Nicomachean Ethics - Book VI: Intellectual Virtue

Book VI: Intellectual Virtue

Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics is identical to Book V of the Eudemian Ethics. Earlier in both works, both the Nicomachean Ethics Book IV, and the equivalent book in the Eudemian Ethics (Book III), though different, ended by stating that the next step was to discuss justice. Indeed in Book I Aristotle set out his justification for beginning with particulars and build up to the highest things. Character virtues (apart from justice perhaps) were already discussed in an approximate way, as like achieving at middle point between two extreme options, but this now raises the question of how we know and recognize the things we aim at or avoid. Recognizing the mean recognizing the correct boundary-marker (horos) which defines the frontier of the mean. And so practical ethics, having a good character, requires knowledge.

Near the end of Book I Aristotle said that we may follow others in considering the soul (psuchē) to be divided into a part having reason and a part without it. Until now, he says, discussion has been about one type of virtue or excellence (aretē) of the soul — that of the character (ēthos, the virtue of which is ēthikē aretē, moral virtue). Now he will discuss the other type: that of thought (dianoia).

The part of the soul with reason is divided into two parts:

• One whereby we contemplate or observe the things which have invariable causes.
• One whereby we contemplate the variable things. It is this part with which we deliberate concerning actions.

Aristotle states that if recognition depends upon likeness and kinship between the things being recognized and the parts of the soul doing the recognizing, then the soul grows naturally into two parts, specialised in these two types of cause.

Aristotle enumerates five types of hexis (stable dispositions) which the soul can have, and which can disclose truth:

1. Art (Techne). This is rational, because it involves making things deliberately, in a way that can be explained. (Making things in a way which could not be explained would not be techne.) It concerns variable things, but specifically it concerns intermediate aims. A house is built not for its own sake, but in order to have a place to live, and so on.
2. Knowledge (Episteme). "We all assume that what we know is not capable of being otherwise." And "it escapes our notice when they are or not". "Also, all knowledge seems to be teachable, and what is known is learnable."
3. Practical Judgement (Phronesis). This is the judgement used in deciding well upon overall actions, not specific acts of making as in techne. While truth in techne would concern making something needed for some higher purpose, phronesis judges things according to the aim of living well overall. This, unlike techne and episteme then, is an important virtue then, which will require further discussion. Aristotle associates this virtue with the political art. Aristotle distinguishes skilled deliberation from knowledge, because we do not need to deliberate about things we already know. It is also distinct from being good at guessing, or being good at learning, because true consideration is always a type of inquiry and reasoning.
4. Wisdom (Sophia). Because wisdom belongs to the wise, who are unusual, it can not be that which gets hold of the truth. This is left to nous, and Aristotle describes wisdom as a combination of nous and episteme ("knowledge with its head on").
5. Intellect (Nous). Is the capacity we develop with experience, to grasp the sources of knowledge and truth, our important and fundamental assumptions. Unlike knowledge (episteme), it deals with unarticulated truths. Both phronēsis and nous are directed at limits or extremities, and hence the mean, but nous is not a type of reasoning, but is rather a perception of the universals which can be derived from particular cases, including the aims of practical actions. Nous therefore supplies phronēsis with its aims, without which phronēsis would just be the "natural virtue" (aretē phusikē) called cleverness (deinotēs).

In the last chapters of this book (12 and 13) Aristotle compares the importance of practical wisdom (phronesis) and wisdom (sophia). Although Aristotle describes sophia as more serious than practical judgement, because concerned with higher things, he mentions the earlier philosophers, Anaxagoras and Thales, as examples proving that one can be wise, having both knowledge and intellect, and yet devoid of practical judgement. The dependency of sophia upon phronesis is described as being like the dependency of health upon medical knowledge. Wisdom is aimed at for its own sake, like health, being a component of that most complete virtue which makes happiness.

Aristotle closes by arguing that in any case, when one considers the virtues in their highest form, they would all exist together.