John Ackrill, Lindsay Judson, Mariska Leunissen, Michael Pakaluk, Giles Pearson, Allan Silverman, and especially Pavlos Kontos have improved the book, as has the work of earlier translators and commentators, especially Sarah Broadie, Roger Crisp, R. A. Gauthier, L. H. G. Greenwood, J. Y. Jolif, Terence Irwin, Sir David Ross, Christopher Rowe, and J. A. Stewart. While working on NE VI, I bene­fited from attending three conferences devoted to it. The first (São Paulo, 2008) was or­ga­nized by Marco Zingano and Pierre Destrée, the second (Patras, 2010) by Pavlos Kontos, and the third (Chapel Hill, May 2010) by Gregory Salmieri. I am grateful to the or­ga­nizers and their institutions for inviting me to attend, and to the various par­tic­i­pants for their questions and comments. A study leave in the spring of 2009, a W. N. Reynolds research leave in the fall of 2009, and an Espy Family Fellowship in the spring of 2010 provided the leisure needed to complete this book. To the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Geoff Sayre-­ McCord, (now ex-­)chair of its Philosophy Department, the donors of these leaves and fellowships, and those who administer them, I extend my thanks. I extend them, too, to DKE, the first fraternity in the United States to have endowed a professorial chair, and to the University of North Carolina for awarding it to me. The generous research funds that the endowment makes available each year have greatly aided my work. In the twenty-­five years or more that I have known Richard Kraut, I have never appealed for his help in vain. He has been one of my best and most willing readers and greatest supporters. I dedicate this book to him with affection, admiration, and gratitude.

ABBREVIATIONS

Citations of Ar­is­totle’s works are to the edition of Immanuel Bekker (1831), and give an abbreviated title, book number (if the work is divided into books), chapter number, page, column (a or b), and line number. In the case of Nicomachean Ethics VI, citations omit the title, give the chapter number followed by a slash, and omit the first two digits of the page number, since these are always 11. Thus 5/41a1 refers to NE VI 5 1141a1. These abbreviated references are both to parts of the text and to places in the commentary where these are discussed. In a list of citations, they usually appear first. An asterisk indicates a work whose authenticity has been seriously doubted. APo.

Posterior Analytics

APr.

Prior Analytics

Cael.

De Caelo

Cat.

Categories

DA

De Anima

EE

Eudemian Ethics

GA

Generation of Animals

GC

On Generation and Corruption

HA

His­tory of Animals

Int.

De Interpretatione

Juv.

On Youth and Old Age

Long.

On Length and Shortness of Life

MA

Movement of Animals

Mem.

On Memory



xii

Abbreviations Met.

Meta­phys­ics

Mete.

Meteorology

MM

Magna Moralia*

NE

Nicomachean Ethics

Oec.

Economics*

PA

Parts of Animals

Ph.

Physics

Po.

Poetics

Pol.

Politics

Pr.

Prob­lemata*

Protr.

Protrepticus

Rh.

Rhetoric

SE

Sophistical Refutations

Sens.

Sense and Sensibilia

Top.

Topics

EDITIONS, TRANSLATIONS, AND COMMENTARIES

Ackrill, J. L. Ar­is­totle’s Ethics. London: Faber and Faber, 1973. Bekker, Immanuel. Aristotelis Opera. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1831. Bodéüs, Richard. Aristote: Éthique à Nicomaque. Paris: Flammarion, 2004. Broadie, Sarah, and Christopher Rowe. Ar­is­totle: Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Burnet, John. The Ethics of Ar­is­totle. London: Methuen, 1900. Bywater, Ingram. Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894. Crisp, Roger. Ar­is­totle: Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Dirlmeier, Franz. Aristoteles: Nikomachische Ethik. Berlin: Akademie-­ Verlag, 1964. ———. Aristoteles: Magna Moralia. Berlin: Akademie-­Verlag, 1983. Düring, Ingmar. Ar­is­totle’s Protrepticus: An Attempt at Reconstruction. Göteborg: Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 1961. Gadamer, Hans Georg. Aristoteles, Die Nikomanische Ethik VI. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1998. Gauthier, René Antoine, and Jean Yves Jolif. L’Éthique à Nicomaque: Introduction, Traduction et Commentaire. 2d ed. Louvain-­La-­Neuve: Éditions Peeters, 2002. Grant, Alexander. The Ethics of Ar­is­totle. London: Longman, 1885. Greenwood, L. H. G. Ar­is­totle Nicomachean Ethics Book Six with Essays, Notes, and Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909. Irwin, T. H. Ar­is­totle: Nicomachean Ethics. 2d ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999.



xiv

Editions, Translations, and Commentaries Natali, Carlo. Aristotele: Etica Nicomachea. Rome: Editori Laterza, 1999. Ostwald, Martin. Ar­is­totle: The Nicomachean Ethics. Indianapolis: Bobbs-­Merrill, 1962. Rackham, H. Ar­is­totle: The Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934. Ross, W. D. Ar­is­totle The Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925. Stewart, J. A. Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1882. Susemihl, F. Aristotelis Magna Moralia. Leipzig: Teubner, 1883. Tricot, J. Aristote: Éthique à Nicomaque. Rev. ed. Paris: Vrin, 2007. Woods, Michael. Ar­is­totle’s Eudemian Ethics, Books I, II, and VIII. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Ar­is­totle on Practical Wisdom

INTRODUCTION

The major aim of Nicomachean Ethics VI is to de­fine the relevant type of correct reason (orthos logos). This is the type involved in the virtues of character—courage, temperance, justice, and so on (NE II 6 1106b36–1107a2). At the same time, we are introduced to a distinct va­ri­ety of virtue—virtue of thought (dianoêtikê aretê). For as the virtue of the part of the soul that has reason, virtue of thought must be or include whatever ensures the correctness or truth of the sort of reason that is being sought (1/39a15–17, 2/39b12–13). That ethics should be interested in virtues of character is no doubt obvious. That it should be interested in practical reason and its virtue or excellence is perhaps equally so. But that it should be interested in the virtue or excellence of the sort of theoretical reason exhibited in the most rigorous type of sci­en­tific knowledge seems not obvious at all—as Ar­is­totle shows himself well aware (12/43b18–20). In the case of all three virtues, his explanatory and justificatory strategy is, however, much the same. We all wish for what we think is best for us and agree in calling our best or highest good eudaimonia (happiness) or eupraxia (doing well in action). Yet we disagree profoundly about what it consists in: As far as the name goes, practically ev­ery­one agrees; for both the masses and the sophisticated call it happiness and suppose that living well and doing well are the same as being happy. But about what happiness is, they disagree, and the masses do not give the same answer as the wise. (NE I 4 1095a17–22)

To get clear about what it is, which is in large part what the Ethics undertakes to do (I 2 1094a22–26), is thus an im­por­tant ethical task—one that has sig­nifi­cant practical consequences, at least for

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2

Introduction

an audience whose appetites and feelings have been properly shaped from early childhood by the right sort of habituation and training (X 9 1180a1–18). The so-­called function (ergon) argument is a major element in this undertaking (1/39a15–17). If it is correct, happiness is so connected to human virtue that the happy person is the one who, among other things, fulfills his function or performs his characteristic life activities in accord with the best and most complete va­ri­ ety of it: If, then, the function of a human being is activity of the soul in accord with reason or not without reason, and the function, we say, of a certain sort of thing is the same in kind as that of a good thing of that sort, as, for example, in the case of a lyre player and a good lyre player, and this is unconditionally so in all cases, when we add the superior achievement that is in accord with the virtue to the function (for it is characteristic of a lyre player to play the lyre and to a good one to do so well)—if all this is so, if a human being’s function is taken to be a sort of life and this life to be activity of the soul and actions that involve reason, and it is characteristic of a good man to do these well and nobly, and each thing is completed well when it is in accord with its proper virtue—if all this is so, the human good turns out to be activity of the soul in accord with virtue, and if there are more virtues than one, in accord with the best and most complete. Moreover, in a complete life; for one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one day; nor, similarly, does one day or a short time make someone blessed and happy. (NE I 7 1098a7–20)

Virtue thus be­comes the key to happiness, and part of the goal of ethics—and of the Ethics—be­comes that of helping us to get clear about what virtue is, the better to become virtuous: “It is not to know what virtue is that we are inquiring into it but to become good people—otherwise there would be no bene­fit in it, and so we must inquire into matters relating to actions, that is, how we should do them, since it is they, indeed, that determine what sorts of states we come to have” (II 2 1103b27–31). Ethics is a practical science, the Ethics a practical treatise. Yet even the virtues of character, which include magnificence (megaloprepeia) and wit (eutrapelia), do not seem to carve out



Introduction

quite the same piece of normative space as the narrowly moral virtues. The Ethics deals with “living well as a whole” (5/40a28), not with the moral life alone. Nonetheless, theoretical wisdom (sophia) would scarcely have the practical sig­nifi­cance Ar­is­totle accords to it if it ­weren’t for a further fact, namely, that activity in accord with theoretical wisdom, since it is the best sort of happiness, is the  end practical wisdom and virtue of character must further (13/45a6–11, X 7 1177b24–26). That is why the major puzzle he raises about theoretical wisdom concerns its practical sig­nifi­cance (12/43b18–19). While also about theoretical wisdom, NE VI is thus primarily about practical wisdom. The same might be said, indeed, about the entire work. For the investigation it undertakes is “po­lit­i­cal science of a sort (politikê tis)” (I 2 1094b7), and po­ litical science is the same state of the soul as practical wisdom (8/41b23–24, EE I 8 1218b13–14). Since practical wisdom “is not sci­en­tific knowledge” (8/42a23– 24), it follows that ethics ­isn’t sci­en­tific knowledge either. Yet Ar­is­ totle includes practical sciences among the sciences, and politikê among the practical ones, saying that it “uses the other practical sciences (tas loipais praktikais tôn epistêmôn)” (NE I 2 1094b4–5; also Pol. II 8 1268b37). What causes this prob­lem also solves it. Ethics, like other practical sciences, has a “theoretical” (1/39a6– 11) component that deals with universals and does provide sci­en­ tific knowledge, and a perceptual component that, because it deals with particulars, does not. Although the sci­en­tific component is very im­por­tant because it provides explanations (7/41b14–22), the perceptual component is yet more so: practical wisdom, as Ar­is­ totle laconically puts it, is “more this perception” (8/42a29–30).

The Rational Part Earlier books have prepared us in a number of ways for an account of virtue of thought and even for the existence of a va­ri­ety of such virtues—theoretical wisdom, comprehension (sunesis), and practical wisdom (NE I 13 1103a3–10). Once comprehension emerges as  less an autonomous virtue than an aspect or element in prac­ tical  wisdom (10/43a6–8), however, only two virtues of thought are countenanced—practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom. The

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Introduction

reason for this lies in part in psychology and epistemology and in part in meta­phys­ics. According to Ar­is­totle’s meta­phys­ics, there are two kinds of beings: those whose starting-­points or first principles (archai) “admit  of being otherwise” and those whose starting-­points do not (1/39a6–11). There are starting-­points, in turn, because a true science, whose structure mirrors that of the world, consists of demonstrations, which are deductively valid syllogisms, whose ultimate prem­ises include necessarily true defi­ni­tions of the essences of the beings the science studies (3/39b31–34). Fi­nally, this division in the  beings and sciences is also mirrored in the structure of our souls, since “it is in accord with a certain similarity and kinship” with their objects that parts of the soul have knowledge of them (1/39a10–11). Beings whose starting-­points do not admit of being otherwise are known by the sci­en­tific part (epistêmonikon); beings whose starting-­points do admit of being otherwise, by the calculative one (logistikon). Together these two parts make up the part of soul that has reason (logos), because it can give reasons that justify and explain. The function of each rational subpart is to cognize truth reliably (2/39b12–13). In the case of the sci­en­tific one (or of the contem­ plative or theoretical thought it enables), the truth in question is familiar plain truth; in that of the calculative part (or practical thought), it is practical or action-­determining truth, which is “truth agreeing with correct desire” (2/39a17–35). Since a virtue just is some­thing that enables its possessor to fulfill or complete its function well, it is these functions that hold the key to the virtues of thought (1/39a16–17) and so to the type of ethically correct reason being sought.

Theoretical Wisdom If we want to know the reason that bird meats are healthy, the relevant Aristotelian science might give the following by way of explanation: [1] All light meats are healthy. [2] All bird meats are light. [3] Therefore, all bird meats are healthy.



Introduction

This explanation will be correct if, among other things, [1] the major prem­ise and [2] the minor one are necessarily true and [3] the conclusion follows validly from them. Although we cannot grasp the ultimate starting-­points of a science by demonstrating them in this way from some­thing yet more primitive, they must—if we are to have any sci­en­tific knowledge at all—be better known or more secure than anything we demonstrate from them. What provides this better knowledge is un­der­stand­ing (nous), and induction (epagôgê) is the pro­cess by which universals come within its grasp (3/39b28–31, 6/41a3–8). Induction begins with the perception of particulars. Through imagination and memory, this leads first to an experience, then to a perceptible universal, and fi­nally to an analyzed universal. Analyzed universals (which are the truth-­makers for their defi­ni­tions) are the sort suited to serve as sci­en­tific starting-­points. Once a science has iden­ti­fied starting-­points from which all of its theorems can be demonstrated, it falls to dialectic—or, more precisely, aporematic philosophy—to defend them against various sorts of attack by solving the puzzles (aporiai) on which the attack relies. When these puzzles are solved, so that our grasp of the starting-­point is secure, we have the sort of immediate knowledge of it that constitutes un­der­stand­ing. The virtue of theoretical wisdom is a combination of un­der­stand­ing of starting-­points and sci­en­tific knowledge of what follows demonstratively from them (7/41a17–20). Granted this picture of science, it is clear why the virtue or excellence of the sci­en­tific part of the soul, ensuring the very best sort of sci­en­tific knowledge, should deal with universal necessary truths: other sorts are less sure and less general. It is clear, too, why it must comprise not just knowledge of what follows from a science’s starting-­points, but a grasp by un­der­stand­ing of those starting-­ points themselves: failure to have knowledge of starting-­points is an obvious epistemic liability, as Plato had already shown (Republic VI 510c–511d). When we discover what theoretical wisdom’s ac­tual subject matter is, however, we are bound to feel ourselves on less familiar ground. God—as prime mover—is the final or teleological cause of ev­ ery­thing else in the Aristotelian universe. Consequently, he is an explanatory factor in all the other sciences. Since a science S1 is more rigorous than another S2 if (among other things) S1 offers

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Introduction

demonstrations of the starting-­points of S2, it follows that theology is the most rigorous science. God is also the best or most estimable thing. Hence theoretical wisdom, as the most rigorous science, must deal with the most estimable thing (7/41a9–17, 7/41a33–b3). That this science must be theology is left for us to infer. It is clear even from this brief sketch that Ar­is­totle is thinking of theoretical wisdom not as a nascent science, which is in the pro­cess of being developed or perfected but as an already completed science, in need of neither addition nor correction. A virtue, after all, is a perfection of a sort (Ph. VII 3 246b2). This applies equally well to practical wisdom. We must not overlook the difference, Ar­is­ totle warns, between “arguments from starting-­points and arguments toward starting-­points” (NE I 4 1095a30–32). Much of the Ethics is an argument toward such starting-­points as (the defi­ni­ tions of) happiness and the virtues of character and thought. Someone who already possesses these starting-­points argues from them, as Ar­is­totle argues from the defi­ni­tion of what it is to do an injustice to the conclusion that a decent person does not do an in­ justice  to himself when he “takes less that his share” (NE V 9 1136b17–25).

Practical Wisdom Outside the sphere of the necessary and sci­en­tifically explicable lies the sphere of what admits of being otherwise where things happen by luck (tuchê). This is the sphere within which production (poiêsis) and action (praxis)—and thus practical wisdom—operate. For what happens by luck is the sort of thing that might be an outcome of thought or practical wisdom but ­isn’t (1/39a6–11). For example, there is no explanation in any Aristotelian theoretical or natural science for the fact that (as luck would have it) this tree is at such-­ and-­such a place. Since the tree is just where X would have planted it had he deliberated about the matter, it is lucky for him that it is there. If X had, indeed, planted it, it would be where it is because of his voluntary actions and the beliefs, desires, and deliberation that give rise to them. So X would be the starting-­point of the explanation of its being there. When we believe that some­thing is lucky or unlucky or see it as lucky or unlucky, we are either pleased that it is the way it is (luck-



Introduction

ily for X, the tree is just where he wants it), or pained (unluckily for him, it ­isn’t). Since plea­sures and pains are involved in appetites and feelings, seeing things as lucky or unlucky is in part a matter of our appetites and feelings—of what we are pleased or pained by. What makes an item in the sphere of luck a piece of genuinely good luck rather than bad, however, is its relationship to happiness, which is the perennial end or goal of action (NE VII 13 1153b17– 25). Hence our desires and feelings will be as they should—they will be in a mean, as Ar­is­totle puts it—when they are for, and so represent as good luck, what really will best further our happiness. Since the virtues of character alone ensure that we feel the things we should, in the way we should, when we should, about the things we should, toward the people, we should, for the end we should, and in the way we should, we will see and believe correctly in the sphere of luck only if we possess these virtues. Because virtue of character makes us see as furthering happiness  what furthers genuine happiness, it is what makes practical wisdom’s target correct (12/44a8). Appetites, desires, and feelings, which are con­stit­u­ents of the desiring part of the soul (orektikon), are not blind pushes, however, but motivating ­modes of perception that respond to goods or values they help to make appear as such. Since plea­sure is woven into ev­ery object of desire of choice, when practical wisdom has, as a result of deliberation, discovered that some­thing accessible to perception is an instance of doing well in action, the thing in question simultaneously attracts wish (boulêsis), which is in the calculative part of the soul and is a desire spe­cifi­cally for the good or the apparent good (2/39a22–27, 8/42a27–29). The desiring part of the soul whose virtues are virtues of character, cannot give reasons or construct explanatory sci­en­tific arguments as the part with reason can: “desire does not possess a deliberative part” (DA III 11 434a11–12). Nonetheless, because it can listen to reasons provided by the calculative part and obey them as a child does its father, it shares in reason, in a way. Similarly, the calculative part can listen to the sci­en­tific part on matters to which it has no autonomous access. If we want to know whether this bird meat is healthy, for example, it is the sci­en­tific explanation we looked at above that provides us with the information we need. Equipped with the knowledge that all bird meats are healthy,

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Introduction

and the (as we may suppose) true belief that this meat is bird meat, the calculative part does some reasoning of its own: [1] All bird meats are healthy. [2] This is bird meat. [3] Therefore, this is healthy. But because “thought by itself moves nothing” (2/39a35–36), this reasoning may have no in­flu­ence on action. To drive this point home, Ar­is­totle distinguishes practical wisdom—which is a prescriptive capacity, to which the desiring part should listen—from good-­comprehension, which is discerning or critical but not prescriptive (10/43a8–10). For someone might reason in just this way in evaluating someone else’s deliberation or course of action. When such reasoning occurs in an agent who is trying to decide whether to eat the piece of meat in question, however, the conclusion does directly in­flu­ence action. This is so not simply because of the agent’s appetites or desires, which may oppose his wish, as happens in the continent or incontinent person, but because of wish itself, which, because it is for the good or apparent good, is always responsive to deliberation’s out­comes (2/39a22–27). In a piece of practical reasoning, in a practical syllogism or demonstration, wish is correlated with the major prem­ise, which—if the reasoning is unconditionally good—is a correct defi­ni­tion of happiness (11/43a35–b11). The minor prem­ise, which Ar­is­totle refers to as a decree (psêphisma), is a prescription couched in the sorts of terms that allow it to be acted on without the need of further deliberation using perception alone. It is the “last thing” reached in deliberation, and so the thing that is to be put into action (8/41b23–28). The conclusion of the argument, which is not to be confused with this last thing, is not a further proposition but an action that makes the decree true: How does it happen that un­der­stand­ing is sometimes followed by action, sometimes by inaction, that is, sometimes by moving and sometimes by not moving? What happens seems parallel to the case of thinking and syllogizing about unchanging objects. But there the end is a theoretical proposition (for when one has understood the



Introduction

two prem­ises, one has understood—that is, put together—the conclusion), whereas here the conclusion that follows from the two prem­ises [being put together] be­comes the action. Some examples: whenever someone understands that ev­ery man should take walks and that he is a man, straightaway he takes a walk, or if he understands that no man should take a walk now and that he is a man, he straightaway stays put. And he does each of these things provided nothing prevents him [from doing it] or compels him [to do some­ thing else]. (MA 7 701a7–16; also NE VII 3 1147a25–31)

The form of such a practical demonstration is, therefore, this: Major prem­ise: Minor prem­ise: Conclusion:

Defi­ni­tion of happiness Decree Action

The agent believes, we may suppose, that healthy food is good or happiness-­furthering, and so is led to conclude that eating bird meat would best further his happiness. Since, in the circumstances in which he finds himself, he can tell by perception that this meat is bird meat, he straightway eats it, provided that nothing prevents him from doing so. This demonstration embodies practical wisdom’s correct reason in this case—the prescription which, in these particular circumstances, optimally furthers happiness. Suppose, though, the agent lacks the virtue of temperance, so that his appetites for such things as food, drink, and sex are not in a mean. His hunger for the unhealthy beefsteak may then overcome his wish for the lean and healthy bird meat, in part by making the beefsteak look more appetizing. If so, he will succumb to incontinence and fail to do what he should. But whereas what one believes is what one asserts in the calculative part of one’s soul, what one believes in a practical or action-­determining way is what one both asserts there, effectively desires in one’s desiring part, and so pursues: “someone does not have practical wisdom simply by knowing; he must also act on his knowledge” (NE VII 10 1152a8– 9). It follows that the minor prem­ise of the syllogism embodying an incontinent agent’s practical reasoning is not a practical truth, since though his thought (the calculative part) asserts it, the corresponding action is not forthcoming. The sphere of luck is partly determined by the sphere of neces-

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Introduction

sity—although, as we saw, the sciences dealing with the latter are coincidentally useful within it. It is further determined, this time noncoincidentally or intrinsically, by other sciences. These include practical sciences, such as household management and legislative science, which deal with action, as well as crafts, such as medicine and building, which deal with production. It is only when these sciences fail to tell us what to do and how to do it that deliberation is required. The more rigorous the sciences involved, the less often this happens, which is why we find Ar­is­totle baldly stating at one point that craft “does not deliberate” (Ph. II 8 199b28). And even when deliberation is required, we may need expert advice on elements in it: “we call on partners in deliberation on im­por­tant questions when we mistrust ourselves as not being adequate to discern the answer” (NE III 3, 1112b10–11). It is as involving an architectonic science, indeed, which is in control of all other sciences and has access to their resources and counsel, that we first meet practical wisdom (NE I 2 1094a26–b11)—although we may be unaware that in meeting po­lit­i­cal science that it is what we are meeting (8/41b23–24). Of the practical and productive sciences, po­lit­i­cal science, which includes the part of practical wisdom involved in legislation and drafting universal laws, is the most architectonic and has the most control, since in aiming at happiness it aims at a good that is subserved by the goods aimed at by all the others. By controlling and coordinating these goods and by drafting universal laws about what actions should be done or avoided, its function is to further happiness in the best and most effective way. Since these laws should be complete and detailed enough to leave little to the vagaries of human wish, an individual citizen’s need for deliberation should be minimal. It is only when, as with the other practical sciences and crafts, the universal laws fail to tell him what to do that deliberation is required. Correct practical reasons are thus either correct architectonic reasons or correct deliberative ones. Happiness, as the best human good, is the teleological starting-­ point of practical wisdom, the goal, end, or target at which the best kind of deliberation must aim (9/42b29–33). For people generally agree that happiness is the highest practical good and so accept a formal but somewhat empty characterization of it as that



Introduction

which “all by itself makes life choiceworthy and in need of nothing” (NE I 7 1097b14–15). The different concrete conceptions of what happiness consists in, they acquire “from their lives” (NE I 5 1095b15–16)—that is to say, from perception of the particulars they end up being pleased or pained by as a result of the habits they develop. These particulars are thus the “starting-­points of the that for the sake of which” (11/43b4)—the starting-­points of their inductive grasp of happiness as they come to conceive it. If they have been brought up with good eating habits, they will take plea­ sure in, and so see as furthering happiness, things like bird meats. If they have been brought up with bad eating habits, they will find bird meats unpleasant, preferring instead the non-­happiness-­ furthering beefsteaks, which, because they take plea­sure in them, will appear to them in a happiness-­furthering light. At the same time more general sci­en­tific theorizing about themselves and the universe of which they are a part may have led them to conclude that their happiness must consist in rational activity in accord with the best and most complete virtue (NE I 7 1097b22– 1098a20). But this conclusion cannot simply trump their inductive experience: The truth in practical matters must be discerned from the things we do and from our life; for these are what have the controlling vote. Hence when we examine ev­ery­thing that has been previously said, it must be by bringing it to bear on the things we do and on our life, and if it is in harmony with what we do, we should accept it, but if it con­flicts, we should suppose it mere words. (NE X 8 1179a17–22)

Theory can illuminate and deepen experience but cannot go too much against its grain without undermining itself. In this respect, Aristotelian ethics is no different from Aristotelian natural or theoretical science. It is the conception of happiness emerging from this two-­pronged pro­cess that practical wisdom takes as a starting-­ point—a given. For practical wisdom is primarily a deliberative capacity (5/40a30–31), and we deliberate not about ends but about what furthers them, whether as means or as con­stit­ue­ nts (12/44a8– 9, NE III 3 1112b11–12). That is yet another limit on the scope of deliberation.

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The overall picture is some­thing like this. Ethics or po­lit­i­cal science tells us what the happiness is that a healthy diet must further (NE I 1–2); medicine tells us that bird meat is healthy to eat; perception tells us that this meat is bird meat; culinary science tells us that bird meat is properly cooked when the juices run clear; perception tells us that these juices are clear. Since we do not deliberate about particulars, such as whether a loaf is cooked or not, the bird meat is simply eaten straight off. For if perception were in­suf­ fi­cient to settle some questions, deliberation would go on indefi­ nitely (NE III 3 1112b34–1113a2). It is with the perception of such particulars, and so with the sorts of universals we can apply to them on the basis of perception, that we come to the heart of nonarchitectonic or deliberative practical wisdom, which is practical wisdom par excellence. The relevant sort of perception, however, is the desire-­infused or practical perception appropriate to the sphere of luck, which the virtues of character make correct. Before we begin to deliberate or find ourselves needing to do so, we have to be presented with a practical prob­lem to deliberate about. Sometimes it is our desires or appetites that make us aware of this need. We are hungry. We desire to eat. We wish for happiness. What should we eat? If the answer is obvious, there is no need to deliberate; if it ­isn’t, it is through deliberation that we discover the answer. When, as a result of deliberating, our practical wisdom reaches a decree prescribing the eating of bird meat, we will, since we are virtuous, see the bird meat as appetizing and eat it with plea­sure. If we were merely continent, we would see it as good for us but not appetizing and would eat it with some reluctance, since our appetite would be averse to it. If we were incontinent, we would see the bird meat as good for us but repellent and would not eat it, thereby frustrating our wish (8/42a29–30). Often what alerts us to the need for deliberation is the situation in which we perceive ourselves to be. And the way in which it brings itself to our attention is through our appetites or feelings. But it ­isn’t bare, unconceptualized situations that affect us in this way; our feelings are usually engaged by situations conceived as insults, dangers, or the like. Indeed, they help to interpret or compose the situations to which they are responses, serving as practical perception’s ­modes. A timorous person overreacts to danger in part



Introduction

because he misperceives minor dangers as major ones fully justifying his reaction. The practically wise man, by contrast, since his fears are in a mean, neither overestimates nor underestimates the dangers he faces and so sees correctly. This correct seeing, as a mode of practical perception, is not a sort of sensitivity to explicit reasons, since none have yet appeared on the scene. Rather it is a sensitivity to what we might call value-­relevant factors—to plea­ sures and pains and all the things they infuse. It is when such sensitivity leads us to prob­lems concerning what to do that reasons are needed, and these deliberation—or, in unprob­lematic cases, a practical or productive science—provides. Fi­nally, deliberation is subject to time constraints that bear on its quality. If it is to be good deliberation, it must find the best means to the unconditionally correct end and do so in and at the appropriate time (9/42b26–28). Speed may be of the essence but so, too, may foresight. We can err not just in missing the boat but in failing to deliberate suf­fi­ciently in advance when time was not at such a premium. Unlike the conclusion of a theoretical syllogism, which is a proposition, the conclusion of a practical one, as we saw, is an action. That is one im­por­tant difference between the two. A second dif­ ference is that syllogisms (or demonstrations) in the strictly theoretical sciences hold universally and with unconditional necessity, whereas practical syllogisms hold for the most part. This marks a difference between ethics (po­lit­i­cal science) and those sciences and a similarity between it and natural sciences. Although these differences are sig­nifi­cant, they are signally not re­flected in the shape or logic of practical reasoning. All sci­en­tific reasoning, in Ar­is­totle’s view—whether in theoretical, natural, or productive sciences—is syllogistic and, at its best, demonstrative in form. The ultimate or unconditional topic for the deliberator is: what in these circumstances constitutes happiness correctly conceived as rational activity in accord with complete virtue? He will have answered it when he finds a middle term F with the following features: first, doing an action that is F in these circumstances will best further rational activity in accord with complete virtue; second, an F action is one he can do in these circumstances without doing anything else; third, an F action is one he can tell he is doing

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Introduction

on the basis of perception alone, without the need for further deliberation. A syllogism with these major and minor prem­ises need not embody the entirety of a deliberator’s reasoning or in­quiry, but it does constitute its de­fin­ing focus: it tells him what in the last analysis he is looking for, namely, a middle term with the requisite features. Still, to find it he may need to find many other things first. Some of these a science or craft may provide; some may be provided by perception; some he may need to find by further deliberating or syllogizing; some will identify external means to his subordinate ends, others essential con­stit­ue­ nts. In the end, though, when he has found them, all will fall under the umbrella of F. So that in being the focus of his deliberation it is also the organizing and unifying principle of his plan of action. It is the complex action implementing this entire uni­fied plan, in turn, that constitutes his acting well and being happy. An account of the general structure of correct practical reasons will not, of course, do the work of practical wisdom itself any more than a similar account of medically correct reasons will do the work of medicine: People think that to know what things are just and what unjust we do not need to be at all wise, because it is not dif­fi­cult to comprehend the things the laws speak about (although it ­isn’t these that are the just ones except coincidentally). But knowing how actions are to be done, and distributions made, if they are to be just—that is a bigger task than knowing what things are healthy, since even in that case while knowing it is things such as honey, wine, hellebore, cautery, and surgery may be easy, knowing how to administer them to produce health, and to whom and when, is no less a task than being a doctor. (NE V 13 1137a9–17)

If we have been well brought up with noble habits, so that we have natural or habituated virtue of character, we have what it takes to be adequate students of the noble and just things that are the starting-­points of ethics (NE I 4 1095b4–5). What we will not yet have, though, simply by having such habits, is a clear un­der­stand­ ing of the target—happiness. We will know the facts experience teaches, and may possess the cle­verness required for calculating ef-



Introduction

fective means to ends (12/44a23–29), but we will not know the explanation of those facts, since that is some­thing a science can alone provide (Met. I 1 981a28–b10, NE I 4 1095b4–8). As a work of po­lit­i­cal or ethical philosophy (Pol. III 12 1282b19– 23), or “the philosophy of human affairs” (NE X 9 1181b15), the aim of the Ethics is practical, as we saw, not theoretical (II 2 1103b27–31). That is why its central aim is to determine what happiness is (I 2 1094a23–25). For once our un­der­stand­ing does grasp the target, so that instead of being blind to the goal of our life we see what it is, our natural or habituated virtue is transformed into full virtue and we really do become fully good (13/44b1–32). At the same time, the natural virtues, which can be possessed separately, become collectively integrated into a single state, since all are required by practical wisdom, as it is by them (13/44b30– 45a2). We noticed earlier that because theoretical wisdom is a virtue it is conceived not as nascent or still in the pro­cess of being developed but as complete and perfect. The same, we also noticed, is true of practical wisdom. This has im­por­tant consequences for how we should and should not think of it. When deliberation is part of complete or fully perfected practical wisdom it is not providing content for or fill­ing out the agent’s conception of what happiness is. Instead, a fully worked-­out conception is presumed to be already available to him. But even with such a conception to hand, even with all the practical and productive sciences to aid him, there will be circumstances in which he has to work out for himself what to do. It ­isn’t that each new occasion for deliberation results in a re­finement of the laws, an enrichment of the principles of the practical or productive sciences, or a better implicit universal defi­ni­tion of the happiness they further—these are already presumed to be as rich or as good as can be. Yet deliberation is sometimes needed anyway. What does get enriched, what does become more dis­ criminating, is the agent’s eye, his powers of practical perception (11/43b13–14). This makes him better at deliberating, certainly, but only by making him better able to discover what best fits the laws and the conception of happiness he brings to the deliberative situation, not by modifying the content of what he brings. If we think in nascent terms, the conception of happiness an

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Introduction

agent brings to the deliberative situation may seem too vague, too lacking in content, to serve as an action-­guiding “grand end” for practical wisdom. If we think of completed sciences and laws, the  grand-­end picture is more plausible—although the ineliminable need for deliberation reveals some of its limitations. In the Eudemian Ethics, Ar­is­totle embraces a grand-­end view, but in a form that reveals his awareness of the difference between these two ways of thinking of it: [1] To be happy, to live blessedly and nobly, would seem to reside most of all in three things, the ones that seem to be most choiceworthy. For some say that practical wisdom is the greatest good, others virtue, and others plea­sure. And some dispute about the importance of these as regards happiness, claiming that one con­trib­utes more than another to it—some holding that practical wisdom is a greater good than virtue, others that virtue is a greater good than it, others that plea­sure is greater good than either. Moreover, some think that living happily consists in some of these, some in two of them, others that it consists in a certain one. [2] Knowing, then, these things, ev­ ery­one who can live in accord with his own deliberate choice should ­adopt some target for the noble life, whether honor, reputation, wealth, or education, which he will look to in all his actions—at any rate, not to have ordered one’s life in relation to some end is the sign of great folly. [3] Most of all, though, and before ev­ery­thing else, he should de­fine for himself in which of our possessions living well consists, and [4] what those things are without which it cannot belong to human beings. For being healthy is not the same as the things without which it is not possible to be healthy, and this holds likewise in many other cases, too, so that living nobly is not the same as the things without which it is not possible to live nobly. (I 1–2 1214a30–b17)

[1] reminds us that happiness is a contested notion, because it is not clear in what good thing or things it consists—practical wisdom, virtue, plea­sure, or education and cultivation of one’s character and thought. Because of this, [2] any wise (or nonfoolish) person who can live as he deliberately chooses should set up one of these as the target or grand end of his life—virtue if he makes his target honor or reputation, wealth if he makes it plea­sure, educa-



Introduction

tion or cultivation if he makes it practical wisdom—and look to it in all his actions to determine whether or not they further it. However, he should [3] do this only after de­fin­ing or determining for himself what that grand end genuinely consists in, being careful to distinguish its con­stit­u­ents from [4] its enabling conditions. The grand end, in other words, is not some­thing we start with a fully developed conception or defi­ni­tion of, so that even nascent deliberation already has it in view. Instead, it is some­thing we must first de­fine for ourselves through the arduous dialectical or aporematic pro­cess ­adopted in the Nicomachean as in the Eudemian Ethics— some­thing we are not in a position to do until, at the age of forty or so, our good early upbringing has been complemented by substantial life experience (11/43b11–14). To be in a position to apply the find­ings of ethics to our life, which is the only relevant test of their truth, we must have a life to apply them to.

The Best Human Life What sci­en­tific investigation of ourselves and the world tells us, in Ar­is­totle’s view, is that our un­der­stand­ing (nous) is the divine element in us, and the one with which we are most iden­ti­fied: Each human being seems to be this [his un­der­stand­ing], if, indeed, he is the element of his that has most control and is better. Hence it would be absurd if he were to choose not his own life but some­thing else’s. And what we have said before will also apply now. For what is proper to each thing’s nature is best and pleasantest for it; for a human being, too, then, the life in accord with un­der­stand­ing will be best and pleasantest, if, indeed, it most of all is the human being. Hence this life will also be happiest. (NE X 7 1178a2–8; also Protr. B58–70)

Active un­der­stand­ing in accord with theoretical wisdom, moreover, as our function brought to completion in accord with the best and most complete virtue, is the best kind of happiness, provided it extends through a complete life (NE X 7 1177b24–26). Since practical wisdom has happiness as its de­fin­ing target or teleological starting-­point, it must aim to further contemplation, the leisure

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Introduction

time required for it, and the relevant sort of completeness of life— at any rate, when circumstances permit. When it finds itself in such circumstances, the universal laws it must enact in its guise as po­lit­i­cal science include those pertaining to the education of (future) citizens in the virtues of character and thought, and to the various so-­called external goods, such as wealth and so on, needed for virtuous activities, long life, and, indeed, for life itself (13/45a6–11). Practical wisdom should maximize the cultivation of the character, and its virtues, since “a happy life for human beings is possessed more often by those who have cultivated their character and thought to a surpassing degree” (Pol. VII 1 1323b1–3). When it ­comes to activities, it is on the leisured ones that it should aim to have us spend the greatest possible amount of time and of these, contemplation in accord with theoretical wisdom, since “the more someone engages in contemplation, the happier he is” (NE X 8 1178b29–30). A human being is a po­lit­ic­ al animal. He needs family, friends, fellow citizens, and other external goods if he is to be able to contemplate, and cannot survive on a diet of contemplation alone, since his nature, unlike a god’s, is not self-­suf­fic­ ient for it (NE X 8 1178b33–1179a9). Insofar as he is human, then, he will deliberately choose to do actions that are in accord with virtue of character. If, as may happen because of uncontrollable circumstances, such actions fail to achieve the leisure needed for contemplation, they nonetheless, as intrinsically valuable themselves, constitute a kind of happiness second in quality only to the best kind of happiness constituted by contemplation itself. The life in which it is achieved, even if no better kind of happiness is thereby furthered, is, Ar­is­totle says, “happiest, but in a secondary way” (NE X 7–8 1178a8–9). The life consisting of unleisured practical po­lit­i­cal activity in accord with practical wisdom and the virtues of character is the altogether happiest one, when—because it is led in a city with the best constitution, ideally situated and provisioned with external goods​ —it succeeds in achieving the best kind of happiness for its possessor. This complex life—part practical, part contemplative—is the best human life that practical wisdom, which is the best kind of practical knowledge, can arrange.



Introduction

The Place of NE VI in Ar­is­totle’s Thought The surviving fragments of the early Protrepticus provide a picture of the best life, which, on the surface at least, is remarkably similar to the one we find in the Nicomachean Ethics. Here human beings are iden­ti­fied more than anything with their un­der­stand­ing (B62), which is the only divine element in them (B108–110). Its virtue or excellence, which is variously called phronêsis (B5, 17, 20–21, 38, 40, 43, 77, 103), sophia (B27, 29, 53, 94), or philosophia (B5, 9, 41, 52, 55–57, 95), is the one associated with happiness (B68, 91– 95). At the same time, a kind of phronêsis, recognizably akin to practical wisdom, is distinguished from a kind of sophia, recognizably akin to theoretical wisdom, and assigned a subsidiary value and role: Some acts of thinking are choiceworthy solely because of the contemplation itself and are more estimable and better than those useful in relation to other things. The contemplative ones are estimable because of themselves, and the sophia that is characteristic of un­der­ stand­ing (nous) is choiceworthy for them, but phronêsis is choiceworthy for the sake of practical ones. The good and the estimable, then, lies in acts of contemplation in accord with sophia, but certainly not in acts of contemplation of ev­ery kind. (B27)

Implicitly acknowledging that phronêsis and sophia are doing this sort of double duty in the account, some fragments speak of “theoretical” sophia (B29) or “theoretical” phronêsis (B46), contrasting these with their practical va­ri­e­ties. Thus animals have “some small sparks of reason (logos) and phronêsis but are entirely deprived of theoretical sophia” (B29). Theoretical phronêsis, which seems to be the same as theoretical sophia, is the special possession of the philosopher, who “alone lives with his eye on nature and the divine” (B50). In contrast with the other crafts and sciences, philosophy’s “most rigorous reasonings” begin from primary starting-­points, which are “de­fin­ing-­marks derived from nature and from the truth itself, by reference to which he will discern what is just, what is noble, and what is advantageous” (B47–48). Yet even though philosophy

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Introduction

is neither productive nor practical, it is a crucial factor in human action: Such sci­en­tific knowledge is, indeed, contemplative, yet it enables us to craft ev­ery­thing in accord with it. For just as sight neither produces nor crafts anything (since its sole function is to discern and make clear each visible thing), it enables us to do things because of it and gives us the greatest help as regards actions (since we would be almost entirely unable to move if deprived of it). (B51)

In the Eudemian Ethics, where the role of the un­der­stand­ing in the soul is analogized to that of God in the universe, we find the very same thought: “What the starting-­point of movement is in the soul is thus clear: just as in the universe it is God, so it is in the soul. For the divine element in us in a way does all the moving” (EE VIII 2 1248a25–29). As in B27, it is this element and its activities that are best. Philosophia in the Protrepticus is “the acquisition and use of sophia” (B53) of the theoretical sort. Hence it constitutes “unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge,” which, as the virtue of “the element in us with most control” (B67), is identical to or is the source of happiness (B68, B94–96) and has “contemplation as its maximally controlling end” (B66), truth as its “maximally controlling function” (B65). Hence it is almost certainly what the Nicomachean Ethics calls sophia (theoretical wisdom). Philosophia’s pleasantness is another im­por­tant point in its ­favor: Complete and unimpeded activity has delight internal to it, so that the activity of contemplation (theôrêtikê energeia) must be the most pleasant of all . . . For the truest active un­der­stand­ings, and the ones filled up by the truest beings and preserving steadfastly forever the completeness it receives [from them] is of all things the most efficacious in producing joy. (B87–91)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, the philosophy involved in contemplation continues to possess plea­sures that are “remarkably pure and stable” (X 7 1177a25–26), and, when it takes the form of contem-



Introduction

plation in accord with theoretical wisdom, remains a rigorous— indeed, the most rigorous—science (B55, 7/41a12–17). The Eudemian Ethics has three books in common with the Nicomachean (NE V–VII = EE IV–VI) but is generally regarded as less mature.1 It exhibits a trace of the terminological fluidity characteristic of the Protrepticus but only, it seems, in contexts in which the views of others are being characterized (II 1 1218b34–35 may be an exception). In these, phronêsis is what philosophy is concerned with because of its wish to “have theoretical knowledge of the truth” (I 4 1215b1–2; also I 1 1214a32, b3, 5 1216a38). Outside them, it has its familiar, distinctively practical flavor. It is a prescriptive state (VIII 3 1249b14–15) and a controlling or architectonic one associated with po­lit­ic­ al science and household management, whose end is the best practical human good (I 8 1218b12–14). It involves sci­en­tific knowledge, certainly, but because it involves good states of the non-­reason-­possessing or desiring part of the soul, it cannot consist of sci­en­tific knowledge alone (VIII 1 1246a26–b35). The deliberative part of the soul is mentioned in passing (II 10 1226b25), but phronêsis is not assigned to it as its peculiar virtue nor is a distinctively sci­en­tific part distinguished from it. The word sophia occurs twice in the Eudemian Ethics outside the common books, referring not to theoretical wisdom but to the wisdom of a craftsman (VII 10 1243b33–34). A sophos, too, is sometimes just a generic wise person. But the sophos characterized as possessing a virtue of thought and as possessing sunesis (comprehension) presumably has a stricter sort of sophia that is at least akin to theoretical wisdom (I 4 1215a23, II 1 1220a4–12, VIII 2 1248a35). Theoretical philosophia is mentioned once, as are Ar­is­

1. Anthony Kenny, The Aristotelian Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) and Ar­is­totle on the Perfect Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 113–142, make a case for the greater ma­tu­ri­ty of the Eudemian Ethics. Few have been convinced, but many believe the Eudemian Ethics to be the original home of the common books. Christopher Bobonich, “Ar­is­totle’s Ethical Treatises,” in The Blackwell Guide to Ar­is­totle’s Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Richard Kraut (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 24–29, summarizes some of the more im­por­tant issues.

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Introduction

totle’s own philosophical works, which can, of course, include works in ethics or po­lit­i­cal philosophy (I 1 1214a13, 6 1216b39, 8 1217b23). The philosophia included among “the greatest goods,” however, is presumably contemplative or theoretical in nature (VII 12 1245a22). For the life of a philosopher (philosophos) is contrasted with that of someone active in politics (politikos), and a philosophical (philosopôs) way of proceeding in any kind of in­ quiry, even the most practical, involves seeking the sorts of theoretical explanations that inevitably lead to starting-­points that may be quite far removed from practice (I 4 1215a36–b1, 5 1216a29, 6 1216b35–40, VIII 3 1249b16–25). The Eudemian Ethics classifies natural, mathematical, and astronomical sciences as theoretical, contrasting these with productive sciences, whose end is different from sci­en­tific knowledge and knowledge generally (I 5 1216b10–19, II 1 1219a17, II 3 1221b5–6, II 11 1227b29–30). It does not mention practical sciences as such, but it does refer to epistêmonikê praxis (“action done in a sci­en­ tifically knowledgeable way”) and classes some practical sciences, such as po­lit­i­cal science, as productive (I 5 1216b16–19, 8 1218a34, b 13, II 3 1220b25, VII 1 1234b22, 2 1237a2). In describing phronêsis as “epistêmê, and some­thing true” (VIII 1 1246b4), it almost certainly means no more than that phronêsis involves epistêmê and the true reasons it provides. For within a few paragraphs it continues: “It is clear that men become phronimoi and the states of the nonrational part become good at the same time, and that the view of Soc­ra­tes, that nothing is stron­ger than phronêsis, is correct. But in saying that it is epistêmê, he was not correct, since it is a virtue and not epistêmê but knowledge (gnôseôs) of a different kind” (VIII 1 1246b32–36). The Nicomachean Ethics carefully distinguishes phronêsis from productive science, action from production. The Eudemian, on the other hand, classes actions as movements (II 6 1222b29), which is what productions are (4/40a1–10), and practical sciences as productive ones. At the same time, it speaks of actions themselves as being produced (I 2 1214b9) and, like the Nicomachean, speaks of “the activity (energeia) of the virtue of the soul” indifferently as happiness and as “doing well in action” (II 1 1219a23–b8), contrasting the activity that results from the ac­tualization of a state (hexis), such as virtue, with the state itself (II 1 1219a30–31).



Introduction

Hence not much seems to be at stake in its failure to thematize the distinction between productive and practical sciences. Although the Eudemian Ethics does not clas­sify phronêsis as a science and is not in that way in con­flict with the Nicomachean, it is entirely silent, outside the common books, on the perceptual element in phronêsis mandated by its need to deal not just—as is true of any science—with universals but also with particulars. Yet it is well aware that perception has a crucial role to play in deliberation of all kinds: [Someone might be] puzzled about why doctors deliberate about things dealt with by their science, but letter-­writers or scribes do not. The explanation is that errors occur in two ways (we make an error either in calculation or in perception when ac­tually doing the thing). In medicine both kinds of error are possible, whereas in the case of letter-­writing only the kind in perception and action, since if they have to deliberate about that, it will go on without limit. (II 10 1226a33–b2; compare NE III 3 1112b34–1113a2)

Hence it must also have allowed perception a role in the ethical deliberation whose end is made correct by the virtues of character but in which it is left to “another capacity”—practical wisdom or cle­verness—to discover “all that must be done to further the end” (II 11 1227b39–1228a2; compare 12/44a23–29). The Eudemian Ethics distinguishes virtue of character from virtue of thought but without, as we saw, thematizing the distinction between practical and theoretical wisdom (II 4 1221b27–31). It recognizes that natural virtue of character is one thing, virtue of character together with practical wisdom another (III 7 1234a29– 30), and is explicit that virtues of the body and of the nutritive part of the soul are “not a part (morion) of virtue as a whole (holês)” (II 1 1219b21). While it iden­ti­fies happiness with “activity of a complete life (zôês) in accord with complete virtue” (II 1 1219a35– 39), the only virtue it recognizes as complete is kalokagathia (noble-­goodness), which is an amalgam of all the natural virtues of character together with phronêsis (VIII 3 1248b8–1249a16). The de­fin­ing-­mark (horos) noble-­goodness must use in choosing the external goods with which its con­stit­u­ent virtues of character are all concerned is “what will most of all produce the contemplation of

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Introduction

the divine element,” and it is for the sake of this that phronêsis must issue its prescriptions (VIII 3 1249a21–b25). Even though the contemplation in question is not said to be in accord with theoretical wisdom, little but the name sophia is missing from it. Hence when it ­comes to what the end or target in life is, and to the relation of phronêsis and the virtues of character to it, the Protrepticus and Eudemian Ethics tell the same general story, if not always in the same vocabulary or with the same level of re­flection and elaboration as we find in the Nicomachean Ethics. Long thought not to be an authentic Aristotelian treatise, the Magna Moralia is now widely accepted either as representing a stage of Ar­is­totle’s ethical thinking somewhat earlier than the Eudemian or Nicomachean Ethics or as a digest of views contained in them, perhaps written by someone else.2 Here, too, in any case, happiness is the best good, iden­ti­fied with doing well and living well and with activity or active living in accord with complete virtue in a life complete (I 3 1184b8–9, 4 1184b35–1185a5, 1185a25– 26). As in the Eudemian Ethics, complete virtue is kalokagathia (II 8 1207b20–27), and, as in the Nicomachean Ethics, the two reason­possessing subparts (bouleutikon, epistêmonikon) of the soul are distinguished as are their virtues—sophia, comprising nous and epistêmê, and phronêsis, comprising deinotês (“cle­verness”) and phusikê aretê (“natural virtue”) (I 34 1196b11–34, 1197a24–26, 1197b17–1198a9). Although no distinctive sort of perception is associated with it, phronêsis is clearly iden­ti­fied as a practical state rather than a productive one, dealing with perceptible objects rather than simply intelligible ones (I 34 1196b27–28, 1197a3–16, 1198a32–b8). Phronêsis also exerts architectonic control over the virtues of character, so that to be in accord with correct reason

2. D. J. Allan, “Magna Moralia and Nicomachean Ethics,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 (1957): 7–11, is skeptical of Magna Moralia’s authenticity. John M. Cooper, “The Magna Moralia and Ar­is­totle’s Moral Philosophy,” in his Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Moral Theory (Prince­ton: Prince­ton University Press, 1988), pp. 195–211, is largely anti-­skeptical. Bobonich, “Ar­is­totle’s Ethical Treatises,” pp. 15–16, is a brief summary of the issues.



Introduction

they must do the actions it prescribes, but its control does not extend to sophia: Does phronêsis rule all the other things in the soul, as some think, although others are puzzled about this? Surely, it ­doesn’t. For one cannot think it to rule better things [than it], such as sophia. All the same, it is replied, it supervises all of them, is in control, and prescribes to them. Presumably, though, it has control the way the steward does in a household. For he is in control of ev­ery­thing and manages ev­ery­thing. Still, it ­doesn’t yet follow that he rules ev­ery­thing; instead, he provides leisure for his master, so that he, unhindered by daily necessities, may not be prevented from doing any noble actions that are befitting. So likewise phronêsis is a sort of steward of sophia, procuring leisure for it and its function by restraining the feelings and making them temperate. (I 35 1198b8–20; also I 34 1198a14, 1198b4–8)

The image of phronêsis as steward elegantly captures the relationship between practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom de­scribed in the Nicomachean Ethics and strongly suggested (to put it mildly) in the Eudemian Ethics and Protrepticus. The initial impression created by Ar­is­totle’s ethical writings is of broad continuity of doctrine. It is an impression closer reading largely sustains. There are differences, to be sure, between the four works, but for the most part they seem to be superficial differences in vocabulary or in the level of development of doctrine. The place of the Nicomachean Ethics as the most mature and fully realized of these works seems deserved, although on some points one of the other works is occasionally clearer or more explicit. One sig­nifi­cant place where this greater ma­tu­ri­ty is visible is in the treatment of the relative completeness of virtues and ends. In the Eudemian Ethics, as we saw, complete virtue is virtue as a whole, iden­ti­fied as an amalgam of practical wisdom and the virtues of character, incomplete virtue one of its parts (II 1 1219a36– 37). In the Magna Moralia, complete virtue is also this amalgam, and in both treatises, happiness is activity in accord with complete virtue (MM I 4 1185a25–26, EE II 1 1219a38–39). At the same time, the contemplative activity that theoretical wisdom perfects or

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Introduction

completes is recognized as central to happiness (MM I 34 1197b3– 11, EE VII 15 1249a21–b25). What neither treatise explains is how all these claims can be consistent with one another. The Nicomachean Ethics might at first seem to inherit this prob­ lem. For there, too, general justice is “the complete use of complete virtue” (V 1 1129b31), not “a part of virtue, but virtue as a whole” (V 1 1130a9). Yet theoretical wisdom, which is also “a part of virtue as a whole” (12/44a5–6), is not a part of general justice or its use, since “the virtue of un­der­stand­ing is separate” from the virtues of character and practical wisdom (X 8 1178a9–23). What makes the crucial difference is that happiness is iden­ti­fied not with activity in accord with complete virtue, as in the Eudemian Ethics and Magna Moralia, but with activity in accord with the best and most complete one—theoretical wisdom. Thus theoretical wisdom is explicitly recognized as a more complete virtue than virtue of character as a whole. Yet the sense in which it is more or most complete cannot be a matter of part-­whole completeness, since full virtue of character and theoretical wisdom are not parts of one another. Instead, it seems that the completeness that theoretical wisdom possesses to the greatest extent is some­thing more akin to value completeness: We call [part-­whole] complete that outside of which not even one part is to be found, as, for example, the complete time of each thing is the one outside of which there is no time to be found that is part of that time, and we also call [value] complete that which, as regards virtue or goodness, cannot be surpassed relative to its kind, as, for example, a doctor is complete and a flute-­player is complete when they lack nothing as regards the form of their own proper virtue. (Met. V 16 1021b12–17)

Theoretical wisdom is more complete than virtue of character as a  whole, then, because relative to the kind virtue, it cannot be ­surpassed in value. Nonetheless, it is less part-­whole complete than  human virtue as a whole, which includes both of them (12/44a5–6). It is sig­nifi­cant, therefore, that while the Eudemian Ethics seems not to distinguish complete virtues from whole virtues, the Nico-



Introduction

machean Ethics, while it does recognize human virtue to be a whole, of which theoretical wisdom and full or complete virtue of character are both parts, never characterizes it as complete. Virtue of character as a whole is a virtue, as are its con­stit­ue­ nts, practical wisdom and the individual virtues of character. It is some­thing with which activity can be in accord. The same is true of theoretical wisdom. Human virtue as a whole, by contrast, is not a virtue, a state, or some­thing with which activity can be in accord: for activity in accord with theoretical is leisured, while activity in accord with virtue of character as a whole is unleisured (NE X 7 1177b4– 26). Consequently, it is not some­thing that is even a candidate for being a complete virtue, let alone the most complete one. A similar prob­lem also arises in the case of ends or goods. The Magna Moralia is explicit that some­thing “is better for the sake of which the rest are.” Nonetheless, it uses this fact not to de­fine telic completeness or the completeness of ends, as the Nicomachean Ethics does (I 7 1097a30–34), but to establish the superior value of goods that are ends over that of goods that are not ends but valuable means to them (MM I 2 1184a3–7). The relative value of ends, on the other hand, is established by a kind of completeness that is part-­whole: Among ends themselves, the complete is always better than the incomplete. A complete end is one whose attainment leaves us not still needing anything in addition, whereas an incomplete one is one whose attainment does leave us needing some­thing in addition. For instance, if we attain justice alone, there are many things we need in addition, but when we attain happiness, there is nothing additional we still need. This, therefore, is the best end we are searching for, the complete end. The complete end, then, is the good and the end of the [other] goods . . . But the complete end, unconditionally speaking, is nothing other than happiness, it seems, and happiness is composed of many goods  .  .  . For happiness is not some­thing separate from these but is these. (MM I 2 1184a7–29)

The conclusion reached is that happiness “cannot exist apart from external goods, and they come about as a result of good luck” (MM II 8 1207b16–18). Nonetheless, happiness does not consist in

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these goods but “in actively living in accord with the virtues” of character (MM I 4 1184b35–36). Implicitly, then, the distinction is recognized between goods that are parts of happiness and those that are necessary or enabling conditions of it, as in the Eudemian Ethics (I 2 1214b26–27). Since the many goods of which happiness is composed are the activities of the various virtues of character, this again leaves the relationship of theoretical wisdom to happiness in an unstable situation—now because of how happiness itself is being conceived. By recognizing two different types or grades of happiness, one incomplete, constituted by activity in accord with full virtue of character, another complete, constituted by activity in accord with theoretical wisdom, with the first being for the sake of the second, the Nicomachean Ethics avoids this instability, too.

Ar­is­totle’s Ethical Thought in Perspective What is in our self-­interest often seems to con­flict with what morality or ethics demands of us: I ought to pay back what I owe you, but it would be better for me if I kept it; I ought not kill you, but you are an obstacle to my getting some­thing really im­por­tant to my welfare. In part to account for such con­flict, in part to provide a basis for an overriding moral motivation in the face of it, Immanuel Kant represents moral motives as stemming from the demands of reason, which are the same for ev­ery­one, while rep­ resenting self-­interested or egoistic motives as stemming from appetites and desires, which differ from one person to another. Moral oughts trump mere wants as reasons trump nonrational impulses. Since Kant thought that ancient Greek ethicists showed themselves to be egoists in embracing eudaimonia as the ultimate end of all rational action, he thought their views were not moral theories at all but rather “the euthanasia of all morals.”3 Kant allows, nonetheless, that without the congruence of moral and prudential happiness-­focused motives, if only in a super-­ sensible kingdom of ends governed by a just divine ruler, the “majestic ideas of morality” would not be “incentives for resolve and 3. Immanuel Kant, The Meta­phys­ics of Morals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8: 378.



Introduction

realization, because they would not fulfill the whole end that is natural for ev­ery rational being.”4 If Kant had thought that moral action—action in accord with the categorical imperative—ac­tually constituted happiness, he would have held the congruence to exist even in the imperfect earthly kingdoms in which we already live. Indeed, he thought that these incentives to realization should motivate us to transform such kingdoms into ones in which the congruence is at least much greater: “The final destiny of the human race is moral perfection, so far as it is accomplished through human freedom, whereby man, in that case, is capable of the greatest happiness . . . God does not simply will that we should be happy, but rather that we should make ourselves happy, and that is the true morality.”5 For Henry Sidgwick a deep and troubling dualism existed in practical reason, with egoism on one side and benevolence in the shape of the utilitarian principle, enjoining the greatest good of the greatest number, on the other. Both seemed to him to be fundamental axioms or starting-­points of practical reason, yet their con­ flict shows practical reason to be divided against itself. Diagnosing Ar­is­totle as ­adopting the egoistic axiom in utter unawareness of the axiom of benevolence, Sidgwick at­trib­utes to him “a confusion of thought between what it is reasonable for an individual to desire, when he considers his own existence alone, and what he must recognize as reasonably to be desired, when he takes the point of view of a larger whole.”6 Ar­is­totle’s ethics was moral theory all right, not its euthanasia, but an immature moral theory that had yet to discover one of its own fundamental starting-­points. Kant and Sidgwick are right in thinking that Ar­is­totle is a rational egoist. People should pray, he says, that what are “unconditionally good things will be good for them, too,” but choose “what is good for them” (NE V 1 1129b4–6). For unconditionally good 4. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), A813/B841. 5. Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 27: 470. 6. Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics 7th ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981), pp. 404–405.

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things to be good for someone, however, he must have the virtues of character, so that his appetites, desires, and feelings, because they are in a mean, will be appropriately responsive to, and so will accurately represent, the world of values. True, not all exercises of virtue bear directly on other people, but those that do manifest general justice, since it is “complete virtue, not unconditionally, but in relation to others” (NE V 1 1129b25–27). General justice has a distinctive feature, moreover, that makes it particularly relevant to the virtuous person’s motivation: [General] justice is also most of all complete virtue, because it is the complete employment of complete virtue. And it is the complete employment because the person who possesses it is able to employ his virtue in relation to another, not only as regards himself; for many are able to employ virtue in their own affairs but unable to do so in relation to another. That is why Bias seems to have been correct in saying that ruling reveals the man; for being a ruler immediately implies a relationship to another in a community. That is also why [general] justice is the only virtue that seems to be another’s good, in that it is virtue in relation to another; for it does what is advantageous to another, whether ruler or member of the community. (NE V 1 1129b30–1130a5)

In deliberately choosing general justice for its own sake, then, a virtuous person is deliberately choosing the complete employment of complete virtue and so is deliberately choosing what bene­fits others for its own sake, too. This seems to mitigate some of Kant’s and Sidgwick’s criticisms. Ethical generalism accords normative priority to general or universal rules or principles, so that particular ethical or moral judgments are true or correct because they accord with them. It need not deny that a trained eye or properly habituated appetites and feelings may be required to apply the principles in particular cases. Ethical particularism accords normative authority to particular judgments, and pride of place to the virtuous agent who makes them, so that ethical or moral rules or principles are correct because they accord with these judgments. It need not deny that such rules or principles exist or even that they are im­por­tant in practice.



Introduction

The issue is the source of their normative authority, not the existence of the principles themselves. One common form of ethical particularism holds that virtues, not general principles, are what enable us to make correct judgments in particular cases. When Ar­is­totle claims that the fully virtuous or practically wise man is the standard and mea­sure of what is noble or pleasant (NE III 4 1113a29–b2) or that actions are “called ‘just’ or ‘temperate’ when they are such as the just or temperate person would do” (NE II 4 1105b5–7), he seems to be embracing precisely such a view. His many comments about the lack of rigor in ethics, about how ethical prem­ises and conclusions hold for the most part, and about how individual “agents must consider in each case what is opportune in the prevailing circumstances, as also happens in the cases of medicine and navigation” (NE II 2 1104a8–9) might seem to tend in the same particularist direction, suggesting that rules and principles are flawed guides at best. To see whether Ar­is­totle is really embracing particularism in these remarks, we must return to the discussion of deliberation. When a universal law or principle of one of the practical or productive sciences, such as house building or po­lit­i­cal science, tells us precisely what to do so that there is no need to deliberate, normative authority seems to stem directly from it. As in the case of the natural and theoretical sciences, these practical ones begin with the perception of particulars, proceed by induction from these to perceptible universals, and from these, via dialectic or aporematic, to the analyzed universals that serve as their starting-­points. Even in their case, then, one sort of normative priority belongs to particulars, since these are the ultimate sources of universals, the ultimate truth-­makers for their defi­ni­tions, and so the ultimate truth-­ makers, too, for the explanatory principles deriving from them. There is no question as there is, for example, in the case of Kant’s categorical imperative, of a source for practical principles lying in reason alone, in­de­pen­dently of experience. From the point of view of explanation, and so of jus­tifi­ca­tion, normative priority belongs to universals: Why will eating this bird meat further happiness? Because it is light, and all light meats are healthy. Practical reasons that guide action directly, without the need for deliberation, fit this general profile. Hence they are appropriately thought of as gener-

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alist rather than particularist in nature. Induction uncovers universal real essences, after all, not just true universal generalizations. It goes beyond the particulars to universals and relations between them that are ev­ery bit as much a part of reality as the particulars themselves. Ar­is­totle is not an ante rem theorist of universals, like Plato, but he is an in re theorist of them, not a nominalist or some other sort of antirealist or someone who thinks that universals exist only in the mind. Guidance by universals—applying them to particulars—is the inverse of the pro­cess of abstracting them from particulars. The way down and the way up are essentially the same and raise essentially the same prob­lems. At least since David Hume, the prob­lems facing travelers on the upward path have been regarded as very dif­fi­cult. Ar­is­totle—famously or notoriously—does not consider them such. The universals are there in the world, and we have the perceptual and intellectual apparatus needed to grasp them. End— more or less—of story. If we think we need a ­longer story, we must first confront the presuppositions that ground that need and, if it  persists, recognize a missing component not just in Ar­is­totle’s ethical epistemology but in his epistemology full stop. Just as the world can sometimes give us sci­en­tific knowledge of universal principles, in any case, so, on Ar­is­totle’s view, a practical science can sometimes tell us unprob­lematically what to do, decisively settling all questions of application and interpretation. But just as we need a lot of experience in order to grasp what the world has to teach us, so we need a lot in order to apply what it teaches us. Ar­is­totle is always presupposing the existence in agents of some ethical formation or other—some shared form of ethical-­po­lit­i­cal life. He is not imagining that universal principles can guide just anyone or anyone minimally rational or what have you. As in medicine it is the doctor who can be correctly guided by them, so in ethics it is the man of practical wisdom: That is why, indeed, it is hard work to be excellent. For in each case it is hard work to find the mean; for example, not ev­ery­one can find the medial point of a circle, but rather someone with knowledge. So, too, getting angry is some­thing ev­ery­one can do and some­thing easy. As, too, is giving away or spending money. Determining whom to



Introduction

give it to, though, and how much and when and for the sake of what and in what way—this is no ­longer some­thing ev­ery­one can do or some­thing easy. That is precisely why doing it well is a rare thing and a praiseworthy and noble one. (NE II 9 1109a24–30; also X 9 1180b23–28)

Medicine, like practical wisdom, is a state of the soul, not some­ thing in a textbook. Nonetheless, the fact remains that in some cases both doctor and practically wise man can be guided directly by the textbook’s universal laws or principles without the need to deliberate at all. What sparks the need for deliberation is the prob­lem of determining what in these circumstances would best further happiness correctly de­fined. Although the various crafts and sciences can be consulted to help solve this prob­lem, it is presupposed that none of them solve it decisively. It is here that the agent must draw on his experience, which, if he is practically wise, will be long and—in part because his appetites, desires, and feelings are in a mean—reliable. The practical reason he eventually acts on is embodied in the decree that is the minor prem­ise of the practical syllogism or demonstration which serves as the focus of his deliberation. It tells him directly what to do, without the need for anything besides perception on his part. It is a particular practical reason, not a universal one, since, unlike a universal law, it applies—and is intended to apply—only in these particular circumstances. On the other hand, it is a practical reason, because its middle term, which is a uni­ versal, albeit one that can be applied to particulars on the basis of perception, is related by necessity to the universal defi­ni­tion of happiness, which is its major prem­ise. Its normative authority stems from that relation. Since a given practical reason, whether embodied in a universal law or a decree, cannot be correct unless universals are necessarily related in the appropriate way in reality, its correctness cannot consist simply in the fact that it is or would be the practically wise man’s reason. What is rather the case is that the practically wise man is the epistemically most reliable provider of such reasons— the mea­sure, in that sense, of which actions we should call just, temperate, or otherwise virtuous. The actions he would do are the

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ones we call just or virtuous because we have no better epistemic standard available to us in applying those terms than he. Nonetheless, he is the standard, because he reliably tracks the relevant way the world is, not because his judgment makes some­thing true of that world. In according normative authority to particular judgments and giving pride of place to the virtuous agent who makes them, ethical particularism is in one way Aristotelian and in another not. It is Aristotelian in that Ar­is­totle, too, gives pride of place—that is, epistemological pride of place—to the virtuous agent. He is the best detector of correct ethical reasons. But these reasons gain their normative authority—as correct sci­en­tific reasons gain their explanatory authority—from universals and universal principles. And this is true even when, as in the case of decree-­based reasons, they are intended to apply only in a particular case. To be correct, a practical reason, R, whether universal or decree based, must prescribe an action that is in accord with full virtue of character, which includes practical wisdom (13/44b1–45a2). Since such action is happiness of the second-­best kind, it must itself be an instance of such happiness—of doing well in action. It follows that R is not entirely consequentialist in nature, as practical reasons are in utilitarian ethics. For what makes R correct ­isn’t simply that an action in accord with it brings about a valuable state of affairs—one, say, in which utility or plea­sure-­minus-­pain is maximized—but that the action itself is an instance of living and doing well. Yet there is a consequentialist side to R’s correctness. For the best kind of happiness is contemplation in accord with theoretical wisdom; and action in accord with R must, if R is correct, best promote the maximization of the leisure time available for such contemplation; and this, as some­thing additional to the action itself, is clearly a consequence of it (12/44a1–6). A feature of deontological practical reasons is that their normative authority does not stem from their relation to happiness or utility but from some other source, such as reason itself. A hint of the deontological might be thought to be detectable in Ar­is­totle’s practical reasons, too, insofar as these cite to kalon or what is noble as the feature of an action to which a virtuous agent must be responsive in deliberately choosing it (NE III 7 1115b12–13, IV 1



Introduction

1120a23–25). What is distinctive of to kalon, in the relevant sense, is that it is what attracts the praise of others, in part because they are bene­fited by it and in part because they see it as intrinsically choiceworthy (10/43a15–18). Later on, if they receive the appropriate education, they learn that doing what is kalon also furthers the happiness of those who do it. To suppose that what they learn is that what is kalon ­isn’t intrinsically choiceworthy, however, but choiceworthy only as a means to happiness is a mistake. It is to confuse “the fact that” with “the reason why”—the stage at  which they see that some­thing is kalon, which is the result of their being habituated appropriately, with the stage at which they learn (if they ever do) the explanation of why it is kalon (NE I 4 1095b4–8). In order for what is praised to be genuinely choiceworthy for its own sake, it must be genuinely virtuous and so must further hap­ piness correctly conceived. Consequently, what is genuinely kalon is not in­de­pen­dent of what happiness really is. But it is in­de­pen­ dent of happiness in another sense: it is because what is kalon is intrinsically choiceworthy and praiseworthy that it bears on happiness in the way it does. What a virtuous person learns, when he learns that doing what is kalon bene­fits him, ­doesn’t give him a new motive to do it; rather it enables him to understand why it is he has the motive he had all along. In the case of ethical motivation, there is some­thing almost deontological about the virtuous person’s attachment to the noble, and even some­thing rather formal about the noble itself. For “order (taxis), symmetry (sum­ metria), and defi­ni­tion (to hôrismenon)” are the chief forms of to kalon (Met. XIII 3 1078a36–b1), and the element in virtue that attracts praise is its being in a mean (NE II 7 1108a14–16, IV 5 1126b5), and a mean is a kind of symmetry (II 3 1104a18) and order (X 9 1180a18). Because the correct reasons that practical wisdom provides are of all these different kinds, we might be puzzled about why Ar­is­ totle requires virtuously done actions to be chosen on the basis of deliberation and deliberate choice (NE II 4 1105a31–33), since this seems to narrow practical wisdom’s correct reasons to the strictly deliberative ones. In part the answer has to do with codi­fic­ a­tion, in part with delegation. Why does an agent need to be practically

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wise himself (12/43b28–33)? Why can’t he just consult the universal laws in the ethical-­po­lit­i­cal handbook—the practical equivalent of the complete biology or physics textbook? Answer: because even if that handbook were as complete or close to perfection as pos­ sible, it ­wouldn’t be enough. Prob­lem cases that deliberation is ­required to solve will always arise. That is why correct practical reasons are not the same as correct reasons in the natural or theoretical sciences, which, because they deal exclusively with universals, are codifiable (at any rate, in the ideal case). Why, then, can’t the agent simply consult someone else who is practically wise— why, to repeat, does he need to be practically wise himself? In a craft, too, the cases that best reveal the prac­ti­tioner’s wisdom are the prob­lem cases, where the craft manual is in­suf­fi­cient and deliberation is required (5/40a28–30). There, however, delegation is an open possibility. For it ­doesn’t matter who solves productive prob­ lems, since the only im­por­tant thing is that the resulting product be good (Cael. III 7 306a14–17). In the case of practical prob­lems, it is a different story: an agent who delegated the prob­lem would be making a serious error. For to enjoy doing virtuous actions—to achieve the happiness they can constitute—we must do them virtuously, out of appetites, desires, and wishes that are in a mean. We must do them, as Ar­is­totle puts it, not only kata ton orthon logon but meta tou orthou logou (13/44b26–28)—that is to say, we must do them from the correct reason that we ourselves generate and possess. Correct practical reasons as a whole, then, cannot be codi­ fied—a feature they do not share with correct reasons in the natural or theoretical sciences but do share with productive ones—and cannot be delegated—a feature they do not share with either. Since it is the deliberative reasons, in particular, that exhibit both these distinctive features, they are the quin­tes­sen­tial practical reasons—the ones that best reveal what a correct practical reason is. Hence actions in accord with them are the ones that best exhibit practical wisdom and the virtues of character whose possession it presupposes. They are the ones in which practical wisdom shines forth. Someone who has internalized the complete ethical-­po­lit­i­cal handbook, to put it in another way, acts on the equivalent of autopilot. What shows him not to be virtuous or practically wise, therefore, are not the situations the handbook is designed to deal with



Introduction

but the prob­lem cases, where, as Ar­is­totle puts it, the agent must consider “what is opportune in the prevailing circumstances, as also happens in the cases of medicine and navigation” (NE II 2 1104a8–10). Because deliberation is required only in puzzle cases, as we saw, deliberative reasons will typically not be what a practically wise agent acts on. More often, either the laws of his city or his own practical perception will tell him what to do, without the need for deliberation at all. Moreover, even when deliberation is required, it will typically not take the form of an explicit demonstration from the defi­ni­tion of happiness. Such a demonstration does, indeed, constitute what we called a “focus” for his practical thought. But since it is the perennial focus of such thought, it will typically remain in the background. Yes, the agent is looking for a middle term that, because it applies to his action, ensures that his action best furthers his happiness. But if he already knows that it is a just, temperate, or courageous action that will do this, he need not explicitly articulate the relationship of justice, temperance, or health to happiness. That, he can take as read. In this regard, he is like a  doctor who is deliberating about how to treat a prob­lematic wound. That he must do so in the way that best furthers his patient’s health is some­thing he takes for granted. That stopping the bleeding is what will do this, he knows. What he ­doesn’t know is how to get the bleeding to stop in this case. That, then, is what he actively deliberates about. But it ­wouldn’t be what he is deliberating about unless stopping the bleeding were connected to health in the requisite way. Even though our own conception of happiness is unsettled and disputed, being happy seems to be a favorable emotional state or state of feeling. If someone emotionally endorses his life so that he is cheerful or joyful rather than sad, is engaged in it so that he is absorbed by it rather than bored or alienated, and is attuned to it so that he is relaxed rather than anxious or stressed—or is these things more than their contraries—he is happy.7 Perhaps those who think that eudaimonia is plea­sure (NE I 4 1095a22–23) come close 7. See Daniel M. Haybron, The Pursuit of Unhappiness: The Elusive Psychology of Well-­Being (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 79–81.

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Introduction

to thinking of it as we think of happiness. Yet plea­sure ­doesn’t seem to be happiness, even if it is somehow involved in it: one can  be unhappy even though one is regularly experiencing plea­ sures; an intense plea­sure, such as orgasm, need not make one very happy; and being in constant pain is not the same as being unhappy, although it can, of course, be a source of unhappiness. Those who think the eudaimôn life is the po­lit­i­cal life or the contemplative one seem yet further away from thinking of them as happy lives (I 5 1095b22–1096a5). For nothing about these lives seems to ensure that those who live them or live them well or excellently will necessarily be in a favorable emotional state—an excellent po­lit­i­cal scientist or philosopher can be sad, alienated, or anxious. Worthwhile lives they may be, but a life can be worthwhile without being happy. Ar­is­totle’s own account of eudaimonia avoids some of these prob­lems of its fit with happiness, in part because it intentionally incorporates elements of the other conceptions, since these—simply because of their appeal to the many or the wise—amount to endoxa or reputable opinions about eudaimonia, which sound dialectical or philosophical methodology must respect (3/39b34–36): All the things that people look for in eudaimonia appear to have been included in our account. For to some eudaimonia seems to be virtue, to others practical wisdom, to others some sort of theoretical wisdom, while to still others it seems to be [a combination of] these, involving plea­sure or not without plea­sure, while others include external prosperity as well. Some of these views are held by many and are of long standing, while others are held by a few reputable (endoxoi) men; and it is reasonable to suppose not that either group is entirely wrong but that they are right on one point at least or even on most points. (NE I 8 1098b22–29)

As a result, Ar­is­totle sees as an im­por­tant point in favor of his account of eudaimonia as activity in accord with the best and most complete virtue, that it makes plea­sure intrinsic to the eudaimôn life: The things that are pleasant to most people con­flict, because they are not pleasant by nature, whereas to lovers of the noble the things that



Introduction

are pleasant are pleasant by nature. That is what actions in accord with the virtues are like, so that they are pleasant both to such people and intrinsically. So their life does not need plea­sure to be added like some ornament tied on to it; on the contrary, it has its plea­sure within itself. (NE I 8 1099a11–16)

Although he is not equally explicit that his account also incorporates such truth as there is in the view of those who make eudaimonia reside in honor—the virtue of character that attracts it, and the practical wisdom that goes along with it—or in theoretical wisdom, he is explicit that any adequate account would have to do so. In any case, his own two-­tiered conception—consisting of the second-­best sort of eudaimonia (activity in accord with full virtue of character) that is for the sake of the very best sort (activity in accord with theoretical wisdom)—does seem designed to meet this adequacy condition. Since the Aristotelian eudaimôn life is intrinsically pleasant or enjoyable, it is plausibly seen as cheerful or joyful, especially since, as in accord with correct reason, whether deliberative or archi­ tectonic, it would seem to be re­flectively endorsed by the agent in  a  way that these emotions evidence. For the same reason, the ­eudaimôn person seems unlikely to be bored, alienated, or anxious about living the life he has been trained and habituated to live and has chosen as best. Although eudaimonia is an activity, not a favorable emotional state, it ­wouldn’t be eudaimonia if it did not involve such a state by being the ac­tualization of it. In this regard, eudaimonia is like the simple plea­sures it may at times involve— pleasant and valuable in part because evoking desire. Nonetheless, the activity itself in which eudaimonia consists is relatively more im­por­tant than the enjoyment of it, since it is better to do the noble things that the virtuous person would do, even if it makes one sad, bored, and anxious (as might be true of the continent person), than to do some­thing else that inspires the contrary feelings (as might be true of the incontinent one). For Aristotelian eudaimonia, the noble activity counts for more than the emotional state it evokes in the agent. That is why Ar­is­totle cites with approval the words of Hesiod: “Best of all is the one who understands ev­ery­thing himself, but decent (esthlos), too, who listens to the good counsel of other people” (NE I 4 1095b10–11).

39



40

Introduction

Because happiness does consist in a favorable emotional state, moreover, what evokes it can vary from person to person, and— arguably—the person himself or herself is the final authority on its existence: if a feels happy, he is happy. These, too, are im­por­tant points of difference with Aristotelian eudaimonia. A further difference seems more im­por­tant still. When we say that someone is happy, we de­scribe his life in psychological terms. We ­don’t, in the relevant sense, evaluate it. A happy life ­needn’t be successful or accomplished or admirable. It ­needn’t, as we say, amount to much. The very m ­ odest can be very happy, while the driven, the brilliant, the heroic, the creative, and even the saintly may have a much harder time of it. Children can be happy, dogs, too, it seems, but neither can be eudaimôn. Aristotelian eudaimonia has a large perfectionist element, in other words, that happiness seems to lack. In some respects, Aristotelian eudaimonia might be better translated as “well-­being” or “flour­ishing”—although it would seem strange to worry about whether one should wait to say that someone was flour­ishing until he was dead (compare NE I 10–11). One advantage of “happiness” over these alternatives, in any case, is precisely that it highlights the importance of a favorable emotional  state—of endorsement and engagement—to the eudaimôn life. What in addition is required is that what evokes that emotional state should be the best good for a human being—a kind of active living in accord with virtue, in which the state is realized and expressed. So conceived, in any case, eudaimonia surely has a lot to recommend it as the goal of life. When we see what Ar­is­totle thinks eudaimonia consists in, though, a question arises of how seriously we can take that recommendation. Could contemplation of his God really be happiness of the best kind? At the end of the Ethics, Ar­is­totle tells us, as we saw, that we should evaluate his account by “bringing it to bear on the things we do and on our life, and if it is in harmony with what we do, we should accept it, but if it con­flicts, we should suppose it mere words” (NE X 8 1179a20–22). But that just seems to make matters worse. For who among us lives the contemplative life or can claim on the basis of experience that it is the happiest of all? At the same time, few will want to consider the Ethics mere words on these grounds. They will be more inclined to turn toward the second best kind of eudaimonia, which consists in activity in accord



Introduction

with practical wisdom and the virtues of character. For them, Book VI and not Book X will be the true culmination of the work—the place where the account of the virtues of character is completed by the account of the correct reason with which they must be in accord. There is an im­por­tant sense, then, in which phronêsis is not simply a central topic of the Ethics but its crowning glory and most valuable legacy.

41

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS VI

Translation and Analysis

With the few exceptions noted in the commentary, the ­translation is based on Ingram Bywater’s edition of the Greek text.

VI 1 1138b18

25

30

35 1139a1

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10

Since we have previously said that we should choose the mean, not the excess and not the de­fic­ iency, and the mean is as the correct reason says, let us distinguish this. For in the case of all the states we have discussed, and as regards the others as well, there is some target on which the possessor of the reason keeps his eye as he tightens or loosens, and there is some sort of de­fin­ing-­mark of the medial states, which we say are between excess and de­fi­ciency, since they are in accord with the correct reason. But although this is true to say, it is not at all illuminating. For in the other types of supervision where there is sci­ entific knowledge, it is also true to say that we should exert ourselves or relax neither too much nor too little, but mean amounts, and in the way the correct reason says. If we know only this, however, we are no better off—for example, as regards what sorts of treatments to apply to the body, if we are told that we should apply those that medical science prescribes and in the way the one who possesses it would. That is why, with regard to the states of the soul, too, we should not only assert this much of the truth but also determine what the correct reason is and what its de­fin­ing-­ mark. In distinguishing the virtues of the soul, we said that some are virtues of character and some of thought. The virtues of character, we have discussed. So let us now speak about the others as follows, after first saying some­thing about the soul. Previously, we said that there are two parts of the soul, one that has reason and one that lacks reason. Let us now divide in the same way the part that has reason. Let us take it that there are two parts that have reason, one by means of which we have theoretical knowledge of those among the beings whose starting-­points do not admit of being otherwise, and one by means of which we have theoretical knowledge of those that do admit of being otherwise; for where beings differ in kind, parts of the soul that differ in kind are naturally suited to each of them, since it is through a certain similarity and kinship that they have knowledge. Let us call one of these the sci­en­tific part and the other the calculative part; for deliberating is the same as calculating, and no one deliberates about what does not admit of being 44

VI 1 Analysis b

The ethical mean is determined by the ethically correct reason. Hence the central role previously assigned to the mean in the defi­ni­tion of virtue of character needs to be augmented by an account of this reason. 1/38 18–20:

b

The ethically correct reason involves a target, a substrate amenable to tightening and loosing, and a de­fin­ing-­mark of the medial states, which are the ones in accord with it. Since this is also true in the case of ev­ery other sort of supervision that provides sci­en­tific knowledge, we must determine what in particular the ethically correct reason is and what its distinctive de­fin­ing-­mark. 1/38 20–34:

b

a

Reason is possessed by a part of the soul different from the desiring part, whose virtue is virtue of character. Hence the reason it possesses must include the ethically correct one. Because the world the reason-­generating part cognizes is divided into beings whose starting-­points (or reason-­generating first principles) do not admit of being otherwise, and beings whose starting-­points do so admit, this part is itself divided into the sci­en­tific subpart and the deliberative subpart. Hence we must distinguish the reasons each of these subparts provides. This amounts to distinguishing their functions, which have already been tacitly speci­fied as providing knowledge of the distinctive type of beings with which each 1/38 34–39 17:



45



46

15

Nicomachean Ethics VI

otherwise. So the calculative part is one distinct part of the part that has reason. We must ascertain, therefore, what the best state of each of these parts is; for this is the virtue of each of them, and the virtue relates to the proper function.



Nicomachean Ethics VI

deals (1/39a10–11). Since a thing’s virtue is what ensures that it performs its function well, the reasons the subparts provide in giving us knowledge will be made correct or true by their respective virtues (theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom).

47

VI 2

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Three things in the soul control action and truth—perception, un­ der­stand­ing, and desire. Of these, perception is not a starting-­point of any action; this is clear from the fact that beasts have perception but do not share in action. What assertion and denial are in the case of thought—that, in the case of desire, is precisely what pursuit and avoidance are. So, since virtue of character is a state involving deliberate choice and deliberate choice is a desire involving deliberation, it follows, because of this, that both the reason must be true and the desire must be correct, if, indeed, the deliberate choice is to be a good one, and the very things the one asserts, the other must pursue. This, then, is practical thought and truth. In the case of thought that is theoretical, however, and neither practical nor productive, well and badly are truth and falsity (for that is the function of ev­ery part involving thought), but [in the case of] the part involving practical thought, it is truth in agreement with correct desire. Of action, then, the starting-­point—the source of the movement, not what it is for the sake of—is deliberate choice, and of deliberate choice, desire and reason that is for the sake of some­thing. That is why, without un­der­stand­ing and thought, on the one hand, and a state of character, on the other, there is no deliberate choice; for there is no doing well in action or its contrary without thought and character. Thought by itself, however, moves nothing; but the one that is for the sake of some­thing and is practical [does].

48

VI 2 Analysis VI 2 takes up the task of ascertaining what the virtues of the sci­en­ tific and deliberative parts of the soul are. a

Virtue of character, which is involved in the ethically correct or true reason, is concerned with action. So the reason must also be concerned with action. To truth and action, three states of soul pertain: perception, un­der­stand­ing, and desire. Since perception is not a starting-­point of the deliberately chosen action to which virtue of character pertains, it can be excluded as irrelevant to the correct reason with which such action must be in accord. Un­der­stand­ing and desire are thus the only states of the soul relevant to this reason, since both pertain to deliberately chosen action and truth.

2/39 17–20:

a

Since deliberate choice is a desire involving a type of thought (deliberation), it cannot be good unless the reason it provides is good (true) and the desire it involves is correct. A desire is correct if it listens to (the part that has) reason, that is, if it pursues what deliberation asserts to be true and avoids what it denies as false. Hence deliberate choice is good, and so grasps a practical truth, if and only if its con­stit­u­ent desire pursues the things asserted by, and so in agreement with, the true or correct reason grasped by its con­stit­u­ent deliberative thought or un­der­stand­ing.

2/39 21–31:

a

The starting-­point of deliberately chosen action is deliberate choice, which is its ef­fi­cient rather than its final cause. For its starting-­point is a desire (which is the cause of movement, since thought by itself ­doesn’t move anything) and a reason, provided by deliberative thought or un­der­stand­ing, which aims at some end or target. If the desire is to be correct, it must listen to that reason and pursue what it asserts—some­thing it will do only if it belongs to an agent possessed of virtue of character. Similarly, mu­ tatis mutandis, if the desire is to be incorrect. Hence to do well or (its contrary) badly in deliberately chosen action, one must have a state of character (virtue, vice), to determine whether one’s desire is correct (listens to reason) or not, and be capable of deliberative 2/39 31–36:



49



50

1139b1

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Nicomachean Ethics VI

Indeed, it even rules productive thought. For ev­ery producer produces for the sake of some­thing, and the end unconditionally (as opposed to in relation to some­thing and for some­thing [else]) is not what is producible but what is doable in action. For doing well in action is [unconditionally] an end, and the desire is for it. That is why deliberate choice is either un­der­stand­ing involving desire or desire involving thought, and this sort of starting-­point is a human being. Nothing that happened in the past, however, is deliberately chosen—for example, nobody deliberately chooses to have sacked Troy; for nobody deliberates about the past but about the future, and what admits of being otherwise, but what is past does not admit of not having happened; that is why Agathon is correct: Of one thing alone is even a god deprived, To make undone what is done and fin­ished.

Of both of the parts that involve un­der­stand­ing, then, the function is truth. The states in accord with which each most of all grasps the truth, therefore, are in both cases their virtues.



Nicomachean Ethics VI

thought, to provide (correct or incorrect) reasons for one’s desire to listen to. b

Because doing well in action is our unconditional end, whereas the end of productive thought (craft) is only a relative end, practical thought rules productive thought, directing it toward our unconditional end.

2/39 1–5:

b

Exercising deliberative choice is a distinctively human trait, not possessed by beasts (2/39a19–20) or by gods. 2/39 5–11:

b

The function of both reason-­possessing subparts, since they provide knowledge, is to grasp truth. Hence the states enabling them to perform their functions well and grasp truth successfully are their virtues. 2/39 12–13:

51

VI 3

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35

Let us begin, then, from a more general perspective and speak afresh about these. Let the states in which the soul grasps the truth by way of assertion and denial be five in number; these are craft knowledge, sci­en­tific knowledge, practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, and un­der­stand­ing; for supposition and belief admit of being mistaken. Now what sci­en­tific knowledge is will be evident from the following, if one is to speak in a rigorous way and not be guided by mere similarities. For we all suppose that what we know sci­en­ tifically does not at all admit of being otherwise; while in the case of things that do admit of being otherwise, whenever they fall outside theoretical knowledge, we cannot tell whether they are or not. What admits of being known sci­en­tifically, therefore, is by necessity. Therefore, it is eternal; for the things that are unconditionally necessary are all eternal, and eternal things cannot come-­to-­be or pass-­away. Moreover, all sci­en­tific knowledge is thought to be teachable, and what can be known sci­en­tifically, learnable. It is from things already known, however, that all teaching proceeds, as we also say in the Analytics; for some is through induction and some by syllogism. Now induction [leads to] the starting-­point, that is, the universal; whereas syllogism proceeds from universals. There are, therefore, starting-­points from which syllogism proceeds that are not [reached] by syllogism; therefore, induction [must provide them]. Sci­en­tific knowledge, therefore, is a state affording demonstrations and has the other features included in the defi­ni­tion we give in the Analytics; for it is when someone is convinced in a certain way, and the starting-­points are known to him, that he has sci­en­ tific knowledge; in fact, if they are not better [known] than the conclusion, it is [only] in a coincidental sense that he will have ­sci­en­tific knowledge. Let sci­en­tific knowledge, then, be de­fined in this way.

52

VI 3 Analysis We now have two parts of the soul whose function is to provide reasons (the sci­en­tific and the deliberative), two sorts of truth that these reasons, when correct, might exemplify (practical truth and plain or theoretical truth), two sorts of thought that assert or deny these reasons (theoretical thought and practical thought), and two states (the virtues of the parts) in accord with which the parts fulfill their functions correctly or well. The task now is to identify these states. b

Five states of the soul grasp the truth by asserting or denying some­thing: craft knowledge, sci­en­tific knowledge, practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, and un­der­stand­ing. Supposition and belief are excluded because they can also be false and so cannot be virtuous states ensuring the truth or correctness of what is asserted or denied. Consequently, each of the five must be examined to determine which is the state ensuring the correctness or truth of the ethically correct reason. 3/39 14–18:

b

Unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge is the first candidate state to be considered. Since it is restricted to what does not at all admit of being otherwise, it is a candidate virtue of the sci­en­tific part but not of the calculative or deliberative part of the soul. Because it is a demonstrative state, it does not itself provide knowledge of starting-­points, which precludes it from being the entirety of such a virtue (1/39a6–8). 3/39 18–36:



53

VI 4 1140a1

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10

15

20

What admits of being otherwise includes both what is producible and what is doable in action. But production and action are different (about them we rely also on the external accounts), so that the practical state involving reason is also different from the productive state involving reason. Nor is one included in the other; for neither is action production nor is production action. Since, then, building [for example] is one sort of craft and is precisely a productive state involving reason, and there is no craft that is not a productive state involving reason and no such state that is not a  craft, a craft is the same as a productive state involving true ­reason. Ev­ery craft is concerned with coming-­to-­be, that is, with crafting [things] and having theoretical knowledge of how some­thing may come-­to-­be that admits of being and of not being, and whose starting-­point is in the producer and not in the product; for things that are or come-­to-­be by necessity are not the concern of craft, nor are things [that are or come-­to-­be] in accord with nature (since they have the starting-­point within themselves). Since, then, production and action are different, it is necessary that craft be concerned with production but not with action. And in a certain way craft and luck are concerned with the same things; as Agathon says, “Craft loves luck and luck craft.” A craft, then, as we have said, is some sort of state involving true reason concerned with production, and craft incompetence is the contrary, a state involving false reason concerned with production. [Both are] concerned with what admits of being otherwise.

54

VI 4 Analysis Sci­en­tific knowledge, since it does not provide knowledge of starting-­points, cannot be a source of sci­en­tifically correct reasons, and so cannot be a virtue of the sci­en­tific part of the soul. Since it deals with what does not at all admit of being otherwise, it cannot be a source of correct reasons dealing with what does admit of being otherwise, and so cannot be a virtue of the calculative or deliberative part. The next candidate source of correct reasons is craft knowledge. a

Since both what is producible and what is doable in action are included in what admits of being otherwise, craft knowledge, which is a productive state involving true or correct reason, is, in this regard, a possible source of true or correct reasons bearing on action of the sort being sought. What prevents it from being such a source is that action and production are different.

4/40 1–10:

a

The sphere of what admits of being otherwise, in which what is producible and what is doable in action belong, is not only outside the sphere of what does not at all admit of being otherwise, which is that of unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge, but also outside the sphere of what happens by nature, which is that of the natural sciences.

4/40 10–17:

a

Since what does not at all admit of being otherwise, what happens by nature and what happens by luck jointly exhaust the field, so craft must—if only in a certain way—be concerned with the same things as luck. Hence whatever state provides true reasons concerned with action must also be concerned with such things, although not with the same ones.

4/40 17–20:



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VI 5

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35 1140b1

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8

10

Where practical wisdom is concerned, we may grasp it once we see what sort of person we say is practically wise. It is thought, then, to be characteristic of a practically wise man to be able to deliberate well about what is good and advantageous for himself, not as regards a part of it, for example, about what sorts of things further health or further strength but about what sorts further living well as a whole. A sign of this is that we also speak of people as practically wise in some [area], when they calculate well about what furthers some good end, concerning which no craft [reason] exists. Hence in the case of the whole [good], too, it is the deliberative man who will be practically wise. And nobody deliberates about things that cannot be otherwise or about things that do not admit of being doable in action by himself. So, since sci­en­tific knowledge involves demonstration, and the things whose starting-­points admit of being otherwise cannot be demonstrated (for all of them also admit of being otherwise), and it is not possible to deliberate about what holds by necessity, practical wisdom cannot be either sci­en­tific knowledge or craft knowledge: not sci­en­tific knowledge because what is doable in action admits of being otherwise, not craft knowledge because action and production differ in kind. The remaining possibility, therefore, is for it to be a state involving true reason, a practical one, concerned with what is good or bad for a human being. For the end of production is some­thing other than it, while that of action is not; for doing well in action is itself its end. That is why we think Pericles and people of that sort to be practically wise—because they have theoretical knowledge of what is  good for themselves and for human beings, and we think household-­managers and politicians are like that.

56

VI 5 Analysis Practical wisdom is now discussed and shown to be the virtue of the calculating or deliberative part of the soul. a

Being able to deliberate well about the overall good life for oneself as a human being, and so about the good of other human beings, too (5/40b9), is the mark of a practically wise man. We can see this from the fact that we apply the term “practically wise” to people like Pericles. In crafts, too, someone is called practically wise in his craft when he is able to calculate or deliberate successfully about what to do when his craft provides no answer. 5/40 24–31:

a

Practical wisdom cannot be unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge, because the deliberation it involves deals with what admits of being otherwise and so cannot be (unconditionally) demonstrated, while sci­en­tific knowledge deals with what does not admit of being otherwise and so can be (unconditionally) demonstrated (1/39a13–14). Practical wisdom cannot be craft knowledge, because it deals with what is doable in action by the agent himself, and action and craft production are different (4/40a2). Since practical wisdom is nonetheless a state by which the soul grasps the truth by way of assertion or denial (3/39b15–17), the remaining possibility is that the truth it grasps must be about different things that admit of being otherwise than those grasped by craft—namely, things doable in action by human agents, as good or bad for them. For the end of craft production is some­thing other than the productive pro­cess itself, whereas the end of action is just the action itself done well and doing well in action, as the unconditional human end (2/39b1–4), is a good and advantageous thing to achieve, while doing badly in action is a bad and disadvantageous one. 5/40 31–b7:

b

This account of practical wisdom is supported by reputable opinions (endoxa). 5/40 7–11:



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Nicomachean Ethics VI

That is also why we call temperance (sôphrosunê) by this name, as being what preserves practical wisdom (sôzousan tên phronêsin). And it does preserve the sort of supposition in question. For what is pleasant or painful does not corrupt or distort ev­ery sort of supposition (for example, that triangles do or do not contain two right angles), but the one about what is doable in action. For the starting­points of things doable in action is that for the sake of which the things doable in action are done; but once someone is corrupted by plea­sure or pain, it does not appear a starting-­point, or that it is for the sake of it and because of it that he should choose and do ev­ery­thing; for vice is corruptive of the starting-­point. So practical wisdom must be a state involving true reason, concerned with human goods, and practical. Well, certainly of craft knowledge there is a virtue, whereas of practical wisdom there is not one; and, in the case of a craft, someone who makes errors voluntarily is preferable, but with practical wisdom he is less so, as is also the case with the virtues. It is clear, then, that it is some sort of virtue and not a craft. But since there are two parts of the soul that have reason, it must be a virtue of one of them, namely, of the part that forms beliefs; for belief is concerned with what admits of being otherwise, as also is practical wisdom. But it ­isn’t a state involving reason only; a sign of this is that there is forgetfulness of a state like that, but of practical wisdom there ­isn’t.



Nicomachean Ethics VI

b

It also explains the reputable opinion that temperance preserves practical wisdom, since it preserves the sort of true supposition about the unconditional end of action that the account represents practical wisdom as supplying. 5/40 11–20:

b

Practical wisdom is a virtue, not a craft, since, first, there is no virtue of it, and second, like a canonical virtue of character but unlike a craft, it is inimical to voluntary errors. 5/40 20–25:

b

Practical wisdom is the virtue of the soul that forms beliefs, since both belief and practical wisdom deal with the same sorts of beings. 5/40 25–28:

b

Nonetheless, practical wisdom is not a type of belief, since, unlike belief, it cannot be forgotten. 5/40 28–30:

59

VI 6

35

1141a1

5

Since sci­en­tific knowledge is supposition about universals, that is, things that are by necessity, and since there are starting-­points of what can be demonstrated, and so of all sciences (since sci­en­tific knowledge involves reason), about the starting-­point of what is sci­en­tifically known there can be neither sci­en­tific knowledge, nor craft knowledge, nor practical wisdom; for what is sci­en­tifically known is demonstrable, and the other two deal with what admits of being otherwise. Neither, then, is there theoretical wisdom regarding them [starting-­points]; for it is characteristic of the theoretically wise man to have a demonstration of certain things. If, then, [the states] by which we grasp the truth and are never in  error about what cannot—or, indeed, can—be otherwise are ­sci­en­tific knowledge, practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, and un­der­stand­ing, and it cannot be any of the three of these (by the three I mean practical wisdom, sci­en­tific knowledge, and theoretical ­wisdom), the remaining alternative is for un­der­stand­ing to be of starting-­points.

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VI 6 Analysis The virtue of one of the parts of the soul that have reason has been iden­ti­fied. The task now is to find the other. That it cannot be unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge was established in Chapter 3: such knowledge cannot provide knowledge of its own starting-­points. Starting-­points are the focus of the present chapter. b

There cannot be sci­en­tific knowledge, craft knowledge, or practical wisdom of sci­en­tific starting-­points generally. For some starting-­points are indemonstrable and so cannot be objects of sci­en­tific knowledge, and some are necessary and so cannot be objects of craft knowledge or practical wisdom. 6/40 31–41a1:

a

Theoretical wisdom involves demonstration of some things and so cannot be what provides knowledge exclusively of starting-­points.

6/41 1–2:

a

By elimination, un­der­stand­ing must be what grasps the truth about starting-­points generally, whether of the sciences that provide unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge or of any other types of sciences. 6/41 2–8:



61

VI 7

10

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Wisdom in crafts we ascribe to the most rigorous prac­ti­tioners of a craft (for example, calling Pheidias a wise sculptor in stone and Polycleitus a wise sculptor in bronze), here sig­nifying nothing else by wisdom, indeed, than that it is the virtue of a craft. There are, however, some people we think are wise about things as a whole, not wise in some area or in some other particular way, as Ho­mer says in the Magites: Him the gods made neither a digger nor a ploughman nor wise in any other particular way.

So it is clear that theoretical wisdom must be the most rigorous of the sciences. Therefore, a theoretically wise man must not only know what follows from the starting-­points, but also must grasp the truth about the starting-­points. So theoretical wisdom must be un­der­ stand­ing plus sci­en­tific knowledge; sci­en­tific knowledge, having a head, as it were, of the most estimable things. For it would be a strange thing to think—if anyone does—that po­lit­i­cal science or practical wisdom is best, unless the best thing in the universe is a human being. Now if health or goodness is different for human beings than for fish [for example], but whiteness and straightness are always the same, anyone would say that theoretical wisdom is the same for all but that practical wisdom is different; for the one that has theoretical knowledge of the good of a given class of beings is the one they would call “practically wise,” and it is to him that they would entrust such matters. That is why even some of the beasts are said to be practically wise, those that are evidently capable of forethought about their life. It is evident, too, that theoretical wisdom cannot be the same as po­lit­i­cal science. For if they are to call the [science] that deals with what is ben­e­fi­cial to themselves “theoretical wisdom,” there will be many theoretical wisdoms; for there won’t be one dealing with the good of all animals but different ones for each [kind]; for there ­isn’t even one medical science for all beings. And if human beings are the best of the other animals, it makes 62

VI 7 Analysis Theoretical wisdom—the last of the five states that grasp truth by way of af­fir­ma­tion or denial listed at 3/39b15–17—is now discussed. Once it is iden­ti­fied as the most rigorous form of sci­en­tific knowledge, and distinguished from practical wisdom, its identity as the virtue or excellence of the sci­en­tific part of the soul is tacitly treated as secure. The pro­cess of distinguishing it from practical wisdom initiates a deeper exploration of practical wisdom, and so of the type of correct reason it provides. a

As we at­trib­ute wisdom in a craft dealing with a spe­cific area to the most rigorous prac­ti­tioners or most rigorous forms of it, so we at­trib­ute general wisdom (or wisdom about things as a whole) to the most rigorous form of the science dealing with things as a whole, namely, theoretical wisdom.

7/41 9–17:

a

Because of what constitutes rigor in a science, theoretical wisdom must involve both un­der­stand­ing of a science’s starting­points and unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge of what follows demonstrably from them. The first distinguishes it from unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge, the second from un­der­stand­ing.

7/41 17–20:

a

Since human beings aren’t the best or most estimable beings, neither po­lit­ic­ al science nor practical wisdom can be the best or most estimable of the five states listed at 3/39b15–17, because a state’s level of esteem is inherited from that of the beings it deals with (implicit). Since theoretical wisdom’s esteem is highest, it cannot be po­lit­i­cal science or practical wisdom. 7/41 20–22:

a

Theoretical wisdom, since it deals with things that do not vary from species to species, cannot be practical wisdom, which does deal with things that vary in this way.

7/41 22–28:

a

Po­lit­ic­ al science deals with the human good; theoretical wisdom is wisdom about things as a whole. Were the two identical, theoretical wisdom would be about goods as a whole. Since goods differ from species to species, no one science can deal with

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no difference; for there exist other things that are far more divine in nature even than human beings, the most evident ones, certainly, being those from which the cosmos is composed. From what has been said, then, theoretical wisdom is clearly sci­ en­tific knowledge combined with un­der­stand­ing of the things that are by nature most estimable. That is why Anaxagoras and Thales and people of that sort are said to be wise, but not practically wise, when we see them to be ignorant of what bene­fits themselves, and why what they know is said to be extraordinary, wonderful, dif­fi­cult, and divine, but useless in that it is not human goods they seek. Practical wisdom, however, is concerned with human affairs and what can be deliberated about; for of a practically wise man we say that this most of all is the function, to deliberate well, and nobody deliberates about what cannot be otherwise or about the sorts of things that do not lead to some spe­cific end, where this is some­thing good, doable in action. The unconditionally good deliberator, however, is the one capable of aiming, in accord with calculation, at the best, for a human being, of things doable in action. Nor is practical wisdom [knowledge] of universals only; on the contrary, it must also know particulars, for it is practical, and action has to do with particulars. That is why, in other areas, too, some people who lack knowledge—especially those with experience—are more practical than others who have knowledge. For if someone knows that light meats are digestible and healthy but does not know which sorts of meat are light, he will not produce health, but the one who knows that bird meats are healthy will produce health more. But practical wisdom is practical; so one must possess both [sorts of knowledge]—or this one more. But here, too, there will be a sort that is architectonic.



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all of them. If theoretical wisdom dealt with the human good, it would be not one science but many. a

Human beings, while they may be the most estimable of the sublunary animals, are not as estimable as the heavenly bodies. Hence theoretical wisdom, which deals with the most estimable beings, cannot be practical wisdom or po­lit­i­cal science, since these deal with human beings.

7/41 33–b2:

b

The account of theoretical wisdom and of its difference from practical wisdom explains—and so is supported by—reputable opinions about such people as Thales and Anaxagoras.

7/41 3–8:

b

Because practical wisdom is quin­tes­sen­tially a deliberative state, it produces deliberative or practical syllogisms dealing with what particular action to do in given circumstances. Hence, while it must know the universal or major prem­ises of such syllogisms, it is more im­por­tant that it also know their particular or minor prem­ises, since it is these that specify what particular action to do. That is why people who lack sci­en­tific knowledge (in that they lack knowledge of the universal prem­ises required for it) but know the particular prem­ise from experience are more successful agents than those who know the universal prem­ise but not how to apply it in the particular circumstances. 7/41 14–21:

b

Nonetheless, practical wisdom must yet have a component that, since it is architectonic, does involve sci­en­tific knowledge of universals. 7/41 21–22:

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Po­lit­i­cal science and practical wisdom are the same state, but their being is not the same. Of the practical wisdom concerned with the city, the architectonic part is legislative science, while the part concerned with particulars has the name common to both—“po­lit­i­cal science”; this part is practical and deliberative, for a decree is doable in action, as the last thing. That is why only these people are said to take part in politics, for only they do things just like handicraftsmen. It is thought, too, that the practical wisdom concerned with oneself as an individual is most of all practical wisdom, and it is this that has the name common [to all the sorts]; of the other sorts, one is household management, another legislative science, another po­lit­i­cal science, and, of the latter, one part is deliberative and the other judicial. Now knowledge of what is [good] for oneself will certainly be one type of knowledge, but it admits of much difference. It is thought, certainly, that someone who knows about, and concerns himself with, the things that pertain to himself is practically wise, and that politicians are busybodies. That is why Euripides says: How can I be practically wise, when I could have minded my own business and been numbered among the ranks of the army, sharing equally? For those who aim too high and busy themselves too much . . .

For people seek what is good for themselves and think that this is what they should do. From this belief, then, has come the view that such people are the ones with practical wisdom. And yet, presumably, a person’s own welfare cannot be achieved without household management or without a po­lit­ic­ al constitution. Moreover, how the things [that pertain to] his own [welfare] are to be managed is unclear and must be examined. A sign of what has been said is that while young people become geometers and mathematicians and wise in such things, they do not seem to become practically wise. The reason is that practical wisdom is concerned also with particulars, knowledge of which ­comes from ex66

VI 8 Analysis The previous chapter has shown that the type of true or correct reason provided by practical wisdom is one embodied in a sound deliberative practical syllogism and so seems to involve a true or correct major prem­ise and a true or correct minor prem­ise. At the same time, special weight is given to practical wisdom’s knowledge of the minor prem­ise. In this chapter, we learn more about what grasp of this sort of correct reason comprises. b

Practical wisdom deals with the individual, the household, and the city, not just—as is commonly thought—the individual. The part that deals with the household is household management. The part that deals with the city comprises legislative science and po­lit­i­cal science, which itself comprises a deliberative component and a judicial one. 8/41 23–33:

b

8/41 33–42a10: Although practical wisdom also deals with the city, it

is the part concerned with the individual agent that usurps the name “practical wisdom.” But, since a human being is a po­lit­i­cal animal, this part, too, involves knowing how to run a household and a city (a po­lit­i­cal community with a constitution). a

Practical wisdom concerned with the individual’s own welfare is concerned with particulars (that is, with the particulars that fig­ure in the minor prem­ises of practical syllogisms) and so

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perience. But a young person is not experienced; for it is quantity of time that produces experience. (Indeed, we might also examine why it is that a boy can become a mathematician but not a theoretically wise man or a natural scientist. Or ­isn’t it that the objects in the former case are given through abstraction, while the starting-­points in the latter cases come from experience; and so the young lack convictions there but [only] talk the talk, while in the former it is not unclear to them what each of the objects is?) Moreover, the error may be about the universal in deliberation or about the particular; either [in supposing] that all heavy types of water are bad or that this particular one is heavy. But that practical wisdom is not sci­en­tific knowledge is evident. For it concerns the last thing, as we said, since what is doable in action is such. It is opposed, then, to un­der­stand­ing; for un­der­stand­ing is of the terms for which there is no reason, but practical wisdom concerns the last thing, of which there is not sci­en­tific knowledge but rather perception—not the [perception] of special objects, but like the sort by which we perceive that the last thing among mathematical objects is a triangle; for there, too, will come a stopping-­point. Practical wisdom, however, is more this perception, but it is a different kind from the other.



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presupposes the sort of familiarity with them that ­comes only with experience. a

Hence, though practical wisdom involves sci­en­tific knowledge of universals (of the sort that fig­ure in the major prem­ ises of practical syllogisms), it also involves a sort of perception (of the particulars that fig­ure in the minor prem­ises), since perception is what provides knowledge of particulars. It is this perception that is especially central to practical wisdom.

8/42 20–30:

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In­quiry and deliberation are different; since deliberation is in­quiry of a certain sort. But we must also grasp what good deliberation is, whether some sort of sci­en­tific knowledge or belief or good guesswork or some other kind of thing. Well, sci­en­tific knowledge it certainly ­isn’t. For people do not inquire about things they know, but good deliberation is a sort of deliberation, and a deliberator inquires and calculates. But it is not good guesswork either; for good guesswork involves no reasoning and is also some­thing quick, whereas one deliberates for a long time, and it is said that we should act quickly on the results of our deliberation but deliberate slowly. In addition, readiness of wit is different from good deliberation, and being ready-­witted is a sort of good guesswork. Nor, again, is good deliberation any sort of belief. On the contrary, since the bad deliberator makes an error and the good one deliberates correctly, it is clear that good deliberation is some sort of correctness—correctness neither of sci­en­tific knowledge nor of belief. For of sci­en­tific knowledge there is no correctness (since there is no error either), and of belief the correctness is truth; moreover ev­ery­thing about which there is belief is already determined. However, without reason there is no good deliberation either. It remains, therefore, for it to be [correctness] of thought; for thought in fact is not yet assertion. For while belief is not in­quiry, but already a sort of assertion, a deliberator, whether he deliberates well or badly, is inquiring about some­thing, and calculating. But good deliberation is a certain sort of correctness of deliberation; that is why we must inquire first what it is and what about. Since correctness is of several sorts, however, it is clear that it will not be any and ev­ery sort. For the incontinent person or the bad person will reach what he proposes should be done as a result of calculation and so will have deliberated correctly but will have got  hold of some­thing very bad. But it is thought to be a good thing to have deliberated well. Therefore, it is this sort of correctness of deliberation that is good deliberation: the sort that reaches some­thing good. We can also reach this by a false syllogism, however—that is, reach the thing that should be done, but not by the means one should, the middle term being false. It follows that this 70

VI 9 Analysis An investigation of the nature of excellent deliberation that further  characterizes the type of true or correct reasons that practical wisdom, as the virtue of an unconditionally good deliberator, provides. a

Good deliberation, since it is a type of in­quiry, is a search for some­thing not already known. Hence it cannot be sci­en­ tific knowledge.

9/42 30–b2:

b

Good deliberation ­isn’t good guesswork, though either might be what finds the answer to an in­quiry. 9/42 2–6:

b

Good deliberation ­isn’t belief, but a type of correctness,  which—unlike the correctness of belief—isn’t simply truth. Yet it involves a reason (namely, the minor prem­ise of a practical syllogism), which is some­thing believed and whose correctness is truth. 9/42 6–12:

b

By elimination, good deliberation must be correctness of thought—that is, of a kind of thinking that culminates in but ­isn’t identical to a belief. 9/42 12–15:

b

Correct deliberation [1] reaches a good end, [2] by a true (sound) syllogism specifying (optimal) means to it. 9/42 16–26:



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is not yet good deliberation—where one reaches what should be done, yet not by the means by which one should. Moreover, one person may deliberate a long time to reach it, while another does so quickly. Therefore, the former is not yet a case of good deliberation, which is correctness with regard to the ben­efi ­ ­cial thing [to do], the way in which, and time. Moreover, it is possible to deliberate well, either unconditionally or to further a spe­cific end. Unconditionally good deliberation correctly furthers the unconditional end, the spe­cific sort, some spe­ cific end. If, then, it is characteristic of practically wise people to have deliberated well, good deliberation will be the sort of correctness that is in accord with what is advantageous in furthering the end about which practical wisdom is true supposition.

b

9/42 26–28:

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Moreover, [3] it does so in and at the ben­e­fi­cial (opti-

mal) time. b

And, fi­nally, if it is unconditionally good or correct deliberation, [4] the end it optimally furthers is the unconditional one (happiness). 9/42 28–31:

b

Since it is characteristic of practically wise people to ­ eliberate well, practical wisdom will ensure deliberation that has d the features mentioned in [1–4] and so ensures [4] correct supposition about the unconditional end and [1–3] what is advantageous in furthering it. 9/42 31–33:

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Comprehension, too, that is, good-­comprehension—the [state] by which we say people comprehend or comprehend well—is not the same as sci­en­tific knowledge as a whole nor the same as belief (since if it were, ev­ery­one would have comprehension), nor is it any one of the sciences concerned with a particular area, as medicine is concerned with health, geometry with magnitude. For comprehension is not concerned with what always is and is unchanging, nor is it concerned with just any of the things that come-­to-­be but with those one might puzzle and deliberate about. That is why it is concerned with the same things as practical wisdom, though comprehension is not the same as practical wisdom. For practical wisdom is a prescriptive virtue, for what should be done or not is its end, while comprehension is merely discerning. (For comprehension and good-­comprehension are the same, as are those with comprehension and those with good-­comprehension.) Comprehension is neither having practical wisdom nor acquiring it; but just as learning some­thing is called “comprehension” when one is using sci­en­tific knowledge, it is also so called when one is using belief in being discerning about what someone else says about matters with which practical wisdom is concerned— that is, being nobly discerning (since “well” is the same as “nobly” here). Indeed, this is where the name “comprehension”—in the sense of what makes people have good-­comprehension—came from, [namely] from the [comprehension] involved in learning. For we often call learning “comprehending.”

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VI 10 Analysis The discussion of practical wisdom continues through a comparison of it with some­thing it involves but is nonetheless distinct from—good-­comprehension. b

a

Good-­comprehension ­isn’t concerned with what holds always and eternally (what does not at all admit of being otherwise), so it ­isn’t sci­en­tific knowledge as a whole, since parts of science as a whole (for example, geometry) are concerned with such things. Among things that come-­to-­be (and so admit of being otherwise), good-­comprehension is concerned only with those that give rise to puzzles, and so to a need for deliberation. Hence it ­isn’t the same as any of the particular sciences dealing with what ­comes-­to-­be (such as the practical or productive ones), since these settle non­puzzling cases without the need for deliberation. Good-­ comprehension ­isn’t belief, because ev­ery­one has beliefs but not ev­ery­one has good-­comprehension. 10/42 34–43 6:

a

Practical wisdom, as deliberative, deals with puzzle cases not settled by any craft or practical science, so it deals with the same things as good-­comprehension. The two are distinct, nonetheless, in that practical wisdom is prescriptive, whereas comprehension is merely discerning.

10/43 6–11:

a

Because good-­comprehension ­isn’t prescriptive, it ­isn’t, like practical wisdom, concerned with the agent’s own practical syllogizing about the human good, but with evaluating someone else’s practical syllogizing. Since practical syllogizing concerns what admits of being otherwise, which is the sphere of belief, such evaluation involves using belief. Since it must, moreover, be good evaluation, it must, like practical wisdom, be in accord with the virtues of character and so must be noble.

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The quality called “consideration (gnômê),” due to which, people are said to be sympathetically considerate (sungnômê) and to have consideration, is the correct discernment of what is fair. Here is a sign of this: we say that it is the fair-­minded person, above all, who is sympathetically considerate, and that to be fair-­minded in certain cases is to be sympathetically considerate. Sympathetic consideration, then, is the correct consideration that discerns matters of fairness; and the correct sort is the one that arrives at the truth about them. All these states are reasonably taken to tend in the same direction, since we at­trib­ute consideration, comprehension, practical wisdom, and un­der­stand­ing to the same people and say they ac­ tually have consideration and un­der­stand­ing when they are prac­ tically wise and able to comprehend. For all these capacities are concerned with things that come last, that is, particulars; and it is in being discerning in matters with which practically wise people are concerned that someone exhibits comprehension and sound consideration or sympathetic consideration, for fair-­mindedness is common to all good people in relation to another person. And among particulars—that is, things that come last—are all the ones doable in action. For the practically wise person must know these, too; and comprehension and consideration are concerned with things doable in action, and these are things that come last. And un­der­stand­ing is concerned with things that come last in both directions. For concerning the primary terms and the things that come last, there is un­der­stand­ing but no reason—that is to say, on the one hand, in the case of demonstrations, it [un­der­stand­ ing] is of the unchanging and primary terms, on the other hand, in the case of those that are practical, it is of the last thing and the one that admits of being otherwise and the other prem­ise; for these are starting-­points of the that for the sake of which; for it is from particulars that universals come. Of these, therefore, we must have perception, and this is un­der­stand­ing. And that is why un­der­stand­ ing is both starting-­point and end; for demonstrations are from

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VI 11 Analysis The differences between practical wisdom and comprehension highlight the prescriptive nature of practical wisdom; the simi­ larities between them highlight practical wisdom’s powers of dis­ cernment. The exploration of practical wisdom continues, first, by focusing on its relationship to consideration and, second, by explaining un­der­stand­ing’s involvement with particulars, its role in practical demonstrations, and so its role in practical wisdom itself. a

Sympathetic consideration is a type of correctness that arrives at the truth in matters of fairness.

11/43 18–24:

a

Practical wisdom and sympathetic consideration are possessed together and are both concerned with last things (the minor or particular prem­ises that are the last things reached in deliberation). Since practical wisdom involves virtue of character (or goodness), it will involve being fair-­minded to others, and so having the sort of sympathetic consideration for them that arrives at the truth in matters of fairness.

11/43 24–35:

a

b

Like practical wisdom, comprehension, and consideration, un­der­stand­ing is concerned with last things and particulars, but it differs from these in being involved with them “in both directions.” In demonstrations generally, it grasps the indemonstrable sci­en­tific starting-­points that come last in the inductive pro­ cess that begins with perceptible particulars and ends with analyzed universals. (This is the direction from particulars to universal starting-­points.) In practical demonstrations, it is involved in applying the middle term in the minor prem­ise to perceptible particulars. (This is the direction from universal starting-­points to particulars that instantiate them.)

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these and concerned with these. And that is why these things are even thought to be natural—and why, while nobody is thought to be wise by nature, people are thought to have consideration, comprehension, and un­der­stand­ing [by nature]. A sign of this is that we also think they correspond to the stages of life and that a particular stage brings un­der­stand­ing and comprehension, as if nature were the cause. So we should attend to the undemonstrated sayings and beliefs of experienced and older people or practically wise ones no less than to the demonstrations; in that because they have an eye formed from experience, they see correctly. We have said, then, what practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom are and what each of them is concerned with and that each is the virtue of a different part of the soul.



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b

Because experience is what gives us an eye for partic­ ulars, the various states concerned with particulars seem to be a product of it and so to be the natural result of age. 11/43 11–14:

b

This concludes the formal discussion of practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom, and the sorts of correctness characteristic of the reasons they provide. 11/43 14–17:

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One might puzzle, however, about what use they are. For surely theoretical wisdom will not have theoretical knowledge of any of the things from which a human being will come to be happy (since it is not concerned with anything’s coming-­to-­be). Practical wisdom, on the contrary, certainly does do this; but what do we need it for? For if practical wisdom is, indeed, the [virtue] concerned with things just and noble and good for a human being and these are the ones it is characteristic of a good man to do  and knowledge of them in no way makes us more doers of them, if, indeed, states are what the virtues are, then it will be just the same as in the case of things relating to health or things relating to physical fitness (I mean those so called not for producing the state but for resulting from it), since we are in no way doers of them through possessing the crafts of medicine or physical training. If, on the other hand, we are to say that being practically wise is useful not for this but for becoming [good], to those who are good it will be of no use. Moreover, it will be of none to those who are not such; for it will make no difference whether they have it  themselves or put their trust in others who have it—that is, it would be adequate for us to do just as we also do in the case of health: we wish to be healthy, but all the same we do not learn medicine. In addition to all this, it would be thought strange if practical wisdom, though inferior to theoretical wisdom, were to have more control than it—yet what produces some­thing is what rules it and prescribes about anything [concerning it]. About these topics, then, we must speak; for so far we have only raised the puzzles relating to them. Well, first, let us say that these states must be intrinsically choiceworthy—since each is the virtue of one of the two [reason-­ possessing] parts—even if neither of them produces anything at all. Next, they do, indeed, produce some­thing, not, however, as the craft of medicine produces health but as health [does]. That is how theoretical wisdom, too, produces happiness; for as a part of vir80

VI 12 Analysis Because the Ethics is a practical treatise, it must show that practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom, as it has de­fined them, are of some practical use. This chapter and the next are devoted to solving puzzles related to this task. In the pro­cess, additional light is cast on the virtues themselves. b

Puzzle 1. Theoretical wisdom seems useless because it provides knowledge only of what is unconditionally necessary and eternal and so not of the just, noble, and good things (12/23b22) that further happiness by coming about. 12/43 18–19:

b

Puzzle 2. Unlike theoretical wisdom, practical wisdom does provide us with knowledge of such things, but since it ­isn’t a state of character, it d ­ oesn’t make us do them. If we say it is useful not for making us do good things but for helping us become good, it will be useless to those who are already good and virtuous, since they already know what the good things to do are. Nor could it be useful to those who aren’t good, since, as with medicine, they could consult others who are practically wise. 12/43 19–32:

b

Puzzle 3. Practical wisdom produces—sees to the coming into being of (13/45a8–9)—theoretical wisdom. Since the producer prescribes about whatever concerns his product and so rules or has control over it, practical wisdom seems to control theoretical wisdom. Since practical wisdom is inferior to theoretical wisdom, this result seems counterintuitive. 12/43 32–35:

a

Response 1 to Puzzles 1–2. As virtues, theoretical and practical wisdom are choiceworthy because of themselves, even if they do not produce anything.

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tue as a whole, by being possessed and ac­tualized, it produces happiness. Moreover, our function is completed in accord with practical wisdom and virtue of character; for virtue makes the target correct, and practical wisdom makes what furthers it so. Of the fourth part of the soul, the nutritive, there is no virtue of this sort; for there is nothing that is up to it to do or not do. With regard to our being in no way more doers, because of practical wisdom, of noble actions and just actions, let us begin a little further back, taking the following as a starting-­point. We also say, you see, that some people who do just things are still not just (for example, those who do what is prescribed by the laws either unwillingly, because of ignorance, or because of some­thing else, and not because of the actions themselves), even though they at least do the things they should, and ev­ery­thing a good person ought to do; likewise, apparently, there is the case of being so disposed, when doing each action, as to be a good person—I mean, for example, [to do them] because of deliberate choice and for the sake of the acts themselves. Virtue, then, makes the deliberate choice correct, but as to whatever should naturally be done for the sake of carrying it out—that is not the business of virtue but of a different capacity. However, we must get sci­en­tific knowledge of these and discuss them in a more illuminating way. There is, then, a capacity called cle­verness; and this is the sort of thing that, when it ­comes to the things that further [hitting] a proposed target, is able to do these and to discover them. If, then, the target is a noble one, this capacity is praiseworthy, but if it is a bad one, it is unscrupulousness; and that is why both practically wise people and unscrupulous ones are said to be cle­ver. Practical wisdom, however, is not the capacity [of cle­verness] but does not exist without this capacity. But the state, the one pertaining to this eye of the soul, does not come about without virtue, as we have said and is clear. For practical syllogisms have a starting-­point, “since the end—that is, the best good—is such and such,” whatever it may be (let it be any random thing for the sake of argument); this, however, is not evident, except to the good man, for vice produces distortion and false views about the starting-­points of action. So it is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise without being good.



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a

Response 2 to Puzzle 1. Moreover, theoretical wisdom, when possessed and ac­tualized, does produce happiness.

12/44 3–6:

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Response 2 to Puzzle 2. Practical wisdom and virtue of character together produce happiness, since they complete our function, and our function completed is happiness.

12/44 6–9:

a

Ob­jec­tion to Response 2 to Puzzle 2. How can practical wisdom and virtue of character complete our function when they do not include the virtue of the nutritive part? Answer: the virtue of the nutritive part ­isn’t of the sort relevant to the completion of our function.

12/44 9–11:

a

12/44 11–37: Response 3 to Puzzle 2. As action in accord with virtue

of character ­isn’t the same as action done in a virtuous way, so action in accord with practical wisdom (which may be the result of getting practically wise advice from someone else) may not be the same as action done in a practically wise way (which may require possession of practical wisdom by the agent himself). Virtue of character makes the (deliberate choice of the) end correct. A different capacity, however, determines the correct means to that end. This capacity is cle­verness. Excellence in deliberation (practical syllogizing) of the sort practical wisdom ensures requires cle­ver­ ness but also correct grasp by un­der­stand­ing of the end (happiness) to be furthered (for as a starting point, the end is some­thing un­der­ stand­ing alone can grasp). Since virtue of character is what ensures such correct grasp, it is impossible to be practically wise without being good or virtuous.

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Virtue, then, must also be examined again. For virtue, too, is in much the same situation: as practical wisdom is related to cle­ verness—not the same, but similar—so natural virtue is related to full virtue. For ev­ery­one thinks that each character-­trait is possessed in some way by nature; for in fact we are just, disposed to temperance, courageous, and the rest immediately from birth. But all the same we look for full goodness to be some­thing else and for such qualities to be possessed in another way. For to both children and beasts these natural states also belong; but without un­der­stand­ing, they are evidently harmful. At any rate, this much we can surely see that just as a heavy body moving around without sight suf­fers a heavy fall because it has no sight, so it happens in this case, too. But if someone should acquire un­der­stand­ing, it makes a difference in his action; and his state, though similar to the one he had, will then be full virtue. So, just as in the case of the part that forms beliefs there are conditions of two types, cle­verness and practical wisdom, so also in the part responsible for character there are two, natural virtue and full virtue—and of these, full virtue does not come into being without practical wisdom. That is why, indeed, some people say that all the virtues are forms of practical wisdom, and why, in one sense, Soc­ra­tes used to inquire correctly but in another sense erroneously. For in thinking that all the virtues were forms of practical wisdom, he was in error, but in saying that they did not exist without practical wisdom, he spoke well. Here is a sign of this: even now ev­ery­one, when de­fin­ ing virtue, having named the state and what it is concerned with, adds “the one in accord with the correct reason”—and the correct one is the one in accord with practical wisdom. It would seem, then, that all people somehow divine that this sort of state is virtue: the one in accord with practical wisdom. We, however, should make a small alteration. For it ­isn’t the one that is only in accord with the correct reason but the state involving the correct reason that is virtue; and the correct reason about such matters is practical wisdom. Soc­ra­tes, then, thought that the virtues were cases of reason (all being cases of sci­en­tific knowledge); we, on the other 84

VI 13 Analysis The usefulness of practical wisdom has been partly defended: it involves cle­verness and so is able to calculate correct means to ends. This chapter continues the defense, discussing Puzzles 2 and 3, Soc­ra­tes’ view that the virtues of character are forms of practical wisdom or sci­en­tific knowledge, and the related issue of the separability of these virtues. b

Response 3 to Puzzle 2. Virtue of character exists in two stages of development: natural and full. Natural virtue is the state, possessed from birth, of being disposed to justice, temperance, courage, and so on. These dispositions are transformed into full virtue when a grasp by un­der­stand­ing of the end they further is added to them—a grasp they help make correct. Since such a grasp is also what transforms cle­verness into practical wisdom, full virtue does not come into being without it. The usefulness of virtue of character, which makes us doers of virtuous actions, requires and so reveals the usefulness of practical wisdom.

13/44 1–16:

b

The fact that the full virtues of character require practical wisdom explains why some people, including Soc­ra­tes, mistakenly think they are forms of practical wisdom. What is true is that they involve the true reason practical wisdom provides when 13/44 17–32:



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hand, think that they involve reason. It is clear, then, from what we have said, that it is not possible to be fully good without practical wisdom nor practically wise without virtue of character. And in this way we can also resolve the argument by which someone might contend dialectically that the virtues are separate from one another, on the grounds that the same person is not best equipped by nature for all of them, so that he will at some point have acquired one when he has not yet acquired another. In the case of the natural virtues, indeed, this is possible, but in the case of those because of which someone is called unconditionally good, it is not possible; for at the same time as practical wisdom, which is one [state], is present, they will all be present. And it is clear that even if it were not practical, we would need it, because it is the virtue of its part of the soul, [clear], too, that deliberate choice will not be correct without practical wisdom or without virtue; for the one produces acting [that is itself] the end while the other produces acting that furthers it. But yet it does not control either theoretical wisdom or the better part of the soul any more than the craft of medicine does health; for it ­doesn’t use it but sees to its coming-­into-­being: it prescribes for its sake, therefore, but not to it. Besides, it would be like saying that po­lit­i­cal science rules the gods, because it prescribes with regard to ev­ery­thing in the city.



Nicomachean Ethics VI

it calculates the correct means to the end that natural virtue makes correct. b

a

The separability of the natural virtues explains why some people think that the virtues of character are separable. The relationship between the full virtues and practical wisdom shows that this is a mistake. For practical wisdom is a single uni­fied state of the soul, which presupposes each of the virtues of character, since it presupposes virtue of character entire (12/44a35–36). 13/44 32–45 2:

a

Response 4 to Puzzle 2 (28). Practical wisdom is the virtue of the deliberative part of the soul, needed as such. For deliberate choice will not be correct without virtue of character, which makes the end correct, and practical wisdom, which produces action that best furthers it.

13/45 2–6:

a

Response to Puzzle 3 (12/43b33–35). Practical wisdom prescribes for the sake of theoretical wisdom but does not control it.

13/45 6–11:

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VI 1

1/38b18–19 Since we have previously said that we should choose the mean (meson), not the excess and not the de­fic­ iency,

The mean referred to is the one pertaining to “all the states we have discussed” (1/38b21), namely, the virtues of character—courage, temperance, magnanimity, and so on (NE III 6–V 13). Although Ar­is­totle has not said in so many words that we should choose this peculiarly ethical mean, he has implied it: virtue of character “finds and chooses the mean” (NE II 6 1107a5–6), and, insofar as it is able “to hit the mean,” is itself a sort of mean (NE II 6 1106b27–28), which we do and should choose: “honor, plea­sure, un­der­stand­ing, and ev­ery virtue we do choose because of themselves; for even if nothing additional resulted from them, we would still choose each of them, but we also choose them for the sake of happiness, supposing that through them we shall be happy” (NE I 7 1097b2–5). The relevance of some sort of mean to the virtues of character is suggested, first, by apparently empirical facts about the way in which such virtues are acquired. For just as “excessive and deficient exercise destroys physical strength and likewise too much or too little food and drink destroys our health,” so, too, “someone who indulges in ev­ery plea­sure and refrains from none be­comes intemperate, while someone who runs away from ev­ery plea­sure, as boors do, be­comes somehow insensitive” (NE II 2 1104a11–27). In both cases, the medial amount of exercise, food, or plea­sure produces and preserves the valuable state, whether health, strength, or virtue of character. Moreover, when we have become temperate  through abstaining from plea­sures, we are “most capable of abstaining from them,” and when we have become courageous “through being habituated to disdain frightening situations,” we are most capable of standing firm in the face of them (NE II 2 1104b1–3). This, too, seems to be a broadly empirical claim—albeit one Ar­is­totle thinks particularly uncontroversial (NE III 5 1114a9–10).

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Although NE does not advert to it, it is hardly an accident that Ar­is­totle finds these particular (putative) facts to be of potential relevance to de­fin­ing and explaining what virtue is. For medial conditions of various sorts play fundamental explanatory roles in his other sciences: (GC II 7 334b28–30, PA III 4 667a3–6, GA IV 2 767a17–19). Moreover, because “nature, like the un­der­stand­ing, always does what it does for the sake of some­thing, which some­ thing is its end” (DA II 4 415b16–17), these conditions have a normative sta­tus. Their role in the theory of perception shows this clearly: “We do not perceive any being as dry or wet or as hard or soft but only the excesses in either direction, because the sense is a sort of mean between the contraries in objects of perception” (DA II 11 424a2–5). To function well and discern sounds or textures accurately, a sense organ must be in a certain sort of medial state. Hence if the virtues can be shown to be medial states, they, too, will emerge as accurate discerners, valuable and choiceworthy as such.

1/38b19–20 .  .  . and the mean is as the correct reason says, let us distinguish (dielômen) this.

The verb diairein (dielômen) means to divide, or cut up, and hence to distinguish either by dividing off from other things or by dividing up into parts, as in an account or defi­ni­tion. Elsewhere in the Ethics, and twice in the present chapter (1/38b35, 1/39a5), it is used exclusively in the first of these two senses, which is presumably how it is to be understood here as well (III 2 1111b33, 9 1117b28, V 3 1131a32, b5, VII 4 1148a25, VIII 6 1158a28, 12 1161b33, 1162a22, IX 8 1168b12). In any case, this is the most obviously relevant sense, since what Ar­is­totle goes on to do is distinguish ethically correct reasons—as truths in accord with correct desire (2/39a22–27)—from correct reasons provided by crafts, sciences, and un­der­stand­ing. In the pro­cess, he does much to de­fine ethically correct reasons. The mean is introduced to help de­fine virtue of character (NE II 1–6), which is a starting-­point of po­lit­i­cal science (politikê), of which ethics or ethical science (êthikê) is a part (NE I 2 1094b10–



Commentary

11, Pol. III 12 1282b19–20, Met. XIII 4 1078b17–30). To meet the requirements of sci­en­tific explanation, this defi­ni­tion must determine virtue’s real essence by specifying its genus and differentia (NE II 5–6 1106a12–15), and so must be based on the appropriate sort of evidence. In the case of ethics, this consists of “what is known to us” about noble and just things, because we have been brought up with the right sort of habits (NE I 4 1095b2–6). Beginning with these, we proceed—as in all sciences—to try to explain why the things known to us are true, by giving a demonstration of them from starting-­points whose defi­ni­tions we have articulated and dialectically or aporematically defended (3/39b34–36). When this task is complete, what was known to us on the basis of things with which we are already familiar be­comes known uncondi­ tionally (NE I 4 1095b6–8, Ph. I 1 184a1–b14, Met. I 1 980b25– 981a30).

1/38b21–23 For in the case of all the states (hexesi) we have discussed, and as regards the others as well, there is some target (skopos) on which the possessor of the reason keeps his eye as he tightens or loosens . . .

A state (hexis) is the penultimate stage in the development or bringing to completion of a potentiality, capacity, or power (dunamis) and is a relatively stable condition (Cat. 8 8b25–9a13) ensuring that “a thing is either well or badly disposed, whether intrinsically or in relation to some­thing, for example, health is a state, since it is a disposition of this sort” (Met. V 20 1022b10–12). Potentialities are of two broadly different sorts, some nonrational, others involving reason. A mark of the ones that involve reason is that they are “potentialities for contraries alike,” whereas a single nonrational potentiality is “for a single thing”: what is hot can only heat things, whereas medicine can both cure a disease and cause it (Met. IX 2 1046b4–7; also NE V 1 1129a11–17). When we possess a potentiality by nature, we do not acquire it by frequently or habitually doing some­thing; rather we have it first and are able to do some­ thing because we have it, as we see things because we first have sight (the potentiality to see), not because we acquire sight by fre-

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quently engaging in acts of seeing. In the case of crafts and sciences, by contrast, we acquire them by engaging in the right sort of activities, as “we become house builders by building houses, and lyre-­players by playing the lyre” (NE II 1 1103a32–34). The “states we have discussed” are the virtues of character. They are states because they are relatively stable conditions (NE I 10 1100b12–22), ensuring that we are well disposed where our feelings are concerned, so that they are neither too weak nor too strong but in a mean (NE II 5 1105b25–28). Like the crafts and sciences, and unlike the potentialities we possess by nature, the virtues both involve reason (NE II 6 1106b36–1107a2) and are acquired by frequently or habitually doing the relevant activities: “we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, courageous by doing courageous ones” (NE II 1 1103a34–b2). But unlike other potentialities that involve reason, and like those possessed by nature, the virtues are potentialities not for contraries but for a single thing. For though the potentiality to acquire courage is generally the same as the potentiality to acquire cowardice, and so “dualizes (epamphoterizonta),” in that it can be “developed by habit either in a better direction or a worse one” (Pol. VII 13 1332b1–3), the virtuous state acquired by doing good activities can result only in good actions, just as the vicious state can result only in bad ones. Ev­ery potentiality admits of stages or levels of development. The potentiality to learn Greek, for example, is the first such stage, and so is a first potentiality. The potentiality to speak it, once having learned it, is a second stage, a second potentiality or first ac­tuality (entelecheia) or state. When this state is ac­tualized in speaking Greek, the result is a second ac­tuality or activity (energeia) (DA II 5 417a21–b2). It is the potentiality in its fully developed or completed condition. Thus happiness, since it is ac­tualization of a virtuous state, is an activity (NE I 7 1098a16–17). The notion of a skopos, which belongs properly to archery (NE I 2 1094a18–24), is used metaphorically to refer to an end, particularly one pursued in deliberate action (EE I 2 1214b6–9; also II 10 1227a5–7, Pol. VII 13 1331b6–8, Rh. I 6 1362a15–20). In the case of medicine, the target is health, and the possessor of the medically correct reason is the doctor. In the case of ethics, the target is happiness, and the possessor of the ethically correct reason is the practically wise man (13/44b26–27).



Commentary

The metaphor of “tightening (epiteinein) and loosening (anienai)” derives from music, where an instrument’s strings are adjusted until a certain target note is struck (Pol. IV 3 1290a22–29; Plato, Lysis 209b). From there it is extended to vocal cords, sinews (GA V 7 787b10–24), and other string-­like things. Eventually it is employed wherever a certain tripartite structure is thought to exist: a continuous substrate, often referred to as “the more and the less (to mallon kai to hêtton)”; a pair of opposed at­trib­utes, which vary in degree; and a target—typically a medial condition of some sort—that can be achieved by increasing (tightening) or decreasing (relaxing) the substrate so as to change the degree of those at­tri­ butes. The parts of animals exhibit this tripartite structure, as do po­lit­i­cal constitutions (Pol. V 9 1309b18–31, Rh. I 4 1360a23–30), and various conditions, such as health. In the case of noses (and similarly for other parts), the continuous substrate is flesh and bone (or its shape), the pair of contrary at­trib­utes belonging to it is hooked and snub, and the target—which lies somewhere in between the two, and so (as in po­lit­i­cal constitutions) in a mean of some sort—is being a straight nose or at least a nose of some sort. In the case of po­lit­ic­ al constitutions, the target is the medial condition that preserves them, and the continuous substrate may be the amount of money or wealth that quali­fies someone to be a citizen, which may be either too small or too large (Pol. V 8 1308a35–b6). Health is a certain mean or balance between hot and cold elements (Top. VI 2 139b20–21, Ph. VII 3 246b5, NE II 2 1104a17–18), and so “has a defi­ni­tion,” but because it admits of the more and the less, the same balance of hot and cold elements “does not exist in ev­ery healthy person nor does the same one always exist in the same person, but it may be relaxed to a certain point and still remain present, so differing in terms of the more and the less” (NE X 3 1173a24–28). No explicit example of tightening and loosening is provided for the focal case of ethics and practical wisdom, but the following seems to come close: We should also consider the things that we ourselves are more easily drawn toward; for different people have different natural tendencies toward different things, and we can find out what they are from the plea­sure and the pain that the things cause in us. And we should drag ourselves off in the contrary direction, for if we pull far away

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Commentary from error, we shall reach the mean in precisely the way people do when they are correcting the distortions (diestrammena) in pieces of wood. (NE II 9 1109b1–7; compare 5/40b14, 12/44a34, X 9 1180a10–14)

Presumably, practical wisdom, too, follows the model we have been exploring. The target is the mean in feelings and actions. Tightening and loosing is an adjustment made in some continuous substrate of these, which increases or diminishes the degree of a pair of contrary at­trib­utes. Since “ev­ery feeling and ev­ery action involves plea­sure or pain,” and “plea­sure causes us to do ignoble actions, and pain to abstain from noble ones,” the substrate in question is most probably that of the plea­sure-­pain continuum (NE II 3 1104b9–15). If so, the target is the mean in feelings, and so in states of character, and the adjustment is one made to produce virtue by overcoming our natural bias in favor of plea­sure and against pain. When Ar­is­totle says that we pardon bad actions done “because of conditions that overtighten or overstrain (huperteinei) human nature” (NE III 1 1110a3–6), he is speaking literally. Our feelings, like our senses, discern things lying between two extreme points on a continuum by being in a mean between them. Things that exceed those ex­tremes overstrain the sense, as weights that are too heavy for a given scale ruin its mechanism, so that it can no ­longer make accurate discriminations: “A sense is a proportion (logos); excessive objects dissolve or destroy it” (DA III 2 426b7). Similarly, when excruciating pain overstrains our feelings, it disables our capacity to discern things correctly and thus often excuses the actions we do because of it.

1/38b23–25 .  .  . and there is some sort of de­fin­ing-­mark (horos) of the medial states, which we say are between excess and de­fi­ciency, since they are in accord with the correct reason.

In the early Protrepticus, the term horos occurs just twice (B39, B47). In the Nicomachean Ethics, it occurs thirteen times (1/38b23, 34, 8/42a26, 9/42b24, 11/43a36, b2, V 3 1131b5, 9, 16, VII 3 1147b14, 5 1149a1, 13 1153b25), although only once (at I 7



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1097b12) outside the books (V–VII) common to it and the Eude­ mian Ethics, where it also occurs thirteen times (II 1 1219a40, II 5 1222a17, b8, III 7 1234a21, VII 9 1241b36, 10 1243b29, 11 1244a20, 25, 1249a21, b1, 19, 22, 23). In the Politics, it occurs twenty-­two times (I 9 1258a18, II 6 1265a32, 8 1267a29, 10 1271a35, III 9 1280a7, 13 1283b28, IV 8 1294a10, 15 1300a11, V 11 1314a25, VI 2 1317b11, VII 2 1324b4, 4 1326a35, b12, 23, 32, 5 1327a6, b19, 13 1331b36, 15 1334a12, VIII 7 1342b33). From early to late, then, the notion of a horos is a part of Ar­is­totle’s ethical and po­lit­ic­ al thought. The most common meaning of horos in the Nicomachean Ethics is “term,” in the logical sense, in which a syllogism has three terms (8/42a26, 9/42b24, 11/43a36, b2, V 3 1131b5, 9, 16, VII 3 1147b14). At NE I 7 1097b12–13, however, its sense is closer to the one it seems to have at 1/38b23, 34. The context is a worry about hap­ piness. Since a human being is a po­lit­ic­ al animal, his happiness is bound up with that of others, but how extensive is the relevant class? We must impose some horos on it, since otherwise the class will go on indefi­nitely. Here, as often elsewhere, a horos is what gives defi­ni­tion to what would otherwise lack it (Pol. I 9 1258a18, II 8 1267a29, VII 4 1326a35, b12, 23, 32, 7 1327b19). The root meaning of horos, indeed, is that of a stone marking the boundary of a territory or piece of land in a visible way. Hence the doctor’s horos is the thing “by reference to which he discerns what is healthy for a body from what ­isn’t” (EE VIII 3 1249a21–22). For example, the horos of health in a muscle might be a certain uniform or smooth state, which the doctor can detect by touch (Met. VII 7 1032b6–10). The horos is not the target itself, then, but the target’s de­fin­ing-­mark: “the politician must have certain horoi, derived from nature and from the truth itself,1 by reference to which he will discern what is just, what is noble, and what is advantageous” (Protr. B47; also EE VIII 3 1249b13–23). The practically wise man possesses the virtues of character (NE I 7 1097b25–1098a15), each of which determines a mean in accord with correct reason for a spe­cific range of external or natural goods (NE I 8 1099a31–1099b8) and the feelings involved with them (NE IX 8 1168b15–21). In the case of luck, which controls such goods 1. The truth referred to is probably objectual truth or the truth in things rather than propositional truth. See Met. VI 4 1027b18–33.

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(Pol. VII 1 1323b27–29), Ar­is­totle is spe­cific about how its defining­mark is related to happiness: “When luck is excessive, it is ac­tually an impediment to happiness—and presumably then it is no ­longer rightly called good luck, since its de­fin­ing-­mark is determined by reference to happiness” (NE VII 13 1153b21–25; also I 7 1097b5– 13, Pol. VII 1 1323b7–10). That is why happiness is de­scribed as “the starting-­point and the cause of goods” quite generally (NE I 12 1102a3–4), and why “the po­lit­ic­ al philosopher”—that is, the po­lit­i­cal scientist insofar as he focuses especially on starting-­points​ —is referred to as the “architectonic craftsman of the end we look to in calling some­thing unconditionally bad or good” (NE VII 11 1152b1–3). The de­fin­ing-­mark for these prescriptions is characterized as the “choice and possession of natural goods—either goods of the body or money or of friends or the other goods—that will most of all produce the divine con­stit­u­ent’s [that is, of un­der­stand­ing’s] contemplation” (EE VIII 3 1249b17–19). A pithier characterization tells us that we should “do ev­ery­thing” to live in accord with our un­der­stand­ing (NE X 7 1177b33). In the end, though, both characterizations come to the same thing. For insofar as “someone is human, and so lives together with a number of other human beings, he chooses to do the actions that are in accord with virtue [of character]” (NE X 8 1178b5–7). But full virtue of character is particularly involved with external goods, and—since practical wisdom is involved in it (NE VI 13 1144b16–17)—aims to further contemplation to the fullest extent possible (NE X 8 1178b29–31). Because horos is etymologically related to the verb horizein (“de­ fine”), and what the man of practical wisdom does to the ethical mean is provide the correct reason that de­fines (hôrismenê[i]) it (NE II 6 1106b36–1107a2), his horos is “what must be looked to in saying what the correct reason is” (EE II 5 1222b7–8). In the Protrepticus (B39), the practically wise man himself is said to be the horos (compare “the medial person” referred to at NE IV 1127a24), just as the correct reason is sometimes iden­ti­fied with the practical wisdom that alone provides it (13/44b27–28). It may be, then, that in characterizing the practically wise person and his correct reason, Ar­is­totle takes himself to be identifying the relevant horos as he says he will (1/38b33–34). When we see how practical wisdom and the distinctive sort of



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correct reasons it provides are structured in relation to the natural virtues of character and cle­verness, on the one hand, and theoretical wisdom, on the other, and how the virtues of character are concerned with external goods, we already have a good general picture of what the ethical horos is. The fact that this picture won’t be of any practical use to us unless we already have the natural virtues will disappoint us only if we have failed to absorb what Ar­is­totle says at the outset about the conditions an adequate student of ethics or po­lit­i­cal science must satisfy. For without the correct habits that develop our natural virtue in the correct way (NE I 4 1095b4– 8), and the right sort of life experience (NE I 3 1095a2–4) to give us an experienced eye (11/43b13–14), our study of the Ethics will be “pointless and useless” (NE I 3 1095a5).

1/38b25–29 But although this is true to say, it is not at all illuminating (saphes). For in the other types of supervision where there is sci­en­tific knowledge, it is also true to say that we should exert ourselves or relax neither too much nor too little, but mean amounts, and in the way the correct reason says.

Rendering a truth illuminating consists in giving an explanation of it by demonstrating it from the starting-­points of a science: Beginning with things that are truly stated but not illuminatingly (saphôs), we proceed to make them illuminating as well . . . That is precisely why even po­lit­i­cal scientists ­shouldn’t regard as irrelevant to their work the sort of theoretical knowledge that makes evident not only the fact that, but also the explanation why. (EE I 6 1216b32– 39; also APo. II 2 10 93b37–94a14, Ph. I 1 184a10–23)

Illumination is thus akin to rigor (akribeia). When the truth in question is itself a sci­en­tific starting-­point, making it clear or illuminating consists in giving a defi­ni­tion of it that can be defended aporematically against all ob­jec­tions (3/39b34–36). Since happiness is a starting-­point of the sciences of ethics and politics, a clear and illuminating defi­ni­tion of it must be given (NE I 7 1097b22– 24, 13 1102a3–4, EE I 8 1217a20–21). This will help us achieve

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happiness by giving us a clearer target at which to aim (NE I 2 1094a22–24). At the same time—as an account of the end practical wisdom pursues—it will help us better understand it and the sort of correct reasons it provides. Supervision (epimeleia) of X involves concern for its welfare and is often exercised by a type of craft or science that has X’s welfare as its end or goal. For example, medicine supervises the sick because it aims at their health and knows how to further it but does not supervise the healthy or prescribe their behavior (NE X 9 1180b17). Similarly, the gods supervise the person “whose activity is in accord with un­der­stand­ing,” since they love and take plea­sure in what is best and “most akin to themselves” (NE X 8 1179a22– 32). The implication of the phrase “in the other types of supervision where there is sci­en­tific knowledge” is that ethics or po­lit­i­cal science is itself a type of supervision in which there is sci­en­tific knowledge. Sci­en­tific knowledge is usually divided into three kinds: theoretical (contemplative), practical (action-­determining), and productive (crafts) (Top. VI 6 145a15–16, Met. XI 7 1064a16–19). But sometimes a more fine-­grained clas­si­fi­ca­tion is employed, in which sciences previously clas­si­fied as theoretical (such as physics, biology, and others dealing with the sublunary world) are reclas­si­fied as “natural sciences” and distinguished from theoretical sciences in the strict sense (such as astronomy and theology), which deal with the superlunary sphere of eternal things (Ph. II 7 198a21–b4, Met. VI 1 1025b18–1026a32). In NE VI, the term epistêmê is mostly reserved for unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge provided exclusively by the strictly theoretical sciences (3/39b31–34): its topic is the virtues of thought, after all, and the relevant virtue—theoretical wisdom—is exhibited only by sci­en­tific knowledge of that most rigorous sort (7/41a16–17). As is commonly the case elsewhere, epistêmê is here used in a looser sense in which the natural, practical, and productive sciences also provide sci­en­tific knowledge.

1/38b29–34 If we know only this, however, we are no better off—for example, as regards what sorts of treatments to apply to the body, if we are told that we should apply those that medical science prescribes and in



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the way the one who possesses it would. That is why, with regard to the states of the soul, too, we should not only assert this much of the truth but also determine what the correct reason is and what its ­de­fin­ing-­mark.

The states of the soul are the virtues of character and thought. The correct reason whose defi­ni­tion and de­fin­ing-­mark are being sought must be provided either by practical wisdom, which is or grasps the correct reason that ev­ery­one agrees the virtues of character must be in accord with (NE II 2 1103b31–34), or by theoretical wisdom, which grasps the correct reason found in the most rigorous kind of sci­en­tific knowledge (7/41a16–17). Practical wisdom’s de­fin­ing-­mark and the correct reason it determines are discussed at 1/38b23–25, theoretical wisdom’s at 7/41a17–20.

1/38b35–39a6 In distinguishing the virtues of the soul, we said that some are virtues of character and some of thought. The virtues of character, we have discussed. So let us now speak about the others as follows, after first saying some­thing about the soul. Previously, we said that there are two parts of the soul, one that has reason (logon echein) and one that lacks reason. Let us now divide in the same way the part that has reason.

The dianoia (thought), of which dianoêtikê aretê or thought-­ involving virtue is the virtue, includes both un­der­stand­ing, which grasps thought’s starting-­points, and syllogistic reasoning from those starting-­points. That is why the virtue of the sci­en­tific part involves un­der­stand­ing of starting points and what follows syllogistically from them (7/41a17–18), while that of the calculating part involves a grasp by un­der­stand­ing of the end to be pursued, which is one sort of starting-­point (11/43b9–11), and correctness of the practical syllogism that determines the best means to that end (9/42b12–33). Logos (the cognate verb legein means “to speak”) can refer among other things to: a word or or­ga­nized string of words constituting a discussion, conversation, speech, account, explanation, defi­ni­tion, principle, argument, reason, or piece of reasoning; what

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such words or their utterances mean, express, or refer to, such as the ratio between quantities (NE V 3 1131a31–32); the capacity that enables someone to argue, give reasons, and so on (Pol. VII 13 1332b5). To be relevant to the search for the ethically correct reason, the reason referred to here must be not a faculty of reason but the sort of reason that, because it can be true (2/39b12–13), can be expressed in a proposition of some kind. Hence practical wisdom is said to be the correct reason (13/44b27–28), as medicine is said to be “the reason of health” (Met. XII 3 1070a29–30), because both are sources of true or correct reasons. Earlier (1/38b18–34), NE VI was characterized as fill­ing a gap in the discussion of the virtues of character by providing an account of the sort of correct reason involved in them. Here it is characterized as providing an account of the virtues of thought and so refers  to NE I 13 1103a3–10, where virtue of thought was briefly mentioned as being distinct from virtue of character. The implication is that the sort of reason had by the part of the soul that has reason of any sort is (or includes) the reason that, when correct, is the ethically relevant one. Once the part that has reason is seen to be twofold, the reason possessed by one of its subparts needs to be distinguished from that possessed by the other so that we can better determine which of them is the ethically relevant one. In addition, we need to determine the conditions under which the ethically relevant one is correct. Since a thing’s virtue is what ensures that it performs its proper function well, we will know what the ethically correct reason is once we know what the virtue of the relevant subpart is (1/39a15–17). Because of the way in which the virtues of thought are related to the sort of correct reason involved in the virtues of character, then, to give an account of one amounts to giving an account of the other. Moreover, as things turn out, the correct reasons provided by the reason-­possessing subparts are both ethically relevant. For the correct prescriptive reason telling us what action to perform in particular circumstances is practical wisdom (13/44b27–28), while theoretical wisdom is the target or end those prescriptions must optimally further if they are to be correct (13/45a6–11). The desiring part of the soul (orektikon), whose virtues are those of character (EE II 1 1220a10), lacks reason, because, unlike the reason-­possessing part, it cannot give reasons or construct explan-



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atory demonstrations or syllogisms. Yet it can listen to such reasons and obey them, as a child does its father, so that it shares in reason in a way (NE I 13 1102b14–1103a3). The division between the sci­en­tific and calculative part is made “in the same way” as that between the reason-­possessing part they comprise and the desiring one (1/39a5–6), because the calculative part listens to the sci­ en­tific one on matters to which it has no autonomous access. What it hears from it are universal necessary truths, such as that all “light meats are healthy” (7/41b20), that are “coincidentally useful to us for many of the things we need” (EE I 5 1216b15–16).

1/39a6–11 Let us take it that there are two parts that have reason, one by means of which we have theoretical knowledge of (theôroumen) those among the beings whose starting-­points do not admit of being otherwise, and one by means of which we have theoretical knowledge of those that do admit of being otherwise;* for where beings differ in kind, parts of the soul that differ in kind are naturally suited to each of them, since it is through a certain similarity and kinship that they have knowledge.

The verb theasthai (theôroumen), with which theôria is cognate, means “look at” or “gaze at.” Hence theôria itself is sometimes just looking closely at some­thing, or observing, studying, or attending to it. In the sense most often relevant in NE VI, theôria is an exercise of un­der­stand­ing, which is the element responsible for grasping sci­en­tific starting-­points (6/41a7–8). Hence the cognate verb the­ôrein usually means “to have theoretical sci­en­tific knowledge of some­thing” (at 1/39a7, 2/39a27, 12/43b19 this is clearly the  intended meaning, as—though a bit less clearly—at 3/39b22, 4/40a11, 5/40b9, and 7/41a25). Sometimes this is sci­en­tific knowledge of the strictly theoretical sort, provided by astronomy, mathematics, and theology; sometimes it is of the more loosely theoreti *Textual Note: I read ᾧ τὰ ἐνδεχόμενα. The alternative is τὰ ὧν ἐνδέχονται: “those whose starting-­points do admit of being otherwise.” Since things that admit of being otherwise have starting-­points that admit of being otherwise (5/40a33–35), it ­doesn’t matter which reading we prefer.

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cal sort, found in the natural sciences. Even the practical sciences have their theoretical side: APo. I 34 89b9 mentions ta êthikês theôrias (“theoretical ethics”) in the same breath as ta phusikês theôrias (“theoretical natural science”), while EE I 6 1216b36–39 reminds us that po­litical scientists should have “the sort of theoretical knowledge (theôrian) that makes evident not only the fact, but also the reason why.” The adjective theôrêtikos is usually translated as “contemplative” when applied to a type of life (NE I 5 1095b19) or activity (NE X 7 1177a18) in contrast to a “practical (praktikos)” one, but as “theoretical” when applied to a type of science or thought (2/39a27). While in many ways apt, this contrast is also somewhat misleading. For what makes some­thing praktikos for Ar­is­totle is that it is appropriately related to praxis or action, considered as an end choiceworthy because of itself, and not—as with “practical”​—that it is opposed to what is theoretical, speculative, or ideal. Hence theôrêtikos activities are more praktikos than those that are widely considered to be most so: It is not necessary, as some suppose, for a praktikos life to involve relations with other people, nor are those thoughts alone praktikos that we engage in for the sake of the consequences that come from praxeis; on the contrary, much more so are the theôrêtikos activities and thoughts that are their own ends and are engaged in for their own sake. For eupraxia (doing well in action) is the end, so that praxis of a sort is, too. (Pol. VII 3 1325b16–21)

If some things are praktikos, because, like practical ones, they are useful, effective, or feasible means to some end, others are yet more praktikos because they further an end by ac­tually constituting it or being identical to it: “Things are said to be prakton in two ways, for both the things for the sake of which we act and the things we do for their sake have a share in action (praxeôs)” (EE I 7 1217a35– 37). Though the term used here is prakton rather than praktikos, the point remains the same: means to ends are praktikos, as—preeminently—are the ends themselves. Both parts of the soul that have reason provide us with knowledge (gnôsis; verb, gignôskein), but only the sci­en­tific part provides us with sci­en­tific knowledge (epistêmê; verb, epistasthai), whether



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unconditional or of some quali­fied sort. Loosely employed, as they often are by Ar­is­totle, there may be little difference between these verbs. Epistasthai, however, is usually applied to demonstrative sciences, crafts, or other bodies of systematic knowledge. Gig­ nôskein is weaker and is used for perceptual knowledge and knowledge by acquaintance—some­thing familiar is gnôrimos. Eidenai (1/38b30) is the most general of the three verbs. If X knows that p, it follows that p is true and that X is jus­ti­fied in believing it. Similar entailments hold in the cases of eidenai and epistasthai but may not hold in that of gignôskein. A more expansive account of the principle that parts of the soul have knowledge of certain objects by being similar or akin to them is given in the following text: The part of the soul that has reason is divided into two subparts, these being the deliberative and the sci­en­tific. That these are different will be evident from their subject matter. For just as color, flavor, sound, and smell are different from one another, so, too, nature has assigned different senses to them (for sound we know [gnôrizomen] by hearing, flavor by taste, and color by sight). By the same token, we must suppose it to be this way in all other cases. When, then, the subject matters are different, different, too, must be the parts of the soul by which we know them. Now an intelligible object (noêton) and a perceptible object (aisthêton) are different, and we know them by means of our soul. Hence the part of the soul concerned with perceptible objects is different from the one concerned with intelligible ones. But the deliberative and deliberately choosing part is concerned with perceptible objects and with things in the pro­cess of changing— that is, unconditionally speaking, with what ­comes-­to-­be and perishes. For we deliberate about things that are up to us to do or not to do in action, about which there is deliberation and deliberate choice whether to do or not do them. And these are perceptible objects that are in the pro­cess of changing, so that, according to this account, the deliberately choosing part of the soul pertains to perceptible objects. (MM I 34 1196b15–34)

The operative distinction is thus between a part of the soul dealing with intelligible objects (or objects of un­der­stand­ing) and one dealing with perceptible particulars (or objects of sense-­perception). The reason such parts must differ lies in the nature of human

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perception and cognition. Our un­der­stand­ing consists of a passive element and an active or productive one. For an object to be understood by the sci­en­tific part of the soul, its form must be one that passive un­der­stand­ing can take on (DA III 4 429a13–18, 430a2–4, 10–15). Similarly, for an object to be perceived by the calculative part, the eye-­jelly (in the case of visual perception) must—among other things—be able to take on the form of its color, which is a certain ratio of black to white (DA II 5 418a3–6, Sens. 2 438a12– 16, 3 439a18–440b23). Just as eye-­jelly cannot take on (the forms of) sounds or smells, so passive un­der­stand­ing cannot take on any perceptible forms (DA III 8 431b24–432a1). Some things do not at all admit of being otherwise, because, as  eternal or unchanging, they are unconditionally necessary (3/39b20–21, NE V 7 1134b27–35). Of things that do admit of being otherwise, some hold for the most part and are necessary in a weaker sense, while others are the result of luck (APr. I 13 32b4– 13). Since those relevant here are known by the calculative part of the soul, with which we deliberate, and deliberation is restricted to “things that come about through us” (NE III 3 1112b3), they cannot be necessary, even in the weaker sense of holding for the most part, and so must be the result of luck. Like what admits of being otherwise, luck ­comes in two va­ri­e­ ties. What is the result of luck in the broad sense is just what happens coincidentally or contin­gently (Int. 9 18b5–9, APo. I 30 87b19–22, GC II 6 333b4–7, Met. XI 8 1065a24–28, Rh. I 10 1368b33–37). The results of luck, in the narrow sense of practical luck, are those that have coincidental final causes. If the tree’s being by the back door is the sort of thing that might be an outcome of deliberative thought, it is a candidate final cause—an end we aim at (Ph. II 5 197a5–8, 6 197b20–22). If wish, is, indeed, its intrinsic ef­fi­cient cause, the tree’s being by the back door is a genuine ­final cause. If not, its being there is a coincidental final cause. Unlike chance (to automaton), which applies quite generally to whatever results from coincidental ef­fi­cient causes, practical luck applies only to what could come about through action and deliberate choice (Ph. II 5–6). Hence it is the sphere relevant to action: “Luck and the results of luck are found in things that are capable of being lucky, and, in general, of action. That is why, indeed, luck is concerned with things doable in action” (Ph. II 6 197b1–2). The sphere



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of practical luck is also that of the practical and productive sciences (PA I 1 640a27–33, Rh. I 5 1362a2). Once these sciences are factored into the equation, the boundaries of practical luck tighten yet further. Leave medicine out of the equation and it may be a matter of practical luck whether you survive a disease; include it and it may no ­longer be so: “experience made craft . . . inexperience luck” (Met. I 1 981a3–5; also Plato, Euthydemus 280b). That is why practical luck and craft are concerned with the same things only “in a certain way” (4/40a18). As the scope of crafts expands, the sphere of practical luck contracts. It is with these sciences explicitly in play that the function of the calculative part of the soul is speci­fied. Since it is only when prac­ tical sciences and crafts are not “rigorous and self-­contained” enough to settle what should be done that deliberation or calculation is required (NE III 3 1112a34–b9). What admits of being otherwise—in the relevant sense of being what the calculative or deliberative part deals with—is thus the subclass of things that could result from practical luck, that the practical and productive sciences leave unsettled.

1/39a11–15 Let us call one of these the sci­en­tific part and the other the calculative part; for deliberating is the same as calculating, and no one deliberates about what does not admit of being otherwise. So the calculative part is one distinct part of the part that has reason.

In the narrow sense, calculating (logizesthai) is a matter of measuring or counting, as when people use pebbles or an abacus to cal­ culate the produce tax on animals (SE I 1 165a9–10, Oec. II 2 1348a23). As such, it is internal to, or part of the normal procedures of, a craft. In the broad sense, calculating need not be quantitative and is not internal to a craft, since it is a matter of reasoning or constructing arguments of the sort that might bear on dialectical or practical questions to which no craft or science provides an answer (5/40a28–30, Top. VI 6 145b16–20, Rh. I 2 1357a1–4). Calculation (in both senses) is thus often coupled with in­quiry (zêtêsis), either as the means it employs or as the embodiment and

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jus­tifi­ca­tion of its outcome (9/42b2, 15, MA 7 701a17–20, NE VII 3 1147a25–31). Deliberation, too, has a broad and narrow sense. In the broad sense, it is identical to broad calculation, so that a craftsman— such as a doctor, navigator, or physical trainer—can deliberate about what to do when his craft does not provide explicit directions (NE III 3 1112a34–b9). This is the sense relevant here. In the narrow sense, which is the one more common in NE VI, deliberation is a species of in­quiry, but is neither the same as in­quiry (9/42a31) nor even the same as broad calculation (NE III 3 1112b21–23). In this narrow sense, the “unconditionally good deliberator is the one capable of aiming, in accord with calculation, at the best, for a human being, of things doable in action” (7/41b12–​ 14), so that deliberation of this sort is exclusively a practical or action-­determining matter. Often referred to as the deliberative part (bouleutikon), the calculative part (logistikon) is probably here so called in recog­nition of the fact that its function is broad deliberation (HA I 1 488b24, MM I 34 1196b16, Pol. I 13 1260a12). Because this is the calculative part’s function, we might expect its virtue to be not practical wisdom but some­thing wider in scope. The calculative part would then seem to need more than one virtue—this wider one, and practical wisdom as well. What obviates this need is the fact that productive thought—and so broad de­ liberation—ultimately falls within the scope of practical wisdom (2/39b1).

1/39a15–17 We must ascertain, therefore, what the best state of each of these parts is; for this is the virtue of each of them, and the virtue relates to the proper function (to ergon to oikeion).

The notion of an ergon (plural: erga) is applied to two different but related things: In some cases the ergon is a different thing beyond the use (chrêsis) [of the state], as a house is the ergon of house-­building and not the activity of house-­building, and health is the end of medicine and not



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the activity of producing health or practicing medicine. In other cases, the use is the ergon, as seeing is the ergon of sight, and active contemplation (theôria) is the ergon of the sci­en­tific knowledge of mathematics. (EE II 1 1219a13–17)

In the case of a productive state, such as house-­building, the ergon is the product, which is some­thing beyond the use of that state, which is the activity of house-­building itself. Similarly, children are the erga of their mothers (EE VII 8 1241b8), as offspring are of other animals and plants (GA I 4 717a21–22). In the case of other states, the ergon is the activity or use of the state, that is to say, it is the state itself ac­tualized to a fuller degree. A similar distinction exists among ends, since “some are activities, while some are erga of some sort beyond the activities themselves” (NE I 1 1094a3–5). The reason for the similarity is that ends and erga are closely related: The ergon is the end (telos), and the activity is the ergon (hê de energeia to ergon), and this is why the term “activity” is said of things in accord with the ergon (dio kai tounoma energeia legetai kata to ergon) and extends to the ac­tualization (entelecheia) of the state (kai sunteinei pros tên entelecheian). (Met. IX 8 1050a21–23)2

Here the state seems to be a nonproductive one whose ac­tuali­ zation is itself the end. But the point being made seems to apply quite generally. The ac­tualization of the state in the house-­builder’s soul, which is his craft knowledge of house-­building, is called house-­building because its ergon, which is an end beyond the activity of  house-­building, is a house. Alternatively, ac­tualizing the state ­wouldn’t be the activity of building a house if a house were 2. This standard reading treats dio (“and this is why”) as governing the rest of the sentence. An alternative treats dio as beginning a parenthetical comment ending with to ergon, so that sunteinei pros tên entelecheian is predicated of energeia, making the activity itself, not its name, the thing that ­extends to or strains toward the ac­tualization of the state. Met. IX 3 1047a30– 32—“the term energeia, which is put together with a view to entelecheia, has been extended to other things most of all from movements. For an energeia seems most of all to be a movement”—favors the standard reading.

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not built as a result of it. Similarly, the ac­tualization of the state in the soul that is a capacity to see is called seeing because its ergon, which is not an end beyond the activation of it, is the activity of seeing some­thing. Alternatively, ac­tualizing the state ­wouldn’t be seeing if some­thing ­weren’t seen as a result of it. In this case, though, the ergon (some­thing’s being seen) is not some­thing beyond the ac­tualization of the state (the seeing of it), but is more like an internal end or object, as a hollow laugh is the internal end or object of laughing it and a note the internal end or object of striking it. When the ergon is the activity that is the ac­tualization of the ­correlative state, Ar­is­totle de­scribes the ergon in a va­ri­ety of ways. For example, as we just saw, he de­scribes the ergon of the sci­ entific  knowledge of mathematics as contemplation—that is, as an  activity in which the possessor of the state engages (EE II 1 1219a17). But he also regularly de­scribes it simply as truth itself, which is not an activity of anyone: “of both of the parts that involve un­der­stand­ing, then, the function is truth (alêtheia)” (2/39b12; also 2/39a27–19, EE II 4 1221b29–30). In saying this, however, he seems to be engaging in a harmless but potentially misleading shorthand. For what he says elsewhere about sci­en­tific knowledge and un­der­stand­ing is that they are states by which the soul alêtheuein—that is, grasps the truth (3/39b15–17). Similarly, he specifies the mean between boastfulness and self-­deprecation both as truth (NE II 7 1108a20) and as grasping the truth or being truthful (NE IV 7 1127a19), and the function of practical wisdom as “truth (alêtheia) in agreement with correct desire” (2/39a29–31) and as grasping that sort of truth (3/39b13, 15, 6/41a3). At one point the Protrepticus utilizes the equivalence of the two in remarking that a human being might have “no other function than the most rigorous truth, that is, to grasp the truth about the things that are (hê akribestatê alêtheia kai to peri tôn ontôn alêtheuein)” (B65). When the ergon is of a productive state, or one with an ergon beyond the activation of the state itself, the ergon is “in a way the producer in activity” (NE IX 7 1168a7), so that loving one’s product is a sort of self-­love. In such cases, “the activity is in the thing being produced; for example, the activity of house-­building



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(oikodomêsis) is in the house that is being built, and the activity of weaving in the cloth being woven, and likewise, too, in other cases” (Met. IX 8 1050a31–33). Guided by Ar­is­totle’s own ways of describing erga that are activities, we might say that, literally speaking, the ergon of the house-­builder is the activity of building a house, just as grasping the truth or contemplating is literally the ergon of sci­en­tific knowledge but that in harmless but potentially misleading shorthand the ergon is the house being built, just as it is the truth being grasped. Because some erga are activities while others are products beyond them, it is dif­fi­cult to find an Eng­lish equivalent for ergon. “Work” has some of the right resonances, since it can refer either to some­thing we do (“Work begins at dawn”) or to the result of doing it (“This is some of his work”). But to talk about the special work of a human being, as Ar­is­totle asks about the special human ergon, is to court confusion, especially when it turns out that the work in question is essentially a leisured activity (NE X 7 1177b4– 26). If we choose “characteristic activity” as our translation, asking about the ergon of a human being will seem quite natural, but speaking about a house as the characteristic activity of the house-­ builder will not. “Function” has the advantage of being the standard translation, but it, too, if consistently employed, will result in such bizarre claims as that the house-­builder and the shoemaker must exchange functions (that is, products) (NE V 5 1133a7–10). The only reasonable solution is to translate ergon in two ways, sometimes as “function” or “characteristic activity” and sometimes as “work” or “product.” By doing so, we will use two words where Ar­is­totle uses one, but we will be truer to his own ways of characterizing erga. Because functions (to switch now to our preferred translation of ergon) and ends are related in this way, functions are iden­ti­fied with final causes, or things for the sake of which other things occur. Thus, in the case of teeth, the “cause of their growth, in the sense of the end for the sake of which (hôs heneka tou), is their function” (GA II 6 745a27), while in that of a house, “the moving cause is the craft of the house-­builder, while the end for the sake of which is their function” (Met. III 2 996b6–7). Indeed, “each thing that has a function exists for the sake of its function” (Cael. II 3 286a8–9).

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This close association between functions and final causes, in turn, ensures an equally close one between functions and goods: “for whatever has some function and action (praxis), the good—the well—seems to lie in the function” (NE I 7 1097b26–27). Thus the function of a flute player is a certain action—to play the flute; and the function of a good one is to play it well. Here the quality of the activity is the determiner of the quality of the state that is the player’s knowledge of flute-­playing. In the case of a productive craft, the quality of the product, not that of the activity, has the controlling vote (Cael. III 7 306a14–17). All this presupposes, though, that the state itself or the thing possessing is not antecedently bad. For “in the case of bad things, the end and the activity must be worse than the potentiality” (Met. IX 9 1051a15–16). When the states are good, however, their ac­tuali­za­tion is better and more estimable than they are, and their further products (if any) are better and more estimable than the activity (Met. IX 9 1051a4–5; also NE I 1 1094a5–6, EE II 1 1219a17–18). The association between function and action, visible in the comment about the good and the well lying in the function, is also quite general: “of the non­uniform parts of an animal there are functions and actions, for example, of eye, nostril, and the entire face, of finger, hand, and the entire arm. And since the actions and movements present both in animals as a whole (zô[i]ois holois) and in their non-­uniform parts are complex, it is necessary for their con­stit­u­ents to have distinct potentialities” (PA II 2 646b12–17). Functions are not dormant states or dispositions, after all, but active ones. Ar­is­totle at­trib­utes functions to an enormous va­ri­ety of things, whether living or nonliving. These include plants (GA I 23 731a24– 26) and animals generally (NE X 5 1176a3–5), including divine ones (Cael. II 3 286a8–11), parts of their bodies and souls (PA II 7 652b6–14, IV 10 686a26–29), instruments or tools of various sorts (EE VII 10 1242a15–18, Pol. I 4 1253b35), crafts (NE I 7 1097b25– 26), sciences (EE II 1 1219a17), philosophies (Met. VII 11 1037a15) and their prac­ti­tioners (7/41b10), cities (Pol. VII 4 1326a13–14), and even nature itself (Pol. I 10 1258a35). Intimately related, as we saw, to a thing’s end—final cause, or good—its function is also intimately related to its nature, form, and essence. For a thing’s nature is “its end—that is, what it is for the sake of” (Ph. II 2 194a27–



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28), its form is more its nature than its matter (Ph. II 1 193b6–7), and its essence and form are the same: “by form I mean the essence of each thing” (Met. VII 7 1032b1–2). Hence “all things are de­ fined by their function” (Mete. IV 12 390a10), with the result that if some­thing cannot function, it has no more than a name in common with its functional self (Pol. I 2 1253a20–25, PA I 1 640b33– 641a6). When a thing is complex, however, and so has an essence that involves many functions (PA II 2 648a16), “the best one is always its proper function” (Protr. B65). It is presumably this connection between essence and function that explains why Ar­is­totle thinks that a thing’s function must be proper (idion) to it (NE I 7 1097b34). For “a special at­trib­ute is one that does not reveal the essence of a thing yet belongs to that thing alone and is predicated convertibly of it. Thus it is a special at­trib­ute of human beings to be capable of learning grammar; for if someone is a human being he is capable of learning grammar, and if he is capable of learning grammar he is a human being” (Top. I 5 102a18–22). The connection between a function and a genuine virtue is perhaps best treated as defi­ni­tional or conceptual: a genuine virtue of some­thing is by defi­ni­tion whatever state of it enables it to complete or carry out its function well. But which virtues are genuine may be controversial. In the case of the virtues of character, Ar­is­ totle thus proceeds as follows: [1] He argues that the human function is an activity of the soul in accord with reason (NE I 7 1097b24–1098a8). [2] He assumes that genuine human virtues are the states that enable human beings to complete this function well (NE I 7 1098a10–11). [3] He argues that such states are in a mean between excess and de­fi­ciency (NE II 5–6). [4] He tries to show that each of the conventionally recognized virtues of character is in such a mean and thus is a genuine virtue (NE II 7–9, III 6–V 11). In the case of the virtues of thought, his argument has a parallel structure. [1] Drawing on his own views on sci­en­tific knowledge and the psychological resources it requires, he argues that the function of the sci­en­tific part is to cognize beings that do not admit of being otherwise, while that of the calculative part is to cognize beings that do admit of being otherwise. (The assumption that there are just these two sorts of beings and no others is itself, obviously, in house.) [2] He assumes that the genuine virtues of these parts are whatever states enable them to complete their functions well.

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2/39a17–20 Three things in the soul control (kuria) action and truth—per­ception, un­der­stand­ing, and desire. Of these, perception is not a starting-­ point of any action; this is clear from the fact that beasts have perception but do not share in action.

The noun praxis (verb: prattein) is used in a broad sense to refer to any intentional action, including one performed by a child or beast (NE III 1 1111a25–26, 2 1111b8–9), and in a narrower one to refer exclusively to what results from deliberation (bouleusis) and deliberate choice (prohairesis), of which neither beasts nor children are capable (NE I 9 1099b32–1100a5, EE II 8 1224a28–29). That deliberately chosen action is intended here is clear from the fact that perception is immediately denied to be a starting-­point of action on the grounds that beasts perceive but cannot act. For of action in the broad sense, perception is a starting-­point: “The things that move an animal are thought, imagination, deliberate choice, wish, and appetite. And all these can be reduced to un­der­stand­ing and desire. For both imagination and perception have the same place [in causing movement] as un­der­stand­ing” (MA 6 700b17–20). One sort of truth (falsehood) Ar­is­totle recognizes is familiar plain truth, which is a feature of propositions, statements, or thoughts: “to say that what is, is and that what is not, is not, is true” (Met. IV 7 1011b26–28). About it, as about sci­en­tific knowledge, he is a realist: “It is not because of our truly thinking you to be pale that you are pale; on the contrary, it is because of you being pale that we who say this have hold of the truth” (Met. IX 10 1051b6–9). A second sort of truth he recognizes is the less familiar practical or action-­related truth (2/39a22–27). Control (kurios) is, fundamentally, executive power or authority or the power to compel, so that a general is kurios over his army (NE III 8 1116a29–b2) and a city’s ruler is kurios over it and its ­in­hab­i­tants (NE I 2 1094a26–b6). Here the control is that of a starting-­point or origin, so that perception controls (a certain sort 114



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of) truth, because it is the causal or explanatory basis of our access to it, and thus is authoritative with regard to it. Similarly, desire (partly) controls action, because it is an essential causal source of it. Since what is kurios in a sphere determines or partly determines what happens within it, it is one of the most estimable or im­por­ tant elements in the sphere, so that what is inferior or less im­por­ tant than some­thing cannot control it (12/43b33–35, 13/45a6–7). As a result, kurios ­comes close in meaning to timios or estimable (7/41a17–20). When Ar­is­totle contrasts natural virtue of character with the kurios va­ri­ety (13/44b1–32), the control exerted by the latter seems to be teleological: the natural va­ri­ety is a sort of virtue because it is an early stage in the development of genuine virtue (compare Met. IX 8 1050a21–23). Hence kuria aretê is “full virtue”​—virtue in the full sense of the term. It is in this sense that the life of those who are active and awake is life in a more kurios or fuller sense than that of the inactive or asleep (NE I 7 1098a5–8). The truth that perception controls may be plain or practical, and in some cases is near absolute (8/42a27–29). The un­der­stand­ing that controls plain truth is theoretical, whereas the sort that controls action and practical truth involves wish, which is a type of desire and so is itself practical (6/41a3–8). Desire, as the capacity the soul has to produce animal movement, controls action and practical truth but not truth more generally. Since starting-­points are called controlling when “they are of the sort from which movements first arise” (EE II 6 1222b20–22), it is action and the truth or correctness of reasons pertaining to it that Ar­is­totle has primarily in view. He is interested in the reason with which the virtues of character must be in accord, and these virtues are concerned with action.

2/39a21–22 What assertion and denial are in the case of thought—that, in the case of desire, is precisely (hoper) what pursuit and avoidance are.

To say that a is hoper b—as here assertion and denial in thought are said to be hoper what pursuit and avoidance are in desire—is not to say that a is precisely or in essence what b is, but that b is precisely or in essence what a is (Top. III 1 116a23–28). Thus the

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already intelligible connection between assertion, denial, and plain truth is being used to illuminate the less familiar one between pursuit, avoidance, and practical truth. As what one believes is what one asserts in the calculative part of one’s soul (9/42b13–14), so what one believes in a practical or action-­determining way is what one both asserts there, desires, and does.

2/39a22–27 So, since virtue of character is a state involving deliberate choice and deliberate choice is a desire involving deliberation, it follows, because of this, that both the reason must be true and the desire must be correct, if, indeed, the deliberate choice is to be a good one, and the very things the one asserts, the other must pursue. This, then, is practical thought and truth.

Virtue of character is a state, because it is the ac­tualization, through habituation, of the human potentiality to acquire it. It involves deliberate choice, because to possess it, an agent must “deliberately choose to do virtuous actions, and deliberately choose to do them because of themselves” (NE II 4 1105a31–32). Its spe­cific role in deliberate choice is to make the target correct (12/44a8). It is possible [1] to “reach the thing that should be done” by “a false syllogism” or unsound piece of deliberation (9/42b22–24). In this case, the reason involved in the deliberative choice is not true. It is also possible [2] to desire what is not happiness but only what is apparently such (NE III 4 1113a22–b2). In this case, the desire involved in the deliberative choice is incorrect. Fi­nally, it is possible [3] to desire the correct end, deliberate soundly about what should be done to further it, and then fail to get it. This is what happens in the case of the incontinent person, whose appetite leads him not to perform the action he wishes to do (NE I 13 1102b13–25, III 2 1111b13–14, IX 4 1166b6–11). If the deliberate choice is to be good, [1–3] must all be avoided. The “desire involving deliberation” with which deliberate choice is iden­ti­fied is a desire for the unconditional end (2/39b3–4, EE II 10 1226a16) that can be either correct or incorrect. Hence it must be a sort of wish (boulêsis). For the unconditional end is doing well in action, which is happiness or the good (NE I 2 1094a22, 1094b7,



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I 4 1095a14–20), and “wish is a desire for the good (for no one wishes for some­thing except what he thinks good)” (Rh. I 10 1369a2–4; also NE V 9 1136b7–8) that is correct when for the real good, and incorrect when for the merely apparent good (Met. XII 7 1072a28, NE III 4 1113a21–33, V 9 1136b7–9). Moreover, wish, unlike all other desires, is located in the calculative part of the soul (Top. IV 5 126a13, DA III 9 432b5), and so is peculiarly sensitive or responsive to deliberation or calculation: “whenever movement is produced in accord with calculation it is also in accord with wish” (DA III 10 433a23–25). Indeed, it seems that it involves  deliberation because it must be based on it: “I mean by some­thing’s ‘involving deliberation (bouleutikên)’ that deliberation is its starting-­point and cause, that is, the agent desires because of having deliberated” (EE II 10 1226b19–20). As Ar­is­totle acknowledges, then, deliberate choice is “a close relative (sunengus)” of wish (NE III 2 1111b19–20). Yet, there are reasons not to identify the two outright: [1] For there is no deliberate choice of impossible things, and if someone were to say he was deliberately choosing them, he would seem silly; but there is wish for impossible things, for example, immortality. [2] And there is wish, too, concerning the sorts of things that could never come about through our own agency, for example, that a certain actor or athlete should win a prize. No one deliberately chooses things like that but what he thinks can come about through himself. [3] Moreover, wish is more for the end, whereas deliberate choice is of the things that further the end. We wish to be healthy, for example, but we deliberately choose the things through which we shall be healthy. We wish to be happy, too, and say so, whereas it ­isn’t fitting to say that we deliberately choose to be happy; for deliberate choice generally seems to be concerned with what is up to us. (NE III 2 1111b20–30)

Wish can be [1] for impossible things, then, even for things the agent knows to be impossible. Similarly, we can wish [2] for nonimpossible things that we know we cannot bring about through our actions: “even if one wishes or has an appetite to do two things at the same time or opposite ones, one cannot do them” (Met. IX 5 1048a21–22). In neither case, it seems, are our wishes caused by or consequent upon deliberation. For when deliberators encounter

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“some­thing impossible, they give up, for example, if wealth is needed but there is no way to provide it, whereas if it appears possible, they set about doing the action” (NE III 3 1112b24–27). Thus, as [1] and [2] make clear, we cannot deliberate in these cases—anyway, not without seeming silly. The prob­lem is that wish now seems so far removed from deliberate choice that it is dif­fic­ ult to understand why Ar­is­totle thinks that the two are even close relatives. [3], which might initially seem simply to add to the dif­fi­culty, offers a solution. For if deliberation is going to be concerned exclusively with determining what furthers an end, some­thing else in deliberate choice must both grasp that end and motivate the agent to do what deliberation determines he should do. In being a desire exclusively for some­thing good or apparently good, wish seems well suited to play this role, since good deliberation, too, aims at a good, and unconditionally good deliberation at the very best one (9/42b29–33). Being a desire of such a good-­related sort, indeed, as opposed to one for some­thing represented as merely pleasant, involves having a sensitivity to considerations bearing on goodness, and so bearing spe­cifi­cally on the future, too: Desires arise that are opposed to one another, as happens when reason and appetites are opposed, which takes place in those that have a perception of time. For the un­der­stand­ing commands us to hold back on account of the future, while our appetites command us not to, on account of what is immediately available; for what is immediately pleasant seems both unconditionally pleasant and unconditionally good because we do not see the future. (DA III 10 433b5–10)

This explains both why wish is, despite appearances to the contrary, a genuinely close relative of deliberate choice and why it is located in a part of the soul that is special to practically rational animals. Because what we “deliberate about and deliberately choose” is what furthers the end (NE III 5 1113b3–4), deliberate choice (prohairesis) is a matter of choosing (hairein) one thing before (pro) another (NE III 2 1112a16–17), and so of determining what things should be done earlier than or in preference to others in order to further the desired end (MA 7 701a17–20): “someone with un­der­



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stand­ing chooses the better of two things in all cases” (EE VII 2 1237b37–38).

2/39a27–29 In the case of thought that is theoretical, however, and neither practical nor productive, well and badly are truth and falsity (for that is the function of ev­ery part involving thought)

Contrasted here only with practical and productive thought, theoretical thought includes both the sort of thought involved in the strictly theoretical sciences and the sort involved in the natural ones (3/39b31–34). The parts responsible for thought are the calculative and sci­en­tific parts, since they both have reason (MM I 1 1182a17–19). Their function, when performed well, or in accord with the relevant virtue of thought, is truth (whether plain or practical), and to grasp falsity (whether plain or practical) when performed badly. That is to say, their function is to grasp a true reason or to grasp a false one (1/39a15–17). The fact that the well or ill functioning of both parts can be univocally characterized as reaching truth or falsity suggests that practical and plain truth or falsity are different species of the same thing.

2/39a29–31 . . . but [in the case of] the part involving practical thought, it [the function] is truth in agreement with correct desire.

Since the truth that does the agreeing here (a-­truth) belongs to a step in a piece of deliberation, considered not as an action but as a reason that asserts the things that desire should pursue, it is plain or propositional truth. Moreover, the agreement between an a-­true reason and a correct desire required for practical truth does not arise from the reason adapting itself to the desire, as a plain truth adapts to its truth-­maker, but from the desire listening to and obeying the reason (NE I 13 1102b14–1103a3). The correct desire ­isn’t the a-­truth-­maker for the reason, then; rather the a-­true reason is the correctness-­maker for the desire.

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The agreement between reason and desire is a matter of sameness of intentional content, appropriately caused, so that it exists when the a-­true reason prescribes ϕ-­ing and—because of that— the desire is to ϕ. We may represent the state-­of-­affairs consisting of such a reason-­desire pair as Rϕ^Dϕ. If no more were required for  practical truth than such agreement, a proposition asserting  Rϕ^Dϕ would be a practical truth just in case Rϕ^Dϕ obtained. But practical truth also requires that the desire be effective  in causing ϕ to occur: “the very things the one [R] asserts, the  other [D] must pursue” (2/39a25–26). Hence it ­isn’t Rϕ^Dϕ alone that is relevant to practical truth but a state-­of-­affairs involving  the ­ac­tual existence of the action ϕ itself—in other words, (Rϕ^Dϕ)^ϕ. By turning from a-­truth to the corresponding state-­of-­affairs, which is its truth-­maker, we can see why Ar­is­totle recognizes practical truth as a distinct type of truth. For there is only one sort of plain truth, since propositions are all true in precisely the same way, namely, by corresponding in some sense to their truth-­makers, or by saying of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not (Met. IV 7 1011b26–28, 8 1012b7–11). So if we treat plain truth as primary or fundamental, practical truth will differ from other sorts (geographical truth, anthropological truth, theoretical truth) simply in its subject matter, not, so to speak, in its nature or structure. But when we treat truth-­makers as primary, we will treat states-­of­affairs with different types of con­stit­u­ents, explained by appeal to different starting-­points, as different in nature or structure. That is why, when we try to explain their existence, we must appeal to different starting-­points than in the case of sci­en­tific truths, namely, human beings and their deliberate choices (2/39b5), and why, when we try to explain our grasp of them, we must appeal not to sci­en­ tific knowledge but to practical wisdom. As Ar­is­totle puts it: “The truth and falsity that involve no action are the same in kind as good and bad [that is, as the truth and falsehood that do involve action]; but they differ in that the first is unconditional and the second relative to someone” (DA III 7–12). For here the assertion that some­thing is good (bad) by un­der­stand­ing is a practical truth, since it takes the form of pursuit or avoidance and is relative to someone, because it has a starting-­point in a particular agent’s deliberate choice (DA III 7 431b6–10).



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2/39a31–35 Of action, then, the starting-­point—the source of the movement, not what it is for the sake of—is deliberate choice, and of deliberate choice, desire and reason that is for the sake of some­thing. That is why, without un­der­stand­ing and thought, on the one hand, and a state of character, on the other, there is no deliberate choice; for there is no doing well in action or its contrary without thought and character.

The calculative part involves un­der­stand­ing, because deliberation has a starting-­point (11/43a35–b5), and un­der­stand­ing is what grasps starting-­points (6/41a7–8). Deliberate choice involves wish, which is a desire to do the action that deliberation prescribes as what con­stitutes doing well in action in these circumstances (NE III 4 1113a21–33). Wish’s effectiveness in achieving this end depends on whether the appetites and emotions in the soul’s desiring part are in a mean, and so on the states of character that are the desiring part’s virtues (or vices)(NE IV 7 1127b14–15). Such states must be “firm and unchanging” (NE II 4 1105a33). For if activity in accord with virtue is to constitute happiness or doing well in action, it must make a life “choiceworthy and in need of nothing” (NE I 7 1097b14–15). So the states with which it is in accord must be suf­fi­ciently robust to last through a life that is long enough to count as complete: “One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; nor, similarly, does one day or a short time make us blessed and happy” (NE I 7 1098a18–20). Hence without a state of character (virtue, vice), thought (deliberation), and un­der­stand­ ing (required to grasp deliberation’s starting-­points), there is no doing well or badly in action.

2/39a35–b3 Thought by itself, however, moves nothing; but the one that is for the sake of some­thing and is practical [does]. Indeed, it even rules productive thought. For ev­ery producer produces for the sake of some­thing, and the end unconditionally (haplôs) (as opposed to in relation to some­thing and for some­thing [else]) is not what is producible but what is doable in action (prakton).

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The practical thought that, as a starting-­point of action, produces movement has desire (in particular, wish) as a con­stit­u­ent and so does not consist of thought alone or “by itself.” Its end is the additional end for the sake of which all products are produced. It controls productive thought to ensure that it does further this additional end, and so rules over it. For when an end E2 of a type of thought T2 is subordinate to (and so less choiceworthy than) an end E1 of a type of thought T1, T1 is more controlling, more ruling, and more architectonic than T2: Since there are many sorts of actions, and of crafts and sciences, their ends turn out to be many as well; for health is the end of medicine, a ship of shipbuilding, victory of generalship, wealth of household management. But some of these fall under some one potentiality, as bridlemaking falls under horsemanship, along with all the others that produce equipment for horsemanship, and as it and ev­ery action in warfare fall under generalship—and, in the same way, others fall under different ones, and in all such cases the ends of the architectonic ones are more choiceworthy than the ones falling under them; for these are pursued for the sake also of the former. (NE I 1 1094a6– 16; also Plato, Republic X 601c–602a)

Rule is thus a normative notion—one determined by the objective relations of subordination between goods and the types of thought that have them as ends. The most architectonic type of thought is po­lit­i­cal science. Hence, as the same state of the soul as it, practical wisdom inherits its architectonic sta­tus (8/41b23–28). Ev­ery producer aims at some end, because a producer possesses and exercises a craft (or productive state), and all crafts aim to achieve some end or good (NE I 1 1094a1–5). It is the telic character of crafts, sciences, and other such rational enterprises, in other words, that ­comes first in the order of explanation and jus­tifi­ca­ tion, not the aims and goals of (possibly irrational) human beings. That is why the good is only “what ev­ery­one would seek if he were to acquire un­der­stand­ing and practical wisdom” (Rh. I 7 1363b12– 15; also NE III 3 1112a19–21). The adjective haplous means “simple” or “single-­fold.” The adverb haplôs thus points in two somewhat opposed directions. To speak haplôs sometimes means to put things simply or in simple



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terms, so that quali­fi­ca­tions and conditions need to be added later. Sometimes, as here, it means to speak in a way that allows for no “ifs,” “ands,” or “buts.” In this sense, what is F haplôs is F, unconditionally speaking, or in the strictest, most absolute, and most unquali­fied way (Met. V 5 1015b11–12). An unconditional end is  thus one a practically wise person always chooses and always chooses “because of itself, never because of some­thing else” (NE I 7 1097a25–b6). A relative end, by contrast, is one we choose (at least in part) because of or for the sake of some­thing else. Since what is producible is always chosen for the sake of some­thing else, it cannot be an unconditional end. When we look back at what is prakton, we are looking at what is already done, already ac­tualized. When we look forward at it, as we do in deliberating, we are looking at what is possible, but not yet ac­tualized. Hence we might expect that prakton will sometimes refer to an action considered as a possibility and sometimes to one considered as an ac­tualization of a possibility. Verbals ending in -­ton—of which prakton and poiêton are examples—are tailor made to serve both purposes, since they sometimes [1] have the meaning of a perfect passive participle (“done in action,” “produced”) and sometimes [2] express possibility (“doable in action,” “producible”).3 A decree (psêphisma), for example, seems to be prakton in sense [2], since it is a prescription spe­cific enough to be acted on without further need for deliberation (8/41b23–28). What it specifies is thus a possibility (a type of action) that many different particular (token) actions might ac­tualize: Each type of thing that is just in that it is legal [which includes what is just by decree (1134b24)] is like a universal in relation to particulars; for the things that are done in action are many, but each type is one thing; a universal, in fact. For an unjust act and what is unjust are different, and so are a just act and what is just. For what is unjust is so by nature or by constitutional arrangement, whereas this same thing, when done, is an unjust act, but before it was done, it was not yet one but rather some­thing unjust. Similarly, too, with a just act. (NE V 7 1135a5–12; also MM I 33 1195a8–14)

3. H. W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1920), §472.

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The prakta that are particular objects of perception (11/43a32–33, b 4–5), on the other hand, seem to be prakton in sense [1]. Overall, then, “doable in action” is perhaps a preferable translation of prakton than “done in action,” since the deliberative contexts that are most im­por­tant to practical wisdom are prospective. Within the class of things that are prakton in sense [2], there is a further distinction to be drawn: Things are said to be prakton in two ways, for both the things for the sake of which we act and the things we do for their sake have a share in action (praxeôs). For example, we term both health and wealth as prakton, as well as the actions we do for their sake, the ones that further health or the making of money. So it is clear that happiness should be set down as the best of things prakton for human beings. (EE I 7 1217a35–40)

For ends, of course, are always prospective, as are the actions that will further them (DA III 10 433b5–13).

2/39b3–5 For doing well in action is [unconditionally] an end, and the desire is for it. That is why deliberate choice is either un­der­stand­ing involving desire or desire involving thought, and this sort (toiautê) of starting-­ point is a human being.

Doing well in action (eupraxia) is happiness (NE I 4 1095a18–20), which is the teleological starting-­point, target, or end of the un­ conditionally good deliberation characteristic of practical wisdom (9/42b28–33). As such, it is grasped by un­der­stand­ing (6/41a7–8, 11/43a35–b5). By being so grasped it is brought into the ambit of wish. Since the combination of deliberation and wish is practical thought (2/39a22–27), deliberation is un­der­stand­ing (grasping the end) involving desire (for it), or desire (for it) involving delib­ eration. The first contrast implicit in “this sort (toiautê)” of starting-­ point is between human beings and animals that cannot be starting­points of deliberate actions, because they lack un­der­stand­ing and thought: “a human being, alone among animals, is a starting-­point



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of actions of a certain sort” (EE II 6 1222b19–20). A second implicit contrast is between human beings and God, who cannot be a starting-­point of deliberate action for two different reasons. First, the “sort of control with which God presumably rules” is the sort that results in “what does not admit of being otherwise” (EE II 6 1222b22–23), whereas the control exerted by deliberate choice results in what does admit of being otherwise: “No one deliberates about eternal things, such as the cosmos, or about the fact that the sides and diagonal are incommensurable; nor about things subject to change that always come about in the same way, whether by necessity or by nature or by some other cause, such as the solstices or the risings of the stars” (NE III 3 1112a21–26). Second, because God consists of un­der­stand­ing alone (Met. XII 9 1074b33–35), he lacks wish, which is a starting-­point of deliberate action.

2/39b5–11 Nothing that happened in the past, however, is deliberately chosen— for example, nobody deliberately chooses to have sacked Troy; for nobody deliberates about the past but about the future and what admits of being otherwise, but what is past does not admit of not having happened; that is why Agathon is correct: “Of one thing alone is even a god deprived, To make undone what is done and fin­ ished.”

While it is generally true that God controls what does not admit of being otherwise and human beings control what does admit of being otherwise, past events are an apparent exception. Before Troy was sacked, its sack was—as some­thing that admitted of being otherwise—a possible topic of deliberation (“Shall we sack Troy tomorrow?”). But once the sack has taken place it no ­longer admits of being otherwise and so is no ­longer such a topic. Nonetheless God does not control it; for its necessity is not of the uncon­ ditional sort possessed by divine and eternal things: “What is, necessarily is, when it is . . . But not ev­ery­thing that is, necessarily is . . . For to say that ev­ery­thing that is, necessarily is, when it is, is not the same as saying that is unconditionally necessary” (Int. 9 19a23–26). Agathon was a distinguished Athenian tragedian of the late fifth

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century BC. Plato’s Symposium memorializes his victory at the Lenaia (one of the annual Athenian dramatic festivals) of 416. Fr. 5 is quoted here, fr. 6 at 4/40a19–22.4

2/39b12–13 Of both of the parts that involve un­der­stand­ing, then, the function is truth. The states in accord with which each most of all grasps the truth, therefore, are in both cases their virtues.

The deliberative (11/43a35–b5) and sci­en­tific parts (3/39b31–35) must grasp starting-­points and so must involve un­der­stand­ing (6/41a7–8). Their function is truth—that is to say, it is to grasp the truth (3/39b15–17).

4. A. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1889).

VI 3

3/39b14–18 Let us begin, then, from a more general perspective and speak afresh about these. Let the states in which the soul grasps the truth by way of assertion and denial be five in number; these are craft knowledge, sci­en­tific knowledge, practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, and un­ der­stand­ing; for supposition and belief admit of being mistaken.

Initially, it seemed that there should be just two virtues of thought, two states in accord with which the reason-­possessing part of the soul grasps the truth: one enabling the sci­en­tific part to grasp plain truth, the other enabling the calculative part to grasp practical truth. When the topic is approached not from the narrow perspective of the virtues of thought but from a more general one, however, there seem to be five states of the relevant sort. But once the relationships between them are properly understood, it emerges that only two are genuine virtues of thought, since craft knowledge is not a virtue (5/40b20–25) and needs, in any case, to be ruled by practical wisdom (2/39b1), theoretical wisdom is a type of sci­en­ tific knowledge (7/41a16–17), and un­der­stand­ing is the con­stit­u­ent in both sci­en­tific knowledge and practical wisdom responsible for grasping their starting-­points (2/39b11–13). Since practical wisdom is among the states that grasp truth “by way of assertion and denial,” the latter quali­fi­ca­tion must include pursuit and avoidance, which is the analogue of assertion and denial in the case of practical truth (2/39a21–22). Because belief (doxa) is about “what is true or false,” it can be mistaken. Because it is about “what admits of being otherwise” (APo. I 33 89a2–3), though “no less about things that are eternal and things that are impossible than about things that are up to us” (NE III 2 1111b30–33), it is applicable in the same territory as craft knowledge and practical wisdom—territory that includes perceptible particulars. At the same time, belief presupposes calculation: “Perceptual appearance . . . the other animals have, too, but the deliberative sort exists in those with calculation . . . And that is the

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reason the former do not seem to have belief; for they do not have the sort [of appearance] that results from syllogism” (DA III 11 434a5–11). The part of the soul that forms beliefs (doxasti­ kon)  is thus the same as the part that calculates or deliberates (5/40b25–26, 13/44b14–15). But unlike calculation and deliberation, which are types of in­quiry, what one believes is “already determined,” since belief is “not in­quiry but already a sort of assertion” (9/42b11–14). Supposition (hupolêpsis) can be about any object of thought, whether particular or universal (MM I 34 1197a30–32). That is why sci­en­tific knowledge, un­der­stand­ing, belief, and practical wisdom are all species of it (5/40b12–16, 6/40b31–32, 9/42b33). Since we can suppose falsehoods as well as truths, supposition, like belief, can be mistaken.

3/39b18–24 Now what sci­en­tific knowledge is will be evident from the following, if one is to speak in a rigorous way and not be guided by mere similarities. For we all suppose that what we know sci­en­tifically does not at all admit of being otherwise; while in the case of things that do ­admit of being otherwise, whenever they fall outside theoretical knowledge (exô tou theôrein), we cannot tell whether they are or not. What is admits of being known sci­en­tifically, therefore, is by necessity. Therefore, it is eternal; for the things that are unconditionally necessary are all eternal, and eternal things cannot come-­to-­be or pass-­away.

Things that do admit of being otherwise may be [1] things that hold for the most part or [2] things that are contingent and so are the result of luck or chance (1/39a6–11). Since [1] holds by a sort of necessity (3/39b31–34), [2] may seem the more probable meaning here. The point being made would then be cognate with the following one: “Ev­ery­thing perceptible has an unclear sta­tus whenever it is unperceived (exô tês aisthêseôs); for it is not evident whether it still holds true, because it is only through sense-­ perception that this is known (Top. V 3 131b21–23).” The exclusive focus of our text, however, is on the rigorous theoretical sciences that provide knowledge of unconditional necessities, making



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it more likely that [1] is the intended meaning. This would explain why the verb theôrein is used instead of ais­thanesthai. The thought is that because theorems of natural science hold for the most part and so do not constitute strictly theoretical sci­en­tific knowledge, we cannot know whether they hold of unobserved cases: “There is neither demonstration nor unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge of what is perishable but only the coincidental sort, because it does not hold of this universally, but at some time and in some way (pote kai pôs)” (APo. I 8 75b24–30). Thus the kind of sci­en­tific knowledge we can have of a piece of bird meat or the like is (natural) sci­en­tific knowledge holding for the most part (way) of how it is now (time). “What does not at all admit of being otherwise” would then be a natural way to de­scribe things that hold with unconditional necessity rather than with the kind that is compatible with holding for the most part. Unconditional necessity is found only among eternal things (God, the heavenly bodies, mathematical objects) studied by the strictly theoretical sciences and not in the perishable sublunary world studied by the natural ones: “There is the unconditional sort [of necessity] that is characteristic of eternal things, and there is the hypothetical sort that is characteristic of ev­ery­thing that ­comes-­to-­be [by nature], just as to ev­ery­thing produced by the crafts” (PA I 1 639b23–25). Natural necessity is hypothetical, because it is only if a house (product of a craft) or a man (product of nature) is to come about that the appropriate materials must be available (GC II 11 337b14–25).

3/39b25–28 Moreover, all sci­en­tific knowledge is thought to be teachable, and what can be known sci­en­tifically, learnable. It is from things already known, however, that all teaching proceeds, as we also say in the Analytics; for some is through induction and some by syllogism.

A syllogism is “an argument in which, certain things having been supposed, some­thing different from those supposed things necessarily results because of their being so” (APr. I 2 24b18–20). The things supposed are the argument’s prem­ises; the necessitated re-

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sult is its conclusion. In Ar­is­totle’s view, such arguments consist of a major prem­ise, a minor prem­ise, and a conclusion, where the prem­ises have exactly one “middle” term in common, and the conclusion contains only the other two “extreme” terms. The conclusion’s predicate term is the major term, con­trib­uted by the major prem­ise; its subject is the minor term, con­trib­uted by the minor prem­ise. The middle term must be either subject of both prem­ises, predicate of both, or subject of one and predicate of the other. The resulting possible combinations of terms yield the so-­called fig­ures of the syllogism:    

 

First fig­ure

 

Second fig­ure

Third fig­ure

   Predicate     Subject     Predicate     Subject     Predicate     Subject

Prem­ise Prem­ise Conclusion

a b a

b c c

a a b

b c c

a b a

c c b

Systematic investigation of the possible combinations of prem­ises in each of these fig­ures results in the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the moods or ­modes that constitute valid deductions. In the first fig­ure, these are as follows: Form   Aab, Abc | Aac Eab, Abc | Eac Aab, Ibc | Iac Eab, Ibc | Oac

  

 

Mnemonic  

Proof  

Barbara Celarent Darii Ferio

Perfect Perfect Perfect (or from Camestres) Perfect (or from Cesare)

A mood is perfect when there is a proof of its validity that is direct, in that it does not rely on the validity of any other mood. Only first-­fig­ure syllogisms have perfect moods. Besides their logical interest as admitting of direct proof, perfect syllogisms in Barbara are also of particular importance to science. For, first, “syllogisms that give the reason why, which hold either universally or for the most part, in most cases are carried out through this fig­ure. That is why it is the most sci­en­tific of all; for  theoretical knowledge of the reason why is most im­por­tant for  [sci­en­tific] knowledge” (APo. I 14 79a20–24). Second, “only through this fig­ure can you hunt for sci­en­tific-­knowledge of some­



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thing’s essence” (APo. I 14 79a24–25): essences hold universally, only perfect syllogisms in Barbara have universal conclusions, and defi­ni­tions of essences, which are sci­en­tific starting-­points, must hold universally. Fi­nally, this fig­ure “has no need of others, but they must be thickened and increased through it if they are going to reach the immediates” (APo. I 14 79a29–31). Barbara can be used by itself to hunt for sci­en­tific starting-­points, but each of the other fig­ures must use it to find a middle term c, such that Yac, Zcb | Xab (where X, Y, Z are variables taking A, E, I, O as values). When this pro­cess continues until an assertion Wij is reached that is immediate or unmediated, in that no further term k can be found to mediate between i and j as c does between a and b, the thickening of Xab terminates and a starting-­point is reached. The passage from the Analytics Ar­is­totle refers to is this: All teaching and all learning involving thought (dianoêtikê) result from already existing knowledge. This is evident if we look at all the cases, for the mathematical sciences arise in this way, and so do each of the crafts as well. The same holds, too, where arguments (logous) are concerned, whether those that proceed by syllogism or those that proceed by induction; for it is from things previously known that they both do their teaching—the former getting hold of them as if from discerning people (hôs para xunientôn), the latter proving the universal through the particular’s [already] being clear. (APo. I 1 71a1–8)

In the case of induction, the existing knowledge required by teaching is acquired from perception of particulars. In the case of syl­ logism, it is acquired on trust, in the shape of endoxa or reputable  beliefs, from those already accredited in the relevant science (3/39b34–36). But in neither case does the knowledge presupposed by teaching amount to the knowledge subsequently imparted to the student: “Before doing the induction or getting hold of a syllogism, we should presumably be said to have sci­en­tific knowledge in a way, but in another way, not . . . After all, what is absurd is not that we should in some way know what we are learning but that we should know it in the very way and to the very extent in which we are learning it” (APo. I 1 71a24–b7). This is part of Ar­is­ totle’s response to Plato’s famous paradox of in­quiry (Meno 80d).

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3/39b28–31 Now induction [leads to] the starting-­point, that is, the universal; whereas syllogism proceeds from universals. There are, therefore, starting-­points from which syllogism proceeds that are not [reached] by syllogism; therefore, induction [must provide them].

The notion of an archê (starting-­point, first principle, origin, source) is a protean one in Ar­is­totle. Archai include substance, nature, the elements (earth, water, air, fire, ether), the various types of causal factors (formal, final, ef­fi­cient, material), as well as practical thought and deliberate choice (Met. V 1 1013a16–23). The starting-­points referred to here are those of the theoretical sciences, which are of two kinds (APo. I 10 76a37–b22). Those special to a science are defi­ni­tions of the real (as opposed to nominal) essences of the beings with which the science deals (APo. II 3 90b24, 10 93b29–94a19, DA I 1 402b25–26). Because these are defi­ni­tions by  genus and differentiae (APo. II 13 96a20–97b39, Met. VII 12 1037b27–1038a26), a single science must deal with a single genus  (APo. I 7 75b10–11, 23 84b17–18, 28 87a38–39, Met. IV 2 1003b19–21). Other starting-­points (so-­called axioms) are common to all or many sciences (APo. I 2 72a14–24, 32 88a36–b3). A third sort of starting-­point posits the existence of the genus with which the science deals, but this may often be left implicit if the existence of the genus is clear (APo. I 10 76b17–18). The route by which un­der­stand­ing ­comes to grasp starting-­ points is induction (epagôgê). This begins with [1] perception of particulars, which leads to [2] retention of perceptual contents in memory, and, when many such contents have been retained, to [3] an experience, so that for the first time “there is a universal in the soul” (APo. II 19 100a3–16). Fi­nally, [4] from experience come craft knowledge and sci­en­tific knowledge, when “from many intelligible objects arising from experience one universal supposition about similar objects is produced” (Met. I 1 981a5–7). The universal reached at stage [3] is “indeterminate” and “better known by perception” (Ph. I 1 184a22–25). It is the sort of universal, often quite complex, that constitutes a nominal essence picked out by the nominal defi­ni­tion or meaning of a general term. Thus the nominal defi­ni­tion of the general term “gold” might pick out the



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universal heavy, yellow metal found in rivers and streams, so that anything instantiating this universal may be correctly designated as gold. When science investigates the class of things so designated, it may find that they constitute a genuine natural kind, one whose members all share a nature in terms of which their other features can be sci­en­tifically explained. Such a nature is the real universal essence of the kind. Analyzed into its “con­stit­u­ents (stoicheia) and starting-­points” (Ph. I 1 184a23), this real essence makes intrinsically clear what the nominal essence made clear only to us. As a result, the kind itself be­comes better known not just to us but unconditionally (NE I 4 1095b2–8). These analyzed universals, which are the sort reached at stage [4], are the ones suited to serve as starting-­points of the systematically teachable sciences and crafts: “People with experience know the facts but not the reason why, whereas [those with craft knowledge] know the reason why, that is, the explanation   .  .  . That is why we think craft knowledge is  closer to sci­en­tific knowledge than experience is; for those with craft knowledge can teach, and those with experience cannot teach” (Met. I 1 981a28–b10). Induction includes two rather different sorts of transitions from particulars to universals, then: the broadly perceptual and noninferential pro­cess by which we reach [3] unanalyzed universals from the perception of particulars and the other, obviously more intellectual and discursive one, by which we proceed from unanalyzed universals to [4] analyzed ones and their defi­ni­tions. It is at this second stage that a back-­and-­forth between candidate starting-­points and perceptual data or evidence appropriately occurs: It seems that the knowledge of what some­thing is [that is, its essence] ­isn’t only useful for gaining theoretical knowledge of the causes of the coincidental at­trib­utes connected to the essences .  .  . but also, conversely, knowing these coincidental at­trib­utes con­trib­utes in great part to knowing what the thing is. For when we can give an account of how either all or most of these coincidental at­trib­utes appear to be, we will then be able to speak best about the essence. For the starting-­point of all demonstration is [the defi­ni­tion of] what some­ thing is, so that insofar as defi­ni­tions do not lead us to know the ­coincidental at­trib­utes, or fail even to facilitate a likely conjecture

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Commentary about [how to demonstrate] them, it is clear that they have all been stated in a dialectical and empty way. (DA I 1 402b16–403a2)

Hence in trying to frame sci­en­tific defi­ni­tions of essences that can serve as starting-­points of demonstrations or causal explanations, we usually need a rich and detailed knowledge of the coincidental at­trib­utes that are connected to those essences by putatively following from them. Any defi­ni­tion from which coincidental at­tri­ butes of this sort fail to follow—or that is of no help in find­ing a defi­ni­tion from which they do follow—is empty of the appropriate empirical content and thus irrelevant to science. As immune to falsification by the perceptual evidence, such defi­ni­tions are dialectical in nature and as such are to be handled not by science but by aporematic philosophy. Because of its origins in perception, sci­en­tific knowledge of any sort is de­pen­dent on perceptual data: Most of the starting-­points of each science are special to it. That is why it is the role of experience to provide the starting-­points of each. I mean, for example, that experience in astronomy does so in the case of astronomical science (since it is only when the appearances were adequately grasped that astronomical demonstrations were discovered), and the same is true of ev­ery other craft or science whatsoever. (APr. I 30 46a17–22).

Hence “it is necessary to discern some types of starting-­points from their consequences, above all, from the ultimate one. And the ultimate one in the case of a productive science is the product, whereas in the case of natural science it is the perceptual appearances that always have the controlling vote” (Cael. III 7 306a14– 17). To favor abstract argument over perception, therefore, is a serious error: What causes our inability to take a comprehensive view of the agreed-­upon facts is lack of experience. That is why those who dwell in more intimate association with the facts of nature are better able to lay down starting-­points which can bring together a good many of these, whereas those whom many arguments have made unobservant of the facts come too readily to their conclusions after ­looking at only a few facts. (GC I 2 316a5–10; also Cael. II 12



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291b31–292a3, DA I 1 402b21–403a2, GA II 8 747b27–748a14, III 10 760b27–33)

Nonetheless, when the perceptual data are scarce, it is still possible to make some headway, although the science or nascent science that results will be reasonable or sensible (eulogon, logikôs, kata logon, or katholou) rather than demonstrative (APo. II 8 93a14– 15) or strictly sci­en­tific (analutikôs) (APo. I 22 84a7–9). To become a “little less puzzled” in areas like this is—until further perceptual data be­comes available—the most we can hope for (Cael. II 12 291b24–28).

3/39b31–34 Sci­en­tific knowledge, therefore, is a state affording demonstrations  and has the other features included in the defi­ni­tion we give in  the Analytics; for it is when someone is convinced in a certain way, and the starting-­points are known to him, that he has sci­en­tific knowledge.

To have sci­en­tific knowledge—anyway “unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge (epistasthai haplôs)” of the sort under discussion here​ —of some­thing, and so to be convinced of it in the appropriate way, we must “know (gignoskein) the explanation because of which the thing holds, know that this is its explanation, and know that the thing does not admit of being otherwise” (APo. I 2 71b9– 12). What provides such knowledge is a science consisting of three components: [1] a set of indemonstrable starting-­points that are grasped securely by un­der­stand­ing in a way that aporematic philosophy ensures (3/39b34–36); [2] a deductive logic, so-­called syllogistic (3/39b25–28); [3] a set of demonstrations, which are the results of applying the logic to a starting-­point or theorem. To constitute a demonstration, a syllogism’s prem­ises must also be necessary (and so, of course, true) in a special sense: the predicates in them must belong to the subjects in ev­ery case, intrinsically (kath’ hauto), and universally (APo. I 4 73a24–27). In ev­ery case: A predicate a belongs to ev­ery subject b if and only if there is no b to which it fails to belong and no time at which it fails to belong to a b (APo. I 4 73a29–31). Intrinsically: A predicate a belongs intrin-

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sically to a subject b just in case it is related to b in one of four ways: a is in the account or defi­ni­tion of what b is or of b’s essence (APo. I 4 73a34–37); [b is a complex subject ϕb1—for example, odd number or male animal—and a is in the defi­ni­tion of ϕb1’s essence; a just is b’s essence; a is not a part of b’s essence or identical to it but stems causally from it (APo. I 4 73a34–b24). Universally: A predicate a belongs to a subject b universally just in case “it belongs to it in ev­ery case and intrinsically, that is, insofar as it is itself” (APo. I 4 73b26–27). Although unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge is exclusively of unconditional necessities, not all sci­en­tific knowledge is unconditional (APo. I 8 75b24–30). Crabs, for example, are perishable things that come-­to-­be, pass-­away, and undergo change and alteration. Nonetheless, “All crabs have the right claw bigger and stron­ ger than the left” is a theorem of zoology that is demonstrable from the essential defi­ni­tion of crabs. Yet because it holds “for the most part (hôs epi to polu)” (HA IV 3 527b6–7), exceptions to it can occur: “nothing can happen contrary to nature considered as eternal and necessary, but only where things for the most part happen in a certain way, but may also happen in another way” (GA IV 4 770b9–13). Since the ontological correlate or truth-­maker of a sci­en­tific theorem is an essence, the reason that the theorems applying to some such beings (namely, the natural ones) hold for the most part must be a fact about their essences, namely, that they can exist only in sublunary matter—in some mixture of earth, water, air, and fire (Met. VI 2 1027a13–15). Animal reproduction provides a vivid illustration of the consequences of this. In embryogenesis, the male [M] provides “the form and the source of movement while the female [F] provides the body—that is, the matter” (GA I 20 729a9–11). M can play this role because his own form (or essence) can be transmitted as ac­tual movements to his seed (sperma, gonê) and these movements, in turn, transmitted to F’s menses (katamênia): “When it [the seed] ­comes into the uterus it causes the female’s residue [menses] to take shape and moves it in the same movement in which it itself is ac­ tually moving” (GA II 3 737a20–22). Were F’s menses perfectly receptive of the movements in M’s seed, the resulting offspring would have M’s form and would perfectly resemble M, just as two



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bronze statues from the same mold have exactly the same shape. But this is not what happens. For though F’s menses does not contain any ac­tual formative movements, it does contain potential ones analogous to those provided by M and ac­tualized by them (GA IV 3 768a11–14). When these two types of movements encounter one another, various out­comes are possible. If the movements in M’s seed “stand fast” (GA IV 3 768a32), the offspring will perfectly resemble M. But if instead they “slacken,” the resulting offspring may not resemble M. If the two types of movements suf­fi­ciently “run together,” indeed, the offspring may not “resemble any of its own or kin” (GA IV 3 768b5–12). Similarly, any form that must be realized in matter can be so deformed by that matter’s resistant potentialities that exceptions can occur to universal theorems employing it. Because theorems that hold for the most part admit of exception, they also, in a sense, admit of being otherwise. This prevents them from being unconditionally necessary. But since holding for the most part also distinguishes them from what is coincidental or contingent, it still leaves them squarely within the sphere of a type of necessity: “‘admits of being otherwise’ is said of things in two ways: in one, it refers to what holds for the most part and falls short of [unconditional] necessity, for example, a man’s turning grey or growing or decaying, or, in general, what belongs [to some­ thing] by nature” (APr. I 13 32b4–8). That is why there is sci­en­tific knowledge of what holds for the most part (APr. I 13 32b18–22, APo. I 30 87b19–27, Met. VI 2 1027a19–21). Like the natural sciences, and in part for the same reasons, most of the practical and productive sciences also deal with what holds for the most part: “We should be content, in an account that concerns and is based on such [noble and just] things, to show the truth roughly and in a sketch, and in an account that concerns things that hold for the most part and is based on them to reach conclusions of the same sort, too” (NE I 3 1094b19–22). Thus many action-­guiding ethical principles allow for the possibility of exceptions: “we should for the most part return favors rather than do favors for our companions, just as we should for the most part return a loan to a creditor rather than make one to a companion” (NE IX 2 1164b31–33).

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In drafting universal laws, too, we have to acknowledge—as we do in the case of the zoological study of crabs and other animals constituted of sublunary matter—that some of them will also hold for the most part: All law is universal, yet there are some cases about which it is impossible to make correct universal pronouncements. In those cases, then, where it is necessary to make a universal pronouncement, but impossible to do so correctly, the law ­adopts what holds for the most part (to hôs epi to pleon), knowing full well the error that is being made. And it is no less correct on this account. For the source of the error is not in the law or in the legislator but in the nature of the case; for the matter of things doable in action is like that to start with. (NE V 10 1137b13–19)

Still, as is clearly implied here, some universal laws do not involve an “error” of this sort and so do hold universally rather than for the most part. This point aside, holding for the most part clearly puts the practical and productive sciences somewhat in the same camp as the natural ones. The distinction between essences that involve sublunary matter and those that do not is the ontological basis for the distinction between the natural and the strictly theoretical sciences, and so for the distinction between coincidental and unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge (Met. VI 1 1025b25–1026a16). The essence of a natural being has a certain structure, which is illustrated by the example of snubness: it is a form (concavity) in sublunary matter (a nose) (Met. VII 8 1033b24–26, 10 1035b28–31, 11 1037a5–10, XI 7 1064a19–28). By having such a structure, it re­flects the fact that natural beings are essentially changeable things that come-­to-­be and pass-­away (Met. VII 11 1036b21–32). Similarly, the essences of eternal beings, by lacking the element of sublunary matter, re­ flect the fact that such beings are unchangeable and immortal (Met. VII 11 1037a21–b7, XII 8 1074a33–36). Astronomical objects (heavenly bodies) are similar in structure to natural ones, except that their material element is primary body (sôma prôton) or ether—an element whose natural motion is circular (Cael. I 2 269b2–6, 3 270b19–25, Mete. I 3 339b25–27). But unlike sublunary matter, ether is uniform throughout and so does



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not resist or deform the forms of the heavenly bodies. As a result, astronomical theorems hold unchangingly and with unconditional necessity, making astronomy a strictly theoretical science. God, the subject matter of theology, is “eternal and a substance and an activity (energeia)” (Met. XII 7 1072a25–26) and so is entirely without matter (Met. XII 6 1071b20–21). For matter is “what is in potentiality [some­thing]” (Met. VIII 2 1042b9–10) and God is essentially an activity or ac­tuality (Met. XII 6 1071b17–20), and, since form is both activity and substance (Met. IX 8 1050b2), a pure form. A natural being, on the other hand, whose essence is analogous in structure to that of snubness, is not identical to its essence. But if its essence is like that of concavity so that its possessor is a pure form lacking all matter, it and its essence are identical (Met. VII 11 1037a29–b5). The difference between divine, astronomical, mathematical, and natural essences is im­por­tant to explaining why some theoretical sciences are more rigorous (and so more unconditional) than others (7/41a9–17).

3/39b34–36 in fact, if they [the starting-­points] are not better [known] than the conclusion, it is [only] in a coincidental sense that he will have sci­en­ tific knowledge. Let sci­en­tific knowledge, then, be de­fined in this way.

When a science has iden­ti­fied starting-­points from which all its theorems can be demonstrated, it falls to dialectic or—more precisely—to aporematic philosophy to defend these against various sorts of attack, since “because it examines, dialectic provides a path to the starting-­points of all lines of in­quiry” (Top. I 2 101b3– 4). The evidence used in this defense are endoxa, which are opinions accepted by “ev­ery­one or by the majority or by the wise, ­either by all of them or by most or by the most notable and reputable” (Top. I 1 100b21–23). And the defense itself consists in going through the puzzles (aporiai) “on both sides” (Top. I 2 101a35) until they or the majority of them are solved. For “if the puzzles are solved and the endoxa are left, it will be an adequate proof” (NE VII 1 1145b6–7).

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In a merely dialectical argument, though, the opponent may refuse to accept a proposition a philosopher would accept: The prem­ises of the philosopher’s syllogisms or those of the one investigating by himself, though true and known, may be refused by . . . [an opponent] because they lie too near to his starting-­points, and so he sees what will happen if he grants them. But the philosopher is unconcerned about this. Indeed, he will presumably be eager that his axioms should be as known and as near to the question at hand as possible; for it is from prem­ises of this sort that sci­en­tific syllogisms proceed. (Top. VIII 1 155b10–16)

Since the truth may well hinge on propositions whose sta­tus is like that of these prem­ises, there is no guarantee that a dialectician and a philosopher will reach the same conclusion on a given puzzle. Endoxa must not be confused with truths. Some­thing is endoxon if the right people believe it, but what they believe is not guaranteed to be true. For the purposes of philosophy, however, we “must treat matters according to their truth, though for dialectic only in relation to belief” (Top. I 14 105b30–31). What enables the philosopher to meet this requirement, despite his reliance on endoxa, is that he is well educated in the various sciences and so can determine what constitutes genuine sci­en­tific knowledge (PA I 1 639a1–15, NE I 3 1094b23–1095a2, Pol. III 11 1282a3–7). When he learns from ethics that happiness is rational activity in accord with complete virtue, he knows that this is what he must defend. When puzzles arise about it, therefore, resulting from arguments based on endoxa, his goal will be to solve these puzzles by undermining the arguments: “We must not only state the true view but also give the reason why of the false one, since that furthers con­fi­dence. For when we have a clear and good account of why a false view appears true, that makes us more con­fi­ dent of the true view” (NE VII 14 1154a22–25). If he is successful, he will have shown that the defi­ni­tion is in accord with most of the most compelling endoxa, with the preponderance of unprob­ lematic beliefs. Only at this point will he have an adequate proof of it and have grasped the starting-­point in the way requisite for genuine un­der­stand­ing: “If we are to have sci­en­tific knowledge through demonstration . . . , we must know the starting-­points bet-



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ter and be better convinced of them than of what is being proved, but we must also not find anything more convincing or better known among things opposed to the starting-­points, from which a contrary mistaken conclusion may be deduced, since someone who has unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge must be incapable of being convinced [out of it]” (APo. I 2 72a37–b4; also Top. V 5 134a34– 35; Plato, Republic VII 534b–d). In defending some starting-­points against dialectical ob­jec­tion, we provide a sort of demonstration of them, namely, a “demonstration by refutation” (Met. IV 4 1006a11–12). Included among these are such very secure or fundamental starting-­points as the principle of noncontradiction, which we must know in order to know anything. This may also be true more generally: “a disputant’s refutation of what is opposed to his accounts is a demonstration of them” (EE I 3 1215a6–7). But even if philosophy ­doesn’t always offer us this sort of demonstration of starting-­points, what it does offer is no puzzling knots—no impediments to clear and strict un­der­stand­ing (NE VII 2 1146a24–27). The empirical evidence that supports a science, then, also supports its starting-­points. These are as made true by the facts as are the theorems that perception itself more directly validates. It is as such truths that aporematic philosophy takes them on board. Our epistemic grasp of them remains defective, however, so long as we cannot see clearly how they can be true in the face of the endoxa-­ based puzzles to which they give rise. Once we are able to solve these puzzles in the requisite way, this defect in our grasp is remedied, and the clear-­sighted un­der­stand­ing of them required for unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge is achieved.

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4/40a1–10 What admits of being otherwise includes both what is producible and what is doable in action. But production and action are different (about them we rely also on the external accounts), so that the practical state involving reason is also different from the productive state involving reason. Nor* is one included in the other; for neither is action production nor is production action. Since, then, building [for example] is one sort of craft and is precisely a productive state involving reason, and there is no craft that is not a productive state involving reason and no such state that is not a craft, a craft is the same as a productive state involving true reason.

The phrase exôterikoi logoi may refer to popular works written by Ar­is­totle himself and “in circulation (egkuklia)” (NE I 5 1096a3) outside the Lyceum, or to accounts or arguments, not necessarily developed by Ar­is­totle, that are generally known. (The phrase is also found at Ph. IV 10 217b30, Met. XIII 1 1076a28, NE I 13 1102a26–27, EE I 8 1217b20, II 1 1218b32, Pol. III 6 1278b30, VII 1 1323a21.) At Cael. I 9 279a30, we have “the philosophical works in circulation (tois egkukliois philosophêmasi)” and at DA I 4 407b29 “the common accounts (tois en koinô[i] ginomenois logois).” Whatever the precise reference here—and it is perhaps ­wisest to be agnostic on just what it is—it must be to accounts with which the audience of the Ethics could be safely taken to be familiar. Practical wisdom (the practical or action-­determining state) and craft knowledge (the productive state) are states because they are (first) ac­tualizations, through habituation and teaching, of the potentialities to acquire them. They “involve reason (meta logou),” because someone who possesses them must know the pertinent facts and their explanations (5/40b28–30). *Textual Note: I read καὶ. The alternative is διὸ: “That is why one is not included in the other.”

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The reference to building begins an inductive argument, apparently, or one by reference to a paradigm case, in support of the defi­ni­tion of a craft as a productive state involving true reason. The addition of the quali­fi­ca­tion “true” to the reason that a productive state involves (4/40a10), which seems to appear out of nowhere in this chapter, reprises what was asserted at the beginning of the previous one (3/39b14–17). The possession of craft knowledge does not by itself guarantee “the superior achievement that is in accord with the relevant virtue” (NE I 7 1098a10–11), which is the type of wisdom proper to the craft (7/41a12). Hence it is not clear whether a craftsman who lacks that virtue does have a productive state involving true reason. Perhaps he does in routine cases, but not in prob­lematic ones, where deliberation is required. Even when possessed along with its proper virtue, moreover, craft knowledge is still a capacity that can bring about both good results and bad ones: “One and the same capacity or science seems to produce contrary results, whereas a state that is one contrary does not produce the other—health, for example, only leads us to do healthy actions, not their contraries” (NE V 1 1129a13–15). That is why craft knowledge is not a virtue and must be ruled by practical wisdom if it is to further happiness in a reliable way (2/39b1). Practical wisdom and craft knowledge differ from one another because their ac­tualizations—praxeis (singular: praxis), in the one case, and poiêseis (singular: poiêsis), in the other—are different. A praxis may be an end, desirable because of itself. It is focally contrasted with a poiêsis (such as building a house), which is desirable  solely because of some additional end (the house) (NE X 4 1174a18–21). Poiêseis are thus assigned to the general class of kinêseis (singular: kinêsis), praxeis to that of energeiai (singular: energeia). Expressed linguistically, the contrast is one of aspect rather than tense. Roughly speaking, a verb whose present tense has imperfective meaning designates a kinêsis, while one whose present tense has perfective meaning designates an energeia. Thus “living well” designates an energeia, because “someone who is living well at the same time has lived well and is happy and has been happy [at the same time],” whereas “building” and “walking” designate kinêseis, because “it is not the case that at the same time one is walking and has taken a walk, nor that one is building [some­

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thing] and has built [it]” (Met. IX 6 1048b18–35). Other differences between praxeis and poiêseis follow from or further articulate this basic one. A poiêsis takes time to complete and, like the time it takes, is infinitely divisible (Ph. III 7 207b21–25, Met. V 13 1020a26–32). It has a defi­nite termination point or limit, before which it is incomplete and after which it cannot continue (NE X 4 1174a21–23). A praxis, on the other hand, does not take time to  complete and so does not really occur “in time” (Ph. VIII 8 262b20–21) but is temporally point-­like (NE X 4 1174b12–13). Having no defi­nite termination, it may simply stop but need never fin­ish (Met. IX 6 1048b25–27). As an energeia, a praxis is an end, complete at ev­ery moment. As the result of deliberate choice, it presupposes a state of character, such as virtue or vice (2/39a33–34). Indeed, the praxis just is the result of ac­tualizing that state (Met. IX 8 1050a21–23). X’s acquired capacity to sing a B-­flat, for example, is a second potentiality or state. When ac­tualized, it results in a B-­flat being sung, which is the end or goal X aims to achieve in ac­tualizing the state. It is an activity in the primary or nonextended sense of the term. X’s ac­ tualization (entelecheia) of the state, by contrast, is an activity only in a secondary or extended sense, because what he is doing would not be singing a B-­flat if it did not result in a B-­flat being sung. That result, in other words, is a logically necessary or internal end of ac­tualizing the correlative state. Hence a praxis is the internal end of ac­tualizing a state of character in making a deliberate choice. The paradigm cases of actions, as we understand them, are bodily movements appropriately related to (perhaps by being caused by) beliefs, desires, and intentions. Hence “action” is clearly a potentially misleading translation of praxis. Nonetheless, there is one type of action that praxeis seem to resemble quite closely, namely, basic actions. This is especially true, if, as Ar­is­totle himself seems to believe, these are thought to be mental acts of willing, deciding, or trying: “even in the case of praxeis that have external  ends (exôterikôn), it is especially the architectonic craftsmen who, through their thinking, do them in the full sense” (Pol. VII 3 1325b21–23). Like praxeis, in any case, these sorts of mental acts are not bodily movements and do not seem to take time to perform. Moreover, just as we do not perform basic actions by do-



Commentary

ing some­thing else first, the same seems true of praxeis, so that a human being “is a starting-­point and begetter of praxeis just as he is of children” (NE III 5 1113b18–19; also 2/39b4–5). As in the case of productions, the results of such ac­tualizations may then be transmitted via bodily movements to other things which, because they admit of being otherwise, are capable of being changed by them (GA I 22 730b12–19). It is these results, or the bodily movements involved in them, that are paradigm cases of what we call actions. The relationship between the end of a production and the production itself is usually expressed by the preposition para (“beyond,” “in addition to,” “over and above”) (NE I 1 1094a3). Thus a product, such as a house, is a paradigmatic para or additional end, because—as some­thing that ­comes into existence only when the production resulting in it is complete and does not exist while the production is still going on—it is clearly external to the production itself. But not all external ends are the ends of productions or even of pro­cesses more generally, since actions, too, have external ends: “from the practical (praktikos) virtues we try to a greater or lesser extent to gain some­thing beyond (para) the action [that is in accord with them]” (NE X 7 1177b2–4). The difference between productions and actions is not that productions have external ends but that they supposedly have no internal ones. Though some ac­tualizations are ends at ev­ery instant, and so are complete, some last for many more instants than others, without their relative value being affected: “the good itself will not be to a higher degree good by being eternal—after all, a white thing is no whiter if it lasts a long time than if it lasts a day” (NE I 6 1096b3– 5). But even though happiness, as an activity, is complete at any instant, it is not true that a life is made happy by one instant of happiness (NE I 7 1098a18–20). An individual agent, Ar­is­totle says, may perform “many actions, out of which no single action is produced” (Po. 8 1451a18–19). The point he is making is that a group of actions do not constitute the enactment of a uni­fied plot—or have a plot-­structure (mythos) of the sort a good tragedy possesses—simply by being the actions of a single agent. At the same time, a model is suggested for how a group of non­dramatic or real-­life actions might constitute a single action that is “one, whole, and complete” (Po. 23 1459a19) by be-

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ing enactments of the real-­life equivalent of the right sort of plot or plan. As a group of actors might set out to perform Oedipus Tyrannos, so a single agent might set out to enact a uni­fied plan of action that involves doing many different things in some sort of sequence. This complex action will then be what virtue prescribes as constituting eupraxia or doing well. To understand why the agent is doing any of the things speci­fied by the plan, we will need to see it in relation to the plan as a whole. For many of them, taken individually, may not be ends or goods, choiceworthy for their own sakes. Some might be otherwise valueless means to ends, some might be productions of needed equipment, some might be actions whose sta­tus as intrinsically choiceworthy nonetheless depends on their role in the plan. The uni­fied plan itself might be likened, then, to the form of health in the soul of the doctor, which dictates the bodily movements that constitute, for example, producing the uniform state in a tense muscle that is  the de­fin­ing mark of health (Met. VII 7 1032b6–10). The ac­ tualization of the plan, the setting of it in motion, is an action, as is the carrying-­out of each of the subsequent steps. In performing each one, the agent is in a way achieving the goal of acting well. For acting well is not some­thing achieved only when the plan is fully executed, as health is produced only when its plan or form is embodied in the appropriate matter (the tense muscle), since it is not an external end. At the same time, it is not an entirely internal  end, either, since the plan may fail to be completely carried out. Instead, the end is immanent in the plan’s execution by being achieved at each moment of it. When we compare such actions to acts of contemplation, in which the end is fully achieved at ev­ery instant, we can see why—considered simply as actions—they might seem defective.

4/40a10–20 Ev­ery craft is concerned with coming-­to-­be, that is, with crafting [things] and having theoretical knowledge of* how some­thing may *Textual Note: I read τὸ τεχνάζειν καὶ θεωρεῖν. The alternative, τὸ τεχνάζειν θεωρεῖν (“having theoretical knowledge of how”) falsely suggests that a craft is not concerned with ac­tually crafting or producing things.



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come-­to-­be that admits of being and of not being, and whose starting-­point is in the producer and not in the product; for things that are or come-­to-­be by necessity are not the concern of craft, nor are things [that are or come-­to-­be] in accord with nature (since they have the starting-­point within themselves). Since, then, production and action are different, it is necessary that craft be concerned with production but not with action. And in a certain way craft and luck are concerned with the same things; as Agathon says, “Craft loves luck and luck craft.”

The starting-­point of production is a form or essence existing in the soul of the producer that is grasped by his un­der­stand­ing and transmitted from there into appropriate matter through his agency, so that a product having that form results: From craft come the things whose form is in the soul of the producer—and by form I mean the essence of each thing and the primary substance . . . For example, health is the account in the soul, the sci­en­tific knowledge [of the form]. So the healthy thing ­comes to be when the doctor reasons as follows: Since health is this, necessarily if the thing is to be healthy this must be present—for example, a uniform state—and if the latter is to be present, there must be heat, and he goes on, always thinking like this, until he is led to a final “this” that he himself is able to make. Then the pro­cess from this point onward, toward health, is called production . . . Of comings-­ into-­being and pro­cesses, one part is called un­der­stand­ing (noêsis) and the other producing (poiêsis)—what proceeds from the starting-­ point and form is un­der­stand­ing, what proceeds from the final stage of un­der­stand­ing is producing. (Met. VII 7 1032a32–b17)

The form, in turn, ­comes to exist in the producer’s soul through formal teaching or training in the craft, and ultimately through ­induction. The part in this pro­cess called un­der­stand­ing is what 4/40a11–12 calls having theoretical knowledge of how some­thing of the requisite sort can come-­to-­be. The part called producing is what it calls crafting. Things that are or come-­to-­be in accord with nature hold for the most part (HA IV 3 527b6–7, Ph. II 8 198b34–36, PA III 2 663b28– 29, NE V 10 1137b13–19), and so with a sort of necessity, albeit one that is less than unconditional (APr. I 13 32b4–13, GA IV 4

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770b9–13). The “things that are or come-­to-­be by necessity,” therefore, must be those that do so by unconditional necessity. The starting-­point of a natural thing is its nature (phusis), which is an “internal starting-­point of change and staying unchanged, whether in respect of place, growth and decay, or alteration” (Ph. II 1 192b13–15). More their form than their matter (Ph. II 1 193b6– 7), this nature is some­thing they inherit from some­thing else that already possesses it, just as a human being inherits his form (or nature) from his male progenitor. Consequently, a nature is at once the starting-­point of a natural being’s coming-­to-­be and of its persistence. Houses and other craft products, by contrast, have their starting-­points outside themselves, in their producers, by whom they typically need to be repaired and maintained if they are to persist. But nature and craft are otherwise so similar in their operations that nature is often explicitly analogized to a craftsman (Ph. II 8 199b28–30, GA I 22 730b8–32, II 6 743b22–23, V 8 789b8– 12). The “certain way” in which craft and luck are concerned with the same things is discussed at 1/39a6–11; Agathon at 2/39b5–11.

4/40a20–21 A craft, then, as we have said, is some sort of state involving true reason concerned with production.

Although some minor additional differences between practical wisdom and craft knowledge are mentioned at 5/40b21–25, this second reprise of 4/40a1–5, which completes Ar­is­totle’s account of craft, makes clear just how much the distinction between the two rests on that between action and production and so on the notion of an activity, in terms of which action is explained. This marks one distinction between that account and our un­der­stand­ing of crafts. There are also others. For example, we tend to put more emphasis on a craftsman’s ability to produce high-­quality products than on his ability to explain what he does. Ar­is­totle, by contrast, thinks that the most excellent, most virtuous, or wisest craftsmen are those who possess what we would most naturally consider to



Commentary

be theoretical knowledge: “In each craft, the architectonic craftsmen are more estimable, know more, and are wiser than the handicraftsmen, because they know the explanations of their products. The handicraftsmen, on the other hand, we think to be like some soulless things that produce—as fire burns—without knowing their products” (Met. I 1 981a30–b3). To some extent, this difference is a consequence of two factors: first, a tendency to divide Ar­is­totle’s technai into things we naturally call crafts (plumbing, carpentry), where practical ability is taken to be decisive, and those we naturally call arts (medicine) or sciences (engineering), where we also expect to see quite a bit of theoretical expertise; second, a tendency to distinguish in nearly ev­ery enterprise between its theory (theoretical engineering, music theory) and practice (practical engineering, music performance), or between its pure and applied forms. Technê, in other words, treats as a uni­fied domain what we divide up into a number of different ones, some of which are closer to Ar­ is­totle’s technai than others. Within practical enterprises, especially those we class as arts or crafts, we are apt to emphasize, too, the richness or thickness of what the prac­ti­tioner knows as compared to what we find in books or theories. We speak about the tacit knowledge, hard-­won experience, developed skills, and re­fined taste buds of the good cook and acknowledge how much there is to them that no book learning could possibly provide. For Ar­is­totle, by contrast, it is what is in the craftsman’s soul—the form of the product—that is most im­ por­tant, since he conceives of this as often suf­fic­ iently rich and detailed to guide the hands of the craftsman in an almost robotic way. It is as if the form were a piece of computer software that, when installed in the requisite hardware, could produce the product without the need of any additional information. Ar­is­totle certainly does not think that the craftsman’s knowledge of the form is acquired without considerable experience. The rich detail of the form in the craftsman’s soul, which is a starting-­point of his craft, is testimony not only to his explanatory abilities but to the richness of that experience. There is a recognition, too, that along with knowledge of form a correlative knowledge of matter is also very im­por­tant: “There are two crafts, however, that rule the matter and involve knowledge, the one that uses the product and

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the architectonic one that produces it. That is why the one that uses is also somehow architectonic, but it is different from the other in that it knows the form, while the one that is architectonic, in that it produces, knows the matter” (Ph. II 2 194a36–b5). What is sig­nifi­cant is that even in the case of knowing the matter and knowing how to work it, it is still the architectonic prac­ti­tioner that is the true craftsman. The idea of manual dexterity or cle­ver hands, which is central to our idea of craft, is nowhere in view. Craft incompetence consists in having false reasons, not in being ham-­fisted (4/40a21–23). Fi­nally, outside crafts that, like spelling or orthography, are “rigorous and self-­contained,” Ar­is­totle is explicit that craftsmen often have to deliberate about what to do, since the handbook of their craft does not settle this (NE III 3 1112a34–b9). This is especially true when the crafts in question deal with “those things that come about through us, but not in the same way on ev­ery occasion,” as happens in medicine or wealth acquisition, or when, like navigation, they are less than fully worked out (NE III 3 1112b2–9). Since most crafts are like this, all but a very few will involve quite a bit of deliberation. It is when they do, moreover, that the sort of practical wisdom spe­cific to them is primarily exhibited (5/40a28–30). In Ar­is­totle’s conception of technê, we find not just one ideal in operation but two—one giving pride of place to the architectonic prac­ti­tioner, the other giving it to the (practically) wise one. In this respect it is like our own conception of an art or craft such as medicine, whose ideal prac­ti­tioner lives up to both ­ideals. Another difference between technê and craft returns us to the distinction between poiêsis and praxis. Practicing a craft is some­ thing we think can offer intrinsic rewards. Making some­thing well and taking plea­sure in one’s own competence seem to have a kind of value that is in­de­pen­dent of the value of the resulting products, so that the products of someone’s own labors tend to have a correlative additional value, at least for him—some­thing Ar­is­totle himself recognizes as also true in the case of technai (NE IX 7 1167b34). Exercising a craft well thus seems to be some­thing choiceworthy because of itself and because of its products. The de­ fin­ing feature of a technê, on the other hand, is that it is a production, a poiêsis, and so cannot have an internal end or be choiceworthy because of itself.



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4/40a21–23 and craft incompetence (atechnia) is the contrary, a state involving false reason concerned with production. [Both are] concerned with what admits of being otherwise.

Ar­is­totle distinguishes between craftsmen of different degrees of excellence: [1] the lyre player and the good lyre player have the same function, but the latter has “the superior achievement that is in accord with the virtue (for it is characteristic of a lyre player to play the lyre and to a good one to do so well)” (NE I 7 1098a8– 12). [2] Some craftsmen know all that is in the craft handbook, so to speak, but when it ­comes to prob­lems that lie outside it, and so require deliberation, they sometimes arrive at reasons that are false (5/40a28–30). These people know all the true handbook reasons but not the true deliberative ones. They may be good craftsmen for routine jobs, but, lacking the relevant sort of practical wisdom, they are not good for hard cases. [3] Some craftsmen are wise (sophos) in that they are the most rigorous prac­ti­tioners of their craft (7/40b9–10). They know not just the true handbook and deliberative reasons but the ultimate explanatory ones—those that might be found in the most rigorous treatises on the craft’s starting­points: what distinguishes “those doctors who pursue their craft in a more philosophical or wisdom-­loving way” is that their search for the “primary starting-­points of health and disease” leads them to begin by considering nature in general (Sens. 1 436a17–b1; also Juv. 21 480b22–30). In [1], it may be that Ar­is­totle has quality of performance in mind rather than quality or extent of reasons. If so, he ought to recognize a kind of performance-­oriented atechnia as well as one that is reasons oriented. That he ­doesn’t suggests that the only sort of defect he recognizes in craft is one stemming from reasons. In [2] and [3], in any case, these seem to be the sorts of defects involved. Though the term atechnia does not occur elsewhere in Ar­is­totle, the cognate adjective atechnos does. It is generally applied to what lies outside of craft altogether: unskilled workers are atechnos (Pol. I 11 1258b26; also SE 11 172a34, 34 184a1, EE II 3 1220b26, Rh. I 2 1355b35, III 1 1404a16, 16 1416b18, Po. 6 1450b17, 14 1453b8). The adjective is also one of degree: some tragic poets are “more

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incompetent in their craft (atechnoterai)” (Po. 16 1454b28) than others. As far as the adjective is concerned, then, it seems reasonable to say that those who lack a craft altogether are absolutely atechnos, while those who have some level of competence in it that is less than absolute are atechnos to a corresponding degree. It would be a mistake, though, to at­trib­ute atechnia to the absolutely atechnos, since someone may be absolutely atechnos without possessing a state involving false reasons concerned with production, since none of the states he does possess may involve any reasons concerned with production whatsoever. The question is, to whom, then, should atechnia be at­trib­uted? Because craft knowledge ­comes in degrees, anything less than the most rigorous form of it might count as atechnia, since it would be a state involving some false reasons concerned with production. This is weak atechnia. Almost all craftsmen suf­fer from it. On the other hand, atechnia might be a state involving only false reasons of this sort. This is strong atechnia. But now that those who simply lack craft altogether have been excluded from the picture, the only people who could suf­fer from it would seem to be quacks and sophists, who purport to possess a craft or science when they ­don’t, and those who (like so many of Soc­ra­tes’ interlocutors) honestly believe they possess a craft or science when they ­don’t. Ar­is­totle mentions people of this sort in his discussion of boasting: Now those who boast for the sake of reputation claim the sorts of  qualities that are praiseworthy or thought to make us happy, whereas those who do it for the sake of gain claim the sorts both that indulge their neighbors and that it is possible to avoid being detected for not really having, such as those of a prophet, a wise person, or a doctor. That is why it is qualities like this that most boasters lay claim to; for it is in them that the aforementioned features are found. (NE IV 7 1127b17–22; also EE I 6 1216b40–1217a10)

For since true craft reasons must fit into a structure of syllogistic deductions or demonstrations from starting-­points grasped by un­ der­stand­ing, people of these sorts could, it seems, have a state that involved exclusively false reasons concerned with production. Just which sort of atechnia Ar­is­totle has in mind is hard to say. Plato



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recognizes analogues of both. The agnoia (“error” or “ignorance”) he discusses in Republic V is akin to strong atechnia, since it always produces judgments that are not true (478c9–d4). What he calls atechnia, by contrast, seems to qualify as such simply by involving some false judgments or reasons. In the Phaedo, someone who associates with “reasons of the sort that seem now true and now false” suf­fers from atechnia (90d1–3; also Sophist 253b5). Even with these distinctions and clar­ifi ­ ­ca­tions in place, it remains a puzzle why Ar­is­totle bothers to introduce atechnia. Why not tell us that craft is a state involving true reasons concerned with production and leave it at that? We might guess that he has practical wisdom in mind and is thinking of ways in which craft resembles it and—more pertinently—differs from it. For the contrary of craft, so to speak, whether weak atechnia or strong, is a defective cognitive state, one dealing exclusively with reasons. The contrary of practical wisdom, by contrast, though it does involve having false practical reasons, is vice or wickedness, which is primarily a defect of character—a defect in the soul’s desiring part, not in its deliberative or calculating one: “Ev­ery wicked (mochthêros) person is ignorant of the things we should do and the things we should refrain from, and it is because of this sort of error that unjust people—and bad people generally—come about  . . . For ignorance in our deliberate choice is not an explanation of some­thing’s being involuntary but of wickedness” (NE III 1 1110b28–32).

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5/40a24–31 Where practical wisdom is concerned, we may grasp it once we see (theôrêsantes) what sort of person we say is practically wise. It is thought, then, to be characteristic of a practically wise man to be able to deliberate well about what is good and advantageous for himself, not as regards a part of it, for example, about what sorts of things further health or further strength but about what sorts further living well as a whole (to eu zên holôs). A sign of this is that we also speak of people as practically wise in some [area], when they calculate well about what furthers some good (spoudaion) end, concerning which no craft [reason] exists. Hence in the case of the whole [good], too, it is the deliberative man who will be practically wise.

The fact that we correctly apply the term phronêsis to people of a  certain sort suggests that they at least possess a nascent form of  phronêsis but does not entail that they possess fully fledged phronêsis as this ­comes eventually to be understood. The things we say about some­thing (legomena) or that seem true of it (phainomena) or that are thought or believed about it (doxa) are starting-­ points for a dialectical or aporematic philosophical investigation of it (NE I 8 1098b9–11, VII 1 1145b20, 11 1152b23–24, X 3 1174a11–12). They need not all turn out to be among the endoxa or reputable beliefs that must be left intact, once the puzzles (aporiai) to which they give rise have been gone through. Some of these puzzles are discussed in Chapters 8, 12, and 13. The verb phronein has a va­ri­ety of meanings central to which is the idea of thought, counsel, un­der­stand­ing, being minded to do, or intending to do some­thing, especially when these indicate the possession of wisdom. Many Eng­lish equivalents have been suggested for its cognate phronêsis, including “prudence” (from the standard Latin equivalent prudentia), “intelligence,” “wisdom,” and, of course, “practical wisdom.” Just what Aristotelian phronêsis is, however, must be learned by exploring what he says about it. 154



Commentary

To deliberate unconditionally well, a practically wise person must aim “in accord with calculation at the best for a human being of things doable in action” (7/41b12–14)—happiness. Happiness is “advantageous for himself” not as the idiosyncratic individual he happens to be (NE III 4 1113a21–33) but as a human being, whose happiness, as the most complete good of a social or po­lit­i­cal animal, depends on that of others, including “parents, children, wife, and friends and fellow citizens generally” (NE I 7 1097b6–11). What is characteristic of practical wisdom, moreover, ­isn’t to deliberate about health, which is the doctor’s job, or about victory, which is the general’s (NE I 1 1094a8–9), but about living well as a whole, which includes not just health and strength but ev­ery­thing else having a positive impact on happiness. When such things fall within the scope of a spe­cific craft or science, practical wisdom accomplishes this goal, in part, by using these crafts and sciences appropriately. When they do not fall within the scope of a craft or science, practical wisdom must rely on its own deliberative capacity to determine how best to further happiness in the particular circumstances. Often knowledge of the craft pertaining to a particular area, as medicine pertains to health or physical training to strength, is suf­fi­ cient to settle questions about what to do within it. When this is not so, and calculation or deliberation is required, the person able to do it well is the one thought to be a practically wise doctor or trainer. Similarly, in the case of the overall good or living well as a whole, the one who deliberates (or calculates) well about it is the practically wise man. This sort of craft-­spe­cific practical wisdom possessed by a doctor or trainer is clearly different from practical wisdom proper. Since it is deliberative in nature, it also seems to be different from the wisdom characteristic of the architectonic prac­ ti­tioner of the craft (7/41a12). To count as practically wise in a spe­cific area, a person must pursue a spoudaios end—that is to say, a good end or one worth taking seriously (spoudazein). Thus happiness, which is the goal of practical wisdom proper, cannot be amusement, since amusement ­isn’t serious enough to be what activity in accord with virtue promotes (NE X 6 1176b28–a3).

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5/40a31–b7 And nobody deliberates about things that cannot be otherwise or about things that do not admit of being doable in action by himself. So, since sci­en­tific knowledge involves demonstration, and the things whose starting-­points admit of being otherwise cannot be demonstrated (for all of them also admit of being otherwise), and it is not possible to deliberate about what holds by necessity, practical wisdom cannot be either sci­en­tific knowledge or craft knowledge: not sci­en­tific knowledge because what is doable in action admits of being otherwise, not craft knowledge because action and production differ in kind. The remaining possibility, therefore, is for it to be a state involving true (alêthous) reason,* a practical one, concerned with what is good or bad for a human being. For the end of production is some­thing other than it, while that of action is not, since doing well in action is itself its end.

*Textual Note: I read ἀληθοῦς. The transmitted text is ἀληθῆ: “a true state involving reason.” There are at least five reasons to prefer this reading, in which “true” (alêthous) quali­fies “reason,” to the alternative, in which “true” (alêthê) quali­fies “state.” [1] At 13/44b27–28, Ar­is­totle iden­ti­fies practical wisdom with the correct reason. [2] When Ar­is­totle specifies the function of practical wisdom he uses the verb alêtheuein, which is used elsewhere in NE VI (3/39b13, 15, 6/41a3), in the Ethics as a whole (I 10 1100a35, IV 7 1127a19, 33, b4, VII 9 1151b20), and in his writings generally, with its standard meaning of saying or thinking or grasping things (sentences, propositions, predications) that are true (APr. I 4 26b15, Top. IV 1 121a20, DA III 3 428a4, Met. IV 4 1008b3, Rh. I 11 1371a10). [3] In the reprise of the defi­ni­tion of practical wisdom at 5/40b20–21, some manuscripts rec­ord alêthous. [4] Ar­is­totle does not speak elsewhere of true states. [5] In the defi­ni­tion of craft knowledge, which has a structure similar to that of practical wisdom (4/40a3–5), “true” is applied to the reason, not the state (4/40a10, 21). On the other side, if we think there is a kind of practical wisdom that, though it may be in some sense a true state, does not involve true reasons, it is presumably one that involves false reasons. It would be an analogue, therefore, of weak or strong atechnia (4/40a21–23). Yet Ar­is­totle acknowledges no such analogue, seeming instead to have introduced atechnia to mark a distinction between craft and practical wisdom. What stands to practical wisdom as atechnia does to technê ­isn’t a state that provides false reasons (a cognitive or intellectual defect), but vice (a defect of character). Hence if we accept the transmitted text, we should treat it as a case of hypallage or transferred epithet.



Commentary

The claim “nobody deliberates about things that cannot be otherwise” reprises 1/39a13–14. That nobody deliberates about things that do not “admit of being doable in action by himself” is also a reprise: “We do not deliberate even about all human affairs: no Spartan would deliberate, for example, about how Scythians might best govern themselves po­lit­ic­ ally . . . Rather each group of human beings deliberates about what is up to it to do in action” (NE III 3 1112a28–34). A Spartan can, of course, reason about what the Scythians should do, as any agent X can about what another agent Y should do. He can even engage in such reasoning in hopes of ­in­flu­enc­ing Scythian behavior—though Scythia was too far from Sparta for this to in­flu­ence to be very direct. Even if such hopes were fulfilled and the Scythians were in­flu­enced to act exactly as he advised, he would not be engaging in deliberation. For the conclusion of a piece of deliberation must be an action (8/42a20–23), and a Spartan’s deliberation cannot have the Scythians’ action as such a direct conclusion. When X is Y’s adviser or is reasoning in the abstract about what Y should do, he exercises not practical wisdom’s deliberative capacity, which is prescriptive, but good-­ comprehension (eusunesia), which ­isn’t (10/43a8–10). Since sci­en­tific knowledge, as de­fined in Chapter 3, is the unconditional sort found exclusively in the strictly theoretical sciences, it is the only sort practical wisdom is being denied to be. Hence the sort of necessity referred to as lying outside the scope of deliberation is the unconditional necessity characteristic of demonstrations in such sciences. The starting-­points that admit of being otherwise in the relevant sense are thus those that cannot be demonstrated with unconditional necessity. But other starting-­points that admit of being otherwise, in that they hold for the most part, can be demonstrated with the lesser sort of necessity found, for example, in the natural sciences (3/39b31–34). Since practical wisdom also deals with what holds for the most part (NE I 3 1094b19–22), nothing said here precludes it from providing demonstrations of this weaker sort. Since the argument leading to the defi­ni­tion of practical wisdom is by elimination, it presupposes the exhaustiveness of the list of states that grasp truth given earlier (3/39b14–17). Support for the presupposition is implicit in the intervening discussion. The objects of cognition divide into [1] those whose starting-­points admit of

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being otherwise and [2] those whose starting-­points do not admit of being otherwise (1/39a7–8). [1] includes [1a] those producible, and [1b] those doable in action. [2] includes eternal and unconditionally necessary things but not the natural ones (mentioned in passing at 4/40a15) studied by natural sciences. Since practical wisdom is not a craft or theoretical science, it cannot be concerned with the beings in [1a] or [2]. Hence it must be concerned with those in [1b] and so must be practical or action-­determining. That it is a state grasping truth is guaranteed by its sta­tus as the virtue of a reason-­possessing part of the soul whose function is to grasp truth (2/39b12–13). In including bad things within the scope of practical wisdom, Ar­is­totle could just be claiming that it considers them with the aim of ensuring happiness by avoiding them: “practical wisdom is the virtue of thought in accord with which we are able to deliberate well about . . . good things and bad things as they bear on happiness” (Rh. I 9 1366b20–22). On the other hand, for all his argument by elimination shows, practical wisdom could, like a value-­ neutral science or craft, be used for bad ends (NE V 1 1129a13–15, Met. IX 2 1046b3–28). Once it has been shown to be a virtue, however, bad ends can be excluded from its range of out­comes (as they somewhat proleptically are at 5/40b20–21), since virtues cannot be used for bad purposes. Household management (oikonomia) is the science dealing with the provision and use of property (Pol. I 8 1256a10–13), consisting of “the goods that are necessary for life and useful to community of city or household,” and whose quantity is determined by reference to the level of “self-­suf­fi­ciency that furthers the good life” (Pol. I 8 1256a31–32). Like po­lit­i­cal science, it is part of practical wisdom (8/41b32).

5/40b7–11 That is why we think Pericles and people of that sort to be practically wise —because they have theoretical knowledge of what is good for themselves and for human beings, and we think household­managers and politicians are like that.

Pericles (ca. 495–429 BC) was the leading politician in Athens during the heyday of her empire. That he and others like him are



Commentary

thought to possess practical wisdom constitutes a starting-­point for a philosophical investigation of practical wisdom, but does not  imply that the thought must be true. It is soon obvious, indeed, that whatever Pericles did possess it was no more than a nascent form of Aristotelian practical wisdom. For he can hardly be supposed to have possessed the un­der­stand­ing of what happiness is that practical wisdom and full virtue of character imply. That he  may, nonetheless, have had some (loosely but not, of course, strictly) theoretical knowledge of what is good for human beings  is  probably the case. All practical and productive sciences have  a theoretical as well as a practical or executive component (8/41b28–33).

5/40b11–20 That is also why we call temperance (sôphrosunê) by this name, as being what preserves practical wisdom (sôzousan tên phronêsin). And it does preserve the sort of supposition in question. For what is pleasant or painful does not corrupt or distort ev­ery sort of supposition (for example, that triangles do or do not contain two right angles), but the one about what is doable in action. For the starting-­ points of things doable in action is that for the sake of which the things doable in action are done; but once someone is corrupted by plea­sure or pain, it does not appear a starting-­point, or that it is for the sake of it and because of it that he should choose and do ev­ery­ thing; for vice is corruptive of the starting-­point.

The etymological argument with which the passage begins is similar to one proposed by Plato: “temperance is the savior (sôteria) of  wisdom (phronêsis)” (Cratylus 411e–412a). The end that actions ultimately aim at—their teleological starting-­point—is happiness (NE I 12 1102a2–4). Vice is corruptive of this end, that is, it produces false views or suppositions about it (12/44a34–36). For happiness “involves plea­sure or requires its addition” (NE I 8 1098b25), so that nothing can seem like happiness to a person unless he takes plea­sure in it or sees it as a means to plea­sure. Because a virtuous person has been brought up and educated with good habits of liking and disliking, his appetites and feelings are in a mean. Hence he takes plea­sure in doing for their own sakes the virtuous actions in which genuine happiness consists (NE I 8

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1099a7–21, II 3 1104b3–11). As a result, what he wishes for—what appears as happiness to him—is genuine happiness (NE III 4 1113a21–33, X 5 1176a8–24). Since happiness is the ultimate aim of all his actions, and such actions must be deliberately chosen, it will also be apparent to him that it is for the sake of what is genuine happiness that he should choose and do ev­ery­thing. The education and habituation of a continent and an incontinent person, by contrast, has been suf­fi­ciently good that what they wish for as happiness is, indeed, genuine happiness, so that neither has a false belief or supposition about what the end of their actions should be. But because their appetites and feelings are not in a mean, neither takes the sort of unalloyed plea­sure in their actions that the virtuous man does: the continent person gets the plea­sure of satisfying his wish but suf­fers the pains associated with frustrating his opposing appetites; the incontinent gets the plea­sure of satisfying his appetites and feelings, but suf­fers the pains associated with frustrating his wish. A vicious person is different from the others in that what he wishes for is not happiness, but some­thing else, such as appetitive grati­fi­ca­tion, that his education, upbringing, and way of life have made appear as happiness to him, by habituating him to take plea­ sure in the wrong things (NE I 4 1095a22–23, 5 1095b14–23). Thus even if his appetites and feelings happen to be in accord with his wish, what he achieves in acting as he does will not be happiness, since it will not be the sort of active life in accord with the most complete virtue that alone makes a human life “choiceworthy and in need of nothing” (NE I 9 1097b14–15). Temperance is the virtue concerned primarily with the plea­sures of taste and touch, and so with those of food, drink, and sex, which are “shared with the other animals” (NE III 10 1118a24–25). By ensuring that the appetites and feelings gratified by such potent plea­sures are in a mean, temperance preserves someone’s correct suppositions or beliefs about happiness. In doing so, it also preserves his practical wisdom. For the correctness of the reasons practical wisdom employs is determined in part by the correctness of what they prescribe to further a given end and in part by the correctness of the end itself that virtue of character is needed to ensure (12/44a7–8). Since what temperance preserves, intemperance presumably destroys, we might think of intemperate appetites



Commentary

for food, drink, and sex as practical wisdom’s primary adversaries. It is incontinence with respect to the plea­sures such appetites provide that is spe­cifi­cally blamed as a sort of vice (9/42b16–26). The contrast with mathematics makes a point cognate with one made in response to an argument that it is as foolish for a city to be ruled by written laws as it is for a doctor to follow written rules: The comparison with the crafts—that it is bad to give medical treatment in accord with written rules and more choiceworthy to rely on those who possess the craft instead—would seem to be false. For doctors never do things contrary to the rule because of friendship, but earn their pay by healing the sick. Those who hold po­lit­ic­ al of­ fice, on the other hand, do many things out of spite or to win favor. And, indeed, if people suspected their doctors of having been bribed by their enemies to do away with them, they would prefer to seek treatment derived from books. (Pol. III 16 1287a32–41)

A doctor, insofar as he is a doctor, is someone whose de­fin­ing end is the health of his patient (NE I 1 1094a8), and what seems to him to constitute it is determined by correct medical reasons. If he is bribed—offered a plea­sure-­producing or pain-­producing incentive—to aim at some other end, this does not affect how the original end itself appears to him, since correct medical reasons are not determined by reference to his own plea­sure or happiness. Similarly, a mathematician as such aims at mathematical truth, and what appears to him to constitute it is determined by correct mathematical reasons that are not de­fined by reference to his plea­sure or happiness: “the mathematical sciences take no account of good and bad things” (Met. III 2 996a35–b1). Like medical reasons, they are not corrupted or distorted by what, as a result of a possibly bad upbringing, a mathematician happens to take plea­sure in.

5/40b20–25 So practical wisdom must be a state involving true reason,* concerned with human goods, and practical. Well, certainly (alla mên) *Textual Note: I read ἀληθοῦς. The alternative is ἀληθῆ: “a true state involving reason.” See textual note to 5/40a31–b7.

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Commentary of craft knowledge there is a virtue, whereas of practical wisdom there is not one; and, in the case of a craft, someone who makes errors voluntarily is preferable, but with practical wisdom he is less so, as is also the case with the virtues. It is clear, then, that it is some sort of virtue and not a craft.

5/40b20–21 reprises 5/40b4–6, but with an im­por­tant difference: practical wisdom is no ­longer concerned with good and bad things, but with good ones only. The next sentence, expressing a favorable reaction to this idea, signaled by alla mên,5 begins a jus­tifi­ca­tion of it, already somewhat foreshadowed in 5/40b11–20. This jus­tifi­ca­ tion is im­por­tant, since it is Ar­is­totle’s proof that practical wisdom is not only a virtue but the one that, as the virtue of the calculative or deliberative part of the soul, is a source of the sort of correct reason relevant to ethics and po­lit­i­cal science that is being sought. The virtue that craft knowledge is said to have is presumably the one possessed by wise prac­ti­tioners (7/41a12), who produce results of a quality superior to those of the less skilled (NE I 7 1098a10– 11). Practical wisdom, by contrast, has no virtue, suggesting or implying that it itself is a virtue, autonomously capable of providing true or correct reasons (MM I 34 1197a18–20). A doctor, mathematician, or other craftsman who makes an error involuntarily is less preferable than one who makes it voluntarily, since the former but not the latter shows that his mastery of his craft or science is defective. For just as a man who mimics a limp knows how to walk without one, so a craftsman who makes a voluntary error knows how not to make it (Met. V 29 1025a6–13). A practically wise person who makes a voluntary error is less preferable than one who makes it involuntarily, since in achieving some­thing bad for himself he exhibits not practical wisdom, but its contrary. The fact that in this respect, too, practical wisdom is like a virtue is further reason to think that it just is one. The contrast between virtues and crafts is more fully developed at NE V 9 1137a17–26. In adverting to it again here Ar­is­totle may be thinking spe­cifi­cally of Soc­ra­tes, who analogizes virtues to crafts and so concludes that virtuous people who make voluntary errors are preferable to those who make them involuntarily (Char 5. See J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles. 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950), p. 343 (ii).



Commentary

mides 173a–175a, Gorgias 460a–461b, Hippias Minor 373c–376c, Republic I 332d).

5/40b25–28 But since there are two parts of the soul that have reason, it must be a virtue of one of them, namely, of the part that forms beliefs; for belief is concerned with what admits of being otherwise, as also is practical wisdom.

Taking himself to have shown that practical wisdom is a virtue, Ar­is­totle must next identify what part of the soul it is a virtue of. He has shown that practical wisdom involves true or correct reason. So it must be the virtue of a part of the soul that has reason. He has shown that its true or correct reasons concern what admits of being otherwise. He has introduced it as a state that grasps truth (true reasons) by way of assertion or denial (3/38b15–17). Since belief (doxa) is both the sort of cognition concerned with what admits of being otherwise, although also of other things (3/39b14– 18), and a type of assertion (9/42b13–14), it follows that practical wisdom must be the virtue of the part of the soul that forms beliefs (doxastikon). Since belief must be based on calculation or deliberation, the part that forms beliefs is the same as the calculative or deliberative part (13/44b14). Nonetheless, as Ar­is­totle will next show, practical wisdom is not itself a type of belief.

5/40b28–30 But it ­isn’t a state involving reason (meta logou) only; a sign of this is that there is forgetfulness of a state like that, but of practical wisdom there ­isn’t.

At 13/44b26–27, practical wisdom is said not merely to be in accord with the correct reason (kata ton orthon logon)—which is what most people think—but to involve the correct reason (meta tou orthou logou). The point made there—by substituting meta with the genitive for kata with the accusative—is that a more intimate relationship exists between practical wisdom and the correct

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reason than the mere agreement of the one with the other. Here this more intimate relationship is presupposed to highlight the fact that practical wisdom involves not just the correct reason but also correct desire and a virtuous state of character (2/39a33–34). If practical wisdom involved correct reason only, it would be an entirely cognitive state, like belief, and so could be forgotten. Indeed, for all the present argument shows, the strictly cognitive side of it could suf­fer this fate. But because the calculative part cannot possess practical wisdom unless the virtues of character exist in the desiring part, so that its con­stit­u­ent appetites and feelings are in a mean, practical wisdom is not an entirely cognitive state and so is not a type of belief. Our stable dispositions to desire and feel in certain ways may change, to be sure, as they tend to do with age (Long. 2 465a23, Rh. II 12 1388b31–14 1390b13), but we have not for that reason forgotten anything. Feelings and states of character are not in our memory, as beliefs may be, and so do not, like beliefs, drop out of it. Our moderation or courage may alter with time, but we do not forget them. Practical wisdom as a whole cannot be forgotten, then, even if a component of it can. Although this is how Ar­is­totle seems to be thinking here, earlier he argues the point in a different way: [1] None of the functions of human beings are as stable as those concerned with activities in accord with complete virtue; for they seem to be more steadfast even than [our knowledge of] the sciences. [2] And of these themselves, the most estimable are more steadfast, because [3] those who are blessedly happy live their lives being active most of all and most continuously (sunechestata) in them. This, indeed, would seem to be the reason forgetfulness does not occur where they are concerned. [4] The stability in question, then, will belong to the happy man, and throughout life he will be as we say; for [5] always or most of all he will do in action and will contemplate (theôrêsei) things in accord with virtue. (NE I 10 1100b12–20)

In [1], virtuous activities in accord with complete virtue—although not necessarily the most complete one—are singled out as more stable that those of our other functions, although no explanation is given for why this is so. Presumably, it is because, unlike the sciences with which they are contrasted, they are not entirely cogni-



Commentary

tive states. In [2], a virtue is singled out as more steadfast than the others on the grounds of being most estimable. This iden­ti­fies it as theoretical wisdom, which is the most estimable of the virtues (6/41b2–3). This, in turn, explains why those who are blessedly happy live their lives being active in accord with it and why they do so most continuously: “We can contemplate more continuously (sunechestatê) than we can do anything in action” (NE X 7 1177a21–22); contemplation in accord with theoretical wisdom is the best kind of happiness (NE X 7 1177b24–26). [4] is thus an advance draft on the distinction between virtue of character (accompanied by practical wisdom), on the one hand, and theoretical wisdom, on the other. For contemplation is the activity that can be engaged in more continuously than action in accord with virtue of character and practical wisdom (NE X 8 1178a9–23). What we should take to be in accord with virtue in [5], therefore, is the doing and contemplating of things and not the things themselves that are done or contemplated. For it is our contemplation that must be in accord with virtue, not the things we contemplate. True, the “blessedly happy person will deliberately choose to contemplate (theôrein) virtuous actions that are his own, and the actions of a virtuous friend are such” (NE IX 9 1170a2–4). So there is at least one case when what a virtuous person contemplates is in accord with virtue. But even here this ­isn’t what makes his contemplation of it virtuous. Nor is the relevant virtue theoretical wisdom, as it is in [5], since contemplating the actions of mere mortals could never be estimable enough to be in accord with that. What the blessedly happy do most of all is presumably what they do most continually, that is, most often—which surely is relevant to the unforgettability of what they do. It’s hard to forget what we do all the time. What we do most continuously (sunechestata), meaning with least interruption or intermission, by contrast, is some­thing we can forget, especially if we rarely if ever do it. When we put the continuous and the continual together, we seem to reach the acme of unforgettability. For now there is no time for forgetting to occur while the activity is occurring, as can, of course, happen if there are interruptions or intermissions, which make us forget our place. We may so regularly recite the Lord’s Prayer that it is hard to forget, but if our recitation gets interrupted, we can forget where we are in it, all the same, and have to start over.

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Although activity in accord with practical wisdom may be less continuous than theoretical activity, it is still some­thing we are continually—perhaps more continually—involved in. What it loses on the roundabouts, it thus gains somewhat on the swings. And this is enough, surely, to explain why we ­don’t forget it.

By the end of VI 5 Ar­is­totle has shown that practical wisdom is the virtue of the deliberative part of the soul, ensuring true beliefs about things that admit of being otherwise and so (since beliefs must be based on calculation or deliberation) true or correct reasons about them. But because practical wisdom is not, like belief, a  purely cognitive state, it also involves correct desires—that is to say, desires that, because they are in accord with the virtues of character, listen to and obey those reasons. The practical truth practical wisdom grasps thus emerges again as a combination of plain or theoretical truth (which is the sort possessed by true beliefs) and desire in agreement with it, just as practical wisdom itself emerges as a reason-­giving, belief-­desire state.

VI 6

6/40b31–41a1 Since sci­en­tific knowledge is supposition about universals, that is, things that are by necessity, and since there are starting-­points of what can be demonstrated, and so of all sciences (since sci­en­tific knowledge involves reason), about the starting-­point of what is sci­ en­tifically known there can be neither sci­en­tific knowledge, nor craft knowledge, nor practical wisdom; for what is sci­en­tifically known is demonstrable, and the other two deal with what admits of being otherwise.

The major prob­lem presented by starting-­points is epistemological. We cannot acquire knowledge of them by demonstrating them from some­thing yet more primitive, since a starting-­point is “an immediate prem­ise, and an immediate prem­ise is one to which no other is prior” (APo. I 2 72a7–8). Yet “if we are to have sci­en­tific knowledge through demonstration. . . , we must know the starting­points better and be better convinced of them than of what is being proved” (APo. I 2 72a37–39; 3/39b34–35). Hence there must be a kind of sci­en­tific knowledge of them that is not based on demonstration from some­thing else: We say that not all sci­en­tific knowledge is demonstrable; on the contrary, of the immediate prem­ises, it is indemonstrable. Indeed, that this is necessarily so is evident. For if it is necessary that we know the prior things—that is, the ones from which the demonstration proceeds—and if the regress ends with the immediate prem­ises, these must be indemonstrable . . . In addition, we say that there ­isn’t only sci­en­tific knowledge [of immediate prem­ises] but a starting-­point of sci­en­tific knowledge [of them], by which we know the terms (horous) [that are or designate the starting-­points of the relevant science]. (APo. I 3 72b18–25)

Knowledge of starting-­points cannot be unconditional sci­en­ tific knowledge, which must be demonstrable. Nor can it be craft knowledge or practical wisdom, for they deal with what admits of

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being otherwise, whereas the starting-­points of some sciences, as unconditionally demonstrable and necessary, do not at all admit of being otherwise. As 6/40b33 (“all sciences”) and 6/41a4–5 (“or, indeed, can—be otherwise”) signal, this argument is not just about the starting-­ points of the unconditional sort of sci­en­tific knowledge de­fined at  2/39b18–36 but those of all the other sorts as well. Sci­en­tific knowledge is supposition about universals, because the sort of necessity found in the subject matter of all sciences belongs exclusively to universals and the relations between them. This is as true of the practical and productive sciences as of the natural or strictly theoretical ones (NE X 9 1180b13–16). An im­por­tant implication of the parenthetical clause about states involving reason is that any  such state, including practical wisdom and craft knowledge (4/40a3–5), must have starting-­points and demonstrations from them, although this need not be all there is to them.

6/41a1–3 Neither, then, is there theoretical wisdom regarding them [starting-­ points]; for it is characteristic of the theoretically wise man to have a demonstration of certain things.

For parallel reasons, theoretical wisdom (sophia) cannot be what grasps starting-­points and nothing else, since if that were all it did, someone could have it without being able to demonstrate anything. But, as Ar­is­totle will soon show, a theoretically wise man must be able to demonstrate some things (7/41a16–18).

6/41a3–8 If, then, [the states] by which we grasp the truth and are never in error about what cannot—or, indeed, can—be otherwise are sci­en­tific knowledge, practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, and un­der­stand­ ing, and it cannot be any of the three of these (by the three I mean practical wisdom, sci­en­tific knowledge, and theoretical wisdom), the remaining alternative is for un­der­stand­ing (nous) to be of starting-­ points.



Commentary

In the broad sense, someone with nous is someone with sound common sense and the cognate verb noein, like dianoeisthai, simply means “to think” (Mete. I 3 340b14, Ph. IV 1 208b25, NE III 1 1110a11, 3 1112a21, 7 1115b9, IX 8 1168b35, EE II 6 1222b31). In the narrow sense, which is the one relevant here and in NE VI generally, nous is what makes possible a type of knowledge of universal sci­en­tific starting-­points that, unlike sci­en­tific knowledge, is not derived from or jus­ti­fied by anything further. This nous is a divine substance (NE I 6 1096a24–25, X 7 1177b19–1178a8)—or anyway the most divine one in us (NE X 7 1177a16)—and among sublunary animals is fully possessed only by human beings (PA II 10 656a7–8, NE X 8 1178b24–25). No Eng­lish term is a precise equivalent for this narrow sense of nous or noein. “Intellect,” which is in many ways the best choice, lacks a cognate verb. “Un­ der­stand­ing” is better in this respect but shares with “intellect,” “intelligence,” “intuitive reason,” “apprehension,” and other common translations the defect of not being—as nous clearly is—factive or truth entailing. What is true and cannot be false when we understand a form or essence F is that F exists (Met. IX 10 1051b35). But this holds only when F’s being understood guarantees F’s existence, and this holds, in turn, only in the case in which F is a form or essence that involves no sublunary matter (3/39b31–34). For it is only then that F, as identical to the un­der­stand­ing of it, is an activity or ac­tuality: “with regard to those items that are just what it is for some­thing to  be and ac­tualities, it is not possible to err but either to actively understand or not” (Met. IX 10 1051b30–32). In the case of forms involving no sublunary matter, un­der­stand­ing’s control of truth is absolute, since in their case “what understands and what is understood are the same” (DA III 4 430a3–4). If F does involve sublunary matter, un­der­stand­ing’s control slackens, since what it grasps in grasping that F exists holds for the most part (APo. I 30 87b22–25). What controls deliberately chosen action, and so practical truth, is a va­ri­ety of un­der­stand­ing Ar­is­totle calls practical un­der­ standing: Un­der­stand­ing and desire . . . can both produce movement with respect to place—un­der­stand­ing, however, that is of the practical sort, which calculates for the sake of some­thing, and differs from the the-

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Commentary oretical sort in respect of the end. Ev­ery desire, too, is for the sake of some­thing—indeed, the thing desired is the starting-­point of practical un­der­stand­ing, and the last thing [reached by calculation] is the starting-­point of the action. Hence it is reasonable to regard these two things—desire and practical thought—as producing movement. For the desired thing moves us, and practical thought moves us in that its starting-­point is the desired thing . . . As things stand, then, un­der­stand­ing evidently does not move anything without desire— for wish is a desire, and when movement is in accord with calculation, it is in accord with wish . . . Hence what moves us is in ev­ery case the desired object, which is either the good or the apparent good—not ev­ery va­ri­ety of it, however, but the good doable in action, and what is doable in action is what admits of being otherwise. (DA III 10 433a13–30)

Although practical un­der­stand­ing does have this special sort of control, it is not some new part of the soul distinct from theoretical un­der­stand­ing. Instead—as the passage to some extent suggests— it is more like a combination of theoretical un­der­stand­ing and wish. Ar­is­totle is sometimes insistent that theoretical un­der­stand­ing “never thinks about (noein) what is doable in action and says nothing about what is to be avoided or pursued” (DA III 9 432b27–29; 12/43b19–20). That is to say, it never thinks about practical matters as such, or qua practical. Nonetheless, this does not prevent what it does think about from being coincidentally relevant to action, pursuit, and avoidance in precisely the way that sci­en­tific knowledge of other sorts can be: Even when it [theoretical un­der­stand­ing] does think of some­thing of the kind [that is, some­thing practical], it does not straightaway command avoidance or pursuit; for example, it often thinks of some­ thing fearful or pleasant, but does not command fear . . . Besides, even when un­der­stand­ing does issue a command and tells us to avoid or pursue some­thing, we are sometimes not moved but act in accord with our appetite, like the incontinent person. (DA III 9 432b29– 433a3)

There is thus an im­por­tant sense in which theoretical un­der­stand­ ing grasps even practical truth. But the theoretical un­der­stand­ing,



Commentary

whose objects are the starting-­points of the strictly theoretical sciences, and whose virtue or excellence is theoretical wisdom, does not have even this sort of coincidental practical relevance. Nonetheless, it does have practical relevance of a yet more im­por­tant sort. For while it does not “have theoretical knowledge of any of the things from which a human being will come to be happy (since it is not concerned with anything coming-­to-­be)” (12/43b19–20), it is itself what the highest sort of happiness consists in (12/44a3–4). It is practical, in other words, not by being deliberative but by being the end at which correct deliberation aims (2/39a35–b3).

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7/41a9–17 Wisdom in crafts we ascribe to the most rigorous (akribestatois) prac­ti­tioners of a craft (for example, calling Pheidias, a wise sculptor in stone and Polycleitus a wise sculptor in bronze), here sig­nifying nothing else by wisdom, indeed, than that it is the virtue of a craft. There are, however, some people we think are wise about things as a whole (holôs), not wise in some area or in some other particular way, as Ho­mer says in the Magites: Him the gods made neither a digger nor a ploughman nor wise in any other particular way. So it is clear that theoretical wisdom must be the most rigorous of the sciences.

Pheidias oversaw the construction of the Parthenon, creating its most im­por­tant religious images, supervising and probably designing its sculptural decoration. Polycleitus, who was admired by Soc­ ra­tes for his wisdom (Xenophon, Memorabilia I iv 3), advocated a system of proportion in which ev­ery part of the body was related mathematically to ev­ery other. In commending these sculptors for their akribeia, Ar­is­totle probably has in mind both the representational accuracy of their works and the aesthetic principles—definitive of classicism—that underlay them: order, proportion, clarity of line. The Magites is a lost burlesque—at­trib­uted to Ho­mer—​recounting  the deeds of a ridiculous hero, that Ar­is­totle regards as having  prefig­ured comic drama in certain respects (Po. 4 1448b28– 1149a2). The argument it is cited to support is parallel to the one at 5/40a25–31 concerning practical wisdom, but more compressed. The thought seems to be this. Rigor in a craft pertaining to a particular area is the wisdom that, because it just is the virtue of the craft in question, also pertains to this area; so a wisdom pertaining to things as a whole (un­der­stand­ing holôs in the same way as at 5/40a28, 30) must be the virtue or excellence of a body of knowledge pertaining to things as a whole. Hence ev­ery­one supposes 172



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that the wise man has sci­en­tific knowledge “of all things (panta),” not because he has it of each particular one (Met. I 2 982a8–10) but because “wisdom deals with the primary causes and starting-­ points” of all of them (Met. I 1 981b27–29). The notion of akribeia (adjective: akribês; superlative: akribestatos) employed here seems to be loose and popular rather than technical, but the conclusions Ar­is­totle uses it to support seem to ­presuppose his own somewhat technical account of it. The easy transference of the term akribês from prac­ti­tioners to the crafts or sciences they practice (7/41a16–17) suggests that the most akribês prac­ti­tioners of a craft are those who practice the most akribês version of it and so produce the most akribês products (NE I 3 1094b12–14). Of the various factors determining a craft’s or science’s degree of akribeia, we may focus on just one: One science is more akribês than another, and prior to it if it both is of the facts and gives their explanation, and not of the facts separately from giving the sci­en­tific knowledge of their explanation. (APo. I 27 87a31–33)

Differences between sci­en­tific knowledge of a fact and that of its explanation are divided into two classes: [1a] those that occur within a single science; [1b] those that occur between two different sciences. [1a], in turn, is divided into [1a*] cases in which “the syllogism does not proceed through immediates (that is, where the primitive explanation is not employed, but sci­en­tific knowledge of the explanation is one in accord with the primitive explanation),” and [1a**] cases in which “the syllogism does proceed through immediates, although not through the explanation but through the more familiar of the converting terms” (APo. I 13 78a22–79a16). A purported “demonstration that the planets are near through their not twinkling” (APo. I 13 78a30), for example, belongs to [1a*]. For while it is a fact that the planets do not twinkle and a fact (established by perception or induction) that what does not twinkle is near, a syllogism from them showing that the planets are near “is of the fact but does not give its explanation; for it is not because the planets do not twinkle that they are near—rather because they are near they do not twinkle” (APo. I 13 78a36–38). A second example—which deduces that the moon is spherical from the fact

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that whatever waxes in a certain way is spherical, and the moon so waxes—belongs to [1a**]. Here the syllogism is supposedly from immediates, since “if the middle term is reversed, the syllogism does give the explanation” (APo. I 13 78b7–8). Instead of using the correct middle term “waxes,” however, it uses the more familiar “spherical,” thus preventing the syllogism from giving the explanation: “for it is not because of its waxing that the moon is spherical—rather because it is spherical it waxes in this way” (APo. I 13 78b8–10). The version of astronomy which demonstrates that the moon waxes from its being spherical is thus more akribês than the one that deduces its sphericity from the fact that it waxes. As examples of [1b], Ar­is­totle cites cases in which a science that is of the facts, falls under another science that gives their explanation: The explanation differs from the fact in another fashion, when each is considered by means of a different science. These are sciences that are related to one another in such a way that the one is under the other, as, for example, optics is under geometry, mechanics under solid geometry, harmonics under arithmetic, and star-­gazing under astronomy . . . For here it is for the scientists who deal with perceptibles to know the facts and for the mathematical scientists to know the explanations. For the latter possess demonstrations that give the explanations, and often they do not know the facts, just as people who have theoretical knowledge of universals often do not know some of the particulars through lack of observation. (APo. I 13 78b34–79a6)

In some cases the less akribês science need not fall under the more akribês one. Thus medicine does not fall under geometry, yet it is characteristic of medicine to know the fact that curved wounds heal more slowly, and to geometry to explain why this is so (circles have the largest area-­to-­periphery ratio). One reason a science may be more akribês than another is that though the two deal with the same universal essences or forms, they do so in an im­por­tantly different way: “These are [sciences] that, being somewhat different in essence, make use of [the same] forms. For mathematics is concerned with forms, since its objects are not said of any subject, since even if geometrical objects are



Commentary

said of some subject, still it is not insofar as they are said of a subject that they are known” (APo. I 13 79a6–10). Thus optics, for example, provides knowledge of lines (of sight) insofar as these are visible—that is, insofar as they are said of some perceptible sublunary matter that serves as their underlying subject. Geometry, on the other hand, because it deals with lines and points in abstraction from matter, can achieve far greater akribeia: “There will be dif­fi­culties in natural science that are not present in mathematics, for mathematical objects are spoken of in abstraction [from matter], physical ones, with an additional posit” (Cael. III 1 299a13– 17). That is why “mathematically akribês arguments are not to be demanded in all cases, but only in the case of things that have no matter” (Met. II 3 995a14–16). The upshot of the account of akribeia is thus twofold. First, the most akribês version or formulation of a science is the most explanatory one—the one consisting of the sort of demonstrations from starting-­points that constitute unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge. That is why the most akribês crafts or sciences are also the most architectonic ones (Met. I 1 981a30–b3). Second, of two sciences, formulated in the most akribês way, one is more akribês than the other if it demonstrates facts that the other deals with but does not demonstrate. Since strictly theoretical sciences, such as theology, astronomy, and mathematics, have essences that involve no sublunary matter as starting-­points, they will be more akribês than any natural science. For a natural science has to posit sublunary matter in addition to such starting-­points. Hence it is among the strictly theoretical sciences that the most akribês one will be found; and it will be the one that explains what the others treat as a fact or undemonstrated posit. The association of akribeia with demonstration from starting-­ points makes “rigor” seem the best translation of it, and in NE VI  probably is the best. Its association with abstraction (mathematics), on the other hand, and with what we think of as pure (solid geometry) as opposed to applied sciences (mechanics), makes “exactness” or “precision” seem the better choice, as perhaps does the suggestion that the akribeia of a science or type of argument depends on its subject matter (NE I 3 1094b24). As applied to craftsmen and their products, akribês ­comes closest to meaning “re­finement” or “fin­ish” or “sophisti­cation.” Applied

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to  senses, such as seeing or smelling (DA II 9 421a10), it means “discriminating.” Applied to virtue and nature, it may have more to do with accuracy—hitting a target (NE II 5 1106b14–15)—as it may when applied to defi­ni­tions (NE VIII 7 1159a3) or distinctions (NE II 7 1107b15–16) or units of mea­surement (Met. X 1  1053a1). According to Top. II 4 111a8–9, saphês (“illuminating”) and akribês are equivalent in meaning: “it is well to replace a  word with a better-­known equivalent, for example, instead of  akribês in describing a supposition, saphês.” Since some­thing is ­illuminating when it is explanatory (1/38b26), the notion of ­akribeia is in this way, too, related to explanatoriness,  and so—in ­Ar­is­totle’s mind at least—to demonstration from starting-­ points. Theoretical wisdom cannot be a craft, because a craft is not the virtue of anything. It cannot be a branch of practical wisdom, for reasons Ar­is­totle will go on to give (7/41a20–b2). By elimination, this time on the list given at 6/41a6–7, it must be a science, and— by parity of reasoning with what is said about rigor in the crafts— the most rigorous of them.

7/41a17–20 Therefore, a theoretically wise man must not only know what follows from the starting-­points, but also must grasp the truth about the starting-­points. So theoretical wisdom must be un­der­stand­ing plus sci­en­tific knowledge; sci­en­tific knowledge, having a head, as it were, of the most estimable things.

Provided rigor is understood in Ar­is­totle’s somewhat technical way, the fact that theoretical wisdom is the most rigorous science entails that it involves a grasp of starting-­points and so must involve the un­der­stand­ing needed to grasp them. It might be characterized as having un­der­stand­ing as its “head (kephalê)” for a number of different though not incompatible reasons: un­der­stand­ing is of starting-­points, which themselves stand at the head of a science, containing its theorems in embryo, like the summary statement or headline that puts “a head on the body of a speech” (Rh. III 14 1415b8–9, NE II 7 1107b14); un­der­stand­ing, which deals with the first and so most universal starting-­points and the ones furthest from experience (APo. I 2 72a4–5), caps off or completes sci­en­tific



Commentary

knowledge in the way a coping-­stone (a secondary meaning of kephalê) does. Since Ar­is­totle has said nothing to justify the claim that theoretical wisdom is sci­en­tific knowledge of the most estimable things, his intention is probably to introduce it as some­thing awaiting proof: when it is restated seventeen lines later, it is as some­thing clear from “what has been said,” apparently in those lines (7/41b2–3). To say that some­thing is estimable (timios) is to ascribe a distinct sort of goodness or value to it: “By what is estimable I mean such things as what is divine, what is superior (beltion) (for example, soul, un­der­stand­ing), what is more time-­honored (archaioteron), what is a starting-­point, and so on” (MM I 2 1183b21–23). Thus happiness is “some­thing estimable and complete . . . since it is a starting-­point . . . and the starting-­point and the cause of goods is some­thing we take to be estimable and divine” (NE I 12 1102a2– 4). The core sense of timios is perhaps best captured in the remark that ordinary people “commonly say of those they find especially estimable and especially love that they ‘come first’” (Cat. 12 14b5– 7). Some­thing is thus objectively timios when—like starting-­points and causes—it “­comes first by nature” (Cat. 12 14b3–5). Since sciences inherit their level of esteem from the kinds of beings they deal with (Met. XI 7 1064b3–6), the “most estimable science must deal with the most estimable genus of beings” (Met. VI 1 1026a21– 22). For parallel reasons, “expenditures for the gods—votive of­ ferings, ritual paraphernalia, and sac­ri­fices, and so on for ev­ery­ thing having to do with the divine” are particularly timios (NE IV 2 1122b19–21). Fi­nally, because the most rigorous science provides  sci­en­tific knowledge of ultimate starting-­points and causes, the most timios science is also the most rigorous one (Met. I 2 982a25–27).

7/41a20–22 For it would be a strange thing to think—if anyone does—that po­lit­ i­cal science or practical wisdom is the best [science] (spoudaiotatên), if the best thing (ariston) in the universe is not a human being.

To fit with 7/41a19, spoudaiotatên and ariston must both be equivalent in meaning to timiôtaton (“most estimable”). Because a sci-

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ence’s level of esteem depends on the sorts of beings with which it deals (Met. VI 1 1026a21–22), neither practical wisdom nor po­lit­i­ cal science, which deal with human affairs, could be the most estimable science, unless humans were the most estimable beings—as Ar­is­totle will soon argue that they are not (7/41a33–b2). Po­lit­i­cal science does seem to be the science that has the most control (NE I 2 1094a26–27), however, so that there is at least some jus­tifi­ca­tion for thinking that its level of esteem should be highest. That is probably the reason Ar­is­totle spends time explaining why this ­isn’t so. Practical wisdom ­isn’t a science (5/40b1–2), and neither its control nor that of po­lit­ic­ al science extends to theoretical wisdom, the sci­ en­tific part of the soul, or the gods (13/45a6–11). Practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom are both states of the soul by which it grasps truth by way of assertion and denial. So we can see why, in searching for the distinctive type of correct reason relevant to the virtues of character, Ar­is­totle should want to dis­ tinguish the type of correct reason provided by one from the type provided by the other. Po­lit­i­cal science’s place in the argument is less obvious but will soon become more so. For practical wisdom has a nonsci­en­tific particularist component and a sci­en­tific universalist one (8/41b28–33). This makes it im­por­tant to show that theoretical wisdom, and the type of correct reason it provides, is distinct from each component of practical wisdom.

7/41a22–28 Now if health* or goodness is different for human beings than for fish [for example], but whiteness and straightness are always the same, anyone would say that theoretical wisdom is the same for all but that practical wisdom is different; for the one that has theoretical knowledge (theôroun) of the good of a given class of beings is the one they would call “practically wise,” and it is to him that they would entrust such matters.* That is why even some of the beasts are said to be practically wise, those that are evidently capable of forethought about their life. *Textual Note: At a22, I read εἰ δ’. The alternative is εἰ δὴ: “If, then, health.” At a25–26, I read τὸ γὰρ περὶ ἕκαστα τὸ εὖ θεωροῦν ϕαῖεν ἂν εἶναι ϕρόνιμον, καὶ τούτῳ ἐπιτρέψειαν ἂν αὐτά. The alternative is τὸ γὰρ περὶ αὑτὸ ἕκαστα τὸ εὖ θεωροῦν ϕησὶν εἶναι ϕρόνιμον, καὶ τούτῳ ἐπιτρέψει αὐτά: “For



Commentary

Ar­is­totle freely at­trib­utes practical wisdom to nonhuman animals such as deer, hare, cranes, bees, and ants (HA I 1 488b15, IX 5 611a15–16, 10 614b18, PA II 2 648a5–8, 4 650b18–27, GA III 2 753a10–17, Met. I 1 980b22–25). He acknowledges, too, that theoretical wisdom can be at­trib­uted to them (HA VII 1 588a29). On one occasion, he even speaks of them as possessing un­der­stand­ing (nous) (HA IX 2 610b22). He is quite explicit, however, about how such attributions are to be interpreted: The majority of other animals, indeed, possess traces of the sorts of characteristics having to do with the soul that are more clearly differentiated in the case of human beings. For tameness and wildness, gentleness and roughness, courage and cowardice, fearfulness and boldness, spiritedness and mischievousness are present in many of them together with a semblance, where thought is concerned, of comprehension .  .  . For some of these characteristics differ by the more-­and-­the-­less from the human, as the human does from the majority of animals (for certain characteristics of this sort are present to a greater degree in the human case, certain others to a greater degree in other animals), whereas others differ by analogy: for certain animals possess some other natural capacities that correspond and are akin to craft knowledge, theoretical wisdom, and comprehension. (HA VII 1 588a18–31)

The types of wisdom relevant here are clearly the generic sorts, then, that encompass theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom themselves as well as natural capacities perhaps no more than remotely akin to them. From the uncontroversial fact that the health or goodness of a

the one who sees well each of the things that concern himself is the one they call ‘practically wise’ and it is to him that they entrust such matters.” In the alternative text, “the one that sees well” refers to an agent, who—as the reference to different species at 7/41a22–5 and the attribution of generic practical wisdom to beasts at 7/41a26–7 both suggest—might belong to any one of a number of different species. This makes “the one they would call ‘practically wise’” dif­fi­cult to understand, since we do not entrust the welfare of bees to practically wise bees and they can hardly be credited with doing so, or with calling any bees anything. The translated text avoids this prob­lem. It is human beings who call a skilled apiarist (say) “practically wise about bees” and who entrust the welfare of bees to him.

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human being is different from that of a fish or other sort of animal, Ar­is­totle infers that the generic practical wisdom we might at­trib­ ute to these creatures must be different from the generic sort we at­trib­ute to human beings, since the two deal with different objects. Similarly, whiteness and straightness are the objects not of theoretical wisdom proper but of generic wisdom. For theoretical wisdom proper deals only with the most estimable beings, which are the starting-­points not just of perception (whiteness) or geometry (straightness) but of things as a whole. Nonetheless, since no one thinks whiteness and straightness are different for different species, even generic wisdom must be the same for all of them, since psychological capacities are de­fined and individuated by their objects (DA II 4 415a14–22). In the case of generic practical wisdom, the argument moves from a difference in objects to a difference in psychological characteristics or capacities; in that of generic theoretical wisdom, from sameness of objects to sameness of characteristics or capacities. We call some human beings wise with regard to a class of beings, because they see what is good for it. Similarly, we call some members of the class practically wise, when they are capable of foresight about their own life—that is, about their long-­term good as members of that class. For just as human beings have practical wisdom proper when they are able to deliberate well about what sorts of things further the well-­lived human life as a whole, so animals belonging to other species have generic practical wisdom when they are able do some­thing analogous. Although practical wisdom “concerned with oneself as an individual” is considered practical wisdom par excellence (8/41b29–30), the generic kind Ar­is­totle at­ trib­utes to animals seems to be exhibited as often in concern for the welfare of offspring as in concern for the individual animal itself: bears, for example, are commended for their practical wisdom because when they are being pursued, “they push their cubs in front of them or pick them up and carry them” (HA IX 6 611b32– 35), but also because they eat arum when they first emerge from hibernation, in order to “part and dilate their gut,” which has closed up somewhat from lack of use (HA VIII 17 600b9–12). In this regard, a bear’s generic practical wisdom is no different from practical wisdom proper, since a human being’s self-­concern is concern for himself as a social or po­lit­i­cal animal, whose happiness involves that of family, friends, and fellow citizens (NE I 7 1097b6–



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11). What is good or ben­e­fi­cial “to themselves,” therefore, is what is good or ben­e­fi­cial to them as members of the human species.

7/41a28–33 It is evident, too, that theoretical wisdom cannot be the same as po­ lit­i­cal science. For if they are to call the [science] that deals with what is ben­e­fi­cial to themselves “theoretical wisdom,” there will be many theoretical wisdoms; for there won’t be one dealing with the good of all animals but different ones for each [kind]; for there ­isn’t even one medical science for all beings.

Po­lit­i­cal science deals with the human good (NE I 2 1094b7). Theoretical wisdom deals with “the whole of things” (8/41a13). Hence if po­lit­ic­ al science were theoretical wisdom, it would have to deal with the good of the whole of things, but no science can do this: There are many sciences even of the goods in a single category. For the science of the opportune moment [which is in the category of when or time] in war, for example, is generalship, and that of the opportune moment in disease is medicine. Similarly, of the moderate amount [which is in the category of quantity] of food, there is the science of medicine, and of physical exertion the science of physical training. (NE I 6 1096a31–34)

Thus each animal species has a distinct good condition (a distinct class of things that are good for it), just as it has a distinct healthy one. If theoretical wisdom were the same as po­lit­i­cal science, therefore, it would not be a single science but many different ones, each corresponding to the distinct type of goodness with which it dealt. Since ev­ery­one agrees that theoretical wisdom is “the same for all,” this is a reputable opinion, which a good account—ev­ery­thing else being equal—must preserve. We should infer that theoretical wisdom is not the same as po­lit­ic­ al science.

7/41a33–b3 And if human beings are the best of the other animals, it makes no difference; for there exist other things that are far more divine in nature even than human beings, the most evident ones (phanerôtata),

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Commentary certainly, being those from which the cosmos is composed. From what has been said, then, theoretical wisdom is clearly sci­en­tific knowledge combined with un­der­stand­ing of the things that are by nature most estimable.

Human beings are the best—in the sense of most estimable or most divine—of the sublunary animals, since they alone have full-­blown un­der­stand­ing, which is some­thing divine (6/41a3–8). They are not the best or most divine of animals, unconditionally speaking. For the heavenly bodies are also animals or living things, possessed of divine un­der­stand­ing and wish, and they, as fundamental starting-­ points of motion, whose own motion is immortal and unchangeable, are more estimable than human beings (Cael. II 2 285a29–30, Met. XII 7 1072a26–30, 8 1073a23–b1). These are the beings referred to here as “the ones from which the kosmos is composed”— where the kosmos referred to is not the universe as a whole but the heavens (Met. XI 6 1063a13–17, Cael. I 9 278b9–21). The heavenly bodies are “the most evident” (phanerôtata) of divine beings, because, as clearly visible (phaneros also means “visible”) in the night sky for all to see, they are “the most divine of things evident [to the senses] (phanerôn)” (Ph. II 4 196a33–34). They make it “clear (ou . . . adelon) that if the divine is present anywhere,” it is  in the subject matter of astronomy and theology (Met. VI 1 1026a18–31). It is among these sciences that theoretical wisdom is to be found, but where, exactly? The natural sciences treat the existence of moving or changing material things as a fact or posit, obvious to perception or through induction, that it is no part of their task to demonstrate or explain (Ph. I 2 184b25–185a5). Movement involves the ac­tualization of a potentiality, which can always be possessed without being ac­tualized (Ph. III 1 201a10–11, Met. XII 6 1071b13–14). Hence to explain why there is ac­tual movement, there must be a mover that ac­tualizes the potentiality other things have to move, without itself being in movement. This unmoved mover is God (Met. XII 7 1072b13–30). Thus theoretical wisdom, as the most rigorous science (7/41b16) of the most estimable things, must be theology.



Commentary

7/41b3–8 That is why Anaxagoras and Thales and people of that sort are said to be wise, but not practically wise, when we see them to be ignorant of what bene­fits themselves, and why what they know is said to be extraordinary, wonderful, dif­fic­ ult, and divine, but useless in that it is not human goods they seek.

As Ar­is­totle understood their views, Thales of Meletus (sixth century BC) believed that the earth rests on water, which is the starting­point of all things, that soul produces motion, and is mixed into ev­ery­thing, so that the world is “full of gods” (DA I 2 405a19–21, 5 411a7–8, Met. I 3 983b6–27), and Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (ca. 500–428 BC) believed that what initially existed was an entirely homogeneous stuff out of which the familiar elements (earth, water, fire, air), as well as perceptible objects and properties, were produced by the operations of a divine mind or un­der­stand­ing (Ph. III 4 203a16–b15, Met. I 3 984a11–b22). While what is commonly said about both philosophers is to some extent in keeping with Ar­ is­totle’s own account of them, and so does reveal the existence of two kinds of wisdom, it is only part of the story. For “most people judge by external things; for they have eyes only for these” and so fail to see the profound bearing theory has on practice (NE X 8 1179a13–16). It was Thales’ knowledge of astronomy, for example, that enabled him to predict a bumper crop of olives, so that by cornering the market in olive presses during the off-­season when they were cheap, he could make a fortune by leasing them out when the crop was harvested (Pol. I 11 1259a5–33). Anaxagoras made the yet more im­por­tant discovery that theorizing “about the heavens and the whole order of the universe” constitutes the most blessedly happy life, and so is the most practical thing of all (EE I 4 1215b6–14, 5 1216a10–16). Both Thales and Anaxagoras are thus examples of the different ways in which even the most esoteric of theoretical sciences can—albeit coincidentally—have enormous practical sig­nifi­cance.

7/41b8–14 Practical wisdom, however, is concerned with human affairs and what can be deliberated about; for of a practically wise man we say

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The distinction drawn between [1] deliberating well about what furthers “some spe­cific end (telos ti),” where this is some­thing good, doable in action, and [2] deliberating unconditionally well about what furthers an end that is the best thing doable in action

is one of three such distinctions in NE VI. [3] Good deliberation about a part of what is good and advantageous (sumpheronata), such as health, is distinguished from [4] good deliberation about “the good life as a whole” (5/40a25–28). [5] Good deliberation about “a spe­cific end (pros ti telos)” is distinguished from [6] deliberation that is unconditionally good because it is about “the unconditional end” (9/42b28–31).

The use of telos ti in [1] and pros ti telos in [5] suggests that these two distinctions are coordinate. The claim at 9/42b27–28 that good deliberation pros ti telos is good deliberation “with regard to the ben­e­fi­cial thing [to do] (kata to ôphelimon)” suggests that [5–6] is also coordinate with [3–4], since ôphelimon and sumpheron are near synonyms. Thus all three distinctions seem to come to the same thing, so that the force of [1–2] is most likely this: No one deliberates about what cannot be otherwise or about what does not lead to an end—that is, to some good thing doable in action. The function of the practically wise man “most of all” is to deliberate well—that is, to be the unconditionally good deliberator than whom no one deliberates better. The unconditionally good deliberator, in contrast to the one who merely deliberates well about what furthers some spe­cific good thing, is the one who deliberates well about what furthers happiness, since it is the unconditionally best thing.



Commentary

7/41b14–22 Nor is practical wisdom of universals only; on the contrary, it must also know particulars, for it is practical, and action has to do with particulars. That is why, in other areas, too, some people who lack knowledge—especially those with experience—are more practical than others who have knowledge. For if someone knows that light meats are digestible and healthy but does not know which sorts of meat are light, he will not produce health, but the one who knows that bird meats are healthy* will produce health more. But practical wisdom is practical; so one must possess both [sorts of knowledge]— or this one more.

Universals (kath’ holou) are (wholly) present in many particulars: “what is said universally is by nature such as to belong to many things” (Met. VII 13 1038b11–12). Particulars (kath’ hekasta), by contrast, are severally one and jointly many: “this is just what we mean by a particular: what is numerically one” (Met. III 4 999b34– 1000a1). Matter and form, as a result, seem to belong in neither camp. For form is what particularizes matter, and matter is what, prior to being formed, is not a particular this: “We speak of one kind of being as substance, but this one thing, the one that is not intrinsically a this, we speak of as matter, another, that in virtue of which it is then said to be a this, we speak of as form or shape” (DA II 1 412a6–9). Thus particulars are the countable objects— canonically, primary substances—into which the world is carved up by forms, or the forms themselves that do the carving. Coriscus is a this (tode ti), but so, too, is his form: “Substance is spoken of in two ways, as the ultimate underlying subject, which is no ­longer said of anything else, and as whatever, being a this, is also separate (such as each thing’s shape or form)” (Met. V 8 1017b23–26). Similarly, both Coriscus and his species form are particulars (GA IV 3 767b29–36). Hence in seeing this particular color (tode to chrôma), we coincidentally see the universal color red, of which it is an instance, and in contemplating this particular token A (tode to alpha), we are contemplating an A, the type of letter it is (Met. XIII 10 1087a19–21). The universals that practical wisdom knows—as 8/42a20–23 *Textual Note: An alternative is κοῦϕα καὶ ὑγιεινὰ: “light and healthy.”

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makes clear—are those that can fig­ure in the major or universal prem­ise (“All light meats are healthy”) in a practical or delib­erative syllogism. Similarly, knowing a particular is a matter of knowing those that can fig­ure in its minor or particular prem­ise (“Bird meats are light”) and so in its conclusion (“Bird meats are healthy”). Since such a conclusion might be either a proposition specifying a type of action the deliberating agent can do directly (he can eat this bird meat) or the particular action itself (his eating the bird meat), the ambiguity of to kath’ hekaston matches that of prakton (2/39a35–b3). Experience is a stage in the inductive pro­cess leading from perception of particulars to knowledge of the unanalyzed universals perception itself can discern. Acquisition of such universals and their interrelations allows someone to grasp empirical generalizations readily applicable in particular situations, precisely because the universals they involve are themselves discernible by perception. What experience alone cannot provide is knowledge of fully universal, demonstrative explanations, since these involve analyzed universals, which are typically far away from experience and so are hard to apply directly to it. That is why knowing them may not by itself enable someone to deal effectively with particular cases, and why someone with experience may be “more practical”—that is, better able to deliberate well about what its best to do—than someone who does know them but lacks experience. Someone with experience of the effects of various diets may know that bird meats are healthy, but what he does not know is why they are healthy, since he does not know the relevant explanation: bird meats are healthy because they are particular cases of meats that are light on the stomach, and all such meats are healthy. A sci­en­tific dietician, by contrast, does know this explanation. But if he lacks experience, he may “not know some of the particular cases through lack of observation” (APo. I 13 79a2–6)—for example, he may not know that bird meats are light. Hence he will be less likely to produce health than the experienced person, since it is easier to tell by perception that some­thing is bird meat than that it is light on the stomach. It would be a mistake to conclude from this, however, that knowledge of explanatory universals has no practical sig­nifi­cance:



Commentary

It seems that medical treatment in particular cases is more rigorously worked out when each person gets special supervision, since each then gets more appropriate treatment. The best at providing individual supervision, however, will be the doctor, the physical trainer, or anyone else who has universal knowledge, knowing what applies to all cases or to cases of such-­and-­such a type. For sciences are said to be—and, indeed, are—of what is common [that is, the universal]. All the same, there is nothing to prevent someone without sci­en­tific knowledge from supervising a given individual well, if, on the basis of experience, he has made rigorous observations of what happens in each case—just as in fact some people seem to be their own best doctors though incapable of helping anyone else. Nonetheless, this presumably does not mean if someone at any rate wishes to become skilled in a craft or in some­thing theoretical, that he should not proceed to the universal and come to know it as well as he can; for as we have said, it is this the sciences are concerned with. Presumably, too, then, someone who wishes to make people better, whether they are many or few, by exercising supervision over them, should try to acquire legislative science, if it is through laws that we would become good. For the production of a noble disposition in whomever one is presented with is not a task just anyone can perform, but if, indeed, anyone can do it, it is the one with knowledge, as in the case of medicine and rest, where some sort of supervision and practical wisdom are required. (NE X 9 1180b11–28)

In the case of any practical or productive science, the ideal prac­ti­ tioner will combine sci­en­tific knowledge of the universal with the sort of experience enabling him to apply it effectively in particular cases. In the case of theoretical and natural sciences, things are somewhat different. For here the ideal prac­ti­tioner is the wise theorist, who may have little capacity to apply what he knows. Still, when what he knows needs to be applied, as in the case of Thales’ knowledge of astronomy, experience will again be required. Nonetheless, as experience is more practical than knowledge of uni­ versals (7/41b17), so the knowledge of particulars that is part of practical wisdom is more practical and so is more im­por­tant to its possession than the knowledge of universals that it also comprises.

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7/41b22–23 But here, too, there will be a sort that is architectonic.

Architectonic crafts or sciences and their prac­ti­tioners are the ones who know explanatory, analyzed universals, in contrast with those who—despite having experience-­based knowledge of unanalyzed universals—do not: “In each craft, the architectonic craftsmen are more estimable, know more, and are wiser than the handicraftsmen, because they know the explanations of their products” (Met. I 1 981a30–b1). Because architectonic crafts and sciences are more explanatory than others, they are more estimable and thus more rigorous. Since theoretical wisdom, which is the topic of VI 7, has just been characterized as the most rigorous science dealing with the most estimable things and has been contrasted with practical wisdom in this regard, the point of the sentence might be to acknowledge, in closing, a similarity between the two sorts of wisdom: [1] “Practical wisdom is nonetheless like theoretical wisdom in that it must know explanatory universals, not particulars alone.” But it is dif­fi­cult to see why the word architektonikê would be used to draw the analogy. For though architectonic sciences are all rigorous, not all rigorous ones are architectonic: if they were, theoretical wisdom, not po­lit­ic­ al science, would be the most architectonic one (NE I 1 1094a26–27). Architectonic sciences are prescriptive (epi­ tattein, epitaktikê) (Ph. II 2 194b6), after all, whereas theoretical wisdom is entirely contemplative (NE X 8 1179a22–32). A second possibility is that the phrase “in this case, too” reaches back only to the phrase “in the other areas” at 7/41b17–18. The point of the sentence would then be: [2] “As in other areas, so in the case of practical wisdom, experience is more practical than knowledge of universals; nonetheless, practical wisdom still involves a sort of knowledge that is of universals, so that it also has an architectonic side.” Architektonikê is used, we would then be free to suppose, not to look back to theoretical wisdom, as [1] requires but forward to the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of practical wisdom as the same state of the soul as the most architectonic science of all—po­ lit­ic­ al science (8/41b23–24).

VI 8

8/41b23–28 Po­lit­i­cal science and practical wisdom are the same state, but their being is not the same. Of the practical wisdom concerned with the city, the architectonic part is legislative science, while the part concerned with particulars has the name common to both—“po­lit­i­cal science”; this part is practical and deliberative, for a decree is doable in action, as the last thing.

When some­thing considered in one way sat­is­fies one account or defi­ni­tion and a different one when considered in another way, Ar­ is­totle says that the object considered in the first way differs in being from the same object considered in the second way (Top. V 4 133b4, Ph. III 3 202a20–b22, DA II 12 424a25, Mem. 1 450a21–22, Juv. 1 465b25–27, Met. XII 10 1075b5). Thus virtue of character is the same state of the soul as general justice, but “their being (einai) is not the same; instead, that which in relation to another is general justice is, as a certain kind of unconditional state, virtue” (NE V 1 1130a10–13). Similarly, that which in relation to the happiness of the individual who possesses it is practical wisdom is the very same state of the soul that, in relation to the happiness of a whole city, is po­lit­i­cal science (NE I 2 1094b7–11). Unlike a universal law, a decree (psêphisma) is so adapted to particular circumstances as to render any further deliberation unnecessary: Not ev­ery­thing is regulated by [universal] law (nomos), for there are some things about which a law cannot be established, so that decrees are needed instead. For the standard applying to what is indefi­nite is itself indefi­nite, like the lead ruler used in Lesbian building: the ruler adapts itself to the shape of the stone and does not stay fixed, and the decree to ac­tual circumstances. (NE V 10 1137b28–32).6 6. Psephismata issued by the Athenian Assembly and Council are analyzed and discussed in P. J. ­Rhodes, The Athenian Boule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 52–87.



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In an individual human being, it is this that makes a decree a last thing, and so some­thing practical or doable in action: The thing desired is the starting-­point of practical un­der­stand­ing, and the last thing (eschaton) is the starting-­point of the action. Hence it is reasonable to regard these two things—desire and practical thought—as producing movement. For the desired thing moves us, and [practical] thought moves us in that its starting-­point is the desired thing . . . As things stand, then, un­der­stand­ing evidently does not move anything without desire—for wish is a desire, and when movement is in accord with calculation, it is in accord with wish . . . Hence what moves us is in ev­ery case the desired object, which is ­either the good or the apparent good—not ev­ery va­ri­ety of it, however, but the good doable in action (to prakton agathon), and what is  doable in action is what admits of being otherwise. (DA III 10 433a13–30)

Thus practical thought, calculation, or deliberation begins with an end (telos) that an agent desires or wishes for, and concludes with a spec­i­fi­ca­tion of what he can do to bring that end about. In his case, this conclusion, though not technically a psêphisma, because not some­thing stemming from the legislative body of a city, is nonetheless the personal analogue of one—a prescription so adapted to circumstances that it can be acted on directly. For a human agent is structurally analogous to a city: “Just as a city and ev­ery other system seems to be most of all the element with most control, the same is true of a human being” (NE IX 8 1168b31–32). Thus a human being is a natural thing iden­ti­fied above all with its un­der­ stand­ing (NE X 7 1178a2–3), a city is a natural one (Pol. I 2 1252b30, 1253a1) iden­ti­fied with its governing body (Pol. III 6 1278b8–11).

8/41b28–33 That is why only these people are said to take part in politics, for only they do things just like handicraftsmen. It is thought, too, that the practical wisdom concerned with oneself as an individual is most of all practical wisdom, and it is this that has the name common [to all the sorts]; of the other sorts, one is household management, an-



Commentary

other legislative science, another po­lit­i­cal science, and, of the latter, one part is deliberative and the other judicial.

Ar­is­totle’s handicraftsmen are often those who blindly or robotically carry out the instructions of their craft’s architectonic prac­ti­ tioners (Met. I 1 981a30–b3). The handicraftsmen and the architectonic prac­ti­tioners as such are thus distinct groups. In the case of po­lit­i­cal science, the governing body—the people “said to take part in politics”—at once understand the constitution, and so are architectonic po­lit­ic­ al scientists and issue decrees based on their un­der­stand­ing of it and of the good it embodies and furthers. Moreover, the governing body need not be—and typically will not be—the body that carries out those decrees. Nonetheless, the governing body is the one that does them, since “it is especially the architectonic craftsmen who, through their thinking, do them in the full sense” (Pol. VII 3 1325b21–23). Of course, if we apply this idea to the crafts, we will get the wrong result, since it is the architectonic craftsmen we will think of as doing things. What we have to do is recognize that the relevant handicraftsmen are the ones who do things not under the instructions of an architectonic craftsman but guided by their own experience. It is they who are said to do the building, make the pots, treat the sick, and so on. But when it come to politics it is the governing body that is said to be primarily responsible for the city’s actions, not the one that simply follows its orders. Popular thought narrows the true scope of practical wisdom, just as it does that of po­lit­i­cal science, obscuring the architectonic or universalist dimension of the latter and the po­lit­i­cal dimension of the former. Once we see that concern with oneself as an individual is concern with oneself as an individual member of a species that is by nature po­lit­i­cal, the scope of practical wisdom widens, so that po­lit­i­cal science be­comes part of it. Besides agent-­focused practical wisdom, then, practical wisdom includes po­lit­i­cal science (comprising legislative science, deliberative science, and judicial science) and household management. Po­lit­i­cal science is the branch of practical wisdom concerned with the city and its good. Legislative science (nomothetikê) is an architectonic subbranch of it. Apart from drafting universal prescriptive laws to further the happiness of citizens by inculcating the

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virtues in them and directing their actions (NE X 9 1180b23–28), it is also concerned with constitutional questions more broadly (Pol. IV 1 1288b21–1289a15). Hence a po­lit­i­cal scientist must know, for example, when a particular city would most bene­fit from having an oligarchic constitution and must be able to establish and preserve such a constitution (even if it is not the unconditionally best one) by enacting laws that preserve it and further its ends. Since not ev­ery­thing can be rigorously de­fined, even maximally rigorous laws cannot obviate the need for deliberation altogether (Pol. III 16 1287b22–23, Rh. I 13 1374a18–b23). Besides an architectonic legislative component po­lit­i­cal science thus also needs a deliberative one, which, among other things, issues decrees. Household management or oikonomia is the science dealing with the oikos or household—spe­cifi­cally with the use of household  property—and other aspects of household life. It has three (sometimes four) subbranches: the science of mastership (despotikê epistêmê), which deals with the management and acquisition of the slaves Ar­is­totle thinks essential to a household (Pol. I 2 1252a24– b 15); the science of property acquisition and management (chrêmatistikê, ktêtikê), which is sometimes included in mastership (Pol. I 12 1259a37–39); the science of child-­rearing (teknopoiêtikê); and marital science (gamikê) (Pol. I 3 1253b1–14). When Ar­is­totle first introduces the various aspects of the household as a topic for po­lit­i­cal science, he advertises his discussion as having both a practical and a theoretical dimension: it should “see how matters stand in relation to our need for necessities” and “have an eye to those that bear on knowledge (eidenai), to see whether we can acquire some­thing better that the views currently held” (Pol. I 3 1253b15–18). A free person, he says, should have “theoretical knowledge” of all these aspects but should gain experience of them only to meet necessary needs” (Pol. I 11 1258b9– 11). This is an example, plainly, of the sort of architectonic control po­lit­ic­ al science exercises over the other practical sciences, determining who should study them and to what extent (NE I 2 1094b3– 6). But even theoretical knowledge has its limits. Thus having ­divided up wealth acquisition into animal husbandry, farming, beekeeping, and the rearing of fish and fowl, and exchange into trading (comprising ship-­owning, transport generally, and market-



Commentary

ing), on the one hand, and moneylending and wage-­earning, on the other, and having recognized a third kind dealing with “inedible but useful things from the earth or extracted from the earth, such as logging and mining” (Pol. I 11 1258b29–31), Ar­is­totle comments: “We have now spoken about each of them in universal terms, but whereas a rigorous account of each separately might be useful as regards practicing them, it would be vulgar to spend one’s time developing it” (Pol. I 11 1258b33–35). With an eye to the physical health and strength of the city’s children, the legislator in the best city and constitution should “supervise the ­union of the sexes and determine what sorts of people should have marital relations with one another, and when” (Pol. VII 16 1334b31–32), regulating not just the ages at which they marry and the relative ages of parents and children but also when they have sexual intercourse. At the same time, couples themselves “should gain theoretical knowledge of what doctors and natural scientists say about procreation, since doctors have adequately discussed the times that are right as regards the body, and natural scientists have discussed the winds, favoring northerly over southerly ones” (Pol. VII 16 1335a39–b2). This is an example of the role various sciences, including natural or loosely theoretical ones like meteorology, can play in an individual citizen’s deliberation and deliberate choice. Marital science undoubtedly deals with other topics besides those pertaining to reproduction, but Ar­is­totle says little about them. A promised discussion of the supervision of children does not appear in his extant works (Pol. VII 16 1335b2–4). What he does say shows us just how extensive he conceives po­lit­i­cal science’s control ideally to be. Essentially a form of eugenics, marital science ensures that a child is being fitted for life in the particular city of which he will later be a citizen from his very conception. After conception, his mother’s life, too, is controlled for his bene­fit (Pol. VII 16 1335b12–19). After he is born, the science of child-­ rearing takes over as the legislator’s source of knowledge tells him what laws should be passed governing the feeding of infants, the form of exercise appropriate for small children, and so on, habituating them to cold and hardship so as to ready them for later military ser­vice (Pol. VII 17 1336a3–21). Children should not engage

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in formal learning until after the age of five, since this might interfere with their growth by deflecting resources to the wrong place. Adequate exercise should be provided through the sorts of games​ —“neither strenuous nor undisciplined”—suited to the development of free citizens, since, like the stories they are told, such things should “pave the way for their later pursuits,” and “the serious occupations of later life” (Pol. VII 17 1336a23–34). Although educated within the household until they are seven years old, children’s upbringing is overseen even there by the of­fice and of­fi­cers in charge of child supervision (paidonomos) (Pol. IV 15 1300a4–8). The focus of their concern, as in the case of games and stories, is to prepare their young charges for citizenship. Hence they do not allow them to spend their leisure time with the household slaves, since it is “reasonable to expect that they will pick up some taint of servility or unfreedom from what they see and hear even at that early age” (Pol. VII 17 1336a23–34). The picture that emerges of life in Ar­is­totle’s ideal or best city is of one carefully regulated by po­lit­i­cal science—and so by practical wisdom—from conception on. Rather than being chilled by it, we should notice what it implies. First, it shows us the vast resources that in ideal circumstances practical wisdom is being supposed to have at its command. All the various crafts and sciences are there to help it design the constitution, enact the laws, and inform deliberation. Second, it reveals how already predigested by practical wisdom is the social world a citizen inherits: ev­ery­thing in it serves to develop and strengthen his own emerging practical wisdom and virtue and to provide the optimal environment for its exercise, with few occasions of sin. Fi­nally, it shows how intense and focused is the training in virtue provided. Our so-­called virtues, when we have them, are typically jury-­rigged affairs, as much the result of chance in­flu­ences as of design. Aristotelian virtues more closely approximate, both in the training that goes into them and in the level of competence it produces, the skills of a committed pianist, ballet dancer, tennis player, or trained soldier. Our virtues, as a result, are somewhat fragile, often rendered inoperative by small changes in circumstances. Ar­is­totle’s are much more robust. Our social world is filled with occasions of sin and with traps designed to disable our wisdom and common sense and exploit their foibles. Ar­is­ totle’s, just the opposite.



Commentary

8/41b33–34 Now knowledge of what is [good] for oneself will certainly be one type (eidos) of knowledge,* but it admits of much difference (echei diaphoran pollên).

Ar­is­totle agrees with common opinion that knowledge of what is good for oneself is, at any rate, one type or species of peculiarly agent-­focused practical wisdom. Although he ­doesn’t give it a special name, much of the remainder of the discussion seems to bear particularly on it. Just what he is claiming about such wisdom depends on the meaning of echei diaphoran pollên. Diaphora sometimes means [1] “superior.” If that were its meaning here, Ar­is­totle would be claiming that agent-­focused practical wisdom is greatly superior to the various sorts of knowledge—household management, po­lit­i­cal science, and so on—he has just mentioned. He does not use diaphora in this sense elsewhere, however, and is explicit that knowledge of what is good for the city is superior to—“nobler and more divine” than—agent-­focused practical wisdom (NE I 2 1094b7– 11). So [1] may be safely excluded. Diaphora can also mean [2] “different,” so that Ar­is­totle’s point could be that agent-­focused practical wisdom is very different from the other sorts of knowledge he has just mentioned. This reading is possible, but because the most salient respect in which the sciences or states under discussion may differ is their knowledge of particulars (7/41b14–22), it ­isn’t very plausible, since agent-­focused practical wisdom is not very different from deliberative po­lit­i­cal science in this respect. If, as is often true, diaphora means not difference generally but [3] “difference of opinion” or “dispute,” Ar­is­totle’s point would be that while agent-­focused practical wisdom may, indeed, be one type or species of knowledge, there is much difference of opinion about it (compare NE I 3 1094b14–16). Diaphora is also often used to mean [4] “differentiae,” which *Textual Note: I read γνώσεως. An alternative omits it: “Now knowledge  of what is [good] for oneself will certainly be one type [of practical ­wisdom].”

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is what eidos—since it often means “species”—in the first clause might be taken to suggest it means here. If so, Ar­is­totle would be saying that (agent-­focused) practical wisdom admits of “much differentiation,” that is, it has many subspecies or va­ri­e­ties—or, more loosely, many different aspects or facets (compare Pol. IV 15 1299a4–5). While [3] and [4] both have merit, [4] seems to fit the context somewhat better, since what Ar­is­totle goes on to discuss is not so much disputes or disagreements about agent-­focused practical wisdom as different aspects of it.

8/42a1–9 It is thought, certainly, that someone who knows about, and concerns himself with, the things that pertain to himself is practically wise, and that politicians are busybodies. That is why Euripides says “How can I be practically wise, when I could have minded my own business (apragmonôs) and been numbered among the ranks of the army, sharing equally? For those who aim too high and busy themselves too much . . .” For people seek what is good for themselves and think that this is what they should do. From this belief, then, has come the view that such people are the ones with practical wisdom.

To be polupragmôn is to be very much engaged in ev­eryday po­lit­i­ cal life. To be apragmôn is to mind one’s own business, looking after one’s own interests rather than those of the city. When Soc­ra­ tes claims that he has been “a busybody in private” (Plato, Apology 31c), he is purposely contravening common usage to make a philosophical point. It is by forcing people to lead the examined life, through having private conversations with them, that he is involved in politics: “I am one of the few Athenians—not to say the only one—who understands the real po­lit­i­cal craft and practice of politics, the only one among people now” (Plato, Gorgias 521d). Euripides (ca. 480–406 BC) was the last of the great tragic poets of Classical Athens. Of his more than ninety plays, only eigh­teen or nineteen (the authorship of the Rhesus is debated) survive. In a fragment of his Philoctetes, Odysseus contrasts po­lit­i­cally active “busybodies” with practically wise people, who mind their own business:



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How can I be practically wise, when I could have minded my own business and been numbered among the ranks of the army, sharing equally the luck of the most practically wise? . . . After all, nothing is as vainglorious as man; for those who aim too high and busy themselves too much are honored as men of reputation in a city.7

Presuming his audience will be familiar with the passage, Ar­is­totle quotes only the opening lines. People seek and think they should seek what is good for themselves; that is, they are psychological and rational egoists. Hence they identify practical wisdom, which prescribes what should be done to further the good (10/43a8), with agent-­focused practical wisdom, which tells them what they should do to further their own good.

8/42a9–10 And yet, presumably, a person’s own welfare cannot be achieved without household management and a po­lit­ic­ al constitution (politeia).

A politeia is “a way cities or­ga­nize their of­fices, how they are distributed, what element is in control in the constitution, and what the end of the particular community is” (Pol. IV 1 1289a15–18). It is thus “a certain sort of life” of a city (Pol. IV 11 1295a40–b1), a certain or­ga­ni­za­tion of its in­hab­i­tants (Pol. III 1 1274b38) and of­ fices, especially the one “that has control over ev­ery­thing” (Pol. III 6 1278b8–10). It is also the governing body or class that occupies that of­fice and exercises supreme control (Pol. III 6 1278b11). A human being is by nature a household-­dwelling, po­lit­i­cal animal, so that his own happiness involves living in a household that is part of a city governed by a constitution, and depends on the happiness of his family, friends, and fellow citizens (NE I 7 1097b6– 11, Pol. I 2 1252a26–31, 1253a1–4, III 3 1276b1–2). Hence he must acquire both household management and the po­lit­i­cal science needed to design or preserve a constitution, if he is to further his own happiness in a reliable way: 7. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, fr. 787–788.

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Commentary The best thing, then, is for there to be communal supervision of such matters [education and upbringing] that is also correct. But if they are neglected by the community, it would seem appropriate for each individual to help his own children and friends to acquire virtue and to have the capacity to do so8—or, at least, to deliberately choose [to acquire it]. From what has been said, however, it would seem that he will have a greater capacity to do it if he acquires legislative science. For clearly where supervision is communal, it operates though laws, and where it is of the good or decent va­ri­ety, though good ones; whether these are written or unwritten, applying to the education of one or many, seems to make no difference any more than it does in  musical or physical training or other such practices. (NE X 9 1180a29–b3)

Even if we identify practical wisdom as agent-­focused practical wisdom, thereby distinguishing it from household management and the other sciences con­stit­u­ent of po­lit­i­cal science, some or all of these sciences will reappear as con­stit­u­ents of it, too.

8/42a10–11 Moreover (eti de), how (pôs) the things [that pertain to] his own [welfare] are to be managed is unclear and must be examined (skepteon).

Skepteon is consistently used elsewhere in the Nicomachean Ethics to refer to an examination that students of ethics or of philosophy more generally might undertake (13/44b1, I 8 1098b9, II 5 1105b19, V 1 1129a3, VII 3 1146b8). Skeptesthai is reused in this way a few lines later at 8/42a16–17, as well as at I 6 1096b15, II 2 1103b28– 29. This suggests that the sentence is [1] simply a parenthetical reminder of the need for another such examination. As against this, eti or eti de (“moreover”) is typically used not to introduce such a reminder, but, as at 8/42a20, to introduce a further consideration, suggesting that the present sentence is the first in a series of such considerations. At 8/42a11–20, a contrast is set up between sciences, such as 8. Transposing καὶ δρᾶν αὐτὸ δύνασθαι from a30 with most editors.



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mathematics, which deal with abstract objects, whose essences are “not unclear (ouk adêlon)” to young people, and sciences, such as practical wisdom, which deal with particulars and so require an eye shaped by the sort of long experience young people necessarily  lack (11/43b11–14). Because agent-­focused practical wisdom deals with things pertaining to an individual’s own welfare, the ­unclarity present in how such things are to be managed seems to stem from the things in question, which, because they are particulars, are themselves unclear (NE II 2 1104a8–10). It might not be so much students of ethics who must examine how the things pertaining to a person’s own welfare should be managed, then, as [2] the individual agent trying to manage his own affairs. At NE IV 2 1122b9 skeptesthai is used with pôs to de­scribe just such an examination: “The mag­nifi­cent person . . . will examine more [carefully] how (skepsait’ .  .  . pôs) to spend in the noblest and most fitting way than he will the cost or how to do it in the cheapest way.” A third option borrows strengths from both [1] and [2]. The general sense it at­trib­utes to the sentence is this: [3] Moreover, how the things that pertain to someone’s own welfare are to be managed is unclear and (this unclarity) must be examined (by students of ethics). As in [1], skepteon is being used in the standard way, and, as in [2], is being used to introduce a further consideration, making eti de a natural way to introduce it. Because what must be examined is the unclarity and because the ones who must do the examining are students of ethics, [3] also leads naturally to the subsequent discussion (8/42a11–21).

8/42a11–16 A sign of what has been said is that while young people become geometers and mathematicians and wise in such things, they do not seem to become practically wise. The reason is that practical wisdom is concerned also with particulars, knowledge of which ­comes from experience. But a young person is not experienced; for it is quantity of time that produces experience.

What has been said is that agent-­focused practical wisdom is unclear. The fact that young people seem not to possess it but can

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possess mathematical knowledge, is evidence of its unclarity. Mathematics has a subject matter that, because it is abstract, can be made clear to someone even if he is young and so has had little or  no time to gain experience. Agent-­focused practical wisdom, by contrast, must include knowledge of particulars, and these are clear, to the extent they are, only to someone with long experience and a well-­trained eye (11/43b11–14).

8/42a16 (Indeed, we might also examine why it is that a boy can become a mathematician but not a theoretically wise man or a natural scientist. Or ­isn’t it that the objects in the former case are given through abstraction, while the starting-­points in the latter cases come from experience; and so the young lack conviction there but [only] talk the talk, while in the former it is not unclear to them what each of the objects is?)

The point of these parenthetical sentences is to reinforce the explanation of why young people cannot acquire agent-­focused practical wisdom by showing that the same sorts of factors explain why they cannot become wise people or natural scientists. All the sciences, including theoretical wisdom, which is the most rigorous of them, give explanations consisting of demonstrations from starting-­points, which are defi­ni­tions of the essence of some­thing or of what it is (to ti estin). In all of them, including the  mathematical ones, these defi­ni­tions are reached by induction from experience and—ultimately—perception. Un­der­stand­ing these starting-­points is not achieved, however, until dialectic or aporematic philosophy has rendered them clear (dêlon) by resolving all the puzzles surrounding them. The use of ouk adêlon suggests that this is just what young people can possess in mathe­ matics but not in the natural sciences. The claim that they “lack conviction (ou pisteuousin)” in these sciences and can only “talk the talk”—that is, give only verbally correct defi­ni­tions of the essences without really un­der­stand­ing or being able to defend what they are saying—carries the same implication. For a person’s lack of conviction in sci­en­tific starting-­points signals that there may be some­thing he finds “more convincing (pistoteron) . . . among things



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opposed to the starting-­points—things from which a contrary mistaken conclusion may be deduced,” thus precluding him from having sci­en­tific knowledge of them (APo. I 2 72a37–b4). The essences of mathematical objects are not unclear to young people because, unlike those of natural objects and others, they can be presented or taught to them “through abstraction (di’ aphaireseôs)” rather than by induction from experience. Nevertheless, they can be taught by induction, too: It is also evident that if some perception is absent, some sci­en­tific knowledge must also be absent—namely, the sort that it is impossible to get if we learn either by induction or by demonstration, if demonstration proceeds from universals and induction from particulars, and if it is impossible to gain theoretical knowledge of universals except through induction (di’ epagôgês) (since even the things we speak of as being from abstraction (ex ephaireseôs) can be made known though induction—that certain things hold of each kind, insofar as each member of it is such-­and-­such, even if they are not separate [substances but abstract things]), and if it is impossible to carry on an induction without having perception; for particulars are grasped by perception. (APo. I 18 81a38–b6)

This suggests that abstraction is a very constrained sort of in­ duction in which we are instructed to ignore or leave out quite a lot. What we have to grasp is guaranteed to vary little from case to  case, as a result, so that one or two schematic examples is all  we  need to reach the right universal. One sort of aphairesis, ­indeed, is the pro­cess of making a statue by carving away unwanted  material (Ph. I 7 190b7). This explains why some math­ ematical sciences are more easily learned through abstraction than  others. Geometry, for example, is less ex ephaireseôs or— equivalently—more ek prostheseôs than arithmetic. For geometry  begins from the defi­ni­tion of a point as “a substance with ­position,” whereas arithmetic leaves out or carves away the notion of position, taking as its starting-­point the defi­ni­tion of a unit as a substance without position. As compared to arithmetic, geometry thus proceeds “from an additional posit (ek prostheseôs),” namely, that of position (APo. I 27 87a31–37). The more we can ignore in learning a starting-­point, the less experience we need to learn it.

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8/42a20–23 Moreover, the error may be about the universal in deliberation or about the particular; either [in supposing] that all heavy types of water are bad or that this particular one is heavy.

Because particulars are under the control of perception and require an experienced eye, inexperienced young people are prone to making errors about them. But agent-­focused practical wisdom is above all a deliberative state or capacity. Hence it must be able to construct good deliberative syllogisms and so know both their universal prem­ises (“all heavy types of water are bad”) and their particular ones (“this particular water is heavy”). Since knowledge of their universal prem­ises is (often) provided by sci­en­tific knowledge, the fact that it, too, requires experience constitutes yet another reason why the subject matter of practical wisdom is unclear and why practical wisdom itself is impossible for young people to acquire.

8/42a23–25 But that practical wisdom is not sci­en­tific knowledge is evident. For it concerns the last thing, as we said, since what is doable in action (to prakton) is such.

Although practical wisdom must know the universal prem­ises of deliberative syllogisms and so must be able to draw on any ap­ plicable sci­en­tific knowledge, it is not itself sci­en­tific knowledge. For such knowledge is restricted to universals and universal prem­ ises, whereas practical wisdom, while it must also know universals, is more concerned with particulars and particular prem­ises (6/41b14–22).

8/42a25–26 It is opposed (antikeitai), then, to un­der­stand­ing; for un­der­stand­ing is of the terms (tôn horôn) for which there is no reason (logos),

Un­der­stand­ing is concerned with the starting-­points of a science, which are terms or defi­ni­tions—a horos can be either (1/38b23–



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35)—for which no reason or demonstration can be given within the science (6/41a3–8). The opposition between un­der­stand­ing and practical wisdom stems from this difference, since “what is most universal is furthest away [from perception], what is particular nearest, and these are opposed (antikeitai) to one another” (APo. I 2 72a4–5).

8/42a26–27 Practical wisdom concerns the last thing, of which there is not sci­en­ tific knowledge but rather perception

Ar­is­totle’s account of perception—as, indeed, of thought and un­ der­stand­ing—is dominated by the idea of the transmission of form through imprinting: “We should take it as a general truth about all perception that a sense is what can receive perceptible forms without their matter, just as wax receives the imprint of the ring without the iron or gold” (DA II 12 424a17–20). Since sight is “perception par excellence” (DA III 3 429a2–3), and serves as a model for the account of un­der­stand­ing, which is “the visual perception of intelligible things” (Protr. B24), it is useful to focus on it. Like any psychological faculty or potentiality, sight must be explained in terms of its characteristic activity (seeing), and so of the proper perceptible object (color) that alone ac­tualizes or activates it (DA II 4 415a14–22). Potentialities are explained by what ac­ tualizes them, effects by their causes (Met. IV 5 1010b35–1011a2). What is directly affected by color is the eye, the organ or instrument of sight, whose form (essence, function) is seeing and whose matter is transparent eye-­jelly (korê) (DA II 1 412b18–413a3), because having “the potentiality to change what is ac­tually transparent is just what it is to be a color” (DA II 7 419a9–11, also 418a31). In transparent eye-­jelly, this change consists in taking on the visible form of the color without its matter, as wax receives “the imprint of the ring without the iron or gold.” The reason eye-­jelly must be transparent, indeed, is that it must be able to take on such patterns in order for the eye to discern colors. Since colors are ratios of white to black (Sens. 3 439b19–30), if eye-­jelly is to take on a color, it must be able to take on the corresponding pattern and so must be in a mean or medial state between white and black, and this is

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just the condition ensured by its transparency (DA II 11 424a4–10; also III 2 426a27–b7). The form the eye-­jelly takes on in any sort of perception is a universal, but what is perceived is the particular that has the form: “coincidentally sight sees the universal color, because this particular color which it sees is a color” (Met. XII 10 1087a19–21). Thus, in contrast with sci­en­tific knowledge, which is knowledge of universals, perception is the capacity of the soul that, by discerning and controlling access to particulars, gives us cognitive access to universals we reach by induction from them (APo. I 18 81a38–b6, NE II 9 1109b22–23, III 3 1112b34–1113a2, IV 5 1126b3–4, VII 3 1147a25–26). Since practical wisdom, though concerned with universals, is more concerned with the last thing (reached in delib­ eration), which is a particular and so an object of perception, it ­itself is more a type of perception than a type of sci­en­tific knowledge.

8/42a27–29 —not the [perception] of special objects, but like the sort by which we perceive that the last thing among mathematical objects is a triangle; for there, too, will come a stopping-­point (stêsetai).

Though not a starting-­point of deliberately chosen action (2/39a18– 19), perception is a starting-­point of action, in the broader sense of intentional animal movement or behavior. In this regard, a species of it that we may call practical perception is particularly im­por­ tant. This is the sort involved when the perceived object is “pleasant or painful,” so that the soul of the perceiver “as if asserting or denying, pursues or avoids” (DA III 7 431a8–10). In fact, to feel plea­sure or pain is to be “active with regard to the perceptual mean in relation to what is good or bad, as such” (DA III 7 431a10–11). When we perceive a proper perceptible, as when we understand a form or essence, we af­firm its existence, as opposed to predicating  some­thing of it, as we do in assertion or denial (Met. IX 10 1051b24–25). When what we perceive is pleasant or painful, we pursue or avoid it, as if asserting some­thing or denying it; for “what assertion and denial are in the case of thought—that, in



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the  case of desire, is precisely what pursuit and avoidance are” (2/39a21–22). The perceptual mean is the element in a sense that functions like a lab­o­ra­tory balance or weighing scale, enabling it to detect differences in the range of proper perceptibles that ac­tualize it by tilting it, as it were, one way or another (DA II 11 424a4–10). Depending on the makeup of these perceptibles, the ac­tualization of the sense is either pleasant or painful (DA III 2 426a27–b7, Sens. 4 442a16– 17, 5 443b11–444a3). The perception of a proper perceptible is pleasant, then, provided it is within the limits determined by—or consonant with—the mean-­de­fin­ing, structural ratio of the sense (and is painful otherwise). More precisely, since a sense functions better within some areas of its range of operation than others, so that we see better in brighter light than in dimmer, perception is pleasant in the optimal range—the area of maximal consonance (NE X 4 1174b14–19). Hence the feature of a perceptible that makes its ac­tualization of a sense pleasant is that it is maximally consonant with the ratio that de­fines or is the sense. Plea­sure “accompanies ev­ery object of choice” (NE II 3 1104b30–35) and so is woven into ev­ery good, as pain into ev­ery bad. Hence the same sort of account can be extended from the practical perception of plea­sure and pain to that of all (perceptible) objects of value. The reason it can is that “appearances (phantasmata) are like sense-­perceptions (aisthêmata)” to the un­der­stand­ ing, so that “the part that understands, understands the forms in the appearances” and by means of these “calculates and deliberates about future things on the basis of present ones,” and when it says good or bad, “it pursues or avoids—and so in cases of action9 generally” (DA III 7 431b2–10). Initially, perceptibles control practical perception, and—in the shape of appearances and intelligible objects—thought and un­der­ stand­ing. But later on, the way things appear to us is a product not of perception alone but of the various factors that—shaped by habituation and socialization—make up our character: Someone may say that ev­ery­one aims at the apparent good, but is not in control of the appearance in question, that, on the contrary, 9. Reading ἐν πράξει with the mss.

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Commentary his character controls how the end appears to him. Well, if [as is the case] each person is in some way responsible for his own state [of character], he will also in some way be responsible for the appearance in question. (NE III 5 1114a31–b3)

In people with a virtuous character, these factors work together in such harmony that their separate contributions are all but invisible. In pathological cases, such as continence, the various factors come apart. Bird meat ­isn’t salty enough or fatty enough to be consonant with the ratio definitive of X’s sense of taste, since that ratio has been skewed by inadequate habituation to be consonant only with things too salty or fatty to be healthy. To X bird meat will thus appear displeasing. Yet when he has discovered as a result of deliberation that bird meat is what will best further his happiness, the bird meat will be consonant with the mean definitive of his wish. For wish is a desire susceptible to deliberation’s out­comes— that is, to things presented, as they are in the decree expressed by the minor prem­ise of a practical syllogism or demonstration, under the guise or appearance of happiness or the unconditional good. How will the bird meat seem to X’s un­der­stand­ing? How will it seem or be represented in the desire (orexis)—the resultant of appetite and wish (Met. XII 7 1072a27–28)—that fi­nally causes X’s action? Not as appetite presents it, not as wish presents it, but as a resultant of the two. Since X is continent, it will seem more pleasing than displeasing, but it will not—as in the case of the virtuous—seem simply pleasing. It is because it seems mixed in this way to un­der­stand­ing, indeed, that continent people take less plea­sure in doing virtuous acts than virtuous people do. It is also why we often detect in their action some­thing akin to ambivalence or hesitation. The greater strength of the continent person’s wish ­isn’t simply a matter of greater oomph or muscle. We desire some­thing because it seems pleasant or good, not the other way around (Met. XII 7 1072a29). Hence just how much we desire it—how strong our desire is—is itself to be explained by how pleasant or good the thing seems. That is why Ar­is­totle can so readily speak of vice as producing “distortion (diastrêphei) and false views about the starting-­ points of action” (12/44a34–36; 5/40b13–16). Vice ­doesn’t so much push the true views or better desires out of the way, as a stron­ger



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person might elbow aside a weaker one; it distorts how the starting­point of action—the end it aims at—appears to us, much as “distorting (diastrepsanta)” the shape of the eyeball makes one thing look like two (EE VIII 1 1246a28–29). What we must do to our feelings to establish a mean in them is correct their distortions, as we do when we correct the distortions (diestrammena) in pieces of wood in order to straighten them out (NE II 9 1109b1–7). Since appearance encodes intelligible objects, they have an intelligible structure. Hence it makes sense to say of the virtue of character controlling them that it “teaches correct belief about the starting-­point” (NE VII 8 1151a18–19) or that it is the element in practical wisdom ensuring “true supposition” about the practical good (9/42b33). Put the other way around, since a given intelligible structure is in someone’s appearances because he was brought up under practical wisdom’s tutelage, its presence is what the desiring part’s listening to the reason-­possessing one consists in. When an intelligible object approved by reason is the content of an appearance approved, so to speak, by desire, the two are in perfect harmony and agree in ev­ery­thing. When no deliberation is involved, it ­isn’t entirely clear whether the true supposition that virtue of character teaches is always a case of belief (doxa), as Ar­is­totle understands this notion, since a belief seems to require as its object an appearance or intelligible object reached by deliberation (DA III 11 434a10–11). By the same token, when this object is, indeed, the result of deliberation, like the decree expressed by a practical syllogism’s minor prem­ise, it is an object of belief, and—if we are virtuous—it is in accord with it that our effective desire is formed: “having discerned through deliberation [what best furthers happiness], we desire in accord with our deliberation” (NE III 3 1113a12–13). What is not the case is that the intelligible object in question is an entirely cognitive object devoid of normative or evaluative content. Given its genealogy, which includes pleasant or painful content stemming from appetite and feeling, how could it be? Our senses work properly only in certain conditions and when unimpeded in their operations. Bad light, distance, muddy hues can affect the accuracy of color discernment, as can myopia or cataracts. What the account of practical perception reveals is that other things, such as appetites not in a mean, can affect it also. The

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mean definitive of sight, for example, is naturally tilted in plea­ sure’s favor, so that its range of maximum consonance is incorrect (NE II 9 1109b8–9). As people with an illness are poor discerners of bitter and sweet (NE III 4 1113a27–29), so children and poorly habituated adults are more pleased than they should be by bright garish colors or very sweet tastes. The task of habituation is to properly compensate for the tilt, relocating the range of maximum consonance in the proper place, or as close to it as practically possible. Our perceptions and beliefs do not present us with a neutral or value-­free world, some parts of which acquire value in our eyes because we already desire them; rather the things they present to us already include elements that perforce instill desire because they are already either pleasant or painful, good or bad. Unlike practical perception generally, the va­ri­ety that deals with last things is based on deliberation. This deliberative perception is not perception of such proper perceptibles as colors and smells, but more like the kind by which we perceive that a triangle is the last thing among mathematical objects. An earlier discussion helps explain: We deliberate not about ends but about what furthers ends . . . We set up the end and examine how and by what means it will come about; and if it appears that it will come about by more than one means, we examine by which of them it will happen most easily and most nobly, whereas if it can be attained by only one means, we examine how it will come about by it, and through what [further] means that one will come about, until we come to the first cause, which is the last thing (eschaton) to be discovered. For a deliberator would seem to inquire and analyze in the way stated as though [analyzing] a diagram (for apparently all deliberation is in­quiry, but not all in­quiry—for example, mathematical—is deliberation), and the last thing in the analysis is the first that ­comes-­to-­be. (NE III 3 1112b11–24)

What the mathematician is inquiring into, apparently, is how to construct a diagram using the means he has available—for example, a pencil and set square. He continues inquiring until he has analyzed the diagram into simple fig­ures, such as triangles, which he can draw with such implements, using perception alone as his



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guide “when ac­tually doing” it (EE II 10 1226a37). These fig­ures are the last things reached in the analysis, but the first ones that come-­to-­be in the subsequent construction: “the last thing is the starting-­point of the action” (DA III 10 433a16–17). At that point in­quiry reaches a stopping-­point (8/42a29), just as a practically wise man’s deliberation does when he reaches a decree, since perception enables him to act directly on it.

8/42a29–30 Practical wisdom,* however, is more this perception, but it is a different kind from the other.

If we ­adopt the translated text of this passage, [1] the first clause is about practical wisdom and iden­ti­fies it more with deliberative perception (“this perception”) than some­thing else. If we accept either of the alternative texts, the clause is about mathematical perception, saying that it is [2] more perception than it is practical wisdom or [3] more perception than practical wisdom is. Deliberative perception is a close relative of—in that it is the essential precursor of—calculative or deliberative imagination: Insofar as an animal has a desiring part, so far is it capable of moving itself. But a desiring part cannot exist without an imagination (phantasia), and all imagination is either calculative (logistikê) or perceptual (aisthêtikê) . . . Perceptual imagination . . . the other animals have, too, but the deliberative sort (bouleutikê) exists [only] in those with calculative parts. For when one ­comes to whether to do this or that, one at the same time ­comes to a task for calculation. And one must mea­sure by a single [standard], since one is pursuing the greater [good]. And so one must be able to make out of many appearances (phantasmatôn) a single one . . . the one resulting from a syllogism (ek sullogismou). (DA III 10–11 433b27–434a11; compare MA 7 701a10–11)

What makes calculative or deliberative perception calculative or deliberative is that it is based on calculation or deliberation and *Textual Note: I read [1] ἡ ϕρόνησις. One alternative is [2] ἢ ϕρόνησις, another is [3] ἢ ἡ ϕρόνησις.

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inherits conditions of correctness therefrom (2/39a22–27). What makes it a sort of perception is that the one appearance it makes out of many—that is, the universal figuring in it (for example, triangle in the case of mathematical calculation or in­quiry)—is one whose particular instances are perceptible. Though calculative or deliberative perception cannot, for these reasons, occur in a creature whose soul lacks a calculative part, an act of deliberative perception is nonetheless a fully perceptual act, since it is the discernment of a perceptible particular by the perceptual part of the soul. If the particular in question is a proper perceptible (such as color)​ —as it might be if, for example, we were deliberating about what color clothing best protects us from the sun—this act is more narrowly that of a proper sense (sight) if it is a common perceptible (such as triangular shape), it is an act of the common sense. While the simple perception of white is always correct or minimally prone to error, the deliberative perception of it can be mistaken if, for example, the deliberation that leads to it is false or invalid. That is why agent-­focused practical wisdom can be at once a type of perception and most of all deliberative (7/41b9–10). The point of the contrast of deliberative perception with perception of special objects in particular is presumably to highlight the fact that the correctness of deliberative perception is partly determined by that of a syllogism, unlike, as is preeminently so in the case of special objects, by the senses themselves. For the correct perception of common perceptibles does often depend on calculation and in this regard is somewhat similar to deliberative perception. Often deliberation and calculation are iden­ti­fied (1/39a12–13), but often, too, a narrower sort of practical or action-­determining deliberation is recognized, whose distinctive target is “the best for a human being of things doable in action” (7/41b12–14). The deliberative perception central to practical wisdom is thus the precursor not of calculative imagination generally but of deliberative imagination. This entails that deliberative perception is a special case of practical perception, so that its correctness conditions depend also on those of practical perception generally, which involve having appetites and feelings that are in a mean. For part of what makes perception practical is that its object involves plea­sure or pain, which the object of deliberative perception, as a case of wished-­for happiness, clearly does.



Commentary

Whether we look at acts of mathematical perception and deliberative perception themselves or at the calculative pro­cesses from which they result, both seem to be equally cases of perception and equally cases of calculation. This gives us good reason to reject [3]. We have equally good reason to reject [2]. When Ar­is­totle says that X is mallon (more) F, there is always an implied or implicit Y it is more F than, and two ways in which it can be so: We call some­thing [X] mallon [F than Y] not only [Way 1] in accord with excess, when [F] is one in account, but also [Way 2] in accord with priority and posteriority. For example, we call health mallon good than healthy things, and what is by its own intrinsic nature choiceworthy mallon choiceworthy than the things that produce it. Yet we see that, at any rate, there ­isn’t a single account predicated of both, when we say both of useful things and of virtue that each is good. (Protr. B85)

When X is mallon F than Y in Way 1, Y must also be F, since X has an excessive amount or degree of F compared to the amount or degree of it that Y has. (The vacuous case in which X is more F because Y is not F at all is not one Ar­is­totle ever considers.) Thus even if the Platonic “good itself” is eternally good, it is not thereby “mallon good” than some­thing that is good for a short time, since “a white thing is no whiter if it lasts a long time than if it lasts a single day” (NE I 6 1096b3–5). Here goodness, like whiteness, is treated as having a single account, and the excessive amount of time the good itself possesses it is considered inadequate grounds for thinking that it possesses it to a higher degree or in greater quantity than other things. If X is mallon F than Y in Way 2, F must again apply to both X and Y, but this time the account of F as it applies to X is different from the account of F as it applies to Y. Nonetheless, as the examples of health and goodness and the reference to priority and posteriority suggest, F cannot simply be a chance homonym. For example, we cannot say that a line is mallon straight than a straight (heterosexual) person. Rather the possession of F by X must be the focal case in terms of which its possession (in a slightly altered sense) by Y is explained, so that its possession of it is logically or meta­phys­i­cally prior to Y’s. Hence health is mallon good than

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healthy things not because it is mallon healthy but because “ev­ erything healthy is related to health, some by preserving, some by producing, and others by being indicative of health or receptive of it” (Met. IV 1 1003a34–b1). Like being and goodness (NE I 6 1096a23–24), health is “spoken of in many ways,” but “always with reference to one thing—that is, to one nature—and not homonymously” (Met. IV 1 1003a33–34). God’s happiness is mallon happiness than ours (Met. XII 7 1072b24–26) not just because “he is always in that good condition, in which we sometimes are” but because it is by reference to his happiness that our is so called (NE X 8 1178b21–25). According to [2] mathematical perception is mallon perception than it is practical wisdom. Since there is no question of priority and posteriority in this case, or of any of the items involved being spoken of only in relation to one thing or nature, the way in which mathematical perception is mallon perception must be Way 1 (although the same conclusion would follow if it were Way 2). This means that mathematical perception’s perceptual quality or aspect must be excessive in relation to that of its own practically wise quality or aspect. But mathematical perception does not have any practically wise quality or aspect at all, since mathematical in­quiry or calculation is entirely different, as we saw, from the practical deliberation involved in practical wisdom. Hence [2] should also be rejected. The first clause of our text should be taken to be [1] about practical wisdom, then, saying that it is more deliberative perception than some­thing else. About the identity of this some­thing else the text is silent, but the most likely candidate in context is surely the architectonic component of practical wisdom, which has been serving as the salient point of contrast with the perceptual component since 7/41b14–15. The second clause goes on to say of this perceptual component that it is a different sort of perception than some other unspeci­fied sort. One possibility is that [1a] this is mathematical perception (8/42a28). For deliberative perception involves a universal reachable only through practical deliberation and so inherits its reliability conditions from those of practical deliberation. Among these conditions is the possession of desires and feelings in a mean, since if they are excessively weak or strong, they constitute the vice that produces “distortion and false views about



Commentary

the starting-­points of action” (12/44a34–36), although not—which marks one of the differences between the two kinds of in­quiry (NE III 3 1112b21–23)—about those of mathematics (5/40b12–16). Another possibility is that [1b] the unspeci­fied kind of perception is perception of proper perceptibles, which was declared different from deliberative perception a few lines earlier (8/42a27). The next sentence tells us “in­quiry and deliberation are different; since deliberation is in­quiry of a certain sort” (9/41b31). It is a point in favor of [1a] that it sets up this sentence, mitigating the abruptness and awkwardness of transition that would otherwise result.

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9/42a31–b2 In­quiry and deliberation are different; since deliberation is in­quiry of a certain sort. But we must also grasp what good deliberation is, whether some sort of sci­en­tific knowledge or belief or good guesswork or some other kind of thing. Well, sci­en­tific knowledge it certainly ­isn’t. For people do not inquire about things they know, but good deliberation is a sort of deliberation, and a deliberator inquires and calculates.

Though practical deliberation is a type of in­quiry and calculation, of which good deliberation is the excellent va­ri­ety, it is distinctive in aiming at the human good. Because we inquire or calculate to find out some­thing we ­don’t already know, good deliberation cannot be a type of sci­en­tific knowledge, since to have sci­en­tific knowledge of some­thing, we must already know it and its demonstrative explanation.

9/42b2–5 But it is not good guesswork (eustochia) either; for good guesswork involves no reasoning and is also some­thing quick, whereas one deliberates for a long time, and it is said that we should act quickly on the results of our deliberation, but deliberate slowly.

A stochos is an aim or shot, and, by extension, a guess or conjecture. Some­thing is eustochos or well aimed when, like an accurate shot, witty riposte, or good guess, it hits the mark. Hence someone has eustochia when his guesses are good, his ripostes on target. But because he produces these guesses or ripostes without reasoning, eustochia cannot be euboulia (good deliberation), since a deliberator inquires or calculates. The common view that one should always deliberate slowly but act quickly on the results is one Ar­is­totle rejects (9/42b26–28). If an agent has two minutes to decide on whether to have the ben­e­fi­ 214



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cial bird meat for dinner and must wait two hours thereafter for it to be properly cooked, his deliberation will be defective if it takes ­longer than two minutes or if he acts on it in less than two hours. It follows that the opening phrase cannot mean that one must deliberate for a long time, but rather that one can deliberate for a long time. Since good guesswork cannot take a long time, the distinction Ar­is­totle draws between it and good deliberation remains secure.

9/42b5–6 In addition, readiness of wit (agchinoia) is different from good deliberation, and being ready-­witted is a sort of good guesswork.

The adverb of place agchi means “near” or “ready to hand.” Thus someone has agchinoia (agchi + noein) when he is quick-­thinking or ready-­witted. The fact that agchi connotes speed makes it unnecessary to argue that agchinoia cannot be the same as some­thing, such as good deliberation, that may take a long time to reach a conclusion. The sort of good guesswork that is readiness of wit is the sort that hits on “the middle term in an imperceptible amount of time,” once “the extreme terms are recognized” (APo. I 34 89b10–15). For example, when a ready-­witted person sees that the moon always has its bright side toward the sun, he quickly sees why this is so. That is to say, he quickly finds the term “sunlit,” which will serve as the middle term in the requisite explanatory syllogism: Any sunlit body always has its bright face toward the sun. The moon is a sunlit body. Therefore, the moon always has its bright face toward the sun. A practically wise man, it seems, should have a similar ability, since he will presumably often need to be able to hit on the deliberative middle term (or the action-­guiding minor prem­ise or decree) right off, without any need to deliberate. Although, of­fi­cially, the grasp of that term by deliberative perception must be the result of practical syllogizing, there seems little reason not to decouple it from

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that requirement. When an agent reliably hits on the middle term instantaneously, so that it is just as if he has syllogized correctly, that seems enough to make his subsequent action (the one that would be the conclusion of his practical syllogism had he needed to use one to reach it) a deliberately chosen one. Ar­is­totle allows that a deliberator need not bother to articulate prem­ises that are obvious to him. It is barely a step from there to the view that what applies to one prem­ise might equally apply to the other and so to the practical syllogism as a whole. Nonetheless, the capacity for good guesswork that enables him to see this ­isn’t good deliberation, since it never involves any deliberative or calculative in­quiry, whereas good deliberation does.

9/42b6–12 Nor, again, is good deliberation any sort of belief. On the contrary, since the bad deliberator makes an error and the good one deliberates correctly, it is clear that good deliberation is some sort of correctness—correctness neither of sci­en­tific knowledge nor of belief. For of sci­en­tific knowledge there is no correctness (since there is no error [of it] either), and of belief the correctness is truth; moreover ev­ery­thing about which there is belief is already determined. And yet (alla mên) without [a] reason (aneu logou) there is no good deliberation either.

Ar­is­totle gives three reasons why good deliberation ­isn’t a kind of belief, not all of which are completely filled out. First, unlike bad deliberation, good deliberation gets things right and so is a form of correctness. Belief, on the other hand, since it can be false, is not a form of correctness. Second, correctness of belief is truth, but correctness of deliberation is not truth, since one can reach the sort of practical truth at which good deliberation aims by “a false syllogism” (9/42b22–23). Third, what is believed is already determined, since belief, unlike deliberation, is not a form of in­quiry but “already a sort of assertion.” Good deliberation ­isn’t sci­en­tific knowledge, because we ­don’t inquire to find out what we already know, whereas a good deliberator does inquire and calculate, since he does not know in advance of deliberation what he should do (9/42a34–b2). Moreover,



Commentary

the kind of correctness appropriate to deliberation is different from that appropriate to sci­en­tific knowledge, since sci­en­tific knowledge, unlike deliberation, does not have an incorrect or erroneous va­ri­ety. Although good deliberation ­isn’t a form of belief, it is not aneu logou. This could mean that it involves reason, in the sense of reasoning, since it is embodied in a practical syllogism. Alla mên would then mean some­thing like “however,” and would introduce a new idea. In context, it seems more plausible to treat alla mên as introducing an ob­jec­tion or correction to the previous thought: “Good deliberation is not a form of belief and does not have the same sort of correctness as belief—namely, truth. And yet it does involve a reason (that is, some­thing believed) whose correctness is, indeed, truth.” At 9/42b22–24, we learn why. There a kind of bad deliberation is de­scribed as reaching what should be done, but by a false syllogism, or one involving a false middle term and so a false minor prem­ise or decree. The corresponding good kind will involve a true syllogism, a true middle term, and a true minor prem­ise or decree. Since this prem­ise must be believed by the agent, good deliberation involves a correct or true belief.

9/42b12–15 It remains, therefore, for it to be [correctness] of thought (dianoias); for thought in fact is not yet assertion. For while belief is not in­quiry but already a sort of assertion, a deliberator, whether he deliberates well or badly, is inquiring about some­thing, and calculating.

Though good deliberation is neither a sort of belief nor a sort of sci­en­tific knowledge, like them it does involve some­thing—a reason—that admits of truth. This reason is—or is the result of—in­ quiry and calculation. That good deliberation must be a kind of thought or thinking follows less from an argument by elimination than from the uncontroversial fact that deliberation is some sort of in­quiry and calculation. As such, it does not yet have knowledge of the conclusion it will reach and so is not able to assert anything determinate. It is with such facts in mind, presumably, that Ar­is­ totle earlier categorized deliberation as a part of practical dianoia (2/39a21–31).

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9/42b16–26 But good deliberation is a certain sort of correctness of deliberation; that is why we must inquire first what it is and what about.* Since correctness is of several sorts, however, it is clear that it will not be any and ev­ery sort. For the incontinent person or the bad (phaulos) person will reach what he proposes should be done as a result of calculation and so will have deliberated correctly but will have got hold of some­thing very bad. But it is thought to be a good thing to have deliberated well. Therefore, it is this sort of correctness of deliberation that is good deliberation: the sort that reaches some­thing good. We can also reach this by a false syllogism, however—that is,  reach the thing that should be done but not by the means one should, the middle term being false. It follows that this is not yet good deliberation—where one reaches what should be done, yet not by the means by which one should.

Besides the sort of correctness appropriate to deliberation, NE VI also mentions correctness of reason (logos) (1/38b20), of desire (orexis) (2/39a24), of thought (dianoia) (9/42b12), of seeing (horan) (11/43b14), of target (skopos) (12/44a8), of deliberate choice (prohairesis) (12/44a20), and of in­quiry (zêtêsis) (13/44b19). Since an incontinent person’s wish is for the correct target or end, namely, happiness correctly conceived, the “best thing, the starting-­point, is preserved in him” (NE VII 8 1151a24–26). But because his appetites and feelings are not in a mean, they overpower his wish (DA III 9 432b26–433a8, 433a30, NE I 13 1102b14– 21, III 2 1111b13–18). As a result, the end he achieves is a bad one (NE IX 4 1166b6–11), and he gets no bene­fit from his knowledge of what happiness is (NE I 3 1095a8–9). In claiming that what the  incontinent person gets hold of is not only bad but “very bad,” Ar­is­totle makes it clear that he is not talking about just any sort of incontinent person but about the unconditional one—the haplôs akratês. For when someone’s incontinence concerns plea­ sures, such as those of “victory, honor, wealth, and similar good

*Textual Note: I omit ἡ βουλὴ, since what Ar­is­totle goes on to inquire about is the type of correctness that makes practical deliberation good. Retaining it yields as an alternative: “what this deliberation is and what about.” Nothing of consequence hangs on which we choose.



Commentary

and pleasant things,” which are choiceworthy because of themselves, it is of a quali­fied or augmented sort—he is incontinent in relation to one of these, but not to others—and his state is not “blamed as a vice” (NE VII 4 1147b23–1148a4). Hence the end he achieves by deliberating correctly in the relevant sense need not be very bad. When someone is unconditionally incontinent, so that he is incontinent with regard to necessary plea­sures (those of food, sexual intercourse, and the other bodily plea­sures, particularly of touch, with which temperance and intemperance are concerned), his state is blamed as “a vice, whether unconditional or partial” (NE VII 4 1148a2–4). Hence the end he gets hold of by deliberating correctly, since it is vicious, will be very bad, indeed (NE IX 4 1166b18–25). Unconditional incontinence is the only sort that really deserves the name; other types are so called only because “they are similar to it by analogy” (NE VII 4 1148b9–12). In characterizing the incontinent person as “reaching what he proposes should be done as a result of calculation,” Ar­is­totle appears to contradict his later de­scrip­tion of him: “The continent person seems to be the same as the one who abides by his rational calculation, and the incontinent seems to be the same as the one who abandons it” (NE VII 1 1145b10–12). What the incontinent person abandons is spe­cifi­cally the calculation that tells him what he should do to achieve happiness, which is the correct object of his wish, since this is what the continent person abides by. Hence his “deliberate choice is good” (NE VII 10 1152a17), since it is for the correct end. The rational calculation he carries out correctly and does not abandon is not the one that tells him what to do to achieve the correct end, however, but the one that tells him what he should do to attain the object of those appetites and feelings, and it is some­thing bad. Though otherwise (or instrumentally) correct, his rational calculation inherits its defectiveness from that of the end it achieves. Unlike the unconditionally incontinent person, the bad person (phaulos) has false views about what happiness consists in, since vice, unlike incontinence, is “corruptive of the starting-­point” (5/40b19–20). In his case, there need be no immediate con­flict between wish and appetite or feeling. Instead, what he wishes for may be precisely what he has a taste and appetite for. But because his end is vicious, the otherwise correct rational calculation that enables him to get hold of it is itself bad.

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An agent deliberating about whether to taste some food might reason as follows: [1] Ev­ery­thing sweet should be tasted. [2] This is sweet. [3] He eats it. His syllogism is false (or unsound) if the middle term “sweet” does not apply to the food in question. Yet the conclusion [3] may still be the action he should perform. If so, he does the correct thing in tasting the food, but not for the correct reason. Hence his deliberation, like that of the person who reasons correctly about how to achieve a bad end, is not good. This is an error peculiar to deliberation, because deliberation is essentially a search for an explanatory middle term that brings an action-­relevant particular (this food) within the scope of a universal prem­ise. That is why its correctness includes correctness about “the way in which” (9/42b28) to achieve the end and why the contrast with readiness of wit is particularly pertinent: both find the explanatory middle term, but they do so in different ways (9/42a31–b15).

9/42b26–28 Moreover, one person may deliberate a long time to reach it, while another does so quickly. Therefore, the former is not yet a case of good deliberation, which is correctness with regard to the ben­e­fi­cial thing [to do], the way in which, and time.

The target of the noble life that ev­ery­one “able to live in accord with his own deliberate choice” is enjoined to set up, whether it is “honor, reputation, wealth, or education” (EE I 2 1214b6–9), is one that will be achieved, if at all, only as a result of long-­term planning. But sometimes circumstances seem to preclude prior deliberation of any sort: Someone who is unafraid and unperturbed in a sudden alarm seems more courageous than someone who stands firm in dangers that are obvious in advance; for his action proceeds more from his state of character, in that it proceeds less from preparation. For in the case of



Commentary

what is clearly foreseen, one can deliberately choose also as a result of calculation and reason, but with things that happen suddenly, one  must do so in accord with one’s state of character. (NE III 8 1117a18–22)

In this case, time constraints preclude deliberating immediately before action, while the unforeseeable nature of the danger precludes deliberating further in advance. The fact that spontaneous actions of this sort can be virtuous seems to be in some degree of tension with the views Ar­is­totle generally expresses about virtuous action, namely, that it must be deliberately chosen (NE II 4 1105a31–32) as a result of “prior deliberation” (NE V 8 1135b10–11). One way to diminish this apparent tension is to allow that deliberation can target actions not just directly, but indirectly, via states of character. Suppose, for example, that X used to be continent or incontinent in dangerous situations, wishing to stand his ground, but failing to do so because of his fear or doing so only with great dif­fi­culty and inner struggle. Though his state of character was not virtuous, since his appetites and feelings were not in a mean, it was of the sort needed for deliberate choice, since both incontinent and continent people (unlike children or beasts) can deliberately choose. Pained by the frustrating state of his character, what X deliberately chose was to put in place a long-­term plan of action aimed at bringing his appetites and feelings into greater harmony with his wish. Since his continence or incontinence was neither unchangeable nor incurable (NE VII 8 1150b29–35), his plan succeeded, and he became courageous. His subsequent courageous actions, including those done spontaneously, may not all directly result from prior deliberation, but because they result from a deliberately chosen state, they are all indirectly a result of it. Courageous actions done spontaneously are in one way not the result of prior deliberation, while in another way they are. Since early habituation rarely succeeds in completely harmonizing rational wish with appetites and feelings, all fairly decent but nonsaintly people are in some­thing like X’s situation (NE X 9 1179b16–20). They, too, can plan and deliberately choose to become more internally harmonized, more continent or less incontinent (NE II 9 1109b1–7). If they succeed, they will have their states

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of  character in part because they have deliberately chosen them. When they act spontaneously out of such states, their actions will be the result—albeit indirectly—of deliberation and deliberate choice.

9/42b28–33 Moreover, it is possible to deliberate well, either unconditionally or to further a spe­cific end. Unconditionally good deliberation correctly furthers the unconditional end, the spe­cific sort, some spe­cific end. If, then, it is characteristic of practically wise people to have deliberated well, good deliberation will be the sort of correctness that is in accord with what is advantageous in furthering the end about which practical wisdom is true supposition.

Advantage is the general mea­sure of correctness of the elements of good deliberation Ar­is­totle has iden­ti­fied: we should deliberate at the advantageous time and for the advantageous amount of time needed to discover the advantageous means to our end. Practically wise people do all that and aim at the unconditional end. For the function of practical wisdom is above all to deliberate well not about some spe­cific end but about happiness. Hence practical wisdom must include some supposition about what that end is, and— because it is the virtue or excellence of the calculative or deliberative part of the soul, whose own function is to reach the truth (2/39b12–13)—that supposition must be true. The element in practical wisdom responsible for its correct supposition about happiness or the happy life is natural or habituated virtue (13/44b1–17). Since supposition is a cognitive notion that, like belief, can be straightforwardly true or false (3/39b14–18), what such virtue does is itself in part cognitive: it “teaches correct belief about the starting-­point” (NE VII 8 1151a18–19). The way it does this is through habituation, which, as a type of induction, is one of the two methods used in teaching. Syllogism is the other (3/39b26–28).

VI 10

10/42b34–43a6 Comprehension (sunesis), too, that is, good-­comprehension (eusunesia)​—the [state] by which we say people comprehend or comprehend well—is not the same as sci­en­tific knowledge as a whole nor the same as belief (since if it were, ev­ery­one would have comprehension), nor is it any one of the sciences concerned with a particular area, as medicine is concerned with health, geometry with magnitude. For comprehension is not concerned with what always is and is unchanging, nor is it concerned with just any of the things that come-­to-­be but with those one might puzzle and deliberate about.

Sci­en­tific knowledge “as a whole” comprises the unconditional va­ ri­ety, exemplified exclusively by the strictly theoretical sciences, such as theology, as well as the less rigorous sort, exemplified by the natural, practical, and productive sciences, such as medicine. Comprehension cannot be identical to this entire thing, because it ­isn’t concerned with eternal and unchanging things, whereas the theoretical sciences are. It cannot be theology, because theology deals with what is unconditionally necessary, eternal, and unchangeable, and comprehension does not. Similarly, it cannot be medicine or any of the other crafts or sciences dealing with things that come-­to-­be and pass away and so admit of being otherwise, since these provide determinate answers to some questions, without any need for deliberation at all (NE III 3 1112b2–9). It is when no such answer is provided that a puzzle arises and deliberation is required. Prima facie, such deliberation might be of the sort proper to a craft, as it would be, for example, if the puzzle were a spe­cifi­ cally medical one. But the context makes it clear that the relevant sort of deliberation is the narrow sort Ar­is­totle has just been discussing, which aims exclusively at the human good. Thus comprehension, like practical wisdom, is restricted to the sphere of practical deliberation.

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10/43a6–8 That is why it is concerned with the same things as practical wisdom, though comprehension is not the same as practical wisdom.

Sunesis is a compound of the prefix sun-­(“together”) and the verb hienai (“send forth” or “set in motion”), and so by extension signifies the mental capacity of actively put­ting things together so that they add up to a single point one grasps or knows. This is the sense it often has in Ar­is­totle (DA I 5 410b3, Cael. II 12 292a15, NE VIII 12 1161b26). In the Magna Moralia a narrower sort of sunesis is discussed: What is sunesis, and with what is it concerned? Sunesis operates in the same areas as practical wisdom—those concerned with matters of action. For someone is said to have sunesis because of his capacity for deliberation, that is (kai), in that he discerns and sees (idein) things correctly; but the discernment is about small matters and in small areas (peri mikrôn te kai en mikrois). Sunesis is a part of practical wisdom, then, and being a sunetos is part of being a practically wise man; for to separate the sunetos from the practically wise is impossible. (MM I 34 1197b11–17)

Provided that we understand the restriction of sunesis’s discernment to mikron matters and areas referring not to relatively un­ impor­tant ones, but—as idein suggests—to the deliberative per­ ception of particulars as opposed to the architectonic knowledge of universals, this is the sort of sunesis (eusunesia) relevant here, throughout NE VI, and in a few other places (NE X 9 1181a18, Pol. IV 4 1291a28). Even if the restriction to mikron matters were understood in a different way, the restriction of sunesis to deliberation and matters of action would remain a common strand. That by itself is enough to explain its relevance to practical wisdom.

10/43a8–11 For practical wisdom is a prescriptive virtue, for what should be done or not is its end, while comprehension is merely discerning.



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(For comprehension and good-­comprehension are the same, as are those with comprehension and those with good-­comprehension.)

Although practical wisdom and comprehension both deal with things we puzzle and deliberate about, practical wisdom also has an architectonic component, which comprehension—in being concerned exclusively with deliberative matters—clearly lacks. Moreover, as the same state of the soul as po­lit­i­cal science, practical wisdom “prescribes with regard to ev­ery­thing in the city” (13/45a11). At the architectonic level, its prescriptions take the form of universal laws, telling us what we should do and compelling us to do it (NE V 1 1129b19, X 9 1180a21). At the deliberative level, they take the form of decrees that tell us what we should do in particular situations to comply with the laws when the laws themselves leave us puzzled and compel us to do it (provided nothing interferes). Comprehension, though it functions only at the deliberative level, inquires and reasons in the same way as practical wisdom. But its minor prem­ises, though identical in their propositional content to decrees, lack compulsive force. Their mood may be imperatival, but they do not compel compliance. An inquirer’s deliberation takes place within the scope of his wish, which is for the end his deliberation is shaped to further and his action to achieve. His comprehension, by contrast, is shaped to further an end for which he neither wishes nor proposes to act (10/43a11–16). Comprehension is exercised not by X when he deliberates about what he should do in a puzzling situation but by Y, when he correctly discerns what X should do, and so is able to advise or criticize him. When X and Y are identical, so that an agent plays the role of his own critic or adviser, as it were, some­thing like comprehension is revealed to be a con­stit­u­ent of practical wisdom (MM I 34 1197b11–17), since what is practical wisdom when it is exercised in deliberation is comprehension when it is exercised simply in discerning what someone should do.

10/43a11–15 Comprehension is neither having practical wisdom nor acquiring it; but just as learning some­thing is called “comprehension” when one

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Commentary is using sci­en­tific knowledge, it is also so called when one is using belief in being discerning about what someone else says about matters with which practical wisdom is concerned . . .

When someone employs his sci­en­tific knowledge of some­thing in answering questions about it or explaining it in some other way, he exhibits his grasp or comprehension of it, and the operative part of his soul is the sci­en­tific one. When he shows how discerning he is about the practical or action-­determining matters with which practical wisdom is concerned, he employs belief, not sci­en­tific knowledge, since the operative part of his soul is the calculative or de­ liberative part responsible for belief formation. The fact that he employs the entirely cognitive capacity of belief, which aims simply at truth, distinguishes the discernment he exhibits from practical wisdom, since practical wisdom aims at practical truth and so involves both true reason and correct wish or desire. Nonetheless, noble comprehension is impossible without the virtues of character, since without them true belief about the end to be aimed at is impossible (10/43a15–18). As the role of pursuit and avoidance in practical thought and truth is analogous to that of assertion and denial in theoretical thought and truth, so the good-­comprehension involved in prac­ tical wisdom is analogous to the good-­comprehension involved in sci­en­tific knowledge. In sci­en­tific knowledge, comprehension is good or correct when it comprehends truly and so grasps plain truth. In practical wisdom, comprehension is good or correct when it comprehends nobly and so grasps practical truth.

10/43a15–18 —that is, being nobly (kalôs) discerning (since “well” is the same as “nobly” here). Indeed, this is where the name “comprehension”—in the sense of what makes people have good-­comprehension—came from, [namely] from the [comprehension] involved in learning. For we often call learning “comprehending.”

The adjective kalon (adverb: kalôn) is often a term of vague or general commendation (“fine,” “beautiful,” “good”), with different connotations in different contexts: “as applied to a living thing,



Commentary

kalon has aischron (‘ugly,’ ‘deformed’) as its contrary, as applied to a house, mochthêron (‘humble,’ ‘wretched’), so that kalon is a homonym” (Top. I 15 106a20–22). Even in this general sense, however, kalon has a distinctive evaluative coloration suggestive of the “order (taxis), symmetry (summetria), and defi­ni­tion (hôrismenon)” (Met. XIII 3 1078a36–b1) that Ar­is­totle singles out as the chief forms of to kalon. In ethical or po­lit­i­cal contexts, kalon is restricted in its application to what is intrinsically choiceworthy and intrinsically commendable or praiseworthy (epaineton): “Of all goods, the ends are those choiceworthy for their own sake. Of these, in turn, the kalon ones are all those praiseworthy because of themselves” (EE VIII 3 1248b18–20; also NE I 13 1103a9–10, Rh. I 9 1366a33–34). For while many things—including “honor, plea­sure, and un­der­stand­ ing” (NE I 7 1097b2)—have the first of these features, only “the virtues and the deeds resulting from virtue” have the second (EE VIII 3 1248b36–37; also NE I 12 1101b14–16, MM II 9 1207b29– 30). Hence wealth, good birth, power, and other so-­called external goods, though also kalon, are only extrinsically so, since they inherit their sta­tus from that of the good and kalon man, who does “many kalon actions because of them” (EE VIII 3 1249a7–14). The spe­cific element in virtue and virtuous action that attracts praise or commendation is being in a mean (NE II 7 1108a14–16, 9 1109a24–30, IV 5 1126b5, 7 1127a30–31,1227b6–7, V 10 1137b3–4, IX 9 1169a30–31), which, as a kind of symmetry and order (NE II 3 1104a18, X 9 1180a18, MM I 5 1185b20, Pol. III 16 1287a18), connects the ethical kalon to the broader, more general sort. It is in the narrow sense, nonetheless, which is roughly equivalent in meaning to “noble,” that the sphere of po­lit­i­cal science and practical wisdom consists of “kalon things and just things” (NE I 3 1094b14). Hence it is in this sense that a virtuous person acts for the sake of to kalon—since it is the end at which virtue  aims—and will desire and love it (NE III 7 1115b13, IV 1 1120a23, IX 8 1169a5–6, X 9 1179b9). Since it is explicitly introduced to explain the eu (“well,” “good”) in eusunesia (“good-­ comprehension”), the narrow sense is clearly the one relevant here. What is crucial to having good-­comprehension ­isn’t just discerning practical matters well but doing so nobly.

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11/43a19–24 The quality called “consideration (gnômê),” due to which, people are said to be sympathetically considerate (sungnômê) and to have consideration, is the correct discernment of what is fair. Here is a sign of this: we say that it is the fair-­minded person, above all, who is sympathetically considerate, and that to be fair-­minded in certain cases is to take others into consideration. Sympathetic consideration, then, is the correct consideration that discerns matters of fairness; and the correct sort is the one that arrives at the truth about them.

The noun gnômê, like the derivative verb gignôskein, means “knowledge” or “un­der­stand­ing” or the thought, opinion, or practical maxim that expresses or embodies it: A maxim (gnômê) is an assertion not about particular things, for example about what Iphicrates10 is like, but about some­thing uni­ versal; not about ev­ery sort, for example, that straight is the contrary of curved, but about those that are practical, and about what, among things to be done, is to be chosen or avoided. (Rh. II 21 1394a21–25)

The type of gnômê relevant here is a narrower type exclusively concerned with law, (general) justice, and fairness or fair-­ mindedness (Pol. IV 10 1295a17, Rh. I 15 1375a26–32). Fair-­mindedness (epieikeia) is “a correction of the law where it is deficient because of its universality” (NE V 10 1137b26–27). Hence a fair-­minded person, though just, is not “a stickler for justice in the bad sense” (NE V 10 1137b35–a1), since he follows not the letter of the law but what the law would have said had the legislator been able to foresee and take account of the particular ­circumstances. Hence, unlike a maxim, which is about universals,  this sort of gnômê is concerned exclusively with particulars 10. Iphicrates was an Athenian general.

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(11/43a28–35). Because (general) justice is “complete virtue, not unconditionally, but in relation to others” (NE V 1 1129b25–27), the gnômê embodied above all by the fair-­minded person is also some­thing exhibited “in relation to others” (11/43a31–32). The sun-­ (“for others”) in sungnômê serves primarily to bring out the other-­regarding nature of gnômê and so of practical wisdom, which encompasses it (11/43a26–28). Since the preposition sun literally means “with” or “together with,” however, it also carries the suggestion that sungnômê is some­thing we engage in with others. The fact that we have the power of speech is taken by Ar­is­ totle to show as much: It is clear why a human being is more of a po­lit­i­cal animal than a bee or any other gregarious animal. Nature makes nothing pointlessly, as we say, and no animal has speech except a human being. A voice is a signifier of what is pleasant or painful, which is why it is also possessed by the other animals (for their nature goes this far: they not only perceive what is pleasant or painful but sig­nify it to each other). Speech, however, is for making clear what is ben­efi ­ ­cial or harmful and hence also what is just or unjust. For it is peculiar to human beings, in comparison to the other animals, that they alone have perception of what is good or bad, just or unjust, and the rest. And it is community in these that makes a household and a city. (Pol. I 2 1253a7–18)

Thus part of the sungnômê we have for others is exhibited in discussing goodness, justice, and other practical values with them, so that our un­der­stand­ing of these values, and of what they amount to in particular circumstances, be­comes itself some­thing communal, some­thing shared. No Eng­lish word exactly coincides in meaning with gnômê or sungnômê. “Judgment” and “discernment” are good choices, but fail to capture the crucial other-­regarding or other-­involving side of it conveyed by sun. “Sympathy” does capture this but severs the relation of gnômê to law and justice, which “judgment” somewhat preserves. “Pardon” or “forgiveness” do better in this regard, and are particularly appropriate in some contexts (NE III 1 1109b32, V 8 1136a5–6). “Consideration,” though imperfect, nicely captures both the cognitive or discerning side of gnômê and (like “sympa-

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thy”) its affective side. Since equitable or fair-­minded people take extenuating circumstances into consideration in determining what law or justice demands, a hint of the judicial is also preserved. Because consideration is aligned with comprehension, practical wisdom, and un­der­stand­ing, the truth it discerns must be practical truth, and so to be correct it must be in accord with the virtues of character and so must be noble.

11/43a25–35 All these states are reasonably taken to tend in the same direction, since we at­trib­ute consideration, comprehension, practical wisdom, and un­der­stand­ing to the same people and say they ac­tually have consideration and un­der­stand­ing when they are practically wise and able to comprehend. For all these capacities are concerned with things that come last, that is, particulars; and it is in being discerning in matters with which practically wise people are concerned that someone exhibits comprehension and sound consideration or sympathetic consideration; for fair-­mindedness is common to all good people in relation to another person. And among particulars—that is, things that come last—are all the ones doable in action. For the practically wise person must know these, too; and comprehension and consideration are concerned with things doable in action, and these are things that come last.

To have consideration, one must be fair-­minded (11/43a19–20); to be fair-­minded one must be generally just and so be completely virtuous and have comprehension (11/43a15–16); to be fully virtuous one must have practical wisdom (13/44b16–17); to have practical wisdom one must have un­der­stand­ing (11/43b2–5). Since this is what we imply in attributing these states to the same people in the way we do, it is reasonable to take all of them as tending in the same direction rather than (say) pulling or pointing in contrary ones. Moreover, each deals with what ­comes last in deliberation, namely, a decree specifying the particular thing—the particular (type of) action—that best furthers happiness in the circumstances (8/41b7–8). Goodness, practical wisdom, and full virtue necessarily go to-



Commentary

gether (13/44b30–32). Complete virtue is general or legal justice, when exhibited in relation to another person (NE V 1 1129b30– 1130a5). Fair-­mindedness (epieikeia) is a correction of legal justice (NE V 10 1137b11–13) and so, like the justice it corrects, is some­ thing all good people exhibit in relation to others. Since the correction in question consists in employing deliberation to determine the application of a universal law in particular circumstances, fair-­ mindedness is concerned with the very same particulars as is practical wisdom, which are the last things reached in deliberation and the first ones doable in action.

11/43a35–b11 And un­der­stand­ing is concerned with things that come last in both directions. For concerning the primary terms (tôn protôn horôn) and the things that come last, there is un­der­stand­ing but no reason—that is to say, on the one hand, in the case of demonstrations, it [un­der­ stand­ing] is of the unchanging (akinêtôn) and primary terms (horôn), on the other hand, in the case of those that are practical (en tais praktikais), it is of the last thing and the one that admits of being otherwise and the other prem­ise; for these are starting-­points of the that for the sake of which; for it is from (ek) particulars that universals come. Of these, therefore, we must have perception, and this is  un­der­stand­ing. And that is why (dio kai) un­der­stand­ing is both starting-­point and end; for demonstrations are from (ek) these and concerned with (peri) these.

Demonstration in the strict sense is found only in theoretical sciences, the starting-­points and theorems of which hold with unconditional necessity. In these sciences, un­der­stand­ing is of the terms or defi­ni­tions—a horos can be either (1/38b23–25)—that are primary in the science, because they are its starting-­points and are unchanging, because they are eternal (3/39b24). The use of akinêton to characterize these terms might seem to suggest that they are exclusively the eternal ones, so that the demonstrations at issue must be of the strict and unconditional va­ri­ety. Since the antecedent of en tais praktikais (“the ones that are practical”) is “demonstrations (tas apodeixeis),” however, this cannot be the case. For in practical demonstrations, too, there is an akinêton factor that is

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grasped by un­der­stand­ing (or—in animals that lack un­der­stand­ ing—by imagination): That which produces movement will be one in kind, the desiring part qua desiring—but the object of desire ­comes first; for it produces movement without itself changing, by being grasped by un­der­stand­ ing or imagination. In number, though, there will be more than one thing that produces movement. All movement, indeed, involves three things: the mover, second, that by means of which it moves, and third, the thing moved. And the mover is twofold, the unchanging one (akinêton) and the one that moves and is moved. The one that is unchanging is the good doable in action, and the one that moves and is moved is the desiring part (for the mover is moved insofar as it desires, and active desiring is a sort of movement), while the thing moved is the animal. (DA III 10 433b10–18)

Thus when comprehension is being assigned a role in delibera­ tion​—and so in practical demonstrations—that is restricted, like that of consideration, to last things and particulars, it is characterized as “not concerned with what always is and is akinêton” (10/43a4–5), since its focus in practical demonstrations is on the particular (type of) action to be done in the circumstances. Because the demonstrations in which the role of un­der­stand­ing is to grasp the unchanging primary terms are demonstrations generally, not just strict ones, two things follow. First, the contrast being drawn is not between strict demonstrations and practical ones, but between demonstrations generally (including practical ones) in which un­der­stand­ing has one role and practical demonstrations in  which it also has a second role. Second, since both roles are ­at­trib­uted to the same state of the soul, the theoretical un­der­stand­ ing involved in theoretical demonstrations is the same state as the practical un­der­stand­ing involved in practical ones (DA III 10 433a13–30). Un­der­stand­ing is one state, we may infer, with different functions, not two different states. If a prem­ise in a practical demonstration is (or embodies) a starting-­point, it must be the demonstration’s major prem­ise, and its major term, while definable, must be indemonstrable from anything else. Hence un­der­stand­ing’s second role in such a demonstration must be to grasp the demonstration’s “other” or minor prem­



Commentary

ise, which, as the last thing reached in deliberation, is a decree. In this prem­ise, the crucial term is the middle one, since it is the one that can be predicated of some­thing on the basis of perception and so can be acted on directly, without the need for further deliberation. Just as there is no giving a reason for or demonstrating a major term that is a starting-­point of any sort, there is no giving one for a middle term in a practical demonstration. We simply see that this meat is bird meat and so do not need to justify our predicating “bird meat” of it by yet another practical demonstration that would constitute our ground or reason for doing so: perception is one of the ways in which we grasp starting-­points (NE I 7 1098b3– 4). The concern of un­der­stand­ing with both universal and particular last things is characterized as being “in both directions” for the same reason that un­der­stand­ing is characterized as “opposed” to practical wisdom (8/42a25): universals are opposed to—or lie in the opposite explanatory direction from—particulars (APo. I 2 72a4–5, NE I 4 1095a30–b1). The major term in a practical demonstration is or designates happiness, which, as a practical starting-­point, is an end: “in actions the end for the sake of which is starting-­point” (NE VII 8 1151a16). Un­der­stand­ing is an end, then, because it grasps the end and so is what in the deliberating agent brings the end within his action-­determining ken. (Compare 2/39b12, where the function of the parts that involve un­der­stand­ing is said to be truth, because they grasp truth.) In such a demonstration’s minor prem­ise, the middle term is or designates a particular (type of) action that, like ev­ery particular, is grasped by perception (NE VII 3 1147a25–26). But perception always involves the concurrent grasp of universals:  “we perceive particulars, but perception is of universals— for  example, of man and not of Callias the man” (APo. II 19 100a16–b1). In the case of perception of the action-­designating middle term, this grasp is due to un­der­stand­ing’s grasping the syllogistically-­arrived-­at combination of the major prem­ise and the minor one: What happens seems parallel to the case of thinking and syllogizing about unchanging objects. But there the end is a theoretical propo­ sition (theôrêma) (for when one has understood the two prem­ises, one has understood—that is, put together—the conclusion), whereas

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Commentary here the conclusion that follows from the two prem­ises [being put together] be­comes the action. (MA 7 701a8–13)

Since perception of the middle term (or the action it designates) must be mediated in this way to be of the relevant deliberative or action-­determining kind, it is an exercise both of perception and of  un­der­stand­ing. Like deliberate choice, which is “either un­der­ stand­ing involving desire or desire involving thought” (2/39b4–5), deliberative perception is either perception-­involving un­der­stand­ ing or un­der­stand­ing-­involving perception. When happiness is grasped by an agent, his deliberative task is to find the particular (type of) action that constitutes it in the ac­ tual circumstances. Once found, it plays two roles in his practical thought: [1] it serves as the conclusion of the practical demonstration that embodies his deliberation, and [2] as a concrete spec­i­fi­ca­ tion of his end—a fill­ing out of what happiness consists in. In [1], the action concludes the downward path from a universal end to its particular instances, and so the un­der­stand­ing embodied in the deliberative perception that grasps it is concerned with the application of a universal (happiness) to particulars (this action). In [2], the action is the starting-­point of an induction that proceeds up to a universal from the un­der­stand­ing-­involving perception of particulars. It is “the actions in life,” we are reminded, that discussions in ethics and politics are “concerned with (peri) and [proceed] from (ek)” (NE I 3 1095a3–4) and virtuous habituation, which ensures that we reach the correct conclusions from these actions, by being pleased or pained by the correct ones. In one way, happiness is a starting-­point, since it is the ultimate end of all action. In another, the particular actions that instantiate it are starting-­points, since it is from them that (a filled-­out) un­der­stand­ing of (the universal) happiness ­comes.

11/43b6–14 And that is why these things are even thought to be natural—and why, while nobody is thought to be wise (sophos) by nature, people are thought to have consideration, comprehension, and un­der­stand­ ing [by nature]. A sign of this is that we also think they correspond to the stages of life and that a particular stage brings un­der­stand­ing



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and comprehension, as if nature were the cause . . . So we should attend to the undemonstrated sayings and beliefs of experienced and older people or practically wise ones no less than to the demonstrations; in that because they have an eye formed from experience, they see correctly.

In practical demonstrations, un­der­stand­ing is involved in the grasp of universals and in the perception of last things or particulars, as, too, is practical wisdom. It is in their perceptual grasp of particulars alone that the two states tend in the same direction as consideration and comprehension, which are concerned exclusively with particulars. Un­der­stand­ing’s grasp of universals is part of theoretical wisdom (7/41a17–20) and so is included in the wisdom that no one is thought to have by nature. Although Ar­is­totle usually reserves the noun sophia for theoretical wisdom and the adjective sophon for its possession, he recognizes that both are commonly used with a wider signification, and sometimes so uses them himself, for example, when he speaks of wisdom in the crafts (7/41a10) or credits Solon with being wise because of his views on what makes people happy (NE X 8 1179a9–16). When used in this way, sophia includes practical wisdom, especially the architectonic va­ri­ ety, which—because it grasps universals—knows not just the minor prem­ises of practical syllogisms but also the major prem­ises that explain them (NE V 9 1137a9–17). Hence people will not consider architectonic practical wisdom to be a product of nature any more than they do wisdom proper. The practical wisdom that ­comes with age is thus exclusively of the sort concerned with last things and particulars. The sort concerned with universal starting-­points, like the sort that is part of wisdom, while it requires experience of particular actions and induction from them (NE I 3 1095a3–4), also requires “some sort of learning and supervision” (NE I 9 1099b20), since it involves the acquisition of sci­en­tific knowledge in the shape of practical wisdom and po­lit­i­cal science or ethics. The undemonstrated sayings and beliefs of experienced people to which we should listen stem from the sort of practical wisdom concerned with particulars (or from the consideration, compre­ hension, and un­der­stand­ing accompanying it), which, because it is or involves deliberative perception, requires an experienced eye

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(8/42a29–30). The demonstrations to which we should no less listen, on the other hand, belong to practical wisdom’s architectonic branch. Although Ar­is­totle says nothing spe­cific in the Ethics about the age at which people develop their experienced eye and become sources of advice to which we should listen, in the Politics he is more forthcoming. The context is a discussion of how the best city should select citizens for various of­fices. Because a city must by defi­ni­tion be a self-­suf­fic­ ient community, it needs “a multitude of farmers to provide the food, as well as craftsmen, soldiers, rich people, priests, and people to judge matters of necessity and advantage” (Pol. VII 8 1328b20–23). It is from these groups that the citizens must be selected. One way constitutions differ, indeed, is by making the selection in different ways: “in democracies ev­ery­ one shares in ev­ery­thing, whereas in oligarchies it is the contrary” (Pol. VII 9 1328b32–33). So the task is to determine how in ideal circumstances the selection should be made: Since we are investigating the best constitution, the one that would make a city most happy, and since happiness cannot exist apart from virtue . . . , it evidently follows that in a city governed in the noblest manner, possessing men who are unconditionally just, as opposed to just given certain assumptions, the citizens should not live the life of a vulgar craftsman or tradesman. For lives of these sorts are humble and inimical to virtue. Nor should those who are going to be citizens engage in farming; for leisure is needed both to develop virtue and as regards po­lit­i­cal actions. But since the best city contains both a military part and one that deliberates about what is advantageous and makes judgments about what is just, and since it is evident that these, more than anything else, are parts of the city, should these tasks also be assigned to different people, or are both to be assigned to the same people? This is evident, too, because in one way the tasks should be assigned to the same people, and in another they should be assigned to different ones. For since the prime time (akmês) for each of the two tasks is different, in that one requires practical wisdom and the other physical strength, they should be assigned to different people. On the other hand, since those capable of using and resisting force cannot possibly tolerate being ruled continuously, for this reason the two tasks should be assigned to the same people. For those who control the hoplite weapons also control whether a constitution



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will survive or not. The only course remaining, then, is for the constitution to assign both tasks to the same people, but not at the same time. Instead, since it is natural for physical strength to be found among youn­ger men and practical wisdom among older ones, it is advantageous and just to assign the tasks to each group by reference to age; for this division is based on merit. (Pol. VII 9 1328b34– 1329a17)

The prime time or akmê for a man’s hoplite ser­vice is that of his body, which is somewhere between the ages of thirty and thirty-­ five, while the prime time for that of his soul or his capacity for thought is forty-­nine or fifty (Pol. VII 16 1335b32–35, Rh. II 14 1390b9–11). Until the age of forty or so, male citizens lack the ­experience necessary for practical wisdom and deliberative of­fice and thereafter possess it.

11/43b14–17 We have said, then, what practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom are and what each of them is concerned with and that each is the virtue of a different part of the soul.

Un­der­stand­ing’s function is to grasp the starting-­points of sci­en­tific knowledge (6/41a7–8). When sci­en­tific knowledge is itself iden­ti­ fied with the unconditional sort provided by the theoretical sciences (3/39b18–24), we might reasonably expect un­der­stand­ing’s scope to piggyback on that iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, so that only the starting­points of these sciences fall within it. The inclusion of practical starting-­points and last things within its scope then ­comes as some­ thing of a shock, encouraging the thought that two different sorts of un­der­stand­ing must be involved. The distinction between practical and theoretical un­der­stand­ing drawn in De Anima may then seem ready made to underwrite the thought (III 10 433a13–30). This bifurcation in un­der­stand­ing is dif­fi­cult to reconcile with the plain sense of 11/43a35–b3, however, where a concern with theoretical and practical starting-­points and practical last things are all  at­trib­uted to the same state of the soul. On more systematic grounds, too, the bifurcation is surely to be resisted, since Aristotelian meta­phys­ics, epistemology, and psychology would be hard

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pressed to accommodate it. Un­der­stand­ing is one thing. Practical un­der­stand­ing is that one thing with wish added to give it action-­ determining or executive power (6/41a3–8). Hence it is better to explain the iden­ti­fic­ a­tion of sci­en­tific knowledge with unconditional sci­en­tific knowledge as stemming from the needs of the discussion at hand. The goal of NE VI is to de­fine the virtues of the parts of the soul responsible for thought. Since theoretical wisdom, the virtue of the part responsible for sci­en­tific thought, is found only in the most rigorous of the theoretical sciences, it makes for a cleaner contrast between the virtue of theoretical thought (wisdom) and that of practical thought (practical wisdom) to focus exclusively on it. But the price of the cleaner contrast is to threaten with ambiguity what the two virtues have in common—sci­en­tific sta­tus, unchanging starting-­points grasped by un­der­stand­ing, demonstrative structure, and so on.

The account of practical wisdom is more complex than that of theoretical wisdom, both because practical wisdom—since it involves deliberative choice—is a more complex virtue and because the account itself is given piecemeal. Practical wisdom is formally de­ fined at 5/40b4–6, where it is contrasted with unconditional sci­en­ tific knowledge and craft knowledge. At 6/40b35, 41a5, it is very briefly contrasted with un­der­stand­ing. At 7/41a20–b23, it is extensively contrasted with theoretical wisdom, so that it, more than theoretical wisdom, be­comes the major focus of the chapter. Beginning in VI 8, a new style of portraiture is initiated in which practical wisdom is not so much contrasted with other things as analyzed into its various components: it is the same state of the soul as po­lit­ i­cal science and so has an architectonic or universalistic legislative component; but it also has a particularistic component—deliberative perception. In VI 9 the deliberation that leads to such perception, and makes practical wisdom a quin­tes­sen­tially deliberative state is extensively analyzed. In VI 10, practical wisdom is contrasted with comprehension (sunesis) but also shown to involve it: comprehension discerns what we should or ­shouldn’t do; practical wisdom both discerns this and prescribes appropriately. In VI 11 consideration (sungnômê) provides the term of contrast, highlight-



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ing the particularistic side of practical wisdom, which ­comes into play, as fair-­mindedness (epieikeia) does, as a corrective to the justice embodied in universal law. Then un­der­stand­ing is revealed as having a particularistic side in addition to its familiar universalistic side, and both are shown to have a role to play in practical deliberation and hence in practical wisdom. Although Ar­is­totle seems to put a full stop to his accounts of practical wisdom and un­der­stand­ing at this point, VI 12–13 adds substantially to them.

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12/43b18–20 One might puzzle, however, about what use (chrêsimoi) they are. [Puzzle 1] For surely theoretical wisdom will not have theoretical knowledge of any of the things from which a human being will come to be happy (since it is not concerned with anything’s coming-­ to-­be).

Puzzle 1 (solutions at 12/44a1–6).  As the most rigorous form of

theoretical sci­en­tific knowledge, theoretical wisdom has theoretical knowledge of only what, as unconditionally necessary, cannot come-­to-­be or pass-­away. Apparently, then, it is useless for furthering happiness, since it is not concerned with any of the things that, because they admit of being otherwise, can be so changed by deliberate action as to bring happiness about. That these are the things “just and noble and good for a human being” that it is “characteristic of a good man to do” (12/43b22–23) is implied at 12/43b20–21. Things good because useful are usually contrasted with things intrinsically good: “Those who love because of utility (chrêsimon) feel fondness because of what is good for themselves, . . . not for the beloved insofar as he is who he is but insofar as he is useful” (NE VIII 3 1156a14–16). That is why utility (in this narrow sense) is the kind of goodness appropriate to things in the category of relations (NE I 6 1096a26): some­thing has it because it is related to some­thing else that is valuable. Since virtues are in the category of quality, not that of relation, their goodness is not of this kind, nor does the puzzle suppose it is (Cat. 8 8b29, NE I 6 1096a25). Instead, chrêsimon is being used here in a broader sense in which some­thing can also be chrêsimon by being intrinsically valuable or choiceworthy or by being a con­stit­u­ent of some­thing intrinsically valuable (12/44a1–6). The reason chrêsimon is nonetheless used to express the puzzle is that the normal way to raise a (perhaps skeptical) question about the practical value of some­thing is to ask what use it is—or in what 240



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way it will con­trib­ute to an end, such as happiness (12/44a5–6). Since ethics is a practical science that we study in order to become good people (NE II 2 1103b28), it is natural, having de­fined the virtues, to show that—as so de­fined—they can be defended against such skepticism. It is also natural, of course, to point out in the pro­cess that utility is not the only kind of value things possess (NE I 2 1094a19–21): “it is completely inappropriate for magnanimous and free people always to be asking what use (chrêsimon) some­ thing is” (Pol. VIII 3 1338b2–4). In whatever terms puzzles about the virtues of thought are raised, a discussion of them is the methodologically appropriate sequel to working out their defi­ni­tions (compare NE V 9 1136a10– 11). For defi­ni­tions of the virtues are starting-­points of ethics (Met. XIII 4 1078b17–30) and as such are appropriately defended dialectically or aporematically—that is to say, by first listing and then going through and solving the puzzles that might be raised about them. That, in this instance, the puzzles concern the practical utility of the virtues of thought is a re­flection of the fact that the Nicomachean Ethics is a practical treatise, whose aim is not to provide us with theoretical knowledge, but to help us become good (NE II 2 1103b26–29).

12/43b20–28 Practical wisdom, on the contrary, certainly does do this; but what do we need it for? For if practical wisdom is, indeed, the [virtue] concerned with things just and noble and good for a human being and these are the ones it is characteristic of a good man to do and knowledge of them in no way makes us more doers of them, if, indeed, states are what the virtues are, then it will be just the same as in the case of things relating to health or things relating to physical fitness (I mean those so called not for producing the state but for resulting from it), since we are in no way doers of them through possessing the crafts of medicine or physical training.

Puzzle 2 (solutions at 12/44a1–6, 6–11, 44a11–b1).  Unlike theoreti-

cal wisdom, practical wisdom does provide theoretical knowledge of the just, noble, and good actions that a good or virtuous man characteristically does and in which happiness consists. Merely

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having theoretical knowledge of what these are does not ensure one will do them, however, since the virtues of character with which they must be in accord are medial states of the desiring part of the soul, not, like practical wisdom, of the apparently cognitive calculative part (NE I 13 1103a1–10). In the same way, medicine and physical training are concerned with healthy actions, but mere knowledge of what these are does not make us do them. One can be an unhealthy doctor or an unfit trainer.

12/43b28–33 If, on the other hand, we are to say that being practically wise is useful not for this but for becoming [good], to those who are good it will be of no use. Moreover, it will be of none to those who are not such; for it will make no difference whether they have it themselves or put their trust in others who have it—that is, it would be adequate for us to do just as we also do in the case of health: we wish to be healthy, but all the same we do not learn medicine.

Puzzle 2 continued.  Just as medicine and physical training are

useful to those who are not healthy, practical wisdom might be useful in an analogous way, enabling people not to be just or good but to become so. In that case it will be useless to those who are already good. Moreover, it will be a useless possession to those who are not good. A sick person does not need to know medicine himself, since he can consult a doctor for a cure; similarly a nonvirtuous person may not need to possess practical wisdom himself, since he can simply seek the advice of someone else who does possess it.

12/43b33–35 In addition to all this, it would be thought strange if practical wisdom, though inferior to theoretical wisdom, were to have more control than it—yet what produces some­thing is what rules it and prescribes about anything [concerning it].

Puzzle 3 (solution at 13/45a6–11).  The assumption, as in Puzzle 2,

is that practical wisdom is useful solely for producing goodness



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and virtue in those who lack it. Hence the relevant relation of practical wisdom to the virtue of theoretical wisdom must be that of producer to product. Since the producer of some­thing rules or has control over how it should and should not be used, practical wisdom should rule theoretical wisdom. But theoretical wisdom is the most estimable virtue and so is superior to practical wisdom. Hence it seems absurd that it should be ruled or controlled by practical wisdom (Pol. III 12 1282a25–26). Productions (poiêseis) are normally distinguished from actions (praxeis) or activities (energeiai) in that they have external ends only, whereas actions and activities have internal ones (4/40a1–10). A few lines later (12/44a6), however, in response to Puzzle 3, ­poiein  is used to characterize the relationship between the ac­tu­ alization of theoretical wisdom and happiness, which is that of an action or activity to its internal end. Production and use (chrêsis) are also usually distinguished, since it ­isn’t producers that control products but the users of them—the guests, not the chef who produces their dinner (Pol. III 11 1282a17–23; compare Plato, Republic X 601d–602a). A response to Puzzle 3 relies on this distinction: practical wisdom does not control theoretical wisdom, because it does not “use” it, but only produces it or “looks to see how it can come-­into-­being” (13/45a8–9). The joint presupposition of these two responses is that poiein (poiousa) is being used quite loosely in Puzzle 3 to include not just praxis but chrêsis as well.

12/44a1–3 Well, first, let us say that these states must be intrinsically (kath’ hautas) choiceworthy—since each is the virtue of one of the two [reason­possessing] parts—even if neither of them produces anything at all.

The first response to Puzzles 1–2.  We choose “all virtues because

of themselves, since we would choose each of them even if nothing further resulted from it” (NE I 7 1097b2–4). Ends choiceworthy because of themselves are intrinsically choiceworthy: “what belongs to some­thing because of itself belongs to it intrinsically” (APo. I 4 73b10–11). Hence practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom, as the respective virtues of the calculative and sci­en­tific parts

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of the soul, must be intrinsically choiceworthy, even if neither produces anything additional.

12/44a3–6 Next, they do, indeed, produce some­thing, not, however, as the craft of medicine produces health but as health [does]. That is how theoretical wisdom, too, produces happiness (eudaimonia), for as a part of virtue as a whole, by being possessed and ac­tualized it produces happiness.

A second response to Puzzle 1.  Among the virtues whose possession and ac­tualization produces eudaimonia most people would include such “bodily virtues as health, beauty, strength, stature, and athletic capacity” (Rh. I 5 1360b14–22). Ar­is­totle disagrees. The properly human virtues are those through which “our function is completed” (12/44a6–7). Since our function is “activity of the soul in accord with reason or not without reason” (NE I 7 1098a7–8), only the virtues of thought and character qualify (NE I 13 1103a1–10). Hence even the virtue of the soul’s nutritive part is  not included in “virtue as a whole (holês), any more than the body’s is” (EE II 1 1219b20–22; also NE I 13 1102a16–b12). It cannot be the case, then, that the opening sentence contrasts the way in which medicine produces health with the way in which health produces eudaimonia, since health, as a virtue of the body, is not part of (properly human) virtue as a whole. Instead, what health produces is health: “things are produced in three ways: as health produces health (to ugiainein hugieias), as food produces health, and as physical training does” (Rh. I 6 1362a31–33). For, as some­thing acquired through physical training and medical treatment, health, like medicine, is a state (in its case, of the body). When active or ac­tualized, it results in health, in the sense of ac­ tually being healthy, which is not a product beyond the healthy state itself but the state itself ac­tualized or activated. It is as understood in this way that relationship between health (the state) and health (the state ac­tualized) is analogous to the re­ lationship between theoretical wisdom (the state) and happiness (the state ac­tualized). For theoretical wisdom is ac­tualized when someone who possesses it engages in contemplative activity. Since contemplative activity is complete happiness when it receives a



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complete span of life (NE X 7 1177b24–26), theoretical wisdom produces the best kind of happiness by “being possessed and ac­ tualized.” The amalgam of practical wisdom and virtue of character that is “full virtue” (13/44b3–4), by contrast, does not con­trib­ ute to the best kind of happiness in this way but by seeing to it that theoretical wisdom ­comes into being by being acquired and exercised (13/45a6–9).

12/44a6–9 Moreover, our function is completed in accord with practical wisdom and virtue of character; for virtue makes the target correct, and practical wisdom makes what furthers it so.

A second response to Puzzle 2.  Our function is “activity of the

soul in accord with reason or not without reason” (NE I 7 1098a7– 8). Since “each function is completed well by being completed in accord with its proper virtue” (NE I 7 1098a15), practical wisdom, as the virtue of a part of the soul (the calculative one) that has reason, and virtue of character, as the virtue of a part (the desiring one) that is not without reason, complete our function. Since a well-­completed function constitutes happiness (NE I 7 1098a16– 17), practical wisdom and virtue of character further it, as theoretical wisdom furthers the best kind of happiness, by being possessed and ac­tualized. The happiness they further in this direct way is not the best kind of happiness, however, but the second-­best kind, consisting of practical activity in accord with its virtue (NE X 8 1178a9–22). The claim that our function “is completed in accord with practical wisdom and virtue of character” could mean [1] it is fully completed in accord with them or [2] it is partly completed in accord with them. Since theoretical wisdom is also a virtue proper to the relevant function, [2] must be the intended meaning. Thus when Ar­is­totle introduces the notion of a function’s being completed by a virtue, he also distinguishes between the degree to which any of a function’s proper virtues completes it and the degree to which its most complete virtue does: the latter completes it well or fully, the former completes it but only partly (NE I 7 1098a15–18). It is with all these facts in mind, we may surmise, that Ar­is­totle

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characterizes the contributions theoretical wisdom and full virtue make to happiness in otherwise puzzlingly asymmetrical ways. For whatever sort of contribution theoretical wisdom makes to happiness by being part of virtue as a whole, any other part also makes, and whatever sort of contribution practical wisdom and the virtues of character make to happiness by completing our function, any other virtue that completes it also makes. Once happiness itself turns out to be of two kinds, these symmetrical claims suggest a falsehood, since there is no one kind of happiness that makes all of them true. Theoretical wisdom ac­tualized is the best kind of happiness; full virtue ac­tualized is not. Full virtue produces the best kind of happiness as a further result of its ac­tualization; theoretical wisdom ­doesn’t. Full virtue completes our function by being ac­tualized (or by our function’s being ac­tualized in accord with it), but the happiness it thus furthers is not the happiness theoretical wisdom furthers in this way. Virtue makes the target correct by means cognate with those in which “vice is corruptive of the starting-­point” (5/40b19–20), since in practical matters, target, end, and starting-­point are the same. Because deliberation is not concerned with ends or targets but exclusively with what furthers them, practical wisdom, as the virtue of the soul’s calculative or deliberative part, should be concerned, it seems, exclusively with the correctness of what furthers ends. Yet we already know that to be unconditionally good, deliberation must also further the correct end and that practical wisdom ensures that (supposition about) this end is correct (9/42b29–33). Much of what follows serves to reconcile these apparently different characterizations (12/44a11–13/45a6).

12/44a9–11 Of the fourth part of the soul, the nutritive, there is no virtue of this sort (aretê toiautê); for there is nothing that is up to it to do or not do.

The other three parts of the soul, besides the nutritive one, are: the sci­en­tific part, whose virtue is theoretical wisdom; the calculative part, whose virtue is practical wisdom; and the desiring part, whose



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virtue is virtue of character. The sort of virtue, referred to only as aretê toiautê, from which the nutritive part’s virtues are excluded could be [1] human virtue as a whole, [2] virtue that completes our function, or [3] virtue that completes our function in the spe­cific way that practical wisdom and virtue of character do, namely, by making either the target or what furthers it correct. That the reference cannot be to [1] or [2] is made clear by the grounds used to exclude the virtues of the nutritive part from it. For theoretical wisdom is included in [1] and [2], but the sci­en­tific part of the soul, whose virtue it is, is not concerned with voluntary actions any more than is the nutritive one, since its area of operations consists entirely of necessary truths. What the virtues of the nutritive part are being excluded from, then, is [3] virtues that complete our function in a spe­cific way. The entire sentence, which seems at first simply to interrupt the flow of thought, may thus be an entirely apposite response to a possible ob­jec­tion: Why think that practical wisdom and virtue of character suf­fice to make our target and what furthers it correct when there is a class of virtues—those of the nutritive part—they do not include? Answer: What correctly furthers our end is a matter for deliberation to determine, and deliberation is restricted to what is up to us to do or not do in action. Moreover, doing well in action—that is, doing well in things that it is up to us to do or not do—just is our ultimate end or target. The nutritive part is responsible solely for nutrition, growth, and reproduction (DA II 4). Since these functions are ones it performs by nature and so by necessity, there is nothing that is up to it to do or not to do. Because the sort of virtue or excellence it possesses is not concerned either with our target or with what furthers it, its existence poses no obstacle to the claim that practical wisdom and virtue of character do complete our function in the way speci­fied.

12/44a11–19 With regard to our being in no way more doers, because of practical wisdom, of noble actions and just actions, let us begin a little further back, taking the following as a starting-­point. We also say, you see, that some people who do just things are still not just (for example, those who do what is prescribed by the laws either unwillingly, be-

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Commentary cause of ignorance, or because of some­thing else, and not because of the actions themselves), even though they at least do the things they should and ev­ery­thing a good person ought to do; likewise, apparently, there is the case of being so disposed, when doing each action, as to be a good person—I mean, for example, [to do them] because of deliberate choice and for the sake of the acts themselves.

The opening move in the third and most detailed response to Puzzle 2 (12/43b20–28).  Not ev­ery­one who does just actions is thereby

just. For the just person does just actions knowingly (and so not in ignorance), because of deliberate choice (and so not unwillingly), because of the actions themselves (and so not for adventitious reasons), and from “a firm and unchanging state of character” (NE II 4 1105a30–33) and so reliably over the long haul of a complete life. This suggests that in the case of practical wisdom, too, there may be a distinction between doing the actions that practical wisdom would prescribe and doing them in a practically wise way. The former is possible on the basis of someone else’s practically wise advice, but the latter may not be, since it may require the possession of practical wisdom. The next moves in the response identify the different roles of virtue of character and practical wisdom in the good person’s way of doing just and virtuous actions.

12/44a19–23 Virtue, then, makes the deliberate choice correct, but as to whatever should naturally be done for the sake of carrying it out—that is not the business of virtue but of a different capacity. However, we must get sci­en­tific knowledge of these and discuss them in a more illuminating way.

The need for a more illuminating account is palpable, given the apparently con­flicting things Ar­is­totle says about the roles of practical wisdom and virtue of character. For example, here he says that virtue of character makes deliberate choice correct, whereas earlier he has apparently assigned this role to practical wisdom: “Good deliberation will be the sort of correctness that is in accord with what is expedient in furthering the end about which practical wisdom is true supposition” (9/42b32–33). What will provide the nec-



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essary illumination is the forthcoming discussion of cle­verness (12/44a23–29) and natural virtue (13/44b1–7).

12/44a23–29 There is, then, a capacity called cle­verness (deinotêta); and this is the sort of thing that, when it ­comes to the things that further [hitting] a proposed target, is able to do these (tauta prattein) and (kai) to discover them (tugchanein autôn).* If, then, the target is a noble one, this capacity is praiseworthy, but if it is a bad one, it is unscrupulousness (panourgia); and that is why both practically wise people and unscrupulous ones are said to be cle­ver. Practical wisdom, however, is not the capacity [of cle­verness] but does not exist without this capacity.

If the target someone aims at is noble, his character must be virtuous and thus praiseworthy, since virtue of character is what en *Textual Note: I read the transmitted text [1] τυγχάνειν αὐτῶν. The alternative is [2] τυγχάνειν αὐτοῦ: “and discover or hit it.” What role is being accorded to cle­verness depends somewhat on whether we accept [1], in which it is said to discover “them (autôn),” that is, the things that further hitting a proposed target, or [2], in which it is said to discover or hit “it (autou),” that is, the target itself. On the plausible assumption that the capacity it refers to is cle­verness, the following passage favors [1]: “it belongs to another capacity (allês dunameôs) to discover (tugchanein) all that must be done to further the end; but that the deliberate choice’s end is correct—of this, virtue [of char­ acter] is the cause” (EE II 11 1227b39–1228a2). For here what cle­verness discovers is exclusively what furthers hitting the target. While [1] keeps cle­ verness focused on what furthers hitting a target, it inverts the natural order of the clauses, since we expect discovery to precede doing, not to follow it. But there may be an innocent explanation for the inversion, namely, that the kai (“and”) connecting the two clauses is epexegetic or explanatory. It is easy to see why this might be so. Since what cle­verness discovers is the result of deliberation, it must be a practical truth (when in accord with virtue) or practical falsehood (when not in accord with virtue), so that discovering it entails acting on it. Hence cle­verness is credited with doing what it discovers. Nonetheless, what is discovered, strictly speaking, is not an action or doing but the minor prem­ise or decree specifying it. Hence the corrective explanation: cle­ verness does what it discovers in that what it discovers is a practical truth or falsehood.

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sures the correct deliberate choice of noble and praiseworthy ends. An unscrupulous person is one who “greedily takes anything from anywhere” (EE II 3 1221a36–37; also Pr. XVI 4 917a1–2). That is to say, he takes as much as he can of money, honors, bodily plea­ sures, and other goods of competition, which are greed’s particular targets (NE IX 8 1168b15–21), regardless of to whom they belong. If cle­verness is to be unscrupulousness in someone whose end is bad, the end in question must be the bad equivalent, so to speak, of the unconditionally good end that practical wisdom furthers. This might explain why practical wisdom appears in a list of virtues and vices as the virtuous mean between the too much of unscrupulousness and the too little of unworldliness (euêtheia) (EE II 3 1221a12). Although the doctrine of the mean is not applied directly to the virtues of thought in the Nicomachean Ethics, practical wisdom does seem to be a sort of medial state in that the virtues of character involved in it are medial states. Cle­verness is what correctly furthers any proposed end, even someone else’s: powerful people like friends who are “cle­ver at carrying out the prescribed action” (NE VIII 6 1158a32). Hence practical wisdom cannot exist without cle­verness, since it, too, correctly furthers an end. But because the end it furthers must be the unconditionally good one, practical wisdom is end-­spe­cific and so ­isn’t the same as cle­verness: Cle­verness and the cle­ver man are not the same as practical wisdom or the practically wise man, but the practically wise man is certainly cle­ver, and that is why cle­verness works together in a way with practical wisdom. The bad man is also said to be cle­ver . . . but not practically wise. For it is characteristic of the practically wise man and to practical wisdom to seek the best things, and always to deliberately choose and do them in action, whereas it is characteristic of cle­ verness and the cle­ver man to discover the things from which (ek tinôn) each of the things doable in action may come about and to provide these. (MM I 34 1197b18–26)

Practically wise people are cle­ver, then, and are rightly so called, but not all cle­ver people are practically wise. Similarly, a cle­ver person can be incontinent, capable of working out the best means to his ends but then failing to deliberately choose in accord with



Commentary

his find­ings. Indeed, the reason that some practically wise people are wrongly thought to be incontinent is that cle­verness, while “close to” practical wisdom “in terms of its reason, differs from it in terms of its deliberate choice” (NE VII 10 1152a10–14). When we know that someone is cle­ver, we ­don’t know what his character is like (EE II 1 1220a12); when we know that he is practically wise, we do. Cle­verness, however, is not restricted to the same sphere of operations as practical wisdom. It is, Ar­is­totle says, a condition of “the part that forms beliefs” (13/44b14–15). Presumably, then, it can be exhibited by someone who forms true beliefs on any subject matter because the calculation on whose basis he forms them is reliably correct (3/39b14–18). It is worth noticing, all the same, that Ar­is­totle does not distinguish a con­stit­u­ent like cle­verness in craft knowledge, though he does sometimes speak of craftsmen and other experts as cle­ver (deinos) (SE 1 165a14, EE VIII 2 1247a21, Pol. II 12 1274a26, Rh. I 12 1373a5). Presumably, this is because a craft is a potentiality that is already end neutral, in that it can be used to bring about good ends or bad ones: medicine can be used to cure or to kill (EE VIII 1 1246a26–35). There is no need, therefore, to distinguish an end-­neutral component in it.

12/44a29–37 But the state, the one pertaining to this eye of the soul, does not come about without virtue, as we have said and is clear. For practical syllogisms have a starting-­point, “since the end—that is, the best good—is such and such,” whatever it may be (let it be any random thing for the sake of argument); this, however, is not evident, except to the good man, for vice produces distortion and false views about the starting-­points of action. So it is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise without being good.

The state de­scribed as not coming about without virtue of character is practical wisdom, which was already so de­scribed at 5/40b11– 21. But practical wisdom, dealing as it must with particulars, is more deliberative perception than it is the architectonic knowledge of universals. Hence practically wise people “see correctly,” because they have “an eye formed from experience” (11/43b13–14).

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What is referred to as “this eye of the soul,” therefore, must be what does the seeing—correctly, when it is an exercise of practical wisdom, incorrectly otherwise. Within practical wisdom, the spe­ cific element that perceives particulars—as the last things reached in a deliberative syllogism—is un­der­stand­ing, which is also the one that grasps the universal starting-­point involved in that syllogism’s major prem­ise (11/43a35–b5). That is why un­der­stand­ing is analogized to sight—“as sight is to the body, so un­der­stand­ing is to the soul” (NE I 6 1096b28–29)—and lack of un­der­stand­ing to blindness (13/44b8–14; compare Protr. B70, Met. IX 10 1052a3–4). In speaking of un­der­stand­ing as the soul’s eye, Ar­is­totle is probably recalling Plato’s Republic, where an element in the soul is analogized to an eye (VII 533d). It accomplishes bad things when “forced to serve vice” but, through proper habituation in virtue, can be “turned around” from the perceptible sphere of becoming to the intelligible sphere of being so that it accomplishes good ones (VII 518c–519a). Initially called “the calculative element (to logistikon)” and charged with seeing to its own welfare and to that of the entire person of which it is a part (IV 439d, 442c), it is later characterized as containing a divine and immortal subelement that contemplates the transcendent forms, including that of the good (VII 518e, X 611e–612a). Plato’s logistikon is the analogue of Ar­ is­totle’s calculative part, which shares its name; its subelement is the analogue of his sci­en­tific part (especially, un­der­stand­ing); the two together are the analogue of his part that has reason.

VI 13

13/44b1–7 Virtue, then, must also be examined again. For virtue, too, is in much the same situation: as practical wisdom is related to cle­verness—not the same, but similar—so natural virtue is related to full virtue. For ev­ery­one thinks that each character-­trait is possessed in some way by nature; for in fact we are just, disposed to temperance, courageous, and the rest, immediately from birth. But all the same we look for full goodness to be some­thing else and for such qualities to be possessed in another way.

The souls of children contain “traces and seeds” of the states they will have later (HA VIII 1 588a33) as well as natural conditions of the affections or feelings that tend toward virtues that, because they have this natural source, are themselves natural: All these medial states are praiseworthy, but they are not virtues nor are their contraries vices—for they do not involve deliberate choice. All of them belong in the class of affections, since an affection is what each of them is. But because they are natural they tend toward virtues that are natural; for . . . each virtue is in some way both natural and otherwise (that is, when it involves practical wisdom). Envy tends toward injustice (for the actions that stem from it are in relation to another), righ­teous indignation to justice, shame to temperance. (EE III 7 1234a23–32)

The natural virtues are the ones stemming directly from these seeds and medial precursor emotional conditions but are not yet accompanied by practical wisdom and the deliberate choice that goes with it. It is these, which dispose us to the virtues of character proper, that are the basis for the universal belief that the virtues themselves are “in some way natural,” and present in us from birth (11/43b6–14). The choice of sôphronikon (“disposed to temperance”) rather than the more common sophrôn may be intended to signal this and to cast its shadow on dikaion (“just”) and andreion (“courageous”), too.

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Ar­is­totle himself downplays the importance of natural virtue: “natural virtue itself, which lacks reason, is of little account when apart from reason, and falls short of being praiseworthy” (MM I 34 1198a3–5). This is because habituation can so easily alter it: Surely people become virtuous (agathoi) or good (spoudaioi) because of three things: nature, habit, and reason. For first one must possess a certain nature from birth, namely, that of a human and not that of some other animal. Similarly, one’s body and soul must be of a certain sort. But in the case of some of these qualities, there is no bene­fit in just being born with them; for they are altered by our habits. For some qualities are naturally capable of being developed by habit either in a better direction or in a worse one. The other animals mostly live under the guidance of nature alone, although some are guided a little by habit. But human beings live under the guidance of reason as well; for they alone have reason. Consequently, all three of these factors need to be harmonized with one another. For people often act contrary to their habits and their nature because of reason, if they happen to be persuaded that some other course of action is better. (Pol. VII 13 1332a38–b8)

While nature may dispose us to virtue, if that disposition is to develop appropriately, it needs the helping hand of adequate habitu­ ation: None of the virtues of character ­comes about in us by nature; for nothing that is so by nature can be changed by habituation—a stone, for example, that by nature moves downward will not be habituated into moving upward, even if someone tries to habituate it by throwing it upward ten thousand times, nor fire to move downward, nor will anything else that by nature behaves in one way be habituated into behaving in another. Hence the virtues develop in us neither by nature nor contrary to nature. Rather we are by nature capable of acquiring them, and completion ­comes through habituation. (NE II 1 1103a19–26)

When Ar­is­totle says that it is virtue, whether “natural or habituated, that teaches correct belief about the starting-­point” (NE VII 8 1151a18–19), he is clearly thinking about natural virtue that has been adequately habituated.



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We might expect Ar­is­totle to say that as cle­verness is related to practical wisdom so natural virtue is related to full virtue. Instead, he apparently mixes up the order: “as practical wisdom is related to cle­verness—not the same, but similar—so natural virtue is related to full virtue.” It may be, however, that the apparent mix-­up is intended to make a point. Natural virtue is some­thing that with proper habituation develops into full virtue. Cle­verness is not like that. It can be just as developed in a vicious person as in a virtuous and practically wise one. By stating his analogy as he does, Ar­is­ totle directs us away from taking it the wrong developmental way. The correct way to understand it will become clearer in what follows (13/44b12–17).

13/44b8–12 For to both children and beasts these natural states also belong; but without un­der­stand­ing, they are evidently harmful. At any rate, this much we can surely see that just as a heavy body moving around without sight suf­fers a heavy fall because it has no sight, so it happens in this case, too.

The traces and seeds of the natural virtues of character existing in children also exist in attenuated or analogous forms in nonhuman animals (HA VII 1 588a18–b4), since the natural conditions of the affections, which are the sources of these virtues, also exist in them: “Human beings as well [as beasts] are pained when angry and take plea­sure in retaliating; but the ones who fight for these reasons, though good fighters, are not courageous, . . . although they have some­thing in the neighborhood” (NE III 8 1117a5–9). What is distinctive of those motivated by natural virtue and feelings is that they do not act “because of what is noble or as reason [prescribes] but because of their feelings” (NE III 8 1117a8–9), since “the desire for what is pleasant is insatiable and indiscriminate in someone that lacks un­der­stand­ing” (NE III 12 1119b8–9). For what is noble is the end at which full virtue aims, and the element in full virtue responsible for grasping that end is un­der­stand­ing. Un­der­ stand­ing is the eye of the soul, so that those who lack it are, in the relevant sense, blind. It is a liability for a blind person to be heavy, since when he trips

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over an unseen obstacle his fall will be harder than if he were lighter. Moreover, he will be most likely to trip when in an unfamiliar environment, where habits cannot help him in the way they do on home territory, where he may be able to get around just as well as someone with good eyesight. Similarly, a naturally virtuous person may act just like a virtuous one in the sorts of familiar cases his good habits have prepared him to deal with. He will be the ethical equivalent of heavy. This may make him more likely to chance his arm in unfamiliar cases than someone without such habits and the successes they engender—someone who is the ethical equivalent of light. As a result he will suf­fer a harder fall: “some have been destroyed because of their wealth, others because of their [natural] courage” (NE I 3 1094b18–19). And the reason for this is that it is in the nonroutine cases, the cases that habituation cannot prepare him for, that a capacity for good deliberation is required. But good deliberation requires an explicit grasp of the  correct end by un­der­stand­ing (9/42b28–33, 2/44a29–37) and that is just what the naturally virtuous person lacks altogether. Were he to acquire it, the change in his actions would be palpable, indeed.

13/44b12–17 But if someone should acquire un­der­stand­ing, it makes a difference in his action; and his state, though similar to the one he had, will then be full virtue. So, just as in the case of the part that forms beliefs there are conditions of two types, cle­verness and practical wisdom, so also in the part responsible for character there are two, natural virtue and full virtue—and of these, full virtue does not come into being without practical wisdom.

Full virtue is natural (habituated) virtue together with the sort of grasp by un­der­stand­ing of the correct end, and a grasp by cle­ verness of the best means of furthering it that possession of natural virtue makes possible. When these conditions exist in the soul, so does practical wisdom. For practical wisdom is quin­tes­sen­tially a  deliberative—and so deliberatively perceptual—virtue, which grasps the correct end (and so involves un­der­stand­ing and natural virtue) and the best means to it (and so involves cle­verness). Full



Commentary

virtue requires practical wisdom, then, just as practical wisdom requires full virtue.

With the distinctions between natural (habituated) and full virtue and between cle­verness and practical wisdom in place, a clearer explanation is possible of how the various components of practical wisdom fit together, what their distinctive roles are, and how and why they presuppose, and are presupposed by, the virtues of character. What in practical wisdom ensures its true supposition about the unconditional end of action is natural virtue together with un­der­stand­ing; what ensures that it correctly furthers this end through unconditionally correct deliberation is cle­verness.

13/44b17–32 That is why, indeed, some people say that all the virtues are forms of practical wisdom, and why, in one sense, Soc­ra­tes used to inquire correctly but in another sense erroneously. For in thinking that all the virtues were forms of practical wisdom, he was in error, but in saying that they did not exist without practical wisdom, he spoke well. Here is a sign of this: even now ev­ery­one, when de­fin­ing virtue, having named the state and what it is concerned with, adds “the one in accord with the correct reason”—and the correct one is the one in accord with practical wisdom. It would seem, then, that all people somehow divine that this sort of state is virtue: the one in accord with practical wisdom. We, however, should make a small alteration. For it ­isn’t the one that is only in accord with the correct reason (kata ton orthon logon) but the state involving the correct reason (meta tou orthou logou) that is virtue; and the correct reason about such matters is practical wisdom. Soc­ra­tes, then, thought that the virtues were cases of reason (all being cases of sci­en­tific knowledge); we, on the other hand, think that they involve reason. It is clear, then, from what we have said, that it is not possible to be fully good without practical wisdom nor practically wise without virtue of character.

The interde­pen­dence of the full virtues of character with practical wisdom, which Ar­is­totle accepts (13/44b14–17), leads some peo-

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ple  to treat them as forms of practical wisdom, which he rejects (13/44b25–30). Although the use of the imperfect ezêtei (“used to inquire”) at 13/44b19 may suggest that it is the historical Soc­ra­tes Ar­is­totle intends to include among them, the Soc­ra­tes we find in Plato’s dialogues (whether accurately modeled on the historical fig­ ure or not) would serve his case equally well, since according to him, all the virtues are cases of knowledge (epistêmê) of good and evil (Charmides 174b–c, Meno 87d–89a). In characterizing this knowledge as practical wisdom rather than sci­en­tific knowledge or craft knowledge, Ar­is­totle might be thought to exceed his brief, since Plato’s Soc­ra­tes does not distinguish these: arithmetic and geometry are crafts for him (Charmides 165e) as are the various virtues of character (Republic I 332d). What is more likely is that Ar­ is­totle is not trying to be precise, since a few lines later he de­scribes Soc­ra­tes as identifying the virtues not with phronêsis, but with epistêmê or—as also elsewhere (MM I 34 1198a10–11)—with logos or reason (13/44b29–30). Ev­ery­one—including Ar­is­totle himself—accepts that whatever virtue of character is, it must be in accord with the correct reason, which is the one speci­fied by practical wisdom (1/38b18–25). General agreement about some­thing constitutes it as a reputable opinion (endoxon), acceptable as an initial datum in philosophical in­ quiry and so as a (defeasible) sign that the view is correct. The “small alteration” Ar­is­totle thinks it necessary to make to the view stems from Puzzle 2 (12/43b28–33). A virtuous person’s state not only must be in accord with the correct reason, it also must in some more intimate way involve it. For his state might be in accord with practical wisdom for all sorts of adventitious reasons: Soc­ra­tes was not speaking correctly when he said that virtue was reason, because it was not ben­e­fic­ ial to do courageous and just actions unless one did them knowingly and deliberately chose them by reason. That is why he incorrectly said that virtue is reason. Present thinkers, by contrast, do better; for it is doing noble things in accord with correct reason that they say is virtue. Even they, however, are not correct. For one might do just actions with no deliberate choice whatsoever or with no knowledge of noble things but through some nonrational impulse and yet do them correctly and in accord with correct reason (I mean where one does them as the correct reason would command). All the same, this sort of action is not praisewor-



Commentary

thy. It is better, as we do, to de­fine virtue as the impulse toward what is noble that involves reason; for that is both a virtue and praiseworthy. (MM I 34 1198a10–22)

Similarly, in the case of the craft of grammar, “it is possible to produce some­thing grammatical either by luck or on someone else’s instruction,” but to be a grammarian, that ­isn’t enough. Instead, “someone will be a grammarian, if he both produces some­thing grammatical and does so in the way a grammarian would; and this is to do it in accord with the craft knowledge of grammar internal to himself” (NE II 4 1105a22–26). An internalized knowledge of a craft is an entirely cognitive state, however, whereas practical wisdom ­isn’t, which is why it cannot simply be forgotten (5/40b28–36). In fact, of the various elements that constitute the virtuous state of character, the strictly cognitive one is the least im­por­tant: The case of crafts is not similar to that of the virtues. For the things that come about by means of the crafts have their goodness internal to them, and so it is enough if they are produced so as to be in a certain state. On the other hand, the things that come about in accord with the virtues are done justly or temperately not simply if they are in a certain state but in addition if the one who does them is in a certain state: first, if he does them knowingly; second, if he deliberately chooses them and deliberately chooses them because of themselves; and third, if he does them from a secure and unchangeable state. Where the various crafts are concerned, these factors do not count, except for the knowing itself. Where the virtues are concerned, however, knowing has little or no in­flu­ence, whereas the other factors have not just a little but rather all the sig­nifi­cance, and these are the very ones that come about from frequently doing just and temperate actions. So actions are called just and temperate when they are the sort that a just or a temperate person would do, whereas a person is not just or temperate because he does these actions, but also because he does them in the way a just or temperate person does them. (NE II 4 1105a26–b9)

For virtuous actions to be done virtuously, then, it ­isn’t enough that they be in accord with the agent’s internalized knowledge of what action to do. Other factors must also be present in him, in-

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cluding a secure and unchangeable state of character—a secure and unchangeable state of his appetites and feelings. The contrast drawn between the continent person and the virtuous one tells us what this state consists in: We praise the reason of a continent and of an incontinent person, that is, the part of their soul that has reason; for it exhorts them correctly toward what is best; but apparently they also have by nature some­thing else within them besides reason that fights against reason and resists it . . . Of reason, however, it also apparently has a share, as we said. At any rate, it is obedient to the reason of the continent person—and listens still better, presumably, to that of the temperate and courageous one; for there it chimes with reason in ev­ery­thing. (NE I 13 1102b14–28)

Unlike the incontinent person, the continent one not only has the correct reason, he also acts in accord with it. Yet in failing to be virtuous, his state fails to involve that reason, because some­thing else in him—“the appetitive part and the desiring part” (I 13 1102b30)—fails to chime with it. To involve reason, then, this part must so chime, that is to say, his appetites and feelings must be in a mean, with the result that he is “of one mind with himself and desires the same things in his whole soul” (IX 4 1166a13–14).

13/44b32–45a2 And in this way we can also resolve the argument by which someone might contend dialectically that the virtues are separate from one another, on the grounds that the same person is not best equipped by nature (euphuestatos) for all of them, so that he will at some point have acquired one when he has not yet acquired another. In the case of the natural virtues, indeed, this is possible, but in the case of those because of which someone is called unconditionally good, it is not possible; for at the same time as practical wisdom, which is one [state],* is present, they will all be present. *Textual Note: I read μιᾷ ὑπαρχούσῃ. An alternative is μιᾷ οὔσῃ ὑπαρχούσῃ: “wisdom, being one state.” A small point in favor of the alternative is that in Plato’s Laches, we find the phrase ἰατρική, μιά οὖσα: “medicine, being one [science]” (198d). The sense is the same in either case.



Commentary

One common way to solve dialectical puzzles raised by opponents is to uncover hidden equivocations in them: by “virtue” do you mean this sort of thing (natural virtue) or that sort of thing (full virtue)? This is the strategy Ar­is­totle employs here. Natural virtues stem from precursor emotional conditions, as courage does from anger that is in a mean, temperance from natural shame, and justice from righ­teous indignation. Since it is possible to have one such condition but not another, some people are better equipped by nature for some of these virtues than others. This shows that the natural virtues are, indeed, separate and so might explain why people think the same to be true of the full ones. But it ­isn’t. For no full virtue can be possessed without practical wisdom, which is a single state involving the possession of ev­ery other full virtue, so that the possession of one full virtue entails the possession of all of them (see EE VIII 1 1246b4–36). Some­thing has euphuia or is euphuês when it is well (eu) grown (phuê), or favored by nature in capacities, appearance, or some other respect: the situation of a bodily organ can be euphuês (PA III 4 666a14), as can that of a city (Pol. V 3 1303b8); an animal can be euphuês as regards a function, such as reproduction (GA II 8 748b8, 12), or the acquisition of a capacity, such as bearing the cold (Pol. VII 17 1336a20), becoming a poet (Po. 17 1455a32), or becoming a musician (EE VIII 2 1247b22). But the euphuia relevant here, since it consists in possession of the natural virtues of character, when these are properly developed by habituation, is the sort of ethical euphuia that makes the end, and the deliberate choice of it, correct: A person ­doesn’t aim at the end [the good] through his own choice; rather he must by nature have a sort of natural eye to make him discern well and choose what is really good. And the person who by nature has this eye in good condition is euphuês. For it is the greatest and noblest thing .  .  . and when it is naturally good and noble, it is true and complete euphuia. (NE III 5 1114b5–12; also EE VIII 2 1247b39)

The reference in the following passage to loving and hating, choosing and fleeing, and to the correct discernment of what is best strongly suggests that ethical euphuia is also very im­por­tant to

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choices in areas that may seem far removed from ethics and pol­ itics: With a view to knowledge (gnôsis) and as regards philosophical wisdom (philosophian phronêsin), the capacity to see and hold in one view the consequences that follow from each of two [opposed] hypotheses is no insig­nifi­cant instrument [of thought]; for all that remains is to make a correct choice of one of them. For a task of this sort, however, one must have euphuia, that is, euphuia as regards the truth—a capacity to nobly choose what is true and avoid what is false. And this is precisely what those who are euphuês are able to do; for by correctly loving and hating whatever is proposed to them, they correctly discern what is best. (Top. VIII 14 163b9–16)

Of a piece with thinking of ethical euphuia as playing this quite broad intellectual role is the distinction Ar­is­totle draws between philosophy and sophistry, both of which make use of dialectic’s resources. “In dialectic,” he says, “a sophist is so called because of his deliberate choice (prohairesis), and a dialectician is so called not because of his deliberate choice but because of the capacity he has” (Rh. I 1 1355b20–21). Thus dialectic is a neutral craft or capacity, usable for good or bad purposes, and a dialectician who decides to employ eristic arguments thereby shows himself a sophist. Since sophistry is “a way of making money out of apparent wisdom” (SE 11 171b27–29), it differs from philosophy—the love of true wisdom—in the same way as it does from dialectic: “philosophy .  .  . differs from sophistic in its deliberate choice about how to live” (Met. IV 2 1004b23–25). In the Rhetoric, a sort of euphuia is mentioned which seems, from the company it keeps, to be an intellectual trait rather than an ethical one: “euphuia, good memory, readiness to learn, quick-­ wittedness . . . are all productive of good things” (Rh. I 6 1362b24– 25). When it ­comes to solving puzzles concerning “truth and knowledge,” we might conclude, such apparently intellectual euphuia is all a philosopher may need, even if, in dealing with those concerning “pursuit and avoidance” (Top. I 11 104b1–2), he also needs its ethical namesake. Telling somewhat against such a simple partitioning of euphuia is the dif­fi­culty involved in separating theoretical issues, as Ar­is­totle understands them, from practical ones.



Commentary

Suppose, for example, the puzzle is this: is there a single teleological starting-­point of all movement and action, or not? Won’t which of the options we choose depend on what we think happiness, as the teleological cause of deliberate action, is? And won’t that depend on whether we have ethical euphuia or not? It is the essence of dialectic, in any case, that there are few constraints on what its prem­ises are and so little room to object that one’s opponent is ­illegitimately using practical prem­ises in a theoretical argument. What one must hold in one view, if one is to make the correct choice of alternatives, may include practical and theoretical matters both.

13/45a2–6 And it is clear that even if it were not practical (praktikê) we would need it, because it is the virtue of its part of the soul, [clear], too, that deliberate choice will not be correct without practical wisdom or without virtue, for the one produces acting [that is itself] the end while the other produces acting that furthers it.

Response 4 to Puzzle 2 (12/43b20–28).  As the virtue of the calcula-

tive or deliberative part of the soul, practical wisdom is choiceworthy for its own sake, since it makes us happy when we possess and ac­tualize it. It makes our deliberation and deliberate choice good even if things just stop there. Because this way of being needed is contrasted with being praktikê, being praktikê must here be a matter of having a further result beyond the happiness—whether of the best or of the second best—that activating a virtuous state partly constitutes (12/44a3–5). Practical wisdom is, of course, practical in this sense, too, since it prescribes for the sake of theoretical activity in accord with theoretical wisdom, which is the best kind of happiness (13/45a6–9). The focus of 13/45a5–6 is on what practical wisdom produces or makes us do, which is to act in a certain way. It thus repeats what was said earlier in this regard: “virtue makes the target correct, and practical wisdom makes what furthers it so” (12/44a7–9, 20– 22). Both kinds of correctness are implicit in that of deliberate choice. For a deliberate choice, as a desire involving deliberation, is unconditionally correct when the deliberation [1] optimally furthers the end the desire is for, and [2] that end is happiness, which

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is the unconditionally correct one. Practical wisdom—in the shape of cle­verness—bears particularly on [1]. Virtue—in the shape of natural virtue—bears particularly on [2].

13/45a6–11 But yet it does not control either theoretical wisdom or the better part of the soul any more than the craft of medicine does health; for it ­doesn’t use it but sees to its coming-­into-­being: it prescribes for its sake, therefore, but not to it. Besides, it would be like saying that po­ lit­i­cal science rules the gods, because it prescribes with regard to ev­ ery­thing in the city.

Response to Puzzle 3 (12/43b33–35).  Since contemplation in ac-

cord with theoretical wisdom is the best kind of happiness, when it receives a complete life, it is the end practical wisdom must further. It must see to it that theoretical wisdom ­comes into being, as medicine sees to it that health does. But it does not use health to further some other end; rather health is the final end for whose sake it issues all its prescriptions. In the same way, practical wisdom does not use theoretical wisdom to further some other end, since the best kind of happiness is the final end for whose sake it issues all its ­prescriptions. Just as medicine supervises the healthy with their continuing health in view, so practical wisdom, as the most architectonic practical capacity, supervises the theoretically wise with their continuing contemplation in view.

With this terse characterization of the relationship between the two virtues of thought, NE VI ­comes to a somewhat abrupt end. It sets us up for the concluding chapters of the work (X 6–8), however, and their discussion of two kinds of happiness, one related to practical wisdom, the other to theoretical wisdom, and X 9 leads, in turn, into the Politics, where the ways in which practical wisdom provides for theoretical wisdom’s coming-­into-­being are explored in detail (8/41b28–33).

INDEX OF TOPICS

Abstraction (aphairesis), 8/42a16 Action (praxis), 4/40a1–10; done in (prakton), 2/39a31–b3 Activity (energeia), 4/40a1–10 Admit of being otherwise (endechomenon allôs echein), 1/39a6– 11 Advantageous (sumpheron), 7/41b8– 14 Aporematic, 3/39b34–36 Architectonic (architektonikos), 4/40a20–21, 7/41b22–23 Assertion (kataphasis) vs. denial, 2/39a21–22, 9/42b12–15 Atechnia, 4/40a21–23 At­trib­utes, 1/38b21–23 Avoidance. See Pursuit Bad (phaulos), 9/42b16–26 Belief (doxa), 3/39b14–18 Ben­e­fic­ ial (ôphelimon), 7/41b8–14 Calculation (logismos), 1/39a11–15 Calculative part (logistikon), 1/38b35–39a11 Capacity (dunamis), 1/38b21–23 Choose (haireisthai), 2/39a22–27 City (polis), 8/41b23–33 Cle­verness (deinotês), 12/44a23–29 Coincidental, coincidentally (kata sumbebêkos), 1/39a6–11 Comprehension (sunesis), 10/42b34– 43a18

Consideration (gnômê), 11/43a19–24 Constitution, po­lit­i­cal (politeia), 8/42a9–10 Contemplate, contemplation (theôrein, theôria), 13/45a6–11 Continence (enkrateia), 5/40b11–20, 8/42a27–29, 9/42b26–28. See also Incontinence Control (kurios), 2/39a17–20 Correct reason (orthos logos), 1/38b18–25 Corrupt (diaphtheirein), 5/40b11–20 Craft (technê), 4/40a1–23; incompetence in, 4/40a21–23 Decree (psêphisma) vs. law (nomos), 2/39a35–b3, 8/41b23–28 De­fin­ing-­mark (horos), 1/38b23–25 Deliberate choice (prohairesis), 2/39a17–20 Deliberation (bouleusis), 1/39a11– 15, 8/42a20–23; time and, 9/42b26–28 Demonstration (apodeixis), 3/39b31– 34; practical, 11/43a35–b11 Desire (orexis), 2/39a17–35 Dialectic (dialektikê), 3/39b34–36 Discern (krinein) vs. prescribe, 10/43a8–11 Distinguish (diairein), 1/38b19–20 Distort (diastrephein), 1/38b21–23, 5/40b11–20, 8/42a27–29, 12/44a29–37



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Index of Topics Doable in action (prakton), 2/39a31–b3 Doing well in action (eupraxia). See Happiness

2/39b3–5; vice corruptive of, 5/40b11–20 Household management (oikonomia), 5/40a31–b7, 8/41b28–33

End (telos), 4/40a1–10 Essence (to ti ên einai), 1/39a15–17; as sci­en­tific starting-­point, 3/39b28–34 Esteem, estimable (timios), 7/41a17– 20 Ether, 15, 3/39b28–36 Euphuia, 13/44b32–45a2

Illuminating (saphes), 1/38b25–29 Incontinence (akrasia), 9/42b16–26, 8/42a27–29, 5/40b11–20 Induction (epagôgê), 3/39b25–31, 8/42a16, 9/42b28–33 Inquire (zêtein), 9/42a31–b2 Intrinsic, intrinsically (kath’ hauto). See Coincidental, coincidentally

Fair-­mindedness (epieikeia), 11/43a19–24 For the most part (hôs epi to polu), 3/39b31–34 Full (kurios). See Control Function (ergon), 1/39a15–17, 2/39a27–31, 2/39b12–13, 12/44a3–9

Judicial science (dikastikê), 8/41b28– 33 Justice (dikaiosunê), 11/43a19–35 Legislative science (nomothesia), 8/41b28–33 Loosening (anienai), vs. tightening, 1/38b21–23 Luck (tuchê), 1/38b23–25, 1/39a6– 11, 4/40a10–20

God (theos), 7/41a17–20, 13/45a6– 11; = un­der­stand­ing, 1/38b23–25 Good (spoudaios), 5/40a24–31; = estimable, 7/41a20–22 Good-­comprehension (eusunesia), 10/42b34–43a18 Good guesswork (eustochia), 9/42b5–6 Goods, 1/38b23–25, 4/40a1–10, 5/40a31–b7, 5/40b20–25, 7/41a17– 20, 7/41b3–8

Nature (phusis), 1/39a15–17, 3/39b28–36, 4/40a10–20, 13/44b1– 7, 13/44b32–45a2 Necessity (anagkê), 3/39b18–24, 4/40a10–20, 5/40a31–b7 Noble (kalon), 10/43a15–18

Habituation (ethismos), 1/38b21–23, 5/40b11–20, 8/42a27–29, 9/42b28– 33, 12/44a29–37, 13/44b1–7 Happiness (eudaimonia), 1/38b23– 25, 5/40a24–31, 5/40b28–30, 7/41a17–20, 12/44a6–9; = activity, 4/40a1–10; in deliberation, 11/43a35–b11; and practical wisdom, 12/44a3–6, 13/45a2–6, 13/45a6–11; and theoretical wisdom, 12/43b18–20, 12/44a3–6, 13/45a2–11; = unconditional end,

Particular (kath’ hekaston) vs. universal, 7/41b14–22; and prakton, 7/41b14–22 Perception (aisthêsis), 1/39a6–11, 2/39a17–20, 7/41b14–22: deliberative 8/42a29–30; practical, 8/42a27–29; role in induction, 3/39b28–31; and un­der­stand­ing, 11/43a35–b11 Philosophy (philosophia), 8/42a16; aporematic, 3/39b34–36; vs. sophistry, 13/44b32–45a2

Mean (meson), 1/38b18–25, 1/39a15–17, 8/42a27–29

Plea­sure (hêdonê), 1/38b18–19, 5/40b11–20, 8/42a27–29, 9/42b16– 26 Po­lit­i­cal science (politikê), 8/41a23– 33 Potentiality. See Capacity Power. See Capacity Practical vs. productive, 4/40a1–10; vs. theoretical, 1/39a6–11 Practical wisdom (phronêsis), 5/40a24–31: agent-­focused, 8/41b23–32, 8/41b33–34; branches of, 8/41b28–33; craft-­spe­cific, 5/40a24–31; decrees and, 8/41b23– 28; generic, 7/41a22–28; forgetting, 5/40b28–30; knows universals and particulars, 7/41b14–23; minding one’s own business and, 8/42a1–9; practical perception in, 8/42a27–29 Prescriptive (epitaktikê), 10/43a8–11 Production (poiêsis), 4/40a1–10 Pursuit (kataphasis) vs. avoidance, 2/39a17–35, 3/39b14–18, 8/42a27– 29 Puzzle (aporia), 3/39b34–36, 12/43b18–20 Readiness of wit (agchinoia), 9/42b5–6 Reason (logos), 1/38b35–39a6; being in accord with vs. involving, 5/40b28–30, 13/44b26–27; correct, 1/38b18–39a11; listening to, 8/42a27–29 Rigor (akribeia), 7/41a9–17; and illumination, 1/38b25–29 Rule (archein), 2/39a35–b3, 12/43b33–35, 13/45a6–11 Sci­en­tific knowledge (epistêmê), 3/39b31–34; most rigorous form of, 7/41a9–20

Index of Topics Soul (psuchê), 1/38b35–39a15 Starting-­point (archê), 3/39b28–31 State (hexis), 1/38b21–23; vs. activity, 4/40a1–10 Supervision (epimeleia), 1/38b25–29 Supposition (hupolêpsis), 3/39b14– 18 Syllogism (sullogismos), 3/39b25–28; practical, 11/43a35–b11 Sympathetic consideration (sun­ gnômê). See Consideration Target (skopos), 1/38b21–23 Theoretical vs. practical, 1/39a6–11 Theoretical wisdom (sophia), 7/41a9–20 This (tode ti), 7/41b14–22 Thought (dianoia), 9/42b12–15 Tightening (epiteinein). See Loosening Truth (alêtheia), 2/39a17–20; a-­ truth, 2/39a29–31; practical, 2/39a22–27 Unconditional (haplôs), 2/39a35–b3 Un­der­stand­ing (nous), 6/41a3–8 Universal (kath’ holou), 7/41b14–22 Unscrupulousness (panourgia), 12/44a23–29 Use, utility (chrêsimon), 12/43b18– 20 Vice (mochthêria), 5/40b11–20, 8/42a27–29, 12/44a29–37 Virtue (aretê): of character, 1/38b18– 19; full vs. natural, 13/44b1–32; and function, 1/39a15–17, 12/44a6–9; and the noble, 10/43a15–18; starting-­points and, 5/40b11–21 Wish (boulêsis), 2/39a22–27

267

INDEX OF PASSAGES

APo. = Posterior Analytics I 1 71a1–8, 131 I 1 71a24–b7, 131 I 2 71b9–12, 135 I 2 72a4–5, 176, 203, 233 I 2 72a7–8, 167 I 2 72a14–24, 132 I 2 72a37–39, 167 I 2 72a37–b4, 141, 201 I 3 72b18–25, 167 I 4 73a24–27, 135 I 4 73a29–31, 135 I 4 73a34–37, 136 I 4 73a34–b24, 136 I 4 73b10–11, 243 I 4 73b26–27, 136 I 7 75b10–11, 132 I 8 75b24–30, 129, 136 I 10 76a37–b22, 132 I 10 76b17–18, 132 I 13 78a22–79a16, 173 I 13 78a30, 173 I 13 78a36–38, 173 I 13 78b7–8, 174 I 13 78b8–10, 174 I 13 78b34–79a6, 174 I 13 79a2–6, 186 I 13 79a6–10, 175 I 14 79a20–24, 130 I 14 79a24–25,131 I 14 79a29–31, 131 I 18 81a38–b6, 201, 204 I 22 84a7–9, 135 I 23 84b17–18, 132

I 27 87a31–33, 173 I 27 87a31–37, 201 I 28 87a38–39, 132 I 30 87b19–22, 106 I 30 87b19–27, 137 I 30 87b22–25, 169 I 32 88a36–b3, 132 I 33 89a2–3, 127 I 34 89b9, 104 I 34 89b10–15, 215 II 2 90b24, 132 II 2 10 93b37–94a14, 99 II 8 93a14–15, 135 II 10 93b29–94a19, 132 II 13 96a20–97b39, 132 II 19 100a3–16, 132 II 19 100a16–b1, 233 APr. = Prior Analytics I 2 24b18–20, 129 I 4 26b15, 156n I 13 32b4–8, 137 I 13 32b4–13, 106, 147 I 13 32b18–22, 137 I 30 46a17–22, 134 Cael. = De Caelo I 2 269b2–6, 138 I 9 278b9–21, 182 I 9 279a30, 142 II 2 285a29–30, 182 II 3 286a8–9, 112



269



270

Index of Passages II 3 286a8–11, 112 II 12 291b24–28, 135 II 12 291b31–292a3, 134 II 12 292a15, 224 III 1 299a13–17, 175 III 7 306a14–17, 36, 112, 134 Cat. = Categories 8 8b25–9a13, 93 8 8b29, 240 12 14b3–5, 177 12 14b5–7, 177 DA = De Anima I 1 402b16–403a2, 134 I 1 402b21–403a2, 135 I 1 402b25–26, 132 I 2 405a19–21, 200 I 4 407b29, 142 I 5 410b3, 224 I 5 411a7–8, 183 II 1 412a6–9, 185 II 1 412b18–413a3, 203 II 4 415a14–22, 180, 203 II 4 415b16–17, 92 II 5 417a21–b2, 94 II 5 418a3–6, 106 II 5 418a31, 203 II 7 419a9–11, 203 II 9 421a10, 176 II 11 424a2–5, 92 II 11 424a4–10, 204 II 12 424a17–20, 203 II 12 424a25, 189 III 2 426a27–b7, 204 III 2 426b7, 96 III 3 428a4, 156 III 3 429a2–3, 203 III 4 429a13–18, 106 III 4 430a2–4, 103 III 4 430a3–4, 169 III 7 431a8–10, 204 III 7 431a10–11, 204 III 7 431b2–10, 205 III 7 431b6–10, 120

III 8 431b24–432a1, 106 III 9 432b5, 117 III 9 432b26–433a8, 218 III 9 432b27–29, 170 III 9 432b29–433a3, 170 III 10 433a13–30, 190, 232 III 10 433a16–17, 209 III 10 433a23–25, 117 III 10 433a30, 218 III 10 433b5–10, 118 III 10 433b5–13, 124 III 10 433b10–18, 232 III 10–11 433b27–434a11, 209 III 11 434a5–11, 128 III 11 434a10–11, 207 III 11 434a11–12, 7 EE = Eudemian Ethics I 1 1214a13, 22 I 1–2 1214a30–b17, 16 I 1 1214a32, 21 I 1 1214b3, 21 I 2 1214b6–9, 94, 220 I 2 1214b9, 22 I 2 1214b26–27, 28 I 3 1215a6–7, 141 I 4 1215a23, 21 I 4 1215a36–b1, 22 I 4 1215b1–2, 21 I 4 1215b6–14, 183 I 5 1216a10–16, 183 I 5 1216a29, 22 I 5 1216a38, 21 I 5 1216b10–19, 22 I 5 1216b15–16, 103 I 5 1216b16–19, 22 I 6 1216b32–39, 99 I 6 1216b35–40, 22 I 6 1216b39, 22 I 6 1216b36–39, 104 I 6 1216b40–1217a10, 152 I 7 1217a35–37, 104 I 7 1217a35–40, 124 I 8 1217a20–21, 99 I 8 1217b20, 142 I 8 1217b23, 22

I 8 1218a34, 22 I 8 1218b12–14, 21 I 8 1218b13, 22 II 1 1218b32, 142 II 1 1218b34–35, 21 II 1 1219a13–17, 109 II 1 1219a17, 22, 110 II 1 1219a17–18, 112 II 1 1219a23–b8, 22 II 1 1219a30–31, 22 II 1 1219a35–39, 23 II 1 1219a36–37, 25 II 1 1219a38–39, 25 II 1 1219a40, 97 II 1 1219b20–22, 244 II 1 1219b21, 23 II 1 1220a4–12, 21 II 1 1220a10, 102 II 1 1220a12, 251 II 3 1220b25, 22 II 3 1220b26, 151 II 3 1221a12, 250 II 3 1221a36–37, 250 II 3 1221b5–6, 22 II 4 1221b27–31, 23 II 4 1221b29–30, 110 II 5 1222a17, 97 II 5 1222b7–8, 98 II 5 1222b8, 97 II 6 1222b19–20, 125 II 6 1222b20–22, 115 II 6 1222b22–23 II 6 1222b29, 22 II 6 1222b31, 169 II 8 1224a28–29, 114 II 10 1226a16, 116 II 10 1226a33–b2, 23 II 10 1226a37, 209 II 10 1226b25, 21 II 10 1227a5–7, 94 II 11 1227b29–30, 22 II 11 1227b39–1228a2, 23 III 7 1234a21, 97 III 7 1234a23–32, 253 III 7 1234a29–30, 23

Index of Passages VII 1 1234b22, 22 VII 2 1237a2, 22 VII 2 1237b37–38, 119 VII 8 1241b8, 109 VII 9 1241b36, 97 VII 10 1242a15–18, 112 VII 10 1243b29, 97 VII 10 1243b33–34, 21 VII 11 1244a20, 97 VII 11 1244a25, 97 VII 12 1245a22, 22 VIII 1 1246a26–35, 251 VIII 1 1246a26–b35, 21 VIII 1 1246a28–29, 207 VIII 1 1246b4, 22 VIII 1 1246b4–36, 261 VIII 1 1246b32–36, 22 VIII 2 1247b22, 261 VIII 2 1247b39, 261 VIII 2 1248a25–29, 20 VIII 2 1248a35, 21 VIII 3 1248b8–1249a16, 23 VIII 3 1248b18–20, 227 VIII 3 1248b36–37, 227 VIII 3 1249a7–14, 227 VIII 3 1249a21–b25, 23, 26 VIII 3 1249b1, 97 VIII 3 1249b13–23, 97 VIII 3 1249b14–15, 21 VIII 3 1249b16–25, 22 VIII 3 1249b17–19, 98 VIII 3 1249b19, 97 VIII 3 1249b22, 97 VIII 3 1249b23, 97 GA = Generation of Animals I 4 717a21–22, 109 I 20 729a9–11, 136 I 22 730b8–32, 145, 148 I 22 730b12–19, 145 I 23 731a24–26, 112 II 3 737a20–22, 136 II 6 743b22–23, 148 II 6 745a27, 111

271



272

Index of Passages II 8 748b8, 261 II 8 748b12, 261 II 8 747b27–748a14, 135

Juv. = On Youth and Old Age 1 465b25–27, 189 21 480b22–30, 151

III 2 753a10–17, 179 III 10 760b27–33, 135

Long. = On Length and Shortness of Life 2 465a23, 164

IV 2 767a17–19, 92 IV 3 767b29–36, 185 IV 3 768a11–14, 137 IV 3 768a32, 137 IV 3 768b5–12, 137 IV 4 770b9–13, 136

MA = Movement of Animals 7 701a8–13, 9 7 701a10–11, 209 7 701a17–20, 108, 118

b

V 7 787 10–24, 95 V 8 789b8–12, 148

Mem. = On Memory 1 450a21–22, 189

HA = His­tory of Animals I 1 488b15, 179 I 1 488b24, 108

Met. = Meta­phys­ics I 1 980b22–25, 179 I 1 980b25–981a30, 93 I 1 981a3–5, 107 I 1 981a5–7, 132 I 1 981a28–b10, 15, 133 I 1 981a30–b1, 188 I 1 981a30–b3, 149, 175, 191 I 1 981b27–29, 173 I 2 982a8–10, 173 I 2 982a25–27, 177 I 3 983b6–27, 183 I 3 984a11–b22, 183

IV 3 527b6–7, 136

II 3 995a14–16, 175

VII 1 588a18–31, 179 VII 1 588a18–b4, 255 VII 1 588a29, 179

III 2 996a35–b1, 166 III 2 996b6–7, 11 III 4 999b34–1000a1, 185

GC = On Generation and Corruption I 2 316a5–10, 134 II 6 333b4–7, 106 II 7 334b28–30, 92 II 11 337b14–25, 129

VIII 1 588a33, 253 VIII 17 600b9–12, 180 IX 2 610b22, 179 IX 5 611a15–16, 179 IX 6 611b32–35, 180 IX 10 614b18, 179 Int. = De Interpretatione 9 18b5–9, 106 9 19a23–26, 125

IV 1 1003a33–34, 212 IV 1 1003a34–b1, 212 IV 2 1003b19–21, 132 IV 2 1004b23–25, 262 IV 4 1006a11–12, 141 IV 4 1008b3, 156 IV 5 1010b35–1011a2, 203 IV 7 1011b26–28, 114, 120 IV 8 1012b7–11, 120 V 1 1013a16–23, 132 V 5 1015b11–12, 123



Index of Passages

V 8 1017b23–26, 185 V 16 1021b12–17, 26 V 20 1022b10–12, 93 V 29 1025a6–13, 162

XI 7 1064a16–19, 100 XI 7 1064a19–28, 138 XI 7 1064b3–6, 177 XI 8 1065a24–28, 106

VI 1 1025b18–1026a32, 100 VI 1 1025b25–1026a16, 138 VI 1 1026a18–31, 182 VI 1 1026a21–22, 177, 178 VI 2 1027a13–15, 136 VI 2 1027a19–21, 137 VI 4 1027b18–33, 97n1

XII 3 1070a29–30, 102 XII 6 1071b13–14, 182 XII 6 1071b17–20, 139 XII 6 1071b20–21, 139 XII 7 1072a25–26, 139 XII 7 1072a26–30, 182 XII 7 1072a27–28, 206 XII 7 1072a28, 117 XII 7 1072a29, 206 XII 7 1072b13–30, 182 XII 7 1072b24–26, 212 XII 8 1073a23–b1, 182 XII 8 1074a33–36, 138 XII 9 1074b33–35, 125 XII 10 1075b5, 189

VII 7 1032a32–b17, 147 VII 7 1032b1–2, 113 VII 7 1032b6–10, 97 VII 8 1033b24–26, 138 VII 10 1035b28–31, 138 VII 11 1036b21–32, 118 VII 11 1037a5–10, 138 VII 11 1037a15, 112 VII 11 1037a21–b7, 138 VII 11 1037a29–b5, 139 VII 12 1037b27–1038a26, 132 VII 13 1038b11–12, 185 VIII 2 1042b9–10, 139 IX 2 1046b3–28, 158 IX 2 1046b4–7, 93 a

IX 3 1047 30–32, 109 n2 IX 6 1048b18–35, 144 IX 6 1048b25–27, 144 IX 8 1050a21–23, 109, 115, 144 IX 8 1050a31–33, 111 IX 8 1050b2, 139 IX 9 1051a4–5, 112 IX 9 1051a15–16, 112 IX 10 1051b6–9, 114 IX 10 1051b24–25, 205 IX 10 1051b30–32, 169 IX 10 1051b35, 169 IX 10 1052a3–4, 252 X 1 1053a1, 176 XI 6 1063a13–17, 182

XIII 1 1076a28, 142 XIII 3 1078a36–b1, 35 XIII 4 1078b17–30, 93 XIII 10 1087a19–21, 185 Mete. = Meteorology I 3 339b25–27 , 138 I 3 340b14, 169 IV 12 390a10, 113 MM = Magna Moralia* I 1 1182a17–19, 119 I 2 1183b21–23, 177 I 2 1184a3–7, 27 I 2 1184a7–29, 27 I 3 1184b8–9, 24 I 4 1184b35–36, 28 I 4 1184b35–1185a5, 24 I 4 1185a25–26, 24, 25 I 5 1185b20, 227 I 34 1196b11–34, 24 I 34 1196b15–34, 105 I 34 1196b16, 108 I 34 1196b27–28, 24 I 34 1197a3–16, 24 I 34 1197a18–20, 162

273



274

Index of Passages I 34 1197a24–26, 24 I 34 1197a30–32, 128 I 34 1197b3–11, 26 I 34 1197b11–17, 224, 225 I 34 1197b17–1198a9, 24 I 34 1197b18–26, 250 I 34 1198a3–5, 254 I 34 1198a10–11, 258 I 34 1198a10–22, 259 I 34 1198a14, 25 I 34 1198a32–b8, 23 I 34 1198b4–8, 25 I 35 1198b8–20, 25 II 8 1207b16–18, 27 II 8 1207b20–27, 24 II 9 1207b29–30, 227 NE = Nicomachean Ethics I 1 1094a1–5, 122 I 1 1094a3, 145, 155 I 1 1094a3–5, 109 I 1 1094a5–6, 112 I 1 1094a6–16, 122 I 1 1094a8, 161 I 1 1094a8–9, 155 I 2 1094a18–24, 94 I 2 1094a19–21, 241 I 2 1094a22, 116 I 2 1094a22–24, 100 I 2 1094a22–26, 1 I 2 1094a23–25, 15 I 2 1094a26–b6, 114 I 2 1094a26–27, 178, 188 I 2 1094a26–b11, 10 I 2 1094b3–6, 192 I 2 1094b7, 3, 116, 181 I 2 1094b7–11, 189, 195 I 2 1094b10–11, 92 I 3 1094b12–14, 173 I 3 1094b14, 227 I 3 1094b14–16, 195 I 3 1094b18–19, 256 I 3 1094b19–22, 137, 157 I 3 1094b23–1095a2, 140 I 3 1094b24, 175 I 3 1095a2–4, 99 I 3 1095a3–4, 234, 235

I 3 1095a5, 99 I 3 1095a8–9, 218 I 4 1095a14–20, 117 I 4 1095a17–22, 1 I 4 1095a18–20, 124 I 4 1095a22–23, 37, 160 I 4 1095a30–32, 6 I 4 1095a30–b1, 233 I 4 1095b2–6, 93 I 4 1095b2–8, 133 I 4 1095b4–5, 14 I 4 1095b4–8, 35, 99 I 4 1095b6–8, 93 I 4 1095b10–11, 39 I 5 1095b14–23, 160 I 5 1095b15–16, 11 I 5 1095b19, 104 I 5 1095b22–1096a5, 38 I 5 1096a3, 142 I 6 1096a23–24, 212 I 6 1096a24–25, 169 I 6 1096a25, 240 I 6 1096a26, 240 I 6 1096a31–34, 181 I 6 1096b3–5, 145, 211 I 6 1096b15, 198 I 6 1096b28–29, 252 I 7 1097a25–b6, 123 I 7 1097a30–34, 27 I 7 1097b2, 227 I 7 1097b2–4, 243 I 7 1097b2–5, 91 I 7 1097b5–13, 98 I 7 1097b6–11, 155, 180, 197 I 7 1097b12, 97 I 7 1097b14–15, 11, 121, 160 I 7 1097b22–24, 99 I 7 1097b22–1098a20, 11 I 7 1097b24–1098a8, 113 I 7 1097b25–26, 112 I 7 1097b25–1098a15, 97 I 7 1097b26–27, 112 I 7 1097b34, 113 I 7 1098a5–8, 115 I 7 1098a7–8, 245 I 7 1098a7–20, 2 I 7 1098a7–8, 244, 245 I 7 1098a8–12, 151

I 7 1098a10–11, 143, 162 I 7 1098a15, 245 I 7 1098a15–18, 245 I 7 1098a16–17, 94 I 7 1098a18–20, 121, 145 I 7 1098b3–4, 233 I 8 1098b9, 198 I 8 1098b9–11, 154 I 8 1098b22–29, 38 I 8 1098b25, 159 I 8 1099a7–21, 160 I 8 1099a11–16, 39 I 8 1099a31–1099b8, 97 I 9 1099b20, 235 I 9 1099b32–1100a5, 114 I 10 1100b12–20, 164 I 10 1100b12–22, 94 I 12 1102a2–4, 159, 177 I 12 1102a3–4, 98, 99 I 13 1102a16–b12, 244 I 13 1102a26–27, 142 I 13 1102b13–25, 116 I 13 1102b14–21, 218 I 13 1102b14–28, 260 I 13 1102b14–1103a3, 103, 119 I 13 1103a1–10, 242, 244 I 13 1103a3–10, 3, 102 I 13 1103a9–10, 227 II 1 1103a19–26, 254 II 1 1103a32–34, 94 II 1 1103a34–b2, 94 II 2 1103b26–29, 241 II 2 1103b27–31, 2, 15 II 2 1103b28, 241 II 2 1103b28–29, 198 II 2 1103b31–34, 101 II 2 1104a8–9, 31 II 2 1104a8–10, 37, 199 II 2 1104a11–27, 91 II 2 1104a17–18, 95 II 2 1104b1–3, 91 II 3 1104a18, 35, 227 II 3 1104b3–11, 160 II 3 1104b9–15, 96 II 3 1104b30–35, 205 II 4 1105a22–26, 259 II 4 1105a26–b9, 259

Index of Passages II 4 1105a30–33, 248 II 4 1105a31–32, 116, 221 II 4 1105a31–33, 35 II 4 1105a33, 121 II 4 1105b5–7, 31 II 5 1105b19, 198 II 5 1105b25–28, 94 II 5–6 1106a12–15, 93 II 5 1106b14–15, 176 II 6 1106b27–28, 91 II 6 1106b36–1107a2, 1, 94, 98 II 6 1107a5–6, 91 II 7 1107b14, 176 II 9 1107b15–16, 176 II 7 1108a14–16, 35 II 9 1109a24–30, 33 II 9 1109b1–7, 96, 207, 221 II 9 1109b8–9, 208 II 9 1109b22–23, 204 III 1 1109b32, 229 III 1 1110a3–6, 96 III 1 1110a11, 169 III 1 1110b28–32, 153 III 1 1111a25–26, 114 III 2 1111b8–9, 114 III 2 1111b13–14, 116 III 2 1111b19–20, 117 III 2 1111b30–33, 127 III 2 1111b33, 92 III 2 1112a16–17, 118 III 3 1112a19–21, 122 III 3 1112a21, 169 III 3 1112a21–26, 125 III 3 1112a34–b9, 107, 108, 150 III 3 1112a28–34, 157 III 3 1112b2–9, 150, 223 III 3 1112b3, 106 III 3 1112b10–11, 10 III 3 1112b11–12, 11 III 3 1112b11–24, 208 III 3 1112b21–23, 108, 213 III 3 1112b24–27, 118 III 3 1112b34–1113a2, 12, 23, 204 III 3 1113a12–13, 207 III 4 1113a21–33, 117, 121, 155, 160 III 4 1113a22–b2, 116 III 4 1113a27–29, 208

275



276

Index of Passages III 4 1113a29–b2, 31 III 5 1113b3–4, 118 III 5 1113b18–19, 145 III 5 1114a9–10, 91 III 5 1114a31–b3, 206 III 5 1114b5–12, 261 III 7 1115b9, 169 III 7 1115b12–13, 34 III 7 1115b13, 227 III 8 1116a29–b2, 114 III 8 1117a5–9, 255 III 8 1117a8–9, 255 III 8 1117a18–22, 221 III 9 1117b28, 92 III 10 1118a24–25, 160 III 12 1119b8–9, 255 IV 1 1120a23–25, 35 IV 2 1122b9, 199 IV 2 1122b19–21, 177 IV 5 1126b5, 35 V 1 1129a3, 198 V 1 1129a11–17, 93 V 1 1129a13–15, 143 V 1 1129b19, 225 V 1 1129b25–27, 30 V 1 1129b4–6, 29 V 1 1129b25–27, 29, 229 V 1 1129b30–1130a5, 30, 231 V I 1129b31, 26 V 1 1130a9, 26 V 1 1130a10–13, 189 V 3 1131a31–32, 102 V 3 1131a32, 92 V 3 1131b5, 92, 96, 97 V 3 1131b9, 96, 97 V 3 1131b16, 96, 97 V 5 1133a7–10, 111 V 8 1135b10–11, 221 V 8 1136a5–6, 229 V 9 1136a10–11, 241 V 9 1137a9–17, 14, 235 V 9 1137a17–26, 162 V 10 1137b3–4, 227 V 10 1137b11–13, 231 V 10 1137b13–19, 138, 147

V 10 1137b26–27, 228 V 10 1137b28–32, 189 V 10 1137b35–a1, 228 VII 1 1145b6–7, 139 VII 1 1145b10–12, 219 VII 1 1145b20, 154 VII 2 1146a24–27, 141 VII 3 1147a25–26, 204, 233 VII 3 1147a25–31, 9, 108 VII 3 1147b14, 96, 97 VII 4 1147b23–1148a4, 219 VII 4 1148a2–4, 219 VII 4 1148a25, 92 VII 4 1148b9–12, 219 VII 8 1150b29–35, 221 VII 8 1151a16, 233 VII 8 1151a18–19, 207, 222, 254 VII 8 1151a24–26, 218 VII 10 1152a8–9, 9 VII 10 1152a10–14, 251 VII 10 1152a17, 219 VII 11 1152b1–3, 98 VII 11 1152b23–24, 154 VII 13 1153b17–25, 7 VII 13 1153b21–25, 98 VII 13 1153b25, 96 VII 14 1154a22–25, 140 VIII 3 1156a14–16, 240 VIII 6 1158a28, 92 VIII 6 1158a32, 250 VIII 7 1159a3, 176 VIII 12 1161b26 VIII 12 1161b33, 92 VIIII 12 1162a22, 92 IX 2 1164b31–33, 137 IX 4 1166b6–11, 116, 218 IX 4 1166a13–14, 260 IX 4 1166b18–25, 219 IX 7 1167b34, 150 IX 7 1168a7, 110 IX 8 1168b12, 92 IX 8 1168b15–21, 97, 250 IX 8 1168b31–32, 190



Index of Passages

IX 8 1168b35, 169 IX 9 1170a2–4, 165

X 9 1181a18, 224 X 9 1181b15, 15

X 3 1173a24–28, 95 X 4 1174a18–21, 143 X 4 1174a21–23, 144 X 4 1174b12–13, 144 X 4 1174b14–19, 205 X 5 1176a3–5, 112 X 5 1176a8–24, 160 X 6 1176b28–a3, 155 X 7 1177a16, 169 X 7 1177a18, 104 X 7 1177a21–22, 165 X 7 1177a25–26, 20 X 7 1177b2–4, 145 X 7 1177b4–26, 27, 111 X 7 1177b19–1178a8, 169 X 7 1177b24–26, 3, 17, 27, 165, 245 X 7 1177b33, 98 X 7 1178a2–3, 190 X 7 1178a2–8, 17 X 7–8 1178a8–9, 18 X 8 1178a9–22, 245 X 8 1178a9–23, 26, 165 X 8 1178b5–7, 98 X 8 1178b21–25, 212 X 8 1178b24–25, 169 X 8 1178b29–30, 18 X 8 1178b29–31, 98 X 8 1178b33–1179a9, 18 X 8 1179a9–16, 235 X 8 1179a13–16, 183 X 8 1179a17–22, 11 X 8 1179a20–22, 40 X 8 1179a22–32, 100, 188 X 9 1179b16–20, 221 X 9 1179b9, 227 X 9 1180a1–18, 2 X 9 1180a10–14, 96 X 9 1180a18, 35, 227 X 9 1180a21, 225 X 9 1180a29–b3, 198 X 9 1180b11–28, 187 X 9 1180b13–16, 168 X 9 1180b17, 100 X 9 1180b23–28, 33, 192

Oec. = Economics* II 2 1348a23, 107 PA = Parts of Animals I 1 639a1–15, 140 I 1 639b23–25, 129 I 1 640a27–33, 107 I 1 640b33–641a6, 113 II 2 646b12–17, 112 II 2 648a5–8, 179 II 2 648a16, 113 II 4 650b18–27, 179 II 7 652b6–14, 112 II 10 656a7–8, 179 III 2 663b28–29, 147 III 4 666a14, 261 III 4 667a3–6, 92 IV 10 686a26–29, 112 Ph. = Physics I 1 184a1–b14, 93 I 1 184a10–23, 99 I 1 184a22–25, 132 I 1 184a23, 133 I 2 184b25–185a5, 182 I 7 190b7, 201 II 1 192b13–15, 148 II 1 193b6–7, 113 II 2 194a27–28, 112 II 2 194a36–b5, 150 II 2 194b6, 188 II 4 196a33–34, 182 II 5 197a5–8, 106 II 6 197b1–2, 106 II 6 197b20–22, 106 II 7 198a21–b4, 100 II 8 198b34–36, 147 II 8 199b28, 10 II 8 199b28–30, 148

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Index of Passages III 1 201a10–11, 182 III 3 202a20–b22, 189 III 4 203a16–b15, 183 III 7 207b21–25, 144 IV 1 208b25, 169 IV 10 217b30, 142 VII 3 246b2, 6 VII 3 246b5, 95 VIII 8 262b20–21, 144 Po. = Poetics 4 1448b28–1149a2, 172 6 1450b17, 141 8 1451a18–19, 145 14 1453b8, 151 16 1454b28, 152 17 1455a32, 261 23 1459a19, 145 Pol. = Politics I 2 1252a24–b15, 192 I 2 1252a26–31, 197 I 2 1252b30, 190 I 2 1253a1, 190 I 2 1253a1–4, 197 I 2 1253a7–18, 229 I 3 1253b1–14, 192 I 2 1253a20–25, 113 I 3 1253b15–18, 192 I 4 1253b35, 112 I 8 1256a10–13, 158 I 8 1256a31–32, 158 I 9 1258a18, 97 I 10 1258a35, 112 I 11 1258b9–11, 192 I 11 1258b26, 151 I 11 1258b29–31, 193 I 11 1258b33–35, 193 I 11 1259a5–33, 183 I 12 1259a37–39, 192 I 13 1260a12, 108 II 6 1265a32, 97 II 8 1267a29, 97

II 10 1271a35, 97 II 12 1274a26, 251 III 1 1274b38, 197 III 3 1276b1–2, 197 III 6 1278b8–10, 197 III 6 1278b8–11, 190 III 6 1278b11, 197 III 6 1278b30, 142 III 9 1280a7, 97 III 11 1282a3–7, 140 III 11 1282a17–23, 243 III 12 1282a25–26, 243 III 12 1282b19–20, 93 III 12 1282b19–23, 15 III 13 1283b28, 97 III 16 1287a18, 227 III 16 1287a32–41, 161 III 16 1287b22–23, 192 IV 1 1288b21–1289a15, 192 IV 1 1289a15–18, 197 IV 3 1290a22–29, 95 IV 4 1291a28, 224 IV 8 1294a10, 97 IV 10 1295a17, 228 IV 11 1295a40–b1, 197 IV 15 1299a4–5, 196 IV 15 1300a4–8, 194 IV 15 1300a11, 97 V 3 1303b8, 261 V 8 1308a35–b6, 95 V 9 1309b18–31, 95 V 11 1314a25, 97 VI 2 1317b11, 97 VII 1 1323a21, 142 VII 1 1323b1–3, 18 VII 1 1323b7–10, 98 VII 1 1323b27–29, 98 VII 2 1324b4, 97 VII 3 1325b16–21, 104 VII 3 1325b21–23, 144 VII 4 1326a35, 97 VII 4 1326b12, 97

VII 4 1326b23, 97 VII 4 1326b32, 97 VII 5 1327a6, 97 VII 5 1327b19, 97 VII 8 1328b20–23, 236 VII 9 1328b32–33, 236 VII 9 1328b34–1329a17, 237 VII 13 1331b6–8, 94 VII 13 1331b36, 97 VII 13 1332a38–b8, 254 VII 13 1332b1–3, 94 VII 13 1332b5, 102 VII 15 1334a12, 97 VII 16 1334b31–32, 192 VII 16 1335a39–b2, 193 VII 16 1335b2–4, 193 VII 16 1335b12–19, 193 VII 16 1335b32–35, 237 VII 17 1336a3–21, 193 VII 17 1336a20, 261 VII 17 1136a23–34, 194 VIII 3 1338b2–4, 241 VIII 7 1342b33, 97 Pr. = Prob­lemata* XVI 4 917a1–2, 250 Protr. = Protrepticus B5, 19 B9, 19 B17, 19 B20–21, 19 B24, 203 B27, 19 B29, 19 B38, 19 B40, 19 B41, 19 B43, 19 B46, 19 B47, 96 B47–48, 19 B50, 19 B51, 20 B52, 19 B53, 19, 20

Index of Passages B55, 21 B55–57, 19 B58–70, 17 B62, 19 B65, 20 B66, 20 B67, 20 B68, 19 B70, 252 B77, 19 B85, 211 B87–91, 20 B91–95, 19 B94, 19 B94–96, 20 B103, 19 B108–110, 19 Rh. = Rhetoric I 1 1355b20–21, 262 I 2 1355b35, 151 I 2 1357a1–4, 107 I 4 1360a23–30, 95 I 5 1360b14–22, 244 I 5 1362a2, 107 I 6 1362a15–20, 94 I 6 1362a31–33, 244 I 7 1363b12–15, 122 I 9 1366a33–34, 227 I 9 1366b20–22, 158 I 10 1368b33–37, 106 I 11 1371a10, 156n I 12 1373a5, 251 I 13 1374a18–b23, 192 I 15 1375a26–32, 228 II 12 1388b31–14 1390b13, 164 II 14 1390b9–11, 237 II 21 1394a21–25, 228 III 1 1404a16, 151 III 14 1415b8–9, 176 III 16 1416b18, 151 SE = Sophistical Refutations I 1 165a9–10, 107 1 165a14, 251

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Index of Passages 11 171b27–29, 262 11 172a34, 151 34 184a1, 151

II 4 111a8–9, 176

Sens. = Sense and Sensibilia 1 436a17–b1, 151 2 438a12–16, 106 3 439a18–440b23, 106 3 439b19–30, 203 4 442a16–17, 205 5 443b11–444a3, 205

IV 1 121a20, 156n IV 5 126a13, 117

Top. = Topics I 1 100b21–23, 139 I 2 101a35, 139 I 2 101b3–4, 139 I 5 102a18–22, 113 I 11 104b1–2, 262 I 14 105b30–31, 140 I 15 106a20–22, 227

III 1 116a23–28, 115

V 3 131b21–23, 128 V 4 133b4, 189 V 5 134a34–35, 141 VI 2 139b20–21, 95 VI 6 145a15–16, 100 VI 6 145b16–20, 107 VIII 1 155b10–16, 140 VIII 14 163b9–16, 262