The Cambridge Companion To Aristotle S Nicomachean Ethics

This volume provides a systematic guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, a key text of ancient philosophy, and Western philosophy in general.

The most accessible and comprehensive guide to Aristotle currently available.

One of the most influential works in the history of political theory, Aristotle's Politics is a treatise in practical philosophy, intended to inform legislators and to create the conditions for virtuous and self-sufficient lives for the citizens of a state. In this Companion, distinguished scholars offer new perspectives on the work and its themes. After an opening exploration of the relation between Aristotle's ethics and his politics, the central chapters follow the sequence of the eight books of the Politics, taking up questions such as the role of reason in legitimizing rule, the common good, justice, slavery, private property, citizenship, democracy and deliberation, unity, conflict, law and authority, and education. The closing chapters discuss the interaction between Aristotle's political thought and contemporary democratic theory. The volume will provide a valuable resource for those studying ancient philosophy, classics, and the history of political thought.

An engaging and accessible introduction to Aristotle's great masterpiece of moral philosophy.

�EVERY art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. But a certain difference is found among ends; some are activities, others are products apart from the activities that produce them. Where there are ends apart from the actions, it is the nature of the products to be better than the activities. Now, as there are many actions, arts, and sciences, their ends also are many; the end of the medical art is health, that of shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory, that of economics wealth. But where such arts fall under a single capacity- as bridle-making and the other arts concerned with the equipment of horses fall under the art of riding, and this and every military action under strategy, in the same way other arts fall under yet others- in all of these the ends of the master arts are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends; for it is for the sake of the former that the latter are pursued. It makes no difference whether the activities themselves are the ends of the actions, or something else apart from the activities, as in the case of the sciences just mentioned.�

This eBook edition of "Nicomachean Ethics" has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The Nicomachean Ethics is widely considered one of the most important philosophical works of Western Philosophy. The theme of the work is a Socratic question previously explored in the works of Plato, Aristotle's friend and teacher, of how men should best live. The Nicomachean Ethics had a crucial impact upon the European Middle Ages, becoming one of the core works of medieval philosophy. It therefore indirectly became critical in the development of all modern philosophy as well as European law and theology.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, based on lectures that he gave in Athens in the fourth century BCE, is one of the most significant works in moral philosophy, and has profoundly influenced the whole course of subsequent philosophical endeavour. It is soundly located within a philosophical tradition, but its argument differs markedly from those of Plato and Socrates in its emphasis on the exercise - as opposed to the mere possession - of virtue as the key to human happiness, offering seminal discussions of ethical issues that are practical in their intent. Topics covered include the role of luck in human wellbeing, moral education, responsibility, courage, justice, moral weakness, friendship and pleasure. This accessible new translation by Roger Crisp follows the Greek text closely and also provides a non-Greek-reader with the flavour of the original. The volume also includes a historical and philosophical introduction and notes on further reading.

This new edition provides an accurate, readable and accessible translation of one of the world's greatest ethical works, enabling readers to come close to Aristotle's original. Primarily for non-Greek readers, this book is also of wider interest to students and scholars of ethics, ancient philosophy, Aristotle and classics.