Nicomachean Ethics Research Articles

Love of Friendship and Love of Concupiscence

Love of Friendship and Love of Concupiscence Jordan Olver WE LOVE WINE and other lifeless things in a different way than we love our friends. We love our friends for their own sake, wishing good for them and being inherently pleased by their possession of it. We love wine and other such things as objects to be used, enjoyed, or possessed by someone we care about; we do not love them fundamentally as subjects for whom we wish some good but as goods we wish for some subject. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, drew attention to this difference and, through it, identified friendship as essentially a benevolent love, that is, one that wishes good for the loved one for the loved one’s own sake.1 In the thirteenth century, theologians looked back to Aristotle, and presumably to experience itself, and distinguished between two kinds of love: the kind of love one has toward wine they called concupiscence or love of [End Page 573] concupiscence; the kind one has toward a friend they called friendship or love of friendship. Thomas Aquinas received the distinction between love of friendship and love of concupiscence from his Scholastic predecessors, and in a sense from Aristotle as well. He used the terms love of friendship and love of concupiscence throughout his career, and the distinction associated with them eventually came to occupy a central role in his thought on love. Arguably, the distinction became so central that without it one cannot present his thought except in a vague manner, nor can one solve the primary problem associated with his doctrine of love, namely, how love of others for their own sake is possible.2 Scholars have often treated of the distinction between love of friendship and love of concupiscence. Most treatments, however, have been part of a broader inquiry; rarely has the distinction been the proper object of study. The effect has been that scholars have rarely considered the two loves as a controversial topic, one over which to argue.3 But differences in interpretation do exist, some being more obvious, others more subtle. These differences exist in turn because Thomas’s understanding of love of friendship and love of concupiscence is itself difficult to discern. Thomas presents the two loves in a variety of ways, and it is not clear how we are to reconcile these different accounts. Some dedicated studies, accordingly, are needed to [End Page 574] address the various textual difficulties and consider the diverse interpretations in the secondary literature. This study aims to provide such a treatment. With the help of the secondary literature, we will first set out the questions we will seek to answer in our inquiry. Then, to provide a firmer foundation for interpreting Thomas, we will survey his predecessors’ use of love of friendship and love of concupiscence. Afterward, we will examine Thomas’s own use of the terms throughout his career. Finally, we will return to the questions raised and draw conclusions about how we ought to understand the two loves and the distinction associated with them. I. Scholarly Treatment and Possible Interpretations Twentieth- and twenty-first-century interpreters of Thomas generally present love of friendship and love of concupiscence in one of four ways. Some divide the two loves as other-oriented and self-oriented: love of friendship is a disinterested love of others for their own sake while love of concupiscence is a love of something wished for oneself.4 Others divide the loves as being of persons and of things wished for persons: love of friendship is of a person, whether oneself or another, for that person’s own sake, while love of concupiscence is of some good wished for a person.5 Still others divide the loves similarly but [End Page 575] add that the loves are not distinct acts, but two aspects or tendencies found in every act of love: in each act, one tends with love of friendship to some subject for whom one wishes some good and with love of concupiscence to some good one wishes for that subject.6 Finally, some identify multiple senses of the two loves. Most notably, Guy Mansini...

The Ancient Greek Roots of Human Rights

The Ancient Greek Roots of Human Rights

Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy by Tobias Hoffmann

Reviewed by: Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy by Tobias Hoffmann Richard Cross Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy. By Tobias Hoffmann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. xiv + 292. $99.99 (hard). ISBN: 978-1-107-15538-1. This excellent book achieves at least two interrelated goals, both suggested by its title: it gives a thorough account of theories of free will as found in the thirteenth century, continuing as far as Ockham (with backward glances to Anselm, Bernard, and Lombard); and it gives a detailed account of the question of the origin of evil in the morally bad choices of (as Hoffmann’s authors supposed) a being who was initially not subject to intellectual error. Both topics are hard, the second especially so. But Hoffmann is an expert guide, and is able both to cast new light on the more-or-less well-known material that constitutes the first part of his project, and to give a clear and compelling account of the largely novel material that can be found in the second part of it. Hoffmann begins with a discussion of the ways in which Aristotle’s thinking on choice was incorporated into Western discussions, starting with the translation of John of Damascus’s eclectic De fide orthodoxa (which included a great deal of Aristotelian psychology with the addition of the notion of a rational will), and continuing with the direct access to relevant parts of the Nicomachean Ethics. This latter coincided with, and partly contributed to, what Hoffmann labels the “psychological turn” around the 1220s. Earlier medieval accounts of will were fundamentally theological in character. But Hoffmann notes that thinkers of the early thirteenth century suddenly became interested in action theory and moral psychology as objects worthy of study in themselves. (In this he follows, with due acknowledgement, his former student, Jamie Spiering, who has worked on the topic in Philip the Chancellor and others.) And what immediately followed the psychological turn was a largely intellectualist account, according to which free agency is explained (in Hoffmann’s helpful definition) “mainly with reference to the intellect” (5). The story follows a familiar trajectory: intellectualism prevails until it gets condemned (in Paris at least) by Stephen Tempier in 1270, and again with greater force in 1277. Specifically, as Hoffmann notes, the core issue was what he helpfully labels “judgment-volition conformity” (61): that the will automatically wills in accordance with judgment. The worry, of [End Page 671] course, was that judgment-volition conformity entails some kind of determinism. Now, even the most ardent intellectualists generally allow that the judgment of means (to an end) is in some sense contingent: the output, the judgment, is not determined by the input (reasons in favor of this or that means). So, one of the primary problems for the intellectualist lies in determining how the intellectual process of deliberation is contingent. According to Hoffmann, for instance, Aquinas claims that “one wills in proportion to one’s judgment,” and Hoffmann follows by noting that “the fact that this rather than that cognitive judgment actually becomes a judgment of choice depends on an affective commitment” (47). Aquinas is therefore a “moderate intellectualist” (54). But as Hoffmann notes, there is no explanation within Aquinas’s system for the activity of the will here. The year 1277 in fact saw two distinct condemnations, both in March: 219 errors of the arts masters, and 51 propositions from Giles of Rome’s Sentences commentary. In terms of long-term significance, article 24 of this latter list (that “there is no evil in the will unless there is error in reason”) turned out to be particularly important, since in 1285, when Giles appealed to the new pope, the Parisian theology masters conceded the previously condemned proposition—the so-called propositio magistralis. This odd chain of events allowed the initial imposition of some kind of voluntarism to be somewhat tempered. A key figure here is Henry of Ghent, one of the movers behind the first of these 1277 condemnations: the will is a self-mover (else it would be determined ab extra). The remarkable Franciscan Peter Olivi allows, in line with this...

From The Editor

From The Editor Roger D. Woodard Earlier versions of the papers that constitute this special thematic issue of Arethusa were presented at a symposium on Greek tragedy—one meeting of a series of three symposia informally known as the "Peradotto Sessions." The series was made possible through the generous financial support of Milton Ezrati, distinguished economist, who, as an undergraduate at the University at Buffalo, had undertaken coursework with John J. Peradotto. It was in the fall term of 1968 that Mr. Ezrati began studying with Professor Peradotto, enrolling in Classics 103: Greek Literature in Translation (readings in Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics). The beginning of Milton Ezrati's studies with Jack Peradotto thus coincided with the beginning of Arethusa, the first issue of which is dated Fall 1968 and edited by Charles Garton. As I mentioned in my editorial preface to the preceding issue of Arethusa (55.2), the lead article of that inaugural issue of the journal is Charles Segal's "Ancient Texts and Modern Criticism: Some Recent Trends in Classical Literary Studies" (pp. 1–25). Segal is joined in the issue by Ernst Badian: "Sulla's Augurate" (pp. 26–46), Brooks Otis: "A Reading of the Cleopatra Ode" (pp. 47–61), Molly Miller: "Solon's Timetable" (pp. 62–81), Albert Cook: "The Patterning of Effect in Sophocles' Philoctetes" (pp. 82–93), John P. Anton: "The Ultimate Theme of the Phaedo" (pp. 94–102), and Robert K. Sherk: "The Date of Menander's Dyscolus" (pp. 103–108). To draw once more from Charlie Segal's prescient contribution—early in his article (p. 2), Segal references an essay from the Prologue (that portion entitled "Reading") of Auden's The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays (p. 4, first published 1948, London, Faber and Faber), writing that "one must at least consider the problem raised by W. H. Auden that in criticizing a classic one is dealing with a work that is already a part of one's spiritual biography." Taking a broader pass at Auden's lines we find (pp. 4–5): "To read is to translate, [End Page 209] for no two persons' experiences are the same … our judgment of an established author is never simply an aesthetic judgment … [for the author] is also a character in our biography." Segal then adds: "Be this as it may, a reasoned desanctification is salutary, in some cases even necessary." The very existence of the "Peradotto Sessions" testifies to the continued potentiality of classic works becoming a part of one's biography, something one may carry through decades, especially when acquired from or reinforced by a gifted and dedicated teacher. What follows in this issue of Arethusa is a set of four remarkable, salutary, reasoned desanctifications (and thus resanctifications) of Greek tragic drama, offered in celebration of Jack Peradotto's 90th birthday. RDW [End Page 210] Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press

Toward a Critique of the Ineffectual: Heidegger’s Reading of Aristotle and the Construction of an Action Without Ends

ABSTRACT The paper demonstrates how Heidegger constructed his notion of an action without ends, or the ineffectual, through his early readings of Aristotle. Heidegger initially aligns the ineffectual with the notion of phronesis in Nicomachean Ethics, and later develops it further in Division 2 of Being and Time. The paper examines some of the implications of the conception of an action without ends. It shows that in fact the notion is absent from Aristotle and it is inconsistent. Finally, the paper briefly explores the profound influence that the ineffectual has had on what came to be called in the United States ‘continental philosophy’.

Apuntes sobre el fenómeno de la deliberación en Aristóteles: prâxis individual y política

This text explores in the selected works of Aristotle the connection of deliberation on the particular view of action and on the political view, and its rich anthropological and ontological background, not always addressed in the secondary bibliography. It highlights the many complex connections within the framework of Aristotelian anthropology, ethics, and politics. To this end, it focuses on the textual source, specifically on the selection of key passages from four Aristotelian texts: Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, Rhetoric and Politics . In the last two the political level of deliberation is analyzed and described, while in the previous two the level of individual praxis . The article is closed by a section that presents the connections between the two planes.

KONSEP PERTEMANAN DALAM ETIKA NIKOMAKEA ARISTOTELES

As social beings who live side by side with agreed behavioral norms, making the relationship between individuals has an important position, the relationship in question is known as the term friendship. With this important element in the concept of friendship, it is not surprising that Aristotle discusses it specifically in two books at once in his work entitled Nicomachean Ethics, and places the concept of friendship as the main and indispensable thing in life. This study aims to explain in order to know the concept of friendship contained in Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics. The method used by the author in this study is a descriptive-analytical method with a qualitative approach, and a library research data collection technique. The results of the research and discussion obtained in this study include the position of the concept of friendship, as well as the classification of friendship in Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, especially in his VIII and IX books. It is said in his work, that no one will choose to live without a friend, even though he has been blessed with many good things in his life. So that in the concept of perfect or complete friendship according to Aristotle, namely the relationship between individuals who give each other good things, with reciprocity, and do it with full awareness. Aristotle said that if a friend is our other personal self, and what we get from a friend is a reflection of what we give too.
 Keyword: Aristotle, Friendship, Nicomachean Ethics.

Aristotelian ‘Phronesis’ and the dilemma of its translation

The Greek Phronesis is among the key concepts in Aristotle’s ethics and politics. It appears especially in the Book VI of his Nicomachean Ethics. The translators of Aristotle’s work could only render those aspects of its meaning that they were able to comprehend. The present study examines how phronesis is transmitted into Arabic in the revised version of the first known translation of the Nicomachean Ethics by Isḥāq Ibn Ḥunain (9th century) where he renders it to ta‘aqqul, ‘aql or fahm, and the translation made by ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān Badawī (20th century), who translates it as fiṭna. The findings are occasionally compared with the English and German translations of the same text by two significant commentators of Aristotle. The paper concludes that while Ibn Ḥunain’s renderings are historically justified, all in all, Badawī has translated the Greek terms with relative faithfulness, although he occasionally fails to establish a correlation between the concepts.

Aristotle on the Scope of Practical Reason: Spectators, Legislators, Hopes, and Evils, by Pavlos Kontos

Pavlos Kontos wants us to take Aristotle’s nautical metaphors seriously: to employ practical reason is, in a sense, to navigate life. Readers of Aristotle have tended to find the point of these metaphors fairly obvious. Navigation, especially in the ancient world and still today, is a task full of uncertainty that requires a flexible and even creative responsiveness to achieve the desired end: a safe voyage. On much the same grounds, human beings must employ practical reason in order to live and we must exercise it well in order to live a good life. More specifically, we need practical reason because the variety of particular situations we find ourselves in ‘do not fall under any craft or any set of rules whatsoever, and the agents themselves always have to inquire to find out what it is opportune to do’ (Nicomachean Ethics II.2, 1104b6-9, trans. C.D.C Reeve). In this book, Kontos implores us to look beyond the paradigm situation of an individual deliberating and acting in relation to their own life, which has been the near-exclusive focus of scholarship and commentary, in order to recognize the true scope of practical reason. In other words, navigating life will involve many other activities beyond inquiring into what one must oneself do.

The Aristotelian Conception of Natural Law and Its Reception in Early Protestant Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics

Abstract The Protestant reception both of Aristotle and of the concept of natural law have been the object of renewed attention. The present article aims at a cross-fertilization of these two recoveries: did a specifically Aristotelian approach to natural law (among other important sources) play a significant role in classical Protestant thought? The article answers this question by means of a review of the Protestant commentaries on Aristotle’s natural law-passage in Nicomachean Ethics V, 7. Reformation and post-Reformation scholars sometimes offered original readings of this text, but above all they cultivated the various approaches to the passage that had been developed during the medieval period.

Aristotle’s hexis, phronesis, and Prolific Politics: Through a Musicological Lens

This paper attempts to examine and interpret the idea of phronesis, which unfolds in book Six of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Emphasizing the role of politics, Aristotle’s concept of phronesis(practical wisdom) involves the idea of habit (hexis) or cultivating moral virtues. It is thought that phronesis helps agents avoid extremes in their choices and finally achieve the thoughtfully desired good. Implications of these ideas lead us to ask – where do we get/cultivate phronesis? What is the nature of politics that cultivates active dispositions in us? In order to answer these questions, I interpret Aristotle’s concepts of phronesis and politics through Indian Classical Music’s principle of ’improvisation.’ In the initial part, I discuss Aristotle’s ethical framework to understand the role of habit (hexis) and politics in the cultivation of phronesis. I will then show problems in MacIntyre’s interpretation of these ideas. Finally, I will argue that as a musician’s ’new’ imaginative creativity arises from ’given’ patterns of melodic possibilities provided by a prolific teacher, practical wisdom is also cultivated by ’hexis imparting’ politics. However, politics must be qualified with prolificity, which will develop autonomous moral agency and evade any coercive influence of socio-customary morality.

Finding Oneself Well Together with Others: A Phenomenological Study of the Ontology of Human Well-Being

Based on critical readings of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the paper offers a phenomenological study of the ontology of well-being that transcends the opposition between subjective and objective being. By interpreting the Heideggerian notion of Befindlichkeit as the fundamental way in which humans find themselves in the world, being affected by and faced with their own existence, the paper opens a way to understanding well-being that locates the possibility of elevating one’s own being not inside or outside the I but in the affective bond to others called friendship. Aristotle’s reflections on philia play a crucial role in developing this understanding of well-being, according to which humans find themselves well by sharing joy with each other and making a vital contribution to the realization of their own possibilities.

Professional judgement in accounting and Aristotelian practical wisdom

PurposeRecognising the growing importance of professional judgement within professional accounting, this paper examines how it relates to Aristotelian practical wisdom, with reference to the ethical failure at Carillion plc in 2018. This includes an examination of how these concepts are similar and how they differ and a reconceptualisation of professional judgement in Aristotelian terms.Design/methodology/approachThe conventional understanding of professional judgement is articulated with reference to accounting standards, professional accounting institutions and academic research. This is compared to Aristotelian practical wisdom, as presented in the Nicomachean Ethics. Both of these conceptualisations are analysed with reference to the failure of Carillion plc.FindingsSome similarities as well as significant differences between the conventional conceptualisation of professional judgement and Aristotelian practical wisdom are identified. Application to the accounting failure of Carillion plc shows how an Aristotelian reconceptualisation of professional judgement, as an ethical concept, provides a more adequate understanding of unethical accounting behaviour.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis identifies aspects of professional judgement in accounting that have not previously been explored empirically, but which nevertheless have empirical support in other domains.Practical implicationsProfessional judgement is reconceptualised in ethical terms, which informs how professional bodies and firms should conceive and apply this concept.Originality/valueAlthough there has been research on judgement informed by psychology, there has been little research linking judgement and wisdom in an accounting context. This paper utilises a philosophically informed perspective on wisdom to reconceptualise professional judgement in a way that provides a more adequate understanding of ethical failures.

Moral Instruction by Bad Example: The First Latin Translations of Theophrastus’ Characters☆

<i>Moral Instruction by Bad Example: The First Latin Translations of Theophrastus’</i> Characters☆

Practical wisdom, the (not so) secret ingredient for responsible knowledge management

PurposeThis paper aims to stress the importance of practical wisdom (phronesis) for the knowledge management field. It is a relevant intellectual and ethical resource for responding to recent changes in the business environment and for responsibly and sustainably aligning organizations for the future. Organizations must find ways to reconcile social, environmental and economic goals and meet different and conflicting stakeholder needs. To this end, the authors challenge knowledge management researchers to feature practical wisdom as an enabler for responsible knowledge management built on solid ethical foundations.Design/methodology/approachThe authors introduce the concept of phronesis, reaching from Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics to Nonaka and Takeuchi’s The Wise Company. Based on a systematic review of the literature, the authors performed a bibliometric analysis. Moreover, the authors discuss the findings and offer avenues for future research.FindingsThe results provide an overview of the research on phronesis in the knowledge management field. It points out the leading articles and journals (e.g. Journal of Business Ethics and Journal of Knowledge Management). Likewise, it identifies thematic areas, i.e. knowledge management field, knowledge dynamics, organizational wisdom, leadership and followership, corporate social responsibility and red flags.Originality/valueIn this essay, the authors advise practical wisdom as a promising candidate for advancing the field of knowledge management towards responsible knowledge management. To pursue this, the authors propose to address instability and continuous change through practical wisdom and outline a research agenda to guide further research.

Calling Philosophers Names: On the Origin of a Discipline by Christopher Moore

Reviewed by: Calling Philosophers Names: On the Origin of a Discipline by Christopher Moore Jonathan Lavery MOORE, Christopher. Calling Philosophers Names: On the Origin of a Discipline. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2020. xi + 411 pp. Cloth, $45.00; paper $32.95 No later than 347 BCE people began calling Diogenes of Sinope a dog (kyōn). Apparently, he wasn't offended. For around 337/6 BCE, after the new Macedonian ruler announced himself as "Alexander the Great," he replied with equal ceremony: "And I am Diogenes the Cynic (kyōn)." Thus did an insult get refashioned as a self-description. By so claiming a word pinned on him by others, Diogenes helped braid together the peculiar self-sufficiency for which he was already known and the brand name he still exemplifies today. Name and nominata were brought together for abuse, stabilized by appropriation, and preserved in legend. Calling Philosophers Names tells a comparable—albeit richer and far more complex—story in which philosophoi and its cognates evolved from being the wry label for a group of eccentrics around 500 BCE into a nom de profession in the fourth century. It's a terrific story, which Moore constructs ingeniously and tells very well. Moore's primary task is to disentangle and reconstruct the complex, intertwined careers of now familiar words philosophia, philosophoi, and philosophos in one strand of ancient thought, and practices and personalities from the history of philosophy in another. Moore's novel approach is to trace the development of philosophia and its cognates by tracking the word-group from inchoate origins to designators for a mature discipline. It took several generations for loose strands of names and nominata to coordinate as we might expect. This enterprise was both lexical and normative. Indeed, Moore argues convincingly that the first element of phil-stem compounds originally entailed something negative, and only later acquired neutral and positive associations. For most of this period, the extension of philosophos did not include Thales, Anaximander, and Heraclitus, and it was not until Aristotle that philosophia became a recognizable discipline. The result is a genealogy in which family membership was established partly by historical descent, partly by retrospective adoption. Calling Philosophers Names opens with an anecdote for which our earliest attestation is from Heraclides of Pontus, a fourth-century Academician and contemporary of Aristotle: On being asked by the tyrant Leon what he is, Pythagoras described himself as a philosophos, one who observes life and hunts after truth. What made this moment of self-identification believable to a fourth-century audience? For Moore, plausibility is one reason, but the fact that Leon required an explanation of the word philosophos is suggestive—evidently it was newly coined and not in wide circulation. Chapter 2, the first of three on "Origins," begins with a cluster of remarks from Heraclitus, among which is our earliest extant instance of a philosoph-construction. By Moore's account, Heraclitus's specification that philosophical men (philosophous andras) "ought to be researchers into much" (DK B35) is of a piece with other fragments criticizing polymathy, empirical inquiry, and Pythagoras (B40, B57, B129, B81). The label "philosophical men" in B35, Moore argues, picked out "sage-wannabees" [End Page 600] who mimic sophoi without being worthy of sage status. "Philosophical" did not signify admirable intellectual cultivation. Other scholars amend the fragment. Moore leaves everything as it is, reading it as a complaint about the polymathy of philosophical men (rather than an exhortation for readers to take up philosophia). Chapter 3 elucidates metalinguistic features of phil-stem words, using as a guide Aristotle's analysis of several examples (Nicomachean Ethics, books 1, 2, and 4). According to Moore, such words were not originally used by anyone to describe themselves; they were, rather, other-applied descriptions of someone whose behavior is excessive with respect to the object or activity designated by the second element. While a moderate pursuit of wealth is good, being philoploutos is avaricious. So, alongside veneration of the Seven Sophoi, there was derision for posers who aspired to that status, namely, philosophoi. In chapter 4, Moore conjectures that Pythagoreans were among those commonly and dismissively called philosophoi. Chapter 5 examines all six extant...

Verba et Facta Ludicra Et Jocosa: Thomas Aquinas on the Moral Limits of Playful Enjoyment

Verba et Facta Ludicra Et Jocosa: Thomas Aquinas on the Moral Limits of Playful Enjoyment Elisabeth Uffenheimer PLAY HAS BEEN STUDIED over the past decades by scholars from various disciplines. Psychologists have stressed its role in child development, animal play has puzzled ethologists, and historians have understood play to be the central element for understanding culture. Philosophers have asked questions about its definition, its goal, its rationality. As a source of relaxation, it has been opposed to work, to seriousness, and to daily life.1 Thomas Aquinas wrote one explicit text on play—question 168 of the Secunda secundae2—in which he embeds his insights about the human being as a homo ludens in a rich philosophical [End Page 245] anthropology: we enjoy playing as rational, sensitive-emotional, embodied, and social beings. A subcategory of play is humorous words and deeds. In contrast to present-day studies on humor, Thomas is interested in the morality of humor rather than in its essence, thereby taking a fundamentally positive stance towards humorous play. For him the human person is homo ridens, the only creature that has the capacity to laugh and to make laugh.3 Throughout my analysis of Thomas’s texts, I shall argue for the following claims. First, Thomas’s texts on play and humorous play show that he considers the human being to be a homo ludens, homo delectans, and homo ridens. The capacity to play and to enjoy, and the possession of a sense of humor are undeniable and positive aspects of the make-up of the human being. Second, play can best be understood against the background of two passions of the soul, tristitia and delectatio. This point has not been stressed enough in the secondary literature on this topic. Third, eutrapelia, the specific virtue of play, concerns not only the mean between excess and lack of enjoyment, but is essentially a social virtue. Play contributes to our well-being as individuals in so far as it includes respect for our fellow human beings. As such it can help to express, sustain, and maintain our ethical relationships with our social surroundings.4 In the light of the above, this article is divided into three parts. Parts I and II will map out the philosophical anthropology [End Page 246] behind the idea of homo ludens. Part II discusses the pivotal role of the emotions in play. Part III will show that eutrapelia is essentially also a social virtue by focusing on two specific kinds of humorous play: derision and blasphemy. In the conclusion, I will point briefly to the relevance of Thomas for the contemporary discussion about the moral limits of play in general and of humorous play in particular. I. Homo Ludens: Play and Rest The Latin word for play (ludus) has different meanings: it can be a game of some kind, public games, sport; it can be spectacle, show, stage play, or social entertainment; it can be pastime, diversion, having fun, amusing oneself with others; and finally it can also be jest, joke, mockery, mimicry, banter, or ridicule. In this last case play includes humor and can be verbal or nonverbal. The different meanings of play show that one can be actively or passively involved in play. The common denominator of these different meanings is that play provides diversion, amusement, or enjoyment.5 Play is discussed by Thomas in his questions on temperance, and more specifically in his analysis of the annexed virtue of modesty, which concerns, among other things, our bodily movements and actions.6 The words and deeds of human social interaction can be either serious or playful (ludus).7 The point of departure in our analysis of play according to Thomas is that he emphasizes its beneficial consequences and distinguishes between its social and its individual purpose. Presupposing that we have a social nature, Thomas writes that play not only takes place in a social setting, but that it is necessary for human interaction (ludus est necessarius ad conversationem humanae vitae). It enhances community relations by bringing [End Page 247] about cohesion in a group of people.8 In his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle...

Ethics without the Will: Vernant, Heidegger, and Agamben on the Relation BetweenPraxisandPhronēsis

AbstractThis article examines the articulation of praxis and phronēsis in book VI of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. With some help from Vernant, Heidegger, and Agamben, it brings out a dimension of Aristotle's thought that makes it challenging for us to think today, namely its lack of a concept of the will. Instead of seeing this as a deficiency, this paper argues that Aristotle's thinking can be more productively read as carving out a space for an ethics that is not governed by this metaphysical concept, in this way showing it not to be as essential to ethical thought as we often think. Phronēsis appears as the point of in-distinction between many oppositions that govern modern thought such as thinking and doing, being and acting, or theory and practice. In this way, it provides a suggestive example for those interested in developing new forms of ethics beyond those that have been bequeathed to us by the modern European tradition.

The Role of Potentiality in Aristotle’s Ethics

What I will argue here is that the ethical potentiality of the human being that Aristotle cites in the Nicomachean Ethics refers to the general, rational capacity for someone to appropriate and develop their own specific, natural capacities which make them human; the name of this ability is called virtue, which, when expressed in actions, we call good. To separate out the concepts at work here demands an exegesis of the two kinds of dunamis in Metaphysics Theta, that is, dunamis as causal power of change and dunamis as a potential way of being for an existent capacity. Once we grasp this, we can clarify the nature of virtue as the active, complete state of a capacity in human being which defines their function even though it must be acquired, and it need not ever be actualized. The concepts of habit ( ethos) and practical judgment ( phronesis) give Aristotle the means to solve the problem of how such a potentiality is acquired and how it is actualized, and hence we will end with a discussion of them.

The Beautiful in Aristotle’s Ethics

Abstract This article argues for an aesthetic reading of to kalon, primarily as it appears in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle uses to kalon to indicate that, to the morally serious, virtue is attractive and productive of a kind of pleasure. Read aesthetically, to kalon mitigates the tension between one’s own good and the common good. Aristotle shows how his students’ understanding of to kalon can be refined and thus preserved as an important and salutary feature of moral and political life.