Dear Ferenc Hörcher:

"On the whole I think Aristotle's practical philosophy makes sense only if distinguishable from his mater's one. However, I go with Gadamer, who claims that there are strong Platonic building blocks in this theory"

Of course, as soon as one wishes to determine the relationship between Aristotelian thought and Platonic philosophy, one runs immediately into two fundamental problems. The first is that each author seems to have left us diametrically opposed, or at least opposite, literature. For Aristotle, we have something akin to his lecture notes: material intended for the Academy and students. We lack the more formal composition that was "literature" vs. letters, mandates, court scripts (Antiphon's likely fictional oratory I'd count as literature, but in general prepared defenses that come down to us I wouldn't as they were not meant to be and were not considered to be).  For Plato, all we have is his literary works (and maybe a couple of letters admit the pseudepigrapha. Aristotle himself was one of the first to demarcate writings into genre and analyze the importance and nature of each category (περὶ ποιητικῆς αὐτῆς τε καὶ τῶν εἰδῶν αὐτῆς/”concerning literature both itself and the many forms it has…” Poetics 1447a). Plato not only dealt with genre but with the dangerous power literature and/or oral history/tradition had. I think that their recognition of genre as in some sense a medium both fixing and dictating the content of composition renders the distinctions between the 'kind of writing left to us by each all the more important when it comes to interpretation.

Then there's the Socratic problem. Whatever influences Plato had on Aristotle, Aristotle's works were his own. On the most superficial and inaccurate interpretation, Plato just repeated the teachings of Socrates. This is, I think, clearly wrong, but it is quite likely that Plato didn't just use Socrates as a mouthpiece, especially in his earlier works.

So we have Aristotle writing a different kind of literature for a different kind of audience, and the works of Plato which are not only literary (Aristotle was first tell us of τούς Σωκρατικούς λόγους as a genre of sorts), but also tied quite directly to what Socrates taught in ways that are impossible to wholly separate.

In short, I guess I would just agree that such a broad view of both philosophers' thought can't be of much help here. It is within the text and secondarily the corpus that we have our best chance of understanding the usage here. The problem then becomes partly a matter of the Greek language (not that Greek was or is alone here). In the Romance languages (even Latin itself to some extent) and English that we find (like the use of a numerical "alphabet" which differs from the written) a large influx and coining of technical terms using classical languages. One need look no further than German to see what a difference this can make. Greek is harder, as technically there weren't any technical words. Just technical contexts. 

Dear Mariane, neither do I buy it. On the whole I think Aristotle's practical philosophy makes sense only if distinguishable from his mater's one. However, I go with Gadamer, who claims that there are strong Platonic building blocks in this theory, and I also agree that ethics is still a theoretical science, when taken as philosophy. On the other hand, the practical syllogism will lead as far as action is concerned, so the tension between theory and practicability in ethics remains quite easily discernible in this view. 

I cannot go into the details of the interpretation of the given loci, but I think there is no need to accept the Platonic influence but to deny that this would change Aristotle's own theoretical considerations as only repetition, mimesis, and nothing original.

The tension of the theory is parallelled by the duality of the active and the contemplative way of life in his value preferences.

Best,

Ferenc

Dear Ferenc Hörcher:

"On the whole I think Aristotle's practical philosophy makes sense only if distinguishable from his mater's one. However, I go with Gadamer, who claims that there are strong Platonic building blocks in this theory"

Of course, as soon as one wishes to determine the relationship between Aristotelian thought and Platonic philosophy, one runs immediately into two fundamental problems. The first is that each author seems to have left us diametrically opposed, or at least opposite, literature. For Aristotle, we have something akin to his lecture notes: material intended for the Academy and students. We lack the more formal composition that was "literature" vs. letters, mandates, court scripts (Antiphon's likely fictional oratory I'd count as literature, but in general prepared defenses that come down to us I wouldn't as they were not meant to be and were not considered to be).  For Plato, all we have is his literary works (and maybe a couple of letters admit the pseudepigrapha. Aristotle himself was one of the first to demarcate writings into genre and analyze the importance and nature of each category (περὶ ποιητικῆς αὐτῆς τε καὶ τῶν εἰδῶν αὐτῆς/”concerning literature both itself and the many forms it has…” Poetics 1447a). Plato not only dealt with genre but with the dangerous power literature and/or oral history/tradition had. I think that their recognition of genre as in some sense a medium both fixing and dictating the content of composition renders the distinctions between the 'kind of writing left to us by each all the more important when it comes to interpretation.

Then there's the Socratic problem. Whatever influences Plato had on Aristotle, Aristotle's works were his own. On the most superficial and inaccurate interpretation, Plato just repeated the teachings of Socrates. This is, I think, clearly wrong, but it is quite likely that Plato didn't just use Socrates as a mouthpiece, especially in his earlier works.

So we have Aristotle writing a different kind of literature for a different kind of audience, and the works of Plato which are not only literary (Aristotle was first tell us of τούς Σωκρατικούς λόγους as a genre of sorts), but also tied quite directly to what Socrates taught in ways that are impossible to wholly separate.

In short, I guess I would just agree that such a broad view of both philosophers' thought can't be of much help here. It is within the text and secondarily the corpus that we have our best chance of understanding the usage here. The problem then becomes partly a matter of the Greek language (not that Greek was or is alone here). In the Romance languages (even Latin itself to some extent) and English that we find (like the use of a numerical "alphabet" which differs from the written) a large influx and coining of technical terms using classical languages. One need look no further than German to see what a difference this can make. Greek is harder, as technically there weren't any technical words. Just technical contexts. 

Dear colleague,

I think the crucial question is whether phronesis is a kind of poiesis or not. On the one hand, if not only techne but even the phusis itself is considered to be poiesis, than one would expect phronesis to be a poiesis as well. On the other hand, I don´t know a place in Aristotle where phronesis is considered to be a poiesis. in fact, he opposed phronesis as praxis (end in itself) and techne as poiesis (end outside itself). Hope this helps....

I think Aristotle clearly indicated that phronesis is a practical wisdom that enables one to reason, reflect and live a good life. He argues sophia as more of a theoretical wisdom in which  phronesis may somehow be in  a lower latitude. Phronesis is built up on experience as Aristotle argues, a young person always lacks such wisdom how complicated and skillful technically he or she might be affirming the pure practicality of that particular virtue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis

In the strongest and most orthodox Aristotelian tradition, it has always been assumed that phronesis refers to a practical wisdom (regardless of Rowe; he just, adequately follows a certain tradition).

Please allow me to go one step further: we are to make the distinction the logos of nature and the logos of human beings. To be sure, the logos of human beings canon t be said as "logos" as such, for they are inconsistent, changeable, mutable, unpredictable even. Whence the concept of "ethos" is much more suitable for the logos of human beings.

As we all know, since then ethics has been a sort of practical wisdom, namely a kind of sets of advices and summary of experiences, Such is his set of letters to his son Nichomacus.

Of course, Dejerie, phronesis is widely understood as pratical wisdom for the several passages in EN in which Aristotle established the difference between sophia and phronesis. This is very clear in literature. But in those passages of EE that Rowe indicates phronesis isn't defined in the same terms. There is nothing in the text of EE I 5 that indicates a technical use of phronesis like we know for EN.  The exegetic problem emerges from this.

Carlos, I think that I've got your point about logos and ethos. But we must to consider that Aristotle uses the notion of logoi (like the arguments of others and the logos of a theoretical compreension from a human being) in the very central point of his chapter of the method of ethics in EE. I have no doubt that it changes and is much more clear in NE, but my interest is the thought of Aristotle in EE, especially his position in relation to Platonic thesis.

Thank you for your answer.

Mariane

Ferenc,

About your assumption that in some way ethics is still theoretical, at this moment in Aristotle's thought I think that we can say that there are some theoretical issues that plays a central role in the moral philosophy, like contemplation, the problem of phronesis, the influence of intellectual virtues in eudaimonia. But the more interesting thing in EE is that if we don't understand the notion of phronesis like pratical wisdom or already technically defined by Aristotle, it seems that aren't any  tension between theoretical and moral issues, for this later englobes the former without the problem of have two differents faculties of wisdom.

Mariane,

the difference in our understanding is, that I would not see any tension between theoretical and practical-moral issues even in the explicit description of practical syllogism. I once again follow Gadamer (and virtue ethics, by the way) in this respect, interpreting Aristotle as claiming that there is no schism between theory and practical decision - it is only a problem of application, and virtues help us, as they are theoreticall defendable values conditioned into our habitus, and that way we find the the best possible solution without much reflection, among the practical circumstances of a given case.

I do not see why phronesis in Plato would not be interpreted in a way where it means practical wisdom - even if it is not a technical term yet.

Ferenc

Dear Ferenc,

Thank you for the clarification of your argument. In your last paragraph, you mean the phronesis in Plato or in this case of Eudemian Ethics?

However, in Plato, knowledge of the virtues (intellectual and moral) is not divided into two faculties (like the facultie of sophia, or theoretical wisdom, and the facultie of phronesis, or pratical wisdom in Aristotle). It is usually defended by Socrates (not sure if also by Plato in the Theory of Ideas) that those who have wisdom (in an intellectualist sense) would also have all virtues. This is a controversial point of literature, but I believe it can be summarized as follows. So the idea of praxis (and moral syllogistic calculation) is not even considered, because who knows the virtue necessarily act in accordance with it. This why, I think, phronesis cannot be interpreted as practical wisdom in Plato (or the Socractics dialogues).

Dear Mariane,

you are right, that Plato('s Socrates) is intellectualist. However, this does not mean that the term phronesis would mean simply an intellectual capacity, like reason with him. And although again I agree with you that practical syllogism is not important for him, I see no reason why he would have introduced the term phronesis, if he simply meant by it the same intellectual capacity as was meant by the term sophia. So I think that the term must have been in currency by that time, as distinguished from sophia, and Plato must have needed it, if he used it, even if he had no exact defintion for that term.

After all, Aristotle was just as much intellectualist as Plato was. So I think that when phronesis is used by either of them, it must have meant the virtue of pracitcal wisdom. The difference between them seem to me this: in Plato's scenario a kind of loigical necessity brings a smoth transition from knowledge of the good to act good, while in Aristotle it required a kind of consideration, as the knowledfge of the good  did not by itself define the right act in a given situation. Practical wisdom here includes this process of application as well.

Dear Ferenc:

I agree with you in many ways. Still, passages like this (I mentioned in the question), still leaves me perplexed and cautious about phronesis understood as practical wisdom without extending the meaning of "practical wisdom" too (so do not make more sense in the moral philosophy of Aristotle ). Please tell me what you think of this passage of Eudemian Ethics I 4, when Aristotle discusses the kinds of lives that would be the "candidates" of eudamonia:

"Of These, the life of philosophy tends to be occupied with phronesis [in the greek text] and contemplation of the truth, and the political life with fine actions (...)" (1215b1-3)

"and Plato must have needed it, if he used it, even if he had no exact defintion for that term"

Plato used the morphological form of φρόνησις 30 times. Aristotle did so 124 times. Plato used all morphological forms with the basis φρονη 206 times, compared to Aristotle's 273. Given the extraordinary polysemy of Greek lexemes in general and the fundamental role in differentiating meanings, usage, nature, and entire clauses via a single form of a lexeme, the fact that Aristotle's use of the exact term φρόνησις was over 4 times that of Plato's (compared to the total of vastly semantically over-lapping uses of this lexeme and morphological variants among both authors) tells against any conclusion that Plato used the term in some way readily comparable to Aristotle. It most certainly doesn't support the conclusion that Plato "must have needed" the term for anything relevant here. Aristotle used the precise form in most of the works of his that survive, while Plato treated the term like any other Greek lexeme: he used variants freely because, it appears, he didn't feel the need to use it in the technical way that Aristotle did.

"I think that when phronesis is used by either of them, it must have meant the virtue of pracitcal wisdom."

There is nothing whatsoever to support this and much against it. From a holistic perspective, Plato's usage of the term and morphological variants do not suggest any particular technical sense (nor anything approaching a singular sense), while for Aristotle usage is very much characterized by a technical sense. Additionally, Aristotle's work specifically addressed the nature, scope, and meaning behind this term as part of his philosophical doctrine, while Plato did not.

Dear Andrew,

I agree with your very philological method of analysis between Plato and Aristotle. Your knowledge of Greek is impressive. Do you know the "stylistic" or "stilographic" studies on Aristotle's works made by Kenny in 70s? I think you would like. But I think that even this method is necessary and helps a lot in philosophical studies, it is not enough, for we must especulate and consider the differences between the texts of same authors and, in other level, the difference between doctrines as a whole too. 

Dear Mariane,

I agree with you, that the two of us agree in many respect. The question seems to me this one: how should we conceptualise a development from Plato to EE to NE, as far as the concept of phronesis is concerned. It seems to me that indeed in parts like the one you quote there is an affinity between the non-technical use of the concept of phronesis used by Plato and Aristotle's own one. But if we agree that Plato's use is non technical, that does not necessarily mean that it has a strictly different sense than the one it is given in the NE by Aristotle, when he used it technically. In fact if we agree that EE is in a middle position between Plato and the NE, than surely it must have some affinity with the sense attributed to it in the NE. Then it is almost a question of taste to decide if EE is closer to Plato (when you stress the similarities between these two) or to NE (when you stress the similarities between these two pieces of Aristotle).

As for the interpretation of the particular passage, let me suggest these two idea:

1. If he talks about phronesis AND contemplation of the truth, the two can hardly mean the same. Therefore the author must have had something else in my mind when he used the term phronesis than when he referred to a conetmplation of the truth.

2. If a philosopher's life is/should be occupied (at least partly) with phronesis, it might easily be a wisdom which refer's to one's life. In this respect I would go with Hadot who claimed something like that a philosopher's truth lies in the particular way of life he chooses - now the question is if this existential choice is not near to what is meant by practical wisdom in the NE?

In other words although I admit that the distance between sophia and phronesis might be much less for Plato (and the EE of Aristotle) than in NE, where both of them become technical terms, I would still argue that the closeness of the two does not only mean that phronesis is much more like wisdom in Plato - it can also be interpreted as claiming that sophia is much more like phronesis in his mind.

Dear Andrew, thanks for the extremely informative statistics of the use of the terms.

Let me confess, that I do not read Greek, so all what I say is motivated by my love of Aristotle's NE, and in particular Book VI, in it, as I understand it from translations. So all my argument might easily be regarded as influenced by my own Aristotelian-Ciceronian stance.

Let me confess, also, that I am still not convinced for the following reasons:

1. Even if Plato's use of the term is non-technical, this fact does not exclude that they (Plato and Aristotle) could mean something similar by the term.

2. I accept that for Aristotle the term might have turned out to be much more important than for Plato. However, I do not think that this fact makes it logically necessary that they did not mean something similar by them. 

3. phronesis remains for Aristotle even in the NE an intellectual virtue as well. But it does not exclude to mean practical wisdom.

Best, Ferenc

Dear Mariane, can I also challenge your position? :)

How would you yourself interpret the following part of the Statesman:

That the law could never accurately embrace what is best and most just for

all at the same time, and so prescribe what is best. For the dissimilarities between

human beings and their actions, and the fact that practically nothing in

human affairs ever remains stable, prevent any sort of expertise whatsoever

from making any simple decision in any sphere that covers all cases and will

last for all time. I suppose this is something we agree about? 

Plato: The Statesman, 294b

Looking forward to your answer, 

with kind regards,

Ferenc

I can remember a distinction made by Mario Vegetti in some articles between phronimos (who can decide well, who has the wisdom to understand and decide properly), sophos (who has rational understanding, who has theoretical wisdom) and didochos (who has the wisdom necessary to teach). I'm sorry but I can't remember the text, but if you think it can be usefull for your research let me know and I will look for it.

Hi Mariane,

As far as I know (and without entering in a detailed research on the morphemes...) phronêsis does not appear to be a notion playing any central role in Plato's conception of virtue. Not that there would be no discussion about being sôphrôn in Plato (for example, Plato asserts time and again that poets are ekphrones), but I do not see any text in Plato that could ground a "platonic theory of phronêsis" from which one could work a distinction in Aristotle between theoretical (platonic) phronêsis and practical (aristotelian) phronêsis. Considering the widespread use of the morpheme in classical literature (from Homer on, with "en phressi", for example), it comes as no surprise that phronêsis is ambiguous, and, precisely because of this ambiguity, allows Aristotle to ground moral reasoning on a disposition of intelligence. In fact, in Plato the question is: is it possible to be a good moral agent when one is not "emphrôn" (i.e. in control of his thinking)? Plato, although generally an "intellectualist", was not clear about the answer one should give to this question. In Aristotle, this interrogation evolved in the next question: what sort of mental disposition is necessary for virtue? Thus "phronêsis" became of word of art under the influence of Aristotle. I would tend to say, prima facie, that If there is a connexion between a Platonic theory of phronêsis (if there is such a thing, which I doubt) and an Aristotelean one, it is bound to be loose and conjectural, but, in any case, it is no surprise to me that the meaning of phronêsis in Aristotle is not-limited to moral reasoning, even in EE or EN.

Mariane

When you say "the possibility of ethics still be seen as a theoretical science", what do you mean exactly? Is that the meta-ethical reflexion conducted at EE (and NE) would be theoretical in nature? Or is it that the "action" ethical knowledge aims at would be just the contemplation of truth itself?

Professor Lucas,

I think it has to do with the first sense, but Rowe puts in slightly different terms: as if it were theoretical in the sense that it has not yet been "separated" at time of EE from the poietic, practical and theoretic sciences appearing on Metaph. E 1. That is, Aristotle would still seeing ethics -- at least the EE first books that phronesis seems to be non-technical -- as that can be examined in a similar manner to the theoretic sciences, with the same procedures - for Rowe that is what approach him to Plato.

But I do not believe that is so, I believe it is theoretical in the sense that occurs, concomitant to the discussions concerning the moral virtues, the discussion meta-ethical that you mentioned. In the passages about method, mainly.

Anyway, also in the second sense, if phronesis is not considered as pratical wisdom (like in the passages I mentioned), but is a non-technical term, it seens plausible that it implies, at least, that in EE contemplation gives the role answer to ethical questions, still encompassing the domain of action, since ethical knowledge is not given by two faculties (phronesis and sophia), but only sophia that is technically determined.

I am a bit distressed at the number of irrelevancies and confused pontifications that have emerged in response to Mariane's perfectly clear question. What she wants to know is whether or not φρόνησις, which is used by Aristotle as a technical term (or "term of art") in the NE to refer to the excellence, or "virtue", of the practical intellect—as contrasted with the excellence or "virtue" of the speculative or theoretical intellect—is used in that specific and regimented way in the EE. I doubt that there is any way to prove that it is, or that is not, but reasons can be given for thinking one thing or the other.

Personally, I think that Rowe is correct in thinking that φρόνησις is, at least in some sections of the EE, conceived of by Aristotle as the excellence of the intellect without distinguishing, in this connection, between the practical and theoretical intellect. That may not rule out that φρόνησις, as used in those sections of the EE, is used as a technical term, but it is evidently not the same technical term as in the NE, or rather its technical use in parts of the EE differs from its consistent technical use in the NE. The use made of it in the EE passages in question seems closer to the characteristic use of φρόνησις in Attic discourse—close, indeed, to the use of "wisdom" in modern English parlance. When someone is said, in the ordinary way, to be wise, it is at least loosely implied that s/he understands much about the world and its ways both within and without the realm of human action and intercourse.

Aristotle's terms of art are never made up out of whole cloth but rather give precise, technical meanings to terms in general use; so if, as is generally believed, the non-common books of the EE are earlier than the NE, the liklihood would be that, unless Aristotle explained otherwise (which he did not in this case), a term like φρόνησις, even if given a technical meaning (say, as the excellence of intellect), would have a meaning closer to the meaning it had in more ordinary discourse than it might have in a more evolved technical use.

One reason for saying, as I did, that it's hard to prove anything on this point is that we don't really know much about how, or out of what, the work that has come down to us as the EE was put together.

One perennial source of confusion in contemporary discussions of φρόνησις (including some of the comments made here) lies in forgetting that, even if φρόνησις is—as is the case of the NE—seen as the excellence of the practical intellect, rather than of the theoretical intellect, it is still an intellectual "virtue", which makes it "theoretical" in a sense common today but not in Aristotle's sense. For the Aristotle of the NE, φρόνησις is excellence in reasoning to a conclusion about what it is best to do in matters of practice, i.e. within the domain of things that may be changed or affected by human action. Thus, φρόνησις differs from the moral excellences ("virtues"), which are not per se "theoretical" in either sense (even if they cannot be formed as genuine moral virtues in the absence of φρόνησις) but are excellences of practice.