A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) -/- Welcome -/- The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in several (...) works by Iamblichus of Chalcis, a third century A.D. neo-Pythagorean philosopher and educator. On the basis of a close study of Iamblichus' extensive use and excerption of Aristotle's Protrepticus, it is possible to reconstruct the backbone of the lost work, and then to flesh it out with the other surviving reports about the work from antiquity (for example in Alexander of Aphrodisias and other ancient commentators on Aristotle). It is also possible to identify several papyrus fragments of the work, and many references and literary allusions in later authors, especially Cicero, whose own lost dialogue Hortensius was a defense of philosophy modeleld on Aristotle's. (shrink)

Authenticates approximately 500 lines of Aristotle's lost work the Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy) contained in the circa third century AD work by Iamblichus of Chalcis entitled Protrepticus epi philosophian. Includes a complete English translation of the authenticated material.

Observing certain affinities with Plato’s Alcibiades I , this paper argues that a distinction between care (epimeleia ) of the soul and philosophy as its art (technê ) is reflected in Aristotle’s Protrepticus . On the basis of this distinction, it claims that two notions of philosophy can be distinguished in the Protrepticus : philosophy as epistêmê and philosophy as technê . The former has the function of contemplating the truth of nature, and Aristotle praises it as the natural telos (...) of human beings; whereas philosophy as technê helps nature to accomplish the end it designed for human beings. It emerges that according to Aristotle in the Protrepticus philosophy is the art of making oneself coincide with one’s nature as a human being. (shrink)

The book provides the student of philosophy primarily with a translation of a reasonable reconstruction of Aristotle's lost Protrepticus, an exhortation to the life of speculative philosophy. The book is introduced by a short discussion of the text's history and the problem of its reconstruction. Chroust furnishes an excellent bibliography, and his "Brief Comments" for each fragment give extensive cross references to other works in the Aristotelian corpus as well as to Plato's dialogues. Throughout, Chroust follows I. During's selection and (...) arrangement of the fragments, but the translation is his own.—R. B. C. (shrink)

In fragments of the lost Protrepticus, preserved in Iamblichus, Aristotle responds to Isocrates’ worries about the excessive demandingness of theoretical philosophy. Contrary to Isocrates, Aristotle holds that such philosophy is generally feasible for human beings. In defense of this claim, Aristotle offers the progress argument, which appeals to early Greek philosophers’ rapid success in attaining exact understanding. In this paper, I explore and evaluate this argument. After making clarificatory exegetical points, I examine the argument’s premises in light of pressing worries (...) that the argument reasonably faces in its immediate intellectual context, the dispute between Isocrates and Aristotle. I also relate the argument to modern concerns about philosophical progress. I contend that the argument withstands these worries, and thereby constitutes a reasonable Aristotelian response to the Isocratean challenge. (shrink)

In fragments from the Protrepticus, Aristotle offers three linked arguments for the view that philosophy is easy. According to an obvious normative worry, however, Aristotle also seems to think that the easiness of many activities has little to do with their choiceworthiness. Hence, if the Protrepticus seeks to exhort its audience to philosophize on the basis of philosophy’s easiness, then perhaps the Protrepticus provides the wrong sort of hortatory appeal. In response, I briefly situate Aristotle’s arguments in their dialectical context. (...) On this basis, I elucidate what sort of easiness Aristotle attributes to philosophy, and what difference Aristotle thinks philosophy’s easiness makes to its choiceworthiness. (shrink)

This paper has three major aims. The first is to defend the hypothesis that Aristotle’s lost work Protrepticus was a dialogue. The second is to explore the genres of ancient apotreptics, speeches that argue against doing philosophy and show the need for protreptic responses; our exploration is guided by Aristotle’s own analysis of apotreptics as well as protreptics in his Rhetorica. The third aim is to restore to the evidence base of Aristotle’s Protrepticus an apotreptic speech that argues against doing (...) Academic philosophy, evidence that was incorrectly excluded by Ingemar Düring in 1961. (shrink)

Fragments of Aristotle’s lost Protrepticus seem to offer inconsistent arguments for the value of contemplation (one argument appealing to contemplation's uselessness, the other appealing to its utility). In this paper, I argue that these arguments are mutually consistent. Further, I argue that, contrary to first appearances, Aristotle has resources in the Protrepticus for explaining how contemplation, even if it has divine objects, can nevertheless be useful in the way in which he claims, viz., for providing cognitive access to boundary markers (...) (horoi) of the human good. (shrink)

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Protrepticus ('Exhortation to Philosophy') by Iamblichus of Chalcis, the second book of his ten-volume introduction to Pythagorean philosophy, became the site of a series of important philological discoveries. It had long been known that Iamblichus (floruit late third and early fourth century CE), in composing the Protrepticus, had made extensive use of lengthy extracts from earlier thinkers, subjected to differing degrees of editorial modification.

I examine Plato's claim in the Republic that philosophers must rule in a good city and Aristotle's attitude towards this claim in his early, and little discussed, work, the Protrepticus. I argue that in the Republic, Plato's main reason for having philosophers rule is that they alone understand the role of philosophical knowledge in a good life and how to produce characters that love such knowledge. He does not think that philosophic knowledge is necessary for getting right the vast majority (...) of judgments about actions open to assessment as virtuous or vicious. I argue that in the Protrepticus Aristotle accepts similar reasons for the rule of philosophers, but goes beyond the Republic and seems to suggest that philosophic knowledge is required for getting right ethical and political judgments in general. I close by noting some connections with Aristotle's later views in the Eudemian Ethics, the Nicomachean Ethics, and the Politics. Footnotesa For comments on an earlier draft of this paper, I thank the other contributors to this volume, as well as Aditi Iyer and Rachana Kamtekar. (shrink)

The article presents the first comprehensive interpretation of the ergon argument in Aristotle’s Protrepticus. It further argues that Aristotle in this argument distinguishes the ergon of an entity from the ergon of its virtue thus presenting a complicated argumentative structure which is explicitly simplified in the Eudemian Ethics. Based on the latest attempts to reconstruct the Protrepticus, the article shows the relation of the ergon argument to its other versions in both Ethics. This account not only clarifies the relation of (...) the Protrepticus to Aristotle’s other ethical writings, it shows that Aristotle intends the argument as a transition between describing what human being does and what a good human being does well, namely a natural transition from the descriptive to the normative. (shrink)

Isocrates' Antidosis ("Defense against the Exchange") and Aristotle's Protrepticus ("Exhortation to Philosophy") were recovered from oblivion in the late nineteenth century. In this article we demonstrate that the two texts happen to be directly related. Aristotle's Protrepticus was a response, on behalf of the Academy, to Isocrates' criticism of the Academy and its theoretical preoccupations. -/- Contents: I. Introduction: Protrepticus, text and context II. Authentication of the Protrepticus of Aristotle III. Isocrates and philosophy in Athens in the 4th century IV. (...) The Protrepticus of Aristotle as a response to the Antidosis of Isocrates V. Conclusion: dueling conceptions of philosophy, still dueling. (shrink)

Aristotle’s dialogue Protrepticus is not only his earliest work of ethics but also the root of all his subsequent investigations into ethics. Here we explore the various ways Aristotle retained in memory the contents of the Protrepticus and redeployed them in the Eudemian Ethics, including the common books. Since Aristotle himself does not explicitly acknowledge the foundational significance of the Protrepticus to his later works, our exploration must proceed on the basis of our knowledge of the earlier work, which can (...) then related to comparable passages in the treatises. But the Protrepticus is a lost work, unlike the EE and the EN, in the sense that no medieval manuscripts of it have survived. And so it first needs to be reconstructed on the basis of the streams of reception that deposited information in surviving works by later ancient authors. We begin in part 1 by reviewing the surviving evidence of the Protrepticus before presenting our wider reconstruction and conception of the work as a dialogue in part 2. In part 3, we discuss ideas and arguments in the reconstructed dialogue that are retained and redeployed in the Eudemian Ethics, focussing on the account of intellectual virtues in EE v and the introduction and methodological framework in EE i-ii.1. (shrink)

We hope to show that the overall protreptic plan of Aristotle's ethical writings is based on the plan he used in his published work Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy), by highlighting those passages that primarily offer hortatory or protreptic motivation rather than dialectical argumentation and analysis, and by illustrating several ways that Aristotle adapts certain arguments and examples from his Protrepticus. In this essay we confine our attention to the books definitely attributable to the Nicomachean Ethics (thus excluding the common books).

English title: Gadamer's interpretation of the Aristotelian Protrepticus. -/- Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present and analyse the main hypotheses of Hans-Georg Gadamer in his 1928 essay Der aristotelische Protreptikos und die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtung der aristotelischen Ethik, emphasizing the Gadamerian reception of the notions of phrónēsis, hēdonḗ and, to a lesser extent, phýsis. It will be attempted to show that in this early work of Gadamer there is more than a methodological and interpretative debate regarding the Protrepticus (...) and the Aristotelian ethics. Lastly, the paper argues that it is possible to read in the main arguments of this early essay the first intellectual maturation of relevance of Gadamer, expressed in the form of a critical dialogue with his great masters (Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, Paul Friedländer), departing from the new interpretative possibilities that philology and phenomenology opened to his studies on the ethical-political philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The theoretical consequences of this early article would have both paved the way of Gadamer’s next theoretical interventions regarding Platonic political philosophy as well as for the future developments of philosophical hermeneutics. /// -/- Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es presentar y analizar las principales hipótesis de Hans-Georg Gadamer en su ensayo de 1928 Der aristotelische Protreptikos und die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtung der aristotelischen Ethik, poniendo énfasis en la recuperación gadameriana de las nociones de phrónēsis, hēdonḗ y, en menor medida, phýsis. Se intenta demostrar que en este trabajo temprano de Gadamer hay, en términos metodológicos e interpretativos, más que una discusión con Werner Jaeger con relación al Protréptico y a la ética aristotélica. Finalmente, este artículo sostiene que es posible leer en las principales argumentaciones del ensayo la primera maduración intelectual de relevancia de Gadamer, expresada en forma de diálogo crítico con sus grandes maestros (Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, Paul Friedländer), a partir de las nuevas posibilidades interpretativas que la filología y fenomenología le abrieron para el estudio de la filosofía ético-política de Platón y Aristóteles. Las consecuencias teóricas de este temprano artículo habrían signado tanto el camino de sus siguientes intervenciones teóricas en tono a la filosofía política platónica como también los futuros desarrollos de la hermenéutica filosófica. (shrink)

The article shows a difference in Aristotle’s ethical theory between the Protrepticus and Eudemian Ethics on the one hand and the Nicomachean Ethics on the other. The difference is explicated by means of the interpretation of the concept of ὅρος (standard) in these writings. The Protrepticus and Eudemian Ethics present ethical theory as an expertise which – together with other sciences – has a standard for decisions and actions taken from nature and the divine. The ethical theory presented in the (...) Nicomachean Ethics does not entail such a strong concept of ὅρος and it treats ethics in contrast to other, more exact, sciences. Finally, the article presents a tentative suggestion as to why it seems that the Nicomachean Ethics VI,1 raises hopes that it will provide a detailed account of ὅρος when in fact there is no discussion of it. (shrink)

Aristotle uses philosophia (and philosophos, philosophein, philosophôs, sumphilosophein, philosophêteon) in at least ten senses across his oeuvre, as this first study of every instance in his writings reveals. Irrespective of the specific approaches of its practitioners, philosophia may be, for example, an exercise of cleverness; or leisurely study; or the desire to know; or the pursuit of fundamental explanation; or a historically extended discipline. This variety allows us to go some way in reconstructing the complex attitude Aristotle had toward a (...) culturally specific practice in which he located himself and soon helped develop into a specialized discipline. Another benefit is that it allows us to clarify the argumentative method in his Protrepticus, which depends on several senses of philosophia. It also puts up obstacles to determining whether, for example, Aristotle believes philosophia is an epistêmê. (shrink)

This paper reassesses the Cooper-Hadot debate surrounding how students are converted to philosophy as a way of life (section 1) through engagement with philosophical protreptics. In section 2, the paper identifies the core “argument from finality” in philosophical protreptics seeking to convert non-philosophers to philosophy, starting from the universal human interest in securing eudaimonia. In line with Cooper, this argument seeks to persuade prospective students on rational grounds, so that their choice to philosophise would be rationally motivated. In section 3.1, (...) the paper illustrates how in Plato's Euthydemus (a) the choice to undertake philosophy is rationally justified by Socrates, using the eudaimonistic argument from finality. In section 3.2, by recourse to Aristotle's Protrepticus, the paper shows how the protreptic texts also compared philosophy to other intellectual pursuits, notably rhetoric, so as to recommend philosophy specifically for delivering a directive wisdom concerning how to live. (shrink)

In the Organon Aristotle describes some deductive schemata in which inconsistencies do not entail the trivialization of the logical theory involved. This thesis is corroborated by three different theoretical topics by him discussed, which are presented in this paper. We analyse inference schema used by Aristotle in the Protrepticus and the method of indirect demonstration for categorical syllogisms. Both methods exemplify as Aristotle employs classical reductio ad absurdum strategies. Following, we discuss valid syllogisms from opposite premises (contrary and contradictory) studied (...) by the Stagerian in the Analytica Priora (B15). According to him, the following syllogisms are valid from opposite premises, in which small Latin letters stand for terms such as subject and predicate, and capital Latin letters stand for the categorical propositions such as in the traditional notation: (i) in the second figure, Eba,Aba ` Eaa (Cesare), Aba, Eba ` Eaa (Camestres), Eba, I ba ` Oaa (Festino), and Aba,Oba ` Oaa (Baroco); (ii) in the third one, Eab,Aab ` Oaa (Felapton), Oab,Aab ` Oaa (Bocardo) and Eab, Iab ` Oaa (Ferison). Finally, we discuss the passage from the Analytica Posteriora (A11) in which Aristotle states that the Principle of Non-Contradiction is not generally presupposed in all demonstrations (scientific syllogisms), but only in those in which the conclusion must be proved from the Principle; the Stagerian states that if a syllogism of the first figure has the major term consistent, the other terms of the demonstration can be each one separately inconsistent. These results allow us to propose an interpretation of his deductive theory as a broad sense paraconsistent theory. Firstly, we proceed to a hermeneutical analysis, evaluating its logical significance and the interplay of the results with some other points of Aristotle’s philosophy. Secondly, we point to a logical interpretation of the Aristotelian syllogisms from opposite premises in the antilogisms method proposed by Christine Ladd-Franklin in 1883, and we also present a logical treatment of the Aristotelian demonstration with inconsistent material in the paraconsistent logics Cn, 1 _ n _!, introduced by da Costa in 1963. These two issues seem having not yet been analysed in detail in the literature. (shrink)

Nature as the source of moral ordinance in Aristotle received doubt with the publication of J. Donald Monan’s Moral Knowledge and Its Methodology in Aristotle. Arguing for an earlier versus later Aristotle, he opined for the φρόνιμος as Aristotle’s final word on the criterion for ethical right. “Normative Nature and the Moral Good in the Aristotelian Ethics” argues exegetically and on Aristotelian grounds the inaccuracy of such a view. As early as the Protrepticus, Nature as the guide to proper conduct (...) appears, a view unchanged in the later, mature Ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle on the Etruscan Robbers:A Core Text of "Aristotelian Dualism"Abraham P. Bos (bio)1. A Non-Platonic Dualism in Aristotle's Lost WorksThe Soul of a Mortal on Earth is not "At Home," says Aristotle in his dialogue Eudemus. The story about the mantic dream of the expatriate Eudemus and his expectation that he "will return home"1 is well known. It makes clear that, in Aristotle's view, the death of the human (...) individual should be interpreted as the soul's "return to its homeland."2 This is strongly suggested by "the revelation of Silenus" which Plutarch (first century CE) passes down in a literal quotation from the Eudemus.3 It contains the theme of human life on earth as a punishment (timôria). The motif of human life as a punishment is central to two texts by Iamblichus (250-325 CE) and Augustine (354-430 CE), which are usually connected with Aristotle's Protrepticus.4 I want to examine these texts in more detail here. My intention in the following exposition is to propose a non-Platonistic explanation of these texts. In my opinion they have wrongly been read as testimonies of a "Platonistic" phase in Aristotle. The existence of such a phase in Aristotle's development has never been proved. Besides, the interpretation of these texts suffered from the fact that [End Page 289] Aristotle's De anima had also been explained in an unhistorical way since Alexander of Aphrodisias in the third century CE.2. Revising the Modern View of AristotleWe have to make a different assessment of Aristotle's contribution to the discussion on the soul compared with what was current until recently. For after W. Jaeger5 and F. Nuyens6, modern scholars became inclined to leave Aristotle's dialogues out of consideration, because they regarded them as "Platonizing." But a fundamental correction is necessary on this point.7 Jaeger led modern Aristotle studies in a wrong direction by assuming a sharp distinction between Aristotle's lost dialogue Eudemus and his surviving treatise De anima. Although nowadays Jaeger's theory for many scholars is something of a dead horse, nevertheless a real alternative has not been proposed. We still have to get rid of the consequences of the Jaegerian paradigm and develop a unitary interpretation of Aristotle's entire oeuvre. Even more consistently than O. Gigon has already done,8 we should assume that Aristotle's lost works and his surviving biological writings and De anima did not propose two (or more) different psychological theories but one and the same. Because this one Aristotelian psychology was a non-Platonistic but nevertheless dualistic psychology, we have much more reason than could be recognized in the past to assume Aristotelian influence on this discussion.On one essential issue Aristotle disagreed with his teacher Plato: the soul,9 more particularly the indissoluble bond of the soul with a body. Aristotle radically and [End Page 290] consistently argued for the distinction between nous and psychè.10 For Aristotle the nous-in-act is always wholly incorporeal. But he considered it characteristic of the soul that it cannot carry out its functions "without body."11However, the crucial question is: what body does Aristotle mean when he says that the soul cannot perform its specific activities "without body"? Jaeger and Nuyens were wholly convinced that Aristotle was referring to the visible, external body of a human being, animal, or plant. Hence they saw a yawning gap between Aristotle's views in De anima and his position in the dialogue the Eudemus. In the Eudemus Aristotle had clearly argued that the soul can perform its own functions very well, indeed better, without the galling and oppressive visible body.12 But in De anima II 1, in his famous definition of "the soul," Aristotle says that the soul is inextricably bound up with a "sôma physikon organikon."13 Jaeger and Nuyens, following an almost unanimous tradition since Alexander of Aphrodisias in the third century CE, interpreted this sentence in the sense that the soul is the formal principle or entelechy of an "organic body" or a "natural body equipped with organs," i.e., the visible body... (shrink)

This volume consists of fourteen essays in honor of Daniel Devereux on the themes of love, friendship, and wisdom in Plato, Aristotle, and the Epicureans. Philia (friendship) and eros (love) are topics of major philosophical interest in ancient Greek philosophy. They are also topics of growing interest and importance in contemporary philosophy, much of which is inspired by ancient discussions. Philosophy is itself, of course, a special sort of love, viz. the love of wisdom. Loving in the right way is (...) very closely connected to doing philosophy, cultivating wisdom, and living well. The first nine essays run the gamut of Plato's philosophical career. They include discussions of Plato's Alcibiades, Euthydemus, Gorgias, Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Symposium; and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Protrepticus and Magna Moralia. It ends with a discussion of Epicurean friendship. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente artículo es analizar la noción de noûs en el Protréptico de Aristóteles. Para ello, me centraré en los fragmentos 24, 28, 65 y 110. Mediante el examen del primero de ellos argumentaré que el noûs es una facultad cuya meta es el conocimiento de los objetos inteligibles. A través del análisis de los fragmentos 28 y 65 intentaré demostrar que el ejercicio de esta facultad no es una actividad más entre otras, sino la distintiva del hombre, (...) su función propia, siendo, por esto mismo, aquello de lo cual depende su felicidad. Finalmente, por medio del fragmento 110, intentaré mostrar cómo, pese a ser lo divino en el hombre, el noûs constituye su naturaleza específica, aquello que lo distingue de los demás seres, incluso de los dioses. The aim of this article is to analyze the notion of noûs in Aristotle's Protrepticus. For this, I will focus on fragments 24, 28, 65 and 110. By examining fragment 24, I argue that noûs is a faculty whose goal is the knowledge of intelligible objects. Through the analysis of fragments 28 and 65, I try to show that the exercise of this faculty is not only one activity among others, but that it is distinctive of human beings, their own function, and for this reason, that on which their happiness depends. Finally, by means of fragment 110, I try to demonstrate why, despite the fact the noûs accounts for the divine in man, it constitutes his specific nature, that which not only sets him apart from other beings, but also from gods. (shrink)

Galen's æuvre presents a remarkably varied body of texts–varied in subject matter, style, and didactic purpose. Logical tracts sit alongside tomes of drug–lore; handbooks of dietetics alongside anatomical investigations; treatises of physiology alongside ethical opuscula. These differences in type have received some, though as yet insufficient, scholarly attention. Mario Vegetti demonstrated the coexistence of two ‘profili’ or images of the art of medicine: Galen presents the art as an Aristotelian deductive science, on the one hand, and as a technician's craft, (...) on the other. The former image, offering an ambitious elevation of the doctor's cultural status, has medicine as a philosophical episteme analogous to the mathematical sciences, exercised above all to provide causal accounts and logical demonstrations, and centred on the knowledge of anatomy. The second image is that of the clinician, concerned with the body in its pathological manifestations and using as its prime model the ‘pre-anatomical’ theory of the humours. And the content of the treatises shifts in relation to this dual image: ‘profilo alto’ and ‘profilo basso’ are reflected in different types of work. Polemical writings such as the Protrepticus, as well as the great treatises of anatomy and physiology, De usu partium and De naturalibus facultatibus, present medicine in the former light, while works like De temperamentis or Quod animi mores base themselves on humoral pathology and accord with the earlier, artisan-like image. (shrink)

This chapter continues the discussion of Cambiano's on A 1, since Aristotle's chapters A 1-2 are evidently a continuous introduction. The problem of what exactly it is an introduction to, i.e. the perennial question of the unity and diversity of Aristotle's metaphysical treatises, is considered here, although necessarily only in outline. It is also argued that, contrary to some scholarly opinions, this introduction should not be regarded as a protreptic to philosophy as such, i.e. as belonging to the genre of (...) Aristotle's Protrepticus. Whereas that genre aims to promote the pursuit of sophia as a way of life, hence as ultimately an ethical choice or determination of the highest human good, the present text is meant to establish the nature of the highest or most paradigmatic form of cognition as such, leaving aside the question of ranking this in relation to other possible candidates for the highest good overall. (shrink)

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the works in which Ausonius of Bordeaux and Libanius of Antioch, writing within a few years of each other, recall their long and varied careers is that there is so little resemblance between them; the impressions given by these experienced and successful teachers could hardly be more disparate. The reader of Ausonius finds in his Protrepticus a familiar enough picture of the terrors of the schoolroom; his Professores offer at first sight a series of (...) bland commemorations apparently deficient in the interesting information which might be expected from such an archive. Libanius' many volumes, on the other hand, compared where appropriate with the Vitae Sophistarum of Eunapius, present a situation which is well summarised by the following sentences from Walden's work The Universities of Ancient Greece : ‘There was, among the sophists of the fourth century…little, if any, of that spirit of brotherhood… that usually exists in a community of scholars at the present day. Instead there were jealousy, spite and often unrelenting hatred’. This striking divergence between Ausonius and his Eastern counterparts is unlikely to reflect a basic difference between East and West, or between Latin- and Greek-speaking milieux; the complaints of Augustine about his problems in Africa and Rome warn against such a simple answer. When one adds the evidence provided seven centuries later by the Frenchman Peter Abelard, whose plaintive Historia Calamitatum — an account of the disasters he suffered, not those which he caused — is remarkably similar to the prickly self-justification of Libanius in its account of bitter scheming and almost military manoeuvres in the educational world, one is forced to consider whether the evidence of Ausonius is not a serious anomaly, and to seek an explanation. (shrink)

abstract: Aristotle claims that cross-sense comparisons—that is, comparisons with respect to homonymous predicates—are impossible. At the same time, he uses such comparisons in arguments that are fundamental to his philosophical project, such as when he claims that happiness is better than instrumental goods. In this paper, I discuss how this tension arises, and I explain why the cross-sense comparisons Aristotle uses are nevertheless possible. Using evidence from the Protrepticus, I claim Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of comparisons: comparisons of degrees of (...) a quality, and comparisons of the priority with which a quality applies. Only the latter admits of some cross-sense comparisons. (shrink)

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the first and arguably most important treatise on ethics in Western philosophy. It remains to this day a compelling reflection on the best sort of human life and continues to inspire contemporary thought and debate. This Cambridge Companion includes twenty essays by leading scholars of Aristotle and ancient philosophy that cover the major issues of this text. The essays in this volume shed light on Aristotle's rigorous and challenging thinking on questions such as: can there be (...) a practical science of ethics? What is happiness? Are we responsible for our character? How does moral virtue relate to good thinking? Can we act against our reasoned choice? What is friendship? Is the contemplative life the highest kind of life? Covering all sections of the Nicomachean Ethics and selected topics in Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics and Protrepticus, this volume offers the reader a solid foundation in Aristotle's ethical philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I will reconsider the doxographical text about Aristotle in Clement of Alexandria's Protrepticus 5.66.4: οδν δ ομαι χαλεπν νταθα γενμενος κα τν κ το Περιπτου μνησθναι· κα γε τς αρσεως πατρ, τν λων ο νοσας τν πατρα, τν καλομενον ‘πατον’ ψυχν εναι το πντος οεται· τουτστι το κσμου τν ψυχν θεν πολαμβνων ατς ατ περιπερεται. γρ τοι μχρι τς σελνης ατς διορζων τν πρνοιαν, πειτα τν κσμον θεν γομενος περιτρπεται, τν μοιρον θεο θεν δογματζων.