The Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle

Penguin, 2004 - Philosophy - 329 pages

In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle sets out to examine the nature of happiness. He argues that happiness consists in 'activity of the soul in accordance with virtue'-for example, with moral virtues, such as courage, generosity and justice, and intellectual virtues, such as knowledge, wisdom and insight. The Ethics also discusses the nature of practical reasoning, the value and the objects of pleasure, the different forms of friendship and the relationship between individual virtue, society and the State. Aristotle's work has had a profound and lasting influence on all subsequent Western thought about ethical matters.
J.A.K. Thomson's translation has been revised by Hugh Tredennick, and is accompanied by a new introduction by Jonathan Barnes. This edition also includes an updated bibliography and a new chronology of Aristotle's life and works.

What people are saying

Review: The Nicomachean Ethics

User Review  - Brad Lyerla - Goodreads

Happiness is the activity of a rational soul in accordance with virtue says Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. Activity means living. Rational soul means a human being. And virtue means human ...

Review: The Nicomachean Ethics

User Review  - Josh Cheung - Goodreads

Just read the Wikipedia takeaways. Interesting inputs on the ideals of a mean amongst virtues, the highest order of happiness being intelligence, the three pillars of being sociable (friendly, honest ...

Contents

• The Object of Life: 3
• Moral Goodness: 31
• Moral Responsibility Two Virtues: 50
• Other Moral Virtues: 82
• Justice: 112
• Intellectual Virtues: 144
• Continence and Incontinence The Nature of Pleasure: 167
• The Kinds of Friendship: 200
• The Grounds of Friendship: 228
• Pleasure and the Life of Happiness: 254
• Appendix 1 Table of Virtues and Vices: 285
• Appendix 2 Pythagoreanism: 287
• Appendix 3 The Sophists and Socrates: 289
• Appendix 4 Platos Theory of Forms: 292
• Appendix 5 The Categories: 295
• Appendix 6 Substance and Change: 296
• Appendix 7 Nature and Theology: 300
• Appendix 8 The Practical Syllogism: 302
• Appendix 9 Pleasure and Process: 303
• Appendix 10 Liturgies: 305
• Appendix 11 Aristotle in the Middle Ages: 306
• Glossary of Greek Words: 310
• Index of Names: 313
• Subject Index: 316

Popular passages

Page xl - And, whatever the world thinks, he who hath not much meditated upon God, the human mind, and the summum bonum, may possibly make a thriving earthworm, but will most indubitably make a sorry patriot and a sorry statesman.

Page xl - Essay, are not proposed as principles, but barely as hints to awaken and exercise the inquisitive reader, on points not beneath the attention of the ablest men. Those great men, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, the most consummate in politics, who founded states, or instructed princes, or wrote most accurately on public government, were at the same time most acute at all abstracted and sublime speculations ; the clearest light being ever necessary to guide the most important actions.

About the author

Aristotle was born at Stageira, in the dominion of the kings of Macedonia, in 384 BC. For twenty years he studied at Athens in the Academy of Plato, on whose death in 347 he left, and, some time later, became tutor of the young Alexander the Great. When Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedonia in 335, Aristotle returned to Athens and established his school and research institute, the Lyceum, to which his great erudition attracted a large number of scholars. After Alexander's death in 323, anti-Macedonian feeling drove Aristotle out of Athens, and he fled to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. His writings, which were of extraordinary range, profoundly affected the whole course of ancient and medieval philosophy, and they are still eagerly studied and debated by philosophers today. Very many of them have survived and among the most famous are the Ethics and the Politics.

J. A. K. Thomson was professor emeritus of classics at King's College, London, until his death in 1959.

Hugh Tredennick was professor of classics at Royal Holloway College and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at London University.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Nicomachean Ethics; Penguin classics
• Author: Aristotle
• Editor: Hugh Tredennick
• Translated by: James Alexander Kerr Thomson
• Contributor: Jonathan Barnes
• Edition: reprint, revised
• Publisher: Penguin, 2004
• ISBN: 0140449493, 9780140449495
• Length: 329 pages
• Subjects: Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Philosophy / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical