The Aristotelian Ethics: A Study of the Relationship Between the Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics

260 Pages·1978·13.18 MB·English

by  Anthony Kenny

The e/1.ristotelian ethics
A STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN THE EUDEMJAN AND
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE
ANTHONY KENNY
CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD
1978
0.1ji1rd Uniursity Press, Walton Street, 0.1jord ox2 6DP
OXFORD LONDON GLASGOW NEW YORK
TORONTO MELBOt:RNE WELLINGTO!'l CAPE TOWN
IBADAN NAIROBI DAR ES SALAAM LUSAKA
Kt:ALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE JAKARTA HO!'K.i KONG l"OKYO
DELHI BOMBAY CALCUTTA \.t.ADRAS KARACHI
© 0.1jord Unirersil.J' Press 19iN
All rights resaud. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieral system, or
transmitted, in any jorm or b)' anJ• means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
othern•ise, without the prior permi.rnon of 0.1ford Unirersity Press
British Library Cataloging in Publication Data
Kenny, Anthony John Patrick
The Aristotelian ethics.
L Aristotle-Ethics
L Title
Printed in Great Britain by
William Clomes (5 Sons Ltd.
Lond1m, Beede.< and Colchester
PREFACE
THIS book is an attempt to solve a long-standing problem of
Aristotelian scholarship on the basis of historical and philosophical
arguments and a statistical study of features of style. To be fully
qualified to undertake such a task a man must be a professional
philosopher, classicist, and statistician. I can claim to be pro
fessionally qualified only as a philosopher: I am a very amateur
classicist and a complete novice in statistics. My excuse for being
undeterred by this is the fact that most of those working in the field
of literary statistics are also, in one or other respect, novices, or, as
they would no doubt prefer to put it, pioneers. When the statistical
study of literary texts has grown into a systematically organized
discipline, monographs such as the present will no doubt look very
amateurish. But any discipline in its earliest days must depend
upon the contributions of untaught and inexpert amateurs.
The amateur who ventures into a field on the borderline of
several disciplines must, however, be more than usually conscious
of the debt he owes to his colleagues in the adjacent fields in which
he is himself unskilled. In writing the present work I have been at
every step dependent on the learning and generosity of the
philologists, historians, statisticians, and computer experts who have
patiently striven to remove my misunderstandings and fill up the
gaps in my knowledge. In a field so well trodden as that of
Aristotelian studies it would no doubt be rash to claim even that my
mistakes are original: but it is more than usually true to say that the
errors which remain in the book are in no way the responsibility of
the kind friends who have taken pains to see that others were
expunged.
I must express my gratitude to my classical colleagues in Balliol
who were often the immediate target for my brain-picking forays;
in particular Dr. Oswyn Murray who gave me much useful
historical information, and Mr. Jasper Griffin who read the whole
book in typescript and tactfully deleted a number of solecisms. I am
very much indebted to Mr. Paul Griffith, statistical officer at the
Oxford Computing Laboratory, who checked the statistical
argument of Chapter 4, to Mr. Frank Pettit, who first taught me
VI Preface
how to use a computer, and to Mrs. Susan Hockey who taught me
everything that I know about the use of the computer for literary
studies. I wish also to thank Professor Thedore Brunner and the
staff of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae at Irvine, and Stephan
Gruen who as a graduate student prepared for me a computer
readable text of the Eudemian Ethics, on which I carried out my
preliminary studies before the tapes prepared by the Thesaurus
Linguae Graecae became available.
Drafts of chapters of the book.Were read as papers to the Bs club
in Cambridge, to the Philological Society in Oxford, to the
American Philological Society in Washington, and to the Moral
Sciences Club in Cambridge; and also to societies and seminars at
King's College, London, at the University of Texas at Austin, at
Swarthmore College, at the University of Pennsylvania, at the
University of Michigan, and at Bristol University. I am most
grateful to those who took part in the discussions at those places for
many helpful suggestions and criticisms.
The Revd. Andrew Q Morton of Culross, and Dr. Alan Jones of
the Oriental Institute in Oxford were both extremely helpful and
encouraging to me when first I became interested in the statistical
study of classical texts. Professor Charles Kahn of the University of
Pennsylvania and an anonymous reader for the Archiv fiir
Geschichte der Philosophie made searching and valuable criticism
of an early draft of the central argument of the book.
Dr. C. J. Rowe, whose study of the relationship between the
Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics in r 971 awoke my own interest in
the problem, assisted me, in discussion and in correspondence, at
every stage of my work-bent as I was on the destruction of the
theory he had so ably defended-with the most admirable
impartiality, generosity, and friendliness. Professor D. J. Allan
who has for decades stood out, almost alone in the republic of
classical letters, against the universal acceptance of the fashions set
by Werner Jaeger, and has given courage to others less learned than
himself to do likewise-has placed me greatly in his debt by his
constant encouragement and willingness to share with me the
unparalleled store of learning he has acquired in more than twenty
years' study of the Eudemian Ethics. To these and to the other
Aristotelian scholars who have taken a friendly interest in my work
I am most grateful, in particular to Professor J. L. Ackrill, Jonathan
Preface Vil
Barnes, Professor G. E. L. Owen, Richard Sorabji, Pamela Huby,
and Michael Woods.
Finally I must express my gratitude to four scholars whom I have
never met but to whose writings I owe a great deal. Professor J. D.
Monan's Moral Knowledge and its Methodology in Aristotle first
made me aware of the flimsiness of the arguments on which the
accepted chronology of Aristotle's ethical writings rested. The
monumental commentaries of Gauthier and Jolif and of Dirlmeier
are classical expressions of the theories which are the target of the
present work: but I am aware that at every step I draw upon their
erudition and industry for the very information on which my
criticism of the reigning orthodoxy of Aristotelian scholarship is
based.
I am indebted to the Trustees of the Craven Fund for a travel
grant which enabled me to consult manuscripts of the Ethics and of
Aspasius in Florence and in Rome.

CONTENTS
List of Tables x
r. The Aristotelian Ethics in Antiquity
2. Cross-references in the Ethics 50
3. The Style of the Treatise on Justice 60
4. Particles and Connectives in the Aristotelian Ethics 70
5. Prepositions, Adverbs, and Pronouns in the Ethical
Treatises 113
6. The Use of Technical Terms in the Ethical Treatises 137
7. Wisdom in the Aristotelian Ethics 161
8. Happiness in the Aristotelian Et hies 190
9. The Dating of the Aristotelian Ethical Treatises 215
Bibliography
Index 247
LIST OF TABLES
Tu~ ~
1. l Parallels to the Magna Moralia in the NE and EE l l
r .2 The Ordering of the Virtues in Peripatetic Ethical Treatises 23
4. 1 Occurrences of Thirty-six Particles and Connecti~es in the
NE, EE, and AE . 74
4.2 Ranking of Particles and Connectives in the NE, EE, and AE 78
4.3 Scattergram of Occurrences of Particles and Connectives in
the NE and AE 80
4.4 Scattergram of Occurrences of Particles and Connectives in
the EE and AE 81
4.5 Frequencies of Particles and Connectives in the NE, EE, and
AE 83
4.6 Agreements and Disagreements between AE, NE, and EE in
respect of Particle Use 86
4.7 Significance of the Difference between Frequencies of
Particles in the AE, NE, and EE 88
4.8 Occurrences of £i in the EE 91
4.9 The Calculation of Chi-squared 92
4.10 Particles and Connectives in Individual Books of the NE 93
4.1 l Particles and Connectives in Individual Books of the EE 94
4.12 Particles and Connectives in Individual Books of the AE 95
4.13 Comparison of Two Contexts for the AE in respect of
Particle Use 97
4. 14 (a-d) Bar Charts of the Use of E7T£i and wau in the
Traditional NE and EE 98
Frequencies of Particles and Connectives m Individual
Books of the NE 100
Frequencies of Particles and Connectives m Individual
Books of the EE 102
Frequencies of Particles and Connectives m Individual
Books of the AE 104
4. l 8 Particles: Books as Samples from the Traditional NE as a
Single Population 107
4. 19 Particles: Books as Samples from the Traditional EE as a
Single Population 108
4.20 Particles and Connectives in Seventeen Samples of the AE 1 ro
5. l Nineteen Common Prepositions in the NE, AE, and EE. 114
list of Tables XI
5.2 Adverbial Modifiers of Degree in Individual Books of the
NE, AE, and EE u6
5.3 d11,\ws- and µovov in Individual Books of the NE, AE, and
EE 117
5.4 Expressions of Doubt and Certainty in Individual Books of
the NE, AE, and EE r 18
5.5 Scattergram of Occurrences of Expressions of Doubt and
Certainty in AE and EE 120
5.6 Scattergram of Occurrences of Expressions of Doubt and
Certainty in NE and EE 121
5.7 Pronouns and Pronominal Adjectives in Individual Books of
the NE, AE, and EE 124
5.8 Nicomachean Favourites in Seventeen Samples of the AE:
Part One 132
5.9 Eudemian Favourites in Seventeen Samples of the AE: Part
One 133
6. r Logical Terms in the NE, AE, and EE 140
6.2 Metaphysical Technical Terms in Individual Books of the
NE, AE, and EE 142
6.3 Scattergram of Occurrences of Metaphysical Technical
Terms in NE and AE 143
6.4 Scattergram of Occurrences of Metaphysical Technical
Terms in EE and AE 144
6.5 Expressions for Volitional States in Individual Books of the
NE, AE, and EE 146
6.6 Evaluative Expressions in Individual Books of the NE, AE,
and EE 150
6. 7 Scattergram of Occurrences ofEvaluative Expressions in the
EE and AE 151
6.8 Scattergram of Occurrences ofEvaluative Expressions in the
NE and AE 152
6.9 Nicomachean Favourites in Seventeen Samples of the AE:
Part Two 155
6. ro Eudemian Favourites in Seventeen Samples of the AE: Part
Two 156
9.1 Nicomachean and Eudemian Favourite Expressions m
the Two Treatments of Pleasure 234