Aristotle's Discovery of the Human

Mary P. Nichols

Description

Aristotle’s Discovery of the Human offers a fresh, illuminating, and accessible analysis of one of the Western philosophical tradition’s most important texts.

In Aristotle’s Discovery of the Human, noted political theorist Mary P. Nichols explores the ways in which Aristotle brings the gods and the divine into his “philosophizing about human affairs” in his Nicomachean Ethics. Her analysis shows that, for Aristotle, both piety and politics are central to a flourishing human life. Aristotle argues that piety provides us not only an awareness of our kinship to the divine, and hence elevates human life, but also an awareness of a divinity that we cannot entirely assimilate or fathom. Piety therefore supports a politics that strives for excellence at the same time that it checks excess through a recognition of human limitation.

Proceeding through each of the ten books of the Ethics, Nichols shows that this prequel to Aristotle’s Politics is as theoretical as it is practical. Its goal of improving political life and educating citizens and statesmen is inseparable from its pursuit of the truth about human beings and their relation to the divine. In the final chapter, which turns to contemporary political debate, Nichols’s suggestion of the possibility of supplementing and deepening liberalism on Aristotelian grounds is supported by the account of human nature, virtue, friendship, and community developed throughout her study of the Ethics.

At the outset of the Ethics, Aristotle refers to the work of the statesman in securing the good of his community as divine (1094b7-11). He says that the individual who possesses greatness of soul is worthy of the greatest things, the honors we assign to the gods (1123b13-20). He encourages us to pursue happiness, the end of all our actions, and places it among the most divine things (1094a18-25; 1099b16). He contrasts reverence (aidōs) not only with shameless arrogance but also with cowering timidity (1108a33-b1). His references to the gods and the divine support human activity and achievement. That we wonder at the divine, for example (1141a33-b7), elevates us above the beasts. Because we can look up, to speak metaphorically, we can look ahead. We form political communities that aim at common goods. We deliberate, make choices, and act. Like free persons rather than slaves, we rule ourselves. What we do, as Aristotle puts it, “admits of being otherwise” or is “up to us” (1140a32-36; 1113b6). This is not true of other natural beings, who develop toward their ends by nature, unless chance or human activity divert them (1140a15-16). Human beings do not receive the ethical virtues from nature; they must acquire them by their own efforts (1130a24-26), and there are many virtues, intellectual as well as ethical, and many lives we choose in which they are manifest. We can think about who we are, we can question, and although some perplexities remain, we can resolve others (1146b6-7).

At the same time, our wonder, our awe, and even our questioning make us aware that there is something more, something higher, than human life. Piety supports the elevation of human life—for we are akin to the divine—but it also limits it. Aristotle claims that while we can become “blessed”—a state we attribute to the gods—we can do so “only as human beings” (1101a19-21). Human beings can think “divine thoughts” (1177b32-37), but thoughts about the divine that human beings think include the differences between divine and human. In spite of his admiration for greatness of soul, Aristotle warns against its assumption of divine-like perfection and attempts to turn the great-souled individual to friendship (1124b10-16; 1125a10-13; 1124b33-1125a1). Aristotle says that prudence, the virtue of the statesman that considers the good of the community is not the highest virtue, for “the human being is not the best thing in the cosmos” (1141a19-23; 1141b24-28; 1145a6-9). And while we can resolve some perplexities, others, such as those involving what is best in the cosmos, remain. The Ethics attempts no thematic discussion of the gods, as does Plato’s Republic (379a-383c) and Laws (885c-907b), nor does Aristotle raise the question there of what is the pious or the holy, as does Plato’s Euthryphro. This may be less a difference between Aristotle’s political thought and Plato’s than a sign that Aristotle learned from Plato the problems with such direct approaches to the divine and that a less direct and less precise approach was called for. His Ethics takes just such an approach. The piety that emerges in his philosophizing about the human things is a source at the same time of confidence, on one hand, and moderation, on the other. Our very activities, which we undertake in confidence and hope, manifest our incompleteness, our imperfection.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Our Unfinished Humanity: A Divine Gift (Book 1)

2. Ethical Virtue: Nature, Character, and Choice (Books 2-3)

3. The Virtues of Living Together (Book 4)

4. A Shrine to the Graces: Justice and Tragedy (Book 5)

5. Intellectual Virtue: Prudence, Wisdom, and Philosophy (Book 6)

6. Human Strength and Divine Perfection (Book 7)

7. Friendship: Family, Political Community, and Philosophy (Books 8-9)

8. Divine Thoughts and Political Reform (Book 10)

Conclusion: Aristotelian Piety for a Liberal Politics

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie politique
• Éthique et morale
• Philosophie de la religion
• justice
• Political Science
• Political
• PHILOSOPHY
• Religión
• State
• Politics
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268205447
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

ARISTOTLE’S DISCOVERY OF THE HUMAN

Piety and Politics in the Nicomachean Ethics
MARY P. NICHOLS
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
Copyright © 2023 by the University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023937442
ISBN: 978-0-268-20545-4 (Hardback)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20547-8 (WebPDF)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20544-7 (Epub)
For David
Reciprocity holds the city together, our reciprocating not only harm for harm, but also good for good. Shrines to the Graces are therefore placed along the roadways, to foster doing good in return, for this belongs to gratitude. One ought to help in turn someone who has been gracious, and even to initiate reciprocal giving.
—from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics , Book 5
CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction ONE Our Unfinished Humanity: A Divine Gift (Book 1) TWO The Ethical Virtues: Nature, Character, and Choice (Books 2–3) THREE The Virtues of Living Together: Distinguishing the Human from the Divine (Book 4) FOUR A Shrine to the Graces: Justice and Tragedy (Book 5) FIVE Intellectual Virtues: Prudence, Wisdom, and Philosophy (Book 6) SIX Human Strength versus Divine Perfection: Deepening Our View of Virtue (Book 7) SEVEN Friendship: Family, Political Community, and Philosophy (Books 8–9) EIGHT Divine Thoughts and Political Reform: Summing Up and Moving Forward (Book 10) Afterthoughts: Aristotelian Piety for a Liberal Politics Bibliography Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I studied Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in the early 1970s with Joseph Cropsey at the University of Chicago. Thanks to his teaching, I have been unable to leave the book behind—I returned to it every few years in my graduate seminars, first at Northern Illinois University, then at Catholic University and Fordham University, and most recently at Baylor University until my retirement in 2018. Even after retiring, I conducted several informal seminars on the Ethics with Baylor students as an extension of the class that I never quite finished teaching. Aristotle’s Ethics has been with me all my academic life. With the help of students, my thoughts have evolved, and I have seen anew, always, I believe, guided by Aristotle’s text. I do not think that I ever taught the same course twice. That many of my students have written dissertations and books on Aristotle, in many ways going further than I have, witnesses the depth of Aristotle’s “philosophy concerning human affairs.”
Rachel Alexander, Christine Basil, Steve Block, Ronna Burger, Gerald Mara, Jeff Poelvoorde, and Denise Schaeffer have read one or more chapters. Several of them have read the entire manuscript. I am grateful for their questions and objections, and most of all for their encouragement and support. Jeff Poelvoorde’s insightful comments, his Herculean efforts in compiling the index, and his apparently infinite energy and enthusiasm are to me a source of wonder. I am also grateful to friends with whom I have been close almost my entire adult life, some even longer. Without their friendship, I would not have acquired the experience to understand as much as I have of Aristotle’s thought. Naming them could not approach the return for what they have given me.
Most of all, I am grateful to my family, with whom I have been blessed. My sons Keith and John tolerated my occupation with writing books and continue to share their mother with her students. I hope that they know that however much I love my work, I love them even more. Finally, without David’s support and love, I would not have been able to write this book, not simply because he read revision after revision. In more ways than one, this book is his as well as mine.
Introduction
In elaborating his famous teaching that human beings are political by nature, Aristotle observes that one who is incapable of living with others or who is need of nothing and self-sufficient would be either a beast or a god ( Politics 1253a28–29). He locates human life, even human life at its best, in a middle ground between the bestial and the divine, on which beings endowed with reason share in thoughts and actions. He gives a full and rich picture of this middle ground in his Nicomachean Ethics , as he explores the meaning of a good human life and how human beings can attain happiness (1097b23–26, 1098a12–18). 1 Aristotle attempts to preserve that middle ground as he encourages us to rise above the beasts by acquiring virtue and to live with a view to what is most akin to the divine in ourselves. A good human life, which reflects both the virtues and the limitations of the human, would therefore neither deny the human connection to the divine nor try to eliminate the distance between the two. 2 A good human life could, in this sense, be considered a pious one, a life cognizant both of the elevated place of human beings in the cosmos insofar as they are akin to the divine and also of a divinity beyond the human. A good political community has, in turn, the task of supporting such a life by encouraging human achievement, and we can judge it by how well it does so.
At the outset of the Ethics , Aristotle refers to the work of the statesman in securing the good of his community as divine (1094b7–11). He says that the individual who possesses greatness of soul is worthy of the greatest things, such as the honors we assign to the gods (1123b13–20). He encourages us to pursue happiness, the end of all our actions, and places it among the most divine things (1094a18–25, 1099b16). He contrasts reverence ( aidōs ) not only with shameless arrogance but also with cowering timidity (1108a33–b1). His references to the gods and to the divine support human activity and achievement. That we wonder at the divine, for example (1141a33–b7), elevates us above the beasts. Because we can look up, to speak metaphorically, we can look ahead. We form political communities that aim at common goods. We deliberate, make choices, and act. Like free persons rather than slaves, we rule ourselves. What we do, as Aristotle puts it, “admits of being otherwise” or is “up to us” (1140a32–36, 1113b6). This is not true of other natural beings, who develop toward their ends by nature, unless chance or human activity divert them (1140a15–16). Human beings do not receive the ethical virtues from nature; they must acquire them by their own efforts (1130a24–26). There are many virtues, intellectual and ethical, and many lives we choose in which they are manifest. We can think about who we are, we can question, and although some perplexities remain, we can resolve others (1146b6–7).
At the same time, our wonder, our awe, and even our questioning make us aware that there is something more, something higher, than human life. Piety supports the elevation of human life—for we are akin to the divine—but it also limits it. Aristotle claims that although we can become “blessed”—a state we attribute to the gods—we can do so “only as human beings” (1101a19–21). Human beings can think “divine thoughts” (1177b32–37), but thoughts about the divine that human beings think include the differences between divine and human. In spite of his admiration for greatness of soul, Aristotle warns against its assumption of divine-like perfection and attempts to turn the great-souled individual to friendship (1124b10–16, 1125a10–13, 1124b33–1125a1). Aristotle says that prudence, the virtue of the statesman who considers the good of the community, is not the highest virtue, for “the human being is not the best thing in the cosmos” (1141a19–23, 1141b24–28, 1145a6–9). And even though we can resolve some perplexities, others, such as those involving what is best in the cosmos, remain. The Ethics attempts no thematic discussion of the gods, as does Plato’s Republic (379a–383c) and Laws (885c–907b), nor does Aristotle raise the question there of what is the pious or the holy, as does Plato’s Euthyphro . This may be less a difference between Aristotle’s political thought and Plato’s than a sign that Aristotle learned from Plato the problems with such direct approaches to the divine and that a less direct and less precise approach was called for. His Ethics takes just such an approach. The piety that emerges in his philosophizing about human things is a source at the same time of confidence, on the one hand, and moderation, on the other. Our very activities, which we undertake in confidence and hope, manifest our incompleteness, our imperfection.
Aristotle defines the human work as the activity of soul in accord with virtue, and if there are many virtues, in accord with the “most complete” (1098a16–17). He proceeds to describe many virtues, and there does not appear to be one alone that is “most complete.” Even if there were, it alone could not confer completeness or wholeness, since there are other virtues, which even “the best” does not replace (see Politics 1281a29–34). Aristotle speaks not only of the “best” ( to ariston ) for human beings, which is often translated as the “highest good,” but also of “the complete good” ( to teleion agathon ) (cf. 1094a22 with 1097b8; see also 1098a16–18). His two formulations suggest a difference, a gap, between those goods, whether the “best” falls short of the complete or perfect, or the perfect falls short of the best. If that gap is a source of suffering and failure, it is also the condition for our attaining the blessedness that is possible for human beings (1101a21). Only incomplete beings enjoy, for example, the nurture and care of family life, the common deliberations of citizens, the loving and being loved that occur in friendships, and a wonder about the divine and our relation to it. It is in that gap that Aristotle made the discovery of the human that he contributes to philosophy.
Aristotle maintains throughout that his Ethics is a practical work, its goal being not simply knowledge but action (e.g., 1095a6, 1179b1–2). Suc