The central subject of Aristotle's ethics is happiness or living well. Most people in his day (as in ours), eager to enjoy life, impressed by worldly success, and fearful of serious loss, believed that happiness depends mainly on fortune in achieving prosperity and avoiding adversity. Aristotle, however, argues that virtuous conduct is the governing factor in living well and attaining happiness. While admitting that neither the blessings not the afflictions of fortune are unimportant, he maintains that the virtuous find life (...) more satisfying than other people do and, with only modest good fortune, they lead happy, enjoyable lives. Combining philological precision with philosophical analysis, the author reconstructs Aristotle's defense of these bold claims. By examining how Aristotle develops his position in response to the prevailing hopes and anxieties of his age, the author shows why Aristotle considers happiness important for ethics and why he thinks it necessary to revise popular and traditional views. Paying close attention throughout to the internalist dimension of Aristotle's approach - his emphasis on how the virtuous view their own lives and actions - the author advances new interpretations of Aristotle's accounts of several major virtues, including temperance, courage, liberality, and 'greatness of soul'. This work sets Aristotle in the broader cultural context of his time, tracing his attemps to accommodate and amend rival views. The author examines literary and historical sources as well as philosophical texts, showing the inherited values and traditional ideals that inform Aristotle's discussions and provide some of the basis for his conclusions. Presupposing no knowledge of Greek or specialized philosophical terminology, the book is designed to be accessible to all students of philosophy or classical antiquity. All quotations from ancient texts are translated. (shrink)

Volume 13 in the RUSCH series continues work already begun on the School of Aristotle. Volume 9 featured Demetrius of Phalerum, Volume 10, Dicaearchus of Messana, Volume 11, Eudemus of Rhodes, and Volume 12, both Lyco of Troas and Hieronymus of Rhodes. Now Volume 13 turns our attention to Aristo of Iulis on Ceos, who was active in the last quarter of the third century BCE. Almost certainly he was Lyco's successor as head of the Peripatetic School. In antiquity, Aristo (...) was confused with the like-named Stoic philosopher from Chios, so that several works were claimed for both philosophers. Among these disputed works, those with Peripatetic antecedents, like Exhortations and Erotic Dissertations, are plausibly assigned to Aristo of Ceos. Other works attributed to the Peripatetic are Lyco, On Old Age, and Relieving Arrogance. Whether part of the last-named work or a separate treatise, Aristo's descriptions of persons exhibiting inconsiderateness, self-will, and other unattractive traits relate closely to the Characters of Theophrastus. In addition, Aristo wrote biographies of Heraclitus, Socrates, and Epicurus. We may be sure that he did the same for the leaders of the Peripatos, whose wills he seems to have preserved within the biographies. The volume gives pride of place to Peter Stork's new edition of the fragments of Aristo of Ceos. The edition includes a translation on facing pages. There are also notes on the Greek and Latin texts and substantive notes that accompany the translation. This edition will replace that of Fritz Wehrli, which was made over half a century ago and published without translation. (shrink)

Clearchus of Soloi, a junior colleague of Aristotle's, devoted a work in at least two books to the topic of eros. Like most of what survives from his once substantial corpus, the remains of this work display wide learning, especially in history and literature, and a moralizing orientation. The work did not circulate widely; all that survives is a handful of passages in Athenaeus (frs. 21-35 Wehrli), most very brief. That is far too little to permit any reconstruction of its (...) overall structure or scope. But some of its interests and themes can be recovered. Clearchus discussed love, especially between the sexes, with more sympathy and subtlety than previous scholarship has recognized. His work on eros also appears to have been largely in tune with trends in early Hellenistic poetry. (shrink)