Tag Archives: Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Arguments against Forms: “Former and Latter”

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In the process of setting forth the project that will consume the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle sketches a description for what is the ultimate good, that which all our actions aim to achieve.  He describes the possibility of finding such an action (or whatever it will turn out to be), in these terms:

Indeed, if there is some end of practical affairs which we wish in itself, but all the rest because of this one thing, and we do not wish for everything because of some other thing (for then everything proceeds to infinity, and so desire would be empty and vain), it is obvious that this would be the good and the best.  As archers possessing a target, should we attain what is needed, since the knowledge of this has great importance in life?  If this is so, one must attempt to grasp it in outline at least, what it is and of what kind of knowledge and capacity it belongs (NE 1094a18-26). 1

As Aristotle vividly sets forth, we need some “target,” that ultimate good, at which we can aim our arrows, our lives.  One possibility is the “good” so envisaged by Plato.  Aristotle will then embark on an investigation of this candidate for the “good.”  Before the first of many criticism of Forms, however, Aristotle offers a peace offering of good will to Platonists.

It is fitting to perhaps to investigate and deal with the difficulties of how the universal [good] (to katholou) is said, even though such an investigation courts controversy because the men who introduced Forms (ta eide) are friends.  It would seem that it is fitting, in fact necessary for the preservation of truth even to destroy one’s own work, both generally and because we are philosophers.  For, although both [Platonists and truth] are dear, it is sacred to preferentially honor the truth (NE 1096a11-17). 2

After this shrewdly irenical, even poetical, preface, Aristotle gets into the meat of his first objection by informing us that Platonists do not have forms of those things which have a “former” and “latter.”

Indeed those who introduced this opinion did not place the Forms among those things in which they said there was a former (to proteron) and latter (hysteron); therefore they did not make a Form of numbers.  And the good is said in the categories of “what is” (ti esti) and in quantity (to poion) and in relation (pros ti), but that which is by itself (to kath’ hauto), that is, being or substance (ousia), is prior (proteron) by nature to relation. (For relation seems like an offshoot and incident of being (tou ontos).  So that there would not be some Form in addition to these (NE 1096a17-23). 3

After the mention of numbers, Aristotle brings in talk of his own Categories, noting that the “good” can be predicated in many different ways.  This presents a problem for believers in the Forms.  If “good” is in one of the three categories of “what is,” or quantity, or relation, then in virtue of being in both the category of “what is” and relation it is involved in the “former and latter.”  However remember that the “former and latter” is prohibited as things there are Forms of, as Aristotle just mentioned at NE 1096a17.  The reason that the good is involved in the former and the latter is because “what is” precedes, i.e. is  ontologically prior to, the category of relation, although both “what is” and relation are said of the good.  Therefore logically either there are Forms for things that are involved in “former and latter,” or, as Aristotle prefers, there are no forms since even the paradigmatic Form of them all, the Form of the good, necessarily must (illlogically) involve the “former and latter.”

Questions:

  1. Why does Aristotle bring up two categories in this objection to forms?  That is, he doesn’t seem to need the category of “what is.”  Isn’t the category of relation, in itself, sufficient to show that the good, if it is involved in that category (and it is) concerns the “former and latter.”  Because it seems that at least some forms of relation concern the former and latter.
  2. What is the motivation in Platonists avoiding Forms in the case of the former and latter?  Is it because this is a form of relation, in which one is before the other, and thus would undermine the atemporality and transcendence of Forms?
  3. In light of NE 1094a18-26 (quoted above), is it fair of Aristotle to ask Platonists for an explanation of good in the different ways Aristotle enumerates?  After all, if per Aristotle’s argument in NE 1094a18-26, there is one single “good” at which everything aims, then insofar as there is more than one “good,” they are only derivatively so, and it is plausible that there must be some one single good over and above all these.

 

1 Εἰ δή τι τέλος ἐστὶ τῶν
πρακτῶν ὃ δι’ αὑτὸ βουλόμεθα, τἆλλα δὲ διὰ τοῦτο, καὶ μὴ
πάντα δι’ ἕτερον αἱρούμεθα (πρόεισι γὰρ οὕτω γ’ εἰς ἄπειρον,    (20)
ὥστ’ εἶναι κενὴν καὶ ματαίαν τὴν ὄρεξιν), δῆλον ὡς τοῦτ’ ἂν
εἴη τἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ ἄριστον. ἆρ’ οὖν καὶ πρὸς τὸν βίον ἡ
γνῶσις αὐτοῦ μεγάλην ἔχει ῥοπήν, καὶ καθάπερ τοξόται
σκοπὸν ἔχοντες μᾶλλον ἂν τυγχάνοιμεν τοῦ δέοντος; εἰ δ’
οὕτω, πειρατέον τύπῳ γε περιλαβεῖν αὐτὸ τί ποτ’ ἐστὶ καὶ   (25)
τίνος τῶν ἐπιστημῶν ἢ δυνάμεων

2  Τὸ δὲ καθόλου βέλτιον ἴσως ἐπισκέψασθαι καὶ διαπο-
ρῆσαι πῶς λέγεται, καίπερ προσάντους τῆς τοιαύτης ζητή-
σεως γινομένης διὰ τὸ φίλους ἄνδρας εἰσαγαγεῖν τὰ εἴδη.
δόξειε δ’ ἂν ἴσως βέλτιον εἶναι καὶ δεῖν ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ γε τῆς
ἀληθείας καὶ τὰ οἰκεῖα ἀναιρεῖν, ἄλλως τε καὶ φιλοσόφους   (15)
ὄντας· ἀμφοῖν γὰρ ὄντοιν φίλοιν ὅσιον προτιμᾶν τὴν ἀλή-
θειαν.

3 οἱ δὴ κομίσαντες τὴν δόξαν ταύτην οὐκ ἐποίουν ἰδέας
ἐν οἷς τὸ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον ἔλεγον, διόπερ οὐδὲ τῶν
ἀριθμῶν ἰδέαν κατεσκεύαζον· τὸ δ’ ἀγαθὸν λέγεται καὶ ἐν
τῷ τί ἐστι καὶ ἐν τῷ ποιῷ καὶ ἐν τῷ πρός τι, τὸ δὲ καθ’   (20)
αὑτὸ καὶ ἡ οὐσία πρότερον τῇ φύσει τοῦ πρός τι (παρα-
φυάδι γὰρ τοῦτ’ ἔοικε καὶ συμβεβηκότι τοῦ ὄντος)· ὥστ’ οὐκ
ἂν εἴη κοινή τις ἐπὶ τούτοις ἰδέα.

Mirroring the Ego: Aristotle’s Origin of Friendship Part 1

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Like few philosophers before or since, Aristotle is a keen taxonomist.  He orders and arranges things, ideas and arguments into various categories, some of which are very helpful.  Others seem bizarre or quaint to the modern reader.

In the Nichomachean Ethics Aristotle devotes an entire chapter to discussing friendship.  Aristotle divides friendships into three categories: the perfect, the pleasurable, and the useful.  As one could guess, you can do no better than a perfect friendship.  As Aristotle launches upon one of his characteristic asides he discusses the origin of friendship in general.

The marks of friendship with respect to the relationships of our intimates, and by which friendships themselves are defined, appear to come from our relationship with ourselves.  For they define the friend as someone who wishes or does the good, or what appears good, on account of the other, or as someone who wishes his friend to exist and to live for his own sake.  This is the same thing mothers feel toward their children, or friends who have come into conflict.  Others define the friend as someone who spends time and chooses the same things as his friend or as someone who shares in the joy and sorrow of the friend.  This latter definition especially concerns mothers.  With one of these ideas they also define friendship.  Each of these is found in the good man’s relation with himself (and with respect to other men, in that way in which they think they are such, just as it is said, virtue and the good man seem to be the measure for each).  The good man is likeminded with himself, and he grasps at the same things with his entire soul.  And he wishes the good for himself and what appears to be good, and he does it (for to do good is characteristic of a good man) and on account of himself (that is, for the sake of the intellectual faculty, which very thing each man seems to be).

τὰ φιλικὰ δὲ τὰ πρὸς τοὺς πέλας, καὶ οἷς αἱ φιλίαι ὁρίζονται, ἔοικεν ἐκ τῶν πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἐληλυθέναι. τιθέασι γὰρ φίλον τὸν βουλόμενον καὶ πράττοντα τἀγαθὰ ἢ τὰ φαινόμενα ἐκείνου ἕνεκα, ἢ τὸν βουλόμενον εἶναι καὶ 1166a.5ζῆν τὸν φίλον αὐτοῦ χάριν· ὅπερ αἱ μητέρες πρὸς τὰ τέκνα πεπόνθασι, καὶ τῶν φίλων οἱ προσκεκρουκότες. οἳ δὲ τὸν συνδιάγοντα καὶ ταὐτὰ αἱρούμενον, ἢ τὸν συναλγοῦντα καὶ συγχαίροντα τῷ φίλῳ· μάλιστα δὲ καὶ τοῦτο περὶ τὰς μητέρας συμβαίνει. τούτων δέ τινι καὶ τὴν φιλίαν 1166a.10ὁρίζονται. πρὸς ἑαυτὸν δὲ τούτων ἕκαστον τῷ ἐπιεικεῖ ὑπάρχει (τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς, ᾗ τοιοῦτοι ὑπολαμβάνουσιν εἶναι· ἔοικε δέ, καθάπερ εἴρηται, μέτρον ἑκάστων ἡ ἀρετὴ καὶ ὁ σπουδαῖος εἶναι)· οὗτος γὰρ ὁμογνωμονεῖ ἑαυτῷ, καὶ τῶν αὐτῶν ὀρέγεται κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν ψυχήν· καὶ βούλεται 1166a.15δὴ ἑαυτῷ τἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰ φαινόμενα καὶ πράττει (τοῦ γὰρ ἀγαθοῦ τἀγαθὸν διαπονεῖν) καὶ ἑαυτοῦ ἕνεκα (τοῦ γὰρ διανοητικοῦ χάριν, ὅπερ ἕκαστος εἶναι δοκεῖ)· NE 1166a1-17

Here as elsewhere, Aristotle appeals to the definition of friendship as someone wishing well for another person for the sake of that person.  To perhaps oversimplify it: relational altruism.  Now altruism, as it turns out, is quite the tedious topic, tending toward an exhaustive regress.  Every time seemingly altruistic motives are displayed, a gainsayer can point here or there and say, “See, you really did it to satisfy x or y for yourself!”  This problem or paradox of altruism, however, as vexatious as it is for us, does not seem to have arisen by the time of Aristotle.  Nevertheless, since this definition– doing something for someone else’s sake alone –seems integral to Aristotle’s attempts at understanding friendship, we are saddled with solving the implications of this difficulty ourselves.

The problem is that Aristotle affirms (1) Friendship is wishing well for the other for his own sake (2) Friendship originates from the relationship we have for ourselves.  The difficulty for me in accepting both these beliefs is that (1) seems precluded by (2).  If friendship is really an extension of my own relationship toward myself, then only in so far as that relationship partakes or mirrors my own relationship toward myself, can it be said that it is a friendship.  However, this very idea undercuts the notion that we do things merely for the sake of the friend as in (1).  For example, if a friendship either becomes or appears to become different than our relationship with ourselves, will we not dissolve the friendship?  Yes, as I understand it, in accord with (2), but no, if we consider (1) alone.

I will discuss in the next post a possible solution to this problem.