Yet, I tell them, why scare before reading it?
In my opinion the fundamental problem is that those who attended high school as a boy, had to face the study of the Latin and Greek classics against his will and perhaps the professor failed to drag them into the discovery of the texts of our past! I didn't have to face this problem having studied with geometers. I have always read so much and everything, from comics to novels to go to physics and science texts in general up to history books and sacred texts of the religions of the world. For several years I have stopped reading novels, or at least I do it ever more rarely, to devote all the time available to the study of classical and ancient texts and I do not find anything heavy also because I do it out of curiosity, certainly not to give the yet another examination of my life! I do it to research what I have not yet found. Mine is a journey of inner research, let's say.Ethomica Nicomachea.
What does the title mean?
First question to be answered.
So I flip through the first pages of the text, on the subway, while I go back home and discover that there are three versions of Aristotle's ethics. The Great Ethics, the Ethics Eudemia (that is disclosed by Eudemus of Rhodes, disciple of Aristotle) and the Nicomachean Ethics (that is disclosed by Nicomachus, son of Aristotle).
Of the Great Ethics it seems that we do not know much and not all agree on its authenticity. We have therefore answered the first question ie the meaning of the title.
But are we sure?
And if I asked you what "Ethics" means? Probably many know it. Others believe they know it but then faced with the dry question they try to articulate an unlikely answer or they rush to Wikipedia to find the definition. "Ethics (the term derives from the Greek" ethos ", meaning" conduct "," character " , "Custom") is that branch of philosophy that studies the objective and rational foundations that allow us to distinguish human behaviors into good, just, or morally licit, with respect to behaviors considered bad or morally inappropriate.You can also define ethics as the search for one or more criteria that allow the individual to adequately manage his own freedom, it is also a rational consideration, of the limits within which human freedom can be extended, often also called moral philosophy, in other words, it has as an object the moral values that determine the behavior of man. "So, taking good the definition of Wikipedia, we now know what ethics is. Now, finally, we can say we answered the first question.
Or maybe something is still missing?
On reflection, I realize that I am making a mistake. To make you understand what the mistake is, I have to tell you what happened to me long ago. While I was reading a passage from Ovid's Metamorphoses, I found a sentence that spoke of "steel bars". Intrigued by the use of a modern term, armed with my very little knowledge of Latin, I approached the original text as a counterpart. The term translated as "steel" was "adamante". Adamas means "not domo" or "indomitable" and was often used to mean very hard or very resistant. In the translation it became "steel".
So here's what's missing, contextualization.
I must try to understand, before going on in reading, what Aristotle meant by "ethics" to avoid referring to the definition of the present day.
Fortunately, the research is quite simple and what Aristotle means by ethics is the same Aristotle who tells us in the first chapter of the text:
"Every art and every scientific research and similarly every action and every purpose seems to have a good as their goal. Therefore the good was rightly defined as that to which everything aims [that is, the end!]. [..] Knowing it has, then great importance for life, and indeed, knowing him, we will not succeed better in what we have to do, like archers who have a sure aim, if this is the case, we must try to understand briefly what it is and what science or faculty be it object: without a doubt of the main and most fundamental science of all: and this is obviously politics: it in fact establishes which sciences must be in the state and which each must learn and to what extent, and we see that even the faculties held in greater account, like military art, economics, rhetoric, are subordinated to it, since it uses other practical sciences and also establishes by law what needs to be done and what things to abstain from, its purpose includes it will give in itself those of the other sciences and will therefore be the human good. Indeed, although the good is the same for the individual and for the State, it is the greatest and most perfect thing to achieve and preserve the good of the State "Going forward in reading it is possible to understand that for Aristotle ethics is the science that studies the good, ethics and politics have the same purpose but ethics studies the good in relation to the individual while politics studies the good in relation to the State. Here we have clarified some of the fundamental concepts on which Aristotle speaks in his Nicomachean Ethics ".
What is therefore difficult?
Nothing, I think. The only problem is that those who want to study ethics must have a lot of experience of life to understand the principles and why it is not very suitable for young people and this is even more true for politics!
Alessandro Rugolo
