The Ways Of Aristotle

Preface 9 Part 1 Aristotle, Social Research, and Action Research 13 1. Introduction -- The Challenge of Phrónêsis 15 1.1 Three Kinds of General Theory 25 1.2 Aristotle and Critical Action Research 33 2. Action Research Approaching Phrónêsis 39 2.1 A Philosopher Defending Action Research 40 2.2 Making Social Science Matter 43 2.3 Abandoning Techniques 45 Part 2 Reading Aristotle -- Limits and Possibilities for Phrónêsis 49 3. Virtues -- Intellectual and Ethical 53 3.1 Particulars of Ethical Virtues 59 4. Phrónêsis and the Other Intellectual Virtues 65 4.1 Theoretical Knowledge, and Knowledge about Things We Influence 68 4.1.1 Overlaps and Intermeshes 74 4.2 Phrónêsis as an Intellectual Virtue 77 4.2.1 Excursus: Knowledge Forms and Ways of Knowing in Aristotle 79 4.2.1.1 Praxis, Poiêsis, Khrêsis, Páthos And the Various Forms of the Epistêmai 81 4.2.1.2 Theoretical and Practical Truth 94 4.2 (Continued) Phrónêsis as an Intellectual Virtue 97 4.3 Phrónêsis and Rhetoric, Phrónêsis and Practical Syllogisms 105 4.3.1 The relationship to rhetoric 106 4.3.2 The relationship to practical syllogisms 111 5. Phrónêsis on Means and Ends, Phrónêsis and General Knowledge 115 5.1 Means and Ends, and Kinds of Causes 115 5.1.1 Poiêsis Makes Things, Praxis Makes Perfect 122 5.1.2 "Professional" Deliberations and Deductions 132 5.2 Knowledge, General and Particular 138 5.2.1 General Knowledge, Appropriate Knowledge, Knowledge in Action 138 5.2.2 Héxis (Habitus), and Empeiria (Experience) 149 5.2.3 Knowing Particulars 157 5.2.3.1 By What? 158 5.2.3.2 How? 160 5.2.3.3 Preconditions for a Universally Flexible Consideration 165 6. Developing and Defining Virtue 181 6.1 Developing Virtue 182 6.1.1 Epistêmê and Virtue through the Formation of Habit, Once More 186 6.1.2 What "Means" Means 194 6.1.3 Practical Development with a Hinge to It, the Question of Standards Again 196 6.2 Defining Virtue 205 6.2.1 Nóêsis as Dialogue, or, the Reason Why Aristotle Insists on Letting Phrónêsis Deliberate about Means Only 212 6.2.1.1 The Unfolded Know-How of Nous 214 6.2.1.2 The Topica and the Enfolded Habitus of Dialectics 217 6.2.1.3 The Philosopher, the Dialectician, and Experience 224 6.2.1.3.1 Dialogical Peculiarities 231 6.2.1.3.2 Dialogue and Experience 237 6.2.1.3.3 Basic Principle, Beginning, Medium, and End 251 6.2.1.4 Ways of Learning 256 6.2.1.5 Self-Evident First Principles? 263 6.2.1.6 Praxis1, and Praxis2 267 6.2.2 The Ethical Works do not Deliberate about Means, They Develop and Define Ends 271 6.2.3 Epistêmê, Virtue, and Phrónêsis Defined 281 6.3 Who Develops and Defines? The Art and Practice of Architectonics 292 7. Eudaimonia and Wisdom as "The Highest Practical Good"; Aristotelian Phron-Ethics, Theor-Ethics, and the Way of the Intellectual Commons 299 7.1 Kinds of Theory, Kinds of Practice 301 7.2 Ethics and Politics as Methodological Guidelines for Autonomous Practitioners 313 7.2.1 The Laws of Virtue 316 7.2.2 Tékhnê and Phrónêsis - At the Parting of the Ways 324 7.3 The Wisdom of the Commons - Common Wisdom 327 7.3.1 Tà Koiná - The Commons 333 7.3.2 The Common Skholê 340 7.4 Theor-Ethics and Primary Friendship 342 7.4.1 The Noetic "I" and the Psychological "Me" 349 7.4.2 Theorethical Interventions? 359 7.5 The Way of Theor-Ethics 361 7.5.1 Ethical Excellence - Settling with the Best "for Us", i.e. for the Second Best "Absolutely" 371 7.6 The Ways of Politics - Continuous Learning in Common 385 7.6.1 Community: What Are the Things Common? 387 7.6.2 Oikos, Pólis, and Constitutions 392 7.6.3 Developing Concord - The Ethico-Political Role of Dialogical Gatherings 399 7.6.4 Different Concepts of Politics 413 7.6.5 Unity and Diversity in the Pólis 422 7.6.6 The Koinópolis as Panarchy Aristocracy Suspended and Transcended 434 7.6.7 Religious Politics? 447 Part 3 Aristotelian Action Research - Wisdom and Eudaimonia Transposed, Social Research Transformed 455 8. Neo-Epistemic, Dialogical Action Research 459 9. From Oikos to Pólis, and Beyond 467 10. Aristotle, Marx, and Modern Work Life 479 11. Aristotle Suspended 493 12. Epilogue 503 References 509 Appendix 525 Index 527

From renowned classicist Edith Hall, ARISTOTLE'S WAY is an examination of one of history's greatest philosophers, showing us how to lead happy, fulfilled, and meaningful lives Aristotle was the first philosopher to inquire into subjective happiness, and he understood its essence better and more clearly than anyone since. According to Aristotle, happiness is not about well-being, but instead a lasting state of contentment, which should be the ultimate goal of human life. We become happy through finding a purpose, realizing our potential, and modifying our behavior to become the best version of ourselves. With these objectives in mind, Aristotle developed a humane program for becoming a happy person, which has stood the test of time, comprising much of what today we associate with the good life: meaning, creativity, and positivity. Most importantly, Aristotle understood happiness as available to the vast majority us, but only, crucially, if we decide to apply ourselves to its creation--and he led by example. As Hall writes, "If you believe that the goal of human life is to maximize happiness, then you are a budding Aristotelian." In expert yet vibrant modern language, Hall lays out the crux of Aristotle's thinking, mixing affecting autobiographical anecdotes with a deep wealth of classical learning. For Hall, whose own life has been greatly improved by her understanding of Aristotle, this is an intensely personal subject. She distills his ancient wisdom into ten practical and universal lessons to help us confront life's difficult and crucial moments, summarizing a lifetime of the most rarefied and brilliant scholarship.

Desire is a central concept in Aristotle's ethical and psychological works, but he does not provide us with a systematic treatment of the notion itself. This book reconstructs the account of desire latent in his various scattered remarks on the subject and analyses its role in his moral psychology. Topics include: the range of states that Aristotle counts as desires (orexeis); objects of desire (orekta) and the relation between desires and envisaging prospects; desire and the good; Aristotle's three species of desire: epithumia (pleasure-based desire), thumos (retaliatory desire) and boulêsis (good-based desire - in a narrower notion of 'good' than that which connects desire more generally to the good); Aristotle's division of desires into rational and non-rational; Aristotle and some current views on desire; and the role of desire in Aristotle's moral psychology. The book will be of relevance to anyone interested in Aristotle's ethics or psychology.

Adler instructs the world in the "uncommon common sense" of Aristotelian logic, presenting Aristotle's understandings in a current, delightfully lucid way. Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C.) taught logic to Alexander the Great and, by virtue of his philosophical works, to every philosopher since, from Marcus Aurelius, to Thomas Aquinas, to Mortimer J. Adler. Now Adler instructs the world in the "uncommon common sense" of Aristotelian logic, presenting Aristotle's understandings in a current, delightfully lucid way. He brings Aristotle's work to an everyday level. By encouraging readers to think philosophically, Adler offers us a unique path to personal insights and understanding of intangibles, such as the difference between wants and needs, the proper way to pursue happiness, and the right plan for a good life.

Provides the first full study of Aristotle's notion of evil and sheds light on its content, potential, and influence.

This is a major reinterpretation of ancient philosophy that recovers the long Greek and Roman tradition of philosophy as a complete way of life--and not simply an intellectual discipline. Distinguished philosopher John Cooper traces how, for many ancient thinkers, philosophy was not just to be studied or even used to solve particular practical problems. Rather, philosophy--not just ethics but even logic and physical theory--was literally to be lived. Yet there was great disagreement about how to live philosophically: philosophy was not one but many, mutually opposed, ways of life. Examining this tradition from its establishment by Socrates in the fifth century BCE through Plotinus in the third century CE and the eclipse of pagan philosophy by Christianity, Pursuits of Wisdom examines six central philosophies of living--Socratic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean, Skeptic, and the Platonist life of late antiquity. The book describes the shared assumptions that allowed these thinkers to conceive of their philosophies as ways of life, as well as the distinctive ideas that led them to widely different conclusions about the best human life. Clearing up many common misperceptions and simplifications, Cooper explains in detail the Socratic devotion to philosophical discussion about human nature, human life, and human good; the Aristotelian focus on the true place of humans within the total system of the natural world; the Stoic commitment to dutifully accepting Zeus's plans; the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure through tranquil activities that exercise perception, thought, and feeling; the Skeptical eschewal of all critical reasoning in forming their beliefs; and, finally, the late Platonist emphasis on spiritual concerns and the eternal realm of Being. Pursuits of Wisdom is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding what the great philosophers of antiquity thought was the true purpose of philosophy--and of life.

Aristotle initiated the systematic investigation of perception, the emotions, memory, desire and action, developing his own account of these phenomena and their interconnection. The Undivided Self aims to gain a philosophical understanding of his views and to examine how far they withstand critical scrutiny. Aristotle's account, it is argued, constitutes a philosophically live alternative to conventional post-Cartesian thinking about psychological phenomena and their place in a material world. Charles offers a way to dissolve, rather than solve, the mind-body problem we have inherited.

Aristotle is considered by many to be the founder of 'faculty psychology'—the attempt to explain a variety of psychological phenomena by reference to a few inborn capacities. In The Powers of Aristotle's Soul, Thomas Kjeller Johansen investigates his main work on psychology, the De Anima, from this perspective. He shows how Aristotle conceives of the soul's capacities and how he uses them to account for the souls of living beings. Johansen offers an original account of how Aristotle defines the capacities in relation to their activities and proper objects, and considers the relationship of the body to the definition of the soul's capacities. Against the background of Aristotle's theory of science, Johansen argues that the capacities of the soul serve as causal principles in the explanation of the various life forms. He develops detailed readings of Aristotle's treatment of nutrition, perception, and intellect, which show the soul's various roles as formal, final and efficient causes, and argues that the so-called 'agent' intellect falls outside the scope of Aristotle's natural scientific approach to the soul. Other psychological activities, various kinds of perception (including 'perceiving that we perceive'), memory, imagination, are accounted for in their explanatory dependency on the basic capacities. The ability to move spatially is similarly explained as derivative from the perceptual or intellectual capacities. Johansen claims that these capacities together with the nutritive may be understood as 'parts' of the soul, as they are basic to the definition and explanation of the various kinds of soul. Finally, he considers how the account of the capacities in the De Anima is adopted and adapted in Aristotle's biological and minor psychological works.

This is a 1988 philosophical introduction to Aristotle, and Professor Lear starts where Aristotle himself starts. The first sentence of the Metaphysics states that all human beings by their nature desire to know. But what is it for us to be animated by this desire in this world? What is it for a creature to have a nature; what is our human nature; what must the world be like to be intelligible; and what must we be like to understand it systematically? Through a consideration of these questions Professor Lear introduces us to the essence of Aristotle's philosophy and guides us through the central Aristotelian texts - selected from the Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics and from the biological and logical works. The book is written in a direct, lucid style which engages the reader with the themes in an active, participatory manner.