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Aristotelica Studies On The Text of Aristotles Eudemian Ethics Christopher Rowe Full Chapter PDF
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Aristotelica
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/08/23, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/08/23, SPi
Aristotelica
Studies on the Text of Aristotle’s
Eudemian Ethics
C H R I S T O P H E R R OW E
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/08/23, SPi
Contents
Introduction vii
Eudemian Ethics I 1
Eudemian Ethics II 22
Eudemian Ethics III 71
Eudemian Ethics VII/IV 102
Eudemian Ethics VIII/V 180
Appendix 228
Index 256
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/08/23, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 07/08/23, SPi
Introduction
1 Frequent references will be found, in the following studies, to ‘the B copyist’. This designa-
tion is shorthand for ‘the copyist of B and/or the copyist(s) of any manuscript(s) that may have
preceded in the line of descent from the hyparchetype α´ ’: for all we know, either part or indeed
all of what I attribute to the activity of the B copyist might properly be attributable to an inter-
mediary or intermediaries. But since we shall presumably never know if that is the case, every-
thing in question may as well be assigned to the copyist of B, i.e. the manuscript the contents of
which are actually known to us. L itself may very well be descended directly from the archetype
ω, so that references to ‘the L copyist’ can be taken with some safety as being just that. As for P
and C, even though their antigraphon, α, is lost, the fact that they are non-identical twins
allows us considerable insight into the contributions of their copyist, Nikolaos of Messina.
Aristotelica: Studies on the Text of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics. First Edition. Christopher Rowe,
Oxford University Press. © Christopher Rowe 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873552.001.0001
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 07/08/23, SPi
viii Introduction
predictable ways, and quite often all at the same time, as the data put
beyond question.
The Studies are intended to be read with the text and apparatus. They
started life as footnotes to a draft text; they and the apparatus may have
been separated physically from each other, but their shared origins will
be quickly apparent to the reader.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 07/08/23, SPi
Eudemian Ethics I
[The style of the titles of the books in PCBL varies slightly: the title can
be just ‘ἠθικῶν εὐδημίων’, or ‘ἀριστοτέλους ἠθικῶν εὐδημίων’, or
‘ἠθικῶν εὐδημίων ἀριστοτέλους’; varying as it may do within a single
MS, the style used is evidently arbitrary.]
1 The absence of a full reference for an author and work cited indicates that bibliographical
details of the author/work appear in one or more of (1) the Preface in the sister volume of the
present Studies (hereafter ‘Preface to text’), (2) the Bibliography to that Preface, or (3) the list in
the same volume of authors that are cited in the apparatus.
Aristotelica: Studies on the Text of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics. First Edition. Christopher Rowe,
Oxford University Press. © Christopher Rowe 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873552.003.0001
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 07/08/23, SPi
2 Eudemian Ethics I
(1214a5) Cardinal Bessarion wrote out in his own hand; he certainly con-
tributed, especially in the form of marginalia, to other MSS, especially Rav.
210, Marc. 200, and Marc. 213, but since (a) it is usually hard to be sure
exactly what is attributable to him in these, and (b) it hardly matters for
my purposes, I leave him uncredited there, except in special circumstances,
in the same way that I do other named figures we know to have been
involved with our MSS, whether because they commissioned, copied, cor-
rected, or commented on them.) The Aldine later makes the correction to
ἐρᾷ τὸ independently, no doubt from direct knowledge of Theognis.
Bessarion writes out a version of Theognis’ line in the margin of Par. 2042
(πᾶσι δὲ τερπνότατον οὗ τις ἐρᾷ τὸ τυχεῖν) above and to the left of
the first line of EE, and then tries out τερπνότατον δ’ ἐστ’, apparently as a
substitute for the MSS’ ἥδιστον, in the margin opposite that.
a10 In B both μὲν here and the δὲ following have what appears to be a
double accent. Similar double accentuation, especially with μὲν, occurs
here and there in B; it is not clear why.
Aristotelica 3
a23 With δαιμονίᾳ (CBL), the following τινὸς would be orphaned and
unexplained; the feminine dative is by attraction to the preceding
ἐπιπνοίᾳ. So P’s δαιμονίου it must surely be (presumably it is an
emendation by the copyist: δαιμονίᾳ, being in both recensiones, is likely
to have been in ω, the common source/archetype). Incidentally,
Bessarion (ap. Par. 2042) also has δαιμονίου. This is not an independent
conjecture of his: my trawl through Par. 2042 makes it almost certain
that there, throughout, he was using either (a corrected version of) P, or
more probably its descendant Pal. 165, which includes many corrections
to P: so for example in the continuation of the present sentence he reads
διὰ τὴν τύχην rather than L’s διὰ τύχην (and so he continues right to
the end of Book VIII/V). This is in one way a surprise, because Bessarion
is otherwise associated with MSS that are mostly descended from L,
i.e. that belong to the other recensio, but in another way it is not so
surprising, given that P is itself sometimes corrected from a represent
ative of the recensio Constantinopolitana; see Harlfinger 1971: 9 on the
complexity of the relationships between the extant MSS of EE.
a24 ταὐτό: C is the only one of the four primary MSS to write in the crasis
mark here (crasis marks are more often than not omitted in all four).
a25 εὐτυχείαν PC for εὐτυχίαν: ει for ι in such endings is a signature
feature of P and C.
4 Eudemian Ethics I
〈χρὴ〉 and P2’s 〈δεῖ 〉 (see next note); my own view is that the sentence
ἡμᾶς) here, it is too far away to make that entirely plausible—hence Allan’s
Aristotelica 5
b8 δεῖ post θέσθαι suppl. P2, in the margin: but pace P2, and Woods ad
loc., the point Aristotle is leading up to is that while everyone sets them-
selves an end, they need to be careful about their choice; there is no rea-
son (apart from—what some suppose to be—an orphaned infinitive) for
him to be exhorting them to set themselves an end: cf. preceding note.
b12 ‘δὴ sine causa secl. Spengel’, Susemihl, with justification. —ἐν αὑτῷ
Victorius (‘γρ.’), and then Bekker, followed by other editors: but what is
in the MSS is ἐν αὐτῷ, i.e. ‘in the matter in hand’, to be read with
πρῶτον rather than, or as much as, with διορίσασθαι.
b17 οὐ deest in P1CL: οὐ is added above line in P, surely by a later hand,
with an insertion mark. This is one of a significant number of occasions
on which B is the only one of PCBL to preserve the right reading.
b19 τῆς 〈καλῆς〉 ζωῆς Richards: but καλῆς presumably can and should
be understood in any case.
1215a1 εἰκῇ γὰρ Victorius (Pier Vettori), annotating one of his copies
of the Aldine edition; a brilliant emendation. (This is one of the many
conjectures/corrections of his that is not marked by a ‘fort.’ [see Preface
to text], just with a ‘γρ.’) For P2’s οἱ μηδὲν see next note.
6 Eudemian Ethics I
which would (a) offer a solution that is more economical than either
Dodds’s or Fritzsche’s, (b) avoid the problem of the reference of (the
supplied) ταύτης, and (c) provide the sort of sense that everyone, begin-
ning from P2, thinks is required. But of course P2’s supplements have no
authority, as is confirmed by the lack of syntactical coherence in the sen-
tence he offers us here; and when Aristotle generally spends so much
time on, and attributes so much importance to, the endoxa, could he
really have announced, out of the blue, that actually it is only the σοϕοί,
the experts, that we should listen to on the subject in hand? Surely not.
In the present context, the class to be contrasted with οἱ πολλοί would
more naturally be the ἐπιεικεῖς, a fairly indeterminate group whose
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 07/08/23, SPi
Aristotelica 7
chief distinguishing feature is typically that they are not (the) many, and
a story about how the corruption might have started: better 〈περὶ
above), and writing περὶ τούτων, ὧν πέρι, we would begin to have
τούτων, ὧν〉 πέρι, then, since strictly it would be the first περί that was
lost; the comma, too, is important, in order to avoid the appearance of a
mere tautology. Beyond that (apart from noting the double ἐπι-, which
might help explain the loss of ἐπιεικῶν?), I merely repeat that we know
in this case—pace Spengel—that the transmitted text is lacunose. I adopt
the reconstruction proposed on three grounds: first, that it gives an
appropriate sense, i.e. one that at least does not commit Aristotle to
something he would be unlikely to say; second, that it is superior to any
alternative presently on offer (see above); and third, that it would be
unhelpful, even a dereliction, to reproduce the nonsense we find in
PCBL, or to follow Chalkondyles and print a lacuna, or indeed to deploy
the obelus, which fastidious readers can easily import for themselves if
they prefer.
a9 〈τὴν〉 πᾶσαν σκέψιν Dirlmeier: it is true that not literally all σκέψις
has to be as specified, just ‘this whole [present] σκέψις’, but πᾶσαν σκέψιν
will naturally be read, in the context, as ‘all σκέψις of the sort we are
involved in’.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 07/08/23, SPi
8 Eudemian Ethics I
a11 καὶ πρὸς τὴν ἐλπίδα: P2 writes ἴσως: καὶ τὴν ἐλπίδα in margin.
a14 ἔσται ci. Walzer, for ἐστι: but we can take the reference to be to the
acquisition of τὰ διὰ τύχην ἢ διὰ ϕύσιν γινόμενα in general, rather than
to what would be true of the acquisition of εὐδαιμονία were it to be one
of these.
a19 [ἃ] τοῖς αὑτοὺς: τοῖς αὑτοὺς is all that is needed if we take κεῖσθαι
to mean ‘be available’ (‘laid up’, ‘in the bank’: see LSJ2 s.v. III); the ἃ could
perhaps be descended from an earlier dittography, i.e. αὐτοῖς for τοῖς
before αὑτοὺς. P2’s ἐν τοῖς αὐτοὺς, in margin, preceded by ἴσως,
looks a non-starter: εὐδαιμονία might lie ἐν τῷ αὐτοὺς/αὑτοὺς
παρασκευάζειν . . ., but scarcely in the individuals doing it. (Woods
accepts ἐν, taking τοῖς as neuter: ‘happiness consists in those things
which cause human beings . . . to be of a certain kind’, but this would
surely be an odd thing for Aristotle to say about happiness, if it is not
just a way of making ἐν τοῖς come to the same thing as ἐν τῷ.)
a27 τῶν μὲν 〈οὐδ’〉 Bonitz, τῶν μὲν 〈οὐκ〉 Rav.: one could try arguing
that the negative is in effect retrospectively supplied by the following
ἀλλ’ ὡς τῶν ἀναγκαίων χάριν σπουδαζομένων—‘some dispute [the
title in question] but on the grounds that they labour for the sake of the
necessaries of life [sc. and they must clearly be ruled out on the basis of
what has just been said, at some length, about the need to distinguish the
goods that constitute happiness and those that are merely its necessary
conditions]’. But this is surely too much of a stretch, and in any case no
one, or no one that mattered to Aristotle, ever suggested that the ‘vulgar’
and ‘banausic’ lives in question could claim to be best. Rav. sees the need
for a negative, but Bonitz’s emphatic οὐδ’ seems preferable.
Aristotelica 9
a29 Woods’s τὰς for τῶν before περὶ χρηματισμὸν and Russell’s 〈τὰς〉
τῶν both tidy up the list, perhaps in an attempt to make it all fit better
together, but it is not clear either that they succeed in that, or that it
needs to be tidier.
a32–3 πρὸς ὠνὰς μόνον καὶ πράσεις scripsi. Ιn P, the rough breathing
over ων is apparently changed to (the sign for) -ας, though with the cir-
cumflex left in place, and ἴσως: πρὸς ὠνὰς is written either by the same
or by a different hand in the margin, apparently with the intention for it
to replace ἀγορὰς. (Harlfinger reports that πρὸς ὠν becomes πρὸς ὧν
[‘πρὸς ὧν C et p. corr. P2’]; I read the evidence differently, but it is
admittedly hard to be quite sure what the sequence of events was.) Ιn C,
the iota of πρᾶσι is overwritten with ει; in L a sigma is inserted between
πρὸ and ὧν, ὧν marked for deletion, and, if this corrector follows the
same convention as others (after all, the point is to make the Greek make
sense, and the correctors like the copyists appear generally either to
speak Greek or to know their Greek well), πράσει is by implication
changed to πράσεις. (Similarly, perhaps, with P2’s correction of πρᾶσι
to πρᾶσις; might he even be implicitly deleting ὦν, with L?) B, for his
part, if he was faced with the same mess as PCL, as he presumably was,
went straight for simplification—and interestingly both Bessarion, in
Par. 2042, and Marc. 213 independently offer the same solution as B;
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 07/08/23, SPi
10 Eudemian Ethics I
(1215a32–3) perhaps it just was the obvious way out. How to explain
the mess in PCBL themselves? My own thought is that ἀγορὰς was
originally a gloss on ὠνὰς μόνον καὶ πράσεις, but became absorbed
into the text, with μόνον corrupted to μὲν—for which, clearly, there is
no use in the context; P2’s reconstruction is consistent with this.
a33 τῶν εἰς L1, τῶν οὖν εἰς L2: L2 inserts οὖν above the line (a decent
conjecture: resumptive οὖν?).
a34–5 τῶν καὶ πρότερον . . . τοῖς ἀνθρώποις secl. Walzer: the whole
clause does have something of the feel of a gloss, and would not be missed;
on the other hand, if a gloss is what it is, or originally was, it is well adapted
to the syntax of the sentence, and there is no compelling reason to expel it.
a36 What appears here in the margin in P, i.e. τρεῖς βίοι εἰσὶν ἀρετὴς
ϕρονήσεως καὶ ἡδονής, is plainly a summary or heading, not a sugges-
tion for emending the text; L, in its margin, has a more laconic
τρεῖς βίοι.
a37 ἐπ’ ἐξουσίας τυγχάνοντες: an alternative to Spengel’s proposals
might be to suppose that an ὄντες has slipped out through haplography,
but it is easily enough understood in any case.
Aristotelica 11
b19 δι’ ἃ suppl. P2/3: i.e. P2 writes ἴσως: διὰ προΐενται τὸ ζῆν οἷον νόσους
ὠδύνας χειμῶνας in the margin, and then another hand corrects διὰ
to δι’ ἃ.
b20 For P2’s ὠδύνας, see preceding note. —καὶ is surrounded in C with
four dots, indicating deletion.
b24 The μὲν after ἐχόντων is plainly superfluous, ἐχόντων μὲν being a
doublet of ἐχόντων μὲν in the next line: so, once again, is B independ
ently correcting?
b29 κἂν is in the margin in P, with insertion marks there and beside καὶ,
which is the first word in the line.
b33 πορίζοι PCBL, πορίζει Bekker: the optative fits well enough, given
the context (‘who would choose . . . without whatever pleasures x, y, z . . .
might provide?’).
b35 δῆλον appears in the left margin of C, on the first line on the page,
crammed up against the γὰρ, apparently—messily—supplied by a sec-
ond hand, with what looks like a confirmatory eta above, either from
this corrector or a third hand.
12 Eudemian Ethics I
Aristotelica 13
[see Walzer/Mingay] indicates that it has the same ending as the previ-
ous word, so: λόγοι.)
b7 P2 changes the breathing but as usual leaves the other part of the
correction—ὥστ’ to ὥσθ’—to be understood.
b19 The acute accent on ἤ in B suggests but does not quite make it cer-
tain (given B’s sometimes cavalier relation to accents) that the grave on
τι is a later addition.
b23 ἀνδεῖοι P1: the rho is supplied above by P2 with an insertion mark.
14 Eudemian Ethics I
(1216b35) been used in such a way, when PBCL are unanimous in pro-
posing that it can.
b38 The genitive τῶν πολιτικῶν, pace Victorius (‘fort. τὸν πολιτικὸν’ in
margin), looks sound enough, with τὴν τοιαύτην θεωρίαν, and though we
might have expected Aristotle to refer to the politician per se, there is no
reason why he should not for once be referring to politicians in general.
b40 For Fritzsche’s ϕιλοσόϕου, cf. 1217a1; and the difference between
-ον and -ου, when they are written out, is minuscule. However the copy-
ists of PCBL all evidently had ϕιλόσοϕον before them, and it looks
viable enough.
1217a6 τῶν μήτ’ ἐχόντων B, ὑπὸ τούτων τῶν μήτ’ ἐχόντων PCL:
translators (Solomon, Woods, Kenny, Inwood/Woolf), reading ὑπὸ
τούτων τῶν μήτ’ ἐχόντων, take the preceding ὧν (ὑϕ’ ὧν) as referring
to ‘reasons’ given or ‘arguments’ made by the subject of the preceding
ποιοῦσιν, i.e. the τινες of a1, but this is awkward, because it leaves us
with ὑπό occurring twice, in the same sentence less than ten words
apart, with the causation/agency assigned to two different things. The
difference between them could perhaps be elided, since after all the
arguments will belong to the τινες. But in my view it would be more
natural to take ὧν itself to refer to the τινες (given that they are the
subject of the main verb of the present sentence), in which case ὑπὸ
τούτων τῶν κτλ would be epexegetic of ὑϕ’ ὧν; and then ὑπὸ τούτων
appears out of place, insofar as Aristotle now introduces a further
description of the people already being referred to in the clause (I note
that none of the translators mentioned above appears to translate
τούτων). Langerbeck recognizes the problems and recommends sur-
gery, cutting out the whole of ὑπὸ τούτων τῶν . . . 7 ἢ πρακτικήν (per-
haps as a gloss?). But the lack of ὑπὸ τούτων in B—whether by chance
or by judgement: presumably the copyist of B had the same text in front
of him as those of PCL—offers a more economical solution, namely to
take τῶν μήτ’ ἐχόντων κτλ itself as straightforwardly in apposition to
the relative ὧν; I surmise that the relatively unexpected, though per-
fectly regular nature of the construction led to the introduction of ὑπὸ
τούτων as a false correlative of ὑϕ’ ὧν.—ἔχειν post μήτε suppl. Ross:
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Aristotelica 15
Dirlmeier is probably right to say that ἔχειν is to be (and can be) under-
stood. It would certainly have been easier on the eye if Aristotle had
written in the ἔχειν, but that is not always his way in EE, even in its
more fluent parts.
a12 πάντως Langerbeck: but πάντα, ‘in everything’, is surely better.
a14 καὶ διότι is the pair of a11 διά τε τὸ ῥηθὲν ἀρτίως. This edition
does without parenthesizing brackets, chiefly on the grounds that
Aristotle’s parentheses tend to be part of the forward sweep of his argu-
ment: that is, rather than being hermetically sealed units, like their
modern counterparts, they can include elements that are indispensable
to the onward movement of the surrounding argument. That may not be
quite the case here, and brackets would in this instance certainly make
the text more immediately readable; thus Bekker, then Susemihl and
Walzer/Mingay, all bracketing off a13–14 νῦν δ’ . . . τοῖς εἰρημένοις. But
in following his train of thought Aristotle quite often writes unwieldy
sentences, and if brackets make them more reader-friendly, they often
unhelpfully obscure the argument in the process; even here, a13–14 is
actually of a piece with what precedes it. In extreme cases, where a
parenthesis actually interrupts the syntax, I use dashes.
a19 δὲ: καὶ L; δὲ καὶ Ald., and then also Walzer/Mingay, attributing
it to Walzer. The crucial question, introduced by L’s καὶ, is how far
back the proemion is meant to stretch; I take it to be just to the begin-
ning of the last paragraph, which looks to be a proemion par excel-
lence, and so prefer PCB’s δὲ. Walzer/Mingay’s δὲ καὶ derives
immediately from Susemihl’s ‘δὲ om. [Oxon. Marc.] // καὶ secl.
Spengelius Susem.’ Bekker also had δὲ καὶ (‘δὲ om. [Marc.]’). But
PCB all have just δὲ, and I see no compelling reason to combine this,
as the expected connective (though connectives are not infrequently
missing in EE), with L’s καὶ.
a21 ἐπὶ τῷ σαϕῶς (B): i.e. ‘for the sake of clarity’ (see LSJ s.v. ἐπί
Β.ΙΙΙ.2), picking up on the σαϕῶς of 1216b34, with εὑρεῖν not part of
a noun clause (i.e. τῷ σαϕῶς εὑρεῖν) but rather a straightforward
infinitive after ζητοῦντες; το (PCL) for τω and vice versa is a stand-
ard error.
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16 Eudemian Ethics I
Aristotelica 17
b34 παρὰ: B here, unusually, mimics the shorthand for παρά found in
MSS like P and C, which the L copyist presumably misread in ω.
a8 Barnes calls Rassow’s conjecture of ἔτι for the MSS’ εἰ ‘palmary’, but
(a) the ἢ both provides the required connective and suitably introduces
a new (step in the) argument: ‘or else τὸ κοινὸν turns out to be the ἰδέα’,
i.e. in all cases, whereas we have just been considering the cases ἐν ὅσοις
ὑπάρχει τὸ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον; (b) ἤ and εἰ are not infrequently
confused, because the ligature for εἰ in these MSS is close in shape to ἤ,
while being clearly distinguishable from ἔτι, which is always written out
in full. The latter is not a decisive consideration on its own, but provides
support for (a), if (a) holds.
18 Eudemian Ethics I
Aristotelica 19
have just had, and that it was written by someone other than Aristotle; it
was a glossator’s amplification of Aristotle’s own summing up, and got
itself incorporated into it in the process of transmission.
a38 αὐτοαγαθόν B2: there is what looks like a circumflex over the final
letter of αὐτὸ and the gap between it and ἀγαθόν, probably intended to
indicate that the two words should rather be one. Aristotle presumably
cannot be saying that τὸ κοινὸν ἀγαθόν is not itself good, and while
αὐτὸ ἀγαθόν could possibly be Eudemian Greek for αὐτὸ τἀγαθόν
(P2, regularizing, writes in the margin γρ[απτέ]α: οὔτε αὐτὸ τἀγαθὸν
ἐστὶ or ἔστι: the α, or what looks like α, is superscript: Harlfinger reads
γρ[άϕετ]αι), it seems reasonable, in the absence of the definite article
from all of PCBL before corrections, to accept the gift from B2,
αὐτοαγαθόν being an Aristotelian formation (Met. 998a28). (We might
have wished for a definite article with αὐτοαγαθόν itself, but so too we
might have wished for one in 1217b27.) The crasis mark on P2’s
τἀγαθόν appears to be written twice, probably as a result of his moving
it so that it is more clearly over the first alpha: either that, or P2 intends
τ’ ἀγαθόν, which seems unlikely, although oddly Walzer/Mingay prints
it in the text.
1218b2 ὑπάρξη CBL: the final character in B is actually somewhat
ambiguous; it is probably an eta, but is nonetheless close in some
respects to the ligature for ει—thus illustrating the ease with which the
mistake, eta for ει, can be made.
b5 πρακτὸν2 in B is split πρα-κτὸν between two lines, and there is what
looks like a hyphen before the second part.
b6 τοῦτο Laur. 81,42 (and Spengel): but see e.g. 1219a24.
b8 L puts a heavy stop after ϕανερὸν (accenting -ὸν), seemingly taking
it as marking the end of the previous sentence, which suggests how a
connective could have fallen out (and οὖν [Brandis] would perhaps be
the most at risk after -ὸν). Connectives are sometimes absent in EE, but
probably not here, where Aristotle is announcing the conclusion of a
major set of arguments.
b15 τοιαῦτ’/τοιαῦτα is quite defensible, if we take Aristotle to be saying
‘by their being things of such a sort’, i.e. each such as to be something, in
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20 Eudemian Ethics I
(1218b15) its own way, κύριον πασῶν, sc. ἐπιστήμων. L’s τοιαύτας looks
like a dittography after ἄλλας, which Bekker then makes into proper Greek.
b18 τἄλλα CB1L: B2 adds what looks like a second crasis mark but which
is probably a signal to split up τἄλλα into τὰ ἄλλα.
b19 τοῦ P1CBL, τὸ1 P2: there are clear signs of an erasure after the τὸ in
P; the likelihood is that there was originally a τοῦ, as in CBL, mimicking
the following οὗ. —τοῦ P1CBL, τὸ2 P2: here the correction in P is
achieved by crude overwriting.
b28 [μετὰ ταῦτα ἄλλην λαβοῦσιν ἀρχήν]: Aristotle might have c hosen
to finish a book with the same words he would use to start the next one
(minus the connective, which of course won’t fit here), as a way of
marking the continuity between Book I and Book II, but it seems more
likely that someone else did it. (P has the title of the following book,
‘ἠθικῶν εὐδημίων – – – – β´ ’ starting a line and λαβοῦσιν ἀρχήν, offi-
cially the last two words of Book I, ending the same line, an arrangement
that perhaps suggests the same idea, i.e. that the repetition is there sim-
ply to link the two books.) Susemihl’s proposal to bracket either the
whole of the last sentence of Book I or the first sentence of Book II is
probably excessive, although it must be said that even without μετὰ
ταῦτα ἄλλην λαβοῦσιν ἀρχήν, the end of Book I as the MSS preserve
it, with its threefold ἄριστον, is distinctly problematical (‘turbata quae-
dam in his verbis esse monet Bu[ssemaker]’, Susemihl). Allan’s supple-
ment of καὶ after ποσαχῶς gives the sentence a better structure, but it is
not clear that Book II actually does examine ‘in how many ways τὸ ὡς
τέλος ἀγαθὸν ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ τὸ ἄριστον τῶν πρακτῶν is also τὸ
ἄριστον πάντων’—if that is what Allan intends. Not dissimilar prob-
lems arise with the last full sentence of EE VIII/V: there in EE VIII/V
I emend, and it may be that surgery is needed here too, but it is hard to
see exactly where to begin the cutting. (I might start with the definite
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Aristotelica 21
article before the second ἄριστον, and perhaps the one before the first;
but this would be no more than tinkering.) —Against Dirlmeier’s πῶς
for ποσαχῶς in b26 there is the previous use of ποσαχῶς at 1217b1,
where he mistakenly translates λέγεται ποσαχῶς as ‘wie viele
Bedeutungen das Wort hat’, when the reference is plainly to three differ-
ent views (‘Meinungen’) people take, and/or might take, of τὸ ἄριστον
(hence Kenny’s more neutral ‘in how many senses the expression is used’
[Oxford World’s Classics]); in the present context too, in the first few
lines of Book II, Aristotle will reintroduce the main three main views on
the nature of εὐδαιμονία (ϕρόνησις . . . καὶ ἀρετὴ καὶ ἡδονή, ὧν ἢ ἔνια
ἢ πάντα τέλος εἶναι δοκεῖ πᾶσιν: Ι.1, 1218b34–6), between which he
will choose. So ποσαχῶς fits; πῶς will fit too, but not so obviously bet-
ter as to justify the emendation.
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Eudemian Ethics II
b31 μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα: PCBL all have ταῦτα (i.e. without elision) here as
well as in b27, which this line echoes; editors from Bekker onwards print
μετὰ ταῦτα there, but μετὰ . . . ταῦτ’ here.
b32 〈ἐν〉 ψυχῇ: P2 writes πάντα ἀγαθὰ ἢ ἐκτὸς ἢ ἐν ψυχῇ in the mar-
gin, perhaps merely picking out something memorable in the text, but
surely indicating that he felt the need for an ἐν. In any case, since ἐκτὸς
is presumably said with reference to the soul (with no mention of body,
ἐκτὸς ἀγαθὰ will have to include bodily ones), and relevant goods that
are not ἐκτὸς τῆς ψυχῆς will be in it, ‘in the soul’ must be meant, and
that cannot be expressed by a plain dative. Bessarion writes ἐν ψυχῇ in
Par. 2042.
b38 The colon (or perhaps a comma, as in Rackham) after ὑποκείσθω
is implicitly introduced by translators (Woods, Kenny, Inwood/Woolf),
and looks necessary.
a20 Neither ταὐτὸ nor αὐτὸ is needed; the sense clearly is ‘the ἔργον of
the thing [is] also [the ἔργον] of the ἀρετὴ [of the thing]’.
Aristotelica: Studies on the Text of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics. First Edition. Christopher Rowe,
Oxford University Press. © Christopher Rowe 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873552.003.0002
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 07/08/23, SPi
Aristotelica 23
a27 καὶ2 is inserted above the line in P, probably by the original hand.
jecture, 〈τὰ ἐν〉 αὐτῇ: he quite often employs lacunas in this way, in order
possibly Oxon.), which is presumably an invitation to adopt his own con-
a35 ἔσται scripsi: εἶναι PCBL; ἀνάγκη post εἶναι suppl. P2, writing
ἴσως: ἀνάγκη, in the margin, with insertion marks, in order to explain
εἶναι (the beginning of the entry in the Walzer/Mingay apparatus for
a33, ‘ἀνάγκη τῆς ἀρετῆς mg. P2, addito ἴσως’, is wrong: ‘εἶναι ἀνάγκη
P2, addito ἴσως’ would be right, except that only ἀνάγκη is in the mar-
gin, with an insertion mark there and a matching one after εἶναι
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24 Eudemian Ethics ii
thing of (?) the soul (with Ross’s ἐνέργειαν 〈τὸ〉). The latter interpretation
similarly Inwood/Woolf) is best, or that the activity of virtue is the best
does not strictly require Ross’s extra definite articles (τὴν, τὸ), and
indeed their main function is probably to impose his interpretation on
the text; but it is surely unattractive in any case, not least given the work
that has to be done to accommodate it. If we settle, then, on the other
interpretation, the immediate question is how to explain the infinitive
εἶναι with which the sentence ends in the MSS. Retaining the infinitive
requires at least two emendations, i.e. Bonitz’s ἐνέργειαν for ἐνέργεια ἡ
(which might possibly be intended by P2 as a consequence of his supple-
ment of ἀνάγκη), and either Fritzsche’s supplement of δεῖ or P2’s of
ἀνάγκη; the only alternative is to suppose, with Inwood/Woolf, that the
accusative and infinitive is governed by δῆλον back in a29, and against
this is not only the distance of that δῆλον but the fact that δῆλον is typ
ically followed by a ὄτι-clause rather than an accusative and infinitive.
(The distance problem would be mitigated if we were to bracket a30–2 ἦν
μὲν γὰρ . . . ἢ ἕξεις ἢ ἐνέργειαι, on the grounds that it not only breaks
up the flow of the sentence, but also perhaps is dispensable—after all, it
spells out what we know already. But so does what follows a30–2 [i.e.
this is not intrusive material, as at 1220b10–12, 1225b3–6, or 1228a14:
qqv.]; Aristotle is formally setting out the argument leading to a big con-
clusion, and a30–2 includes parts of that argument.) If, on the other
hand, we retain the MSS’ nominative, ἐνέργεια, with ἡ, of which L’s ἢ is
surely a corruption, the only change required is from εἶναι to ἔσται,
and the Greek will be on any account rather easier to construe. While I
cannot explain how the corruption of ἔσται to εἶναι could have
occurred, or provide any precise parallels, it is, plainly, much easier to
defend ἐνέργεια ἡ than it is to defend εἶναι. That is not to say that
Bonitz, and P2, may not have been right (if the latter really did intend
ἐνέργειαν for ἐνέργεια ἡ), and after all, as noted before, Aristotle in EE
is not obviously much concerned with making things easy for the reader.
But in such cases the more economical solution must, I think, be held to
trump the less; we do not need to make Eudemian style spikier than it
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Aristotelica 25
already is, any more than we need to make it less spiky. (An alternative
would be to obelize εἶναι, with ἔσται as a conjecture in the apparatus;
but that then entails keeping ἐνέργεια ἡ, which would more or less
compel the reader to accept ἔσται in any case, and would amount to
using the obelus in the way Susemihl uses the lacuna: see previous note.
The only real alternative to emending εἶναι is to obelize the whole of
ἐνέργεια ἡ τῆς ψυχῆς ἄριστον εἶναι, and that seems like overkill if the
only obvious problem is with εἶναι.)
a40 κατὰ ἀρετὴν BL, κατ’ ἀρετὴν PC: the reading in BL is preferred
according to the rule I have adopted, that if the arguments for each of
two readings are equally balanced, the one that figures in both recen-
siones is to be adopted.
b16 τοῦ post ἔπαινος suppl. Bonitz: this supplement would be neces-
sary in most other texts, and every second time I return to this passage
I find the omission of the definite article disturbing. That means, how-
ever, that I also find no conclusive case for inserting it, in the notori-
ously laconic EE (note the following τέλους without article, though that
is much less surprising). Cf. Fritzsche’s description of b5 μίαν ἡμέραν
εἶναι as ‘mutilata’, which is surely a reaction to its brevity; his proposals
for rewriting (reported by Susemihl) miss the point.
b20 καθεύδονται BLC2: the ending in both P and C appears above the
οντ; in P it is an unambiguous (shorthand) -ες, while in C there is a
mess that is legible as -αι: this I take to be a ‘correction’ against another
manuscript of an original -ες as in P. By contrast with the last, this is an
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26 Eudemian Ethics ii
b22 τῆς ψυχῆς P1: P2 marks τῆς for deletion by surrounding it with
four dots.
b35 καὶ secl. Ross: Walzer/Mingay’s reference to Denniston 319, for this
καὶ, is helpful; ‘it has different δυνάμεις all the same, (and) actually τὰς
εἰρημένας’.
b36 καμπύλῳ: P2 writes στρεβλῷ above καμπύλῳ; perhaps a gloss
rather than an emendation? B has what is by now clearly to be taken as a
separation mark (B2, presumably) below the line between καμπύλῳ
and the following τὸ, B being particularly inclined to run words
together.
Aristotelica 27
b40 Susemihl’s γὰρ for δὲ, adopted by Walzer/Mingay, comes from the
late Latin translation (‘In.’), and is unnecessary; Ross’s supplementary
negative, also adopted by Walzer/Mingay, completely ruins the sense
(see Donini’s note ad loc.).
b41 καὶ αὐξητικοῦ Bonitz, καὶ ὀρεκτικοῦ PCBL: the question is whether
an appearance of τὸ ὀρεκτικόν here can be squared with Aristotelian doc-
trine as both (a) usually understood and (b) reflected in the EE itself. If the
answer is no, as I think (Aristotle’s very next sentence surely proves it), then
unless we bracket the words, as Susemihl hesitantly suggests, we have little
option but to accept Bonitz’s emendation. These copyists, and evidently
their predecessors, do make mistakes for no presently observable reason,
and this is surely one such case. —εἰ ᾗ ἄνθρωπος: i.e. ‘if [a human being is
being considered] as a human being’. The reader is here being asked to sup-
ply quite a lot, but not, I think, impossibly much. Dodds’s supplement of
ἀνθρώπου would make life easier, and ἀνθρώπου could well have dropped
out before the following ἄνθρωπος, but εἰ ᾗ ἄνθρωπος as it stands seems
to me viable (Eudemian) Greek. Deleting εἰ, with Ross, is another option,
but how then did the εἰ get in? Perhaps by reduplication (η and ει are some-
times confused), but then the story is already too complicated if the trans-
mitted text works. I note that whatever text we adopt, the sense has to be the
same, and that is itself reason enough for changing as little as possible.
(Walzer/Mingay claims that C has ᾗ, PL ᾖ, Susemihl that P has ᾖ—Susemihl
then proceeding to attribute ᾗ to Bonitz; in fact C and L both have ᾗ, of
course without the iota subscript, as does B, and there is less doubt about
the breathing in P than about the eta itself, which is a bit of a mess. The
problems may start with Bekker, who reads ᾖ without comment.)
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28 Eudemian Ethics ii
a18 Richards’s τὸ καὶ is perhaps right, but the MSS’ reading is perfectly
defensible.
πάντες; but ὥσπερ ἂν εἰ 〈ἔχοιμεν〉 καὶ ὑγίειαν ὅτι would only work
might be the favourite, because it picks up a17 ἔχοντές τι ζητοῦσι
a33 καὶ2 deest in BL: and also in PC, except that what follows, 34–5 πρὸς
ταῦτα ἡ χρῆσις αὐτῆς ὑϕ’ ὧν καὶ αὔξεται καὶ ϕθείρεται (not καὶ πρὸς
ταῦτα . . . ϕθείρεται, as reported by Walzer/Mingay), occurs twice in both,
linked with a καί. Thus the necessary καὶ before the πρὸς in 34
does appear the second time round. How this bizarre state of affairs came
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Aristotelica 29
a34 ταὐτὰ Bussemaker: but ταῦτα is a perfectly decent antecedent for the
following relatives.
B2; καὶ πρὸς ἃ 〈καὶ〉 Russell. B2—or is it the original hand?—adds πως
a35 καὶ πρὸς ἃ Langerbeck: πως ἃ PC; καὶ ἃ B1; πρὸς ἃ L; πως καὶ ἃ
over line between the preceding ϕθείρεται and καὶ, and the necessary
extra accent to ϕθείρεται. I refrain from treating the καὶ before πρὸς as
a supplement because the spread of the MSS readings suggests that καὶ
πρὸς ἃ, in whatever order, could well have been in their common
source, ω; it is in any case clearly what is needed.
1220b1 ὅτι secl. Russell (having bracketed the preceding ἐστὶ too): but
the ὅτι is surely unproblematic, as Susemihl saw; pace Susemihl, so is
the following τὸ [sc. ἐθιζόμενον] ὑπ’ ἀγωγῆς μὴ ἐμϕύτου. On this last
(and on other issues), see P. Ferreira, ‘EE 1220a39–b6’, Archai 20, May–
Aug. 2017: 123–40.
to the extent that ‘it’ should have a clear reference, which (so far as I can
see) it does not.
30 Eudemian Ethics ii
Aristotelica 31
the right accentuation: see Plato, Republic 438b1, etc.) The sense is ‘what
it is in the soul that makes our character traits to be of a particular kind’
(Kenny, in the Oxford World’s Classics translation); another example of
Eudemian brevity.
b13 ἐπι το πολὺ –––– L: there is no accent on either of the first two
words (if the second is meant to be separated from the third: το ends the
line). A slightly uneven line under the tau apparently indicates the need
for correction; there then follows a gap, half filled by an extended line
itself about four characters long.
b15 ποιός τις as against ποιότης PCBL: ποιός τις is preferable here
to ποιότης insofar as it helps explain the following ἀλλὰ πάσχει,
called by Rackham ‘pravum glossema’. I construe ‘[a person] is not of
a certain sort κατὰ ταῦτα but [merely] πάσχει’. The της and the τις
in (ποιό)της and (ποιός) τις are distinguished in the context of an
MS like P and C, and probably also in the MSS that the copyists of B
and L had before them, only by the presence or absence of a pair of
dots (indicating an iota) above a sigma over the tau, the space between
ποιός and τις often being hardly greater than that between ποιό and
της (as in P here); and that ποιότης and ποιός τις can actually be
confused is shown by the fact that BL have the first and PC the sec-
ond at the end of this very sentence—either BL get it the wrong way
round there, or PC do. We do not have ποιότης twice in all four MSS,
nor do I think we want it twice; and where we need ποιός τις is here
before ἀλλὰ πάσχει and not where PC have it, at the end of the
sentence.
b16 τὰς secl. Susemihl: the term being explained might normally come
without the definite article, but since Aristotle has just said τὰς
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32 Eudemian Ethics ii
b26 It is tempting to interpret B’s καὶ ἀν as καὶ αὖ, but it is more likely
to be a careless repetition of καὶ ἀν(επιστημονικῇ) in the line before.
b34 B’s ἄττα is split after the alpha between two lines; B2 mistakenly
adds an extra tau at the end of the line.
1221a9 κακ ρία B1, καρτερία B2: the copyist of B seems to have written
κακ, followed by a gap, then ρία; then someone else wrote τε over the
gap and a rho before that, the rho ending up more over the alpha than
the second kappa.
Aristotelica 33
at 148 (‘I think there would be a strong temptation for a shallow sys-
tematizer to interpolate the list of virtues, having failed to observe that
this would be premature, and that the passage is of a different kind from
the comprehensive sketch in E.N. 2, 7’). Allan may well be right; at any
rate, given what (according to our MSS) Aristotle says in a13–14, an edi-
tor who prints a13–14 as transmitted, i.e. with that πάντα, surely cannot
avoid following Allan’s lead. (At any rate δίκαιον in a4 is surely a mis-
take by someone: δίκαιον may be by far the commonest term for justice
in EE, but it does not refer to the inner state of a person, rather to the
state of affairs between persons.) Can we really leave him saying, for
example, that πανουργία, εὐήθεια, and ϕρόνησις are related to each
other in terms of excess and defect? The idea of the middle or mean will
not be (re-)introduced until later, as Allan notes (‘. . . this would be pre-
mature’). Round brackets might be of marginal help, insofar as it would
allow for the possibility that it was Aristotle himself who indicated the
μεσότης to which each successive pair relates, but I have forsworn
round brackets in general; and if it was Aristotle, he would not have
used them either.
34 Eudemian Ethics ii
(1221a13) it off from NE, and might it go some way towards explaining
πάθη here in 1221a13?)
a18 ὃ B1: B2 strikes through the accent.
a19 δὲ καὶ: B2 inserts καὶ above the line. —ὁ del. Bekker: this pro-
posal of Bekker’s surely represents the beginnings of a solution to the
problems of the present sentence, if we take it that ἐπιθυμητικὸς
describes someone ruled by his or her ἐπιθυμίαι, and that this is to
be taken as suggesting someone (καὶ in 20 epexegetic?) who takes all
possible opportunities for ὑπερβολή—thus making him/her like the
coward (ὁμοίως); but this then seems to make 19 καὶ2, and also
(Jonathan Barnes suggests) ὁ1 in 20, redundant. I accordingly bracket
both. Barnes’s own solution, the deletion of a19–20 καὶ ὁ ἐπιθυμητικὸς
καὶ, gives a neater outcome, but leaves the problem of explaining how
these words got in, in the first place. (Victorius suggests [‘fort.’] brack-
eting the καὶ in 20 [that is, just καὶ, not καὶ ὁ, as Susemihl reports];
Dirlmeier prefers [ὁ] ἀκόλαστος καὶ [ὁ] ἐπιθυμητικὸς [καὶ] ὁ
ὑπερβάλλων.)
a23 πλεονεκτικός, split πλεονεκ-τικός in B between lines, has (what
looks like) a hyphen both in the right-hand margin after the first part
and in the left-hand margin before the second.
a23–4 ‘An Spengel’s ἀλλ’ 〈ἢ〉 ist nicht zu denken’, says Dirlmeier, with
some justification (calling in aid Cook Wilson, ‘On the use of ἀλλ’ 〈ἢ〉
in Aristotle’, CQ 3 [1909], 121–4). The two other proposals are elegant
enough but too elaborate; Dirlmeier’s gives us all we need, and his
explanation of how the corruption might have occurred is not wholly
implausible. —There are two dots over what is probably a version of the
shorthand sign for the second δὲ (ἀλαζὼν δὲ) in B.
a25 κόραξ B1: the rho is overwritten with a lambda by B2 (or perhaps
the original hand).
a32 In the Teubner μὲν has dropped out either accidentally or because it
is missing in Marc. (but Bekker has it).
1221b1 ἐπὶ secl. Spengel: this ἐπὶ perhaps originated by false analogy
with the next one (ἐπὶ τοῖς ἀναξίοις).
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Aristotelica 35
36 Eudemian Ethics ii
b26 ἐπὶ secl. Eucken, ἔχει Ross: but ἐπὶ with accusative is not impos
sible here: see LSJ s.v. ἐπί C.I.5.
b29 διανοητικαί secl. Ross: perhaps a gloss, but the case is not
proven.
b39 πᾶσα γὰρ ψυχὴ (PCB) must surely be wrong. In order to talk
about soul in general, Aristotle needs only ψυχή, and does not need
to specify that the subject is all soul; and—assuming that ἡ ἡδονή at
the end of the sentence is to go, as it must—it cannot be soul that is
πρὸς ταῦτα καὶ περὶ ταῦτά ὑϕ’ οἵων κτλ. It seems reasonable, then,
to focus on L’s πάσα γὰρ ψυχῆς, which plainly invites us to supply a
subject to go with it (how else would the genitive arise?), and to sup-
pose that PCB’s πᾶσα γὰρ ψυχὴ was one reaction to the loss of the
a third. So πᾶσα γὰρ ψυχῆς 〈ἕξις〉 it is, ἕξις being the only candidate
subject, L2’s (πάσης γὰρ ψυχῆς) another, the introduction of ἡ ἡδονή
Language: Finnish
Kirj.
AARNI KOUTA
Esisanat.
Ida Aalberg.
Kaarola Avellan.
Emelie Stenberg.
Aurora Aspegren.
August Aspegren.
Taavi Pesonen.
Axel Ahlberg.
Adolf Lindfors.
Knut Weckman.
Katri Rautio.
Aleksis Rautio.
Iisakki Lattu.
Olga Poppius.
Kaarle Halme.
Esisana.
Ihaillessamme jotakin suurta ja jo täyden kasvuvoimansa
saavuttanutta puuta ei liene monenkaan meidän mieleemme
juohtunut ne eri kehityskaudet ja -muodot, jotka tämä puu on elänyt
ja taistellut muodostuessaan pienestä, tuskin maankamaraa
ylemmästä idusta siksi korkeaksi kasviksi, joka majaamme varjostaa.
Me näemme ihastuksella vain puun, joka työntää latvansa taivasta
kohti, ojentaa oksansa ilman tuulien tuuditeltaviksi, mutta emme
ajattele pientä tainta, joka maan uumenista kerran pyrki ja pääsi
päivän valoon, juurrutti ja levitti juurensa tahdon rantavoimalla
syvälle mullan mustaan helmaan, mistä sitten imi elämisen voiman ja
tarmon. Ja lähemmin tarkastaessamme on tässä alkutilassa ja
alkukamppailussa yhtä paljon mieltäkiinnittävää ja ihastuttavaa kuin
myöhemmässä kypsyyden kaudessakin. Vieläpä tuon taimen
kehitysilmaisuja tutkistellessamme voimme nähdä viittauksia
vastaisuuteen, edellytyksiä, edellyttäviä luonteenominaisuuksia ja
hentoja yhdyssiteitä tulevaisuuteen.
Helsingissä v. 1910.
Aarni Kouta.
Ida Aalberg.
Kaarola Avellan.