Intrinsic Goods Alone: A Platonic Rejoinder

Abstract

Abstract Aristotle pauses in the midst of his criticisms and rather gamely offers Plato an out: perhaps there is a Form of the Good set over all and only things which qualify as intrinsically good, as good in their own right, or as good per se. Careful attention to even this limited range of good things, however, reveals non-univocity even here. So, again, he concludes, there is no Form of the Good. This interlude in the text, though, has two striking consequences. First, in responding, Aristotle embraces a remarkably fine-grained form of non-univocity. Second, in so doing Aristotle incurs and acknowledges a commitment to determine how good things are related short of univocity.