I would like to suggest "History of Philosophy without any gaps" podcast website which explains in a rather complete way Philosophy in layman's terms. Everything is neatly organized (just check the top menu). Also it includes non western philosophy such as Avicenna's writings, its importance and relation to Aristotle's work. Here is ths relevant episode on Aristotelian ethics: https://historyofphilosophy.net/aristotl…
Nicomachean Ethics
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Re: Nicomachean Ethics
#102This was one of the book that I read on my own after reading Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind."
My reading of the book was tinged with melancholy, for if virtue is a skill necessary for happiness, and if only a few can master a skill, then only a few can be happy.
I was 17 at the time and thought, "What an awful world that would give happiness to so few!"
Re: Nicomachean Ethics
#103I would like to suggest "History of Philosophy without any gaps" podcast website which explains in a rather complete way Philosophy in layman's terms. Everything is neatly organized (just check the top menu). Also it includes non western philosophy such as Avicenna's writings, its importance and relation to Aristotle's work. Here is ths relevant episode on Aristotelian ethics: https://historyofphilosophy.net/aristotl…
Re: Nicomachean Ethics
#104I read HN because it's the only place on the Internet where a link to a Wikipedia page on Nicomachean Ethics could hit the #1 position.
Re: Nicomachean Ethics
#105As an aside, I strongly recommend reading Thucydides. Once you know the story of the Peloponnesian War, everything that Socrates and Aristotle talked about will have a much deeper meaning.
Yes! Socrates and Aristotle both sound very anti-democratic. Thucydides explains why.
Re: Nicomachean Ethics
#106It’s been a very long time since i read this. The two things that really stuck with me (personal opinion): 1. Utility There are three levels of utility. Things whose use is only in service of something else are least valued. Things whose use is direct and not in service of something else are of highest value. Things whose use is of both something else and it’s own direct utility are of medium value. As an example a c…
1) On utility, the comparison to Mill could not be more misleading. What the commenter seems to be referring to is actually Aristotle's idea of self-sufficiency, or autarkeia. For A, this is an essential component of happiness: "The complete good is held to be self-sufficient" (1097b7). To be sure, as A explains, "we do not mean by self-sufficient what suffices for someone by himself, living a solitary life ... since by nature a human being is political" (1097b7-12). Rather, "as for the self-sufficient, we posit it as that which by itself makes life choiceworthy and in need of nothing, and such is what we suppose to be" (1097b15-17). A's point here is that happiness is something that is not itself "for" anything else. Happiness is autonomous, dependent on nothing else. Indeed, it is for happiness that all other activities are directed. Organizing these activities is the province of politics, or what Aristotle calls the "architectonic" art, because it arranges and superintends everything toward the "end of our actions that we wish for on account of itself" (1094a17ff.). Thus, the commenter's remark about the "three levels of utility" is largely misguided, but it comes close-ish to capturing A's thought on the matter.
2) On "intent," Aristotle's treatment of this idea is extremely complex. It first appears at the beginning of Book III, before he begins his treatment of the eleven moral virtues, suggesting its primacy to his thinking. A separates the idea of "intent" into three kinds: "choice" (proairesis), "deliberation" (boule), and "wish" (boulesis). All of these are different kinds of voluntary activity, i.e., intentional activity. Distinguishing between them is essential for understanding the sense in which activities (and therefore virtue, and therefore happiness) is indeed an "intentional" possibility. In other words, is happiness achievable simply through our "intent"? Or is it dependent on chance, determinism, etc.? Are we truly free to become happy? A's answer to this question is complex, but his genius lies in the fact that he divides "intent" into these various forms -- in short, his point is that certain things (e.g., means vs. ends) are "decided" by different faculties of intent. This phenomenology of experience is masked today by our weak word "intent," which remains unfortunately conceptually overloaded and imprecise.
Again, I suggest that if anyone wants to know what Aristotle actually thought about these topics, they turn to the text itself.
Re: Nicomachean Ethics
#107For those interested in a grand overview of history of philosophy (the ideas themselves and the people behind them), this is a worth-reading classic: A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Western_Philosoph...
Re: Nicomachean Ethics
#108Re: Nicomachean Ethics
#109It’s been a very long time since i read this. The two things that really stuck with me (personal opinion): 1. Utility There are three levels of utility. Things whose use is only in service of something else are least valued. Things whose use is direct and not in service of something else are of highest value. Things whose use is of both something else and it’s own direct utility are of medium value. As an example a c…
I've studied philosophy a great deal, and I'm terribly confused about your takeaways, because neither have anything to do with Aristotle as far as I know. Aristotle was the founder of what is now termed "virtue ethics", which expressly has nothing to do with utility. In fact, utilitarianism and Bentham/Mill are seen as expressly opposite Aristotle's virtue ethics, not building on it. (Kant's deontology being the thir…
For a more detailed interpretation see Stanford philosophy text on Aristotelian Ethics: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/#HumaGoo...
Everything I just searched for referred directly back to Nicomachean Ethics, but it appears this idea exists directly at the top of Aristotle's Metaphysics Book 1.
> Similarly, pursuing an objective without distraction could not be less Aristotelian.
Perhaps. It has been a long time since I have looked at any of this. If I remember correctly it is more about the clarity of intention/purpose than the substance of the subject for that substance will reveal itself through the pursuit.
Aristotle wrote a lot about happiness and even had a word for it: eudaimonia. It did not seem to be a goal but rather the journey and ethics were the guidance that provided both direction and the narrow path.
Re: Nicomachean Ethics
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes! Socrates and Aristotle both sound very anti-democratic. Thucydides explains why.
In different senses. Socrates prefers philosopher kings. Aristotle, a mixed polity, e.g. a government with checks and balances.