Aristotle on Practical Wisdom
C.D.C. Reeve
Harvard, 2013

With reference to 1143b11-14, Reeve states: "To be in a position to apply the findings of ethics to our life, which is the only relevant test of their truth, we must have a life to apply them to." (REEVE-2013, p. 17)

"[A] philosophical way of proceeding in any kind of inquiry, even the most practical, involves seeking the sorts of theoretical explanations that inevitably lead to starting-points that may be quite far removed from practice (I.4 1215a36-b1, I.5 1216a29, I.6 1216b35-40, VIII.3 1249b16-25)." (REEVE-2013, p. 22)

"What a virtuous person learns, when he learns that doing what is kalon benefits him, doesn't give him a new motive to do it; rather it enables him to understand why it is he has the motive he had all along. In the case of ethical *motivation*, there is something almost deontological about the virtuous person's attachment to the noble, and even something rather formal about the noble itself. For 'order (taxis), symmetry (summetria), and definition (to horismenon)' are the chief forms of to kalon (Metaphysics XIII.3 1078a36b1), and the element in virtue that attracts praise is its being in a mean (NE II.7 1108a14-16, IV.5 1126b5), and a mean is a kind of symmetry (II.3 1104a18) and order (X.9 1180a18)." (REEVE-2013, p. 35)

"In the case of practical problems ... an agent who delegated the problem would be making a serious error. For to enjoy doing virtuous actions - to achieve the happiness they can constitute - we must do them virtuously, out of appetites, desires, and wishes that are in a mean. We must do them, as Aristotle puts it, not only kata ton orthon logon but meta tou orthou logou (1144b26-28) - that is to say, we must do them from the correct reason that we ourselves generate and possess." (REEVE-2013, p. 36) [PSA: see also BURNYEAT-1981 (etc.) on meta logou.]

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