Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Prelude: Before Ethics. Metaphysics A and Posterior Analytics B.19
- 2 Main Section. Ēthikōn Nikomakheiōn Alpha to Eta
- 3 Interlude. Metaphysics Gamma
- 4 Concluding Section. Ēthikōn Nikomakheiōn Theta to Kappa
- 5 Kolophon
- Selected Bibliography
- Index of Passages
- Index of Subjects and Names
4 - Concluding Section. Ēthikōn Nikomakheiōn Theta to Kappa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Prelude: Before Ethics. Metaphysics A and Posterior Analytics B.19
- 2 Main Section. Ēthikōn Nikomakheiōn Alpha to Eta
- 3 Interlude. Metaphysics Gamma
- 4 Concluding Section. Ēthikōn Nikomakheiōn Theta to Kappa
- 5 Kolophon
- Selected Bibliography
- Index of Passages
- Index of Subjects and Names
Summary
Books Theta and Iota of the Nicomachean Ethics are devoted to the issue of friendship, philia. With regard to length, the discussion on friendship exceeds by far any other thematic elaboration in the treatise. Following this analysis, Book Kappa, which contains a meditation on the good in light of political association, brings the Ethics to a close.
Let us, from the outset, highlight the belonging of the phenomenon of friendship in the problematic of the good. Friendship occurs for the sake of and thanks to the good. In other words, the good is what elicits it, what calls for friendship. Friendship, love in the broadest sense, is for and of the good. Adhering to the Aristotelian articulation, what follows aims at illuminating this interpretive hypothesis.
At the very beginning of Book Theta, Aristotle points out that “friendship is a virtue, or something with virtue, and besides, it is most necessary to life, for no one would choose to live without friends, though they would have all the other goods” (1155a4–6). We should underline both the connection of friendship with excellence and the necessity of friendship. Aristotle further underscores this necessity in the lines shortly following the passage just quoted:
Friends help the young in guarding them from error, and they help the old who, because of their weakness, need care [θεραπείαν] and additional support for their actions, and they help those in their prime of life to do beautiful actions, as in the saying: “And the two are coming together,” for with friends human beings are more able [δυνατῶτεροι] to think [νοῆσαι] and to act [πρᾶξαι].
(1155a13–16)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Aristotle's Ethics as First Philosophy , pp. 260 - 307Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007