Investigating the Relationship Between Aristotle’s Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics


Book Description

Specifically focusing on the relationship between the Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics, this collection of essays studies major themes from Aristotle’s ethics. This volume builds on a recent revival of interest in Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics, which offers an invaluable complement to the Nicomachean Ethics in the study of the development of Aristotle's ethical ideas. It brings together a series of new studies by leading scholars covering the main points of inquiry raised by the relationship between the two works, exploring their continuities and divergences. At the same time, it showcases a variety of approaches to and perspectives on the main questions posed by Aristotle’s ethical thought. Investigating the Relationship Between Aristotle’s Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics is offered as a contribution to long-standing debates over Aristotle's ethical thinking, as well as an inspiration for new approaches, which take both of his surviving ethical treatises seriously. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars of ancient philosophy and ethics, particularly Aristotle’s two ethics.




Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics


Book Description

Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics was until recently treated as a poor cousin of the better-known Nicomachean Ethics - poor enough even to have to borrow its three central books (IV-VI) from the latter. The work has now emerged from its relative obscurity; many scholars, indeed, now claim - on the basis of what appear to be sound statistical arguments - that it is the Nicomachean Ethics that has to borrow its Books V-VII from the Eudemian. This critical edition of Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics treats this particular issue as unresolved, including as it does only five books (I-III, VII-VIII), but without prejudice, the three disputed books being treated as already available in the edition of the Nicomachean Ethics in the same series. The new edition of the Eudemian Ethics completes the task, begun by Walzer and Mingay's 1991 Oxford Classical Text edition, of restoring the corrupted text on the basis of a new understanding of the relationships between the extant Greek manuscripts. The three primary manuscripts identified by Harlfinger, along with a fourth identified by the present editor, Christopher Rowe, have been freshly and fully collated, a more extensive apparatus criticus has been provided, and substantial new progress has been made in the restoration of the text. A separate companion volume (Aristotelica: Studies on the text of Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics) contains the arguments for every important editorial choice made in the restoration of the text.




Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 61


Book Description

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is a volume of original articles on all aspects of ancient philosophy. The articles may be of substantial length, and include critical notices of major books. OSAP is now published twice yearly, in both hardback and paperback. "'Have you seen the latest OSAP?' is what scholars of ancient philosophy say to each other when they meet in corridors or on coffee breaks. Whether you work on Plato or Aristotle, on Presocratics or sophists, on Stoics, Epicureans, or Sceptics, on Roman philosophers or Greek Neoplatonists, you are liable to find OSAP articles now dominant in the bibliography of much serious published work in your particular subject: not safe to miss." - Malcolm Schofield, Cambridge University "OSAP was founded to provide a place for long pieces on major issues in ancient philosophy. In the years since, it has fulfilled this role with great success, over and over again publishing groundbreaking papers on what seemed to be familiar topics and others surveying new ground to break. It represents brilliantly the vigour-and the increasingly broad scope-of scholarship in ancient philosophy, and shows us all how the subject should flourish." - M.M. McCabe, King's College London




Aristotle's Ethics


Book Description

This Element is an examination of the philosophical themes presented in Aristotle's Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics. Topics include happiness, the voluntary and choice, the doctrine of the mean, particular virtues of character and temperamental means, virtues of thought, akrasia, pleasure, friendship, and luck. Special attention has been paid to Aristotle's treatment of virtues of character and thought and their relation to happiness, the reason why Aristotle is the quintessential virtue ethicist. The virtues of character have not received the attention they deserve in most discussions of the relationship between the two treatises.




Aristotle's Practical Epistemology


Book Description

"Aristotle's Practical Epistemology presents a novel interpretation of Aristotle's influential account of practical wisdom (phronēsis) by situating the topic within his broader theory of ethical knowledge. Interpreters have long struggled to make sense of the disparate features Aristotle seems to attribute to practical wisdom, particularly its role in bringing about individual choices and actions that fulfil the demands of the virtues of character and its status as an intellectual excellence or virtue of thought that is the analogue, in the domain of ethical action, of theoretical wisdom (sophia) and craft (tekhnē), in their respective domains. The main contention of the book is that these features can be united when we see that phronēsis is a distinctively practical form of understanding. The book begins from the idea that Aristotle first establishes that we have ground-level ethical knowledge, described in the Nicomachean Ethics as ethical experience (empeiria), as a result of a decent upbringing, before identifying practical wisdom as a deeper form of understanding. This understanding involves a grasp of explanations, just as theoretical wisdom and craft do, yet it does not consist in a form of scientific or theoretical knowledge, which would be detached from practice. Rather, the understanding of the personal of practical wisdom involves grasping the goals that are characteristic of the several virtues of character - justice, courage, generosity, and the like - in such a way that they can be brought to bear on particular contexts of deliberation. That comprehensive perspective is why Aristotle thinks of practical wisdom as the same understanding as political wisdom"--




Aristotelica


Book Description

Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics was until recently treated as a poor cousin of the better-known Nicomachean Ethics - poor enough even to have to borrow its three central books (IV-VI) from the latter. The work has now emerged from its relative obscurity; many scholars, indeed, now claim - on the basis of what appear to be sound statistical arguments - that it is the Nicomachean Ethics that has to borrow its Books V-VII from the Eudemian. Studies on the Text of Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics is a companion volume to the critical edition of Aristotle's Ethica Evdemia in the Oxford Classical Text series, edited by Christopher Rowe. The companion text explains the principles of the critical edition, justifying individual readings in detail, and providing information about the Greek manuscripts. An appendix brings together full datasets for the four primary manuscripts that reveal not only the relationships between them, but also the idiosyncrasies of the three copyists involved, and the typical errors that tend to be found in the different manuscripts.




The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics


Book Description

The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethicsilluminates Aristotle’s ethics for both academics andstudents new to the work, with sixteen newly commissioned essays bydistinguished international scholars. The structure of the book mirrors the organization of theNichomachean Ethics itself. Discusses the human good, the general nature of virtue, thedistinctive characteristics of particular virtues, voluntariness,self-control, and pleasure.




The Meteorology of Posidonius


Book Description

This volume describes the meteorology of the Stoic philosopher Posidonius from the existing fragments, and discusses his relation to earlier thinkers on this subject, as well as the methods he used to obtain information about and to find explanations of meteorological phenomena. The book examines ancient meteorology, an aspect of ancient thought largely neglected by scholars. Hall produces a detailed account of how Posidonius and other ancient thinkers approached and attempted to explain meteorological phenomena – phenomena familiar to everyone, which could not be ignored in attempts to understand the natural world, but were difficult to explain satisfactorily and convincingly despite the efforts of important ancient thinkers. The volume explores particular classes of phenomena, including climatic events and geological processes, providing a comprehensive overview of Posidonius’ ideas on these topics. Concluding chapters allow for an assessment of Posidonius’ particular contribution to the field and his influence on later writers working on this subject. The Meteorology of Posidonius provides an important resource for students and scholars working on ancient philosophy and ancient science, particularly ancient meteorology.




The Theology of the Epinomis


Book Description

This is the first monograph devoted to the theology of the Epinomis. It argues that the work offers a revised Platonic conception of the divine better suited to the political-religious imperatives of the post-Classical age. The Epinomis is the ‘appendix’ to Plato’s Laws likely written by Plato’s student and disciple, Philip of Opus, who is believed to have taken care of the arrangement and posthumous editing of the Laws into twelve books. Through a comprehensive analysis of the Epinomis’ lexicon, and comparisons with the Corpus Platonicum, Vera Calchi offers readers an insight into the Epinomis’ philosophical and historical context, purpose, and legacy. Calchi argues that Philip effectively reshapes Plato’s metaphysical language into a theology premised on the immanence of God in the heavens. The resulting account of God’s providential activity in the cosmos, which offers a new way of thinking about morality and political order, can be regarded as a major step towards the cosmic theology of the Hellenistic period. The Theology of the Epinomis is suitable for students and scholars of ancient philosophy, particularly those working on the Epinomis and Platonic philosophy. It will also be of interest to those studying the history of religion and theology in antiquity.




Thales the Measurer


Book Description

Thales the Measurer offers a comprehensive and iconoclastic account of Thales of Miletus, considering the full extent of our evidence to build a new picture of his intellectual interests and activity. Thales is most commonly associated with the claim that ‘everything is water’, but closer examination of the evidence that we have suggests that he could not have said anything of the sort. His real interests, and his real innovations, lay in challenges of quantitative measurement, especially measurements related to the movement of the sun. In this he had no predecessors – and, for centuries to follow, no real successors either. This book is of interest for scholars in the history of philosophy, science, and life sciences. It is aimed especially at researchers in the field, but is also accessible to students and a more general readership.