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The philosopher should learn how to make the hard work of virtue pleaurable (1176 a 1);4. What is there more to life. And a teacher who uses Irwin's translation will be greatly appreciated by students. The happy and excellent person can usually figure out the genuine cause of pleasure (1174 a 15);2. Terence Irwin is to be thanked and congratulated for translating a difficult work by Aristotle and for providing over one hundred pages of notes that helps the student to understand and appreciate Aristotle's classic work on Ethics.
Pleasure is natural and necessary for life (1172 b 10);3. Why does Aristotle think that the life of pleasure is not the best life. But there's more to life than amusing oneself all day (1176 b 35). Making pleasure inferior to friendship, since friends will encourage us to do the hard work of virtue. Pleaure is a limited action of the body but happiness is the unlimited action of the mind (1177 b25);5. And happy people know that the best pleasure is found in friendship (1155 a 5).Next, whether the life of pleasure might be excellent.
Irwin's notes are thorough and allow a person to study the Ethics without a professor. Pleasure is not the highest good for Aristotle because:1. Yes, since1. Most of us, however, need a teacher when it is time to read Aristotle. Pleasure is a tool for happiness, just as money, power, fame, beauty and priviledge (1099 b 1);6. Pleasure is good and allows us to get back to the hard work of virtue (1175 a 20);3.
I become convinced of this each semester since my college Ethics class is centered on Aristotle's Ethics and Irwin makes my job much, much easier.Here's what I've learned. Happiness is continuous and pleasure is not (1177 a 20);2.
I personally like the idea that many of the cultures of the world were tutored by the thinking of the man who wrote: "We are not studying in order to know what virtue is, but to become good, for otherwise there would be no profit in it." (NE 2.2) I write this to convince anyone who, like me, lived a good chunk of their life without investigating this book, that it's time to get a copy and carve out a few hours. Civilizations have ordered themselves around concepts like the "Golden Mean," that every ethical virtue involves finding a balance between excess and deficiency, or that virtue is an end in itself--one that can only be lived and not merely talked about.
A "worth choosing" translation of an absolutly "worthy of choice" book. Although I don't think Irwin's translation of Nicomachean Ethics is the best one available, and although I am also disagree with maybe half of his interpretations in the second part of the book -which, I guess, is normal in every philosophical discussion-, I do think it's an useful tool and an obligatory reference in any Nicomachean ethics' study.
He goes on to look at several different types of virtues and he believes they can be perfected through practice. Therefore, he supports finding the mean in all human action and this is to lead to happiness.
Overall the whole book is worth ones time though. Books 8 and 9 give the best treatise on friendship that I have ever found so I recommend those two books above all of the rest.
Aristotle's ethics is a theory of excellence so it definitely spoke to me as a individual. To use an example from Aristotle to illustrate, one is to act courageously, but it is rash to act with too much courage and it is cowardice to not act with enough courage.
Aristotle's ethics is a simple and a commonsensical approach to ethics so nobody should be put off from reading this book due to its difficulty. He starts with the claim that the end of all human action is happiness and he claims that happiness requires virtue.
One is to practice at finding the golden mean between excess and deficiency.
I prefer to hear Aristotle, and Plato for that matter, than to read them. However, the sheer originality of his genius, the sweep of his knowledge and grasp of different fields of learning, leave the reader feeling a gain of at least ten points of IQ. The woman who reads on this audio production has outstanding elocution and reads with feeling and emphasis at the right places. To have learned from Plato and to have taught Alexander the Great should make us take this man seriously. This is a beautiful and very professional production. There are of course times when you have to hit "play back" just to digest the argument. But the level of debate with himself in the Nichomachean ethics is awesome in and of itself. there are also times when you realise other people have taken up where he left off.
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