Contemplating Contemplation

Theoria, Praxis, and Energeia in Aristotle's Ethics

by Peter Saint-Andre

This paper is a work in progress, not to be cited as definitive in any way. Last updated: 2025-04-18.

The role of θεωρία (commonly translated as contemplation) in Aristotle's ethical theory has long been a matter of keen dispute. In this paper I compare and contrast θεωρία with πρᾶξις and connect both concepts with ἐνέργεια to cast θεωρία in a new light.

I. Fields of Meaning

As Aryeh Kosman observes in a discussion of ἐνέργεια [note], a word from ancient Greek does not necessarily map exactly to a word in modern English; each word is used to cover a field of meaning, and the fields might not overlap. As I see it, this is definitely true with the mapping of θεωρία onto contemplation.

First, although translation of Greek θεωρία into Latin contemplatio was reasonable in the context of the Roman reception of Greek philosophy over 2000 years ago, since then the meaning of Latin contemplatio and then French/English contemplation has drifted significantly from its Greek source (similar changes have occurred with philosophical vocabulary such as virtue, substance, and essence). In particular, consider that the earliest use, and for centuries the most common use, of the term contemplation in English referred to religious musing and devout meditation within Christianity; similarly, the contemplative life was one given up to religious contemplation and prayer to the Christian God, especially in the spirit of the Middle Ages. (OED, s.v.) Yet Aristotle preceded Christianity by centuries, of course, and with a few exceptions (explored below) he doesn't emphasize prayer or religious devotion with respect to θεωρία. Naturally there are other senses of contemplation and contemplative, but they tend to center around a core meaning of somewhat passive, unfocused musing. Thus on the face of it we cannot safely assume that θεωρία always or ever means for Aristotle precisely what contemplation means for us.

Second, although the cognate term θεωρητικός is often translated as "theoretical", the connection between theory and contemplation is far from clear; indeed, we would normally consider both ancient and modern scientific and mathematical theory to be diametrically opposed to the religious attitude that suffused the contemplative life of Medieval Christendom. Furthermore, it can be dangerous to essentially transliterate an ancient Greek word into a current English word that re-uses the Greek root; rendering θεωρητικός as theoretical might make no more sense than rendering ἐνέργεια as energy.

Third, some uses of θεωρία and θεωρεῖν seem to be located outside the contemplative field we're accustomed to. For instance, at EE V.5 / EN VI.5 1140b7-10 Aristotle mentions that the action-oriented statesman Pericles excelled at θεωρία when guiding the course of the Athenian polis. More substantively, at two points in Aristotle's discussion of ἀκρασία within EE VI / EN VII (1146b31-35 and 1153a20-23) he seems to use θεωρεῖν to mean something close to "be aware of", "attend to", "keep in mind", or "maintain a mental hold on". Indeed, my working hypothesis is that this sense of θεωρία as awareness is close to the focal meaning of the term, or at least closer than θεωρία as contemplation.

To test this hypothesis, I shall attempt to behold θεωρία with fresh eyes, free from the Latinate and Christian overtones that the concept of contemplation has accreted over the centuries. I shall take a two-pronged approach. First, I'll outline my hypothesis in more detail and look at a cross-section of usage to see if the hypothesis might hold up under scrutiny. Second, following the lead of scholars from John Burnet to the present, I shall take a dialectical approach by tracing the progression of θεωρία, θεωρεῖν, θεωρητικός, and cognate terms on their parallel tracks through the Eudemian Ethics and Nicomachean Ethics, then branching onward from there into both the Politics and the Metaphysics.

II. Beholding Theoria

In brief, I propose that it is fruitful to think about θεωρία primarily as awareness - specifically, what we might call a conceptual form of awareness attainable by beings having λόγος, i.e., reason-and-speech. Roughly speaking, Aristotle's view seems to be that other animals have what we might call a perceptual form of awareness since they have αἴσθησις, i.e., the ability to sense their surroundings (some animals also have additional cognitive capacities like memory); this is crucial to their way of being and differentiates animals from plants and non-living things. Human beings have αἴσθησις too, of course, but they build on those capabilities through their capacities for recollection, forethought, imagination, craft, thinking, insight, understanding, reasoning, speech, commitment, and the like.

Given the centrality of understanding (ἐπιστήμη) in the human way of life, there is great significance in the distinction Aristotle draws between, on the one hand, having an understanding of a subject (say, having learned geometry but being asleep or focused on something else) and, on the other hand, actively using that understanding (say, while proving a geometrical theorem or applying it to solve a problem). In several places, Aristotle calls the former state τὸ ἔχοντα ("having") and the latter activity τὸ θεωροῦντα. The same basic distinction applies to a person's commitment (προαίρεσις) to act in a certain way, for the self-indulgent person (ἀκρατής) at some level knows the right thing to do but doesn't see that knowledge through in action (almost as if they've fallen asleep or are drunk with a passion that hinders them from doing the right thing), whereas the person of thriving character both knows the right thing to do and sees that knowledge though in action by staying aware of the commitment. Here "contemplating" doesn't seem to fit as a rendering of θεωρεῖν, whereas something like "be (or stay) aware of" hits closer to the mark.

Another distinction relevant to this exploration is that among θεωρητικός, πρακτικός, and ποιητικός (see for instance EE IV / EN V 1139a27). Understanding that is θεωρητικός is focused primarily on being aware of the way things are. By contrast, understanding that is πρακτικός is focused primarily on action (say, courageous action in battle) and understanding that is ποιητικός is focused primarily on making something (say, a house) or producing a certain effect (say, the health of a patient). In modern parlance, theoretical means abstract, having a high level of generality, speculative, not empirical, not based on evidence or experience, lacking in useful applications, etc.; these qualities are contrasted with what is practical in the sense of solving real-world problems, being workable or effective in practice, being focused on outcomes, etc. Yet this continuum of ours does not divide up phenomena as the ancients did: among other things, our notion of practicality seems to include both praxis and poiesis. Moreover, as we've already seen, for Aristotle successful praxis requires theoria in the doing so as to avoid akrasia.

Yet action and production are not the only foils for θεωρία. In a discussion of various human ways of life (EN 1095b19), Aristotle distinguishes the βίος θεωρητικός from both the βίος ἀπολαυστικός and the βίος πολιτικός. The first of these is not a "theoretical" life lost in abstractions, but a life devoted to awareness of the ways things are - as Anaxagoras is reported to have said, a life of "taking into awareness [θεωρῆσαι] the heavens and the whole order of the cosmos" (EE 1216a13). By contrast, the person who lives the βίος ἀπολαυστικός is deceived about - i.e., not correctly aware of - the role of pleasure in life, and the person who lives the βίος πολιτικός is focused on contributing to the "one common object" (HA 488a8) of the community; even if the βίος πολιτικός at its highest requires the sort of θεωρία that Pericles exhibited, it is completed by activities beyond the θεωρία itself. The characteristic actvitity of the βίος θεωρητικός, on the other hand, aims at nothing beyond the θεωρία itself (EN 1177b2, 19).

Thus I propose the following renderings of our key terms:

As a further test, let's consider some of the numerous renderings of these terms that one finds when one peruses multiple translations of Aristotle's works. Here is a sampling, with conversions that use the term awareness instead:

Some of my alternative renderings might feel clunky, but that's because we don't have single English words that map precisely to θεωρεῖν, θεωρητικός, and θεωρία (a common problem with translating ancient Greek, as for instance with ἀληθεύειν since in English we don't have a verb for "truthing").

III. Theoria in Action

As note above, for Aristotle θεωρία plays a significant role in successful action. This role unfolds through both of the major ethical works and into the Politics.

Early in the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle urges us to "gain an awareness of thriving and wisdom" (1216a38) and to "gain an awareness of the good" (1217b42). Similarly, early in the Nicomachean Ethics he observes that the fulfilled person "always and especially takes action and maintains awareness of what is directed by thriving of character" (1100b19).

Aristotle builds on these early hints in the three books that are common to the Eudemian Ethics and Nicomachean Ethics (EE IV-VI / EN V-VII). Indeed, here it is not only wisdom that requires awareness, but also craft, for he states that "every craft is about bringing something into being, i.e., crafting it and being aware of how to bring into being something which admits of being or not being, and of which the source is in the one making it and not in the thing made..." (1140a11). The same basic consideration applies to wisdom: "It remains, then, that wisdom is a truth-finding trait to take action with an account about things that are good or bad for human beings.... This is why we think that Pericles and people like that are wise, since they have the ability to be aware of what is good for themselves and for human beings" (1140b7-10; see also 1141a25).

This kind of action-guiding awareness figures prominently in Aristotle's account of ἀκρασία / self-indulgence. Here the mystery is how someone who understands the good can act in ways inconsistent with that understanding. To break through this impasse, Aristotle draws a distinction (also made in the Metaphysics and elsewhere) between having understanding but not using it and both having and using understanding. As he says at 1146b31-35, it would be terrible if someone who has and uses an understanding of the good - i.e., who has the understanding and is aware of it - does the wrong thing; but this is not so surprising in someone who has the understanding but doesn't use it and is unaware of it in the moment of taking action. A bit later, he claims that the self-indulgent person is "not like someone who knows and is aware, but like someone who is asleep or drunk" (1152a14) and therefore unaware in the moment.

Because the φρόνιμος and the πολιτικός have the same qualities of thought but differ in being, this sort of awareness is centrally important for the leader of a community. Indeed, it is little noted that at the very end of the Nicomachean Ethics, after his paean to mind and pure awareness, Aristotle returns to this action-guiding sense of awareness in his prologue to the Politics. There he says that we must "become aware of what saves and destroys communities" (1181b18) and that "once we are aware of these things we will have greater insight into what sort of constitution is best" (1181b21).

Although it is not until late in the Politics that Aristotle treats of θεωρία as an activity, he repeatedly (by my count, over twenty times) uses the verb θεωρεῖν to describe the activity in which he and his interlocutors are engaged throughout the book as they seek to "become aware of what saves and destroys communities" (1181b18). In this way he reinforces the importance of action-guiding θεωρία to successful governance.

IV. Theoria as Activity

This section will discuss the role of theoria in philia and philosophia, as well as the divine nature of theoria as an activity.

Notes

Passages Cited

Eudemian Ethics I-III

Nicomachean Ethics I-IV

Eudemian Ethics IV-VI / Nicomachean Ethics V-VII

Eudemian Ethics VII-VIII

Nicomachean Ethics VIII-X

Politics

Metaphysics

Peter Saint-Andre > Writings > Aristotle