On The So-Called Common Books of The Eudemian and The Nicomachean Ethics

Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116
brill.com/phro
On the So-Called Common Books of the Eudemian

and the Nicomachean Ethics
Dorothea Frede
Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 6, 20146 Hamburg. Germany
dorothea.frede@uni-hamburg.de
Abstract
In recent decades the view that the disputed central books of Aristotle’s ethics are an
integral part of the Eudemian rather than of the Nicomachean Ethics has gained ground
for both historical and systematic reasons. This article contests that view, arguing not
only that the Nicomachean Ethics represented Aristotle’s central text throughout antiq-
uity, but that the discussion in the common books of such crucial concepts as justice,
practical and theoretical reason, self-control and lack of self-control, are more com-
patible with the undisputed books of the Nicomachean Ethics than with those of the
Eudemian Ethics.
Keywords
Aristotle – ethics – justice – sophia – phronēsis – akrasia – enkrateia
1 Preface
Compared to his writings on other subjects, Aristotle’s ethics is unique in that

he left behind two different treatises: the works that have come down to us
under the titles Nicomachean Ethics (EN) and Eudemian Ethics (EE),1 named
after Aristotle’s son, Nicomachus, and his collaborator and friend, Eudemus
respectively. There is no information about when and why the two versions
1 The Magna Moralia seems to be the work of a member of Aristotle’s school who had access
to both versions. For a survey of all of the works on ethics attributed to Aristotle and a recon-
struction of the development of Aristotle’s ethical thought, cf. Bobonich 2006.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/15685284-12341362

Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 10:08:54AM
via free access
On the So-Called Common Books 85
originated, how they obtained their respective names, or how they are related
to each other.
There is an assumption, attested in a Byzantine commentary and adopted
by some contemporary scholars, that Eudemus und Nicomachus acted as edi-
tors of the two versions. That Aristotle’s son should have put his hands on a
major work of his father’s is made unlikely by the information that he was still
a child at the time of his father’s death and died as a soldier at a very young
age.2 Eudemus, on the other hand, reportedly returned to his native Rhodes
after Aristotle’s death and founded a school of his own. It is more likely that
the names were bestowed on the two works by members of the school under
Theophrastus, their titles honoring the memory of Aristotle’s young and prom-
ising son,3 as well as Aristotle’s former student and collaborator.4
While in the nineteenth century many scholars regarded the EE as the work
of Eudemus,5 in the early twentieth century more penetrating studies of both
the language and the content of the EE led to the conviction that Aristotle
was the author of both treatises.6 Consensus also extended to the explanation
of the curious fact that the ‘middle books’, EE 4-6 and EN 5-7, are identical in
the manuscript tradition. Scholars agreed that the central books of one of the
two treatises had at some point got lost in antiquity and were replaced with
the books of the other work. It was also agreed that the common books had
initially belonged to the EN.7
That view was challenged by Anthony Kenny in his 1978 monograph, The
Aristotelian Ethics. Kenny there argues that the EE is not only to be taken as a
work that deserves serious consideration on its own, a position that is shared
by most cognoscenti, but also that it is the more mature of the two versions
2 On Nicomachus, cf. Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 15.2.15: ‘They say that he was raised as
an orphan by Theophrastus and that he died as a young lad (meirakiskos) in war.’ Whatever
may have been the state of Aristotle’s manuscripts, there cannot have been a division into
books or sections; editorial work would therefore have required considerable time and expe-
rience with Aristotle’s philosophy.
3 In his will Theophrastus requested that ‘the statue of Nicomachus should be completed in
life size’ (DL 5.52).
4 Simplicius mentions a scholarly correspondence between Theophrastus and Eudemus on
textual problems, indicating that they remained on good terms: In Phys. 923.10-15 Diels.
5 As did the editor of the EE, Susemihl 1885. Eudemus’ main interest was in logic and science.
He composed a ‘compact version’ of Aristotle’s Physics; later Peripatetics may have regarded
the EE as Eudemus’ ‘compact ethics’. On Eudemus, cf. Wehrli 1969, and the contributions to
Bodnar and Fortenbaugh 2002.
6 Cf. the studies by von der Mühll 1909 and Kapp 1912. For a survey of the reception of Aristotle’s
ethics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Rowe 1971a.
7 For a survey of the different scholarly positions on this issue from the nineteenth century up
to the mid-twentieth century, see Rowe 1971b.
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 10:08:54AM

via free access
86 Frede
and was written for a different, more philosophically minded, audience: ‘The
NE is much easier to read and more conversational in style, so that some have
seen it as being an exoteric work; the EE is more systematic and more techni-
cal and makes more use of the conceptual apparatus of Aristotelian logic and
metaphysics.’8
Kenny also contends that the EE was the work that was preferred in later
antiquity until the second century AD. That preference supposedly changed
because the commentator Aspasius treated the EN including the central
books as Aristotle’s major work. Kenny not only contests the view that the EE
is the earlier work of the two, but offers extensive statistical support for his
claim that the central books are closer, linguistically, to the undisputed books
of the EE than to those of the EN. Kenny’s further discussion aims to show
that Aristotle’s conceptions of wisdom and happiness in both works confirm
this assumption. A reprint of Kenny’s monograph was published in 1992, with
reconsiderations that are designed to meet the objections of critics—most of
all concerning his statistical investigations, its methods and results. A second
edition came out in 2016, with further reconsiderations that to aim to clarify
and modify, to some degree, Kenny’s earlier contentions.9
While the EN continues to be treated as Aristotle’s main work in ethics,
with the central books as an integral part, in recent years Kenny’s position has
enjoyed increasing support. While some scholars merely express doubt con-
cerning the right place of the ‘common books’, others prefer to assign them
to the EE, and some even treat the matter as settled, so that they speak of ‘the
Eudemian Ethics’ when referring to the disputed books.10
A comparison of the undisputed books of the two works, their structure,
order and content, gives trouble even to philosophically trained readers with
sufficient familiarity with Aristotle’s philosophy. Not only are both versions
of his ethics lacking final revision and polish, but there has been substantial
reorganization of each, whatever assumption one makes of the two works and
their relative maturity.11
8 Kenny 2016, 242 (from the new chapter called ‘Reconsiderations 1992’).
9 Because this article is not concerned with Kenny’s position as such, but with the general
tendency of the ‘Friends of the EE’ to treat that work as the natural place of the disputed
books, there will be no detailed discussion of Kenny’s position or of the modifications
contained in his Reconsiderations of 1992 and 2016.
10 Bostock 2000, 1 assumes that there is general agreement on the assignment of the central
books to the EE, although he does not regard the EE as the later and more mature work.
More recent treatment is provided by, among others, Inwood and Woolf 2013 (reviewed in
Lorenz 2013).
11 Burnet’s 1900 edition of the EN provides a helpful synopsis of related passages of both
works.
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
Kenny’s painstaking statistical investigations occupy three of the mono-

graph’s nine chapters. The method and the results of Kenny’s statistics have
been subjected to criticism from various sides—criticism that is reflected to
some degree in his reconsiderations in the book’s 1992 and 2016 editions.12 As
Kenny sees it, scholars who favor the EN as the more mature and definitive
of the two treatises are begging the issue when they assign, without argument,
the middle books to the EN, and then frame all of their further interpretations
to fit that assignment.13 But Kenny’s plea in favor of the EE is not free from that
reproach either, albeit in the reverse direction. For he does not take into con-
sideration that the EN must have contained analogous discussions, because
there are clear references to them in the EN, just as there are in the EE.14
Because of his faith in the EE’s greater philosophical refinement, Kenny him-
self does not consider the possibility that the middle books may have been less
thoroughly revised than the other books of the EN—a possibility that would
equally well explain his statistical observations concerning a greater affinity
of the middle books to the rest of the EE, than to the more thoroughly revised
but undisputed books of the EN.15 It would also explain those irregularities in
the composition of some parts of the middle books that have prompted earlier
commentators to claim that the middle books show traces of different ‘redac-
tions’.16 Because these scholars regarded the EE as the work of Eudemus they
did not take the possibility into consideration that the EN might be a revision
of the EE.
Judging from the references to the disputed books in other sections of the
EE and the EN, the versions of these books that were original to each treatise
must have had quite a lot in common. Both versions must have contained a
discussion of justice, of the intellectual virtues (both practical and theoreti-
cal), as well as of self-control (enkrateia) and lack of self-control (akrasia). All
that can be hoped is that a closer investigation of Aristotle’s treatment of those
concepts in the middle books, as well as in the other parts of the EN and the
EE, will yield clearer evidence regarding whether the middle books should be
attributed to the EN or to the EE.
12 See Irwin 1980, Cooper 1981 and Rowe 1981.

13 Kenny 1978, 162, with reference to Rowe 1971a.
14 References in the EN: concerning justice: 2.7 and 11, 1108b6-10; the intellectual virtues:
3.7, 1108b9-10; akrasia and enkrateia: 4, 1128b33-5. References in the EE: concerning jus-
tice: 2.10, 1227a2-3; 3.7, 1234b14; intellectual virtues: 1.8, 1218b12-16; 3.7, 1234a28-30, b13-14;
akrasia and enkrateia: 2.11, 1227b16-17; 3.2, 1231b2-4.
15 No discussion of Kenny’s statistical investigation will be attempted here.
16 Cf. Greenwood 1909 for Book 6; Cook Wilson 1887 for Book 7, and Gauthier and Jolif 1970
for all the middle books.

via free access
88 Frede
Certain aspects of Aristotle’s treatment of those critical concepts will be

under discussion in Section 3 below. But before the discussion of these criti-
cal concepts, an extensive review of the historical background will be given
in Section 2, in view of Kenny’s contentions concerning the reception of both
versions of Aristotle’s ethics in later antiquity, which have led to some misap-
prehensions in the literature in recent years. This review will be concerned
with the manuscript tradition of both treatises (2.1); the testimony of the com-
mentator Aspasius (2.2); and other ancient references to Aristotle’s ethics (2.3).
2 The Historical Background
2.1 The Manuscript Tradition

Current scholars who assign the disputed books to the EE often refer to
Harlfinger’s investigations claiming that the disputed books were as much
part of the manuscript tradition of the EE as they were of the EN (Harlfinger
1971).17 But that is not the conclusion of Harlfinger’s careful study; the matter is
much more complicated. According to Harlfinger’s ‘Überlieferungsgeschichte’,
there are two lines of transmission of the EE. The first line, which Harlfinger
calls the Recensio Messanensis, centers on the two oldest known manuscripts
of the EE—Vaticanus P and Cantabrigensis C—which were written by the same
scribe in a monastery located in Messina in the thirteenth century. The sec-
ond line of transmission—which centers on manuscript L—Harlfinger calls
the Recensio Constantinopolitana, because there is clear evidence that manu-
script L was copied in Constantinople in 1421-1423 and subsequently brought
to Italy. As Harlfinger points out, it is very likely that both manuscript-families
derived from the same hyparchetype, and that the hyparchetype was derived
from only one, not very much older, manuscript—the last link of a long manu-
script-tradition in which corruptions increased and there is no sign of editorial
emendation, either during the age of the commentators or later in Byzantium.18
As far as the disputed books are concerned, the manuscript-tradition of the
EE is split. The Recensio Messanensis does not contain the books themselves,
but it contains their incipits, and in manuscript C there is the remark that
the missing books can be found ‘higher up’, namely in the EN that precedes the
EE in that manuscript. The Recensio Constantinopolitana, manuscript L, does
17 See, for example, Inwood and Leigh 2012, pp. xv-xvii: ‘Based on the evidence of the manu-
script tradition, we may conclude that the EE and EN have come down to us with the
common books as integral parts of the whole of each work respectively.’
18 Harlfinger 1971, 26-8. See his stemma on p. 30.
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
contain the middle books, although some of its later copies omit them with the
remark that they are the same as the middle books of the EN.
The crucial question is, of course, whether the copy of the disputed books
in manuscript L of the EE is based on a tradition that is independent from that
of the middle books of the EN. That possibility is ruled out by Harlfinger on
the grounds that there are no significant deviations (‘Trennfehler’) in the EE’s
manuscript L of Books 4-6 that would separate them from the manuscripts
of Books 5-7 of the EN. For such deviations would inevitably have been con-
tained in the disputed books of the EE, had the tradition of those books been
independent from those in the EN from antiquity on. In addition, the disputed
books in manuscript L do not display the corruption that characterizes the
manuscripts of the EE’s undisputed books. As Harlfinger states, these facts
clearly speak for the assumption that the scribe who created the hyparchetype
of the EE took over the middle books from one of the EN’s older manuscripts.
This assumption is further confirmed by the observation that, concerning
the middle books, there is a close affinity between manuscript L of the EE
and the oldest manuscript of the EN, Kb. The evidence strongly supports the
view that the middle books have been taken over from a manuscript of the EN
and have not been part of the EE’s manuscript-tradition from antiquity on. But,
as Harlfinger acknowledges, this diagnosis of a later insertion of the middle
books into the manuscripts of the EE says nothing about its state in antiquity.
That state is difficult to reconstruct, because the catalogues of Aristotle’s works
in later antiquity contain quite divergent information concerning the titles of
his ethical works and the number of books they contained. It is necessary,
therefore, to take a closer look at the evidence from antiquity.
2.2 The Testimony of the Commentator Aspasius

The information provided by Aspasius, whose second-century AD commentary
on the EN has survived in part, is complicated, and requires closer scrutiny.19 It
is not only our earliest source on the reception of Aristotle’s ethics, but also,
almost, our only one. For, apart from anonymous scholia that are hard to date,
the only other—partly extant—commentaries are of a very late date: those
of Eustratius of Nicaea and Michael of Ephesus, who wrote in the eleventh/
twelfth century.20 Aspasius clearly had not only both the Nicomachean and
the Eudemian Ethics at hand—and regarded Eudemus as the author of the
19 Of Aspasius’ commentary, Books 1-4 and 7.6-8 are extant. Konstan 2006 is a translation.
20 According to the experts, commentaries on the works of Aristotle were written at the
instigation of the princess Anna Comnena when no full commentary existed. But no one
seems to have seen the need to provide a commentary on the EE.

via free access
90 Frede
latter—but also a copy of the ethics of Theophrastus. For at one point in his
commentary Aspasius refers to Eudemus’ and Theophrastus’ views on a par-
ticular question concerning friendship.21 In his commentary he also clearly
distinguishes between ancient Peripatetic doctrine and the views proposed by
the tradition of the commentators.22
What is left of Aspasius’ commentary, which starts only with ch. 7, clearly
shows that he regards Aristotle as the author of EN book 7. There is, in fact, only
one point in the discussion where Aspasius shifts his ground. It concerns what
has recently been dubbed ‘the shocking thesis’ in EN 7.14, 1153b7-14.23 That the-
sis contends that pleasure is, in a way, the highest good. Because Aspasius finds
this thesis objectionable, he offers various explanations for why it cannot be
Aristotle’s opinion (In NE 151.18-27 Heylbut). First, he claims that Aristotle is
speaking only in opposition to the views of some Platonists who treat pleasure
as a process of generation (genesis) or as something bad. An alternative expla-
nation is that this thesis reflects only popular opinion (endoxōs). To justify this
claim, Aspasius compares the thesis with Aristotle’s position on pleasure in
EN 10, where pleasure is not said to be the same as good activity but to follow
upon it ‘as beauty does upon those in their prime’. As a third possible explana-
tion, Aspasius attributes the ‘shocking thesis’ to Eudemus, treating the fact that
Aristotle states at the beginning of EN 10 that the nature of pleasure has not yet
been discussed as a sign that the thesis is actually that of Eudemus. But then
Aspasius hesitates again: ‘But whether this is Eudemus’ or Aristotle’s view, it
is said on the basis of popular opinion. This is why the best thing is said to be
pleasure: because it comes with the best thing and is inseparable from it.’
What are we to make of these vacillating remarks? Aspasius is obviously
reluctant to attribute to Aristotle this ‘shocking thesis’. But that is not all that
his explanations tell us. They show that he consulted both versions, the EN
as well as the EE; and that he regarded the latter as the work of Eudemus.24
21 Aspasius, In EN 178.1-13: ‘Eudemus and Theophrastus say that love according to superior-
ity, too, occurs in the same kinds: on account of pleasure or of the useful or of virtue. For
one who rules, and one who is ruled, might become worthy friends.’ The reference to
‘Eudemus’ concerns EE 7.4, 1239a1-12; 7.10, 1242b2-21.
22 Cf. Aspasius, In EN 44.19-45.16: ‘the ancient Peripatetics did not provide a definition of
the nature of the pathē.’ ‘The ancients’ must be Aristotle, Eudemus and Theophrastus, for
Aspasius contrasts them in that respect with his predecessors, Andronicus and Boethus.
The very fact that Aspasius refers to these commentators on the question of whether the
emotions are a mixture of pleasure and pain shows that he is following an already estab-
lished tradition of commentaries on the EN.
23 On the ‘shocking thesis’, cf. Rapp 2009, 218-20.
24 He does not mention the fact that Eudemus wrote an abridged version of Aristotle’s
Physics, but he must have known it; he may have regarded the EE as its counterpart.
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
Aspasius was obviously quite aware of the fact that EN 7 and EE 6 contained
the same discussion of pleasure, but seems to have seen nothing alarming
in that fact. He may have taken it for granted that Aristotle’s disciples often
shared his views. But Aspasius was clearly puzzled, as readers are puzzled to
this day, by the fact that EN 10 starts out as if nothing had been said about plea-
sure before. Aspasius does not draw the conclusion, however, that Eudemus
was the author of the discussion of pleasure in 7.11-14, or that Eudemus wrote
the whole of Book 7—let alone that Eudemus was the author of all three of the
middle books. On the contrary, Aspasius’ ruminations show that he stuck to his
attribution of the text to Aristotle.
There is only one remark in Aspasius that refers to some omissions in
Aristotle. It concerns Aristotle’s claim to have discussed a certain problem for
which there is no evidence in the text (EN 8.1, 1155b15-16). Aspasius explains
that omission as follows (In EN 161.9-10): ‘He seems to have spoken about this
in what has fallen out of the Nicomachean Ethics (ἐν τοῖς ἐκπεπτωκόσι τῶν
Νικομαχείων)’.25 A closer look shows that Aspasius is not speaking about entire
books, let alone about three missing books, but about unintentional omissions
in the EN. This is supported by the use that Aspasius makes of ‘fallen out’ else-
where. At In EN 64.30, ἐκπεπτωκέναι is used concerning a remark in Aristotle’
discussion of involuntariness: certain people claim that they involuntarily, in
a kind of slip, revealed a secret about the mysteries (EN 3.1, 1111a8-11: ἐκπεσεῖν).
Aspasius’ use of ἐκπεπτωκέναι, like Aristotle’s, is quite unspecific as to the sub-
ject-matter and the extent of the ‘slip’. Because of the vagueness of that term
Aspasius therefore emphasizes later that he is concerned with an omission in
the text of the EN.
2.3 Other Ancient References to Aristotle’s Ethics

Concerning the significance of other references made to Aristotle’s ethics by
Greek and Latin authors or in the ancient catalogues, Kenny 1978 claims that
there was no mention of the EN before Aspasius, and the EE was the generally
accepted text.26 But there is, in fact, a reference to the EN in Cicero (De finibus
5.12) and also in Arius Didymus, as reported by Stobaeus (Ecl. 2.7.3), but no ref-
erence to the EE. Cicero’s reference is especially informative. Having criticized
Simplicius in his commentary on the Physics often refers to Eudemus’ Physics (cf. Wehrli
1969, 22-51).
25 ‘ἐκπίπτειν’ signifies ‘failing’, ‘omitting’, ‘escaping’, ‘losing’, ‘falling out’; the perfect participle
is frequently used in all those ways.
26 Kenny 1978, 29-30. It is a claim that he subsequently modified.

via free access
92 Frede
the high value assigned to the goods of fortune by Theophrastus, Cicero sug-
gests (Fin. 5.12, tr. Rackham):
Hence we had better keep to Aristotle and his son Nicomachus, whose
elaborate volumes on Ethics, are ascribed, it is true, to Aristotle, but I
do not see why the son should not have been capable of emulating the
father.
Kenny with others assumes that Cicero is speaking about two different works,
one by Aristotle and another one by Nicomachus and assumes that the former
is the Eudemian Ethics. But Cicero’s text does not confirm that claim. There is
no indication that the libri referred to are two different works rather than the
different volumes of the same work. Cicero’s uncertainty about the authorship
only shows that he does not know what to make of the work’s unusual title.
He is apparently concerned with newly rediscovered writings by Aristotle, for,
as he mentioned before, he was ‘on his way to the library of young Lucullus
to borrow certain commentarii of Aristotle’s’ which he did not own himself
(Fin. 3.1).27 These commentarii must have been part of the previously unknown
works of Aristotle’s which had come to Rome as part of the booty that Sulla
reportedly brought back from Athens in 86 BC. That Cicero found them in
Lucullus’ library allows of two explanations. One is that, after Sulla’s death
in 78, his son Faustus Cornelius Sulla was raised by young Lucullus’ father,
so that eventually his books became part of the latter’s library; the other is that
the elder Lucullus, a bibliophile, had obtained copies of his own during his
tenure as a general in Greece.28
This is not the place to take up in detail the much disputed claim that
Aristotle’s and Theophrastus’ writings had disappeared in the third century
BC, survived in the ‘Tunnel of Scepsis’, reappeared in bad condition in the first
century BC and were brought to Rome, where eventually an edition was made
by Andronicus of Rhodes that became the foundation of all later scholarship.
While that story, as reported by Strabo and Plutarch,29 may be exaggerated,
27 That he does not mention the commentarii again in the introduction to Book 5 is due to
the fact that Book 5’s fictive date is much earlier, i.e. Cicero’s visit to Athens in 79 BC.
28 On Lucullus as a bibliophile who welcomed his friends to his library, cf. Plutarch,
Lucullus 42.
29 The story is reported by the geographer and historian Strabo (Geographica 13.1.54)
and also mentioned in Plutarch (Sulla 26.1-2). They state that the works of Aristotle and
Theophrastus had been removed from Athens to Scepsis in Asia Minor by Theophrastus’
disciple Neleus, where they remained hidden until the first century BC. After their reap-
pearance they were purchased and published by a bibliophile named Apellicon and later
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
most scholars are by now agreed that there must be some truth at least to the
story of the disappearance of Aristotle’s major works.30 For the titles as well as
the numbering of the books in the ancient lists of Aristotle’s works that origi-
nated from the library of Alexandria differ markedly from those that became
customary after Andronicus’ edition.
That Andronicus is to be credited with a new edition of Aristotle’s work
that became the foundation of all subsequent scholarship was disputed by
Barnes 1997, who argued that Andronicus composed only a catalogue of that
work. This is a skepticism that Kenny shares.31 The hailing of Andronicus as
the philological predecessor of Immanuel Bekker must, indeed, be a mistake,
because there is no indication that Andronicus submitted the manuscripts to
textual criticism; he only seems to have ‘made public’ those manuscripts that
he obtained in Rome. But Andronicus did do editorial work in a different
sense, because Porphyry refers to him as his model for his own reorganiza-
tion of Plotinus’ work in his Vita Plotini (24.9-11): ‘Andronicus divided the
works of Aristotle and Theophrastus into treatises, collecting related material
into the same place.’32 Andronicus, then, did not only reorganize Aristotle’s
works, but also left a substantial catalogue (pinakes) in five books that must
have contained, besides the works’ titles, information about the content of the
writings and their authenticity.33 It is this edition that was used by the later
commentators.
came to Rome as part of Sulla’s booty. Sulla handed them over to Tyrannio, an erudite
former prisoner of war, who had copies made. A copy was obtained by Andronicus of
Rhodes, who ‘made them public (εἰς μέσον θεῖναι) and drew up catalogues that are now in
circulation’ (Plutarch, Sulla 26.1.9).
30 For a detailed account that has by now been widely accepted, see Primavesi 2007.
Especially pertinent are Primavesi’s observations concerning the difference in the way
the books were numbered in the catalogues. While Diogenes and Hesychius use the
Hellenistic system of 27 alphabetic numerals, Andronicus’ edition of the ‘lost books’ uses
the pre-Hellenistic system of 24 letter labels, thereby following the old-fashioned system
of numbering the books by letter labels. The books of the EN follow that system, while
there is evidence that the EE’s books were numbered by alphabetic numerals (Primavesi
2007, 70-3).
31 Cf. Kenny 2016, 273; Barnes 1997, 17. Barnes is not a sympathetic commentator on
Aristotle’s ethical works: he regards the EN as ‘an absurdity, surely put together by a des-
perate scribe or an unscrupulous bookseller and not united by an author or an editor’
(1997, 59). It is unclear whether, and if so why, Barnes exempts the disputed books from
this verdict.
32 For the difference between editorial work that is based on textual criticism and work that
provides a new canon-formation and corpus-organization, see Hatzimichali 2013 and,
more extensively, 2016.
33 An abridged version of this catalogue is extant in Arabic translations, where it is attrib-
uted to a man called Ptolemy al-Garib (‘The Stranger’), perhaps so called to distinguish

via free access
94 Frede
That the tradition after Aspasius accepted the Nicomachean Ethics in ten
books as Aristotle’s definitive work, is witnessed by Alexander of Aphrodisias.
He seems not to have written a commentary, but he does discuss ethical prob-
lems in essay form in his Quaestiones Ethicae. He also frequently refers to the
Nicomachean Ethics in his commentaries on the Metaphysics and on the Topics,
as well as in the supplement to his commentary on the De anima (the Mantissa:
‘Make-weight’). Alexander mentions the distinction between the different kinds
of rational capacities as the subject of EN 6 (In Metaph. 7.13-26 Hayduck).34
And although Alexander frequently refers to Eudemus’ work on logic, he never
mentions any work of his on ethics, nor does he refer to the Eudemian Ethics.
This is significant, because Alexander was well informed about the commen-
taries of his predecessors, and well aware of problems in the transmission
of Aristotle’s manuscripts; he refers to Aspasius in connection with differing
readings in the text of the Metaphysics.35 Had those parts of Aspasius’ com-
mentary on the EN that are now missing contained information that the three
central books of the EN had ‘dropped out’ and been replaced by those of the
EE, Alexander would not have passed over that information in silence.
There is very little to learn from the later commentators, except for the fact
that Simplicius, in his classification of Aristotle’s works, lists all three ethical
works—i.e. EN, EE, and also MM—as Aristotelian, without comments on their
relation or their content.36 This shows that the EE must have been accepted as
genuine sometime after Alexander. Eustratius, the eleventh/twelfth-century
commentator, mentions the fact that there are two works by Aristotle on eth-
ics in the preface to his commentary on the EN, but he does not seem to have
concerned himself with a comparison of them.37
him from the famous astronomer and mathematician. (On Ptolemy and his catalogue,
cf. Düring 1959, 43; Hein 1985; Dietze-Mager 2015.) As Ptolemy states in the preface, he is
not directly following Andronicus, whose catalogue contained some 1,000 titles, but pro-
vides a selection of his own. Ptolemy’s catalogue is therefore no replica of the catalogue
of Andronicus.
34 See also In Metaph. 134.30. The reference is to the discussion of pleasure in Book 7. None
of Alexander’s references to different books of the EN display any doubt that they are
Aristotle’s work.
35 Alexander, In Metaph. 58.27-59.8.
36 Simplicius, In Cat. 4.27 Kalbfleisch: ‘His practical work is in part on ethics, the Nicomachean
and the Eudemian and the work that has the title “Great Ethics”, in part on econom-
ics or politics, the Oeconomica and the work that has the title Politica.’ But the learned
Simplicius must have studied the EE, for at 170.6 Kalbfleisch he raises the question of why
Aristotle does not address ‘relation’ (τὸ πρός τι) at EE 1.8, 1217b26-8.
37 Eustratius, In EN 4.19-20, Heylbut: ‘They are called Nicomachean because they are dedi-
cated to a certain Nicomachus, either the son of Aristotle or another man of that name,
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
Although there is sufficient evidence that in antiquity the EN rather than

the EE was treated as the definitive version of Aristotle’s ethics, including
the middle books, this does not preclude the possibility that those books had
dropped out from the EN before its recovery in the first century BC and had
been supplemented by those in the EE. It is therefore necessary to look for
clues in the undisputed books of Aristotle’s two works themselves that suggest
a closer relationship of the disputed books to the EN rather than to the EE.
3 Arguments for the Assignment of the Common Books to the EN
Which of the two candidate source-texts, the Nicomachean or the Eudemian

Ethics, show more internal consistency with the contested common books
cannot be decided on the basis of historical information alone. This section
focuses on several particular concepts and their treatment in the undisputed
and in the common books. These considerations concern the treatment of
justice (3.1), the discussion of phronēsis and sophia (3.2) and the extensive
involvement of akrasia and enkrateia in the convoluted aporetic treatment of
voluntariness and involuntariness in EE 2, in contrast with the introduction
of those concepts in EN 7.1 (3.3).
3.1 Justice
A comparison of the list of the virtues and vices in EE 2.3 with the list pre-
sented in EN 2.7 shows that there is a significant difference in their treatment
of justice. The list in EE 2 treats justice as an integral part of the list of triads at
1221a4: ‘profit (kerdos)—loss (zēmia)—just (dikaion).’ The subsequent expla-
nation of the pairs of vices states that ‘the profiteer is the one who tries to
get more from everywhere, the loss-maker is the one who never does so from
anywhere’ (κερδαλέος δὲ ὁ πανταχόθεν πλεονεκτικός, ζημιώδης δὲ ὁ μηδαμόθεν,
1221a23-4).38 Here, justice is clearly treated as a character-virtue like all the oth-
ers listed in the table of triads; and ‘the just’ is identified as the intermediary
state between excess and deficiency, between undue gain and loss.
In the EN, by contrast, justice is not on the list of character-virtues, but
is introduced afterwards with an explanation of why it is not included
(2.7, 1108b7-9): ‘But concerning justice, because it is not said in a simple way,
just like he issued a Eudemian, another work, dedicated to a certain Eudemus, a work that
has the same intention.’
38 I am following, with slight modifications, the translations by Woods 1982 and Inwood and
Woolf 2013.

via free access
96 Frede
we will later take them apart and discuss concerning each of them in what way
they are intermediaries (μεσότητες).’39 This quote indicates that Aristotle had
come to see, what he seems not to have seen when he wrote the EE, that justice
does not fit in the triadic schema of virtues as intermediaries of excess and
defect, because there is more than one kind of justice. In addition, Aristotle
realized that there is a problem concerning the way in which justice can be
regarded as an intermediary. Aristotle does not say any more at this point in
the EN on that problem, but his readers are forewarned that justice represents
a special case. Since there are no such reservations expressed in the EE, the
treatment of justice in the EE’s missing Book 4 must have differed in signifi-
cant ways from that in EN 5.
To be sure, certain commentators suspect that the triad of ‘profit, loss and
the just’ was not part of the original version of the EE’s three-column table,40
as others have been skeptical of the authenticity of some of the other triads.41
And, as a closer look shows, there is indeed something odd about the terms
that are used to designate justice, its excess and defect, in comparison to the
other triads. For we do not find ‘justice’ (dikaiosynē), the disposition, but ‘(the)
just’ (dikaion) alongside ‘gain’ (kerdos) and ‘loss’ (zēmia), i.e. the aims or objects
of distribution. This is indeed an anomaly. Nevertheless, as the subsequent
depiction of the vices suggests, Aristotle does not regard the triad itself as
problematic (1221a23-4). Furthermore, the excision of the triad ‘profit—loss—
just’ from the table, together with the lines that explain the profiteer’s and the
loss-maker’s dispositions, would not only constitute a grave interference with
the text, but justice would then not be on the list of character virtues at all, an
omission that would be even stranger than the triad and its elucidation.42
The fact that EN 5 starts out with an explanation of the dichotomy of jus-
tice is in keeping with the special treatment of justice that is envisaged in
the preview in EN 2.7. First, it emerges that universal justice does not fit in the
table of virtues and vices of character, because it concerns all the virtues, as
required by the laws of the state. For universal justice is the willingness to
39 The translation follows Ross 2006.

40 Kenny 1978, 214.
41 Susemihl 1884, following Spengel, brackets unscrupulousness, unworldliness and wisdom
as well as softness, grimness and staunchness; neither triad is discussed in the detailed
examination of virtues and vices in EE 3.
42 The dichotomy is discussed in Magna Moralia 1.33; but that work presupposes knowl-
edge of both the EE and the EN. A remark in Alexander of Aphrodisias’ commentary
on Aristotle’s Topics suggests that the dichotomy was accepted as established doctrine
(In Top. 104.18-28, Wallies).
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
display courage, liberality, magnificence and so on in the interest of others,

and injustice is the opposite. Hence in the case of universal justice there is not
one intermediary but as many intermediaries as there are virtues and vices.43
Secondly, in the case of particular justice there are further subdivisions into
distributive and retributive justice, with reciprocal justice as an addendum.44
In the discussion of distributive justice and injustice, the terms gain (kerdos)
and loss (zēmia), found on the tablet of triads in EE 2.3, are not used. Instead,
Aristotle confines himself to stating that there is equality (ison) and inequal-
ity (anison)—in proportion or in violation of proportion. That is to say that,
while one person receives too much of the goods of the community, or shoul-
ders too little of its burdens, the other person receives too little of the goods
and too many of the burdens (EN 5.3). There is no mention of the correspond-
ing dispositions of either the distributor or of the recipient. In the explanation
of retributive justice, by contrast, Aristotle does refer to gain (kerdos) and to
loss (zēmia) in transactions that stand in need of correction (5.4, 1132a9-19).
But again he does not mention the respective dispositions, but confines him-
self to adjudication between gain and loss, so that the intermediary, the just
amount (to dikaion), is achieved.
As Aristotle indicates later in EN 5, the explanation of retributive injustice
in terms of gain and loss presents several problems. First, the terminology of
‘gain’ and ‘loss’ is problematic, because the transactions that are to be cor-
rected for justice’s sake concern not only material gain and loss, but also
violent crimes such as physical injury, murder and the like (5.2, 1131a1-9). This
leads to strange formulations: a murderer makes a profit, while the murdered
suffers a loss, a loss which must be ‘mediated’, so that ‘everyone obtains their
own’ (τὰ αὑτῶν… ἔχειν: 5.4, 1132b17). Aristotle is quite aware of the strangeness
of that language, as his explanation of the terminology shows: ‘profit’ and
‘loss’ are derived from voluntary transactions like buying and selling, i.e. from
transactions whose intermediary is determinable in terms of material value
43 Although the unjust man is called ‘pleonektēs’ both in the universal and in the particular
sense, no mention is made in EN 5 of a person who is ‘zēmiōdēs’ in not trying to get what
he is entitled to. Although ‘zēmia’ is the term that designates unjust damage, no corre-
sponding disposition is referred to, for reasons that will emerge later.
44 The third type of particular justice in 5.5, reciprocity (to antipeponthos), will be left out
of the discussion. Aristotle quickly disposes of reciprocity in the sense of revenge as out of
date and replaces it by ‘economic justice’ that concerns the exchange of material goods
in trade. But there is no mention of virtuous or vicious dispositions or of the possibility
of economic injustice. That discussion clearly represents a kind of appendix, for in what
follows Aristotle resumes, without comment, the previous discussion of justice and injus-
tice (5.5, 1133b29).

via free access
98 Frede
(5.4, 1132b12-20). Aristotle clearly had come to see that the simple model of
gain and loss that he had started out with in the EE is not a suitable explana-
tion of justice and injustice.
Further, Aristotle does not address dispositions in the discussion of partic-
ular justice. Instead, his analysis focuses quite extensively on mathematical
calculations as an illustration of the right mean between different kinds of
inequality and on the judge’s task of adjudicating between gain and loss
(5.4, 1132a32-b11). If Aristotle has a disposition in mind here at all, it can only
be the judge’s. There is no mention of a disposition on the side of the per-
petrator or on that of the victim. This omission should come as no surprise.
Given the diversity of the list of infractions of justice (5.2, 1131a1-9), both vio-
lent and clandestine, it would be strange to attribute all of them to love of gain
on the side of the perpetrator, let alone to readiness to suffer loss on the side of
the victim.
Finally and most importantly: the discussion in EN 5.9 shows that Aristotle
has come to see that in the case of justice there is no triad of virtue and vices,
because there is no corresponding defective disposition. ‘Injustice’ is not the
name common to both excess and defect, as one might assume at first. For it
gradually emerges that the disposition to accept less than one’s due is not a
defective disposition with respect to justice, because in order to count as unjust
the corresponding injuries would have to be accepted voluntarily. But no one
willingly accepts unjust treatment qua unjust (5.9, 1136b1-14). The disposition
to take less than one is entitled to or to incur some kind of loss voluntarily may
be a matter of generosity, or stupidity, or indolence, but it is not a readiness to
accept injustice. Aristotle illustrates this point with the example made famous
by Homer of the acceptance of ‘iron for gold’ in the exchange of arms between
Glaucus and Diomedes (Iliad 6.232-6). Whatever may have prompted Glaucus’
perhaps inordinate generosity, it was not a readiness to incur an injustice.
Aristotle has clearly come to see that in the case of justice there is excess,
but no defect. Every vice, whether it consists of excess or of defect, presup-
poses that the respective acts are committed voluntarily and not accidentally,
for some different purpose, or out of ignorance. There is no such defect with
respect to justice: every suffering of injustice is involuntary (5.9, 1136a23-9). It is
not only impossible to voluntarily suffer injustice from someone else, it is also
impossible to do an injustice to oneself. Committing suicide is not doing injus-
tice to oneself: if it is an act of injustice, it concerns the community, not the
perpetrator himself (5.11, 1138a4-14). Nor are there any other acts of injustice to
oneself: no-one can commit adultery with his own wife, steal his own property,
or break into his own house (1138a24-8).
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
If Aristotle seems somewhat reluctant to acknowledge the gravity of this

problem, this must be due to the fact that what is just (to dikaion) is, of course,
the intermediary between an excess and defect—one party has too much, the
other has too little of the good in question, as the product of a just or unjust
act. That justice is an exception to his scheme may have dawned, therefore, on
Aristotle only gradually, as is suggested by the fact that the problem surfaces
only later in Book 5.45 He may initially have regarded it as an anomaly in his
schema, comparable to the case of ‘insensitivity’ that rarely occurs because it
is against nature.46 But the two cases are clearly not of the same order. In the
case of insensitivity the defect is rare; in the case of injustice the defect does
not exist at all, for reasons of principle.
The anomaly in Aristotle’s theory of justice has, of course, not escaped the
notice of contemporary critics of Aristotle’s conception of character virtue.
They treat it as a major point of objection that in the case of justice—the very
virtue that aims at the common good and at the good of others—the triadic
structure does not hold. Justice cannot be conceptualized as the intermediary
between two vices.47
It remains an open question how Aristotle dealt with justice and injustice in
the EE’s lost middle book on justice. The description of what is just in EE 2.3,
as the mean between gain and loss, suggests, however, that Aristotle had not
yet seen that justice is a thing ‘that is said in more than one way’, and that the
concept of justice as a mean between two vices requires qualification, because
readiness to accept loss (1221a23: zēmiōdēs) is not a deficiency with respect to
justice. To explain away that triad as an interpolation, made in the EE’s table
of virtues of character by a later editor or scribe, will not do. First, as men-
tioned earlier, it would exclude justice from the table of virtues of character
altogether. Secondly, if there was an interpolator, he must have been inspired
by what he found in the treatment of justice in the EE’s lost book. Not even a
complete bungler would, otherwise, have summed up the complex conception
of justice, as presented in EN 5, in the schema: ‘gain—just—loss’. It is therefore
highly unlikely that EN 5 was part of the EE, as it stands.
45 In the discussion of the mean (meson) the terms used are ‘to dikaion’ and ‘to ison’.
46 Cf. 2.7, 1107b4-8; 3.11, 1119a5-11.
47 Cf. the critique in Williams 1980.

via free access
100 Frede
3.2 Phronēsis and Sophia

That the terms phronēsis and sophia present a problem for those who want
to assign the middle books to the EE is nothing new.48 In the EE’s first book,
phronēsis is treated as the capacity that is characteristic of the theoretical life
tout court; only in the later books is it used in a practical sense. Sophia does
not occur in the EE at all.49 Jaeger has therefore famously upheld the view,
which is now no longer widely accepted, that the discussion of phronēsis in
the EE follows the Platonic tradition in the sense that Aristotle does not sepa-
rate its practical from its theoretical meaning.50 Plato has indeed good reasons
to avoid such a separation, and not just because of his noted aversion to a
fixed terminology. Practical reason presupposes the knowledge of the Good,
and hence it depends on knowledge of the Forms, as well as on dialectic, the
method to deal with the Forms, as enjoined in Republic 7. It is therefore no acci-
dent that Plato in his definition of ‘wisdom’ as the highest virtue uses phronēsis
and sophia interchangeably and ascribes to that virtue not only the insight into
the nature of the Good itself, but also the function of ‘good council’, of euboulia
(cf. Resp. 4, 428a).
Whatever influence Plato exerted on the young Aristotle, in the Eudemian
Ethics Aristotle clearly no longer has any reason for preferring a unified type
of rational capacity, as assumed by Jaeger. This is confirmed by the fact that
in EE 1.8, just as in EN 1.6, Aristotle extensively criticizes Plato’s Form of the
Good with the aim of showing that his arguments for a transcendent unitary
source of all that is good are mistaken.51 It is only in keeping with this criti-
cal stance that Aristotle introduces the distinction between theoretical and
practical reason right at the beginning of the EE (1.1, 1214a8-14). But he does
not employ the terms sophia and phronēsis in that connection. Instead, he
separates ‘theoretical philosophy’ (theōrētikē philosophia), as what pertains to
48 See esp. Rowe 1971a.

49 Sophia, the noun, is mentioned only once in the EE, in the discussion of friendship in
Book 7, where it is used in the sense of a ‘marketable piece of knowledge’ (7.10, 1243b32-5).
Sophos, the adjective, is used a few times, but also either in an undifferentiated or in a
practical sense, as exemplified by the phrases ‘sunetos kai sophos’ (2.1, 1220a6), ‘sophos ē
deinos’ (2.1, 1220a12), and ‘phronimos kai sophos’ (8.2, 1248a35).
50 Jaeger 1923, 245-54 (transl. 1962, 231-9). He offers a reconstruction of Aristotle’s ethics from
the early Protrepticus, an exhortation to the study of philosophy dedicated to Themison, a
prince of Cyprus, via the EE to the EN. For a critical discussion of Jaeger’s reconstruction,
its problems, and contemporary reactions by other scholars, see Bobonich 2006.
51 A detailed analysis of EE 1.8 and EN 1.6 would exceed the limits of this article, for these
discussions concern Aristotle’s objections to the assumption of the existence of indepen-
dent Forms in general, and to the usefulness of a universal conception of the good in
particular.
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
knowledge only, from the practical concerns of ‘getting and doing’ (ktēseis kai
praxeis). ‘Thēoria’ / ‘theōrētikē’ remain his preferred way to refer to the capac-
ity for abstract knowledge and thought throughout the EE. Its counterpart,
‘praktikē’, is introduced somewhat later (1.6, 1217a7) and used only sparingly.
The term of preference for the practical life tout court is ‘political’ (politikōs).52
Its object is usually specified as aretē, and the capacity that determines actions
is called ‘logismos’, which in that context must mean ‘practical calculation’.53
In EE 1, phronēsis is treated as one of the three candidates that determine
the happy life, along with ‘virtue’ and pleasure (1.1, 1214a30-b6). That it stands
for theoretical reason, at this point, is indicated by Aristotle’s typology of the
three forms of life: the political life, the philosophical life and the life of plea-
sure. Phronēsis is assigned to the philosophical life, while ‘virtue’ characterizes
the political life (1.4, 1215b1-5):
Of these the philosophical life aspires to a concern with phronēsis and

thēoria about truth, the political life with fine actions (tas praxeis tas
kalas), actions that result from virtue, and the pleasure-loving life with
physical pleasures.
Aristotle’s subsequent characterization of the philosophical life provides fur-

ther confirmation that phronēsis here does not have the function of determining
practical activities in the way that is specified in EN 6. For, after a protracted
discussion of the factors that are least alien to the happy life, Aristotle takes
up the relation between phronēsis and ‘virtue’ again (1.6, 1216a37-b2). In that
discussion he introduces a dichotomy between ‘theoretical’ sciences and ‘pro-
ductive sciences’ (poiētikai epistēmai) and assigns ‘political science’ together
with medicine to the productive type, on the grounds that their goal is not
knowledge of the nature of these objects, but rather of how they come about
(1.5, 1216b10-25).54 That phronēsis has the broad sense of philosophia through-
out Book 1 of the EE and includes the study (theōria) of the principles of ethics
is suggested by the fact that Aristotle subsequently distinguishes between a
philosophical and a non-philosophical way of proceeding and exhorts students
of politics to engage in theōria of their subject matter because theōria not only
elucidates the ‘what’ (to ti) but also the reason why (to dia ti, 1.6, 1216b35-9).
52 Cf. 1.4, 1214a35-b5.

53 E E 1.6, 1217a6-7; 2.1, 1219b40-1220a4, and passim.
54 Aristotle here uses ‘poiētikon’ as the overall characteristic of both productive and moral
knowledge; but this may be due to the fact that the term ‘ethical’ has not yet been intro-
duced (2.1, 1220a4-12).

via free access
102 Frede
And he warns of charlatans who, while pretending to be philosophers, are

unable to provide a proper account of the subject matter. Due to their lack of
education they introduce arguments that are foreign to the inquiry and empty
(1216b39-1217a17).
At the beginning of EE 2, Aristotle refers to the ‘goods of the soul’ as phronēsis,
‘virtue’ and pleasure—and refers to his exoteric works for further elucidation
(1218b31-7), thereby assigning phronēsis to the theoretical side again. But no
further mention is made subsequently of that distinction. Instead, Aristotle
focuses exclusively on the difference between practical rationality and virtue
of character (EE 2.1, 1219b28-31):
Let us assume that there are two parts of the soul that share in reason
(logos), but that they do not both share in reason in the same way: the
nature of the one is to prescribe (τὰ λόγου μετέχοντα … ἐπιτάττειν), that
of the other to obey and listen (πείθεσθαι καὶ ἀκούειν).
The commanding faculty, logismos (‘reasoning / calculation’) is here identified

as the practical capacity that rules over desire (orexis) and affections (pathē)
(1219b40-1220a2). No further mention is made of the theoretical faculty in
EE 2; there is no reference to the distinction between sophia and phronēsis
which is drawn in EN 1.13, 1103a3-10.55
While phronēsis is used in the broad sense of ‘philosophy’ in EE 1 and 2, there
are two anomalies. In his critique of Plato’s Form of the Good in 1.8, 1218b12-16,
Aristotle refers, without comment, to politikē, oikonomikē, and phronēsis as
the highest capacities that are concerned with the telos of human actions and
promises to distinguish them later. It is a distinction that Aristotle must have
made explicit in the EE’s missing book 5. But as it stands EN 6.5-8 presupposes,
rather than explains, the readers’ familiarity with the difference between those
three terms—which were introduced in EN 1.1-2 with the distinction between
statesmanship and the individual citizen’s political knowledge, oikonomikē
being part of statesmanship (1094b2-3).56 In the first books of the EE, by con-
trast, statesmanship is not introduced at all. Phronēsis is later used, without
55 The definition of virtue of character in EE 2 comes in three stages (cf. 1, 1220a29-34; 5,
1222a6-17; 10, 1227b5-10); but phronēsis is not referred to in that discussion. By contrast, in
the discussion of the natural virtues in EE 3.7, 1234a29, Aristotle promises to show later
that every virtue—both natural and otherwise—is connected with phronēsis, presuppos-
ing its practical sense.
56 Susemihl athetizes it with Spengel, and so does Woods (1982, 18 and 115).
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
explanation, in its practical sense in Book 3,57 and it is so used again through-
out Book 8. This suggests that EE 5, the missing book on the intellectual virtues,
must have contained an explicit assignment of phronēsis to the practical side.
For it is unlikely that Aristotle started out there, without comment, with the
simple enumeration of the intellectual virtues: technē, epistēmē, phronēsis,
sophia, nous that we find in EN 6.3, 1139b14-18. For it presupposes the reader’s
familiarity with the terminology.58 Although in the preceding books of the EN
the meaning of phronēsis and sophia has not been discussed in any detail, the
two capacities were at least mentioned in EN 1.13 (at 1103a3-10). In addition,
the general definition of virtues of character refers to the phronimos in order to
explain the kind of reason (logos) that determines the right mean with respect
to the virtues of character, as the ‘reason by which the man of practical reason
would determine it’ (EN 2.6, 1106b36-1107a2). No such reference to the phroni-
mos is contained in the EE’s three-stage definition of virtue of character.
But it is not just the facts that the term ‘sophia’ is absent in the EE and that
the practical use to the term ‘phronēsis’ has not been adequately clarified
which speak for the assumption that the procedure in the missing book EE 5
must have been different from that in EN 6. There is also no preparation for
the distinction between statesmanship as the master-science (architektonikē)
and the ordinary citizen’s political knowledge in the EE’s first books, a distinc-
tion that is presupposed, rather than explained, in EN 6.8, 1141b22-33. Readers
of EN 1.1-2, by contrast, are well-prepared for the distinction: statesmanship is
the highest kind of ‘political science’ (κυριωτάτη καὶ μάλιστα ἀρχιτεκτονική).59
Because this ‘science’ is responsible for the order of the entire city, it is superior
to all the other political abilities, such as the strategic, the economic, and the
rhetorical sciences, 1094b7-10:
Although this type of reason is the same when it is concerned with

the city and with one’s own life, it is more perfect (teleioteron), nobler
(kallion) and more divine (theioteron) when it concerns a nation or a city.
57 3.7, 1234a28-30: ‘As will be discussed in what follows, each virtue in a way exists both natu-
rally, and in another way with wisdom (meta phronēseōs).’
58 In the EE, there is neither mention of sophia nor of synesis. The corresponding adjectives
do occur in the EE, but their usage remains vague. Thus the insightful (synetos) and the
wise (sophos) are paired off in the explanation of the difference between the rational and
the ethical, as are the sophos and the deinos (2.1, 1220a6-12). In 8.2, 1248a34-5, the phronimos
and the sophos are treated as a pair with respect to mantic proficiencies. The terminology
in the EE is clearly less fixed than it is in the EN.
59 The elevated state of statesmanship is illustrated by the reference to the practical ratio-
nality of a Pericles, which is not confined to his own good, but concerns the general good
(EN 6.5, 1140b7-11).

via free access
104 Frede
That commentators often do not pay attention to this dichotomy within

the faculty of practical rationality in EN 1 seems to be due to the fact that
in what follows the master-scientist, the ‘architect’, drops out of sight. So his
introduction at the beginning may seem like mere window-dressing. But the
‘master-scientist’ does not disappear entirely. In addition to the passage in
Book 6, he is mentioned, again, at the beginning of the discussion of pleasure
in 7.12 (1152b1-3), and he shows up again in the Politics. And though references
to the ‘master-scientist’ are rare, his art, legislation, is treated as important
throughout the EN. For Aristotle refers quite frequently to what legislators
should learn, do and care for. In fact, he treats legislation as the major concern
of his audience.60 And if the EN starts with the art of the legislator, it also
ends with legislation; its last chapter leads up to the question: Who educates
the legislator (10.9, 1180b28-1181b6)? Because Aristotle regards the legislator’s
education as unsatisfactory in all existing states, he promises to make up for
that deficit (1181b6-23). That is the task that he is going to pursue in the Politics.
The early books of the EE, by contrast, do not introduce the master-
scientist, nor do they treat legislation as the supreme task of politics.61 The
political framework that is characteristic of the EN is lacking altogether and leg-
islation is hardly mentioned. When the practical form of life is called ‘political’
throughout the EE, Aristotle does not have statesmanship in mind, but rather
the virtuous life in general. If he claims that the majority of humankind is not
‘political’, he does so on the ground that they do not chose fine actions for their
own sake, but rather for the sake of money and gain (1.6, 1216a23-7). Aristotle
is clearly concerned here with the majority of the citizens and not with the
statesman. The distinction between the ‘architectonic’ type of phronēsis on
the one hand and the phronēsis of the plain citizen on the other hand, is simply
presupposed in EN 6.8, 1141b23-33, because it recalls the distinction in EN 1.2.
But it would have required a proper introduction in the EE’s lost Book 5.
The missing book EE 5 must therefore have provided a proper introduction
of the different ‘intellectual virtues’ and of the respective terminology. There
is no evidence that in the missing book ‘sophia’ was used as the umbrella-term
for theoretical knowledge at all in the way that we find it in EN 6.6 and 7. For,
60 Cf. EN 1.13, 1102a11-26; 2.1, 1103b2-6: ‘This is confirmed by what happens in the states; for
legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every
legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good con-
stitution differs from a bad one’. See further 3.1, 1109b34, and passim.
61 The phrase ‘architektonikē dianoia’ occurs only once, without explanation, in a side-
remark in EE 1.6 (1217b35-1217a10). It concerns the charlatans, mentioned earlier, who
have no knowledge of the ‘why’ but only the ‘what’; they have neither masterly nor politi-
cal knowledge and therefore mislead the students.
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
although in EE 8 phronēsis is used throughout in the practical sense, sophia

is nowhere mentioned, not even in its final summary concerning the best life
(1249b13-25). The best form of life is there determined to be life in accordance
with the soul’s theoretical part (to theōretikon). It is for its sake that phronēsis
gives its orders.62 That summary culminates in the postulate that those choices
and possessions of natural goods are best that promote to the highest degree
the contemplation of God (tēn tou theou theōrian), and it treats as best the dis-
position that pays as little attention as possible to the soul’s non-rational part.63
Because ‘theory’ and ‘theoretical’ remain the terms of choice in EE 8, just as
they were in its Book 1, it is unlikely that its lost Book 5 used sophia to denote
the science that embraces both the intuitive insight into the first principles
(nous) and the capacity to make deductions (epistēmē), that we find in EN 6.5,
1140a31-7, 1141b8.
3.3 Akrasia and Enkrateia

The difference in the treatment of self-control and lack of control in the EE
and EN requires not just a comparison of the particular uses of these concepts
in the middle book EN 7 with the uses that are made of these dispositions in
the undisputed books of the EE and EN. It also requires a review of the way
in which these concepts are drawn into the discussion in EN 7.64
In EE 2, akrasia and enkrateia are used extensively in the dialectical scrutiny
of voluntariness and involuntariness. The book aims to show that the voluntary
is not the same as desire (orexis), decision (proairesis), or thought (dianoia)
(chs. 7 and 8). The ins and outs of that complicated investigation, which is hard
to follow and even harder to remember, cannot be discussed here in any detail.
A summary of the treatment of the different kinds of orexis in 2.7 must suffice.
By a reductio ad absurdum Aristotle purports to show that the voluntary is
not identical with any of the three forms of orexis: appetite (epithymia), spirit
(thymos) or wish (boulēsis) (1223a29-1225b38). The means of proof are the con-
tradictions that allegedly result in the case of both the uncontrolled and the
controlled person. The controlled person acts in accordance with her wishes
(boulēseis), but against her appetite (epithymia); the uncontrolled person acts
62 The explanation of the role of phronēsis at the end of EN 6.13, 1145a6-11 does not subor-
dinate phronēsis to sophia. Instead of ‘serving’ theōria, phronēsis ‘sees to it that it comes
to be’.
63 On the different options to interpret this sketchy and compressed text cf. Woods 1982,
193-8. Further discussions are provided by Broadie 2010 and Buddensiek 2014.
64 The subtleties of the discussions in EN 7 cannot be discussed here. Several articles in
Natali 2009 provide a kind of running commentary and references to the ample literature
(for a critical review, see Price 2011).

via free access
106 Frede
in accordance with her appetite, but against her wishes. So it may seem as if
both the uncontrolled and the controlled person act voluntarily and invol-
untarily at the same time. There is no definition of self-control and lack of
self-control given here; but Aristotle clearly presupposes the readers’ concur-
rence that these dispositions involve a conflict between wish and appetite.
The upshot of the reductio is that the voluntary is not identical with what
is desired by any of the three kinds of orexis, and that the involuntary is not
identical with what is against any of those desires. Somewhat belatedly,
Aristotle indicates that the arguments work only on the condition that the
different parts of the soul represent independent psychological capacities
(2.8, 1224b24-9). If the soul is instead taken as a unity, both the controlled and
the uncontrolled person act voluntarily, for neither can be said to act under
compulsion. Because this explanation does not emerge from the dialectical
scrutiny itself, it remains questionable what prompts Aristotle to engage in
that protracted argument, apart from the pleasure of paradox-mongering. If
it is his intention to draw attention to the fact that the terms hekōn and akōn
are not used just in the narrow sense of ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’, but also
in the wider sense of ‘willingly’ or ‘readily’, and ‘unwillingly’ or ‘reluctantly’, he
does not make that intention explicit.
More importantly, the two decisive criteria that distinguish voluntary and
involuntary actions do not emerge from that dialectical scrutiny. Aristotle,
rather, introduces them separately and quite unobtrusively, so that they are easy
to miss. The first criterion for an involuntary action is force (bia, 2.8, 1224a7-13).
Force, then, is made the subject of a further scrutiny that also involves akrasia
and enkrateia. But again, Aristotle’s explanation that an action is caused by
force only if the cause of action lies outside the agent is not reached by that
dialectical investigation; it is imposed by injunction. Nor does Aristotle employ
the dialectical procedure to work out the second criterion for the involuntari-
ness of an action, ignorance: an action is to be considered involuntary if the
agent acts out of ignorance (di’ agnoian) of certain circumstances of his action
(2.9, 1225b1-10). These circumstances concern the identity of the person the
actor is acting upon, the manner in which the actor acts, and so on. Again,
because of the complexity of the scrutiny it is easy to miss the importance of
ignorance as the decisive criterion for the distinction between voluntariness
and involuntariness.
Similarly, it is easy to overlook the importance of the third and final step
in the definition of virtue of character at EE 2.10, 1227b5-11. This explanation
represents the decisive supplement to its two earlier steps (2.3, 1220b34-6; 2.5,
1222a6-12). Because these three steps are widely spread throughout the text,
it takes a special effort to bring them together. For Aristotle interweaves his
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
explanation of virtue of character with explanations of voluntariness and

involuntariness and their relation to desire, decision and thought. While this
procedure is already far from transparent, the dialectical investigations that
involve akrasia and enkrateia make it harder, rather than easier, to follow the
argument that completes the definition of virtue of character. It must have
been this lack of transparency that prompted Aristotle in the EN to discuss
the conception of virtue of character first (Book 2), and to add an analysis
of the concepts of voluntariness and involuntariness, of deliberation, choice
and wish in a kind of appendix afterwards (3.1-4), and not to complicate their
elucidation by the inclusion of akrasia and enkrateia.
Furthermore, in the EN the discussion of self-control and of the lack of self-
control is confined to one place, Book 7.65 For their elucidation, Aristotle first
considerably widens the scope of virtue and vice. For he opposes three good
dispositions of character to three bad dispositions. To virtue, self-control and
superhuman virtue, there correspond vice, lack of self-control and brutishness.
The adoption of this wider framework suggests that Aristotle is embarking on
a discussion of lack of control and self-control ab ovo.66 The impression that
he is breaking fresh ground is enhanced by the specification of the method
that is to be followed in the further investigation of those concepts, the famous
‘endoxic method’ (7.1, 1145b2-8):
We must, as in other cases, set the apparent facts (phainomena) before us,
and after first discussing the difficulties (aporiai), go on to prove, if possi-
ble, the truth of all the common opinions (endoxa) about these affections
of mind, or failing this, of the greater number and the most authoritative.
The endoxic method, its success, and its relevance for Aristotle’s philosophy
at large cannot be discussed in this article.67 But Aristotle does indeed start
out, here, with a list of commonly accepted views about akrasia and the like,
65 They are first introduced and briefly explained in the distinction between the soul’s
rational and non-rational parts in EN 1. Although the rational element in both the self-
controlled and the uncontrolled person reasons aright, there is a resisting non-rational
element in their soul (1.13, 1102b13-28).
66 Very little is said about superhuman virtue; brutishness is dealt with in a kind of appendix
to the discussion of akrasia in ch. 5. The treatment of endurance and softness with respect
to pain is also kept short (7.7, 1150a32-b19). That fact suggests that the ‘wider framework’
intends not so much to widen the concepts of virtue and vice as such, but to put akrasia
and enkrateia into proper perspective.
67 For a critical discussion of the alleged ubiquity of that method see Frede 2012.

via free access
108 Frede
as well as with a list of aporiai concerning those views that he subsequently

largely resolves.
The description of this method recalls, in a way, the advice concerning the
right procedure at EE 1.6, 1216b26-35:
We must try, by argument, to reach a convincing conclusion on all these

questions, using, as testimony and by way of example (martyriois kai
paradeigmasin), the apparent facts (ta phainomena). For it would be best
if everyone should turn out to agree with what we are going to say; if
not that, that they should all agree in a way after they had their minds
corrected (metabibazomenoi), for everyone has something of his own to
contribute to the finding of the truth, and it is from such starting points
that we must demonstrate.
To what degree Aristotle regarded his complex arguments in EE 2 as a success

in such ‘mind-correcting’ must remain a moot point.68 But it stands to reason
that the concentration in one place of the treatment of akrasia, enkrateia and
the like in EN 7 was the result of a conscious decision. For, as Aristotle’s sum-
mary at the end of the discussion in 7.10 shows, he regards his treatment of that
family of concepts as exhaustive. It does indeed include every phenomenon
that is remotely related to acratic and encratic dispositions.
The details of the discussion of akrasia, enkrateia and related concepts in
EN 7 are not our concern here. Instead, the question will be briefly reviewed of
how that book fits in the overall organization of the EN and of the EE respec-
tively. Because references to a later discussion of akrateia and enkrateia are
also contained in the EE (2.11, 1227b17; 3.2, 1231b4), the question is why the dis-
cussion in EN 7 should not fit the EE equally well, or even better, than the EN.
Several reasons speak against such a ‘fit’. The ‘grand opening’ of the discussion
of that topic in EN 7.1 seems appropriate because nothing of any substance
has been said on self-control and lack of control earlier, nor have they been
involved in argument before. Aristotle can therefore speak as if he is entering
quite new territory.69 In the EE by contrast, akrasia and enkrateia have been
extensively employed in argument before, so that one would expect at least
68 An evaluation is provided by Karbowski 2015.

69 In his ‘Reconsiderations’, Kenny (2016, 279) takes up a remark of mine (communicated by
A. W. Price) that no such ‘new start’ would be expected in the EE, because of the repeated
involvement of akrasia and enkrateia in argument before. Kenny objects that ‘different
beginnings’ are mentioned several times in the EE, but not in the EN. But EN 7.1 does not
just contain the treatment of what has been discussed before from a different aspect, but
makes an entirely new beginning. If cross-references are the hallmark of the EE and a
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
a back-reference to that fact. It is also worth noting that Aristotle nowhere in

Book 7 refers to voluntariness and involuntariness in his determination of the
nature of akrasia and enkrateia that he has belabored so much in EE 2. He
rather treats as the decisive mark of distinction that the acratic person suc-
cumbs to the influence of strong appetite against his better knowledge of the
right principle, while the encratic person does not.70 The ‘different start’ that
Aristotle promises to make at the beginning of Book 7 signals, indeed, a new
beginning, and not just the treatment of familiar concepts from a different
angle.71
As far as the determination of akrasia and enkrateia in the EE’s missing
book is concerned, its overall intention must have been similar to what we
find in EN 7. For a lot speaks for the assumption that the distinction between
akrasia ‘as such’ (haplōs) and akrasia ‘in an extended sense’ in EN 7.4 contains
two layers of argument.72 This has been observed by careful analysts in the
nineteenth and the early-twentieth centuries, who speak of ‘different redac-
tions’, rather than of remnants of an earlier discussion, because they regarded
the EE as the work of Eudemus.73 That there are traces of different versions
contained in the text of 7.2-3 has been disputed in recent years,74 but it is
hard to explain them away in the discussion of akrasia in 7.4. For Aristotle,
somewhat disconcertingly, argues there for the same point twice over. In the
chapter’s first part (7.4, 1147b23-1148a22) he states that unqualified lack of con-
trol is concerned only with the physical pleasures of touch and taste, while the
lack of control with respect to other ends—to wealth, honor or anger—is to be
called akrasia ‘with qualification’. This type gets better grades than unqualified
akrasia: it is not a vice, but only a mistake (7.4, 1147b31-1148a4). The second half
of that chapter (1148a22-b14) argues, in essence, for the same point, albeit on
the basis of different criteria: there are objectives that are by nature good and
desirable, while others are the opposite, and yet others are ‘in between them’
(metaxy)—such as money, victory or honor. Persons who aim for such goods to
excess and against their better knowledge are neither vicious nor uncontrolled
sign of its better inner organization, as Kenny holds, it must be perplexing that there is no
back-reference to the earlier extensive treatment of akrasia and enkrateia.
70 The voluntary is mentioned only once in passing in the final summary in 7.10, 1152a15.
71 For examples of such points, see 2.1, 1218b31; 2.6, 1222b15.
72 For a close analysis of this chapter, see Lorenz 2009.
73 Such detective work was done by Greenwood 1909 for Book 6 and by Cook Wilson 1879
for Book 7. Cook Wilson even found traces of three sources in the text, some of them un-
Aristotelian. Although the latter view is generally rejected, his painstaking investigations
have made plausible the assumption of different ‘redactions’.
74 Cf. Pickavé and Whiting 2008.

via free access
110 Frede
without qualification, because they are not overcome by appetite, but they
are uncontrolled only ‘by analogy’, and ‘with respect to anger, honor, or gain’
(1148a23-b14). It is likely that Aristotle, when he revised the text of the missing
Book 6 of the EE, did not quite make up his mind which version he preferred.
For he does not state, as clearly as he might have done, that there is akrasia
not just with respect to appetite, to epithymia, but also with respect to thymos
and to boulēsis.75 But to elaborate that point, Aristotle would have had to state
clearly that these cases of self-control and its lack concern virtues other than
temperance (sophrosynē), such as courage, liberality and friendship. If he was
aware of that fact, he preferred not to mention it.
It is also worth noting that in the subsequent books of the EN Aristotle does
not involve akrasia and its relations in argument any further, but treats that
topic as closed.76 In the EE, by contrast, Aristotle is never quite ‘done’ with
the subject of akrasia but draws it again into dialectical discussions several
times.77 Thus, he resurrects it in his discussion of friendship in EE 7: although
pleasure leads to moral progress, because the fine is also pleasant, in the case
of the acratic what is pleasant is not necessarily fine (7.2, 1237a6-9). And sub-
sequently in the discussion of friendship to oneself Aristotle mentions that
it concerns two different parties, different parts of the soul, and by way of
explanation refers to the difference between self-control and lack of control,
that he discussed earlier in connection with voluntariness and involuntariness
(7.6, 1240a15-21). So there is a back-reference to EE 2 here, while there is none
in EN 7.
Akrasia is employed again in a dialectical argument in EE 8.1, 1246b12-19.
It concerns the possibility that phronēsis can be misused in the same way as
the ability to read and write, that is, in order to deliberately make mistakes.
Aristotle explains there that the potential misuse of phronēsis in acting fool-
ishly is due to the misuse of knowledge rather than to a lack of self-control.
The misuse of phronēsis is thus to be avoided by the correct application of
knowledge, rather than by self-control. This perhaps needlessly subtle exercise
shows that Aristotle throughout the EE uses akrasia and enkrateia as tools for
75 Anger, is in fact, instigated by thymos, not appetite. It is, first, a pain in view of an insult,
but it also contains the desire for revenge—as well as its pleasant anticipation (EN 4.11;
Rhet. 2.2). Boulēsis, wish, is not mentioned in EN 6 or 7, nor is boulesthai. The ‘mutual well-
wishing’ that defines friendship in Book 8 and 9 is a different use of that term.
76 Although there are two references to it, there is no discussion: cf. 9.4, 1166b8; 9.8, 1168b34-5.
77 Akrasia is also referred to in the discussion of courage in EE 3: if death were pleasant,
akratics would seek it. This possibility is rejected on the grounds that the readiness of the
courageous to face death is due, rather, to a different kind of pleasure (3.1, 1229b34-9).
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
dialectical exercise, as mind-teasers. No such use of akrasia and enkrateia is

made in the EN at all; the two concepts are introduced, investigated, and bid-
den farewell within one book.
4 Conclusions
As the survey of the historical background in this article has tried to show,
the testimonies in later antiquity speak for the assumption that the EN, rather
than the EE, was the representative text of Aristotle’s ethics. Information is,
admittedly, scanty because the interest in Aristotle’s ethics diminished even
before the onset of Neoplatonism, so that there were fewer commentaries
on his ethics than on his works on logic, physics and metaphysics. Because
Aspasius’ commentary has been preserved only in part, its evidence on the
‘common books’ is limited; but what there is suggests that Aspasius treated
the books as part of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics throughout and, to judge
from Alexander, later commentators seem to have followed his example.
Concerning the doctrine in the disputed books, it has to be admitted that
there are no rigorous proofs that the EE’s middle books did not contain the
disputed books as they stand. That Aristotle in EE 2 does not mention that
justice ‘is said in more than one way’ does not preclude a change of mind by
the time he turned to the discussion of justice. For strange things happen, and
they happen in Aristotle. But the ‘Friends of the EE’ do not rely on such argu-
ments, but rather on claims of a closer affinity of the disputed books to the
EE’s non-disputed books in comparison with those of the EN. As this article
has argued there are important considerations regarding central concepts that
speak against these contentions.
The arguments concerning the three central concepts proposed here, namely
justice, the intellectual virtues, and akrasia and enkrateia may not seem to have
equal weight. With respect to the treatment of justice and to the intellectual
virtues, there is something important missing in the EE’s undisputed books in
comparison to those of the EN. For not only is there no indication in the EE
that justice is said in more than one way, there is also no indication that there is
any problem with way that justice represents a ‘mean’. In the case of the intel-
lectual virtues, the terminological distinction between sophia and phronēsis
is missing—and it is missing throughout the EE. In addition, the political
framework, that explains the distinction between the statesman as the ‘master-
scientist’ and the ordinary politically active citizen is missing as well. In the
case of akrasia and enkrateia, by contrast, there is no such ‘missing’ material.

via free access
112 Frede
There is just the observation that, while the EE employs that pair in dialectical
discussions throughout, the discussion of that pair in the EN is concentrated
in one place, with a proper introduction and a proper conclusion. But this
observation does not amount to a proof: it relies on considerations of plau-
sibility. Admittedly, then, none of the three central points represent proofs
‘beyond reasonable doubt’. This article, despite its assertive tone, does not
purport to close the discussion of what must remain a controversial subject,
but to draw attention to considerations that have been neglected in recent
debates.
General claims to the effect that the EE is better organized and philosophi-
cally more interesting at closer inspection turn out to be quite dubious. As far
as organization is concerned, many commentators share the view that the
three disputed books especially have been left unpolished and without a strin-
gent internal order. What is philosophically interesting seems to be a matter of
taste. Some philosophers enjoy arguments for argument’s sake, regardless
of the fruitfulness of the arguments’ results. Other philosophers see little
point in subtle arguments that complicate rather than solve the problems in
question.
The EN has been treated in this article as the later, reorganized version of
Aristotle’s ethics. But this is not to say that it is a finished and polished work.
As the uneven and unrevised state of some of its parts suggests, Aristotle
must have been working on their revision during the last years of his life.
Assuming that he intended the EN for wider circulation in his school, it is
inconceivable that he would not have established a better order in the last
chapters of Books 5, 6 and 7, had he had the time to do so. In addition, it is
inconceivable that he would not have removed the discussion of pleasure in
EN 7.11-14, once he had completed its revision and insertion in 10.1-5.
The members of Aristotle’s school appear not to have made substantial
changes to his papers later. We should be grateful, however, for the school’s self-
restraint in that respect, if self-restraint is responsible for the fact that there is
more than one work on ethics contained in the Corpus Aristotelicum. For the
existence of two different treatises on ethics, as well as the presence of incon-
sistencies and rough spots within each of them, more than anything confirms
the insight that not just Aristotle’s ethics, but his work as a whole does not rep-
resent the monolithic edifice that it had for many centuries been taken to be. It
rather suggests that Aristotle’s philosophy was the product of continued efforts
by its creator throughout his life. If certain parts of the Nicomachean Ethics
remain construction-sites, it must be because Aristotle did not have the time
to complete its revision, but was prevented from doing so by the death that
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
seems to have overtaken him without leaving him the time to put his Nachlass
in order.78
References
Alberti, A. and Sharples, R. W. (1999) (eds.), Aspasius: The Earliest Extant Commentary
on Aristotle’s Ethics. Berlin.
Allen, D. J. (1963), ‘The Quasi-mathematical Method in the Eudemian Ethics’ in
S. Mansion (ed.), Aristote et les problêmes de method (Louvain), 303-18.
Barnes, J. (1997), ‘Roman Aristotle’ in J. Barnes, M. Griffin (eds.), Philosophia Togata II.
Plato and Aristotle in Rome (Oxford), 1-69.
Barnes, J. (1999), ‘An Introduction to Aspasius’ in Alberti and Sharples 1999, 1-50.
Bodnar, I. and Fortenbaugh, W. (2002) (eds.), Eudemus of Rhodes. New Brunswick.
Bobonich, C. (2006), ‘Aristotle’s Ethical Treatises’ in R. Kraut (ed.), The Blackwell Guide
to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford), 12-36.
Bostock, D. (2000), Aristotle’s Ethics. Oxford.
Broadie, S. (2010), ‘The Good, the Noble, and the Theoretical in EE VIII 3’ in
J. Cottingham and P. Hacker (eds.), Mind, Method and Morality: Essays in Honour of
Anthony Kenny (Oxford), 3-25.
Buddensiek, F. (2014), ‘Contemplation and Service of the God: The Standard of External
Goods in Eudemian Ethics VIII 3’ in P. Destrée and M. Zingano (eds.), Theoria.
Studies on the Status and Meaning of Contemplation in Aristotle’s Ethics (Louvain-
La-Neuve), 313-43.
Burnet, J. (1900) (ed.), The Ethics of Aristotle. London.
Cook Wilson, J (1879), Aristotelian Studies. Vol. I: On the Structure of the Seventh Book of
the Nicomachean Ethics I-X. Oxford.
Cooper, J. M. (1981), ‘Anthony Kenny, The Aristotelian Ethics’, Nous 15: 381-92.
Dietze-Mager, G. (2015), ‘Die Pinakes des Andronikos im Licht der Vorrede in der
Aristoteles-Schrift des Ptolemaios’, Aevum 89: 93-123 [with a German translation by
E. Wakelnig and an English translation by M. Akeel].
Dirlmeier, F. (1974), Aristoteles. Nikomachische Ethik. 6th edn. Berlin.
Dirlmeier, F. (1969), Aristoteles. Eudemische Ethik. 2nd edn. Berlin.
Düring, I. (1961), Aristotle in the Ancient Bibliographical Tradition. Gothenburg.
78 A precursor of this article was presented at a conference at the Munich School of Ancient
Philosophy in February 2017; it has benefited not only from the discussion of the audi-
ence, but also from written critical comments by Mitzi Lee and Anthony Price, by the
anonymous referee of Phronesis, and by the faithful critic of my English, Mary Rorty.

via free access
114 Frede
Frede, D. (2012), ‘The Endoxon Mystique: What Endoxa are and What they are Not’,
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 43: 185-216.
Gauthier, R. and Jolif J. (1970), L’Éthique à Nicomaque. Louvain.
Greenwood, L. (1909), Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics Book Six. Cambridge.
Harlfinger, D. (1971), ‘Die Überlieferungsgeschichte der Eudemischen Ethik’ in
P. Moraux and D. Harlfinger (eds.), Untersuchungen zur Eudemischen Ethik
(Berlin), 1-50.
Hatzimichali, M. (2013), ‘The Texts of Plato and Aristotle in the First Century BC’ in
M. Schofield (ed.), Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoreanism in the First Century BC
(Cambridge), 1-27.
Hatzimichali, M. (2016), ‘Andronicus of Rhodes and the Construction of the Aristotelian
Corpus’ in A. Falcon (ed.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity
(Leiden), 81-100.
Hein, C. (1985), Definition und Einteilung der Philosophie: von der spätantiken
Einteilungsliteratur zur arabischen Enzyklopädie. Frankfurt.
Heinaman, R. (1988), ‘The EE on Knowledge and Voluntary Action’, Phronesis 33: 128-47.
Inwood, B. and Leigh, F. (2012), ‘Introduction’, in F. Leigh (ed.), The Eudemian Ethics on
the Voluntary, Friendship, and Luck (Leiden), pp. xv-xxix.
Inwood, B. and Woolf, R. (2013) (eds.), Aristotle: Eudemian Ethics. Cambridge.
Irwin, T. (1980), ‘The Aristotelian Ethics by Anthony Kenny; Aristotle’s Theory of the
Will by Anthony Kenny’, Journal of Philosophy 77: 338-54.
Irwin, T. (2014), ‘The Eudemian Ethics and Its Controversial Relationship to the
Nicomachean Ethics’ in R. Polansky (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge), 410-27.
Jaeger, W. W. (1923), Aristoteles. Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwicklung.
Berlin.
Jaeger, W. W. (1962), Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development. English
translation of Jaeger 1923 by R. Robinson. 2nd edn. Oxford.
Jost, L. (1991), ‘Eudemian Ethical Method’ in J. P. Anton and A. Preus (eds.), Essays in
Ancient Philosophy. Vol. 4: Aristotle’s Ethics (New York), 29-40.
Kapp, E. (1912), Das Verhältnis der eudemischen zur nikomachischen Ethik. Freiburg.
Karbowski, J. (2015), ‘Phainomena as Witnesses and Examples: The Methodology of
Eudemian Ethics 1.6’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 49: 193-225.
Kenny, A. (1978), The Aristotelian Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between the
Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford.
Kenny, A. (1979), Aristotle’s Theory of the Will. London.
Kenny, A. (1992), Aristotle on the Perfect Life. Oxford.
Kenny, A. (2016), The Aristotelian Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between the
Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics. 2nd edn. Oxford.
Konstan, D. (2006) (tr.), Aspasius, On Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1-4, 7-8. London.
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access
Kraut, R. (2002), Aristotle, Political Philosophy. Oxford.

Leigh, F. (ed.) (2012), The Eudemian Ethics on the Voluntary, Friendship, and Luck.
Leiden.
Lorenz, H. (2009), ‘Nikomachean Ethics VII 3: Plain and Qualified akrasia’ in Natali
2009, 72-102.
Lorenz, H. (2013), ‘Review of Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics, Brad Inwood and Raphael
Woolf eds.’, Notre Dame Philosophical Review, https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/
aristotle-eudemian-ethics/.
Moraux, P. (1973), Der Aristotelismus bei den Griechen. Vol. 1: Die Renaissance des
Aristotelismus im I. Jahrhundert. Berlin.
Moraux, P. (1984), Der Aristotelismus bei den Griechen. Vol 2: Der Aristotelismus im
I. und II. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Berlin.
Müller, J. (2015), Agency and Responsibility in Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics’, Phronesis
60: 206-51.
Natali, C. (2009) (ed.), Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII. Oxford.
Pickavé, M. and Whiting, J. (2008), ‘Nicomachean Ethics 7.3 on Akratic Ignorance’,
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 34: 323-71.
Price, A. W. (2011), review of Natali 2009, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 93:
100-20.
Price, A. W. (2014), ‘Eudaimonia and Theoria within the Nicomachean Ethics’ in
P. Destrée and M. Zingano (eds.), Theoria: Studies on the Status and Meaning of
Contemplation in Aristotle’s Ethics (Louvain-la-Neuve), 21-50.
Primavesi, O. (2007), ‘Ein Blick in den Stollen von Skepsis: Vier Kapitel zur frühen
Überlieferung des Corpus Aristotelicum’, Philologus 151: 51-77.
Rapp, C. (2009), ‘Nicomachean Ethics VII. 13-14: Pleasure and eudaimonia’ in Natali
2009, 209-31.
Rowe, C. J. (1971a), The Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics. A Study in the Development
of Aristotle’s Thought. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society. Cambridge.
Rowe, C. J. (1971b), ‘The Meaning of phronēsis in the Eudemian Ethics’ in P. Moraux,
D. Harlfinger (eds), Untersuchungen zur Eudemischen Ethik (Berlin), 73-92.
Rowe, C. J. (1983), ‘De Aristotelis in tribus libris Ethicorum dicendi ratione: Particles,
Connectives and Style in Three Books from the Aristotelian Ethical Treatises’,
Liverpool Classical Monthly 8: 4-11; 37-40; 54-7; 70-4.
Rowe, C. J. (2012), ‘Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics on Loving People and Things’ in Leigh
2012, 29-42.
Rowe, C. J. (2015), ‘Aristotle’s Other Ethics: Some Recent Translations of the Eudemian
Ethics’, Polis 32: 213-34.
Simpson, P. L. P. (2013), The Eudemian Ethics of Aristotle. New Brunswick.
Simpson, P. L. P. (2014), The Great Ethics of Aristotle. New Brunswick.
von der Mühll, P. (1909), De Aristotelis ethica Eudemica auctoritate. Göttingen.

via free access
116 Frede
Ward, J. (1995), ‘Focal Reference in Aristotle’s Account of Philia: Eudemian Ethics VII 2’,
Apeiron 28: 183-205.
Wehrli, F. (1969) (ed.), Eudemos von Rhodos. Die Schule des Aristoteles, Text und
Kommentar vol. 8. 2nd edn. Basel.
Williams, B. A. O. (1980), ‘Justice as a Virtue’ in A. O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s
Ethics (Berkeley), 189-200.
Woods, M. (1982), Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics Books I, II, and VIII. Oxford.
Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116

via free access

On The So-Called Common Books of The Eudemian and The Nicomachean Ethics

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

On The So-Called Common Books of The Eudemian and The Nicomachean Ethics

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Phronesis 64 (2019) 84-116