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El ser humano desea saber por naturaleza.

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El ser humano desea saber por naturaleza.

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El conocimiento está en conocer la causa de las cosas.

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El conocimiento está en conocer la causa de las cosas.

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Aristóteles, “Metafísica” (Trad. W.D. Ross)

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Aristóteles, “Metafísica” (Trad. W.D. Ross)

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El (PNC) dice que algo no puede ser y no ser al mismo tiempo.

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El (PNC) dice que algo no puede ser y no ser al mismo tiempo.

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Cohen, S. Marc and C. D. C. Reeve, "Aristotle’s Metaphysics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (8 de Octubre de 2000), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/ .

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Cohen, S. Marc and C. D. C. Reeve, "Aristotle’s Metaphysics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (8 de Octubre de 2000), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/ .

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Aristotle himself described his subject matter in a variety of ways:
as ‘first philosophy’, or ‘the study of being qua
being’, or ‘wisdom’, or ‘theology’. A
comment on these descriptions will help to clarify Aristotle’s
topic.

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Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, who made important contributions to logic, criticism, rhetoric, physics, biology, psychology, mathematics, metaphysics, ethics, and politics. He was a student of Plato for twenty years but is famous for rejecting Plato's theory of forms. He was more empirically minded than both Plato and Plato's teacher, Socrates.

A prolific writer, lecturer, and polymath, Aristotle radically transformed most of the topics he investigated. In his lifetime, he wrote dialogues and as many as 200 treatises, of which only 31 survive. These works are in the form of lecture notes and draft manuscripts never intended for general readership. Nevertheless, they are the earliest complete philosophical treatises we still possess.

As the father of western logic, Aristotle was the first to develop a formal system for reasoning. He observed that the deductive validity of any argument can be determined by its structure rather than its content, for example, in the syllogism: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. Even if the content of the argument were changed from being about Socrates to being about someone else, because of its structure, as long as the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true. Aristotelian logic dominated until the rise of modern propositional logic and predicate logic 2000 years later.

The emphasis on good reasoning serves as the backdrop for Aristotle's other investigations. In his natural philosophy, Aristotle combines logic with observation to make general, causal claims. For example, in his biology, Aristotle uses the concept of species to make empirical claims about the functions and behavior of individual animals. However, as revealed in his psychological works, Aristotle is no reductive materialist. Instead, he thinks of the body as the matter, and the psyche as the form of each living animal.

Though his natural scientific work is firmly based on observation, Aristotle also recognizes the possibility of knowledge that is not empirical. In his metaphysics, he claims that there must be a separate and unchanging being that is the source of all other beings. In his ethics, he holds that it is only by becoming excellent that one could achieve eudaimonia, a sort of happiness or blessedness that constitutes the best kind of human life.

Aristotle was the founder of the Lyceum, a school based in Athens, Greece; and he was the first of the Peripatetics, his followers from the Lyceum. Aristotle's works, exerted tremendous influence on ancient and medieval thought and continue to inspire philosophers to this day.

Table of Contents

1. Life and Lost Works

Though our main ancient source on Aristotle's life, Diogenes Laertius, is of questionable reliability, the outlines of his biography are credible. Diogenes reports that Aristotle's Greek father, Nicomachus, served as private physician to the Macedonian king Amyntas (DL 5.1.1). At the age of seventeen, Aristotle migrated to Athens where he joined the Academy, studying under Plato for twenty years (DL 5.1.9). During this period Aristotle acquired his encyclopedic knowledge of the philosophical tradition, which he draws on extensively in his works.

Aristotle left Athens around the time Plato died, in 348 or 347 B.C.E. One explanation is that as a resident alien, Aristotle was excluded from leadership of the Academy in favor of Plato's nephew, the Athenian citizen Speusippus. Another possibility is that Aristotle was forced to flee as Philip of Macedon's expanding power led to the spread of anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens (Chroust 1967). Whatever the cause, Aristotle subsequently moved to Atarneus, which was ruled by another former student at the Academy, Hermias. During his three years there, Aristotle married Pythias, the niece or adopted daughter of Hermias, and perhaps engaged in negotiations or espionage on behalf of the Macedonians (Chroust 1972). Whatever the case, the couple relocated to Macedonia, where Aristotle was employed by Philip, serving as tutor to his son, Alexander the Great (DL 5.1.3-4). Aristotle's philosophical career was thus directly entangled with the rise of a major power.

After some time in Macedonia, Aristotle returned to Athens, where he founded his own school in rented buildings in the Lyceum. It was presumably during this period that he authored most of his surviving texts, which have the appearance of lecture transcripts edited so they could be read aloud in Aristotle's absence. Indeed, this must have been necessary, since after his school had been in operation for thirteen years, he again departed from Athens, possibly because a charge of impiety was brought against him (DL 5.1.5). He died at age 63 in Chalcis (DL 5.1.10).

Diogenes tells us that Aristotle was a thin man who dressed flashily, wearing a fashionable hairstyle and a number of rings. If the will quoted by Diogenes (5.1.11-16) is authentic, Aristotle must have possessed significant personal wealth, since it promises a furnished house in Stagira, three female slaves, and a talent of silver to his concubine, Herpyllis. Aristotle fathered a daughter with Pythias and, with Herpyllis, a son, Nicomachus (named after his grandfather), who may have edited Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Unfortunately, since there are few extant sources on Aristotle's life, one's judgment about the accuracy and completeness of these details depends largely on how much one trusts Diogenes' testimony.

Since commentaries on Aristotle's work have been produced for around two thousand years, it is not immediately obvious which sources are reliable guides to his thought. Aristotle's works have a condensed style and make use of a peculiar vocabulary. Though he wrote an introduction to philosophy, a critique of Plato's theory of forms, and several philosophical dialogues, these works survive only in fragments. The extant Corpus Aristotelicum consists of Aristotle's recorded lectures, which cover almost all the major areas of philosophy. Before the invention of the printing press, handwritten copies of these works circulated in the Near East, northern Africa, and southern Europe for centuries. The surviving manuscripts were collected and edited in August Immanuel Bekker's authoritative 1831-1836 Berlin edition of the Corpus ("Bekker" 1910). All references to Aristotle's works in this article follow the standard Bekker numbering.

The extant fragments of Aristotle's lost works, which modern commentators sometimes use as the basis for conjectures about his philosophical development, are noteworthy. A fragment of his Protrepticus preserves a striking analogy according to which the psyche or soul's attachment to the body is a form of punishment:

The ancients blessedly say that the psyche pays penalty and that our life is for the atonement of great sins. And the yoking of the psyche to the body seems very much like this. For they say that, as Etruscans torture captives by chaining the dead face to face with the living, fitting each to each part, so the psyche seems to be stretched throughout, and constrained to all the sensitive members of the body. (Pistelli 1888, 47.24-48.1)

According to this allegedly inspired theory, the fetters that bind the psyche to the body are similar to those by which the Etruscans torture their prisoners. Just as the Etruscans chain prisoners face to face with a dead body so that each part of the living body touches a part of the corpse, the psyche is said to be aligned with the parts of one's living body. On this view, the psyche is embodied as a painful but corrective atonement for its badness. (See Bos 2003 and Hutchinson and Johnson's webpage).

But not all agree. Owen (1968, 162-163) argues that Aristotle's fundamental logical distinction between individual and species depends on an antecedent break with Plato. According to this view, Aristotle's On Ideas (Fine 1993), a collection of arguments against Platonic forms, shows that Aristotle rejected Platonism early in his career, though he later became more sympathetic to the master's views. However, as Lachterman (1980) points out, such historical theses depend on substantive hermeneutical assumptions about how to read Aristotle and on theoretical assumptions about what constitutes a philosophical system. This article focuses not on this historical debate but on the theories propounded in Aristotle's extant works.

2. Analytics or "Logic"

Aristotle is usually identified as the founder of logic in the West (although autonomous logical traditions also developed in India and China), where his "Organon," consisting of his works the Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Sophistical Refutations, and Topics, long served as the traditional manuals of logic. Two other works- Rhetoric and Poetics -are not about logic, but also concern how to communicate to an audience. Curiously, Aristotle never used the words "logic" or "organon" to refer to his own work but calls this discipline "analytics." Though Aristotelian logic is sometimes referred to as an "art" (Ross 1940, iii), it is clearly not an art in Aristotle's sense, which would require it to be productive of some end outside itself. Nevertheless, this article follows the convention of referring to the content of Aristotle's analytics as "logic."

a. The Meaning and Purpose of Logic

What is logic for Aristotle? On Interpretation begins with a discussion of meaning, according to which written words are symbols of spoken words, while spoken words are symbols of thoughts ( Int.16a3-8). This theory of signification can be understood as a semantics that explains how different alphabets can signify the same spoken language, while different languages can signify the same thoughts. Moreover, this theory connects the meaning of symbols to logical consequence, since commitment to some set of utterances rationally requires commitment to the thoughts signified by those utterances and to what is entailed by them. Hence, though Cook Wilson (1926, 30-33) correctly notes that Aristotle nowhere defines logic, it may be called the science of thinking, where the role of the science is not to describe ordinary human reasoning but rather to demonstrate what one ought to think given one's other commitments. Though the elements of Aristotelian logic are implicit in our conscious reasoning, Aristotelian "analysis" makes explicit what was formerly implicit (Cook Wilson 1926, 49).

Aristotle analyzes statements as cases of predication, in which a predicate P is attributed to a subject S as in a sentence of the form "S is P." Since he holds that every statement expresses something about being, statements of this form are to be read as "S is (exists) as a P" (Bäck 2000, 11). In every true predication, either the subject and predicate are of the same category, or the subject term refers to a substance while the predicate term refers to one of the other categories. The primary substances are individuals, while secondary substances are species and genera composed of individuals ( Cat.2a11-18). This distinction between primary and secondary reflects a dependence relation: if all the individuals of a species or genus were annihilated, the species and genus could not, in the present tense, be truly predicated of any subject.

Every individual is of a species and that species is predicated of the individual. Every species is the member of a genus, which is predicated of the species and of each individual of that species ( Cat.2b13-22). For example, if Callias is of the species "man," and the species is a member of the genus "animal," then "man" is predicated of Callias, and "animal" is predicated both of "man" and of Callias. The individual, Callias, inherits the predicate "animal" in virtue of being of the species "man." But inheritance stops at the individual and does not apply to its proper parts. For example, "man" is not truly predicated of Callias' hand. A genus can be divided with reference to the specific differences among its members; for example, "biped" differentiates "man" from "horse."

b. Demonstrative Syllogistic

Syllogistic reasoning builds on Aristotle's theory of predication, showing how to reason from premises to conclusions. A syllogism is a discourse in which when taking some statements as premises a different statement can be shown to follow as a conclusion ( AnPr.24b18-22). The basic form of the Aristotelian syllogism involves a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion, so that it has the form

If A is predicated of all B,

And B is predicated of all C,

Then A is predicated of all C.

This is an assertion of formal logic, since by removing the values of the variables A, B, and C, one treats the inference formally, such that the values of the subject A and predicates B and C are not given as part of the syllogistic form (Łukasiewicz, 10-14).

Though this form can be utilized in dialectic, in which the major term A is related to C through the middle term B credibly rather than necessarily ( AnPo.81b10-23), Aristotle is mainly concerned with how to use syllogistic in what he calls demonstrative reasoning, that is, in inference from certain premises to a certain conclusion. A demonstrative syllogism is not concerned with a mere opinion but proves a cause, that is, answers a "why" question ( AnPo.85b 23-26).

The validity of a syllogism can be tested through comparison of four basic types of assertions: All S are P (A), No S are P (E), Some S are P (I), and Some S are not P (O). The truth conditions of these assertions are determined relationally: through contradiction, in which if one of the assertions is true, the other must be false; contrariety, in which both assertions cannot be true; and subalternation, in which the universal assertion's being true requires that the particular assertion must be true, as well. These relationships are summed up in the traditional square of opposition used by medieval Aristotelian logicians. (see Groarke, Aristotle: Logic).

Figure 1: The Traditional Square of Opposition illustrates the relations between the fundamental judgment-forms in Aristotelian syllogistic: (A) All S are P, (E) No S are P, (I) Some S are P, and (O) Some S are not P.

Syllogistic may be employed dialectically when the premises are accepted on the authority of common opinion, from tradition, or from the wise. In any dialectical syllogism, the premises can be generally accepted opinions rather than necessary principles ( Top.100a25-b21). At least some premises in rhetorical proofs must be not necessary but only probable, happening only for the most part.

One interesting problem that arises within Aristotle's theory of demonstration concerns the connection between temporality and necessity. By the principle of excluded middle, necessarily, either there will be a sea-battle tomorrow or there will not be a sea-battle tomorrow. But since the sea-battle itself has yet neither come about nor failed to come about, it seems that one must say, paradoxically, that one alternative is necessary but that either alternative might come about ( Int.19a22-34). The question of how to account for unrealized possibilities and necessities is part of Aristotle's modal syllogistic, which is discussed at length in his Prior Analytics. For a discussion, see Malink (2013).

c. Induction, Experience, and Principles

Whenever a speaker reasons from premises, an auditor can ask for their demonstration. The speaker then needs to adduce additional premises for that demonstration. But if this line of questioning went on interminably, no demonstration could be made, since every premise would require a further demonstration, ad infinitum. In order to stop an infinite regress of premises, Aristotle postulates that for an inference to count as demonstrative, one must know its indemonstrable premises ( AnPo.73a16-20). Thus, demonstrative science depends on the view that all teaching and learning proceed from already present knowledge ( AnPo.72b5-20). In other words, the possibility of making a complete argument, whether inductive or deductive, depends on the reasoner possessing the concept in question.

The acquisition of concepts must in some way be perceptual, since Aristotle says that universals come to rest in the soul through experience, which comes about from many memories of the same thing, which in turn comes about by perception ( AnPo.99b32-100a9). However, Aristotle holds that some concepts are already manifested in one's perceptual experience: children initially call all men father and all women mother, only later developing the capacity to apply the relevant concepts to particular individuals ( Phys.184b3-5). As Cook Wilson (1926, 45) puts it, perception is in a way already of a universal. Upon learning to speak, the child already possesses the concept "mother" but does not grasp the conditions of its correct application. The role of perception, and hence of memory and experience, is then not to supply the child with universal concepts but to fix the conditions under which they are correctly predicated of an individual or species. Hence the ability to arrive at definitions, which serve as starting points of a science, rests on the human being's natural capacity to use language and on the culturally specific social and political conditions in which that capacity is manifested (Winslow 2013, 45-49).

But what makes such an inference a good one? Aristotle seems to say an inductive inference is sound when what is true in each case is also true of the class under which the cases fall ( AnPr.68b15-29). For example, it is inferred from the observation that each kind of bileless animal (men, horses, mules, and so on) is long-lived just when the following syllogism is sound: (1) All men, horses, mules, and so on are long-lived; (2) All long-lived animals are bileless; therefore (3) all men, horses, mules, and so on are bileless (see Groarke sections 10 and 11). However, Aristotle does not think that knowledge of universals is pieced together from knowledge of particulars but rather he thinks that induction is what allows one to actualize knowledge by grasping how the particular case falls under the universal ( AnPr.67a31-b5).

d. Rhetoric and Poetics

The deductive form of rhetoric, enthymeme, is a dialectical syllogism in which the probable premise is suppressed so that one reasons directly from the necessary premise to the conclusion. For example, one may reason that an animal has given birth because she has milk ( Rhet.1357b14-16) without providing the intermediate premise. Aristotle also calls this deductive form of inference "reasoning by signs" or "reasoning from evidence," since the animal's having milk is a sign of, or evidence for, her having given birth. Though the audience seemingly "immediately" grasps the fact of birth without it being given in perception, the passage from the perception to the fact is inferential and depends on the background assumption of the suppressed premise.

The inductive form of rhetoric, reasoning from example, can be illustrated as follows. Peisistratus in Athens and Theagenes in Megara both petitioned for guards shortly before establishing themselves as tyrants. Thus, someone plotting a tyranny requests a guard ( Rhet.1357b30-37). This proof by example does not have the force of necessity or universality and does not count as a case of scientific induction, since it is possible someone could petition for a guard without plotting a tyranny. But when it is necessary to base some decision, for example, whether to grant a request for a bodyguard, on its likely outcome, one must look to prior examples. It is the work of the rhetorician to know these examples and to formulate them in such a way as to suggest definite policies on the basis of that knowledge.

Rhetoric is divided into deliberative, forensic, and display rhetoric. Deliberative rhetoric is concerned with the future, namely with what to do, and the deliberative rhetorician is to discuss the advantages and harms associated with a specific course of action. Forensic rhetoric, typical of the courtroom, concerns the past, especially what was done and whether it was just or unjust. Display rhetoric concerns the present and is about what is noble or base, that is, what should be praised or denigrated ( Rhet.1358b6-16). In all these domains, the rhetorician practices a kind of reasoning that draws on similarities and differences to produce a likely prediction that is of value to the political community.

The poet's consequent power to lead the psyche through true or false imitations, like the rhetorician's power to lead it through persuasive speech, leads to a parallel question: how should the poet use his power? Should the poet imitate things as they are, or as they should be? Though it is clear that the standard of correctness in poetry and politics is not the same ( Poet.1460b13-1461a1), the question of how and to what extent the state should constrain poetic production remains unresolved.

3. Theoretical Philosophy

Aristotle's classification of the sciences makes a distinction between theoretical philosophy, which aims at contemplation, and practical philosophy, which aims at action or production. Within theoretical philosophy, first philosophy studies objects that are motionless and separate from material things, mathematics studies objects that are motionless but not separate, and natural philosophy studies objects that are in motion and not separate ( Met.1026a6-22).

This threefold distinction among the beings that can be contemplated corresponds to the level of precision that can be attained by each branch of theoretical philosophy. First philosophy can be perfectly exact because there is no variation among its objects and thus it has the potential to give one knowledge in the most profound sense. Mathematics is also absolutely certain because its objects are unchanging, but since there are many mathematical objects of a given kind (for example, one could draw a potentially infinite number of different triangles), mathematical proofs require a peculiar method that Aristotle calls "abstraction." Natural philosophy gives less exact knowledge because of the diversity and variability of natural things and thus requires attention to particular, empirical facts. Studies of nature-including treatises on special sciences like cosmology, biology, and psychology-account for a large part of Aristotle's surviving writings.

a. Natural Philosophy

Aristotle's natural philosophy aims for theoretical knowledge about things that are subject to change. Whereas all generated things, including artifacts and products of chance, have a source that generates them, natural change is caused by a thing's inner principle and cause, which may accordingly be called the thing's "nature" ( Phys. 192b8-20). To grasp the nature of a thing is to be able to explain why it was generated essentially: the nature of a thing does not merely contribute to a change but is the primary determinant of the change as such (Waterlow 1982, p.28).

Though some hold that Aristotle's principles are epistemic, explanatory concepts, principles are best understood ontologically as unique, continuous natures that govern the generation and self-preservation of natural beings. To understand a thing's nature is primarily to grasp "how a being displays itself by its nature." Such a grasp counts as a correct explanation only insofar as it constitutes a form of understanding of beings in themselves as they give themselves (Winslow 2007, 3-7).

A process of change is completely described when its four causes are given. This can be illustrated with Aristotle's favorite example of the production of a bronze sculpture. The (1) material cause of the change is given when the underlying matter of the thing has been described, such as the bronze matter of which a statue is composed. The (2) formal cause is given when one says what kind of thing the thing is, for example, "sphere" for a bronze sphere or "Callias" for a bronze statue of Callias. The (3) efficient cause is given when one says what brought the change about, for example, when one names the sculptor. The (4) final cause is given when one says the purpose of the change, for example, when one says why the sculptor chose to make the bronze sphere ( Phys. 194b16-195a2).

In natural change the principle of change is internal, so the formal, efficient, and final causes typically coincide. Moreover, in such cases, the metaphysical and epistemological sides of causal explanation are normally unified: a formal cause counts both as a thing's essence-what it is to be that thing-and as its rational account or reason for being (Bianchi 2014, 35). Thus, when speaking of natural changes rather than the making of an artifact, Aristotle will usually offer "hylomorphic" descriptions of the natural being as a compound of matter and form.

i. Cosmology and Geology

In Aristotle's view the heavens are ungenerated, neither coming to be nor passing away ( DC 279b18-21, 282a24-30). Aristotle defines time as the number of motion, since motion is necessarily measured by time ( Phys.224a24). Thus, the motion of the eternal bodies is what makes time, so the life and being of sublunary things depends on them. Indeed, Aristotle says that their own time is eternal or "aeon."

The gathering of such observations is an important part of Aristotle's scientific procedure ( AnPr.46a17-22) and sets his theories above those of the ancients that lacked such "experience" ( Phys.191a24-27). Just as in his biology, where Aristotle draws on animal anatomy observed at sacrifices ( HA 496b25) and records reports from India ( HA 501a25), so in his astronomy he cites Egyptian and Babylonian observations of the planets ( DC 292a4-9). By gathering evidence from many sources, Aristotle is able to conclude that the stars and the Moon are spherical ( DC 291b11-20) and that the Milky Way is an appearance produced by the sight of many stars moving in the outermost sphere ( Meteor.346a16-24).

Aristotle holds that the Earth is composed of four spheres, each of which is dominated by one of the four elements. The innermost and heaviest sphere is predominantly earth, on which rests upper spheres of water, air, and fire. The sun acts to burn up or vaporize the water, which rises to the upper spheres when heated, but when cooled later condenses into rain ( Meteor. 354b24-34). If unqualified necessity is restricted to the superlunary sphere, teleology-the seeking of ends that may or may not be brought about-seems to be limited to the sublunary sphere.

Due to his belief that the Earth is eternal, being neither created nor destroyed, Aristotle holds that the epochs move cyclically in patterns of increase and decrease ( Meteor.351b5-19). Aristotle's cyclical understanding of both natural and human history is implicit in his comment that while Egypt used to be a fertile land, it has over the centuries grown arid ( Meteor.351b28-35). Indeed, parts of the world that are ocean periodically become land, while those that are land are covered over by ocean ( Meteor.253a15-24). Because of periodic catastrophes, all human wisdom that is now sought concerning both the arts and divine things was previously possessed by forgotten ancestors. However, some of this wisdom is preserved in myths, which pass on knowledge of the divine by allegorically portraying the gods in human or animal form so that the masses can be persuaded to follow laws ( Met.1074a38-b14, compare Meteor.339b28-30, Pol.1329b25).

Aristotle's geology or earth science, given in the latter books of his Meteorology, offers theories of the formation of oceans, of wind and rainfall, and of other natural events such as earthquakes, lightning, and thunder. His theory of the rainbow suggests that drops of water suspended in the air form mirrors which reflect the multiply-colored visual ray that proceeds from the eye without its proper magnitude ( Meteor. 373a32-373b34). Though the explanations given by Aristotle of these phenomena contradict those of modern physics, his careful observations often give interest to his account.

Aristotle's material science offers the first description of what are now called non-Newtonian fluids-honey and must-which he characterizes as liquids in which earth and heat predominate ( Meteor.385b1-5). Although the Ancient Greeks did not distill alcohol, he reports on the accidental distillation of some ethanol from wine ("sweet wine"), which he observes is more combustible than ordinary wine ( Meteor. 387b10-14). Finally, Aristotle's material science makes an informative distinction between compounds, in which the constituents maintain their identity, and mixtures, in which one constituent comes to dominate or in which a new kind of material is generated (see Sharvy 1983 for discussion). Though it would be inaccurate to describe him as a methodological empiricist, Aristotle's collection and careful recording of observations shows that in all of his scientific endeavors, his explanations were designed to accord with publicly observable natural phenomena.

ii. Biology

The phenomenon of life, as opposed to inanimate nature, involves distinctive types of change ( Phys.244b10-245a5) and thus requires distinctive types of explanation. Biological explanations should give all four causes of an organism or species-the material of which it is composed, the processes that bring it about, the particular form it has, and its purpose. For Aristotle, the investigation of individual organisms gives one causal knowledge since the individuals belong to a natural kind. Men and horses both have eyes, which serve similar functions in each of them, but because their species are different, a man's eye is similar to the eyes of other men, while a horse's eyes are similar to the eyes of other horses ( HA 486a15-20). Biology should explain both why homologous forms exist in different species and the ways in which they differ, and therefore the causes for the persistence of each natural kind of living thing.

Although all four causes are relevant in biology, Aristotle tends to group final causes with formal causes in teleological explanations, and material causes with efficient causes in mechanical explanations. Boylan (section 4) shows, for example, that Aristotle's teleological explanation of respiration is that it exists in order to bring air into the body to produce pneuma, which is the means by which an animal moves itself. Aristotle's mechanical explanation is that air that has been heated in the lungs is pushed out by colder air outside the body ( On Breath 481b10-16, PA 642a31-b4).

Teleological explanations are necessary conditionally; that is, they depend on the assumption that the biologist has correctly identified the end for the sake of which the organism behaves as it does. Mechanical explanations, in distinction, have absolute necessity in the sense that they require no assumptions about the purpose of the organism or behavior. In general, however, teleological explanations are more important in biology ( PA 639b24-26), because making a distinction between living and inanimate things depends on the assumption that "nature does nothing in vain" ( GA 741b5).

This basic teleological or goal-directed orientation of Aristotle's biology allows him to explain the various functions of living creatures in terms of their growth and preservation of form. Perhaps foremost among these is reproduction, which establishes the continuity of a species through a generation. As Aristotle puts it, the seed is temporally prior to the fully developed organism, since each organism develops from a seed. But the fully developed organism is logically prior to the seed, since it is the end or final cause, for the sake of which the seed is produced ( PA 641b29-642a2).

In asexual reproduction in plants and animals, the seed is produced by an individual organism and implanted in soil, which activates it and thus actualizes its potentiality to become an organism of the kind from which it was produced. Aristotle thus utilizes a conception of "type" as an endogenous teleonomic principle, which explains why an individual animal can produce other animals of its own type (Mayr 1982, 88). Hence, the natural kind to which an individual belongs makes it what it is. Animals of the same natural kind have the same form of life and can reproduce with one another but not with animals of other kinds.

The form of the animal, its psyche, may thus be said to be potentially in the matter, since the matter contains all the necessary nutrients for the production of the complete organism. However, it is invariably the male that brings about the reproduction by providing the principle of the perceptual soul, a process Aristotle compares with the movement of automatic puppets by a mover that is not in the puppet ( GA 741b6-15). (Whether the female produces the nutritive psyche is an open question.) Thus, form or psyche is provided by the male, while the matter is provided by the female: when the two come together, they form a hylomorphic product-the living animal.

While the form of an animal is preserved in kind by reproduction, organisms are also preserved individually over their natural lifespans through feeding. In species that have blood, feeding is a kind of concoction, in which food is chewed and broken down in the stomach, then enters the blood, and is finally cooked up to form the external parts of the body. In plants, feeding occurs by the nutritive psyche alone. But in animals, the senses exist for the sake of detecting food, since it is by the senses that animals pursue what is beneficial and avoid what is harmful. In human beings, a similar explanation can be given of the intellectual powers: understanding and practical wisdom exist so that human beings might not only live but also enjoy the good life achievable by action ( Sens.436b19-437a3).

Although Aristotle's teleology has been criticized by some modern biologists, others have argued that his biological work is still of interest to naturalists. For example, Haldane (1955) shows that Aristotle gave the earliest report of the bee waggle dance, which received a comprehensive explanation only in the 20 th century work of Von Frisch. Aristotle also observed lordosis behavior in cattle ( HA 572b1-2) and notes that some plants and animals are divisible ( Youth and Old Age 468b2-15), a fact that has been vividly illustrated in modern studies of planaria. Even when Aristotle's biological explanations are incorrect, his observations may be of enduring value.

iii. Psychology

Aristotle conceives of psychology as an exact science, with greater precision than the lesser sciences ( DA 402a1-5), and accordingly offers a complete sequence of the kinds or "parts" of psyche. The nutritive psyche-possessed by both plants and animals-is responsible for the basic functions of nourishment and reproduction. Perception is possible only in an animal that also has the nutritive power that allows it to grow and reproduce, while desire depends on perceiving the object desired, and locomotion depends on desiring objects in different locations ( DA 415a1-8). More intellectual powers like imagination, judgment, and understanding itself exist only in humans, who also have the lower powers.

The succession of psychological powers ensures the completeness, order, and necessity of the relations of psychological parts. Like rectilinear figures, which proceed from triangles to quadrilaterals, to pentagons, and so forth, without there being any intermediate forms, there are no other psyches than those in this succession ( DA 414b20-32). This demonstrative approach ensures that although the methods of psychology and physiology are distinct, psychological divisions map onto biological distinctions. For Aristotle, the parts of the psyche are not separable or "modular" but related genetically: each posterior part of the psyche "contains" the parts before it, and each lower part is the necessary but not sufficient condition for possession of the part that comes after it.

The psyche is defined by Aristotle as the first actuality of a living animal, which is the form of a natural body potentially having life ( DA 412a19-22). This form is possessed even when it is not being used; for example, a sleeping person has the power to hear a melody, though while he is sleeping, he is not exercising the power. In distinction, though a corpse looks just like a sleeping body, it has no psyche, since it lacks the power to respond to such stimuli. The second actuality of an animal comes when the power is actually exercised such as when one actually hears the melody ( DA 417b9-16).

This theory of perception distinguishes three kinds of perceptible objects: proper sensibles, which are perceived only by one sense modality; common sensibles, which are perceived by all the senses; and accidental sensibles, which are facts about the sensible object that are not directly given ( DA 418a8-23). For example, in seeing wine, its color is a proper sensible, its volume a common sensible, and the fact that it belongs to Callias an accidental sensible. While one normally could not be wrong about the wine's color, one might overestimate or underestimate its volume under nonstandard conditions, and one is apt to be completely wrong about the accidental sensible (for example, Callias might have sold the wine).

The five senses are distinguished by their proper sensibles: though the wine's color might accidentally make one aware that it is sweet, color is proper to sight and sweetness to taste. But this raises a question: how do the different senses work together to give one a coherent experience of reality? If they were not coordinated, then one would perceive each quality of an object separately, for example, darkness and sweetness without putting them together. However, actual perceptual experience is coordinated: one perceives wine as both dark and sweet. In order to explain this, Aristotle says that they must be coordinated by the central sense, which is probably located in the body's central organ, the heart. When one is awake, and the external sense organs are functioning normally, they are coordinated in the heart to discern reality as being the way it is ( Sens.448b31-449a22).

In at least some animals, the perceptual powers give rise to other psychological powers that are not themselves perceptual in a strict sense. In one simple case, the perception of a color is altered by its surroundings, that is, by how it is illuminated and by the other colors in one's field of vision. Far from assuming the constancy of perception, Aristotle notes that under such circumstances, one color can take the place of another and appear differently than it does under standard conditions, for example, of full illumination ( Meteor. 375a22-28).

Human beings are distinct from other animals, Aristotle says, in their possession of rational psyche. Foremost among the rational powers is intellect or understanding (this article uses the terms interchangeably), which grasps universals in a way that is analogous to the perceptual grasp of particulars. However, unlike material particulars grasped by perception, universals are not mixed with body and are thus in a sense contained in the psyche itself ( DA 417b22-24, 432a1-3). This has sometimes been called the intentional inexistence of an object, or intentionality, the property of being directed to or about something. Since one can think or understand any universal, the understanding is potentially about anything, like an empty writing tablet ( DA 429b29-430a1).

The doctrine of the intentionality of intellect leads Aristotle to make a distinction between two kinds of intellect. Receptive or passive intellect is characterized by the ability to become like all things and is analogous to the writing tablet. Productive or active intellect is characterized by the ability to bring about all things and is analogous to the act of writing. The active intellect is thus akin to the light that illuminates objects, making them perceptible by sight. Aristotle holds that the soul never thinks without an image produced by imagination to serve as its material. Thus, in understanding something, the productive intellect actuates the receptive intellect, which stimulates the imagination to produce a particular image corresponding to the universal content of the understanding. Hence, while Aristotle describes the active intellect as unaffected, separate, and immaterial, it serves to bring to completion the passive intellect, the latter of which is inseparable from imagination and hence from perception and nutrition.

Aristotle's insistence that intellect is not a subject of natural science ( PA 641a33-b9) motivates the view that thinking requires a contribution from the supernatural or divine. Indeed, in Metaphysics (1072b19-30) Aristotle argues that intellect actively understanding the intelligible is the everlasting God. For readers like the medieval Arabic commentator Ibn Rushd, passive intellect is spread like matter among thinking beings. This "material intellect" is activated by God, the agent intellect, so that when one is thinking, one participates in the activity of the divine intellect. According to this view, every act of thinking is also an act of divine illumination in which God actuates one's thinking power as the writer actuates a blank writing tablet.

The whole psyche governs the characteristic functions and changes of a living thing. The nutritive psyche is the formal cause of growth and metabolism and is shared by plants, while the perceptual psyche gives rise to desire, which causes self-moving animals to act. When one becomes aware of an apparent good by perception or imagination, one forms either an appetite, the desire for pleasure, or thumos, the spirited desire for revenge or honor. A third form of desire, wish, is the product of the rational psyche ( DA 433a20-30).

Boeri has pointed out that Aristotle's psychology cuts a middle path between physicalism, which identifies the psyche with body, and dualism, which posits the independent existence of the soul and body. By characterizing the psyche as he does, Aristotle can at once deny that the psyche is a body but also insist that it does not exist without a body. The living body of an animal can thus be thought of as a form that has been "materialized" (Boeri 2018, 166-169).

b. Mathematics

Aristotle was educated in Plato's Academy, in which it was commonly argued that mathematical objects like lines and numbers exist independently of physical beings and are thus "separable" from matter. Aristotle's conception of the hierarchy of beings led him to reject Platonism since the category of quantity is posterior to that of substance. But he also rejects nominalism, the view that mathematical things are not real. Against both positions, Aristotle argues that mathematical things are real but do not exist separately from sensible bodies ( Met.1090a29-30, 1093b27-28). Mathematical objects thus depend on the things in which they inhere and have no separate or independent being ( Met. 1059b12-14).

One reason that Aristotle believes that mathematics must proceed by abstraction is that he wants to prevent a multiplication of entities. For example, he does not want to say that, in addition to there being a sphere of bronze, there is another separate, mathematical sphere, and that in addition to that sphere, there is a separate mathematical plane cutting it, and that in addition to that plane, there is an additional line limiting the plane (see Katz 2014). It is enough for a mathematical ontology simply to acknowledge that natural objects have real mathematical properties not separate in being, which can nevertheless be studied independently from natural investigation. Aristotle also favors this view due to his belief that mathematics is a demonstrative science. Aristotle was aware that geometry uses diagrammatic representations of abstracted properties, which allow one to grasp how a demonstration is true not just of a particular object but of any class of objects that share its quantitative features (Humphreys 2017). Through the concept of abstraction, Aristotle could explain why a particular diagram may be used to prove a universal geometrical result.

Why study mathematics? Although Aristotle rejected the Platonic doctrine that mathematical beings are separate, intermediate entities between perceptible things and forms, he agreed with the Platonists that mathematics is about things that are beautiful and good, since it offers insight into the nature of arrangement, symmetry, and definiteness ( Met.1078a31-b6). Thus, the study of mathematics reveals that beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder as it is in the nature of things (Hoinski and Polansky 2016, 51-60). Moreover, Aristotle holds that mathematical beings are all potential objects of the intellect, which exist only potentially when they are not understood. The activity of understanding is the actuation of their being, but also actuates the intellect ( Met.1051a26-33). Mathematics, then, not only gives insight into beauty but is also a source of intellectual pleasure, since gaining mathematical knowledge exercises the human being's best power.

c. First Philosophy

In addition to natural and mathematical sciences, there is a science of independent beings that Aristotle calls "first philosophy" or "wisdom." What is the proper aim of this science? In some instances, Aristotle seems to say that it concerns being insofar as it is ( Met.1003a21-22), whereas in others, he seems to consider it to be equivalent to "theology," restricting contemplation to the highest kind of being ( Met.1026a19-22), which is unchanging and separable from matter. However, Menn (2013, 10-11) shows that Aristotle is primarily concerned with describing first philosophy as a science that seeks the causes and sources of being qua being. Hence, when Aristotle holds that wisdom is a kind of rational knowledge concerning causes and principles ( Met.982a1-3), he probably means that the investigation of these causes of being as being seeks to discover the divine things as the cause of ordinary beings. First philosophy is consequently quite unlike natural philosophy and mathematics, since rather than proceeding from systematic observation or from hypotheses, it begins with an attitude of wonder towards ordinary things and aims to contemplate them not under a particular description but simply as beings ( Sachs 2018).

The fundamental premise of this science is the law of noncontradiction, which states that something cannot both be and not be ( Met.1006a1). Aristotle holds that this law is indemonstrable and necessary to assume in any meaningful discussion about being. Consequently, a person who demands a demonstration of this principle is no better than a plant. As Anscombe (1961, 40) puts it, "Aristotle evidently had some very irritating people to argue with." But as Anscombe also points out, this principle is what allows Aristotle to make a distinction between substances as the primary kind of being and accidents that fall in the other categories. While it is possible for a substance to take on contrary accidents, for example, coffee first being hot and later cold, substances have no contraries. The law requires that a substance either is or is not, independently of its further, accidental properties.

Aristotle insists that in order for the word "being" to have any meaning at all, there must be some primary beings, whereas other beings modify these primary beings ( Met.1003b6-10). As we saw in the section on Aristotle's logic, primary substances are individual substances while their accidents are what is predicated of them in the categories. This takes on metaphysical significance when one thinks of this distinction in terms of a dependence relation in which substances can exist independently of their accidents, but accidents are dependent in being on a substance. For example, a shaggy dog is substantially a dog, but only accidentally shaggy. If it lost all its hair, it would cease to be shaggy but would be no less a dog: it would then be a non-shaggy dog. But if it ceased to be a dog-for example, if it were turned into fertilizer-then it would cease to be shaggy at the same moment. Unlike the "shagginess," "dogness" cannot be separated from a shaggy dog: the "what it is to be" a dog is the dog's dogness in the category of substance, while its accidents are in other categories, in this case shagginess being in the category of quality ( Met.1031a1-5).

Given that substances can be characterized as forms, as matter, or as compounds of form and matter, it seems that Aristotle gives the cause and source of a being by listing its material and formal cause. Indeed, Aristotle sometimes describes primary being as the "immanent form" from which the concrete primary being is derived ( Met.1037a29). This probably means that a primary substance is always a compound, its formal component serving as the substance's final cause. However, primary beings are not composed of other primary beings ( Met.1041a3-5). Thus, despite some controversy on the question, there seems to be no form of an individual, form being what is shared by all the individuals of a kind.

A substance is defined by a universal, and thus when one defines the form, one defines the substance ( Met.1035b31-1036a1). However, when one grasps a substance directly in perception or thought, one grasps the compound of form and matter ( Met.1036a2-8). But since form by itself does not make a primary substance, it must be immanent-that is, compounded with matter-in each individual, primary substance. Rather, in a form-matter compound, such as a living thing, the matter is both the prior stuff out of which the thing has become and the contemporaneous stuff of which it is composed. The form is what makes what a thing is made of, its matter, into that thing (Anscombe 1961, 49, 53).

4. Practical Philosophy

In a similar way that he holds animals are said to seek characteristic ends in his biology, Aristotle holds in his "ergon argument" that the human being has a proper ergon-work or function ( EN 1097b24-1098a18). Just as craftsmen like flautists and sculptors and bodily organs like eyes and ears have a peculiar work they do, so the human being must do something peculiarly human. Such function is definitive, that is, distinguishes what it is to be the thing that carries it out. For example, a flautist is a flautist insofar as she plays the flute. But the function serves as an implicit success condition for being that thing. For example, what makes a flautist good as a what she is ("good qua flautist" one might say) is that she plays the flute well. Regardless of the other work she does in her other capacities (qua human, qua friend, and so forth) the question "is she a good flautist?" can be answered only in reference to the ergon of the flautist, namely flute playing.

The human function cannot be nutrition or perception, since those activities are shared with other living things. Since other animals lack reason, the human function must be an activity of the psyche not without reason. A human being that performs this function well will be functioning well as a human being. In other words, by acting virtuously one will by that fact achieve the human good (Angier 2010, 60-61). Thus, Aristotle can summarize the good life as consisting of activities and actions in accordance with arete-excellence or virtue-and the good for the human being as the activity of the psyche in accordance with excellence in a complete life ( EN 1098a12-19). Though it has sometimes been objected that Aristotle assumes without argument that human beings must have a characteristic function, Angier (2010, 73-76) has shown that the key to Aristotle's argument is his comparison of the human function to a craft: just as a sculptor must possess a wide variety of subordinate skills to achieve mastery in his specialized activity, so in acting well the human being must possess an inclusive set of dispositions and capacities that serve to fulfill the specialized task of reason.

a. Habituation and Excellence

Though the original meaning of ethics has been obscured due to modern confusion of pursuing proper ends with following moral rules, in the Aristotelian works, ethical inquiry is limited to the investigation of what it is for a human being to flourish according to her own nature. For the purposes of this inquiry, Aristotle distinguishes three parts of the psyche: passions, powers, and habits ( EN 1105b20). Passions include attitudes such as feeling fear, hatred, or pity for others, while powers are those parts of our form that allow us to have such passions and to gain knowledge of the world. However, while all human beings share passions and powers, they differ with regard to how they are trained or habituated and thus with respect to their dispositions or states of character. Those who are habituated correctly are said to be excellent and praiseworthy, while those whose characters are misshapen through bad habituation are blameworthy ( EN 1105b28-a2).

Although he offers detailed descriptions of the virtues in his ethical works, Aristotle summarizes them in a table:

This shows that each excellence is a mean between excessive and defective states of character ( EE 1220b35-1221a15). Accordingly, good habituation is concerned with avoiding extreme or pathological states of character. Thus, Aristotle can say that ethical excellence is "concerned with pleasures and pains" ( EN 1104b8-11), since whenever one has been properly trained to take the correct pleasure and suffer correct pain when one acts in excess or defect, one possesses the excellence in question.

b. Ethical Deliberation

But if all excellent action must be chosen, how can actions undertaken in an instant, such as when one acts courageously, be excellent? Since such actions can be undertaken without the agent having undergone a prior process of conscious deliberation, which takes time, it seems that one must say that quick actions were hypothetically deliberated, that is, that they count as what one would have chosen to do had one had time to deliberate (Segvic 2008, 162-163).

Such reasoning can be schematized by the so-called the "practical syllogism." For example, supposing one accepts the premises

One should not drink heavy water

This water in this cup is heavy

The syllogism concludes with one's not drinking water from the cup ( EN 1142a22-23). If this is how Aristotle understands ethical deliberation, then it seems that all one's voluntary actions count as deliberated even if one has not spent any time thinking about what to do.

However, Contreras (2018, 341) points out that the "practical syllogism" cannot represent deliberation since its conclusion is an action, whereas the conclusion of deliberation is choice. Though one's choice typically causes one to act, something external could prevent one from acting even once the choice has been made. Thus, neither are choice and action the same, nor are the processes or conditions from which they result identical. Moreover, even non-rational desires like appetite and thumos present things under the "guise of the good" so that whatever one desires appears to be good. Hence an action based on those desires could still be described by a practical syllogism, though it would not be chosen through deliberation. Deliberation does not describe a kind of deduction but a process of seeking things that contribute to an aim already presented under the guise of the good (Segvic 2008, 164-167).

This "seeking" aspect of deliberation is brought out in Aristotle's comparison of the deliberator to the geometer, who searches and analyzes by diagrams ( EN 1112b20-24). Geometrical analysis is the method by which a mathematician works backwards from a desired result to find the elements that constitute that result. Similarly, deliberation is a search for the elements that would allow the end one has in view to be realized ( EN 1141b8-15).

c. Self and Others

Life will tend to go well for a person who has been habituated to the right kinds of pleasures and pains and who deliberates well about what to do. Unfortunately, this is not always sufficient for happiness. For although excellence might help one manage misfortunes well and avoid becoming miserable as their result, it is not reasonable to call someone struck with a major misfortune blessed or happy ( EN 1100b33-1101a13). So there seems to be an element of luck in happiness: although bad luck cannot make one miserable, one must possess at least some external goods in order to be happy.

One could also ruin things by acting in ignorance. When one fails to recognize a particular as what it is, one might bring about an end one never intended. For example, one might set off a loaded catapult through one's ignorance of the fact that it was loaded. Such actions are involuntary. But there is a more fundamental kind of moral ignorance for which one can be blamed, which is not the cause of involuntary actions but of badness ( EN 1110b25-1111a11). In the first case, one does what one does not want to do because of ignorance, so is not worthy of blame. In the second case, one does what one wants to do and is thus to be blamed for the action.

Given that badness is a form of ignorance about what one should do, it is reasonable to ask whether acting acratically, that is, doing what one does not want to do, just comes down to being ignorant. This is the teaching of Socrates, who, arguing against what appears to be the case, reduced acrasia to ignorance ( EN 1145b25-27). Though Aristotle holds that acrasia is distinct from ignorance, he also thinks it is impossible for knowledge to be dragged around by the passions like a slave. Aristotle must, then, explain how being overcome by one's passions is possible, when knowledge is stronger than the passions.

Aristotle's solution is to limit acrasia to those cases in which one generically knows what to do but fails to act on it because one's knowledge of sensibles is dragged along by the passions ( EN 1147b15-19). In other words, he admits that the passions can overpower perceptual knowledge of particulars but denies that it can dominate intellectual knowledge of universals. Hence, like Socrates, Aristotle thinks of acrasia as a form of ignorance, though unlike Socrates, he holds that this ignorance is temporary and relates only to one's knowledge of particulars. Acrasia consists, then, in being unruled with respect to thumos or with respect to sensory pleasures. In such cases, one is unruled because one's passions or lower desires temporarily take over and prevent one from grasping things as one should ( EN 1148a2-22). In this sense, acrasia represents a conflict between the reasoning and unreasoning parts of the psyche (for discussion see Weinman 2007, 95-99).

Friendship is a bridging concept between ethics concerning the relations of individuals and political science, which concerns the nature and function of the state. For Aristotle, friendship holds a state together, so the lawgiver must focus on promoting friendship above all else ( EN 1155a22-26). Indeed, when people are friends, they treat one another with mutual respect so that justice is unnecessary or redundant ( EN 1155a27-29). Aristotle's ethics are thus part of his political philosophy. Just as an individual's good action depends on her taking the right kinds of pleasures, so a thriving political community depends on citizens taking pleasure in one another's actions. Such love of others and mutual pleasure are strictly speaking neither egoistic nor altruistic. Instead, they rest on the establishment of a harmony of self and others in which the completion of the individual life and the life of the community amount to the same thing.

d. The Household and the State

Aristotle's political philosophy stems from the idea that the political community or state is a creation of nature prior to the individual who lives within it. This is shown by the fact that the individual human being is dependent on the political community for his formation and survival. One who lives outside the state is either a beast or a god, that is, does not participate in what is common to humanity ( Pol.1253a25-31). The political community is natural and essentially human, then, because it is only within this community that the individual realizes his nature as a human being. Thus, the state exists not only for the continuation of life but for the sake of the good life ( Pol.1280a31-33).

Aristotle holds that the human being is a "political animal" due to his use of speech. While other gregarious animals have voice, which nature has fashioned to indicate pleasure and pain, the power of speech enables human beings to indicate not only this but also what is expedient and inexpedient and what is just and unjust ( Pol.1253a9-18). Berns (1976, 188-189) notes that for Aristotle, the speech symbol's causes are largely natural: the material cause of sound, the efficient cause of the living creatures that produce them, and the final cause of living together, are all parts of human nature. However, the formal cause, the distinctive way in which symbols are organized, is conventional. This allows for a variability of constitutions and hence the establishment of good or bad laws. Thus, although the state is natural for human beings, the specific form it takes depends on the wisdom of the legislator.

Though the various forms of constitution cannot be discussed here (for discussion, see Clayton, Aristotle: Politics), the purpose of the state is the good of all the citizens ( Pol.1252a3), so a city is excellent when its citizens are excellent ( Pol.1332a4). This human thriving is most possible, however, when the political community is ruled not by an individual but by laws themselves. This is because even the best rulers are subject to thumos, which is like a "wild beast," whereas law itself cannot be perverted by the passions. Thus, Aristotle likens rule of law to the "rule of God and reason alone" ( Pol.1287a16-32). Although this is the best kind of political community, Aristotle does not say that the best life for an individual is necessarily the political life. Instead he leaves open the possibility that the theoretical life, in which philosophy is pursued for its own sake, is the best way for a person to live.

The establishment of any political community depends on the existence of the sub-political sphere of the household, the productive unit in which goods are produced for consumption. Whereas the political sphere is a sphere of freedom and action, the household consists of relations of domination: that of the master and slave, that of marriage, and that of procreation. Hence household management or "economics" is distinct from politics, since the organization of the household has the purpose of production of goods rather than action ( Pol.1253b9-14). Crucial to this household production is the slave, which Aristotle defines as a living tool ( Pol.1253b30-33) who is controlled by a master in order to produce the means necessary for the survival and thriving of the household and state. As household management, economics is concerned primarily with structuring slave labor, that is, with organizing the instruments of production so as to make property necessary for the superior, political life.

The result of these doctrines is the view that political community is composed of "unlikes." Just as a living animal is composed of psyche and body, and psyche is composed of a rational part and an appetite, so the family is composed of husband and wife, and property of master and slave. It is these relations of domination, in Aristotle's view, that constitute the state, holding it together and making it function ( Pol.1277a5-11). As noted in the biographical section, Aristotle had close ties to the expanding Macedonian empire. Thus his political philosophy, insofar as it is prescriptive of how a political community should be managed, might have been intended to be put into practice in the colonies established by Alexander. If that is the case, then perhaps Aristotle's politics is at base a didactic project intended to teach an indefinite number of future legislators (Strauss 1964, 21).

5. Aristotle's Influence

Aristotle and Plato were the most influential philosophers in antiquity, both because their works were widely circulated and read and because the schools they founded continued to exert influence for hundreds of years after their deaths. Aristotle's school gave rise to the Peripatetic movement, with his student Theophrastus being its most famous member. In late antiquity, there emerged a tradition of commentators on Aristotle's works, beginning with Alexander of Aphrodisias, but including the Neo-Platonists Simplicius, Syrianus, and Ammonius. Many of their commentaries have been edited and translated into English as part of the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project.

In the middle ages, Aristotle's works were translated into Arabic, which led to generations of Islamic Aristotelians, such as Ibn Bajjah and Ibn Rushd (see Alwishah and Hayes 2015). In the Jewish philosophical tradition, Maimonides calls Aristotle the chief of the philosophers and uses Aristotelian concepts to analyze the contents of the Hebrew Bible. Though Boethius' Latin commentaries on Aristotle's logical works were available from the fifth century onwards, the publication of Aristotle's works in Latin in the 11 th and 12 th centuries led to a revival of Aristotelian ideas in Europe. Indeed, a major controversy broke out at the University of Paris in the 1260s between the Averroists-followers of Ibn Rushd who believed that thinking happens through divine illumination-and those who held that the active intellect is individual in humans (see McInerny 2002). A further debate, concerning realism (the doctrine that universals are real) and nominalism (the doctrine that universals exist "in name" only) continued for centuries. Although they disagreed in their interpretations, prominent scholastics like Bacon, Buridan, Ockham, Scotus, and Aquinas, tended to accept Aristotelian doctrines on authority, often referring to Aristotle simply as "The Philosopher."

Beginning in the sixteenth century, the scholastics came under attack, particularly from natural philosophers, often leading to the disparagement of Aristotelian positions. Copernicus' model made Earth not the center of the universe as in Aristotle's cosmology but a mere satellite of the sun. Galileo showed that some of the predictions of Aristotle's physical theory were incorrect; for example, heavier objects do not fall faster than lighter objects. Descartes attacked the teleological aspect of Aristotle's physics, arguing for a mechanical conception of all of nature, including living things. Hobbes critiqued the theory of perception, which he believed unrealistically described forms or ideas as travelling through the air. Later, Hume disparaged causal powers as mysterious, thus undermining the conception of the four causes. Kantian and utilitarian ethics argued that duties to humanity rather than happiness were the proper norms for action. Darwin showed that species are not eternal, casting doubt on Aristotle's conception of biological kinds. Frege's logic in the late nineteenth century developed notions of quantification and predication that made the syllogism obsolete. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Aristotle looked not particularly relevant to modern philosophical concerns.

The latter part of the twentieth century, however, has seen a slow but steady intellectual shift, which has led to a large family of neo-Aristotelian positions being defended by contemporary philosophers. Anscombe's (1958) argument for a return to virtue ethics can be taken as a convenient starting point of this change. Anscombe's claim, in summary, is that rule-based ethics of the deontological or utilitarian style is unconvincing in an era wherein monotheistic religions have declined, and commandments are no longer understood to issue from a divine authority. Modern relativism and nihilism on this view are products of the correct realization that without anyone making moral commandments, there is no reason to follow them. Since virtue ethics grounds morality in states of character rather than in universal rules, only a return to virtue ethics would allow for a morality in a secular society. In accordance with this modern turn to virtue ethics, neo-Aristotelian theories of natural normativity have increasingly been defended, for example, by Thompson (2008). In political philosophy, Arendt's (1958) distinction between the public and private spheres takes the tension between the political community and household as a fundamental force of historical change.

In the 21 st century, philosophers have drawn on Aristotle's theoretical philosophy. Cartwright and Pemberton (2013) revive the concept of natural powers being part of the basic ontology of nature, which explain many of the successes of modern science. Umphrey (2016) argues for the real existence of natural kinds, which serve to classify material entities. Finally, the 'Sydney School' has adopted a neo-Aristotelian, realist ontology of mathematics that avoids the extremes of Platonism and nominalism (Franklin 2011). These philosophers argue that, far from being useless antiques, Aristotelian ideas offer fruitful solutions to contemporary philosophical problems.

6. Abbreviations

a. Abbreviations of Aristotle's Works

b. Other Abbreviations

DL

Diogenes Laertius, The Life of Aristotle.

Bekker

"August Immanuel Bekker." Encyclopedia Britannica. 9th ed., vol. 3, Cambridge University Press, 1910, p. 661.

7. References and Further Reading

a. Aristotle's Complete Works

Aristotelis Opera. Edited by A.I. Bekker, Clarendon, 1837.

Complete Works of Aristotle. Edited by J. Barnes, Princeton University Press, 1984.

b. Secondary Sources

i. Life and Early Works

Bos, A.P. "Aristotle on the Etruscan Robbers: A Core Text of 'Aristotelian Dualism.'" Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 41, no. 3, 2003, pp. 289-306.

Chroust, A-H. "Aristotle's Politicus: A Lost Dialogue." Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Neue Folge, 108. Bd., 4. H, 1965, pp. 346-353.

Chroust, A-H. "Eudemus or on the Soul: A Lost Dialogue of Aristotle on the Immortality of the Soul." Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, vol. 19, fasc. 1, 1966, pp. 17-30.

Chroust, A-H. "Aristotle Leaves the Academy." Greece and Rome, vol. 14, issue 1, April 1967, pp. 39-43.

Chroust, A-H. "Aristotle's Sojourn in Assos." Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschischte, Bd. 21, H. 2, 1972, pp. 170-176.

Fine, G. On Ideas. Oxford University Press, 1993.

Jaeger, W. Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development. 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948.

Kroll, W., editor. Syrianus Commentaria in Metaphysica (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, vol. VI, part I). Berolini, typ. et impensis G. Reimeri, 1902.

Lachterman, D.R. "Did Aristotle 'Develop'? Reflections on Werner Jaeger's Thesis." The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter, vol. 33, 1980.

Owen, G.E.L. "The Platonism of Aristotle." Studies in the Philosophy of Thought and Action, edited by P.F. Strawson, Oxford University Press, 1968, pp. 147-174.

Pistelli, H., editor. Iamblichi Protrepticus. Lipsiae: In Aedibus B.G. Tubneri, 1888.

ii. Logic

Bäck, A.T. Aristotle's Theory of Predication. Leiden: Brill, 2000.

Cook Wilson, J. Statement and Inference, vol.1. Clarendon, 1926.

Groarke, L.F. "Aristotle: Logic." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/aris-log.

Ierodiakonou, K. "Aristotle's Logic: An Instrument, Not a Part of Philosophy." Aristotle: Logic, Language and Science, edited by N. Avgelis and F. Peonidis, Thessaloniki, 1998, pp. 33-53.

Lukasiewicz, J. Aristotle's Syllogistic. 2nd ed., Clarendon, 1957.

Malink, M. Aristotle's Modal Syllogistic. Harvard University Press, 2013.

iii. Theoretical Philosophy

Anscombe, G.E.M. and P.T. Geach. Three Philosophers. Cornell University Press, 1961.

Bianchi, E. The Feminine Symptom. Fordham University Press, 2014.

Boeri, M. D. "Plato and Aristotle on What Is Common to Soul and Body. Some Remarks on a Complicated Issue." Soul and Mind in Greek Thought. Psychological Issues in Plato and Aristotle, edited by M.D. Boeri, Y.Y. Kanayama, and J. Mittelmann, Springer, 2018, pp. 153-176.

Boylan, M. "Aristotle: Biology." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-bio.

Cook, K. "The Underlying Thing, the Underlying Nature and Matter: Aristotle's Analogy in Physics I 7." Apeiron, vol. 22, no. 4, 1989, pp. 105-119.

Hoinski, D. and R. Polansky. "Aristotle on Beauty in Mathematics." Dia-noesis, October 2016, pp. 37-64.

Humphreys, J. "Abstraction and Diagrammatic Reasoning in Aristotle's Philosophy of Geometry." Apeiron, vol. 50, no. 2, April 2017, pp. 197-224.

Humphreys, J. "Aristotelian Imagination and Decaying Sense." Social Imaginaries. 5:1, 37-55, Spring 2019.

Ibn Bjjah. Ibn Bajjah's 'Ilm al-Nafs (Book on the Soul). Translated by M.S.H. Ma'Sumi, Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1961.

Ibn Rushd. Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle. Translated by R.C. Taylor, Yale University Press, 2009.

Jiminez, E. R. "Mind in Body in Aristotle." The Bloomsbury Companion to Aristotle, edited by C. Baracchi, Bloomsbury, 2014.

Jiminez, E. R. Aristotle's Concept of Mind. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Katz, E. "An Absurd Accumulation: Metaphysics M.2, 1076b11-36." Phronesis, vol. 59, no. 4, 2014, pp. 343-368.

Marx, W. Introduction to Aristotle's Theory of Being as Being. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977.

Mayr, E. The Growth of Biological Thought. Harvard University Press, 1982.

Menn, S. "The Aim and the Argument of Aristotle's Metaphysics." Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2013, www.philosophie.hu-berlin.de/de/lehrbereiche/antike/mitarbeiter/menn/contents.

Nakahata, M. "Aristotle and Descartes on Perceiving That We See." The Journal of Greco-Roman Studies, vol. 53, no. 3, 2014, pp. 99-112.

Sachs, J. "Aristotle: Metaphysics." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/aris-met.

Sharvy, R. "Aristotle on Mixtures." The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 80, no. 8, 1983, pp. 439-457.

Waterlow, S. Nature, Change, and Agency in Aristotle's Physics: A Philosophical Study. Clarendon, 1982.

Winslow, R. Aristotle and Rational Discovery. New York: Continuum, 2007.

iv. Practical Philosophy

Angier, T. Techne in Aristotle's Ethics: Crafting the Moral Life. London: Continuum, 2010.

Baracchi, C. Aristotle's Ethics as First Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Berns, L. "Rational Animal-Political Animal: Nature and Convention in Human Speech and Politics." The Review of Politics, vol. 38, no. 2, 1976, pp. 177-189.

Clayton, E. "Aristotle: Politics." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/aris-pol.

Contreras, K.E. "The Rational Expression of the Soul in the Aristotelian Psychology: Deliberating Reasoning and Action." Eidos, vol. 29, 2018, pp. 339-365 (in Spanish).

Ortiz de Landázuri, M.C. "Aristotle on Self-Perception and Pleasure." Journal of Ancient Philosophy, vol. VI, issue. 2, 2012.

Segvic, H. From Protagoras to Aristotle. Princeton University Press, 2008.

Strauss, L. The City and Man. University of Chicago Press, 1964.

Weinman, M. Pleasure in Aristotle's Ethics. London: Continuum, 2007.

v. Aristotle's Influence

Alwishah, A. and J. Hayes, editors. Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition. Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Anscombe, G.E.M. "Modern Moral Philosophy." Philosophy, vol. 33, no. 124, 1958, pp. 1-19.

Arendt, H. The Human Condition. 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press, 1958.

Cartwright, N. and J. Pemberton. "Aristotelian Powers: Without Them, What Would Modern Science Do?" Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism, edited by R. Groff and J. Greco, Routledge, 2013, pp. 93-112.

Franklin, J. "Aristotelianism in the Philosophy of Mathematics." Studia Neoaristotelica, vol. 8, no. 1, 2011, pp. 3-15.

McInerny, R. Aquinas Against the Averroists: On There Being Only One Intellect. Purdue University Press, 2002.

Umphrey, S. Natural Kinds and Genesis. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016.

Author Information

Justin Humphreys
Email: jhh@sas.upenn.edu
University of Pennsylvania
U. S. A.

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Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, who made important contributions to logic, criticism, rhetoric, physics, biology, psychology, mathematics, metaphysics, ethics, and politics. He was a student of Plato for twenty years but is famous for rejecting Plato's theory of forms. He was more empirically minded than both Plato and Plato's teacher, Socrates.

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Nada existiría sin las sustancias primarias.

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Nada existiría sin las sustancias primarias.

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Para poder hacer “el bien” se debe entender lo que está “bien”.

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Para poder hacer “el bien” se debe entender lo que está “bien”.

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Para inducir algo por medio de los sentidos el análisis se debe basar en posibles causas y no en casualidades.

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Para inducir algo por medio de los sentidos el análisis se debe basar en posibles causas y no en casualidades.

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Kraut, Richard, "Aristotle’s Ethics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1 de Mayo de 2001), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2022/entries/aristotle-ethics/.

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Kraut, Richard, "Aristotle’s Ethics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1 de Mayo de 2001), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2022/entries/aristotle-ethics/.

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Aristotle conceives of ethical theory as a field distinct from the theoretical sciences. Its methodology must match its subject matter-good action-and must respect the fact that in this field many generalizations hold only for the most part. We study ethics in order to improve our lives, and therefore its principal concern is the nature of human well-being. Aristotle follows Socrates and Plato in taking the virtues to be central to a well-lived life. Like Plato, he regards the ethical virtues (justice, courage, temperance and so on) as complex rational, emotional and social skills. But he rejects Plato's idea that to be completely virtuous one must acquire, through a training in the sciences, mathematics, and philosophy, an understanding of what goodness is. What we need, in order to live well, is a proper appreciation of the way in which such goods as friendship, pleasure, virtue, honor and wealth fit together as a whole. In order to apply that general understanding to particular cases, we must acquire, through proper upbringing and habits, the ability to see, on each occasion, which course of action is best supported by reasons. Therefore practical wisdom, as he conceives it, cannot be acquired solely by learning general rules. We must also acquire, through practice, those deliberative, emotional, and social skills that enable us to put our general understanding of well-being into practice in ways that are suitable to each occasion.

1. Preliminaries

Aristotle wrote two ethical treatises: the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics. He does not himself use either of these titles, although in the Politics (1295a36) he refers back to one of them-probably the Eudemian Ethics-as " ta êthika"-his writings about character. The words " Eudemian" and " Nicomachean" were added later, perhaps because the former was edited by his friend, Eudemus, and the latter by his son, Nicomachus. In any case, these two works cover more or less the same ground: they begin with a discussion of eudaimonia ("happiness", "flourishing"), and turn to an examination of the nature of aretê ("virtue", "excellence") and the character traits that human beings need in order to live life at its best. Both treatises examine the conditions in which praise or blame are appropriate, and the nature of pleasure and friendship; near the end of each work, we find a brief discussion of the proper relationship between human beings and the divine.

Though the general point of view expressed in each work is the same, there are many subtle differences in organization and content as well. Clearly, one is a re-working of the other, and although no single piece of evidence shows conclusively what their order is, it is widely assumed that the Nicomachean Ethics is a later and improved version of the Eudemian Ethics. (Not all of the Eudemian Ethics was revised: its Books IV, V, and VI re-appear as V, VI, VII of the Nicomachean Ethics.) Perhaps the most telling indication of this ordering is that in several instances the Nicomachean Ethics develops a theme about which its Eudemian cousin is silent. Only the Nicomachean Ethics discusses the close relationship between ethical inquiry and politics; only the Nicomachean Ethics critically examines Solon's paradoxical dictum that no man should be counted happy until he is dead; and only the Nicomachean Ethics gives a series of arguments for the superiority of the philosophical life to the political life. The remainder of this article will therefore focus on this work. [Note: Page and line numbers shall henceforth refer to this treatise.]

A third treatise, called the Magna Moralia (the "Big Ethics") is included in complete editions of Aristotle's works, but its authorship is disputed by scholars. It ranges over topics discussed more fully in the other two works and its point of view is similar to theirs. (Why, being briefer, is it named the Magna Moralia? Because each of the two papyrus rolls into which it is divided is unusually long. Just as a big mouse can be a small animal, two big chapters can make a small book. This work was evidently named "big" with reference to its parts, not the whole.) A few authors in antiquity refer to a work with this name and attribute it to Aristotle, but it is not mentioned by several authorities, such as Cicero and Diogenes Laertius, whom we would expect to have known of it. Some scholars hold that it is Aristotle's earliest course on ethics-perhaps his own lecture notes or those of a student; others regard it as a post-Aristotelian compilation or adaption of one or both of his genuine ethical treatises.

Although Aristotle is deeply indebted to Plato's moral philosophy, particularly Plato's central insight that moral thinking must be integrated with our emotions and appetites, and that the preparation for such unity of character should begin with childhood education, the systematic character of Aristotle's discussion of these themes was a remarkable innovation. No one had written ethical treatises before Aristotle. Plato's Republic, for example, does not treat ethics as a distinct subject matter; nor does it offer a systematic examination of the nature of happiness, virtue, voluntariness, pleasure, or friendship. To be sure, we can find in Plato's works important discussions of these phenomena, but they are not brought together and unified as they are in Aristotle's ethical writings.

2. The Human Good and the Function Argument

The principal idea with which Aristotle begins is that there are differences of opinion about what is best for human beings, and that to profit from ethical inquiry we must resolve this disagreement. He insists that ethics is not a theoretical discipline: we are asking what the good for human beings is not simply because we want to have knowledge, but because we will be better able to achieve our good if we develop a fuller understanding of what it is to flourish. In raising this question-what is the good?-Aristotle is not looking for a list of items that are good. He assumes that such a list can be compiled rather easily; most would agree, for example, that it is good to have friends, to experience pleasure, to be healthy, to be honored, and to have such virtues as courage at least to some degree. The difficult and controversial question arises when we ask whether certain of these goods are more desirable than others. Aristotle's search for the good is a search for the highest good, and he assumes that the highest good, whatever it turns out to be, has three characteristics: it is desirable for itself, it is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake.

Aristotle thinks everyone will agree that the terms " eudaimonia" ("happiness") and " eu zên" ("living well") designate such an end. The Greek term " eudaimon" is composed of two parts: " eu" means "well" and " daimon" means "divinity" or "spirit". To be eudaimon is therefore to be living in a way that is well-favored by a god. But Aristotle never calls attention to this etymology in his ethical writings, and it seems to have little influence on his thinking. He regards " eudaimon" as a mere substitute for eu zên ("living well"). These terms play an evaluative role, and are not simply descriptions of someone's state of mind.

Aristotle's conclusion about the nature of happiness is in a sense uniquely his own. No other writer or thinker had said precisely what he says about what it is to live well. But at the same time his view is not too distant from a common idea. As he himself points out, one traditional conception of happiness identifies it with virtue (1098b30-1). Aristotle's theory should be construed as a refinement of this position. He says, not that happiness is virtue, but that it is virtuous activity. Living well consists in doing something, not just being in a certain state or condition. It consists in those lifelong activities that actualize the virtues of the rational part of the soul.

At the same time, Aristotle makes it clear that in order to be happy one must possess others goods as well-such goods as friends, wealth, and power. And one's happiness is endangered if one is severely lacking in certain advantages-if, for example, one is extremely ugly, or has lost children or good friends through death (1099a31-b6). But why so? If one's ultimate end should simply be virtuous activity, then why should it make any difference to one's happiness whether one has or lacks these other types of good? Aristotle's reply is that one's virtuous activity will be to some extent diminished or defective, if one lacks an adequate supply of other goods (1153b17-19). Someone who is friendless, childless, powerless, weak, and ugly will simply not be able to find many opportunities for virtuous activity over a long period of time, and what little he can accomplish will not be of great merit. To some extent, then, living well requires good fortune; happenstance can rob even the most excellent human beings of happiness. Nonetheless, Aristotle insists, the highest good, virtuous activity, is not something that comes to us by chance. Although we must be fortunate enough to have parents and fellow citizens who help us become virtuous, we ourselves share much of the responsibility for acquiring and exercising the virtues.

3. Methodology

3.1 Traditional Virtues and the Skeptic

A common complaint about Aristotle's attempt to defend his conception of happiness is that his argument is too general to show that it is in one's interest to possess any of the particular virtues as they are traditionally conceived. Suppose we grant, at least for the sake of argument, that doing anything well, including living well, consists in exercising certain skills; and let us call these skills, whatever they turn out to be, virtues. Even so, that point does not by itself allow us to infer that such qualities as temperance, justice, courage, as they are normally understood, are virtues. They should be counted as virtues only if it can be shown that actualizing precisely these skills is what happiness consists in. What Aristotle owes us, then, is an account of these traditional qualities that explains why they must play a central role in any well-lived life.

But perhaps Aristotle disagrees, and refuses to accept this argumentative burden. In one of several important methodological remarks he makes near the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, he says that in order to profit from the sort of study he is undertaking, one must already have been brought up in good habits (1095b4-6). The audience he is addressing, in other words, consists of people who are already just, courageous, and generous; or, at any rate, they are well on their way to possessing these virtues. Why such a restricted audience? Why does he not address those who have serious doubts about the value of these traditional qualities, and who therefore have not yet decided to cultivate and embrace them?

Addressing the moral skeptic, after all, is the project Plato undertook in the Republic: in Book I he rehearses an argument to show that justice is not really a virtue, and the remainder of this work is an attempt to rebut this thesis. Aristotle's project seems, at least on the surface, to be quite different. He does not appear to be addressing someone who has genuine doubts about the value of justice or kindred qualities. Perhaps, then, he realizes how little can be accomplished, in the study of ethics, to provide it with a rational foundation. Perhaps he thinks that no reason can be given for being just, generous, and courageous. These are qualities one learns to love when one is a child, and having been properly habituated, one no longer looks for or needs a reason to exercise them. One can show, as a general point, that happiness consists in exercising some skills or other, but that the moral skills of a virtuous person are what one needs is not a proposition that can be established on the basis of argument.

This is not the only way of reading the Ethics, however. For surely we cannot expect Aristotle to show what it is about the traditional virtues that makes them so worthwhile until he has fully discussed the nature of those virtues. He himself warns us that his initial statement of what happiness is should be treated as a rough outline whose details are to be filled in later (1098a20-22). His intention in Book I of the Ethics is to indicate in a general way why the virtues are important; why particular virtues-courage, justice, and the like-are components of happiness is something we should be able to better understand only at a later point.

In any case, Aristotle's assertion that his audience must already have begun to cultivate the virtues need not be taken to mean that no reasons can be found for being courageous, just, and generous. His point, rather, may be that in ethics, as in any other study, we cannot make progress towards understanding why things are as they are unless we begin with certain assumptions about what is the case. Neither theoretical nor practical inquiry starts from scratch. Someone who has made no observations of astronomical or biological phenomena is not yet equipped with sufficient data to develop an understanding of these sciences. The parallel point in ethics is that to make progress in this sphere we must already have come to enjoy doing what is just, courageous, generous and the like. We must experience these activities not as burdensome constraints, but as noble, worthwhile, and enjoyable in themselves. Then, when we engage in ethical inquiry, we can ask what it is about these activities that makes them worthwhile. We can also compare these goods with other things that are desirable in themselves-pleasure, friendship, honor, and so on-and ask whether any of them is more desirable than the others. We approach ethical theory with a disorganized bundle of likes and dislikes based on habit and experience; such disorder is an inevitable feature of childhood. But what is not inevitable is that our early experience will be rich enough to provide an adequate basis for worthwhile ethical reflection; that is why we need to have been brought up well. Yet such an upbringing can take us only so far. We seek a deeper understanding of the objects of our childhood enthusiasms, and we must systematize our goals so that as adults we have a coherent plan of life. We need to engage in ethical theory, and to reason well in this field, if we are to move beyond the low-grade form of virtue we acquired as children.

3.2 Differences from and Affinities to Plato

Read in this way, Aristotle is engaged in a project similar in some respects to the one Plato carried out in the Republic. One of Plato's central points is that it is a great advantage to establish a hierarchical ordering of the elements in one's soul; and he shows how the traditional virtues can be interpreted to foster or express the proper relation between reason and less rational elements of the psyche. Aristotle's approach is similar: his "function argument" shows in a general way that our good lies in the dominance of reason, and the detailed studies of the particular virtues reveal how each of them involves the right kind of ordering of the soul. Aristotle's goal is to arrive at conclusions like Plato's, but without relying on the Platonic metaphysics that plays a central role in the argument of the Republic. He rejects the existence of Plato's forms in general and the form of the good in particular; and he rejects the idea that in order to become fully virtuous one must study mathematics and the sciences, and see all branches of knowledge as a unified whole. Even though Aristotle's ethical theory sometimes relies on philosophical distinctions that are more fully developed in his other works, he never proposes that students of ethics need to engage in a specialized study of the natural world, or mathematics, or eternal and changing objects. His project is to make ethics an autonomous field, and to show why a full understanding of what is good does not require expertise in any other field.

There is another contrast with Plato that should be emphasized: In Book II of the Republic, we are told that the best type of good is one that is desirable both in itself and for the sake of its results (357d-358a). Plato argues that justice should be placed in this category, but since it is generally agreed that it is desirable for its consequences, he devotes most of his time to establishing his more controversial point-that justice is to be sought for its own sake. By contrast, Aristotle assumes that if A is desirable for the sake of B, then B is better than A (1094a14-16); therefore, the highest kind of good must be one that is not desirable for the sake of anything else. To show that A deserves to be our ultimate end, one must show that all other goods are best thought of as instruments that promote A in some way or other. Accordingly, it would not serve Aristotle's purpose to consider virtuous activity in isolation from all other goods. He needs to discuss honor, wealth, pleasure, and friendship in order to show how these goods, properly understood, can be seen as resources that serve the higher goal of virtuous activity. He vindicates the centrality of virtue in a well-lived life by showing that in the normal course of things a virtuous person will not live a life devoid of friends, honor, wealth, pleasure, and the like. Virtuous activity makes a life happy not by guaranteeing happiness in all circumstances, but by serving as the goal for the sake of which lesser goods are to be pursued. Aristotle's methodology in ethics therefore pays more attention than does Plato's to the connections that normally obtain between virtue and other goods. That is why he stresses that in this sort of study one must be satisfied with conclusions that hold only for the most part (1094b11-22). Poverty, isolation, and dishonor are normally impediments to the exercise of virtue and therefore to happiness, although there may be special circumstances in which they are not. The possibility of exceptions does not undermine the point that, as a rule, to live well is to have sufficient resources for the pursuit of virtue over the course of a lifetime.

4. Virtues and Deficiencies, Continence and Incontinence

Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of virtue (1103a1-10): those that pertain to the part of the soul that engages in reasoning (virtues of mind or intellect), and those that pertain to the part of the soul that cannot itself reason but is nonetheless capable of following reason (ethical virtues, virtues of character). Intellectual virtues are in turn divided into two sorts: those that pertain to theoretical reasoning, and those that pertain to practical thinking (1139a3-8). He organizes his material by first studying ethical virtue in general, then moving to a discussion of particular ethical virtues (temperance, courage, and so on), and finally completing his survey by considering the intellectual virtues (practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, etc.).

All free males are born with the potential to become ethically virtuous and practically wise, but to achieve these goals they must go through two stages: during their childhood, they must develop the proper habits; and then, when their reason is fully developed, they must acquire practical wisdom ( phronêsis). This does not mean that first we fully acquire the ethical virtues, and then, at a later stage, add on practical wisdom. Ethical virtue is fully developed only when it is combined with practical wisdom (1144b14-17). A low-grade form of ethical virtue emerges in us during childhood as we are repeatedly placed in situations that call for appropriate actions and emotions; but as we rely less on others and become capable of doing more of our own thinking, we learn to develop a larger picture of human life, our deliberative skills improve, and our emotional responses are perfected. Like anyone who has developed a skill in performing a complex and difficult activity, the virtuous person takes pleasure in exercising his intellectual skills. Furthermore, when he has decided what to do, he does not have to contend with internal pressures to act otherwise. He does not long to do something that he regards as shameful; and he is not greatly distressed at having to give up a pleasure that he realizes he should forego.

Aristotle places those who suffer from such internal disorders into one of three categories: (A) Some agents, having reached a decision about what to do on a particular occasion, experience some counter-pressure brought on by an appetite for pleasure, or anger, or some other emotion; and this countervailing influence is not completely under the control of reason. (1) Within this category, some are typically better able to resist these counter-rational pressures than is the average person. Such people are not virtuous, although they generally do what a virtuous person does. Aristotle calls them "continent" ( enkratês). But (2) others are less successful than the average person in resisting these counter-pressures. They are "incontinent" ( akratês). (The explanation of akrasia is a topic to which we will return in section 7.) In addition, (B) there is a type of agent who refuses even to try to do what an ethically virtuous agent would do, because he has become convinced that justice, temperance, generosity and the like are of little or no value. Such people Aristotle calls evil ( kakos, phaulos). He assumes that evil people are driven by desires for domination and luxury, and although they are single-minded in their pursuit of these goals, he portrays them as deeply divided, because their pleonexia -their desire for more and more-leaves them dissatisfied and full of self-hatred.

It should be noticed that all three of these deficiencies-continence, incontinence, vice-involve some lack of internal harmony. (Here Aristotle's debt to Plato is particularly evident, for one of the central ideas of the Republic is that the life of a good person is harmonious, and all other lives deviate to some degree from this ideal.) The evil person may wholeheartedly endorse some evil plan of action at a particular moment, but over the course of time, Aristotle supposes, he will regret his decision, because whatever he does will prove inadequate for the achievement of his goals (1166b5-29). Aristotle assumes that when someone systematically makes bad decisions about how to live his life, his failures are caused by psychological forces that are less than fully rational. His desires for pleasure, power or some other external goal have become so strong that they make him care too little or not at all about acting ethically. To keep such destructive inner forces at bay, we need to develop the proper habits and emotional responses when we are children, and to reflect intelligently on our aims when we are adults. But some vulnerability to these disruptive forces is present even in more-or-less virtuous people; that is why even a good political community needs laws and the threat of punishment. Clear thinking about the best goals of human life and the proper way to put them into practice is a rare achievement, because the human psyche is not a hospitable environment for the development of these insights.

5. The Doctrine of the Mean

5.1 Ethical Virtue as Disposition

Aristotle describes ethical virtue as a " hexis" ("state" "condition" "disposition")-a tendency or disposition, induced by our habits, to have appropriate feelings (1105b25-6). Defective states of character are hexeis (plural of hexis) as well, but they are tendencies to have inappropriate feelings. The significance of Aristotle's characterization of these states as hexeis is his decisive rejection of the thesis, found throughout Plato's early dialogues, that virtue is nothing but a kind of knowledge and vice nothing but a lack of knowledge. Although Aristotle frequently draws analogies between the crafts and the virtues (and similarly between physical health and eudaimonia), he insists that the virtues differ from the crafts and all branches of knowledge in that the former involve appropriate emotional responses and are not purely intellectual conditions.

Furthermore, every ethical virtue is a condition intermediate (a "golden mean" as it is popularly known) between two other states, one involving excess, and the other deficiency (1106a26-b28). In this respect, Aristotle says, the virtues are no different from technical skills: every skilled worker knows how to avoid excess and deficiency, and is in a condition intermediate between two extremes. The courageous person, for example, judges that some dangers are worth facing and others not, and experiences fear to a degree that is appropriate to his circumstances. He lies between the coward, who flees every danger and experiences excessive fear, and the rash person, who judges every danger worth facing and experiences little or no fear. Aristotle holds that this same topography applies to every ethical virtue: all are located on a map that places the virtues between states of excess and deficiency. He is careful to add, however, that the mean is to be determined in a way that takes into account the particular circumstances of the individual (1106a36-b7). The arithmetic mean between 10 and 2 is 6, and this is so invariably, whatever is being counted. But the intermediate point that is chosen by an expert in any of the crafts will vary from one situation to another. There is no universal rule, for example, about how much food an athlete should eat, and it would be absurd to infer from the fact that 10 lbs. is too much and 2 lbs. too little for me that I should eat 6 lbs. Finding the mean in any given situation is not a mechanical or thoughtless procedure, but requires a full and detailed acquaintance with the circumstances.

It should be evident that Aristotle's treatment of virtues as mean states endorses the idea that we should sometimes have strong feelings-when such feelings are called for by our situation. Sometimes only a small degree of anger is appropriate; but at other times, circumstances call for great anger. The right amount is not some quantity between zero and the highest possible level, but rather the amount, whatever it happens to be, that is proportionate to the seriousness of the situation. Of course, Aristotle is committed to saying that anger should never reach the point at which it undermines reason; and this means that our passion should always fall short of the extreme point at which we would lose control. But it is possible to be very angry without going to this extreme, and Aristotle does not intend to deny this.

The theory of the mean is open to several objections, but before considering them, we should recognize that in fact there are two distinct theses each of which might be called a doctrine of the mean. First, there is the thesis that every virtue is a state that lies between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency. Second, there is the idea that whenever a virtuous person chooses to perform a virtuous act, he can be described as aiming at an act that is in some way or other intermediate between alternatives that he rejects. It is this second thesis that is most likely to be found objectionable. A critic might concede that in some cases virtuous acts can be described in Aristotle's terms. If, for example, one is trying to decide how much to spend on a wedding present, one is looking for an amount that is neither excessive nor deficient. But surely many other problems that confront a virtuous agent are not susceptible to this quantitative analysis. If one must decide whether to attend a wedding or respect a competing obligation instead, it would not be illuminating to describe this as a search for a mean between extremes-unless "aiming at the mean" simply becomes another phrase for trying to make the right decision. The objection, then, is that Aristotle's doctrine of the mean, taken as a doctrine about what the ethical agent does when he deliberates, is in many cases inapplicable or unilluminating.

A defense of Aristotle would have to say that the virtuous person does after all aim at a mean, if we allow for a broad enough notion of what sort of aiming is involved. For example, consider a juror who must determine whether a defendant is guilty as charged. He does not have before his mind a quantitative question; he is trying to decide whether the accused committed the crime, and is not looking for some quantity of action intermediate between extremes. Nonetheless, an excellent juror can be described as someone who, in trying to arrive at the correct decision, seeks to express the right degree of concern for all relevant considerations. He searches for the verdict that results from a deliberative process that is neither overly credulous nor unduly skeptical. Similarly, in facing situations that arouse anger, a virtuous agent must determine what action (if any) to take in response to an insult, and although this is not itself a quantitative question, his attempt to answer it properly requires him to have the right degree of concern for his standing as a member of the community. He aims at a mean in the sense that he looks for a response that avoids too much or too little attention to factors that must be taken into account in making a wise decision.

Perhaps a greater difficulty can be raised if we ask how Aristotle determines which emotions are governed by the doctrine of the mean. Consider someone who loves to wrestle, for example. Is this passion something that must be felt by every human being at appropriate times and to the right degree? Surely someone who never felt this emotion to any degree could still live a perfectly happy life. Why then should we not say the same about at least some of the emotions that Aristotle builds into his analysis of the ethically virtuous agent? Why should we experience anger at all, or fear, or the degree of concern for wealth and honor that Aristotle commends? These are precisely the questions that were asked in antiquity by the Stoics, and they came to the conclusion that such common emotions as anger and fear are always inappropriate. Aristotle assumes, on the contrary, not simply that these common passions are sometimes appropriate, but that it is essential that every human being learn how to master them and experience them in the right way at the right times. A defense of his position would have to show that the emotions that figure in his account of the virtues are valuable components of any well-lived human life, when they are experienced properly. Perhaps such a project could be carried out, but Aristotle himself does not attempt to do so.

He often says, in the course of his discussion, that when the good person chooses to act virtuously, he does so for the sake of the " kalon"-a word that can mean "beautiful", "noble", or "fine" (see for example 1120a23-4). This term indicates that Aristotle sees in ethical activity an attraction that is comparable to the beauty of well-crafted artifacts, including such artifacts as poetry, music, and drama. He draws this analogy in his discussion of the mean, when he says that every craft tries to produce a work from which nothing should be taken away and to which nothing further should be added (1106b5-14). A craft product, when well designed and produced by a good craftsman, is not merely useful, but also has such elements as balance, proportion and harmony-for these are properties that help make it useful. Similarly, Aristotle holds that a well-executed project that expresses the ethical virtues will not merely be advantageous but kalon as well-for the balance it strikes is part of what makes it advantageous. The young person learning to acquire the virtues must develop a love of doing what is kalon and a strong aversion to its opposite-the aischron, the shameful and ugly. Determining what is kalon is difficult (1106b28-33, 1109a24-30), and the normal human aversion to embracing difficulties helps account for the scarcity of virtue (1104b10-11).

5.2 Ethical Theory Does Not Offer a Decision Procedure

It should be clear that neither the thesis that virtues lie between extremes nor the thesis that the good person aims at what is intermediate is intended as a procedure for making decisions. These doctrines of the mean help show what is attractive about the virtues, and they also help systematize our understanding of which qualities are virtues. Once we see that temperance, courage, and other generally recognized characteristics are mean states, we are in a position to generalize and to identify other mean states as virtues, even though they are not qualities for which we have a name. Aristotle remarks, for example, that the mean state with respect to anger has no name in Greek (1125b26-7). Though he is guided to some degree by distinctions captured by ordinary terms, his methodology allows him to recognize states for which no names exist.

So far from offering a decision procedure, Aristotle insists that this is something that no ethical theory can do. His theory elucidates the nature of virtue, but what must be done on any particular occasion by a virtuous agent depends on the circumstances, and these vary so much from one occasion to another that there is no possibility of stating a series of rules, however complicated, that collectively solve every practical problem. This feature of ethical theory is not unique; Aristotle thinks it applies to many crafts, such as medicine and navigation (1104a7-10). He says that the virtuous person "sees the truth in each case, being as it were a standard and measure of them" (1113a32-3); but this appeal to the good person's vision should not be taken to mean that he has an inarticulate and incommunicable insight into the truth. Aristotle thinks of the good person as someone who is good at deliberation, and he describes deliberation as a process of rational inquiry. The intermediate point that the good person tries to find is

determined by logos ("reason", "account") and in the way that the person of practical reason would determine it. (1107a1-2)

To say that such a person "sees" what to do is simply a way of registering the point that the good person's reasoning does succeed in discovering what is best in each situation. He is "as it were a standard and measure" in the sense that his views should be regarded as authoritative by other members of the community. A standard or measure is something that settles disputes; and because good people are so skilled at discovering the mean in difficult cases, their advice must be sought and heeded.

Although there is no possibility of writing a book of rules, however long, that will serve as a complete guide to wise decision-making, it would be a mistake to attribute to Aristotle the opposite position, namely that every purported rule admits of exceptions, so that even a small rule-book that applies to a limited number of situations is an impossibility. He makes it clear that certain emotions (spite, shamelessness, envy) and actions (adultery, theft, murder) are always wrong, regardless of the circumstances (1107a8-12). Although he says that the names of these emotions and actions convey their wrongness, he should not be taken to mean that their wrongness derives from linguistic usage. He defends the family as a social institution against the criticisms of Plato ( Politics II.3-4), and so when he says that adultery is always wrong, he is prepared to argue for his point by explaining why marriage is a valuable custom and why extra-marital intercourse undermines the relationship between husband and wife. He is not making the tautological claim that wrongful sexual activity is wrong, but the more specific and contentious point that marriages ought to be governed by a rule of strict fidelity. Similarly, when he says that murder and theft are always wrong, he does not mean that wrongful killing and taking are wrong, but that the current system of laws regarding these matters ought to be strictly enforced. So, although Aristotle holds that ethics cannot be reduced to a system of rules, however complex, he insists that some rules are inviolable.

5.3 The Starting Point for Practical Reasoning

We have seen that the decisions of a practically wise person are not mere intuitions, but can be justified by a chain of reasoning. (This is why Aristotle often talks in term of a practical syllogism, with a major premise that identifies some good to be achieved, and a minor premise that locates the good in some present-to-hand situation.) At the same time, he is acutely aware of the fact that reasoning can always be traced back to a starting point that is not itself justified by further reasoning. Neither good theoretical reasoning nor good practical reasoning moves in a circle; true thinking always presupposes and progresses in linear fashion from proper starting points. And that leads him to ask for an account of how the proper starting points of reasoning are to be determined. Practical reasoning always presupposes that one has some end, some goal one is trying to achieve; and the task of reasoning is to determine how that goal is to be accomplished. (This need not be means-end reasoning in the conventional sense; if, for example, our goal is the just resolution of a conflict, we must determine what constitutes justice in these particular circumstances. Here we are engaged in ethical inquiry, and are not asking a purely instrumental question.) But if practical reasoning is correct only if it begins from a correct premise, what is it that insures the correctness of its starting point?

Aristotle replies: "Virtue makes the goal right, practical wisdom the things leading to it" (1144a7-8). By this he cannot mean that there is no room for reasoning about our ultimate end. For as we have seen, he gives a reasoned defense of his conception of happiness as virtuous activity. What he must have in mind, when he says that virtue makes the goal right, is that deliberation typically proceeds from a goal that is far more specific than the goal of attaining happiness by acting virtuously. To be sure, there may be occasions when a good person approaches an ethical problem by beginning with the premise that happiness consists in virtuous activity. But more often what happens is that a concrete goal presents itself as his starting point-helping a friend in need, or supporting a worthwhile civic project. Which specific project we set for ourselves is determined by our character. A good person starts from worthwhile concrete ends because his habits and emotional orientation have given him the ability to recognize that such goals are within reach, here and now. Those who are defective in character may have the rational skill needed to achieve their ends-the skill Aristotle calls cleverness (1144a23-8)-but often the ends they seek are worthless. The cause of this deficiency lies not in some impairment in their capacity to reason-for we are assuming that they are normal in this respect-but in the training of their passions.

6. Intellectual Virtues

It is not easy to understand the point Aristotle is making here. Has he not already told us that there can be no complete theoretical guide to ethics, that the best one can hope for is that in particular situations one's ethical habits and practical wisdom will help one determine what to do? Furthermore, Aristotle nowhere announces, in the remainder of Book VI, that we have achieved the greater degree of accuracy that he seems to be looking for. The rest of this Book is a discussion of the various kinds of intellectual virtues: theoretical wisdom, science ( epistêmê), intuitive understanding ( nous), practical wisdom, and craft expertise. Aristotle explains what each of these states of mind is, draws various contrasts among them, and takes up various questions that can be raised about their usefulness. At no point does he explicitly return to the question he raised at the beginning of Book VI; he never says, "and now we have the standard of right reason that we were looking for". Nor is it easy to see how his discussion of these five intellectual virtues can bring greater precision to the doctrine of the mean.

We can make some progress towards solving this problem if we remind ourselves that at the beginning of the Ethics, Aristotle describes his inquiry as an attempt to develop a better understanding of what our ultimate aim should be. The sketchy answer he gives in Book I is that happiness consists in virtuous activity. In Books II through V, he describes the virtues of the part of the soul that is rational in that it can be attentive to reason, even though it is not capable of deliberating. But precisely because these virtues are rational only in this derivative way, they are a less important component of our ultimate end than is the intellectual virtue-practical wisdom-with which they are integrated. If what we know about virtue is only what is said in Books II through V, then our grasp of our ultimate end is radically incomplete, because we still have not studied the intellectual virtue that enables us to reason well in any given situation. One of the things, at least, towards which Aristotle is gesturing, as he begins Book VI, is practical wisdom. This state of mind has not yet been analyzed, and that is one reason why he complains that his account of our ultimate end is not yet clear enough.

But is practical wisdom the only ingredient of our ultimate end that has not yet been sufficiently discussed? Book VI discusses five intellectual virtues, not just practical wisdom, but it is clear that at least one of these-craft knowledge-is considered only in order to provide a contrast with the others. Aristotle is not recommending that his readers make this intellectual virtue part of their ultimate aim. But what of the remaining three: science, intuitive understanding, and the virtue that combines them, theoretical wisdom? Are these present in Book VI only in order to provide a contrast with practical wisdom, or is Aristotle saying that these too must be components of our goal? He does not fully address this issue, but it is evident from several of his remarks in Book VI that he takes theoretical wisdom to be a more valuable state of mind than practical wisdom.

It is strange if someone thinks that politics or practical wisdom is the most excellent kind of knowledge, unless man is the best thing in the cosmos. (1141a20-22)

He says that theoretical wisdom produces happiness by being a part of virtue (1144a3-6), and that practical wisdom looks to the development of theoretical wisdom, and issues commands for its sake (1145a8-11). So it is clear that exercising theoretical wisdom is a more important component of our ultimate goal than practical wisdom.

Even so, it may still seem perplexing that these two intellectual virtues, either separately or collectively, should somehow fill a gap in the doctrine of the mean. Having read Book VI and completed our study of what these two forms of wisdom are, how are we better able to succeed in finding the mean in particular situations?

The answer to this question may be that Aristotle does not intend Book VI to provide a full answer to that question, but rather to serve as a prolegomenon to an answer. For it is only near the end of Book X that he presents a full discussion of the relative merits of these two kinds of intellectual virtue, and comments on the different degrees to which each needs to be provided with resources. In X.7-8, he argues that the happiest kind of life is that of a philosopher-someone who exercises, over a long period of time, the virtue of theoretical wisdom, and has sufficient resources for doing so. (We will discuss these chapters more fully in section 10 below.) One of his reasons for thinking that such a life is superior to the second-best kind of life-that of a political leader, someone who devotes himself to the exercise of practical rather than theoretical wisdom-is that it requires less external equipment (1178a23-b7). Aristotle has already made it clear in his discussion of the ethical virtues that someone who is greatly honored by his community and commands large financial resources is in a position to exercise a higher order of ethical virtue than is someone who receives few honors and has little property. The virtue of magnificence is superior to mere liberality, and similarly greatness of soul is a higher excellence than the ordinary virtue that has to do with honor. (These qualities are discussed in IV.1-4.) The grandest expression of ethical virtue requires great political power, because it is the political leader who is in a position to do the greatest amount of good for the community. The person who chooses to lead a political life, and who aims at the fullest expression of practical wisdom, has a standard for deciding what level of resources he needs: he should have friends, property, and honors in sufficient quantities to allow his practical wisdom to express itself without impediment. But if one chooses instead the life of a philosopher, then one will look to a different standard-the fullest expression of theoretical wisdom-and one will need a smaller supply of these resources.

This enables us to see how Aristotle's treatment of the intellectual virtues does give greater content and precision to the doctrine of the mean. The best standard is the one adopted by the philosopher; the second-best is the one adopted by the political leader. In either case, it is the exercise of an intellectual virtue that provides a guideline for making important quantitative decisions. This supplement to the doctrine of the mean is fully compatible with Aristotle's thesis that no set of rules, no matter how long and detailed, obviates the need for deliberative and ethical virtue. If one chooses the life of a philosopher, one should keep the level of one's resources high enough to secure the leisure necessary for such a life, but not so high that one's external equipment becomes a burden and a distraction rather than an aid to living well. That gives one a firmer idea of how to hit the mean, but it still leaves the details to be worked out. The philosopher will need to determine, in particular situations, where justice lies, how to spend wisely, when to meet or avoid a danger, and so on. All of the normal difficulties of ethical life remain, and they can be solved only by means of a detailed understanding of the particulars of each situation. Having philosophy as one's ultimate aim does not put an end to the need for developing and exercising practical wisdom and the ethical virtues.

Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of akrasia: impetuosity ( propeteia) and weakness ( astheneia). The person who is weak goes through a process of deliberation and makes a choice; but rather than act in accordance with his reasoned choice, he acts under the influence of a passion. By contrast, the impetuous person does not go through a process of deliberation and does not make a reasoned choice; he simply acts under the influence of a passion. At the time of action, the impetuous person experiences no internal conflict. But once his act has been completed, he regrets what he has done. One could say that he deliberates, if deliberation were something that post-dated rather than preceded action; but the thought process he goes through after he acts comes too late to save him from error.

It is important to bear in mind that when Aristotle talks about impetuosity and weakness, he is discussing chronic conditions. The impetuous person is someone who acts emotionally and fails to deliberate not just once or twice but with some frequency; he makes this error more than most people do. Because of this pattern in his actions, we would be justified in saying of the impetuous person that had his passions not prevented him from doing so, he would have deliberated and chosen an action different from the one he did perform.

The two kinds of passions that Aristotle focuses on, in his treatment of akrasia, are the appetite for pleasure and anger. Either can lead to impetuosity and weakness. But Aristotle gives pride of place to the appetite for pleasure as the passion that undermines reason. He calls the kind of akrasia caused by an appetite for pleasure "unqualified akrasia"-or, as we might say, akrasia "full stop"; akrasia caused by anger he considers a qualified form of akrasia and calls it akrasia "with respect to anger". We thus have these four forms of akrasia: (A) impetuosity caused by pleasure, (B) impetuosity caused by anger, (C) weakness caused by pleasure (D) weakness caused by anger. It should be noticed that Aristotle's treatment of akrasia is heavily influenced by Plato's tripartite division of the soul in the Republic. Plato holds that either the spirited part (which houses anger, as well as other emotions) or the appetitive part (which houses the desire for physical pleasures) can disrupt the dictates of reason and result in action contrary to reason. The same threefold division of the soul can be seen in Aristotle's approach to this topic.

Although Aristotle characterizes akrasia and enkrateia in terms of a conflict between reason and feeling, his detailed analysis of these states of mind shows that what takes place is best described in a more complicated way. For the feeling that undermines reason contains some thought, which may be implicitly general. As Aristotle says, anger "reasoning as it were that one must fight against such a thing, is immediately provoked" (1149a33-4). And although in the next sentence he denies that our appetite for pleasure works in this way, he earlier had said that there can be a syllogism that favors pursuing enjoyment: "Everything sweet is pleasant, and this is sweet" leads to the pursuit of a particular pleasure (1147a31-30). Perhaps what he has in mind is that pleasure can operate in either way: it can prompt action unmediated by a general premise, or it can prompt us to act on such a syllogism. By contrast, anger always moves us by presenting itself as a bit of general, although hasty, reasoning.

But of course Aristotle does not mean that a conflicted person has more than one faculty of reason. Rather his idea seems to be that in addition to our full-fledged reasoning capacity, we also have psychological mechanisms that are capable of a limited range of reasoning. When feeling conflicts with reason, what occurs is better described as a fight between feeling-allied-with-limited-reasoning and full-fledged reason. Part of us-reason-can remove itself from the distorting influence of feeling and consider all relevant factors, positive and negative. But another part of us-feeling or emotion-has a more limited field of reasoning-and sometimes it does not even make use of it.

Although "passion" is sometimes used as a translation of Aristotle's word pathos (other alternatives are "emotion" and "feeling"), it is important to bear in mind that his term does not necessarily designate a strong psychological force. Anger is a pathos whether it is weak or strong; so too is the appetite for bodily pleasures. And he clearly indicates that it is possible for an akratic person to be defeated by a weak pathos-the kind that most people would easily be able to control (1150a9-b16). So the general explanation for the occurrence of akrasia cannot be that the strength of a passion overwhelms reason. Aristotle should therefore be acquitted of an accusation made against him by J.L. Austin in a well-known footnote to his paper, "A Plea For Excuses". Plato and Aristotle, he says, collapsed all succumbing to temptation into losing control of ourselves-a mistake illustrated by this example:

I am very partial to ice cream, and a bombe is served divided into segments corresponding one to one with the persons at High Table: I am tempted to help myself to two segments and do so, thus succumbing to temptation and even conceivably (but why necessarily?) going against my principles. But do I lose control of myself? Do I raven, do I snatch the morsels from the dish and wolf them down, impervious to the consternation of my colleagues? Not a bit of it. We often succumb to temptation with calm and even with finesse. (1957: 24, fn 13 [1961: 146])

With this, Aristotle can agree: the pathos for the bombe can be a weak one, and in some people that will be enough to get them to act in a way that is disapproved by their reason at the very time of action.

What is most remarkable about Aristotle's discussion of akrasia is that he defends a position close to that of Socrates. When he first introduces the topic of akrasia, and surveys some of the problems involved in understanding this phenomenon, he says (1145b25-8) that Socrates held that there is no akrasia, and he describes this as a thesis that clearly conflicts with the appearances ( phainomena). Since he says that his goal is to preserve as many of the appearances as possible (1145b2-7), it may come as a surprise that when he analyzes the conflict between reason and feeling, he arrives at the conclusion that in a way Socrates was right after all (1147b13-17). For, he says, the person who acts against reason does not have what is thought to be unqualified knowledge; in a way he has knowledge, but in a way does not.

Aristotle explains what he has in mind by comparing akrasia to the condition of other people who might be described as knowing in a way, but not in an unqualified way. His examples are people who are asleep, mad, or drunk; he also compares the akratic to a student who has just begun to learn a subject, or an actor on the stage (1147a10-24). All of these people, he says, can utter the very words used by those who have knowledge; but their talk does not prove that they really have knowledge, strictly speaking.

These analogies can be taken to mean that the form of akrasia that Aristotle calls weakness rather than impetuosity always results from some diminution of cognitive or intellectual acuity at the moment of action. The akratic says, at the time of action, that he ought not to indulge in this particular pleasure at this time. But does he know or even believe that he should refrain? Aristotle might be taken to reply: yes and no. He has some degree of recognition that he must not do this now, but not full recognition. His feeling, even if it is weak, has to some degree prevented him from completely grasping or affirming the point that he should not do this. And so in a way Socrates was right. When reason remains unimpaired and unclouded, its dictates will carry us all the way to action, so long as we are able to act.

But Aristotle's agreement with Socrates is only partial, because he insists on the power of the emotions to rival, weaken or bypass reason. Emotion challenges reason in all three of these ways. In both the akratic and the enkratic, it competes with reason for control over action; even when reason wins, it faces the difficult task of having to struggle with an internal rival. Second, in the akratic, it temporarily robs reason of its full acuity, thus handicapping it as a competitor. It is not merely a rival force, in these cases; it is a force that keeps reason from fully exercising its power. And third, passion can make someone impetuous; here its victory over reason is so powerful that the latter does not even enter into the arena of conscious reflection until it is too late to influence action.

Supplementary Document: Alternate Readings of Aristotle on Akrasia

8. Pleasure

Book VII offers a brief account of what pleasure is and is not. It is not a process but an unimpeded activity of a natural state (1153a7-17). Aristotle does not elaborate on what a natural state is, but he obviously has in mind the healthy condition of the body, especially its sense faculties, and the virtuous condition of the soul. Little is said about what it is for an activity to be unimpeded, but Aristotle does remind us that virtuous activity is impeded by the absence of a sufficient supply of external goods (1153b17-19). One might object that people who are sick or who have moral deficiencies can experience pleasure, even though Aristotle does not take them to be in a natural state. He has two strategies for responding. First, when a sick person experiences some degree of pleasure as he is being restored to health, the pleasure he is feeling is caused by the fact that he is no longer completely ill. Some small part of him is in a natural state and is acting without impediment (1152b35-6). Second, Aristotle is willing to say that what seems pleasant to some people may in fact not be pleasant (1152b31-2), just as what tastes bitter to an unhealthy palate may not be bitter. To call something a pleasure is not only to report a state of mind but also to endorse it to others. Aristotle's analysis of the nature of pleasure is not meant to apply to every case in which something seems pleasant to someone, but only to activities that really are pleasures. All of these are unimpeded activities of a natural state.

It follows from this conception of pleasure that every instance of pleasure must be good to some extent. For how could an unimpeded activity of a natural state be bad or a matter of indifference? On the other hand, Aristotle does not mean to imply that every pleasure should be chosen. He briefly mentions the point that pleasures compete with each other, so that the enjoyment of one kind of activity impedes other activities that cannot be carried out at the same time (1153a20-22). His point is simply that although some pleasures may be good, they are not worth choosing when they interfere with other activities that are far better. This point is developed more fully in Ethics X.5.

Furthermore, Aristotle's analysis allows him to speak of certain pleasures as "bad without qualification" (1152b26-33), even though pleasure is the unimpeded activity of a natural state. To call a pleasure "bad without qualification" is to insist that it should be avoided, but allow that nonetheless it should be chosen in constraining circumstances. The pleasure of recovering from an illness, for example, is bad without qualification-meaning that it is not one of the pleasures one would ideally choose, if one could completely control one's circumstances. Although it really is a pleasure and so something can be said in its favor, it is so inferior to other goods that ideally one ought to forego it. Nonetheless, it is a pleasure worth having-if one adds the qualification that it is only worth having in undesirable circumstances. The pleasure of recovering from an illness is good, because some small part of oneself is in a natural state and is acting without impediment; but it can also be called bad, if what one means by this is that one should avoid getting into a situation in which one experiences that pleasure.

Aristotle indicates several times in VII.11-14 that merely to say that pleasure is a good does not do it enough justice; he also wants to say that the highest good is a pleasure. Here he is influenced by an idea expressed in the opening line of the Ethics: the good is that at which all things aim. In VII.13, he hints at the idea that all living things imitate the contemplative activity of god (1153b31-2). Plants and non-human animals seek to reproduce themselves because that is their way of participating in an unending series, and this is the closest they can come to the ceaseless thinking of the unmoved mover. Aristotle makes this point in several of his works (see for example De Anima 415a23-b7), and in Ethics X.7-8 he gives a full defense of the idea that the happiest human life resembles the life of a divine being. He conceives of god as a being who continually enjoys a "single and simple pleasure" (1154b26)-the pleasure of pure thought-whereas human beings, because of their complexity, grow weary of whatever they do. He will elaborate on these points in X.8; in VII.11-14, he appeals to his conception of divine activity only in order to defend the thesis that our highest good consists in a certain kind of pleasure. Human happiness does not consist in every kind of pleasure, but it does consist in one kind of pleasure-the pleasure felt by a human being who engages in theoretical activity and thereby imitates the pleasurable thinking of god.

Book X offers a much more elaborate account of what pleasure is and what it is not. It is not a process, because processes go through developmental stages: building a temple is a process because the temple is not present all at once, but only comes into being through stages that unfold over time. By contrast, pleasure, like seeing and many other activities, is not something that comes into existence through a developmental process. If I am enjoying a conversation, for example, I do not need to wait until it is finished in order to feel pleased; I take pleasure in the activity all along the way. The defining nature of pleasure is that it is an activity that accompanies other activities, and in some sense brings them to completion. Pleasure occurs when something within us, having been brought into good condition, is activated in relation to an external object that is also in good condition. The pleasure of drawing, for example, requires both the development of drawing ability and an object of attention that is worth drawing.

The conception of pleasure that Aristotle develops in Book X is obviously closely related to the analysis he gives in Book VII. But the theory proposed in the later Book brings out a point that had received too little attention earlier: pleasure is by its nature something that accompanies something else. It is not enough to say that it is what happens when we are in good condition and are active in unimpeded circumstances; one must add to that point the further idea that pleasure plays a certain role in complementing something other than itself. Drawing well and the pleasure of drawing well always occur together, and so they are easy to confuse, but Aristotle's analysis in Book X emphasizes the importance of making this distinction.

He says that pleasure completes the activity that it accompanies, but then adds, mysteriously, that it completes the activity in the manner of an end that is added on. In the translation of W.D. Ross, it "supervenes as the bloom of youth does on those in the flower of their age" (1174b33). It is unclear what thought is being expressed here, but perhaps Aristotle is merely trying to avoid a possible misunderstanding: when he says that pleasure completes an activity, he does not mean that the activity it accompanies is in some way defective, and that the pleasure improves the activity by removing this defect. Aristotle's language is open to that misinterpretation because the verb that is translated "complete" ( teleein) can also mean "perfect". The latter might be taken to mean that the activity accompanied by pleasure has not yet reached a sufficiently high level of excellence, and that the role of pleasure is to bring it to the point of perfection. Aristotle does not deny that when we take pleasure in an activity we get better at it, but when he says that pleasure completes an activity by supervening on it, like the bloom that accompanies those who have achieved the highest point of physical beauty, his point is that the activity complemented by pleasure is already perfect, and the pleasure that accompanies it is a bonus that serves no further purpose. Taking pleasure in an activity does help us improve at it, but enjoyment does not cease when perfection is achieved-on the contrary, that is when pleasure is at its peak. That is when it reveals most fully what it is: an added bonus that crowns our achievement.

It is clear, at any rate, that in Book X Aristotle gives a fuller account of what pleasure is than he had in Book VII. We should take note of a further difference between these two discussions: In Book X, he makes the point that pleasure is a good but not the good. He cites and endorses an argument given by Plato in the Philebus: If we imagine a life filled with pleasure and then mentally add wisdom to it, the result is made more desirable. But the good is something that cannot be improved upon in this way. Therefore pleasure is not the good (1172b23-35). By contrast, in Book VII Aristotle strongly implies that the pleasure of contemplation is the good, because in one way or another all living beings aim at this sort of pleasure. Aristotle observes in Book X that what all things aim at is good (1172b35-1173a1); significantly, he falls short of endorsing the argument that since all aim at pleasure, it must be the good.

Book VII makes the point that pleasures interfere with each other, and so even if all kinds of pleasures are good, it does not follow that all of them are worth choosing. One must make a selection among pleasures by determining which are better. But how is one to make this choice? Book VII does not say, but in Book X, Aristotle holds that the selection of pleasures is not to be made with reference to pleasure itself, but with reference to the activities they accompany.

Since activities differ with respect to goodness and badness, some being worth choosing, others worth avoiding, and others neither, the same is true of pleasures as well. (1175b24-6)

Aristotle's statement implies that in order to determine whether (for example) the pleasure of virtuous activity is more desirable than that of eating, we are not to attend to the pleasures themselves but to the activities with which we are pleased. A pleasure's goodness derives from the goodness of its associated activity. And surely the reason why pleasure is not the criterion to which we should look in making these decisions is that it is not the good. The standard we should use in making comparisons between rival options is virtuous activity, because that has been shown to be identical to happiness.

That is why Aristotle says that what is judged pleasant by a good man really is pleasant, because the good man is the measure of things (1176a15-19). He does not mean that the way to lead our lives is to search for a good man and continually rely on him to tell us what is pleasurable. Rather, his point is that there is no way of telling what is genuinely pleasurable (and therefore what is most pleasurable) unless we already have some other standard of value. Aristotle's discussion of pleasure thus helps confirm his initial hypothesis that to live our lives well we must focus on one sort of good above all others: virtuous activity. It is the good in terms of which all other goods must be understood. Aristotle's analysis of friendship supports the same conclusion.

9. Friendship

The imperfect friendships that Aristotle focuses on, however, are not unequal relationships based on good character. Rather, they are relationships held together because each individual regards the other as the source of some advantage to himself or some pleasure he receives. When Aristotle calls these relationships "imperfect", he is tacitly relying on widely accepted assumptions about what makes a relationship satisfying. These friendships are defective, and have a smaller claim to be called "friendships", because the individuals involved have little trust in each other, quarrel frequently, and are ready to break off their association abruptly. Aristotle does not mean to suggest that unequal relations based on the mutual recognition of good character are defective in these same ways. Rather, when he says that unequal relationships based on character are imperfect, his point is that people are friends in the fullest sense when they gladly spend their days together in shared activities, and this close and constant interaction is less available to those who are not equal in their moral development.

When Aristotle begins his discussion of friendship, he introduces a notion that is central to his understanding of this phenomenon: a genuine friend is someone who loves or likes another person for the sake of that other person. Wanting what is good for the sake of another he calls "good will" ( eunoia), and friendship is reciprocal good will, provided that each recognizes the presence of this attitude in the other. Does such good will exist in all three kinds of friendship, or is it confined to relationships based on virtue? At first, Aristotle leaves open the first of these two possibilities. He says:

it is necessary that friends bear good will to each other and wish good things for each other, without this escaping their notice, because of one of the reasons mentioned. (1156a4-5)

The reasons mentioned are goodness, pleasure, and advantage; and so it seems that Aristotle is leaving room for the idea that in all three kinds of friendships, even those based on advantage and pleasure alone, the individuals wish each other well for the sake of the other.

But in fact, as Aristotle continues to develop his taxonomy, he does not choose to exploit this possibility. He speaks as though it is only in friendships based on character that one finds a desire to benefit the other person for the sake of the other person.

Those who wish good things to their friends for the sake of the latter are friends most of all, because they do so because of their friends themselves, and not coincidentally. (1156b9-11)

When one benefits someone not because of the kind of person he is, but only because of the advantages to oneself, then, Aristotle says, one is not a friend towards the other person, but only towards the profit that comes one's way (1157a15-16).

In such statements as these, Aristotle comes rather close to saying that relationships based on profit or pleasure should not be called friendships at all. But he decides to stay close to common parlance and to use the term "friend" loosely. Friendships based on character are the ones in which each person benefits the other for the sake of other; and these are friendships most of all. Because each party benefits the other, it is advantageous to form such friendships. And since each enjoys the trust and companionship of the other, there is considerable pleasure in these relationships as well. Because these perfect friendships produce advantages and pleasures for each of the parties, there is some basis for going along with common usage and calling any relationship entered into for the sake of just one of these goods a friendship. Friendships based on advantage alone or pleasure alone deserve to be called friendships because in full-fledged friendships these two properties, advantage and pleasure, are present. It is striking that in the Ethics Aristotle never thinks of saying that the uniting factor in all friendships is the desire each friend has for the good of the other.

Aristotle does not raise questions about what it is to desire good for the sake of another person. He treats this as an easily understood phenomenon, and has no doubts about its existence. But it is also clear that he takes this motive to be compatible with a love of one's own good and a desire for one's own happiness. Someone who has practical wisdom will recognize that he needs friends and other resources in order to exercise his virtues over a long period of time. When he makes friends, and benefits friends he has made, he will be aware of the fact that such a relationship is good for him. And yet to have a friend is to want to benefit someone for that other person's sake; it is not a merely self-interested strategy. Aristotle sees no difficulty here, and rightly so. For there is no reason why acts of friendship should not be undertaken partly for the good of one's friend and partly for one's own good. Acting for the sake of another does not in itself demand self-sacrifice. It requires caring about someone other than oneself, but does not demand some loss of care for oneself. For when we know how to benefit a friend for his sake, we exercise the ethical virtues, and this is precisely what our happiness consists in.

Aristotle makes it clear that the number of people with whom one can sustain the kind of relationship he calls a perfect friendship is quite small (IX.10). Even if one lived in a city populated entirely by perfectly virtuous citizens, the number with whom one could carry on a friendship of the perfect type would be at most a handful. For he thinks that this kind of friendship can exist only when one spends a great deal of time with the other person, participating in joint activities and engaging in mutually beneficial behavior; and one cannot cooperate on these close terms with every member of the political community. One may well ask why this kind of close friendship is necessary for happiness. If one lived in a community filled with good people, and cooperated on an occasional basis with each of them, in a spirit of good will and admiration, would that not provide sufficient scope for virtuous activity and a well-lived life? Admittedly, close friends are often in a better position to benefit each other than are fellow citizens, who generally have little knowledge of one's individual circumstances. But this only shows that it is advantageous to be on the receiving end of a friend's help. The more important question for Aristotle is why one needs to be on the giving end of this relationship. And obviously the answer cannot be that one needs to give in order to receive; that would turn active love for one's friend into a mere means to the benefits received.

Aristotle attempts to answer this question in IX.11, but his treatment is disappointing. His fullest argument depends crucially on the notion that a friend is "another self", someone, in other words, with whom one has a relationship very similar to the relationship one has with oneself. A virtuous person loves the recognition of himself as virtuous; to have a close friend is to possess yet another person, besides oneself, whose virtue one can recognize at extremely close quarters; and so, it must be desirable to have someone very much like oneself whose virtuous activity one can perceive. The argument is unconvincing because it does not explain why the perception of virtuous activity in fellow citizens would not be an adequate substitute for the perception of virtue in one's friends.

Aristotle would be on stronger grounds if he could show that in the absence of close friends one would be severely restricted in the kinds of virtuous activities one could undertake. But he cannot present such an argument, because he does not believe it. He says that it is "finer and more godlike" to bring about the well being of a whole city than to sustain the happiness of just one person (1094b7-10). He refuses to regard private life-the realm of the household and the small circle of one's friends-as the best or most favorable location for the exercise of virtue. He is convinced that the loss of this private sphere would greatly detract from a well-lived life, but he is hard put to explain why. He might have done better to focus on the benefits of being the object of a close friend's solicitude. Just as property is ill cared for when it is owned by all, and just as a child would be poorly nurtured were he to receive no special parental care-points Aristotle makes in Politics II.2-5-so in the absence of friendship we would lose a benefit that could not be replaced by the care of the larger community. But Aristotle is not looking for a defense of this sort, because he conceives of friendship as lying primarily in activity rather than receptivity. It is difficult, within his framework, to show that virtuous activity towards a friend is a uniquely important good.

Since Aristotle thinks that the pursuit of one's own happiness, properly understood, requires ethically virtuous activity and will therefore be of great value not only to one's friends but to the larger political community as well, he argues that self-love is an entirely proper emotion-provided it is expressed in the love of virtue (IX.8). Self-love is rightly condemned when it consists in the pursuit of as large a share of external goods-particularly wealth and power-as one can acquire, because such self-love inevitably brings one into conflict with others and undermines the stability of the political community. It may be tempting to cast Aristotle's defense of self-love into modern terms by calling him an egoist, and "egoism" is a broad enough term so that, properly defined, it can be made to fit Aristotle's ethical outlook. If egoism is the thesis that one will always act rightly if one consults one's self-interest, properly understood, then nothing would be amiss in identifying him as an egoist.

But egoism is sometimes understood in a stronger sense. Just as consequentialism is the thesis that one should maximize the general good, whatever the good turns out to be, so egoism can be defined as the parallel thesis that one should maximize one's own good, whatever the good turns out to be. Egoism, in other words, can be treated as a purely formal thesis: it holds that whether the good is pleasure, or virtue, or the satisfaction of desires, one should not attempt to maximize the total amount of good in the world, but only one's own. When egoism takes this abstract form, it is an expression of the idea that the claims of others are never worth attending to, unless in some way or other their good can be shown to serve one's own. The only underived reason for action is self-interest; that an act helps another does not by itself provide a reason for performing it, unless some connection can be made between the good of that other and one's own.

There is no reason to attribute this extreme form of egoism to Aristotle. On the contrary, his defense of self-love makes it clear that he is not willing to defend the bare idea that one ought to love oneself alone or above others; he defends self-love only when this emotion is tied to the correct theory of where one's good lies, for it is only in this way that he can show that self-love need not be a destructive passion. He takes it for granted that self-love is properly condemned whenever it can be shown to be harmful to the community. It is praiseworthy only if it can be shown that a self-lover will be an admirable citizen. In making this assumption, Aristotle reveals that he thinks that the claims of other members of the community to proper treatment are intrinsically valid. This is precisely what a strong form of egoism cannot accept.

We should also keep in mind Aristotle's statement in the Politics that the political community is prior to the individual citizen-just as the whole body is prior to any of its parts (1253a18-29). Aristotle makes use of this claim when he proposes that in the ideal community each child should receive the same education, and that the responsibility for providing such an education should be taken out of the hands of private individuals and made a matter of common concern (1337a21-7). No citizen, he says, belongs to himself; all belong to the city (1337a28-9). What he means is that when it comes to such matters as education, which affect the good of all, each individual should be guided by the collective decisions of the whole community. An individual citizen does not belong to himself, in the sense that it is not up to him alone to determine how he should act; he should subordinate his individual decision-making powers to those of the whole. The strong form of egoism we have been discussing cannot accept Aristotle's doctrine of the priority of the city to the individual. It tells the individual that the good of others has, in itself, no valid claim on him, but that he should serve other members of the community only to the extent that he can connect their interests to his own. Such a doctrine leaves no room for the thought that the individual citizen does not belong to himself but to the whole.

10. Three Lives Compared

In Book I Aristotle says that three kinds of lives are thought to be especially attractive: one is devoted to pleasure, a second to politics, and a third to knowledge and understanding (1095b17-19). In X.6-9 he returns to these three alternatives, and explores them more fully than he had in Book I. The life of pleasure is construed in Book I as a life devoted to physical pleasure, and is quickly dismissed because of its vulgarity. In X.6, Aristotle concedes that physical pleasures, and more generally, amusements of all sorts, are desirable in themselves, and therefore have some claim to be our ultimate end. But his discussion of happiness in Book X does not start from scratch; he builds on his thesis that pleasure cannot be our ultimate target, because what counts as pleasant must be judged by some standard other than pleasure itself, namely the judgment of the virtuous person. Amusements will not be absent from a happy life, since everyone needs relaxation, and amusements fill this need. But they play a subordinate role, because we seek relaxation in order to return to more important activities.

Although Aristotle's principal goal in X.7-8 is to show the superiority of philosophy to politics, he does not deny that a political life is happy. Perfect happiness, he says, consists in contemplation; but he indicates that the life devoted to practical thought and ethical virtue is happy in a secondary way. He thinks of this second-best life as that of a political leader, because he assumes that the person who most fully exercises such qualities as justice and greatness of soul is the man who has the large resources needed to promote the common good of the city. The political life has a major defect, despite the fact that it consists in fully exercising the ethical virtues, because it is a life devoid of philosophical understanding and activity. Were someone to combine both careers, practicing politics at certain times and engaged in philosophical discussion at other times (as Plato's philosopher-kings do), he would lead a life better than that of Aristotle's politician, but worse than that of Aristotle's philosopher.

But his complaint about the political life is not simply that it is devoid of philosophical activity. The points he makes against it reveal drawbacks inherent in ethical and political activity. Perhaps the most telling of these defects is that the life of the political leader is in a certain sense unleisurely (1177b4-15). What Aristotle has in mind when he makes this complaint is that ethical activities are remedial: they are needed when something has gone wrong, or threatens to do so. Courage, for example, is exercised in war, and war remedies an evil; it is not something we should wish for. Aristotle implies that all other political activities have the same feature, although perhaps to a smaller degree. Corrective justice would provide him with further evidence for his thesis-but what of justice in the distribution of goods? Perhaps Aristotle would reply that in existing political communities a virtuous person must accommodate himself to the least bad method of distribution, because, human nature being what it is, a certain amount of injustice must be tolerated. As the courageous person cannot be completely satisfied with his courageous action, no matter how much self-mastery it shows, because he is a peace-lover and not a killer, so the just person living in the real world must experience some degree of dissatisfaction with his attempts to give each person his due. The pleasures of exercising the ethical virtues are, in normal circumstances, mixed with pain. Unalloyed pleasure is available to us only when we remove ourselves from the all-too-human world and contemplate the rational order of the cosmos. No human life can consist solely in these pure pleasures; and in certain circumstances one may owe it to one's community to forego a philosophical life and devote oneself to the good of the city. But the paradigms of human happiness are those people who are lucky enough to devote much of their time to the study of a world more orderly than the human world we inhabit.

Although Aristotle argues for the superiority of the philosophical life in X.7-8, he says in X.9, the final chapter of the Ethics, that his project is not yet complete, because we can make human beings virtuous, or good even to some small degree, only if we undertake a study of the art of legislation. The final section of the Ethics is therefore intended as a prolegomenon to Aristotle's political writings. We must investigate the kinds of political systems exhibited by existing Greek cities, the forces that destroy or preserve cities, and the best sort of political order. Although the study of virtue Aristotle has just completed is meant to be helpful to all human beings who have been brought up well-even those who have no intention of pursuing a political career-it is also designed to serve a larger purpose. Human beings cannot achieve happiness, or even something that approximates happiness, unless they live in communities that foster good habits and provide the basic equipment of a well-lived life.

The study of the human good has therefore led to two conclusions: The best life is not to be found in the practice of politics. But the well being of whole communities depends on the willingness of some to lead a second-best life-a life devoted to the study and practice of the art of politics, and to the expression of those qualities of thought and passion that exhibit our rational self-mastery.

Glossary

Further Reading

A. Single-Authored Overviews

Broadie 1991; Bostock 2000; Burger 2008; Gauthier & Jolif 1958-59; Hall 2019; Hardie 1980; Pakaluk 2005; Price 2011; Reeve 2012a; Urmson 1987.

B. Anthologies

Anton & Preus (eds.) 1991; Barnes, Schofield, & Sorabji (eds.) 1977; Bartlett & Collins (eds.) 1999; Engstrom & Whiting (eds.) 1996; Heinaman (ed.) 1995; Kraut (ed.) 2006b; Miller (ed.) 2011; Natali (ed.) 2009; Pakaluk & Pearson (eds.) 2010; Polansky (ed.) 2014; Roche (ed.) 1988c; Rorty (ed.) 1980; Sherman (ed.) 1999; Sim (ed.) 1995.

C. Studies of Particular Topics

C.1 The Chronological Order of Aristotle's Ethical Treatises

Kenny 1978, 1979, 1992; Rowe 1971.

Barnes 1980; Berryman 2019; J.M. Cooper 1999 (ch. 12); Frede 2012; Heinaman (ed.) 1995; Irwin 1988b; Karbowski 2014b, 2015a, 2015b, 2019; Kontos 2011; Kraut 1998; McDowell 1995; Nussbaum 1985, 1986 (chs 8-9); Reeve 1992 (ch. 1), 2012b; Roche 1988b, 1992; Scott 2015; Segvic 2002; Shields 2012a; Zingano 2007b.

C.3 The Human Good and the Human Function

Annas 1993 (ch. 18); Barney 2008; Broadie 2005, 2007a; Charles 1999; Clark 1975 (14-27, 145-63); J.M. Cooper 1986 (chs 1, 3), 1999 (chs 9, 13); Curzer 1991; Gadamer 1986; Gerson 2004; Gomez-Lobo 1989; Heinaman 2002, 2007; Irwin 2012; Keyt 1978; Korsgaard 1986a, 1986b; Kraut 1979a, 1979b, 1989, 2002 (ch. 3); Lawrence 1993, 1997, 2001; G.R. Lear 2000; J. Lear 2000; MacDonald 1989; Natali 2010; Nussbaum 1986 (chs 11, 12); Purinton 1998; Reeve 1992 (chs 3, 4); Roche 1988a; Santas 2001 (chs 6-7); Scott 1999, 2000; Segvic 2004; Suits 1974; Van Cleemput 2006; Wedin 1981; N. White 2002, 2006; S. White 1992; Whiting 1986, 1988; Wielenberg 2004; Williams 1985 (ch. 3).

C.4 The Nature of Virtue and Accounts of Particular Virtues

Brickhouse 2003; Brown 1997; Brunschwig 1996; Clark 1975 (84-97); N. Cooper 1989; Curzer 1990, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2005, 2012; Di Muzio 2000; Gardiner 2001; Gottlieb 1991, 1994a, 1994b, 1996, 2009; Halper 1999; Hardie 1978; Hursthouse 1988; Hutchinson 1986; Irwin 1988a; Jimenez 2020; Kraut 2002 (ch. 4), 2012, 2013; Leunissen 2012, 2013, 2017; Lorenz 2009; McKerlie 2001; Pakaluk 2004; Pearson 2006, 2007; Peterson 1988; Russell 2012a; Santas 2001 (ch. 8); Scaltsas 1995; Schütrumpf 1989; Sherman 1989, 1997; Sim 2007; Taylor 2004; Telfer 1989-90; Tuozzo 1995; Whiting 1996; Young 1988; Yu 2007.

C.5 Practical Reasoning, Moral Psychology, and Action

Broadie 1998; Charles 1984, 2007; Coope 2012; J. Cooper 1986 (ch. 1), 1999 (chs 10, 11, 19); Dahl 1984; Destrée 2007; Engberg-Pedersen 1983; Fortenbaugh 1975; Gottlieb, 2021; Gröngross 2007; Hursthouse 1984; Kontos 2018; Kontos 2021; Kraut 2006a; Lorenz 2006; McDowell 1996a, 1996b, 1998; McKerlie 1998; Meyer 1993; Milo 1966; Moss 2011, 2012; Natali (ed.) 2009; Nussbaum 1986 (ch. 10); Olfert 2017; Pakaluk & Pearson (eds.) 2010; Pickavé & Whiting 2008; Politis 1998; Reeve 1992 (ch. 2), 2013; Segvic 2009a; Sherman 2000; Taylor 2003b; Walsh 1963; Zingano 2007a.

C.6 Pleasure

Gosling &Taylor 1982 (chs 11-17); Gottlieb 1993; Natali (ed.) 2009; Owen 1971; Pearson 2012; Rorty 1974; Taylor 2003a, 2003b; Urmson 1967; Warren 2009; Wolfsdorf 2013 (ch. 6).

C.7 Friendship

Annas 1977, 1993 (ch. 12); Brewer 2005; J.M. Cooper 1999 (chs 14, 15); Hitz 2011; Kahn 1981; Milgram 1987; Nehamas 2010; Pakaluk 1998; Pangle 2003; Price 1989 (chs 4-7); Rogers 1994; Schollmeier 1994; Sherman 1987; Stern-Gillet 1995; Walker 2014; Whiting 1991.

C.8 Feminism and Aristotle

Freeland 1998; Karbowski 2014a; Modrak 1994; Ward (ed.) 1996.

C.9 Aristotle and Contemporary Ethics

Bielskis 2020; Broadie 2006; Chappell (ed.) 2006; Garver 2006; Gill (ed.) 2005; Kraut 2018; LeBar 2013; MacIntyre 1999; Peters 2014; Russell 2012b; Stohr 2003, 2009; Wiggins 2009.

D. Bibliographies

Lockwood 2005.

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Other Internet Resources

Links to relevant works by Aristotle at Perseus:

Athenian Constitution, ed. Kenyon. (Greek)

Athenian Constitution, ed. H. Rackham. (English)

Economics, (Greek)

Economics, (English)

Eudemian Ethics, (Greek)

Eudemian Ethics, (English)

Metaphysics, (Greek)

Metaphysics, (English)

Nicomachean Ethics, ed. J. Bywater. (Greek)

Nicomachean Ethics, ed. H. Rackham. (English)

Poetics, (English)

Politics, (Greek)

Politics, (English)

Rhetoric, ed. W. D. Ross. (Greek)

Rhetoric, ed. J. H. Freese. (English)

Virtues and Vices, ed. I. Bekker. (Greek)

Virtues and Vices, ed. H. Rackham. (English)

Nikomachische Ethik, in German, translated by Eugen Rolfes, Leipzig: F. Meiner, 1911, at the Projekt Gutenberg-DE

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Aristotle conceives of ethical theory as a field distinct from the theoretical sciences. Its methodology must match its subject matter-good action-and must respect the fact that in this field many generalizations hold only for the most part. We study ethics in order to improve our lives, and therefore its principal concern is the nature of human well-being.

# data[].attributes.headline
Shields, Christopher, "Aristotle", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/aristotle/.

# data[].attributes.subject
Shields, Christopher, "Aristotle", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/aristotle/.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Born in 384 B.C.E. in the Macedonian region of northeastern Greece in the small city of Stagira (whence the moniker 'the Stagirite', which one still occasionally encounters in Aristotelian scholarship), Aristotle was sent to Athens at about the age of seventeen to study in Plato's Academy, then a pre-eminent place of learning in the Greek world.

# data[].attributes.headline
La sustancia puede subsistir por sí misma mientras lo que no es sustancia debe estar en una para subsistir.

# data[].attributes.subject
La sustancia puede subsistir por sí misma mientras lo que no es sustancia debe estar en una para subsistir.

# data[].attributes.headline
La filosofía es la más general de las ciencias y se debe atener a los “principios generales” (axiomas).

# data[].attributes.subject
La filosofía es la más general de las ciencias y se debe atener a los “principios generales” (axiomas).

# data[].attributes.headline
La filosofía es la primera ciencia y debe cumplir con el principio de la no contradicción (PNC).

# data[].attributes.subject
La filosofía es la primera ciencia y debe cumplir con el principio de la no contradicción (PNC).

# data[].attributes.headline
“Ergon”: Consiste en la parte racional del alma actuando de acuerdo a la virtud.

# data[].attributes.subject
“Ergon”: Consiste en la parte racional del alma actuando de acuerdo a la virtud.

# data[].attributes.headline
La “felicidad” no es una virtud sino una actividad virtuosa.

# data[].attributes.subject
La “felicidad” no es una virtud sino una actividad virtuosa.

# data[].attributes.headline
Para alcanzar la “felicidad” se deben tener otros bienes como belleza, amigos, salud.

# data[].attributes.subject
Para alcanzar la “felicidad” se deben tener otros bienes como belleza, amigos, salud.

# data[].attributes.headline
La mejor y más virtuosa acción no llega por casualidad.

# data[].attributes.subject
La mejor y más virtuosa acción no llega por casualidad.

# data[].attributes.headline
Aunque la “felicidad” se relaciona a otros bienes, es responsabilidad de uno mismo adquirir y ejercer dichas virtudes.

# data[].attributes.subject
Aunque la “felicidad” se relaciona a otros bienes, es responsabilidad de uno mismo adquirir y ejercer dichas virtudes.

# data[].attributes.headline
Solo se puede demostrar algo con los principios o puntos de partida de una ciencia.

# data[].attributes.subject
Solo se puede demostrar algo con los principios o puntos de partida de una ciencia.

# data[].attributes.headline
Ya que la experiencia nos da los principios de cada ciencia, la lógica nos permite sacar conclusiones de estos principios.

# data[].attributes.subject
Ya que la experiencia nos da los principios de cada ciencia, la lógica nos permite sacar conclusiones de estos principios.

# data[].attributes.headline
La lógica no es parte de la filosofía sino un instrumento para un filósofo.

# data[].attributes.subject
La lógica no es parte de la filosofía sino un instrumento para un filósofo.