Joachim Aufderheide

This chapter examines the underexplored treatment of the self in the Plato’s Theaetetus. While Plato’s positive account of the soul in the Phaedo and the Republic has long shaped interpretations of his view of personal identity, his engagement with Protagoreanism in the Theaetetus undermines the notion of a persisting subject of experience. Rather than treating this position as a mere dialectical foil, the chapter reconstructs it as a substantive and philosophically rich denial of a temporally extended self. To illuminate this denial, the chapter brings Plato into dialogue with the Buddhist no-self doctrine (anātmavāda), as articulated in the Majjhima Nikāya and developed philosophically by Vasubandhu. By comparing Plato’s Protagoreanism with Vasubandhu’s critique of the self as explanatorily inert, the chapter argues that the Theaetetus advances a parallel claim: that psychological and cognitive functions can be explained without positing a persisting self. Plato’s negative discussion thus deserves recognition as a significant contribution to the philosophical history of no-self theories.

This paper explores the moral psychology of Plato’s discussion of pleasure in Republic IX. The first part explains how pleasure and happiness are connected. Living successfully according to one’s own conception of happiness feels pleasant to the person living the life because, in doing so, she satisfies her leading desires. This result helps motivate a reading of the Olympian proof that focuses on the experience of pleasure, not on the objective value of pleasure (as it is usually understood). Focusing on the money-lover, I argue that this life turns out to revolve around unsatisfiable desires, leaving him dissatisfied. Since the pleasure relevant for happiness arises on satisfying one’s leading desires, such a life cannot be a pleasant one, let alone a happy one.

In this chapter, I examine the relevance of the philosophical use of dreaming for the examination of the thesis that knowledge is perception. I begin by studying the position attributed to Protagoras in Plato’s Theaetetus, according to which the perceptual experiences we have when dreaming count as knowledge. I argue that this position requires two different subjects in the two different contexts of cognition (dreaming and waking). I suggest that Vasubandhu’s use of dreaming in the Twenty Verses — to show that perception without external objects is possible — can help make sense of Protagorean perception. I raise the problem that both positions struggle to align their metaphysics with the phenomenology of perception. With the help of dreaming, Vasubandhu can explain how transformation may yield perceptual knowledge (in the form of buddha-vision). No such transformation is possible for a Protagorean, because the different subjects inhabiting different cognitive contexts are not causally related.

This chapter focuses on Eudoxus’ key argument for thesis T: pleasure is the good. It establishes first the text of the argument from universal pursuit and the basic framework of his hedonism. Steering clear of the psychological claim that pleasure is the only good at which animals aim, and of the extensional claim that pleasure is the only good at which all animals aim, the paper proposes that Eudoxus takes all animals to pursue pleasure in all natural and fitting choices. This interpretation is further developed by examining the argument from opposites and the argument from addition. It is argued that Eudoxus is justified in taking pleasure to be the only good so pursued, which licenses T. His hedonism differs markedly from contemporary version.

Aristotle apparently does not discuss piety in the Nicomachean Ethics, certainly not overtly. Against an ingenious proposal by Sarah Broadie, I argue that the passage she identifies as a covert discussion of piety does not give a special role to piety. By placing the passage in question in its context, I provide a reading of the context that can explain why Aristotle needs to discuss the connection between external resources and happiness. The dicta of the wise, Solon and Anaxagoras, fit squarely into that project, and Solon in particular helps to lead over to the passage in question, without special attention to piety. Finally, I offer an interpretation of the passage that likewise makes do without piety. If my interpretation is right, I have eliminated yet another initially plausible candidate for an admittedly clandestine discussion of piety.

The chapter explores whether we should take Aristotle to be a virtue ethicist, understood as distinct from consequentialist and deontological approaches. For Aristotle the decisive questions whether virtue is prior to ethically good action or vice versa is equivalent to the question which mean is prior, the one characterising virtue or the one characterising good action. I argue that Aristotle would not seem to be a virtue ethicist because a) the definition of virtue in EN 2.6 tends towards priority of action, even if it also attributes an important role to the wise person, and b) an examination of the role of the good person in EN 3.4 confirms the priority of the good action over the virtuous state that aims at such actions. Aristotle’s status, however, need not be permanent: if virtue ethicists were to leave our classification of ethical systems aside to emphasise more what is distinctive about their approach — a sustained study of virtue — Aristotle would rightly be their forerunner.

The chapter explores whether we should take Aristotle to be a virtue ethicist, understood as distinct from consequentialist and deontological approaches. For Aristotle the decisive questions whether virtue is prior to ethically good action or vice versa is equivalent to the question which mean is prior, the one characterising virtue or the one characterising good action. I argue that Aristotle would not seem to be a virtue ethicist because a) the definition of virtue in EN 2.6 tends towards priority of action, even if it also attributes an important role to the wise person, and b) an examination of the role of the good person in EN 3.4 confirms the priority of the good action over the virtuous state that aims at such actions. Aristotle’s status, however, need not be permanent: if virtue ethicists were to leave our classification of ethical systems aside to emphasise more what is distinctive about their approach — a sustained study of virtue — Aristotle would rightly be their forerunner.

The chapter explores whether we should take Aristotle to be a virtue ethicist, understood as distinct from consequentialist and deontological approaches. For Aristotle the decisive questions whether virtue is prior to ethically good action or vice versa is equivalent to the question which mean is prior, the one characterising virtue or the one characterising good action. I argue that Aristotle would not seem to be a virtue ethicist because a) the definition of virtue in EN 2.6 tends towards priority of action, even if it also attributes an important role to the wise person, and b) an examination of the role of the good person in EN 3.4 confirms the priority of the good action over the virtuous state that aims at such actions. Aristotle’s status, however, need not be permanent: if virtue ethicists were to leave our classification of ethical systems aside to emphasise more what is distinctive about their approach — a sustained study of virtue — Aristotle would rightly be their forerunner.

Accompanied by a new translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics X, this volume presents a hybrid between a traditional commentary and a scholarly monograph. Aristotle's text is divided into one hundred lemmata which not only explore comprehensively the content and strength of each of these units of thought, but also emphasise their continuity, showing how the smaller units feed into the larger structure. The Commentary illuminates what Aristotle thinks in each lemma (and why), and also shows how he thinks. In order to bring Aristotle alive as a thinker, it often explores several possible ways of reading the text to enable readers to make up their own mind about the best interpretation of a given passage. The relevant background in Plato's dialogues is discussed, and a substantial Introduction sets out the philosophical framework necessary for understanding Book X, the final and most arresting section of the Ethics.

How should we understand ‘philosophy' in Plato’s Republic? Sarah Broadie develops a thoroughly practical notion of the philosopher's activity. Her interpretation helps with the old puzzle about the philosopher's qualification to rule. It also addresses a new problem, namely that Plato ought to have subdivided the rational part of the soul into two parts if the philosophers engage in both theoretical and practical thinking. By conceiving of wisdom in practical terms, Broadie downplays the possible conflict between theory and praxis. I argue that her account of the philosopher's conflict between needing to rule and wanting to theorise does not hold up. Therefore, ‘philosophy’ in the Republic should not be understood in purely practical terms.

Excellent rational activity is central to happiness as outlined in the _Nicomachean Ethics_. This chapter argues that this activity is contemplation, but not practical activity in accordance with the virtues, because only the former satisfies the criteria for happiness presented in _EN_ I.12: being honourable, complete, and divine. This intellectualist account of happiness is then defended against the charge that Aristotle distinguishes between human and divine happiness, where only the latter, but not the former requires contemplation: Aristotle’s distinction is rather between qualified and unqualified happiness, and the latter requires contemplation. Finally, the happy life according to this interpretation is sketched: while contemplation makes a life happy, it is not the only thing that counts, as human beings also need to act well in social settings.

The so-called ‘Olympian’ proof in Plato's Republic contains one of the first explicit distinctions between the nature of intellectual and bodily pleasures. The argument for the superiority of the former rests on a) identifying pleasure and pain with certain kinds of filling and emptying, and b) differentiating between bodily and intellectual pleasures according to the kind of filling: Bodily depletions differ from depletions of the soul in the kind of lack and, accordingly, in the kind of thing that fills the lack: hunger and thirst are bodily lacks which food and drink can cure, whereas ignorance and folly are cured by intelligence. Thus, the kind of lack, together with the kind of filler, and derivatively the method of filling determine the kind of filling. Kinds of filling differ in truth: filling A is truer than filling B if and only if the kind of fillers used in A are more than the kind of fillers used in B and the kind of thing filled via A is more than the kind of thing filled via B. Fillers of the soul are more than bodily fillers. The soul is more than the body. Therefore, filling of the soul is truer than bodily filling, that is, filling of the soul is more really a filling

Two crucial questions, if unanswered, impede our understanding of Aristotle’s account of pleasure inenx.4-5: (1) What are the activities that pleasure is said to complete? (2) In virtue of what does pleasurealwaysaccompany these activities? The answers fall in place if we read Aristotle as responding to the Delian challenge that the finest, best and most pleasant are not united in one and the same thing (eni.8). I propose an ‘ethical’ reading ofenx.4 according to which the best activities in question are those integral to the exercise of virtue.

This thesis is a study of the theories of pleasure as proposed in Plato’s Philebus, Aristotle’s EN VII.11-14 and EN X.1-5, with particular emphasis on the value of pleasure. Focusing on the Philebus in Chapters 1 and 2, I argue that the account of pleasure as restorative process of a harmonious state in the soul is in tension with Plato’s claim that some pleasures are good in their own right. I show that there are in fact two ways in which pleasure can have value in the Philebus. The tension in Plato’s position arises because he focuses exclusively on only one way in which pleasure can have value. Chapter 3 deals with Aristotle’s response to Plato in EN VII.11-14. According to the standard interpretation only complete activities can be pleasures in their own right, but not incomplete activities. Since this interpretation attributes to Aristotle both an implausible view and a bad response to Plato, I offer a novel interpretation of EN VII.12 according to which the central contrast is not between complete and incomplete activities, but between states and their use. This interpretation is more faithful to Aristotle’s text and gives him a better response to Plato. In Chapter 4 I turn to the central claim of EN X.4-5 that pleasure perfects an activity. I argue that we cannot understand how pleasure functions unless we take into account the state whose activation is perfected by pleasure. In particular, the agent’s disposition of being a lover of a certain activity is crucial for explaining why the agent takes pleasure in it. The focus on the agent’s attitude highlights that the value of pleasure does not depend solely on the value of the activity. I suggest instead that pleasure is valuable when and because it is an appropriate response to a given situation.

The notion of the highest good used to occupy a primary role in ethical theorising, but has largely disappeared from the contemporary landscape. The notion was central to both Aristotle's and Kant's ethical theories, however--a surprising observation given that their approaches to ethics are commonly conceived as being diametrically opposed. The essays in this collection provide a comprehensive treatment of the highest good in Aristotle and Kant and show that, even though there are important differences in terms of content, there are also important similarities in terms of the structural features of Aristotle's and Kant's value theories. By carefully analysing Aristotle's and Kant's theories of the highest good, a team of experts in the field shed light on their respective ethical theories and highlight the richness, complexity, and fruitfulness of the notion of the highest good.

Plato's Philebus contains an intricate difficulty. Plato seems to hold both (a) that all pleasures are processes of becoming, a crucial premise in the argument that no pleasure is good (53c?55c) and (b) that some pleasures contribute in their own right to the goodness of the best life (64c?67b). Since it seems also plausible that only things which are good can contribute to the goodness of the best life in their own right, Plato's view seems to be inconsistent. Interpreters usually reject either (a) or (b). As Plato seems firmly committed to both (a) and (b), I propose a third way of dealing with the inconsistency. The apparent inconsistency highlights a vital contrast between what is independently good (good per se), what is dependently good (good through participating in what is independently good), and what is derivatively good (good through standing in a certain relation to dependent goods). I argue that while pleasure's being a process of becoming marks it out as derivatively good, some kinds of pleasure are also dependent goods in virtue of their objects? irrespective of their being processes of becoming.