Leszek Skowronski

This article argues against the popular image of Aristotle as a common-sense philosopher, an image built by opposing him to Plato. In the first part, there is a short survey of ways in which some modern commentators try to ignore passages of Aristotle’s texts which do not fit into supposedly Aristotelian down-to-earth view of human life. The second part presents an example of a philosopher who brings these suppressed fragments to the fore and sees in them the essence of Aristotle’s writings on the human good

The main reason is that the present translation contains serious errors. The most important error concerns the conclusion of the treatise. In the present Polish translation the conclusion contradicts that of the original. The first part of this article explains why the translation is wrong and suggests the reason the mistake was made and the reason that it was not noticed for more than half a century. The second part presents the views of commentators criticising the traditional way of interpreting Aristotle’s text. This kind of interpretation leads to a distortion of meaning of the original and the Polish translation is an example of an extreme case of such distortion