Abstract

The subject of this study is Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and, more specifically, the way in which Aristotle introduces his readers to philosophy in this book. This dissertation seeks to shed new light on some of the old problems of the Ethics by taking seriously the political character of Aristotle's treatise, particularly insofar as this bears on his presentation of the philosophic life. ;Aristotle's introduction to philosophy in the Ethics is "two-edged"; throughout this work Aristotle addresses two distinct audiences: those gentlemen who are not and never will be philosophers and those gentlemen who are potential philosophers. Insofar as Aristotle addresses the former, he seeks to foster an openness to and respect for philosophy as a serious and noble way of life. However, Aristotle is also concerned to introduce the most gifted among his gentlemen readers to a way of life which cannot be simply harmonized with human excellence as it is understood and practiced by gentlemen. ;Chapter One discusses Aristotle's initial exalted presentation of moral virtue in Books I-VI, concentrating on the three peaks in that discussion--magnanimity, justice and prudence. Chapter Two examines Aristotle's "new beginning" in Book VII and Chapters Three and Four take up its major themes: continence/incontinence and pleasure. It is especially in Book VII that Aristotle reveals an essential and ineradicable dissonance between the life of the philosopher and that of gentlemen. This view of philosophy is partially eclipsed in Book X where Aristotle affirms the superiority of the contemplative activity but within the context of several arguments emphasizing the similar and even complementary character of the philosophic and gentlemanly ways of life. However, the full teaching of the Ethics concerning the relationship between these two ways of life emerges only if Aristotle's comparative discussion in Book X is understood--and therefore qualified--in light of his more radical presentation of the philosophic life in Book VII