Aristotle
Month 5 of Ted's Humanities List
In December I read two works by Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics and Poetics. I was going to skip Poetics simply because of time constraints, but I sneaked it in on 31 December and I’m glad I did.
Nicomachean Ethics
I read the Adam Beresford translation from Penguin Classics and found it quite readable. I didn’t read the introduction, so I’m not sure what the extensive use of square and curly brackets was all about. Maybe it’s talked about in the introduction.
The book is broken down into ten books and numbered with Roman numerals. At Book II I started taking notes in a notebook and I continued doing that throughout. This is a gamechanger and I’m not sure why I wasn’t doing it before. I’m using a Leuchtturm 1917 notebook and it takes a fountain pen well. You may not know this, but I’m a big fan of fountain pens, so this makes the reading and note-taking experience very enjoyable.
I also augmented my understanding by watching
’s explainer video and then reading his notes on each book. It was very helpful indeed.
I also listened to the episode of In Our Time that covered the Nicomachean Ethics.
I won’t go through all my notes here. That would be tedious, although it would probably help me to understand the book better. I’ll just list a few ideas that jumped out at me.
I was struck by the terms Prudence, Temperance and Justice because they feature in the first degree charge in Freemasonry as the Cardinal Virtues:
Let Prudence direct you, Temperance support you, Fortitude support you and Justice be the guide of all your actions.
This is a piece of masonic ritual that I have delivered many times. (I’m currently the Master of my local Masonic Lodge and I’ve been a member of the craft since 1992)
As I’m reading it in Aristotle, Prudence is an intellectual virtue, while Temperance and Justice are moral virtues. Then we’re told that, according to Plato, the cardinal virtues are:
Wisdom
Courage
Moderation
Justice
To be honest, I got a bit lost trying to work out what the difference is between intellectual and moral virtues, let alone cardinal ones. Does it matter? Maybe.
Friendship
Books VIII and IX cover the topic of friendship and I found it to be the easiest part of the book to read. It was the most interesting part of the book for me and reminded me of how blessed I am to have some real friends in my life, a few of which have been with me for as long as I can remember. I’m reminded that cultivating these friendships is important, lest they fall by the wayside.
“By sharing your life with good people, you get a sort of training in how to be a good person.”
— Theognis
Your relationship with your friends matches your relationship with your own self.
Poetics
I blasted through this in a day to tick the box. I know I’m not supposed to be reading these wonderful works to tick boxes, but even having done that, I still took some things away from the book.
This stood out and reminded me of my first glimpse of what became my worldview of connection to God. It was during a drinking binge in Odessa and I was in that period of fear between the night before and the first drink of the next day. The idea came to me that insanity was freedom. I thank God that those days are behind me now, but that was the beginning of my relationship with what eventually got me sober, and that was my higher power (which I choose to call God). I still believe that true art comes from God and that artists are nothing but channels. To that end, when in a flow state, artists are not ‘in their right mind’, whatever that means.
Yes! I mean it seems pretty obvious, but it’s still a fun idea to think about. It feels almost Tolstoyan, and I say that having just finished War and Peace for the second time.
It was also good to get a definition of Epic and Tragedy. I read a lot of fantasy and I sometimes see discussions about what makes epic fantasy. Tragedy tends to take place over a single day, where Epic can span limitless time.
I have a lot of highlights, so it’s definitely been worth reading and is something I can come back to now that I know what’s in it.
One read is not enough
With both of these books, a first reading is just the pathway to a second and third reading. I learned that from watching
’s videos and reading his articles; he has read Ethics multiple times and it seems that he’s not done with it yet. I think he’s about to read the sequel, Politics on his Substack, so I might very well join that if I can squeeze it in to my reading schedule.Incidentally, I was also relieved to learn a singular read of Dickens is not enough either. I’m reading Bleak House right now and was struggling with it. Then I read on
’s Substack that Dickens rewards multiples passes too. Phew!