Study Questions for Aristotle's
Nicomachean Ethics Book VI (Phronêsis)

Instructor: Dr. Jan Garrett

Last revised date: August 1, 2007

Study Questions for use with T. H. Irwin's translation (Hackett, 1999). This version prepared in July 2007.

1. Why is Aristotle now discussing the intellectual virtues? (1138b18-34)

2. What distinction does he make within the rational part of the soul? (How do their objects differ? What does he call them? Which part engages in deliberation?) (1139a6-11)

3. Which three capacities of the soul control action (praxis) and truth? Which of them, according to Aristotle, originates no action? (1139a18-20)

4. What follows if decision is excellent? (1139a22-26)

5. How does Aristotle relate truth, action, and desire? (1139a29-31)

Note how Aristotle's view of practical truth differs radically from the popular modern view making truth and knowledge a distinct domain from the good.

6. What is the principle (source or efficient cause) of action? (1139a32) the source of decision? (a33) Hence what things are required? (1139a35-36)

7. How is productive thinking like practical thinking? How does it differ? (1139b1-4)

8. About what do we not deliberate? About what do we deliberate? (1139b7-10)

9. Make a chart, listing as columns: (1) the state of the soul grasping truth, (2) objects of the state, (3) inclusive of first principles, (4) appropriate form of reasoning, (5) aimed at results?, (6) aim entirely transcends the agent?

Under (1) list the five states (1139b15-18).
Under (2) decide whether the objects are "necessary" or not (i.e., admit of being otherwise).
Under (3) determine whether the state itself grasps first principles.
Under (4) determine whether deliberation or demonstration or neither is included under the state.
Under (5) determine whether the state is aimed at results.
Under (6) determine whether the result aimed at is at least partly within the agent qua moral being. (Look for answers to (2) through (6) at 1139b18-1140b8; 1140b30-1141a19.)

10. How does Aristotle define "craft" (technę)? (1140a21-22)

11. What is an "prudent person" (phronimos) able to do? (1140a25-31) How does Aristotle define "prudence"? (b4-6) How is prudence related to temperance or lack thereof? (b12-23)

12. Can prudence be forgotten? (1140b28-30) Why do you think Aristotle says it is not only a state involving reason?

13. Is prudence the most excellent science? Explain. (1141a20ff)

14. Is prudence concerned with universals? particulars? (1141b9-23)

15a. How does prudence relate to political science? (1141b23ff) (To say that X and Y are the same but their being is not the same is to say that a single thing illustrates both X and Y, but the concepts of X and Y show it in a different light, e.g., for different contexts.)

15b. What sort of prudence is often counted most of all as prudence? (1141b30-35) What does Aristotle think of this view?

16. Why are prudent young people not found, according to Aristotlet? (1142a13ff) Why is prudence difficult? (a22-24)

17. Why is prudence not scientific knowledge? (Scientific knowledge, episteme, has been discussed in book VI, chapter 3.) (1142a24-26) How is prudence "opposite to understanding"? (The meaning seems to be "contrastable with," not "in conflict with." (a27-28)

18. How does "perception" (aisthesis) aid the operation of prudence? (1142a23-31)

This passage is one of the most frequently interpreted and disputed passages in all of Aristotle's ethics. (By "perception of special objects," Aristotle means perceptions making use of the five external senses. The perception which occurs in deliberation is not of this sort; yet it is like it in being an apprehension of a particular, and not being either a universal or an inferential process.) See 1143a36-b17 for related passages.

19. How does deliberation relate to inquiry? good guessing? belief? (1142a32-b9)

20. What points does Aristotle make about the logic of good deliberation at 1142b23-35?

Aristotle now discusses (1143a1-24) close cousins of phronesis, "comprehension" (sunesis) and consideration or considerateness (gnome or suggnome). The latter has connotations of leniency or forgiveness. Sunesis seems to be an intellectual virtue required for the person who can listen fruitfully to lectures on politics of the sort contained in the Ethics.

22. How does the role of understanding (noûs) in the practical life differ from its role in demonstrative science? (1143a36-b5) Where does understanding [i.e., understanding in its practical, moral sense] come from? (1143b7-17)

23. How can Aristotle say that wisdom, prudence and virtue of character make us happy? (1144a1-12) Wisdom (sophia) was discussed earlier, in chapter 7 of Book vi.

24. What ambiguity is hidden under the term "cleverness"? (1144a21-28) What is the relationship between prudence and cleverness? (1144a29-30) between prudence and moral virtue? (a30-b1)

In the first paragraph in VI, chapter 13, Aristotle's point is that prudence and [moral] virtue are related to cleverness in this way: cleverness is needed for prudence and full virtue but those who are clever are not necessarily prudent or virtuous. Full virtue is related to natural virtue in a roughly similar way: natural virtue may assist us in developing full virtue, but does not in itself amount to full virtue.

25. Distinguish natural from complete virtue. (1144b4-14) What does the latter require? (1144b14-18) How does Aristotle now explain his differences with Socrates' views? (b18-33) See Irwin's note on Chap. 13, § 3, p. 254.

26. Alasdair MacIntyre argues in After Virtue that a person can be courageous without being fully virtuous. How would Aristotle respond to such claims? (1144b33-1145a2)