let’s assume Aristotle is the author of Protrepticus
According to Jaeger, Aristotle in the Protrepticus still adheres to the Platonic understanding of phronesis. On this conception, phronesis is “theoretical knowledge of supersensible being and practical moral insight”; it is “knowledge of true being [that] was in fact a knowledge of the pure Norms by reference to which a man should order his life” ... Jaeger makes the important suggestion that the most signifcant ethical difference between the mature work of Aristotle and the work of Plato, as well as the earlier Aristotle, is that Aristotle eventually comes to separate phronesis from theoretical or philosophical understanding and to establish the independence of each.
Some troubling passages from Protrepticus
Those who are to be good doctors or trainers must have a general knowledge of nature, so good lawmakers too must be experienced about nature – and indeed much more than the former . . . For just as in the productive arts the best tools were discovered from nature, as, for instance in the builder’s art the plumb line, the ruler, and the compasses – for some come from water, others from light and the rays of the sun . . . in the same way the statesman must have certain boundary-markers taken from nature itself and from truth, by reference to which he will judge what is just, what is fine, and what is benefcial . . . Nobody, however, who has not practiced philosophy [philosophesanta] and known the truth is able to do this. Furthermore, in the other arts and crafts people do not take their tools and their most exact reasonings from primary things themselves and so attain something approaching knowledge: they take them from what is second or third hand or at a distant remove, and base their reasonings on experience. The philosopher alone imitates exact things themselves, for he is a spectator of them, not of imitations . . . But it is clear that to the philosopher alone among craftsmen belong laws that are stable and actions that are right and fine. For he alone lives by looking at nature and the divine. Like a good helmsman, he moors the principles of his life to that which is eternal and unchanging, makes fast there, and lives as his own master
And
For one will fnd that all the things that seem great to men are merely a façade; hence it is fnely said that man is nothing and that nothing human is stable. Strength, size, and beauty are laughable and of no worth . . . Honors and reputation, things envied more than other things, are full of indescribable nonsense; for to him who catches a glimpse of things eternal it seems foolish to take these things seriously. What is there among human things that is great or long-lasting? It is owing to our weakness, I think, and the shortness of our life that even this appears great. Who, looking to these facts, would think himself happy and blessed, if, from the very beginning, all of us (as they say in the initiation rites), are shaped by nature as though for punishment? . . . Nothing divine or blessed belongs to humans, except that one thing alone which is worth taking seriously – as much as there is in us of intellect [nou] and phron esis: this alone of our possessions seems to be immortal, this alone divine . . . For intellect is the god in us – whether it was Hermotimus or Anaxagoras who said so – and mortal life contains a portion of some god. We must, therefore, either philosophize or say farewell to life and depart hence, since all other things seem to be great nonsense and frivolousness. (77.13–79.2, B104–10)
Will contrast as I (re)read through NE. First impression: what NE seems to leave paradoxical, or self-contradictory, seem to get very strongly and unambiguoulsy stated here.
An interesting interpretation from Reading Aristotle's Ethics: Virtue, Rhetoric, And Political Philosophy seems to be that philosophy was in deep tension with the city in Aristotle’s time, as suggested by Socrates’s death, Aristophane’s rancorous satire, and Aristotle’s eventual self-exile (to prevent “another crime against philosophers by the state”). Point being, NE planted deliberately softer arguments with inherent contradictions to make philosophy more palatable to the ruling elites. (My interpretation, I should point out I didn’t read the whole book.)
Some troubling passages from Protrepticus
And
Will contrast as I (re)read through NE. First impression: what NE seems to leave paradoxical, or self-contradictory, seem to get very strongly and unambiguoulsy stated here.
An interesting interpretation from Reading Aristotle's Ethics: Virtue, Rhetoric, And Political Philosophy seems to be that philosophy was in deep tension with the city in Aristotle’s time, as suggested by Socrates’s death, Aristophane’s rancorous satire, and Aristotle’s eventual self-exile (to prevent “another crime against philosophers by the state”). Point being, NE planted deliberately softer arguments with inherent contradictions to make philosophy more palatable to the ruling elites. (My interpretation, I should point out I didn’t read the whole book.)