Models of the Soul in Aristotle’s Ethics

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

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

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

Reviewed by: Aristotle’s Ethics and Medieval Philosophy: Moral Goodness and Practical Wisdom by Anthony Celano Katja Krause Anthony Celano. Aristotle’s Ethics and Medieval Philosophy: Moral Goodness and Practical Wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. x + 263. Cloth, $99.00. Celano’s book focuses on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (NE) and thirteenth-century scholastic appropriations of it. Its objectives are to unravel the inconsistencies in Aristotle’s accounts of eudaimonia, to establish the prominence of phronesis (practical wisdom), and to reveal alterations of Aristotle’s phronesis in medieval moral thought (back-cover). Celano’s textual analyses are laborious, and some features of his story may be considered stimulating insights. His construal of phronesis as primary to Aristotle’s moral conception (viii), his emphasis on Albert’s contribution to medieval moral thought (chapters 5–6), and his inclusion of the largely uncharted anonymous Erfurt commentary (chapter 8) represent important contributions. Yet Celano tells a tale that others have already told (e.g. R. A. Gauthier 1947–48, quoted by Celano on 78): that Aristotle’s NE contains a single veracity which seemingly transcends history. With their decidedly Christian agenda, however, scholastic interpreters “misread Aristotle’s Ethics” (78) or provided readings “contradictory to his thought” (231). Celano’s story takes its impetus from his view that, with the passage of time, thirteenth-century thinkers (all with close ties to the University of Paris) arrive at an improved grasp of Aristotle’s NE. Celano suggests that, early in the century, when only parts of the NE circulated, William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor, and six arts masters tried to get to the root of Aristotle’s ethics, but were “not entirely successful” (99). In the second half of the century, when the NE was translated and disseminated in its entirety, “more gifted theologians, such as Albert, Thomas and Bonaventure” achieved better results in understanding the text than their scholastic forebears had done (99). Celano reads Albert’s early De natura boni, [End Page 160] De bono, and De homine—the latter of which he misconstrues as an ethical work (100)—as preparations for Albert’s subsequent reconciliations of the NE “with the Christian ideals of perfect beatitude and natural law” in his two commentaries on the NE (130). Celano then argues that Albert’s commentaries decisively influenced later medieval commentaries on Aristotle, including that of Thomas Aquinas, while he equally portrays Thomas’s reading of Aristotle as departing from Albert’s (169). Finally, Celano discusses two commentaries on Aristotle’s NE written at the end of the thirteenth century: one by the anonymous Erfurt commentator and one by Radulphus Brito. In Celano’s view, they read Aristotle in “decidedly un-Aristotelian ways” to harmonise his NE with their own moral principles (231); and they replaced the “ground-breaking work” of Albert and Thomas (209) with their “reverence for tradition” (231). Celano’s book is a hero-narrative complete with denouement. Crucial to it is the thesis that the scholastic thinkers he discusses altered Aristotle’s intention in accordance with their Christian agenda. While, in Celano’s reading of the text, Aristotle founded his NE on the “human standard” of phronesis, the scholastic readers established it on “a divine foundation.” They read Aristotle through the lens of foreign concepts such as “natural law” or “synderesis” (viii, 64), and restricted Aristotle’s phronesis to moral decisions (231). Yet I wonder whether this is an accurate picture. The scholastic thinkers discussed here were more concerned with determining the truth about human prudence and happiness than with developing a truthful reading of Aristotle’s text. In their negotiations of this truth, they differed notably in accordance with their different historical contexts. Regrettably, Celano underplays these contexts, which constituted the ‘lifeworlds’ (Husserl’s term) within which they wrote. Indeed, it would be helpful to understand that early thirteenth-century moral theology, as propounded by William and Philip, arose within the theological framework established by Peter Lombard, and merely utilised some Aristotelian moral concepts. In contrast, early thirteenth-century moral philosophy conducted by the arts masters shifted the framework away from Lombard toward an Aristotelian one. This contrast could help evaluate important motives behind the early appropriations...

Aristotle's two treatises on ethics, Nicomachean (EN) and Eudemian Ethics (EE), have three books in common (EN books V–VII = EE books IV–VI), the so-called "common books," one of which is a book on justice (EN book V = EE book IV). 1 Aristotle's treatment of justice is the most detailed treatment of any of the virtues in either the EN or the EE. At the same time, it is less polished than the treatment of the other virtues in the undisputed books of the Nicomachean Ethics and in the Eudemian Ethics and shows signs of editorial compilation. 2 It is also the only treatment of a moral virtue common to the EN and the EE; for the others, the EN and the EE have independent treatments. The book on justice is commonly read as part of the Nicomachean Ethics, and only rarely considered in the context of the Eudemian Ethics. In this chapter, I will consider the book on justice in the context of both Ethics, and will consider what the Eudemian Ethics says about justice if we read it with the common book on justice.

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (EN) is the first part of what Aristotle calls “a philosophy of human things” (EN X.9.1181b15), one which finds its completion in Aristotle’s Politics (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies article Aristotle’s Politics). (Throughout this article, references to Ethics or EN are to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics; for the relationship of the Nicomachean Ethics to Aristotle’s other ethical writings, including the Eudemian Ethics (EE), see Relationship between the Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics.) The work inaugurates the study of “ethics” as an independent discipline, albeit a discpline which is broader than modern notions of morality, which is primarily practical rather than theoretical, and which is the companion study to politics. The Ethics sets as its goal the understanding of the human good, or eudaimonia, which Aristotle describes as “an activity of the soul in accord with virtue” (I.7.1098a16–17). Its analyses range over the nature of the human soul, the notion of moral responsibility, the ethical and intellectual qualities—called virtues—that are perfections of the nonrational and rational parts of the soul, ways in which reason and desire are unified and in conflict, the nature of pleasure, and the various kinds of friendship that contribute to the human good. Although the work includes a treasure trove of passages that paint a picture of 4th-century Greek social and linguistic practices, the work’s most lasting significance has been its articulation of a philosophical vocabulary and framework to address many of the central questions concerning human well-being.

Medicine, in the modern world, is perpetually developing and changing in parallel with scientific advances, developing technology, new researches, explorations and inventions. While the methods, vehicles and also diseases are evolving, the essence and fundamental qualities for being a “good” physician in the context of virtues originated from Ancient moral philosophy keep still their worth. In this study, Aristotle’s books written on ethics- such as the Nicomachean Ethics, Magna Moralia, Eudemian Ethics and Ethics- were reviewed and the virtues that the physician ought to have syllogized from them. The virtues, which the physician ought to have in all processes of medical practice as well as patient-physician relationship, are wisdom, temperance, justice, good sense (gnome), understanding (synesis), intelligence (nous) and experience. The virtues could be assessed as the combination of theoretical reason/wisdom (sophia), practical reason (phronesis) and techne in sense of the art of medicine as the combination of basic moral and intellectual virtues as well as good trait. The virtues originated and continued from Ancient time to the present as universal and unchanging qualities could a physician make “excellence-oriented” and hence “good” in professional and moral sense. It is the main point that the maintenance of the unchanging values to be a “good” physician reaching the excellence in the changing world by means of advancements in science and technology.

As part of the longer argument towards the conclusion that ethical virtue is central in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics , in the previous chapter and in Chapter 5, I argued that ethical virtue requires practical wisdom and conversely in two different ways. In Chapter 5, I explained how ethical virtue involves reason (practical wisdom) as opposed to being merely in accordance with reason, and in Chapter 8, I explained how the practical syllogism that the person with practical wisdom gets right, involves the virtues of character. However, the aspects of practical wisdom I have discussed so far have been fairly minimal, so one might think that the person with practical wisdom needs to know a lot more than what I have so far discussed. Therefore, in this chapter, I raise some puzzles about what, or how much, the Aristotelian good person has to know, and what the good student needs to know in order to study ethics. The answers have far-reaching consequences for the way in which we should read Aristotle's own Nicomachean Ethics , as well as for the appropriate way to address the immoralist. It is uncontroversial that Aristotle thinks that knowledge is insufficient for ethical virtue (e.g., EN II 1105b1–5, 12–18 cf. X 9 1179b4–10). Reading a book is no substitute for engaging in virtuous action. However, it is unclear what knowledge, if any, is necessary for being a good person, according to Aristotle. On the one hand, there are philosophers, like David Wiggins, who think that the good person can grasp the situation at hand and do the right thing without any knowledge of general principles or of other disciplines.

Aristotle's discussion of to hekousion (the *voluntary*) in the Eudemian Ethics (EE) has several distinctive features which the author seeks to explore and clarify. The author main aim, in this chapter, is to isolate the special nature of this account and to understand its role and philosophical significance. Since Aristotle discusses the *voluntary* in EE II.6-9, Nicomachean Ethics (NE) III.1-5 and in the books they share NE/EE (the so-called 'Common Books': CE) V.8, one can profitably compare these accounts. While all three characterise the *voluntary* in terms of knowledge and absence of force (bia), they differ in several important respects. The author begins with a sketch of the NE theory and then point to what distinguishes the EE discussion. With these two accounts in place, the author compares them with Aristotle's remarks in CE V.8 and sketch a hypothesis about how the three are connected. Keywords:Eudemian Ethics (EE); Nicomachean Ethics (NE); Voluntary

Aristotle provides the only robust theory of sôphrosunê from the classical period, principally in Nicomachean Ethics 3.10–12, though with briefer versions in Eudemian Ethics and Magna Moralia. He argues that it amounts to moderation of some of the desires of touch, specifically those associated with nutrition and reproduction: food, drink (wine), and sex. He presents his analysis as deriving from ordinary language use, but by comparison with the uses of Sophocles (someone he read) and Isocrates (a contemporary), we see that it cannot. Instead, Aristotle’s theory of the virtue tracks his biology, psychology, and taxonomic aims, ensuring that each virtue has non-overlapping scope. Desire-control mostly gets shunted off to self-control, judgment about authoritative norms to practical judgment or wisdom. For Aristotle, sôphrosunê retains a basal role in maturity—it is a core precondition for rational agency—but it loses its position as a primary concept for thinking about human maturity. At chapter’s end we consider various Peripatetic and contemporary Academic accounts of sôphrosunê, noting their differences from Aristotle’s.

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

I argue that we cannot fully understand Aristotle’s position on political stability and state preservation in the Politics with paying close attention to his Eudemian Ethics. We learn from considering the Politics and the Eudemian Ethics in concert that even ‘correct’ regimes are unstable when citizens do not possess full virtue. Aristotle introduces his formal account of the knowledge requirements for virtue in Eudemian Ethics 8.3, and he applies these knowledge requirements as an explanation for state decline in Politics 2.9 when discussing the Spartans. If we primarily focus on the Nicomachean Ethics as Aristotle’s single essential ethical work, we will not learn the lesson he intends his readers to take away from the Spartan discussion in the Politics: that virtue requires correct understanding of the hierarchy and structure of the good life. This knowledge prevents the erosion of the virtues of character and the decline of political regimes.

Objectives In this study, for a practical approach to a happy life, the philosophical concept of happiness is explored centered on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. The purpose of this study is to find out the plan for practical moral education through.
 Methods To this end, we conducted a literature study by examining the preceding research papers related to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and based on the analyzed content, we tried to suggest educational methods that can be practiced in the educational field in relation to the current elementary school morality and basic practical guidelines of the curriculum.
 Results As a result, a moderate activity according to Aristotle's practical wisdom is a moral activity, that is, a virtuous activity, and such virtuous activity does not end as a one-time thing, but can be recognized as virtuous only when it is carried out with educational continuity. Since the formation of practical wisdom is possible through long life experiences on the premise of a perfect understanding of theoretical wisdom, it is necessary to have a pedagogical perspective that enables students to habituate the understanding of practical wisdom through practice in the field of elementary school.
 Conclusions Therefore, an important purpose in moral education is an educational environment that allows students to achieve practical wisdom by themselves rather than approaching them through a knowledgeable dialogue about virtue so that they can lead true happiness and become a habit in life. It is necessary to incorporate practical moral education according to Aristotle's concept of happiness in school experience so that it can lay the foundation for habituation of virtue that can form and implement practical wisdom through self-understanding.

The purpose of the paper is to study the interrelatedness of rationality, virtue, and practical wisdom in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics by offering a critical interpretation of the bipartition of the soul presented in Chap. 13 of the first book. Aristotle relies on the partition of the soul into a rational and a non-rational part when he distinguishes between ethical and intellectual virtues. The paper will question the adequacy of these divisions and show that Aristotle himself casts doubt on them while leaving open the possibility of understanding the soul in an alternative way which will prove to fit better with his own exposition of deliberate choice and the integration of virtuous action and practical wisdom.

Reviewed by: Aristotle’s Ethics and Medieval Philosophy: Moral Goodness and Practical Wisdom by Anthony Celano Matthew R. McWhorter Aristotle’s Ethics and Medieval Philosophy: Moral Goodness and Practical Wisdom. Anthony Celano. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016, 272 pp. Anthony Celano’s Aristotle’s Ethics and Medieval Philosophy is a recent collection of studies from a veteran scholar of medieval philosophy who has conducted more than thirty years of research into the ethical doctrine of Aristotle and its reception by thirteenth-century Latin thinkers. Celano observes that Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is the seminal kind of cultural achievement that admits of numerous interpretations and developments (7). At the same time, Celano promotes a central thesis in this volume that underscores that the content of the Ethics must be differentiated from how it was understood by medieval commentators. The hermeneutical key that should be used to understand Aristotle’s original doctrine, Celano contends, is one that recognizes practical wisdom (phronesis) as having a broader scope than that which was admitted by the medieval commentators, a scope that includes the ability to originate moral norms (viii–ix). In contrast, Aristotle’s medieval commentators were influenced in their reading of the Ethics by the natural law doctrine found in Scripture and Patristic thinkers (5) and as found in the works of Cicero and Seneca (238). The medieval commentators, Celano maintains, read Aristotle with an “acceptance of natural law and synderesis” and, due to these presuppositions, subsequently “transform Aristotle’s Ethics from one based upon a human standard into one that depends upon a divine foundation” (viii). The interpretational result is a truncated understanding of practical wisdom that is no longer recognized as able to originate “moral universals,” that is restricted to the prudential ability to apply the “eternal principles of action” (ix). Elsewhere, Celano refers to this as “the evolution from practical reason to prudence” (241). He points to Albert the Great as the primary medieval thinker who significantly restricted the scope of practical wisdom in this regard (169). Celano’s volume is divided into nine chapters. The work includes selections from Aristotle’s Greek and extensive Latin quotations, as well as frequent citation of relevant English and international secondary sources. Celano begins his study by briefly outlining certain moral topics that can affect one’s interpretation of the Nicomachean Ethics. These topics include how one understands the nature of happiness (eudaimonia), the relation of Aristotle’s ethical doctrine to a natural moral law, and the structure of moral acts. Celano then provides a longer treatment of the issue of happiness in connection [End Page 1430] with Aristotle’s doctrine of practical wisdom. The study then shifts and proceeds chronologically through the works of important thirteenth-century thinkers. His third chapter begins this chronological survey by focusing on William of Auxerre and Philip the Chancellor. The fourth chapter examines commentaries on the Ethics authored prior to 1248 (an anonymous commentary, a commentary ascribed to Robert Kilwardby, and the pseudo-Pecham commentary). Celano then dedicates two chapters to Albert the Great and his treatment of Aristotle’s Ethics. This discussion is followed by a chapter focused on Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, and then a chapter examining two late-thirteenth-century commentaries, one of which is ascribed to Parisian arts master Radulphus Brito. Celano closes the volume with a short concluding chapter that returns to discuss in part the themes outlined in his first chapter (namely, the issues of natural law and practical wisdom). Celano states that he developed this book out of a desire to understand what he describes as Aristotle’s two different accounts of happiness that are found in separate sections of the Nicomachean Ethics (vii). These distinct accounts, Celano maintains, also indicate different understandings of human goodness (23). He contends that one account, in book 1, describes happiness as resulting from a combination of contemplative and practical activities (2). Reading the Ethics in light of this first account results in what Celano (appropriating terminology from W. F. R. Hardie) calls the “inclusive” interpretation of Aristotle’s doctrine of happiness (2 and 16). In contrast, a second account that Aristotle provides, in book 10, describes happiness as the result...