Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates

On the "Nicomachean Ethics"

Ronna Burger

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780226080529, 9780226080505
• eBook ISBN: 9780226080543
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What is the good life for a human being? Aristotle's exploration of this question in the Nicomachean Ethics has established it as a founding work of Western philosophy, though its teachings have long puzzled readers and provoked spirited discussion. Adopting a radically new point of view, Ronna Burger deciphers some of the most perplexing conundrums of this influential treatise by approaching it as Aristotle's dialogue with the Platonic Socrates.

Tracing the argument of the Ethics as it emerges through that approach, Burger's careful reading shows how Aristotle represents ethical virtue from the perspective of those devoted to it while standing back to examine its assumptions and implications. 

"This is the best book I have read on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. It is so well crafted that reading it is like reading the Ethics itself, in that it provides an education in ethical matters that does justice to all sides of the issues."—Mary P. Nichols, Baylor University

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I THE HUMAN GOOD
• PART II THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE JUST
• PART III THE RETURN TO THE GOOD
• Appendix 1 Socrates, Plato, Philosophy
• Appendix 2 Virtues and Vices
• Appendix 3 Categories of Justice
• Appendix 4 Classifications of Pleasure
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index