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Aristotle's ethics builds upon earlier Greek thought, particularly that of his teacher Plato and Plato's teacher, Socrates. While Socrates left no written works, and Plato wrote dialogues and possibly a few letters , Aristotle wrote treatises in which he sets forth philosophical doctrines directly.
Aristotle analyzed the golden mean in the Nicomachean Ethics Book II: That virtues of character can be described as means. It was subsequently emphasized in Aristotelian virtue ethics . [ 1 ] For example, in the Aristotelian view, courage is a virtue , but if taken to excess would manifest as recklessness , and, in deficiency, cowardice .
The Preceding classical period in Ancient Greek philosophy had centered around Socrates (c. 470–399 BC), whose students Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Plato went on to found Cynicism, Cyrenaicism, and Platonism, respectively. Plato taught Aristotle who created the Peripatetic school and in turn, had tutored Alexander the Great.
The term is considered useful because what came to be known as the "Athenian school" (composed of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) signaled the rise of a new approach to philosophy; Friedrich Nietzsche's thesis that this shift began with Plato rather than with Socrates (hence his nomenclature of "pre-Platonic philosophy") has not prevented the ...
Aristotle considered ethics to be a practical rather than theoretical study, i.e., one aimed at becoming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake. He wrote several treatises on ethics, most notably including the Nicomachean Ethics. [139] Aristotle taught that virtue has to do with the proper function (ergon) of a thing. An eye ...
In Plato's dialogues, the soul plays many disparate roles. Among other things, Plato believes that the soul is what gives life to the body (which was articulated most of all in the Laws and Phaedrus) in terms of self-motion: to be alive is to be capable of moving oneself; the soul is a self-mover. He also thinks that the soul is the bearer of ...
In his Enneads he sought to reconcile ideas of Aristotle and Plato together with a form of monotheism, that used three fundamental metaphysical principles, which were conceived of in terms consistent with Aristotle's energeia / dunamis dichotomy, and one interpretation of his concept of the Active Intellect (discussed above):
Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas is a Latin phrase, translating to "Plato is my friend, but truth is a better friend (literally: Plato is friend, but truth is more friend (to me than he is))." The maxim is often attributed to Aristotle , as a paraphrase of the Nicomachean Ethics 1096a11–15.