The History of Philosophy

And what is that end which is desirable for its own sake? There is ‘very general agreement’ about this, Aristotle says; both ‘the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness’ (eudaimonia). (‘Happiness’ is an inadequate translation of this term: ‘well-being and well-doing’, ‘flourishing’, would be better.)

Aristotle’s views in practical philosophy, ethics and politics, are much plainer sailing than his metaphysics and psychology. They turn on the idea that the best kind of society is one whose individual members live the best kind of lives.

Aristotle’s account of change turns on the idea of potentiality (in Greek dunamis, from which we get the word ‘dynamic’). Substances have a potentiality either to be changed by something acting on them, which is ‘passive potential’, or to cause change in other substances, which is what animate things can do because they possess ‘active potential’.

The structure of propositions is analysed by Aristotle into two chief components, the subject and the predicate. The subject is that about which something true or false is asserted; the predicate is what is asserted about the subject.

So now we must understand the nature of virtue. There are two kinds of virtue, says Aristotle: those of mind, and those of character. The virtues of mind further subdivide into ‘practical wisdom’ and ‘theoretical wisdom’.

What is ‘the function of human beings’? Aristotle approaches an answer to this question by analogies. What makes a good flute-player? Skill at playing the flute. A good carpenter? One good at making things from wood. Each is ‘good’ because he performs his particular function, his work (ergon), well. To do his work well is the virtue or excellence (

a human being can acquire something analogous to a technical skill in knowing how to navigate between the vicious extremes between which the mean is the associated virtue.

Not only is the highest good not instrumental, because it is desired wholly for its own sake and is sufficient of itself, but it is the thing towards which all other instrumental goods strive, the ‘single final end’ of all activity. It is indeed happiness: but not as identified with any of the individual instrumental ends. Instead it will be what w

There are two ethical treatises bearing Aristotle’s name, the Eudemian Ethics and the Nicomachean Ethics.