Eudemian Ethics: Books I, II, and VIII (Clarendon Aristotle) (Bks.1, 2 & 8)

226 Pages·1992·9.13 MB·English

by  Aristotle

ISBN 0-19-824020-1
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ARISTOTLE
Eudemian Ethics
BOOKS I, II, and VIII
Translated
with a Commentary
by
MICHAEL WOODS
Second Edition
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ISBN 0-19-824020-1
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The purpose of this volume, as of others in the series, is to
provide a new translation of a philosophical text of Aristotle, of a
kind to serve the needs of philosophers without knowledge of
Greek, and a philosophical commentary. Of the five books of the
Eudemian Ethics that do not overlap with the Nicomachean
Ethics, the three translated in this volume are likely to be of the
greatest interest to readers of the present day.
This work of Aristotle's presents special difficulties to a
translator, because the text is in an extremely poor state,
especially in Book VIII, and in many passages it is not possible to
reconstruct what Aristotle wrote with any confidence. Although
in many passages at least the general sense is clear, in some cases
doubts about readings are the source of uncertainty about major
points of interpretation. In consequence, a large number of
passages have had to be mentioned in the Notes on the Text and
Translation, and I have found it necessary, for reasons of space,
often simply to give the text adopted for the translation, without
offering a full defence of my choice, or referring to alternative
proposals. Where a point of major philosophical interest turns on
the textual reading adopted, I have tried to make this clear in the
Commentary. It was not possible, with this work, to take one
edition of the Greek text as a base and simply note deviations.
In the translation, in accordance with the policy of the series, I
have aimed at producing a version as close as possible to the
original, even at the cost, sometimes, of elegance and conformity
to English idiom. In the Glossary are given the renderings of
some of the more philosophically important Greek words and
phrases. Wherever possible, a uniform rendering of a given
expression has been used in the translation.
It is a pleasure to record a debt of gratitude to many people
with whom I have discussed Aristotle's ethics, and this work in
particular, over a number of years. I benefited from attending the
meetings of the Symposium Aristotelicum, held in Oosterbeek,
Holland, in 1969. The late Richard Walzer made available to me
his draft for an Oxford Classical Text of the E.E., making use of
earlier work of the late Sir David Ross. More recently, after
Walzer's death, Mr D. A. F. M. Russell has allowed me to see
some further documents, including some textual proposals of his
own, and comments on the suggestions of Ross and Walzer. As
v
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
will be apparent from the Notes, I have often thought that these
proposals were superior to anything proposed previously, and
have been glad to adopt them for my translation ..
I have learned a good deal from Dr A. J. P. Kenny, with
whom I gave a seminar on this work in Oxford a few years ago.
Although a discussion of the relative priority of the Eudemian
and Nicomachean books and the problem of the 'common books'
is outside the scope of this volume, I have taken account of his
interpretations of a number of passages in the E.E. in his book
The Aristotelian Ethics. His more recent book, Aristotle's Theory
of the Will, appeared when the work for this volume was already
completed. (The same is true of the new French translation of the
E.E. by Vianney Decarie.)
I must record a great debt to Professor J. L. Ackrill, the
General Editor of this Series, who has been extremely generous
with his time in reading drafts of this book and discussing them
with me. He has made many suggestions for the improvement
of the translation, and for making the Commentary clearer
and less prolix, which in most cases I have gratefully adopted.
Mr Douglas Hutchinson has also made a number of useful
suggestions.
Finally, I must express my gratitude to the Radcliffe Fund for a
Fellowship during which much of the work for this volume was
done, and to the Governing Body of Brasenose College for
allowing me to accept it.
MICHAEL WOODS
Brasenose College, Oxford
October 1979
vi
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
With the publication of the Oxford Classical Text (O.c.T.) of
the Eudemian Ethics (R. R. Walzer and J. M. Mingay (eds.),
Aristotelis Ethica Eudemia, Oxford, 1991), the opportunity has
been taken to revise this Clarendon volume. In a large number
of passages, I have adopted the reading of the O.C.T., in pre
ference to that used in the first edition; though, since I had been
given the opportunity to see a number of proposals made by Sir
David Ross, Dr Richard Walzer, and Mr Donald Russell, some
of the innovations had been anticipated in the first edition.
As the Notes are now based on the O.C.T., and not Susemihl's
text, it has been possible to delete many of those that appeared in
the first edition, and, in general, there is a Note on the text
translated only where I deviate from the O.C.T.
A number of other changes have been made that are inde
pendent of the publication of the O.C.T. I have made a number
of revisions to the Translation, the Commentary, and the Notes.
Some additions have been made, in particular, to the Com
mentary on Book II. The Bibliography has also been revised.
Some of the changes take account of some of the work on
Aristotle's ethical writings that has been published in the last
decade; but I have not attempted to take account systematically
of the large volume of publication on this subject during that
period. I have also been able to remove a number of errors,
infelicities, and misprints in the original edition. I am grateful to
reviewers of that edition, and, in particular, Richard Devereux in
his review in Philosophical Review, 94/3 (1985).
The work of revision was completed during my tenure, at
the National Humanities Center, of the Walter Hines Page
Fellowship of the Research Triangle Foundation, whose support I
am very happy to acknowledge.
MICHAEL WOODS
National Humanities Center
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
February 1991
VII
To
My Parents
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION xi
TRANSLATION
COMMENTARY ~
NOTES ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION 185
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 201
GLOSSARY 205
INDEX 209
IX