Nicomachean Revision in the ‘Common Books’

Abstract

Abstract There is good reason to believe that Nicomachean Ethics 6. 2 is a Nicomachean revision of an originally Eudemian text. Aristotle seems to have inserted lines 1139a31–b11 by means of a marginal note, which the first editor then mistakenly added in the wrong place, and this paper proposes moving these lines so that they follow the word κοινωνεῖν at 1139a20. The suggested note appears to be Nicomachean for several reasons, but most importantly because it contains a desire-based account of the practical intellect as teleologically oriented to action. The NE articulates consequences of this account regarding practical philosophy’s methodology and teleological orientation to action. The EE does not articulate such consequences and instead seems to assume an object-based account of the practical intellect. Consequently, it would seem that, between the EE and the NE, Aristotle revised his conception of the practical intellect and consequently his conception of practical philosophy.