In Aristotle on Practical Truth, C.M.M. Olfert gives the first book-length treatment of Aristotle's notion of practical truth. The book covers the origins of practical truth in Plato's philosophy; practical truth's role in practical reasoning; its contributions to motivation and action; and its implications for ethical development.

Bryn Mawr Commentaries provide clear, concise, accurate, and consistent support for students making the transition from introductory and intermediate texts to the direct experience of ancient Greek and Latin literature. They assume that the student will know the basics of grammar and vocabulary and then provide the specific grammatical and lexical notes that a student requires to begin the task of interpretation. Hackett Publishing Company is the exclusive distributor of the Bryn Mawr Commentaries in North America, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

The notion of practical wisdom is one of Aristotle's greatest inventions. It has inspired philosophers as diverse as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Elizabeth Anscombe, Michael Thompson, and John McDowell. Now a leading scholar of ancient philosophy offers a challenge to received accounts of practical wisdom by situating it in the larger context of Aristotle's views on knowledge and reality. That happiness is the end pursued by practical wisdom is commonly agreed. What is disputed is whether happiness is to be found in the practical life of political action, in which we exhibit courage, temperance, and other virtues of character, or in the contemplative life, where theoretical wisdom is the essential virtue. C. D. C. Reeve argues that the dichotomy is bogus, that these lives are in fact parts of a single life, which is the best human one. In support of this view, he develops innovative accounts of many of the central notions in Aristotle's metaphysics, epistemology, and psychology, including matter and form, scientific knowledge, dialectic, educatedness, perception, understanding, political science, practical truth, deliberation, and deliberate choice. These accounts are based directly on freshly translated passages from many of Aristotle's writings. Action, Contemplation, and Happiness is an accessible essay not just on practical wisdom but on Aristotle's philosophy as a whole.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics had a profound influence on generations of later philosophers, not only in the ancient era but also in the medieval period and beyond. In this book, Anthony Celano explores how medieval authors recast Aristotle's Ethics according to their own moral ideals. He argues that the moral standard for the Ethics is a human one, which is based upon the ethical tradition and the best practices of a given society. In the Middle Ages, this human standard was replaced by one that is universally applicable, since its foundation is eternal immutable divine law. Celano resolves the conflicting accounts of happiness in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, demonstrates the importance of the virtue of phronesis (practical wisdom), and shows how the medieval view of moral reasoning alters Aristotle's concept of moral wisdom.

Explores the extent to which Aristotle's ethical treatises employ the concepts, methods, and practices developed in his 'scientific' works.

A reasoned and urgent call to embrace and protect the essential human quality that has been drummed out of our lives: wisdom. In their provocative new book, Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe explore the insights essential to leading satisfying lives. Encouraging individuals to focus on their own personal intelligence and integrity rather than simply navigating the rules and incentives established by others, Practical Wisdom outlines how to identify and cultivate our own innate wisdom in our daily lives.

Aristotle's theories of truth, practical reasoning, and action are some of the most influential theories in the history of philosophy. It is surprising, then, that so little attention has been given to his notion of practical truth. In Aristotle on Practical Truth, C.M.M. Olfert gives the first book-length treatment of this notion and the role of truth in our practical lives overall. She offers a novel account of practical truth: practical truth is the distinguishing function (ergon) of our capacity for practical reason, and it is a special kind of truth which shares a standard of correctness with our desires. According to this account, practical truth is the truth about what is good simpliciter (haplôs) for a particular person in her particular situation. As such, it conforms to Aristotle's technical theory of truth. Olfert argues that, understood in this way, Aristotle's notion of practical truth is an attractive idea that illuminates the core of his practical philosophy. But it is also an idea that challenges a common view, often attributed to Aristotle, that in practical reasoning, we aim at action or acting well as our primary goals, while in theoretical reasoning, we aim primarily at truth and knowledge. Olfert shows that in dialogues such as Charmides, Protagoras, and Republic, Plato describes practical reasoning as being concerned equally and inseparably with grasping the truth and with acting well. She then argues that Aristotle develops this Platonic picture with his notion of practical truth, and with a technical notion of rational action as fitting ourselves to the world. Using key texts from the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, as well as De Anima, Metaphysics, De Interpretatione and Categories, among others, Olfert demonstrates that practical truth deserves to be taken seriously as a central and plausible Aristotelian idea.

In Levels of Argument, Dominic Scott compares the Republic and Nicomachean Ethics from a methodological perspective. In the first half he argues that the Republic distinguishes between two levels of argument in the defence of justice, the 'longer' and 'shorter' routes. The longer is the ideal and aims at maximum precision, requiring knowledge of the Forms and a definition of the Good. The shorter route is less precise, employing hypotheses, analogies and empirical observation. This is the route that Socrates actually follows in the Republic, because it is appropriate to the level of his audience and can stand on its own feet as a plausible defence of justice. In the second half of the book, Scott turns to the Nicomachean Ethics. Scott argues that, even though Aristotle rejects a universal Form of the Good, he implicitly recognises the existence of longer and shorter routes, analogous to those distinguished in the Republic. The longer route would require a comprehensive theoretical worldview, incorporating elements from Aristotle's metaphysics, physics, psychology, and biology. But Aristotle steers his audience away from such an approach as being a distraction from the essentially practical goals of political science. Unnecessary for good decision-making, it is not even an ideal. In sum, Platonic and Aristotelian methodologies both converge and diverge. Both distinguish analogously similar levels of argument, and it is the shorter route that both philosophers actually follow--Plato because he thinks it will have to suffice, Aristotle because he thinks that there is no need to go beyond it.

Gabriel Richardson Lear presents a bold new approach to one of the enduring debates about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the controversy about whether it coherently argues that the best life for humans is one devoted to a single activity, namely philosophical contemplation. Many scholars oppose this reading because the bulk of the Ethics is devoted to various moral virtues--courage and generosity, for example--that are not in any obvious way either manifestations of philosophical contemplation or subordinated to it. They argue that Aristotle was inconsistent, and that we should not try to read the entire Ethics as an attempt to flesh out the notion that the best life aims at the "monistic good" of contemplation. In defending the unity and coherence of the Ethics, Lear argues that, in Aristotle's view, we may act for the sake of an end not just by instrumentally bringing it about but also by approximating it. She then argues that, for Aristotle, the excellent rational activity of moral virtue is an approximation of theoretical contemplation. Thus, the happiest person chooses moral virtue as an approximation of contemplation in practical life. Richardson Lear bolsters this interpretation by examining three moral virtues--courage, temperance, and greatness of soul--and the way they are fine. Elegantly written and rigorously argued, this is a major contribution to our understanding of a central issue in Aristotle's moral philosophy.