identify and explain the nichomachean ethics

I am aware that the study of God, metaphysics, and the principles of nature have a higher claim upon us, as knowledge, than any practical discipline. Moreover, the subject matter of the Nicomachean Ethics cannot be rivaled for its depth and importance. In brief, we’d see in Aristotle perhaps the best model for our own thought and writing, just as he was for St.

Also, that he wields evidence of various sorts in appropriate ways - what we’d be disposed to say, what others who have good judgment typically think, what is obvious in our experience, how nature typically acts, what would be analogous in this domain to what holds in other domains. Also, that Aristotle’s judgment is unfailingly sober, sound, and truthful. Through such a study, one discovers that just about every paragraph in the Nicomachean Ethics is well-crafted - therefore, it cannot consist of ‘lecture notes,’ as has been claimed - with a tremendous economy of expression, and also of argument, in the sense that Aristotle typically supplies solely the premises, and no more, to derive the conclusion he wants. If the original Greek can be consulted, all the better, as no translation is perfect and most are misleading to some degree when refined philosophical points are in play. Thomas, although we need not alway agree with St.

These are placed in their context by the method of divisio textus practiced so well by St. By ‘careful study’ I mean a line-by-line examination of arguments and claims, placed in their context. There is no book of classical literature which repays careful study as much as the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle.

Professor, Catholic University of America

Identify and explain the nichomachean ethics