What is ‘the best and most perfect virtue’?
Analysis 79 (3):387-393 (2019)
Abstract
We can clarify a certain difficulty with regard to the phrase ‘the best and most perfect virtue’ in Aristotle’s definition of the human good in Nicomachean Ethics I 7 if we make use of two related distinctions: Donnellan’s attributive–referential distinction and Kripke’s distinction between speaker’s reference and semantic reference. I suggest that Aristotle is using the phrase ‘the best and most perfect virtue’ attributively, not referentially, and further that even though the phrase may refer to a specific virtue (semantic reference), Aristotle is not using the phrase to refer to a specific virtue (speaker’s reference).Author's Profile
DOI
10.1093/analys/any064
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Citations of this work
A Monistic Conclusion to Aristotle’s Ergon Argument: the Human Good as the Best Achievement of a Human.Samuel H. Baker - 2021 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 103 (3):373-403.
References found in this work
Reference and definite descriptions.Keith S. Donnellan - 1966 - Philosophical Review 75 (3):281-304.
Speaker’s Reference and Semantic Reference.Saul A. Kripke - 1977 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 2 (1):255-276.
Aristotle on Eudaimonia.J. L. Ackrill - 1974 - In Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. 15-34.