Summary Tenacity is the power of resisting the pain arising from desires for certain pleasures; softness is the inability to resist such pains. While pleasures are the sphere of continence and incontinence, the experience of pain does not enter into determining whether or not a man will commit an incontinent […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter VII – Continence and Tenacity, Incontinence and SoftnessSummary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter VI – Incontinence in Anger
Summary Incontinence in anger is less reprehensible than incontinence in desire for pleasure. In fact, incontinent desire is so bad that it can be equated with vice without making any qualification. The reasons for this distinction are: Up to a certain point anger is amenable to reason, but excessive desire […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter VI – Incontinence in AngerSummary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter V – Incontinence and Pathological Forms of Desire
Summary Some things are not pleasant by nature, but can become pleasant as a result of physical disability, habit, or innate depravity. These include the items listed in the second category in the preceding chapter. Such forms of bestiality as cannibalism and such forms of morbidity as pederasty can be […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter V – Incontinence and Pathological Forms of DesireSummary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter IV – The Sphere of Incontinence
Summary There are three categories of things which give pleasure and arouse desire: Pleasures which are not necessary, but which are in themselves worth choosing even though they admit of excess (e.g., honor, wealth, victory). Things which are in themselves worthy of avoidance. Things neutral in themselves, but necessary for […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter IV – The Sphere of IncontinenceSummary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter III – Incontinence and Knowledge
Summary There are three main problems to be solved in any analysis of incontinence: Do incontinent people act with knowledge of the wrongness of their actions, and if so, in what sense? What is the sphere of incontinence, that of pleasure and pain in general, or only in some particular […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter III – Incontinence and KnowledgeSummary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter II – Commonly Held Beliefs about Continence and Incontinence
Summary This chapter contains a discussion of popularly held ideas on continence and incontinence current in Aristotle’s time. None are relevant to the main argument of Book VII, and Aristotle demonstrates that all these ideas are either contradictory or inconsistent with each other or with conclusions already reached in earlier […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter II – Commonly Held Beliefs about Continence and IncontinenceSummary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter I – Continence and Incontinence
Summary In analyzing the relationship between intellect (reason) and desire, it is possible to distinguish three states of badness — incontinence (weakness of will), vice, and bestiality — and three corresponding states of goodness — continence (strength of will), virtue and superhuman virtue (saintliness). Bestiality is found chiefly among barbarians, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book VII: Chapter I – Continence and IncontinenceSummary and Analysis Book VI: Analysis for Book VI
In the Aristotelian conception of the good life reason is an important factor in the achievement of all the virtues. It is an essential element in the doctrine of the golden mean which tells us that a virtue is the point which is midway between the extremes of excess and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book VI: Analysis for Book VISummary and Analysis Book VI: Chapter XIII – Practical Wisdom and Moral Virtue
Summary While virtue makes man choose the right ends, practical wisdom makes him choose the right means, but practical wisdom cannot exist independently of virtue. The power to attain an end, whether good or bad, is mere talent or cleverness, and is raised above the level of roguery only by […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book VI: Chapter XIII – Practical Wisdom and Moral VirtueSummary and Analysis Book VI: Chapter XII – The Utility of Theoretical and Practical Wisdom
Summary Practical wisdom contemplates the means by which men become happy (i.e., the realm of coming-to-be), while theoretical wisdom is concerned only with unchangeable realities, but it is impossible to have theoretical wisdom without also having practical wisdom (i.e., one cannot know what is good unless he is experienced in […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book VI: Chapter XII – The Utility of Theoretical and Practical Wisdom