1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910465735903321

Autore

Reeve C. D. C. <1948->

Titolo

Action, contemplation, and happiness [[electronic resource] ] : an essay on Aristotle / / C.D.C. Reeve

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, Mass., : Harvard University Press, c2012

ISBN

0-674-06547-6

0-674-06856-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (316 p.)

Disciplina

171/.3

Soggetti

Ethics, Ancient

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Abbreviations and Editions -- 1 The Transmission of Form -- 2 Truth, Action, and Soul -- 3 Theoretical Wisdom -- 4 Virtue of Character -- 5 Practical Wisdom -- 6 Immortalizing Beings -- 7 Happiness -- 8 The Happiest Life -- Index of Passages -- General Index

Sommario/riassunto

The notion of practical wisdom is one of Aristotle's greatest inventions. It has inspired philosophers as diverse as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Elizabeth Anscombe, Michael Thompson, and John McDowell. Now a leading scholar of ancient philosophy offers a challenge to received accounts of practical wisdom by situating it in the larger context of Aristotle's views on knowledge and reality. That happiness is the end pursued by practical wisdom is commonly agreed. What is disputed is whether happiness is to be found in the practical life of political action, in which we exhibit courage, temperance, and other virtues of character, or in the contemplative life, where theoretical wisdom is the essential virtue. C. D. C. Reeve argues that the dichotomy is bogus, that these lives are in fact parts of a single life, which is the best human one. In support of this view, he develops innovative accounts of many of the central notions in Aristotle's metaphysics, epistemology, and psychology, including matter and form, scientific knowledge, dialectic, educatedness, perception, understanding, political science, practical truth, deliberation, and



deliberate choice. These accounts are based directly on freshly translated passages from many of Aristotle's writings. Action, Contemplation, and Happiness is an accessible essay not just on practical wisdom but on Aristotle's philosophy as a whole.