The Metaphysical and Psychological Basis of Aristotle's Ethics
T.H. Irwin
In Rorty, ed., Essays on Aristotle's Ethics
University of California Press, 1980

"When Aristotle says that a horse or an ox has a perceptive life (1098a1-3), he surely does not mean that it does or should spend all its life perceiving; he means that a life guided by perception is characteristic of it. Similarly, he does not mean that a human being does or should concentrate on rational thinking rather than action; he means that a human characteristically guides his actions by practical reason." (IRWIN-1980a, p. 49)

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