Nicomachean Ethics

After all these millennia, this is still the best basic work on explaining the philosophical concepts of how to improve oneself and make the highest possible contributions to the advancement of democratic society in the process. As a classic Greek philosopher, Aristotle leaves plenty of room for the reader to "participate" in the conversation by clearly explaining and offering examples of his lines of thought that can readily be followed with some appropriate focused thought given by the reader to each topic he advances. As with any deeply conceived tome on these matters, a good suggestion is to make and keep some of your own notes, do some exploring on points of interest to you and have your own reference points available to return later and reconsider with more perspective as you travel deeper into the mind of this master philosophical progenitor. Worth every penny — and more. The education is literally — and literarily — priceless.

Irwin (the translator) says in the into that this version is specifically for the serious student, not the person trying to get a general feeling for the work. I would consider myself in between - reading this book on my journey through the great works, but wanting a deeper understanding than a wiki or a short video. I was very satisfied by this volume and got a lot out of the experience. In general, Nicomachean Ethics describes Aristotle's pathway to maximize the happiness/living well/flourishing ("eudaimonia") of an individual. It is a practical exercise where eudaimonia is identified as the ultimate human end based on informal survey. The qualities that maximize eudaimonia are then inductively reasoned back to first principles. These principles include the virtues of character (and the rest of the soul's nonrational parts) and the virtues of the soul's rational parts. Book X wraps the investigation up and transitions into a politics informed through these ethics. The translation itself is 200 pages, along with a 30 page intro, over 100 pages of notes, a dictionary of common terms, and translated excerpts from Aristotle's other works that tangentially connect to this one. I ended up using the dictionary quite a lot. Aristotle is very specific with his choice of words and those words do not translate cleanly from Greek to English (ex: happiness, state, action, virtue, etc). The dictionary helped me sort everything out. Reader be warned: Aristotle is challenging to read, mostly due to the aforementioned vocabulary. This is a trait of Aristotle himself; I am currently working through Reeves' translation of Politics and the challenging prose remains consistent despite the different translator. The Socratic dialogues of Plato were comparatively easy as Plato often repeats himself or rephrases his points in what turns out to be an excellent teaching tool. By contrast, Aristotle's works are lecture notes that spend much of the time breezing through the main points and only making detours to rebut "puzzles" that challenge his argument (likely the results of past conversations of his with students or friends). He will summarize his main points, but it's very useful to track the flow of the arguments on paper to review before the next reading session.

Great book. Provides a lot of background information as well as references and commentary as well as referring to other sections reflecting consistancy in writing.

Who is this Aristotle guy anyway?

Title: Nicomachean Ethics, Third Edition. Author: Aristotle. Translated by Terence Irwin. Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis/Cambridge (2019). ISBN: 9781624668166. 444 pages. C. J. Bondi. December 26, 2025. I bought a copy of Nicomachean Ethics because it was on the required reading list for Columbia College’s Core (Contemporary Civilization). I chose Mr. Irwin’s translation because it was listed as a bookstore purchase, thinking it was the translation for this course. That was an error. Mr. Irwin’s translation is sometimes used as a supplement or for other courses. From perplexity.ai: Columbia College’s Core (specifically Contemporary Civilization) uses the Oxford World’s Classics translation of Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, translated by W. D. Ross and revised/edited by Lesley Brown. Core reading lists and recent CC syllabi consistently specify this Ross–Brown Oxford World’s Classics edition as the required text for the curriculum. Mr. Irwin accompanied his translation of Nicomachean Ethics with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary. His Preface relates these features to the intention of clarity, yet keeping the possibility of a deeper reading with the aid of additional interpretation. In this preface he acknowledges the commentaries of Steward and of Gauthier and Joff in benefitting his own translation and the related materials. The Notes section is relatively lengthy – about 150 pages to just under 200 pages for the translation proper. This section includes Mr. Irwin’s commentaries, by book and chapter, and refers to the reader to other works of the era and to other commentaries. This edition is Irwin’s first that includes an appendix with a few of Aristotle’s works as a supplement: portions of On the Soul, Magna Moralia, Endemian Ethics, Politics, and Rhetoric. Finally, he includes a list of further readings on Aristotle; historical background; texts, translations and commentaries; Aristotle’s other ethical works; the Ethics, in general; and a bibliography on the Ethics, broken out by some of its main topics. The translation proper consists of ten books, each divided by up to 14 chapters. The 10 books elaborate on forms of good, the nature of virtue, the importance of will and decision, generosity, justice, virtues of though, the nature of incontinence, friendship, problems relating to friendship, and pleasure. The Notes section is arranged in parallel, so each chapter is expanded upon by Mr. Irwin’s commentary and his references to other sources. The introduction explains that the modern Greek text that is translated is itself derived from an indirect route from Aristotle. Along the way there have been inevitable omissions and errors that require thus, editors and translators to make judgements. The Notes section functions to indicate some of these judgement calls. The aforementioned chapters are an example of these decisions. In turn these chapters are divided into sections that date from nineteenth century editions by Carl Zell and by Immanuel Bekker. The introduction functions as a primer on Aristotle’s life, his approach to ethics in this work, and forms a guide to the ten books. Thus we have a brief biography, an overview of Aristotle’s works, including others dealing with ethics, and an outline of the translation. Here we also read that his method is to identify what it takes to be happy by examining available views on it. Mr. Irwin foretells that political implications play a large role a person’s happiness, since we are both social and political beings. Importantly, for the person interested in a thorough study of Aristotle’s ethics, Nicomachean Ethics exists in relation to others of his works. An important contextual issue indicated is that he diverges from Plato’s approach of using metaphysics to develop ethical ideas. The introduction then moves through the topics as they are sequenced in the book, providing a useful guide: happiness as an ultimate good, virtue of character, voluntary action and responsibility, decision and deliberation, the role of prudence, incontinence, pleasure, and friendship. There is some repetitiousness and lack of clarity in the presentation of this work. Presumably this is because the translation through language, time, and imperfect preservation compels interpretation that is somewhat approximate. It has been a pleasure to have been exposed to Aristotle’s thought process. I provide some examples that provide some flavor of the book. In Book I, about happiness, Aristotle writes about choiceworthiness of pursuits. Here we consider choiceworthiness for itself, or as a means to an end. If chosen for itself, it is a higher good than if as a means. The logic here is that if, as a means to an end, an activity does not rank in its own right, while if good in itself, it is good in its own right and is therefore a better good he summarizes, to say that Moving on toward Book II, that focuses on virtue, he distinguishes between virtue. and success. Virtues are praiseworthy because they depend on voluntary effort. Happiness is more a sort of success, and congratulation or celebration is more appropriate than praise. Celebration is more for achievement than for voluntary effort. Book III focuses on virtue and the related vices. So here we consider the difference between intemperance and cowardice: Intemperance is more voluntary, and more blameworthy than cowardice because it responds to pleasure, not to duress. But we also consider the difference between condition and actions: The condition of cowardice is more voluntary than the condition of intemperance, while the actions of intemperance, due to the absence of duress, are more voluntary than the actions of cowardice. Book IV concerns generosity and other virtues of how one relates to others. Have you ever considered whether it is worse to be wasteful or ungenerous? Here we find that ungenerosity is deficiency in giving, while wastefulness is an excess of giving. Aristotle observes that a wasteful person may change with some guidance, and thus give with greater benefit. But an ungenerous person is uncurable, and becomes more tightfisted with age. In Book V, which deals with justice, we find that the unjust person is an overreacher. Such a person prays for good things that may not actually be good. What we should pray for is what is good without qualification. In some way, justice sums up the other virtues: what we should pray for is what is good not just for one person, but for what is good without qualification. So, the best person is not one who practices virtue only to oneself, but the one who practices virtue in relation to others. This type of justice, then, is the whole, not a part, of virtue, and the injustice contrary to it is the whole, not a part, of vice. Book VI deals with virtues of thought. Here we distinguish between prudence and understanding. Prudence is tied to potential actions and results for the benefit of oneself or of society. Prudence aims at a result, while understanding is only a first step. In Book VII we have a focus on temperance and continence, and their vices, intemperance and incontinence. Suppose one stays up too late to watch a 21-inning baseball game. If committed to watching, that would be intemperance. If just too stuck in the chair to get up and go to bed, that would be an example of incontinence. Intemperance is considered worse, because there is no regret and the person is incorrigible. Incontinence can be corrected with some will power, since there is always regret for the incontinent person. Book VIII concerns friendship. Did you know that there are three kinds of friendship – for oneself, for utility, and for pleasure? Friendships for utility or for pleasure are incomplete types of friendship, though they are similar to friendships with the other person for himself in that the people are pleasant toward each other. Friendships are most enduring when they get the same thing, pleasure for instance, and from the same thing. In contrast, for a lover and beloved, when the beloved’s bloom fades, the friendship may also. Or they may remain friends if they have similar characteristics. Now, it is possible for bad people to be friends to each other for pleasure or utility, for decent people to be friends to base people, and for someone with neither character to be a friend to someone with any character. But only good people can be friends to each other because of the other person himself, since bad people get no enjoyment in one another if they get no benefit in terms of either pleasure or utility. Book X focuses on pleasure. Pleasure is important in the education of children because we use it and pain as incentives toward proper behavior. Some say pleasure is bad because it can lead to bad results; others say it is good. But in evaluating pleasure it is important to make distinctions between what will improve our lives and what will damage it. This edition calls for a careful reading, probably one more thorough than I was prepared to give it. There are other additions, as mentioned at the top, and also within this edition.

Irwin is still my favorite translation, tho the new Penguin is clever. The text is divided up analytically, notes flag significant issues, & it’s got an excellent glossary that helps us Greekless dolts understand the ranges of meaning in the original that don’t match up to English words. (I often consult it when reading other ancient Greek works.). If you’re reading the NE for the first time, I would absolutely recommend this edition.

ON the construction of the book itself- Very good quality, opens and lays flat, nice size for readability

The overall ideas presented throughout the book

La traduction en anglais d'Irwin est solide, mais son commentaire est loin d'égaler en richesse et profondeur celui de Gauthier et Jolif en français, ou même celui de Bodeus dans le format poche de Garnier-Flammarion.

correcto

Found this rare book on Amazon. And it arrived in good time