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Aristotle's Use of Medicine as Model of Method in his Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Werner Jaeger
Werner Jaeger
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Philosophy, in general, moves in a sphere of abstraction, and its statements claim to be necessary and of universal validity. The reader therefore expects them to appeal directly to his reason, and he does not normally reflect much on the time and historical conditions that determined what the philosopher took for granted. It is only in this age of historical consciousness that we have come to appreciate these factors more readily, and the great thinkers of the past appear to us more or less closely related to the culture of their age. The writings of Plato and Aristotle in particular are for us an inexhaustible source of information about Greek society and civilisation. This is true also in regard to the relation of Greek philosophy to the science of its time, and this is of special importance for our understanding. That relation can be traced throughout Aristotle's logical, physical, and metaphysical works; but the influence of other sciences and arts is no less evident in his ethics. In this paper I propose to examine the numerous references to medicine that occur in the Nicomachean Ethics. They are mostly concerned with the question of the best method of treating this subject. The problem of the right method is always of the utmost importance for Aristotle. The discussion of it begins on the first page of the Ethics, where he tries to give a definition of the subject of this course of lectures and attributes it to a philosophical discipline that he calls ‘politics’. He does so in agreement with the Platonic tradition. We can trace it back to one of the dialogues of Plato's first period, the Gorgias, in which the Platonic Socrates for the first time pronounces his postulate of a new kind of philosophy, the object of which ought to be the care of the human soul (φυχῆς θεραπεία). He assigns this supreme task to ‘political art’, even though it does not fulfil this function at present.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 1 , November 1957 , pp. 54 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1957

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References

1 There is a fine discussion of Aristotle's method in his Ethics in Burnet, J.'s The Ethics of Aristotle, Introduction, p. xxxi sq.Google Scholar, but the present aspect of it is not given special attention there, though on p. xliv it is mentioned and a parallel is quoted from Hippocrates.

2 See Plat. Gorg. 464 sq. 500e sq.

3 l.c. 517a sq.; see Paideia II, 157 sq.

4 Plat. Gorg. 501 a–b.

5 Plat. Phaedr. 270c–d.

6 E.g. Plat. Laws 857c–d; cf. Paideia III, 12 sq.

7 Ar. Metaph. E1, 1025b18 sq. Eth. Nic. I, 1, 1094a27.

8 l.c. I, 1, 1094b7; I, 6, 1098a16, etc.

9 See Xenocr. frg. i Heinze.

10 Eth. Nic. I, i, 1094a8.

11 l.c. I, 1, 1094a27.

12 l.c. I, 4, 1096b32.

13 l.c. I, 5, 1096a16.

14 l.c. I, 4, 1096a32.

15 l.c. I, 4, 1096a1.

16 l.c. I, 4, 1096a3 sq.

17 l.c. I, 4, 1096a10 sq.

18 See Paideia III, 17.

19 Op. cit. III, 12.

20 Diokles von Karystos: die griechische Medizin und die Schule des Aristoteles (Berlin, Gruyter, W. de, 1938).Google Scholar

21 Op. cit. 37 sq. and 45 sq.

22 Eth. Nic. I, 1, 1094bl1–27.

23 Metaph. A 9, 992a–32. Aristotle himself, while still a pupil of Plato, had stressed exactness as ideal of ethical (political) method in his early work, the Protrepticus; see my Aristotle (English translation), p. 85.

24 Eth. Nic. I, 1, 1094b12.

25 l.c. I, 1, 1094019–27.

26 l.c. II, 2, 1104a1–3.

27 l.c. II, 2, 1104a3–10.

28 Hipp. De vet.med. 9.

29 See Eth. Nic. II, 2, 1104a2 and compare with it I, 1, 1094b12.

30 Hipp. De vet. med. c. 9; see Diokles, p. 46. Compare the use of αἴσθησιζ in Eth. Nic. II, 9, 1109b20.

31 Eth. Nic. I, 13, 1102a19.

32 l.c. 1102a18.

33 See note 27.

34 l.c. II, 2, 1104a12.

35 l.c. II, 2, 1104a14.

36 Plat. Gorg. 496b, 499d, 504c.

37 Eth. Nic. II, 2, 1104a15–18.

38 Ross, W. D., Aristotle, p. 193.Google Scholar

39 Eth. Nic. II, 2, 1104a27.

40 l.c. 1104a30.

41 l.c. 110a333 sq.

42 l.c. 1104b11.

43 Plat. Laws 653b; Paideia III, 227.

44 Eth. Nic. II, 2, 1104b13.

45 l.c. 1104b16.

46 l.c. 1104b24.

47 l.c. II, 3; 115a17–b9

48 l.c. 1105b12–18.

49 See Eth. Nic. II, 4.

50 Eth. Nic. II, 5.

51 l.c. 1106b3.

52 See note 30.

53 l.c. VI, 1, 1138b25.

54 l.c. II, 6, 1107a1.

55 It is necessary to take into consideration not only the passages in which the words occur, but also those which speak of etc.

56 Eth. Nic. III, 5, 1112a30 sq. 1112b11 sq.

57 l.c. VI, 13, 1144a7.

58 See my Aristotle (English translation), p. 83 sq.

59 Eth. Nic. VI, 7 and VI, 13.

60 l.c. VI, 7, 1141a22.

61 l.c. VI, 7, 1141b14.

62 l.c. 1141b18–21.

63 Hipp. De victu II, c. 46 sq., especially c.50 on the meat of birds.

64 See Eth. Nic. VI, 13, 1143b25 and 31; 1144b10; 1145a7.

65 l.c. X, 9, 1180a1 sq.

66 l.c. 1180a18 and 21.

67 l.c. 1180b3 sq.

68 On Sparta see 1180a25. Aristotle holds the Areopagus in high esteem; in this he follows Isocrates' Areopagiticus and Xenophon's Memorabilia; see Paideia III, 112 sq. (Isocrates) and 172 (Xenophon). Under the rule of Demetrius of Phaleron (317–307) the supervisory competence of this high court was partly restored. This was one of the features of the political programme of the Peripatetic school.

69 Eth. Nic. X, 9, 1180a29.

70 l.c. 1180b7 sq.

71 l.c. 1180b11 sq.

72 l.c. 1180b16.

73 l.c. 1180b23–28.

74 l.c. 1180b28–1181a1.

75 l.c. 1181a15 sq.

76 l.c. 1181b2–6.

77 See supra, p. 56.

78 l.c. 1181b15.

79 Eth. Nic. VI, 5, 1140a25.