Status Updates From Nicomachean Ethics

Book 1-2 read

Note 2/2:

Aristotle will now proceed to argue that contemplation (*theoria*) best satisfies these criteria. I am excited to hear this argument!

A life of morally virtuous activity comes second.

Note 1/2:

Time to finally sum up everything that I've learned and thought about together with Aristotle so far, in this difficult book! Aristotle himself gives a CliffNotes summary – that Eudaimonia is: i) an activity, ii) lacking in nothing, iii) desirable for its own sake, iv) self-sufficient.

Finished book 1. I guess I’m aiming for a life of contemplation.

The notes teach that Aristotle denies the Platonic view that pleasure is a movement (kinesis) or coming-to-be (genesis) – I had no idea that Plato thought that pleasure is a dynamic movement. In which dialogue does he expound this? Ig it makes sense – pleasure must surely be but an imprint of the Good, and being a movement, not a static Form, makes it imperfect.

And so idk why Aristotle denies the Platonic view.

Aristotle says “the essence of friendship is living together” – I am now reminded of my friends from another life: when we all lived together as brothers in NAQ, and I thought the saddest thing in the world was to be separated, by each of us gaining our own lives and thus drifting apart. Does Aristotle have anything to say about whether someone was even a friend in the 1st place, if it took so little to drift apart?

Prudence does not employ wisdom in her service, but provides means for the attainment of wisdom—doesn't rule it, but rules in its interest. To assert otherwise would be like asserting that statesmanship rules the gods because it issues orders about all public concerns (including the worship of gods).

"There are two forms of the calculative faculties, viz., cleverness and prudence, and two forms of moral qualities, viz., natural virtue and a fully developed virtue."

"Nevertheless, prudence is not the mistress of wisdom, any more than medicine is the mistress of health. Prudence does not employ wisdom in her service, but provides means for the attainment of wisdom—doesn't rule it, but rules in its interest."

"Again it seems to be a strange thing that prudence, though inferior to wisdom, must yet govern it, since in every field the practical faculty bears sway and issues orders."