Giulio Di Basilio - Investigating the Relationship Between Aristotles Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics

Investigating the Relationship Between Aristotles Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics

Specifically focusing on the relationship between the Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics , this collection of essays studies major themes from Aristotles ethics.

This volume builds on a recent revival of interest in Aristotles Eudemian Ethics , which offers an invaluable complement to the Nicomachean Ethics in the study of the development of Aristotles ethical ideas. It brings together a series of new studies by leading scholars covering the main points of inquiry raised by the relationship between the two works, exploring their continuities and divergences. At the same time, it showcases a variety of approaches to and perspectives on the main questions posed by Aristotles ethical thought.

Investigating the Relationship Between Aristotles Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics is offered as a contribution to long-standing debates over Aristotles ethical thinking, as well as an inspiration for new approaches, which take both of his surviving ethical treatises seriously. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars of ancient philosophy and ethics, particularly Aristotles two ethics.

Giulio Di Basilio is an Irish Research Council postdoctoral fellow at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and a member of the Plato Centre. He has published articles on Aristotles ethics and Aquinas philosophy of action, as well as on the text of the Nicomachean Ethics .

Series editor: George Boys-Stones, University of Toronto, Canada

Routledges Issues in Ancient Philosophy exists to bring fresh light to the central themes of ancient philosophy through original studies which focus especially on texts and authors which lie outside the central canon. Contributions to the series are characterised by rigorous scholarship presented in an accessible manner; they are designed to be essential and invigorating reading for all advanced students in the field of ancient philosophy.

The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous

Hieroglyphic Semantics in Late Antiquity

Mark Wildish

Taurus of Beirut

The Other Side of Middle Platonism

Federico M. Petrucci

Ancient Logic, Language, and Metaphysics

Selected Essays by Mario Mignucci

Edited by Andrea Falcon and Pierdaniele Giaretta

The Stoic Doctrine of Providence

A Study of Its Development and of Some of Its Major Issues

Bernard Collette

Investigating the Relationship Between AristotlesEudemian andNicomachean Ethics

Giulio Di Basilio

Thales the Measurer

Livio Rossetti

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Issues-in-Ancient-Philosophy/book-series/ANCIENTPHIL

Investigating the Relationship Between Aristotles Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics

Edited by Giulio Di Basilio

First published 2022
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2022 selection and editorial matter, Giulio Di Basilio; individual chapters, the contributors

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ISBN: 978-0-367-34498-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-27168-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-32623-3 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780429326233

Typeset in Bembo
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Giulio Di Basilio

Carlo Natali

Friedemann Buddensiek

Marco Zingano

Giulio Di Basilio

Karen Margrethe Nielsen

Mi-Kyoung Lee

Christopher Rowe

Jozef Mller

Dorothea Frede

Giulia Bonasio

Terence Irwin

Giulia Bonasio is Assistant Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom.

Giulio Di Basilio is an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

Friedemann Buddensiek is Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Goethe-Universitt, Frankfurt, Germany.

Dorothea Frede is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany.

Terence Irwin is Emeritus Fellow at Keble College, Oxford, United Kingdom.

Mi-Kyoung Lee is Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado.

Carlo Natali is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Ca Foscari University, Venice, Italy.

Karen Margrethe Nielsen is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford, United Kingdom.

Jozef Mller is Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Riverside, California.

Christopher Rowe is Emeritus Professor of Greek at Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom.

Marco Zingano is Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of So Paulo, So Paulo, Brazil.

Giulio Di Basilio

DOI: 10.4324/9780429326233-1

The tradition has handed down to us under Aristotles name a series of ethical writings, namely the Magna Moralia, the Eudemian Ethics (EE), and the Nicomachean Ethics (EN). Doubts of authenticity loom large over the first treatise, and the majority of scholars hesitate to treat it on a par with the other two. Currently, there is general agreement on the importance of both the EE and the EN as authoritative sources of Aristotles ethical views.

The presence of two ethical works within the Aristotelian corpus raises a number of interesting questions. Interpreters are faced with two treatises of certain authorship presenting Aristotles considered views on ethical matters. This is the only ostensible case of a subject which Aristotle has addressed twice over in his philosophical output. To make matters worse, the EE and the EN share three books in common (i.e. EN V, VI, and VII coincide with EE IV, V, and VI) transmitted to us in the manuscripts (MSS) of both treatises; these books are sometimes referred to as disputed books in contrast to the undisputed Nicomachean or Eudemian books.

Let us look more closely at the composition of Aristotles EE and EN. Both of these works start off with an investigation of the human good, then move on to enquire into virtue, alongside a number of related themes like voluntariness and decision, and then conduct a survey of the individual virtues of character, e.g. courage, temperance, and generosity. These two blocks correspond to