Aristotle on ἀληθεύειν: Socratic Wisdom in Nicomachean Ethics VI
Daniel H. Arioli

"[N]early every distinction Aristotle makes is less certain than it at first appears: the distinction between science and calculation is straddled by the intellect [nous], the distinction between intellectual and moral virtue is straddled by prudence [phronesis], and the distinction between making and acting is complicated by the fact that, in the political sphere, the sphere of moral virtues, to act *is* to produce. The implication of these blurred distinctions is not self-evident, but can be worked out: intellectual virtue is impossible without an appeal to the particulars; to deal with the particulars there is required an already-given horizon within which these particulars can show up, namely, the city; the city is guided by the belief that moral virtue is required for happiness, but moral virtue is impossible without prudence, and prudence is an intellectual virtue. There is an inescapable circularity to Aristotle's logic here...." (ARIOLI, pp. 8-9) [PSA: yet this circularity is not necessarily vicious because philosophy as a way of life, the examined life is what Arioli later calls "an interminable pursuit" (p. 10).]

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