What is Theoria? Nicomachean Ethics Book 10.7-8
David Roochnik
Classical Philology 104 (2009): 69-82.

"Soul is not simply an 'actuality' (entelecheia).... 'Actuality' is said in two ways. The first sense is as 'knowledge' (episteme, 412a10); the second as theorein (412a10-11, repeated at 412a22-23). 'Knowledge' here means 'having' but not actively using, while theorein means 'actively engaged in or working with' (energein, 412a26), the knowledge one has.... Having knowledge is to theorein as sleeping is to waking." (ROOCHNIK, p. 71) [PSA: note the centrality of energein, being-at-work, to this conception of theorein: it is not passive contemplation but active awareness.]

Roochnik distinguishes between the "mundane" and the "exalted" conceptions of theoria. As an example of the former, he mentions Pericles at 1140b8-10: 'We believe that Pericles and men like him are men of practical wisdom because they are able to theorize (theorein) what is good both for themselves and for human beings.' He goes on to discuss "Aristotle's discussion of 'moral weakness' (akrasia) in Nicomachean Ethics Book 7 (1146b31-34).... Aristotle concludes that the person who is 'theorizing,' fully actualizing, his knowledge that he should not do something, will in fact not do it. Moral weakness does 'not seem to occur in the presence of knowledge in the strict (kurios) sense' (1147b15-16), for such knowledge has become part of the knower; it has 'grown into him' (sumpuenai, 1147a22)." (ROOCHNIK, p. 74) [PSA: "activating his knowledge that he should not do something" is exactly what Socrates did whenever his daimon made its presence known.]

"[T]he student of ethics is, in essence, studying himself (qua political being).... But the objects of theoretical knowledge either have their origin of motion and rest in themselves and so cannot be altered by human intervention, or are immutable. The only change such knowledge can effect, therefore, is in the knower, not in the object. For this reason such knowledge 'alone seems to be liked because of itself' (EN 1177b1), rather than for any external benefit it might bring.' (ROOCHNIK, pp. 76-77)

"[T]here is a basic similarity in theoretical, practical, and productive forms of knowledge. They are all 'theoretical' in the broad sense.... They are a looking at, a cognitive apprehension of some region of the world. They are a taking up of different kinds of beings that present themselves to the discerning mind." (ROOCHNIK, p. 77)

"Recalling the original meaning of theorein as 'to look at,' we can infer that human being is by nature theoretical. We are cognitive animals who look at the world, work hard to see it as it is, and then talk about it. This is true whether what we are looking at is our fellow human beings, or the stars." (ROOCHNIK, p. 78)

"[D]espite being a special case, the theoria praised in Book 10.7-8 is anything but special. It is the basic activity of human beings, albeit undertaken at the highest possible level. This close link between the exalted and mundane senses of theorein can even be extracted from Metaphysics Lambda.... Consider the fact that its 'actualization' is pleasure (Metaph 1072b14-18): 'Since its actualization is pleasure, its mode of being - which it engages in forever - is like that which is best for us during a short time. (For us this would be impossible.) And on account of this, wakefulness, perception, thinking are most pleasurable, and hopes and memories as well.' ... And for us, being awake, perceiving and thinking are the most pleasant of actualizations." (ROOCHNIK, pp. 78-79)

"[P]leasure, like seeing, is an undivided experience that 'is something whole and is in the moment' and as a result is not 'in time' (me en chronoi, EN 1174b8-9).... the timelessness of pleasure helps to render the theoria of Nicomachean Ethics 10.7-8 less exalted than it may first appear. For such timelessness is mundane and thus available not only in acts of exalted contemplation, but even in ordinary sense perception." (ROOCHNIK, p. 80) [PSA: confer Csikszentmihalyi on flow]

"The fact that inflections of theorein are ubiquitous throughout the corpus must be taken as more philosophically significant than it usually is. The word is ubiquitous because theorein is a fundamental human capacity that is actualized widely with a variety of hierarchically ordered objects. Some forms of theorein are higher than others.... But practical wisdom is nonetheless a mode of theorizing.... This notion of the hierarchically ordered continuum of theoretical activities can eventually be deployed as a tool with which to reinterpret the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole. For it too can be read as a comprehensive account of humanly virtuous activity that takes the form of an orderly ascent. Book 10.7-8 articulates the highest, the maximally actualized and therefore most pleasant human life. [PSA: actually "life-activity"] But on this reading neither this life nor the passage itself is radically separate from the earlier books that describe more practical sorts of lives." (ROOCHNIK, p. 81)

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