Practices of Reason
C.D.C. Reeve
Clarendon, 1995

"Topics 104b1-2 is explicit that dialectic can be either practical or theoretical: 'A dialectical problem is a topic of inquiry that contributes either to choice and avoidance or to truth and knowledge.'" (REEVE-1995, p. 32)

"Dialectic takes us from things that are 'less clear in nature but clearer to us' - these being things we know from experience - to things that are 'by nature clearer and more knowable' - these being 'first principles, causes, and elements' (Physics 184a10-b14). For clarity is the very hallmark of dialectic. [fn66: See DA 413a11-13, NE 1097b22-24, EE 1216b26-36. Another hallmark or another way of expressing the same one, is that dialectic provides a lusis or loosing of aporetic knots. See e.g. Physics 253a31-33, 263a15-18; GC 321b11-13; Meteorology 354b22-24; Metaphysics 995a27-33, 1032a6-11; Poetics 1462b16-19.]" (REEVE-1995, p. 40

"It seems obvious to most people that akrasia occurs. At the same time, Socrates' argument that it is impossible proves difficult to refute. New facts seem not to be needed; all the relevant ones seem to lie to hand. Thus we are caught between a rock and a hard place: 'thought is tied up, for it does not want to stand still because the conclusion of the argument is displeasing, but it cannot advance because it cannot refute the argument' (1146a24-27; see Metaphysics 995a29-33). This is an archetypal dialectical aporia." (REEVE-1995, p. 40)

"[W]hat is true about knowledge of reality in general is equally true of that part of reality that is the subject matter of ethics. The ground-floor ethical data are the ethical phainomena, the deliverances of ethical experience, of lived life." Here Reeve quotes EN 1179a17-22 and EN 1172a34-b7; he also cites DC 293a25-30, GC 316a5-11, GA 760b30-34, NE 1098b11-12, NE (EE) 1143b11-14, and EE 1216b40-1217a19.

Reeve notes that among the "major ways to gain access to first principles" habituation / enculturation (ethismo) holds pride of place in ethics: "'Some first principles are studied ... by means of some sort of habituation' (1098b3-4).... [I]t is ... habituation ... that enables us to form true opinions about the first principles of ethics: 'It is virtue, either natural or habituated, that teaches true opinion about the first principle' (1151a17-19) [fn78: See 1104b9-13 with 1140b16-19, 1179b23-29.] Since the first principle of ethics is eudaimonia, the habits that will enable us to form true opinions about eudaimonia must be just those habits that will result in our having habituated virtue: 'Since the end, i.e., the best good, is this sort of thing ... this is apparent only to the good person. For vice perverts us and produces false beliefs about the ends of actions' (1144a29-36)." (REEVE-1995, p. 49)

"[T]he phronimos is trying to solve a problem. He is searching for a way to act well or achieve eudaimonia in this particular situation (1144a29-36). When he hits on a type of action that is within his power to do in the situation, he has partly solved his problem (1112b15-1113a7). But to solve it completely, he must actually do an action of that type: 'Someone does not have phronesis simply by knowing; he must also act on his knowledge' (1152a8-9). [fn4: See 1143a6-10, 1146a7-9.]" (REEVE-1995, p. 69)

"[P]hronesis, too, should be conceived of as an architectonic virtue, which studies how best to use the other crafts, science, and capacities in order most of all to promote the individual's own eudaimonia." (REEVE-1995, p. 76)

With regard to means and ends, Reeve quotes as follows: "'We deliberate not about ends, but about what promotes ends (peri ton pros ta tele)' (1112b11-12).... It is possible, so far as the formula goes, to deliberate also about an end's constituents or components (Metaphysics 1032b18-29).... We deliberate only about what can be otherwise. But there is an end that cannot be otherwise, namely, eudaimonia.... We deliberate about what we can bring about in action. And the result of our deliberation is a decision, but we do not decide to be eudaimon." [citing 1111b26-30] (REEVE-1995, pp. 82-83)

On page 87, Reeve provides a discussion of prohairesis, which he translates as "decision" but which I would prefer to translate as "commitment". Consider: "The phronimos is a good deliberator, but he is more than that. He is also someone who decides [makes commitments]. The phronimos is fully virtuous and 'virtue is a state that decides [makes commitments]' (1106b36; see 1106a3-4). 'Someone is not a phronimos simply by knowing; he must also act on his knowledge' (1152a8-9; see 1146a7-9). And the cause of action is decision [commitment] (1139a31-33). But what exactly is decision [commitment]? Aristotle's initial discussion of it in Book III culminates in the following definition: 'What we decide [commit] to do is, then, something that is up to us that we deliberate about and desire [reach for]. Hence decision [commitment] is deliberative (bouleutike) desire to do an action that is up to us. For when we have judged [discerned?], our desire to do it expresses our wish [is directed by our resolution] (kata ten boulesin).' (1113a9-12) [fn31: Most MSS have kata ten bouleusin, 'according to deliberation'.]" (REEVE-1995, p. 87) [PSA: a directive force (cf. WALKER-2018) of kata makes sense here.]

"[B]ecause activities are complete at every moment they contain their ends.... Moreover, activities have no built in limit.... Hence, he is interested in anything that, like an action or activity, is a potential terminator of a teleological explanation." (REEVE-1995, p. 103)

"What is the end of an activity? In the following passage, Aristotle seems to be trying to tell us: 'The result (ergon) is the end, and activity is the result, and this is why the term activity (energeia) is said with relation to the result (kata to ergon) and is extended to the activation (entelecheian)' (Metaphysics 1050a21-23). But to grasp what he has in mind, we need to delve a bit behind the scenes. The activation to which Aristotle is referring is the activation of a second potential or state. And a second potential is the activation of a first potential. So: John has a first potential to be virtuous if he is naturally fitted to acquire the virtues. If he actually does acquire them, through habituation and the rest, he has activated his first potential. He now possesses a virtuous state or second potential. If he activates that second potential by engaging in virtuous action, his activation is an activity (DA 412a1-28, 417a21-b2)." (REEVE-1995, p. 104) [PSA: compare the translation and analysis by Sachs]

"Eudaimonia is not, then, an end composed of all the things we want because of themselves. But if it is not, how are we to explain the fact ... that eudaimonia together with some other intrinsic good is not more choiceworthy than eudaimonia alone? In the following passages Aristotle introduces the notion of eudaimonia as a limit or measure in relation to which things are either unconditionally good or bad: 'And because eudaimonia needs fortune added, good fortune seems to some people to be the same as eudaimonia. But it is not. For when it is excessive, it actually impedes eudaimonia; and then, presumably, it is no longer rightly called 'good' fortune, since the limit (horos) [up to which it is good] is defined in relation to eudaimonia. (1153b21-25)" (REEVE-1995, p. 121)

"The nerve of Aristotle's argument about self-sufficiency is the idea of eudaimonia as a limit, then, rather than as an end composed of everything we choose because of itself.... Eudaimonia is not one good among many because it is the measure of the goodness of other goods." (REEVE-1995, p. 122) [PSA: this argues against the "objective list" account of happiness.]

"Aristotle identifies the function of a kind of thing, first of all, with its essence, with what defines it: 'What anything is is defined by its function: a thing really is what it is when it can perform its function, for example an eye when it can see. When something cannot perform its function, it is that thing in name only, like a dead eye or one made of stone' (Meteorology 390a10-12). [fn31: See PA 640b33-641a6, 648a15-16, GA 731a25-26, Metaphysics 1045b32-34, NE 1176a3-9, Politics 1253a23-25.] But a thing's function is also identical with its end: 'everything that has a function is for the sake of its function' (DC 286a8-9; see PA 694b13-15); 'each thing's function is its end' (EE 1219a8). The explanation of this double identification is that 'function' is act/result ambiguous: 'The function is said in two ways: of some the function is over and above (para) the employment, for example the house of house-building ... with other things the function is the employment itself, for example sight in the case of seeing, study in the case of mathematical science' (EE 1219a13-17). The essence is the function as act; the end is the function as result: 'We are insofar as we are activated, insofar as we live and act. The function is in a way the producer activated. Hence the producer is fond of the function because he loves his own being. And this is natural, since what he is potentially is what the function is actually.' (1168a6-9)" (REEVE-1995, p. 123)

With regard to Aristotle's statement around 1098a15 that 'Each action or activity is completed well when its completion expresses the proper virtue', Reeve comments: "A genuine virtue is by definition something that completes an activity well or guarantees that it will achieve its end." [fn39: See Physics 246a101-5, Metaphysics 1021b202-23, Rhetoric 1366a36-b1...]" (REEVE-1995, p. 127)

"A function can be possessed in different ways and to different degrees. A good knife and a mediocre one have the same function, but the former's is completed by the appropriate virtue, the latter's is not (see Metaphysics 1021b12-25). In the same way, god's function is completed in a way that ours is not. Unlike us, god is eternally engaged in study. Unlike us, he engages in study [theoria] by himself (Metaphysics 1072b26-28), but we cannot engage in study without him. For his activity is the final cause of ours. We share god's function, to be sure, but that just makes us god-like, it does not make us god." (REEVE-1995, p. 149)

"In NE X.6-8, Aristotle discusses two separate questions. The first concerns eudaimonia. It is this. Which of the following three activities is eudaimonia? Is it pleasure, practical activity, or study? The second concerns not activities but types of *lives*. It is this. Which life is most eudaimon?" (REEVE-1995, p. 149)

"Eudaimonia is a kind of life (zoe). For it is a life-activity, the activation of a certain potential. Thus 'the activation of nous is life (zoe)' (Metaphysics 1072b26-27). But eudaimonia is neither a biographical life (bios) not a mode of one. A biographical life is something within which eudaimonia may occur. And a mode of biographical life is identified by the conception of eudaimonia operative within it." (REEVE-1995, p. 151)

"Phronesis is the virtue proper to practical activity and so completes it (1144a6-7). Hence the claim of activity expressing phronesis to be some kind of eudaimonia is underwritten. But when it emerges that sophia is a more complete virtue than phronesis, activity expressing the latter is demoted to secondary status. The remaining contender for being primary eudaimonia is study.... It is an activity, not a state; it is the most self-sufficient activity (1177a27-b1); it and it alone is choiceworthy solely because of itself and not because of any allo or para ends (1177b1-2); it is activity expressing the best and most complete virtue (1177a12-17). It is also the most continuous activity and the most pleasant (1177a21-27)." (REEVE-1995, p. 156)

"[W]hat exactly is the life expressing nous? Is it the biographical life in which nous alone is expressed? Or is it that part of a biographical life expressing phronesis-2 that expresses nous? If must be, and can only be, the latter. For no human being can live a life in which nous alone is expressed and none could be eudaimon doing so. For our appetites and emotions need to be satisfied if we are to be eudaimon and will interfere with our study if they are not.... Study is primary eudaimonia, then, and a eudaimon life is one in which enough study is appropriately distributed. But study, even though it is primary eudaimonia, is not enough by itself to make a life eudaimon. The life much also be sufficiently long (1177b24-26) and equipped with sufficient external goods (1178b33-35). But added in the appropriate way to a life provided with these things, study makes that life eudaimon or choiceworthy and least lacking in nothing." (REEVE-1995, pp. 158-159) [PSA: this description is closer to a conception of the examined life than to the contemplative life.]

"The distribution of external goods and secondary eudaimonia must be for the sake of primary eudaimonia. That distribution must be a more efficient means to primary eudaimonia than any of the available alternatives. Primary eudaimonia must be possessed or engaged in 'not for just any chance period of time but for a complete life' (1101a15-16). And if the resulting distribution of external goods and eudaimonia satisfy these three conditions, then, on Aristotle's view, they make the entire life eudaimon, or choiceworthy and lacking in nothing.... It follows that lives with unequal amounts of primary eudaimonia in them can all be choiceworthy and lacking in nothing, and that phronesis will have done its work adequately if it provides enough primary eudaimonia to make a whole life possess this feature." (REEVE-1995, p. 184)

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