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Nicomachean Ethics in the Context of the Early Academy Discussions: Aristotle, Speusippus and Eudoxus about pleasure






By the beginning of the IV century BC issues of morality are in the focus of the Athenian public. The intensity of the discussion of ethical issues in Plato's Academy is indicated in the titles of his student ’writings. Speusippus, Xenocrates, Heraclides of Pontus, Aristotle published many popular writings on ethical issues. In particular, the works of " On the Pleasure" and " On Justice" were written by all four authors; " On the Friendship", " On the Wealth" by Speusippus, Xenocrates, Aristotle. The ethical writings of Aristotle, fragments of texts of Speusippus, Xenocrates, Eudoxus show that common names does not mean common position: in the middle of the IV century BC Academy started tense debates on a wide range of ethical issues. The report will show that academics proposed and were actively discussing different interpretations of such a significant ethical concept as pleasure.

In this regard, the concept of pleasure by Eudoxus and Speusippus and its criticism by Aristotle in " Nicomachean Ethics" (the first and second treatises " On the Pleasure") will be considered in the report.

According to Aristotle, Eudoxus thought that pleasure is the highest good (Eth. Nic. 1172b9-10, cf.: 1101b27-30). He understood pleasure as a self-sufficient for the purpose of all things, contrasting the suffering. Considering the interest of Eudoxus to medicine and his knowledge of medical traditions, we can assume that he understood suffering as an experience of destroyed proportionality, the loss of balance. According to Eudoxus pleasure is associated with the right proportion, symmetry and balance believing that all living beings naturally seek for restoring the proportions, " are drawn to pleasure." Refuse of Eudoxus from ideas of individual self-sufficient entity meant that good-pleasure is the immanent tendency of all things to proportionality.

Inclusion into interschool debate also reflected the ethical views of Speusippus. First of all, it is a debate about the nature of pleasure: Speusippus criticizes the hedonism of Eudoxus. He believes that for a intelligent and virtuous person pleasure should not be the aim. On the basis of that suffering is evil, it is impossible to conclude that pleasure is good (Eth. Nic. 1153b1-7; 1173a5-28.). True happiness means to achieve the right proportion between pleasure and suffering, that is the absence of shocks, the state of certainty (Eth. Nic. 1173a15-17), tranquility (Clem. Strom. II 133, 4).

In conclusion it will be shown that Aristotelian concept of pleasure is being formed during interschool debates.

 

[15] Giulio Di Basilio

School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Ireland






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