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aristotle-ideas · 6 years ago

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Physics

“The Basic Works of Aristotle” (Modern Library, 2001)

BOOK ONE

We must advance from generalities to particulars; for it is a whole that is best known to sense-perception, and a generality is a kind of whole, comprehending many things within it, like parts. Ch 1, p 218

Substance alone is independent: for everything is predicated of substance as subject. Ch 2, p 220

‘Whiteness’ and ‘that which is white’ differ in definition, not in the sense that they are things which can exist apart from each other. But Parmenides had not come in sight of this distinction. Ch 3, p 222

Plato: One = form; Great & Small (Dyad) = matter

Others: One = matter; Contraries = forms p 224

The universal is more knowable in the order of explanation, the particular in the order of sense: for explanation has to do with the universal, sense with the particular. Ch 5, p 228

That the elements are three in number would seem… a plausible view… For the one substratum is sufficient to be acted on… Moreover, it is impossible that there should be more than one primary contrariety. Ch 6, p 229

Substance alone is not predicated of another subject, but everything else of substance … Substances too, and anything else that can be said ’to be’ without qualification, come to be from some substratum. Ch 7, p 231

being v. privation (not-being)

contraries

matter & form

substratum (indefinable) (underlying nature) (formless matter)

substance (independent) (definable/essence) (composite of matter and form) (‘this’/separable things/existent)

subject (predicable of substance)

universals (predicable of subject) (‘such’)

Everything comes to be from both subject and form. Ch 7, p 232 [i.e. musical man = man (subject) + musical (form)]

As the bronze is to the statue, the wood to the bed, or the matter and the formless before receiving form to anything which has form, so is the underlying nature to substance, i.e. the ‘Ωthis’ or existent. Ch 7, p 232

Fallacy: What comes to be must do so from (1) what is, or (2) what is not. If (1), it cannot come to be because it is already. If (2), it cannot come to be because it must come from something (i.e. a substratum). p 233

We maintain that a thing may ‘come to be from what is not’ – that is, in a qualified sense. For a thing comes to be from the privation, which in its own nature is not-being – this not surviving as a constituent of the result… In the same way we maintain that nothing comes to be from being, and that being does not come to be except in a qualified sense… just as animal might come to be from animal. Ch 8, p 234

From PRIVATION (not-being) > ‘a thing’ may come to be

From BEING > nothing comes to be (only more ‘being’) p 234

matter (not-being only as an attribute)

privation (not-being in its own nature) p 235

What desires the form is matter, as the female desires the male and the ugly the beautiful – only the ugly and the female not per se but per accidens. Ch 9, p 235

My definition of matter is… the primary substratum of each thing, from which it comes to be without qualification, and which persists in the result. Ch 9, p 235

BOOK TWO

Nature is a source and cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily. Ch 1 p 236

Things ‘have a nature’… Each of them is a substance; for it is a subject, and nature always implies a subject in which it inheres. Ch 1 p 236

To prove what is obvious by what is not is the mark of a man who is unable to distinguish what is self-evident from what is not… such persons must be talking about words without any thought to correspond. Ch 1 p 237

ACCOUNTS OF ‘NATURE’

‘the immediate material substratum of things’

‘the shape or form which is specified in the definition of the thing’ Ch 1 p 237

What is potentially flesh or bone has not yet its own ‘nature’, and does not exist ‘by nature’, until it receives the form specified in the definition. Ch 1 p 238

The nature is the end or ‘that for the sake of which’… Not every stage that is last claims to be an end, but only that which is best. Ch 2 p 240

CAUSES

the matter - material (substratum)

the form - formal (archetype, essence)

the mover - efficient (primary source of change)

that for the sake of which - final (‘for the sake of’ the end) Ch 3 p 240-1

MODES OF CAUSATION

particular or genus (i.e. doctor or expert)

incidental or genus (i.e. Polyclitus or sculptor / a man or a living creature)

complex or by itself (i.e. Polyclitus the sculptor)

potential or actual (i.e. builder or builder building) Ch 3 p 242

What is not capable of moral action cannot do anything by chance. Thus an inanimate thing or a lower animal or a child cannot do anything by chance, because it is incapable of deliberate intention. Ch 5 p 246

No incidental cause can be prior to a cause per se. Spontaneity and chance, therefore are posterior to intelligence and nature. Ch 6 p 247

Where a series has a completion, all the preceding steps are for the sake of that. Now surely as in intelligent action, so in nature; and as in nature, so it is in each action, if nothing interferes. Ch 8 p 249

Those things are natural which, by a continuous movement originated from an internal principle, arrive at some completion… When an event takes place always or for the most part, it is not incidental or by chance. Ch 8 p 251

BOOK THREE

Everything is either a source or derived from a source. But there cannot be a source of the infinite or limitless, for that would be a limit of it. Further, as it is a beginning, it is both uncreatable and indestructible. For there must be a point at which what has come to be reaches completion, and also a termination of all passing away. Ch 4 p 259

Grant only that mass is anywhere and it follows that it must be everywhere. Also, if void and place are infinite, there must be infinite body too, for in the case of eternal things what may be must be. Ch 4 p 260

There is no body which is actually infinite. Ch 5 p 264

The infinite… exists in no other way, but in this way it does exist, potentially and by reduction. It exists fully in the sense in which we say ‘it is day’ or ‘it is the games’; and potentially as matter exists, not independently as what is finite does. Ch 6 p 266

BOOK FOUR

If there were no time, there would be no ‘now’, and vice versa. Ch 11, p 293

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aristotle-ideas · 6 years ago

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Metaphysics

“The Basic Works of Aristotle” (Modern Library, 2001)

However true it may be that all generation and destruction proceed from some one or (for that matter) from more elements, why does this happen and what is the cause? For at least the substratum itself does not make itself change. (Bk 1, Ch 3, p 691)

It is not likely either that fire or earth or any such element should be the reason why things manifest goodness and beauty both in their being and in their coming to be, or that those thinkers should have supposed it was; nor again could it be right to entrust so great a matter to spontaneity and chance. When one man said, then, that reason was present – as in animals, so throughout nature – as the cause of order and of all arrangement, he seemed like a sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors. (Bk 1, Ch 3, p 695-6)

As the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all. (Bk 2, Ch 1, p 712)

That which causes derivative truths to be true is most true. Hence the principles of eternal things must be always most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being of other things). (Bk 2, Ch 1, p 713)

The final causes cannot go on ad infinitum… if there is no first there is no cause at all. (Bk 2, Ch 2, p 713)

It is not that which comes to be something that comes to be as a result of coming to be, but that which exists after the coming to be. (Bk 2, Ch 2, p 714)

Nothing infinite can exist; and if it could, at least the notion of infinity is not infinite. (Bk 2, Ch 2, p 715)

All things that we come to know, we come to know in so far as they have some unity and identity, and in so far as some attribute belongs to them universally… If there is nothing apart from individuals [concrete things], there will be no object of thought, but all things will be objects of sense, and there will not be knowledge of anything, unless we say that sensation is knowledge. (Bk 3, Ch 4, p 724)

The inquiry that is both the hardest of all and the most necessary for knowledge of the truth is whether being and unity are the substances of things, and whether each of them, without being anything else, is being or unity respectively, or we must inquire what being and unity are, with the implication that they have some other underlying nature. (Bk 3, Ch 4, p 727)

The body is surely less of a substance than the surface, and the surface than the line, and the line than the unit and the point. For the body is bounded by these; and they are thought to be capable of existing without body, but body incapable of existing without these… if these are not substance, there is no substance and no being at all; for the accidents of these it cannot be right to call beings. (Bk 3, Ch 5, p 729)

There is a science which investigates being as being and the attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature. (Bk 4, Ch 1, p 731)

Dialectic is merely critical where philosophy claims to know, and sophistic is what appears to be philosophy but is not. (Bk 4, Ch 2, p 735)

All contraries are reducible to being and non-being, and to unity and plurality… All things are either contraries or composed of contraries, and unity and plurality are the starting-points of all contraries. (Bk 4, Ch 2, p 735)

The same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect… For it is impossible for any one to believe the same thing to be and not to be, as some think Heraclitus says. (Bk 4, Ch 3, p 736)

If ‘man’ and ‘not-man’ mean nothing different, obviously ‘not being a man’ will mean nothing different from ‘being a man’; for they are one. (Bk 4, Ch 4, p 739)

Denoting the substance of a thing means that the essence of the thing is nothing else… ‘white’ is accidental to man, because though he is white, white is not his essence. But if all statements are accidental, there will be nothing primary about which they are made, if the accidental always implies predication about a subject. The predication then must go on ad infinitum. (Bk 4, Ch 4, p 740)

For ‘that which is’ has two meanings, so that in some sense a thing can come to be out of that which is not, while in some sense it cannot, and the same thing can at the same time be in being and not in being – but not in the same respect. For the same thing can be potentially at the same time two contraries, but it cannot actually. (Bk 4, Ch 5, p 744)

In general, if only the sensible exists, there would be nothing if animate things were not; for there would be no faculty of sense. Now the view that neither the sensible qualities nor the sensations would exist is doubtless true (for they are affections of the perceiver), but that the substrata which cause the sensation should not exist even apart from sensation is impossible. For sensation is surely not the sensation of itself, but there is something beyond the sensation, which must be prior to the sensation; for that which moves is prior in nature to that which is moved. (Bk 4, Ch 5, p 747)

The word ‘substance’ is applied, if not in more senses, still at least to four main objects; for both the essence and the universal and the genus are thought to be the substance of each thing, and fourthly the substratum. Now the substratum is that of which everything else is predicated, while it itself is not predicated of anything else. (Bk 7, Ch 3, p 785)

The ultimate substratum is of itself neither a particular thing nor of a particular quantity or otherwise positively characterized; nor yet is it negations of these, for negations also will belong to it only by accident. (Bk 7, Ch 3, p 785)

Definition and essence in the primary and simple sense belong to substances. (Bk 7, Ch 4, p 788)

Only substance is definable… Definition is the formula of the essence, and essence belongs to substances either alone or chiefly and primarily and in the unqualified sense. (Bk 7, Ch 5, p 789)

Each primary and self-subsistent thing is one and the same as its essence. (Bk 7, Ch 6, p 791)

The form means the ‘such’; and is not a ‘this’ – a definite thing… The artist makes, or the father begets, a ‘such’ out of a ‘this’; and when it has been begotten, it is a ‘this such’. (Bk 7, Ch 8, p 794-5)

It is quite unnecessary to set up a Form as a pattern… the begetter is adequate to the making of the product and to the causing of the form in the matter. (Bk 7, Ch 8, p 795)

(It is) a peculiarity of substance, that there must exist beforehand in complete reality another substance which produces it, e.g. an animal if an animal is produced; but it is not necessary that a quality or quantity should pre-exist other than potentially. (Bk 7, Ch 9, p 797)

If then matter is one thing, form another and the compound of these a third, and both the matter and the form and the compound are substance, even the matter is in a sense called part of a thing, while in a sense it is not, but only the elements of which the formula of the form consists… the form, or the thing as having form, should be said to be the thing, but the material element by itself must never be said to be so. (Bk 7, Ch 10, p 797)

‘A part’ may be a part either of the form (i.e. of the essence), or of the compound of the form and the matter, or of the matter itself. But only the parts of the form are parts of the formula, and the formula is of the universal; for ‘being a circle’ is the same as the circle, and ‘being a soul’ the same as the soul. But when we come to the concrete thing, e.g. this circle, i.e. one of the individual circles… there is no definition, but they are known by the aid of intuitive thinking or of perception. (Bk 7, Ch 10, p 799)

Matter is unknowable in itself. And some matter is perceptible and some intelligible. (Bk 7, Ch 10, p 799)

To reduce all things thus to Forms and to eliminate the matter is useless labour; for some things surely are a particular form in a particular matter, or particular things in a particular state. (Bk 7, Ch 11, p 801)

Even some things which are not perceptible must have matter; indeed there is some matter in everything which is not an essence and a bare form but a ‘this’. (Bk 7, Ch 11, p 801)

It is clear also that the soul is the primary substance and the body is matter, and man or animal is the compound of both taken universally. (Bk 7, Ch 11, p 801)

In the formula of the substance the material parts will not be present… for the substance is the indwelling form, from which (and the matter) the so-called concrete substance is derived. (Bk 7, Ch 11, p 802)

We have stated that the essence and the thing itself are in some cases the same; i.e. in the case of primary substances… By a ‘primary’ substance I mean one which does not imply the presence of something in something else, i.e. in something that underlies it which acts as matter. (Bk 7, Ch 11, p 802)

As the substratum and the essence [matter and form] and the compound of these are called substance, so also is the universal [called substance]… (But) it seems impossible that any universal term should be the name of a substance. For firstly the substance of each thing is that which is peculiar to it, which does not belong to anything else… Further, substance means that which is not predicable of a subject, but the universal is predicable of some subject always. (Bk 7, Ch 13, p 804-5)

If no substance can consist of universals because a universal indicates a ‘such’, not a ‘this’, and if no substance can be composed of substances existing in complete reality, every substance would be incomposite, so that there would not even be a formula of any substance. (Bk 7, Ch 13, p 806)

There is neither definition nor demonstration about sensible individual substances, because they have matter whose nature is such that they are capable of being and not being. (Bk 7, Ch 15, p 807)

Neither unity nor being can be the substance of things, just as being an element or a principle cannot be the substance… in general, nothing that is common is substance; for substance does not belong to anything but itself and to that which has it, of which it is the substance. (Bk 7, Ch 16, p 809)

That which is one cannot be in many places at the same time, but that which is common is present in many places at the same time; so that clearly no universal exists apart from its individuals. (Bk 7, Ch 16, p 809)

No universal term is the name of a substance, and no substance is composed of substances. (Bk 7, Ch 16, p 810)

SUBSTANCES

Substance3 = composite of matter and form (or actuality)

Substance2 = sensible things / ‘actuality’ [form]

Substance1 = underlying / ‘matter’ / exists potentially [concrete thing]

‘HOUSE’

S3 = a covering consisting of bricks and stones laid thus and thus

S2 = a covering

S1 = bricks and stones

‘ANIMAL’

S3 = a soul in a body

S2 = a soul

S1 = a body

As in substances that which is predicated of the matter is the actuality itself, in all other definitions also it is what most resembles full actuality. (Bk 8, Ch 2, p 814)

No one makes or begets the form, but it is the individual that is made, i.e. the complex of form and matter that is generated. Whether the substances of destructible things can exist apart, is not yet at all clear… one might say that the nature in natural objects is the only substance to be found in destructible things. (Bk 8, Ch 3, p 815)

THE CAUSES OF MAN

material – menstrual fluid

moving (efficient) – the seed

formal – his essence

final – his end (Bk 8, Ch 4, p 817)

The proximate matter and the form are one and the same thing, the one potentially, and the other actually. (Bk 8, Ch 6, p 820)

As that which is building is to that which is capable of building, and the waking to the sleeping, and that which is seeing to that which has its eyes shut but has sight, and that which has been shaped out of the matter to the matter, and that which has been wrought up to the unwrought. Let actuality be defined by one member of this antithesis, and the potential by the other… some are as movement to potency, and the others as substance to some sort of matter. (Bk 9, Ch 6, p 826)

The infinite does not exist potentially in the sense that it will ever actually have separate existence; it exists potentially only for knowledge. (Bk 9, Ch 6, p 826)

Since of the actions which have a limit none is an end but all are relative to the end… this is not an action or at least not a complete one (for it is not an end); but that movement in which the end is present is an action… At the same time we are living well and have lived well, and are happy and have been happy. If not the process would have had sometime to cease, as the process of making thin ceases: but, as things are, it does not cease; we are living and have lived. Of these processes, then, we must call the one set movements, and the other actualities. (Bk 9, Ch 6, p 826-7)

He who learns to play the harp learns to play it by playing it, and all other learners do similarly. (Bk 9, Ch 8, p 829)

Everything that comes to be moves towards a principle, i.e. an end (for that for the sake of which a thing is, is its principle, and the becoming is for the sake of the end), and the actuality is the end, and it is for the sake of this that the potency is acquired. (Bk 9, Ch 8, p 829)

Matter exists in a potential state, just because it may come to its form; and when it exists actually, then it is in its form. And the same holds good in all cases, even those in which the end is a movement… For the action is the end, and the actuality is the action. (Bk 9, Ch 8, p 830)

The substance or form is actuality… One actuality always precedes another in time right back to the actuality of the prime mover. (Bk 9, Ch 8, p 830)

Eternal things are prior in substance to perishable things, and no eternal thing exists potentially. The reason is this. Every potency is at one and the same time a potency of the opposite. (Bk 9, Ch 8, p 830)

Actuality is prior both to potency and to every principle of change. (Bk 9, Ch 8, p 831)

In ‘one man’ nothing more is predicated than in ‘man’ (just as being is nothing apart from substance or quality or quantity)… to be one is just to be a particular thing. (Bk 10, Ch 2, p 839)

The kinds of opposition are contradiction and privation and contrariety and relation… contradiction admits of no intermediate, while contraries admit of one… But privation is a kind of contradiction… while contradiction does not admit of an intermediate, privation sometimes does. (Bk 10, Ch 4, p 842)

KINDS OF OPPOSITION

Contradiction/Contrary (All equal vs Not all equal)

Privation/Privative (Equality <...> Inequality)

Contraries/Contrary (Equal <...> Unequal)

Relations/Relative (1. More equal <...> Less equal, 2. Knowledge vs Knowable)

One thing has one contrary. (Bk 10, Ch 5, p 843)

The equal is contrary to the unequal. Therefore if it is contrary to the greater and the less, it will be contrary to more things than one. (Bk 10, Ch 5, p 843)

It is in general hard to say whether one must assume that there is a separable substance besides the sensible substances (i.e. the substances in this world), or that these are the real things and Wisdom is concerned with them. For we seem to seek another kind of substance, and this is our problem, i.e. to see if there is something which can exist apart by itself and belongs to no sensible thing…. If the principle we now seek is not separable from corporeal things, what has a better claim to the name than matter? This, however does not exist in actuality, but exists in potency. And it would seem rather that the form or shape is a more important principle than this; but the form is perishable, so that there is no eternal substance at all which can exist apart and independent. But this is paradoxical; for such a principle and substance seems to exist and is sought by nearly all the refined thinkers as something that exists; for how is there to be order unless there is something eternal and independent and permanent? (Bk 11, Ch 2, p 852-3)

All knowledge is of universals and of the ‘such’, but substance is not a universal, but is rather a ‘this’ – a separable thing… (Bk 11, Ch 2, p 854)

It makes no difference whether that which is be referred to being or to unity. For even if they are not the same but different, at least they are convertible; for that which is one is also somehow being, and that which is being is one. (Bk 11, Ch 3, p 855)

As the mathematician investigates abstractions… the same is true with regard to being. For the attributes of this in so far as it is being, and the contrarieties in it qua being, it is the business of no other science than philosophy to investigate. (Bk 11, Ch 3, p 855)

In general, it is absurd to make the fact that the things of this earth are observed to change and never to remain in the same state, the basis of our judgment about the truth… One must start from the things that are always in the same state and suffer no change. Such are the heavenly bodies… (Bk 11, Ch 6, p 859)

Essence depends on quality, and this is of determinate nature, though quantity is of indeterminate. (Bk 11, Ch 6, p 859)

As for those to whom the difficulties mentioned are suggested by reasoning, it is not easy to solve the difficulties to their satisfaction, unless they will posit something and no longer demand a reason for it; for it is only thus that all reasoning and all proof is accomplished; if they posit nothing, they destroy all discussion and all reasoning. (Bk 11, Ch 6, p 859-60)

That which can exist apart and is unmovable… must surely be the divine, and this must be the first and most dominant principle. (Bk 11, Ch 7, p 861)

Since nothing accidental is prior to the essential, neither are accidental causes prior. If, then, luck or spontaneity is a cause of the material universe, reason and nature are causes before it. (Bk 11, Ch 8, p 863)

There being a distinction in each class of things between the potential and the completely real, I call the actuality of the potential as such, movement… The actuality is either this - the act of building - or the house. But when the house exists it is no longer buildable; the buildable is what is being built. The actuality, then, must be the act of building, and this is a movement. (Bk 11, Ch 9, p 864)

CATEGORIES

substance

quality

place

acting or being acted on

relation

quantity

There must be three kinds of movement – of quality, of quantity, of place. (Bk 11, Ch 12, p 869)

If the simple coming to be was once coming to be, that which comes to be something was also once coming to be; therefore that which simply comes to be something was not yet in existence, but something which was coming to be coming to be something was already in existence. (Bk 11, Ch 12, p 870)

Since that which is moved and moves is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and actuality. And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point. (Bk 12, Ch 7, p 879)

The first mover… exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle… On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. And it is a life such as the best which we enjoy… since its actuality is also pleasure…

And thought thinks on itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, so that thought and object of thought are the same…

Life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal.

(Bk 12, Ch 7, p 880)

There is a substance which is eternal and unmoveable and separate from sensible things… (it) cannot have any magnitude, but is without parts and indivisible…it has also been shown that it is impassive and unalterable. (Bk 12, Ch 7, p 881)

The primary essence has not matter; for it is complete reality. (Bk 12, Ch 8, p 884)

While thought is held to be the most divine of things observed by us…if it thinks of nothing, what is there here of dignity? It is just like one who sleeps. And if it thinks, but this depends on something else… it cannot be the best substance; for it is through thinking that its value belongs to it… Therefore it must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking… the divine thought and its object will be the same. (Bk 12, Ch 9, p 884-5)

The one matter which underlies any pair of contraries is contrary to nothing… There is nothing contrary to that which is primary; for all contraries have matter, and things that have matter exist only potentially. (Bk 12, Ch 10, p 886-7)

The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree. (Bk 13, Ch 3, p 893)

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aristotle-ideas · 6 years ago

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Nicomachean Ethics

“The Basic Works of Aristotle” (Modern Library, 2001)

Book 1

Those who act win

As in the Olympic Games it is not the most beautiful and the strongest that are crowned but those who compete… so those who act win, and rightly win, the noble and good things in life. Ch 8 p 944

Virtuous actions are pleasant by nature

For most men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because these are not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such, so that these are pleasant for such men as well as in their own nature. Ch 8 p 945

Happiness seems godlike

Happiness seems… even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning or training, to be among the most god-like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something godlike and blessed. Ch 9 p 946

Virtuous actions lead to lasting happiness

No function of man has so much permanence as virtuous activities… and of these themselves the most valuable are more durable because those who are happy spend their life most readily and most continuously in these… He will be happy throughout his life; for always, or by preference to everything else, he will be engaged in virtuous action and contemplation. Ch 10 p 947

It is noble to bear misfortune

Nobility shines through, when a man bears with resignation many great misfortunes, not through insensibility to pain but through nobility and greatness of soul. Ch 10 p 948

Book 2

Virtue must meet certain conditions

If the acts that are in accordance with the virtues have themselves a certain character it does not follow that they are done justly or temperately. The agent also must be in a certain condition when he does them; in the first place he must have knowledge, secondly he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and thirdly his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character. Ch 4 p 956

Virtue is character

The virtue of a man… will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well. Ch 5 p 957

Virtue is a mean

Both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue… Therefore virtue is a kind of mean. Ch 6 p 958

Finding the middle is not easy

In everything it is no easy task to find the middle… anyone can get angry – that is easy – or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble. Ch 8 p 963

Book 3

Some beings lack choice

Both children and the lower animals share in voluntary action, but not in choice, and acts done on the spur of the moment we describe as voluntary, but not as chosen. Ch 2 p 968

Choices shape character

To the unjust and to the self-indulgent man it was open at the beginning not to become men of this kind, and so they are unjust and self-indulgent voluntarily; but now that they have become so it is not possible for them not to be so. Ch 5 p 973

Appetites should be rational

The appetitive element in a temperate man should harmonize with the rational principle; for the noble is the mark at which both aim, and the temperate man craves for the things he ought, as he ought, and when he ought; and that is what the rational principle directs. Ch 12 p 984

Book 4

The equitable is a correction of legal justice.

The same thing… is just and equitable, and while both are good the equitable is superior… The equitable is just, but not the legally just but a correction of legal justice. The reason is that all law is universal but about some things it is not possible to make a universal statement which shall be correct. Ch 10 p 1020

Book 6

Knowledge of causes can be ruined by pleasure or pain

The originating causes of the things that are done consist in the end at which they are aimed; but the man who has been ruined by pleasure or pain forthwith fails to see any such originating cause – to see that for the sake of this or because of this he ought to choose and do whatever he chooses and does. Ch 5 p 1026

Philosophic wisdom makes a man happy

Philosophic wisdom… being a part of virtue entire, by being possessed and actualizing itself it makes a man happy. Ch 12 p 1034

Practise of virtue requires practical wisdom

The work of man is achieved only in accordance with practical wisdom as well as with moral virtue; for virtue makes us aim at the right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means. Ch 12 p 1034

To be good one must be in a certain state

In order to be good one must be in a certain state when one does the several acts, i.e. one must do them as a result of choice and for the sake of the acts themselves. Ch 12 p 1034

Practical wisdom requires virtue

Wickedness perverts us and causes us to be deceived about the starting-points of action. Therefore it is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise without being good… It is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without moral virtue. Ch 12 p 1035-6

Book 7

Moral states to avoid

Of moral states to be avoided there are three kinds – vice, incontinence, brutishness. Ch 1 p 1036

A god is above virtue

As a brute has no vice or virtue, so neither has a god; his state is higher than virtue, and that of a brute is a different kind of state from vice. Ch 1 p 1037

Thinking itself

Thinking itself is sometimes injurious to health. Ch 12 p 1054

You can’t be happy on the rack

All men think that the happy life is pleasant and weave pleasure into their ideal of happiness – and reasonably too; for no activity is perfect when it is impeded, and happiness is a perfect thing . . . Those who say that the victim of the rack or the man who falls into great misfortunes is happy if he is good, are, whether they mean to or not, talking nonsense. Ch 13 p 1055

Something divine

All things have by nature something divine in them. Ch 13 p 1056

God is at rest

God always enjoys a single and simple pleasure; for there is not only an activity of movement but an activity of immobility, and pleasure is found more in rest than in movement. Ch 14 p 1058

Book 8

Importance of friends

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. Ch 1 p 1058

Friendship and justice

When men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest from of justice is thought to be a friendly quality. Ch 1 p 1059

Friendship for utility and pleasure

Those who love for the sake of utility love for the sake of what is good for themselves, and those who love for the sake of pleasure do so for the sake of what is pleasant to themselves, and not in so far as the other is the person loved but in so far as he is useful or pleasant. Ch 3 p 1060

Friendship between the good

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves. Ch 3 p 1061

Bad men seek advantage

Bad men do not delight in each other unless some advantage come of the relation. Ch 4 p 1062

Book 9

Avoid wickedness

We should strain every nerve to avoid wickedness and should endeavour to be good; for so and only so can one be either friendly to oneself or a friend to another. Ch 4 p 1083

We exist by activity

Existence is to all men a thing to be chosen and loved, and . . . we exist by virtue of activity (i. e. by living and acting). Ch 7 p 1085

Loving is active

Love is like activity, being loved like passivity; and loving and its concomitants are attributes of those who are the more active . . . All men love what they have won by labour. Ch 7 p 1085-6

Virtue is the greatest good

If all were to strive towards what is noble and strain every nerve to do the noblest deeds, everything would be as it should be for the common weal, and everyone would secure for himself the goods that are greatest, since virtue is the greatest of goods. Ch 8 p 1087

We are social by nature

No one would choose the whole world on condition of being alone, since man is a political creature and one whose nature is to live with others. Ch 9 p 1088

Love is an excess of friendship

One cannot love several people; love is ideally a sort of excess of friendship, and that can only be felt towards one person; therefore great friendship too can only be felt towards a few people. Ch 10 p 1091

Manly people avoid sharing grief

People of a manly nature guard against making their friends grieve with them, and, unless he be exceptionally insensible to pain, such a man cannot stand the pain that ensues for his friends, and in general does not admit fellow-mourners because he is not himself given to mourning; but women and womenly men enjoy sympathisers in their grief, and love them as friends and companions in sorrow. Ch 11 p 1092

Book 10

Pleasure completes the activity of the senses

While there is pleasure in respect of any sense, and in respect of thought and contemplation no less, the most complete is pleasantest, and that of a well-conditioned organ in relation to the worthiest of its objects is the most complete; and the pleasure completes the activity. Ch 4 p 1099

Pleasures are worthy or unworthy

To each activity there is a proper pleasure. The pleasure proper to a worthy activity is good and that proper to an unworthy activity bad; just as the appetites for noble objects are laudable, those for base objects culpable. Ch 5 p 1101

Happiness is not amusement

Those things are both valuable and pleasant which are such to the good man . . Happiness therefore does not lie in amusement; it would, indeed, be strange if the end were amusement, and one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one’s life in order to amuse oneself. Ch 6 p 1103

Relaxation is not an end

Amusement is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously. Relaxation, then, is not an end; for it is taken for the sake of activity. Ch 6 p 1103

The pleasure of philosophic wisdom

The activity of philosophic wisdom is admittedly the pleasantest of virtuous activities; at all events the pursuit of it is thought to offer pleasures marvellous for their purity and their enduringness, and it is to be expected that those who know will pass their time more pleasantly than those who inquire. Ch 6 p 1104

The activity of reason is the supreme happiness

Happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace . . . The activity of reason, which is contemplative, seems both to be superior in serious worth and to aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself . . . and the self-sufficiency, leisureliness, unweariedness . . . ascribed to the supremely happy man . . . are evidently those connected with this activity. Ch 7 p 1104-5

If reason is divine

If reason . . . is divine in comparison with man, the life according to it is divine in comparison with human life . . . [We] must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything . . . Reason more than anything else is man. This life therefore is also the happiest. Ch 7 p 1105

Moral virtues belong to our composite nature

Practical wisdom . . . is linked to virtue of character . . . Being connected with the passions also, the moral virtues must belong to our composite nature; and the virtues of our composite nature are human; so, therefore, are the life and happiness which correspond to these. The excellence of the reason is a thing apart. Ch 8 p 1106

Active and contemplative virtue

It is debated, too, whether the will or deed is more essential to virtue, which is assumed to involve both; it is surely clear that its perfection involves both . . . But the man who is contemplating the truth needs no such thing . . . but in so far as he is a man and lives with a number of people, he chooses to do virtuous acts. Ch 8 p 1106

God is contemplative

We assume the gods to be above all other beings blessed and happy . . . The activity of God, which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be contemplative; and of human activities, therefore, that which is most akin to this must be most of the nature of happiness. Ch 8 p 1107

Happiness is a form of contemplation

None of the other animals is happy, since they in no way share in contemplation. Happiness extends, then, just so far as contemplation does . . . Happiness, therefore, must be some form of contemplation. Ch 8 p 1107

Moderate means are enough for a virtuous and happy life

Self-sufficiency and action do not involve excess, and we can do noble acts without ruling earth and sea; for even with moderate advantages one can act virtuously . . . and it is enough that we should have so much as that; for the life of the man who is active in accordance with virtue will be happy. Ch 8 p 1107

Passion yields but to force

He who lives as passion directs will not hear argument that dissuades him, nor understand it if he does . . . And in general passion seems to yield not to argument but to force. Ch 9 p 1109

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