Aristotle's Ethics Retranslated (original) (raw)

2004, Philosophical Quarterly

AI-generated Abstract

This analysis focuses on the challenges of translating Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, specifically addressing the limitations of traditional translations that often carry misleading connotations due to their historical context. Broadie and Rowe present fresh renderings of key terms that enhance the accessibility of Aristotle's ethical theory for contemporary audiences. The critique also engages with the interpretation of happiness within Aristotle's framework, exploring the tension between the identification of happiness with excellent rational activity and the necessity for external goods.

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A short note on Aristotle's definition of character virtue (NE 1106b36-1107a2)

Journal of Ancient Philosophy, 2009

This paper discusses some issues concerning the definition of character virtue in Nicomachean Ethics 1106b36-1107a2. It is reasonable to say that a definition must give a complete enumeration of the relevant features of its definiendum, and the definition of character virtue seems to fail at fulfilling this task. One might be tempted to infer that this definition is intended by Aristotle as a mere preliminary account that should be replaced by a more precise one. However, I argue that the definition of character virtue, once considered in the light of its context, is far from being an incomplete and provisional account: it rather introduces coherently the same notion of character virtue that Aristotle assumes in other texts (as in Nicomachean Ethics VI 13).

Confronting Aristotle's Ethics (review)

Philosophy and Rhetoric, 2008

Readers of this journal are likely to be familiar with Eugene Garver's 1994 Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character. Th e main claim advanced in that important book is that for Aristotle rhetoric is an art because it has internal norms and ends. From this, it follows that although any red-blooded rhetor probably does aim at winning a case, advancing a political career, getting rich, and other external goals, what is artful in rhetorical craft (technikos), and hence expressive of the distinctive human capacity for human rationality, is timely argumentation that binds premises to actionable conclusions through displays of good character and apt emotional response. Th is ordered combination of ethos, pathos, and logos recruits, or if you will interpellates, an audience that is uniquely capable of judging cases, proposals, and performances reasonably. In this way Aristotle defends rhetoric as a genuine art-an intellectual virtue-against Plato's Gorgias. To arrive at this conclusion Garver draws more widely on other parts of the Aristotelian corpus than rhetorical scholars normally do. In particular, he contrasts external with internal ends by using Aristotle's metaphysical distinction between movements, processes, or behaviors (kineseis), of which the world is chock-full, and actualizations or realizations (energeiai) of capacities, which are more rare. Because rhetorical art, qua artful, is an actualization, Garver infers that it is a "practical art" and so brushes up closely against ethical-political praxis.

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Aristotle, Virtue and the Mean Richard Bosley, Roger A. Shiner, and Janet D. Sisson, editors Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science, 25, 4 (December 1995) Edmonton: Academic Printing and Publishing, 1996, xxi + 217 pp., 59.95,59.95, 59.95,21.95 paper

Dialogue, 1999