Customer Reviews

Nicomachean Ethics

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I would not hesitate to recommend Irwin's Hackett edition to anyone who wants to undertake the real work of understanding Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics."

The translation & the interpretation underlying it are not perfect. Other translations may in some (even many) cases be based on interpretations I would prefer. So why is Irwin better? Because his is the only version that lets the reader see the nuts and bolts--that is, just how trickily ambiguous Aristotle's text so often is, and just what the translator has done to interpret it and make sense of it. Only with this extra apparatus can a Greekless reader have some confidence in forming his or her own understanding. And even most of us who know Greek are dependent on commentaries and interpretations like Irwin's to force ourselves to confront real issues and possibilities of meaning that we might clumsily miss as we read the Greek.

Since the strength of Irwin's translation is its clearly labelled interpretative moves, I think it is worth considering looking for the out-of-print FIRST edition (ISBN 0915145669). In the first edition, Irwin intrudes his own section headings at the rate of at least ten per Bekker page. These help you know exactly how Irwin is taking the argument (and again, even if you disagree, the value of a translation lies in offering an interpretation that makes some sense). For example, at 1143b6 and following, Irwin's headings say of understanding "It seems to grow naturally..." and then later "...But in fact it requires experience." NO ONE reading the Greek out of context could possibly come up with this contrast, which basically assumes that Aristotle's Greek is misleadingly written (really straining the idea of a result clause, in this instance) in order to make Aristotle make more consistent sense.

Irwin's notes are great. He offers TONS of cross references. It reminds me of a really good study Bible, with zillions of references to other passages packed in along the margins. (In Irwin, these notes are in the back.) Aristotle is a systematic thinker, even if he looks at things from different angles at different times. The kind of comparative reading encouraged by these references is the only way to understand Aristotle.

In short, this is a great edition that lets an English-language reader get into the "laboratory" of interpreting Aristotle. It's not polished, but neither is Aristotle. If you're sentenced to a lengthy jail term, you could take this volume, read and reread it with all Irwin's glossary-essays and cross-refs., and really start to understand how Aristotle thinks. If you were smart, you would end up disagreeing with some of Irwin's translations and interpretations. But it's a tremendous testimony to his interpretative labor that you could disagree in this way. (But if it's a general handle on Aristotle, as opposed to the Ethics, you want, you should really start with Irwin and Fine's Hackett "Selections"--NOT their "Introductory Readings" which deprives you of the glossary-and-notes apparatus really needed to get it.)

After I read Terence's translation, I found it is much better than Ross one. Note and glossary are especially helpful to those cannot read original greek.

I recommend it!

Irwin's translation is extremely readable for any individual and I urge any individual to read "Nicomachean Ethics". It is not necessary to have a formal background in philosophy to read and appreciate the concepts developed by Aristotle in "Nicomachean Ethics". It is in my personal opinion that Aristotle was a remarkably gifted individual whose ideas seem to emanate from a divine truth. I can not imagine any individual with a mind open to new ideas who would not benefit greatly from reading this book; especially, those who require a reaffirmation of their own truth developed through the course of their own life, such as: the concept of genuine happiness and a parallel one could draw with regards to the sanctification of human activity/ human life/ human spirit.

Aristotle's ethics is a theory of excellence so it definitely spoke to me as a individual. He starts with the claim that the end of all human action is happiness and he claims that happiness requires virtue. He goes on to look at several different types of virtues and he believes they can be perfected through practice. One is to practice at finding the golden mean between excess and deficiency. To use an example from Aristotle to illustrate, one is to act courageously, but it is rash to act with too much courage and it is cowardice to not act with enough courage. Therefore, he supports finding the mean in all human action and this is to lead to happiness. Books 8 and 9 give the best treatise on friendship that I have ever found so I recommend those two books above all of the rest. Overall the whole book is worth ones time though. Aristotle's ethics is a simple and a commonsensical approach to ethics so nobody should be put off from reading this book due to its difficulty.

Terence Irwin is to be thanked and congratulated for translating a difficult work by Aristotle and for providing over one hundred pages of notes that helps the student to understand and appreciate Aristotle's classic work on Ethics.

Irwin's notes are thorough and allow a person to study the Ethics without a professor. Most of us, however, need a teacher when it is time to read Aristotle. And a teacher who uses Irwin's translation will be greatly appreciated by students. I become convinced of this each semester since my college Ethics class is centered on Aristotle's Ethics and Irwin makes my job much, much easier.

Here's what I've learned. Why does Aristotle think that the life of pleasure is not the best life?

Pleasure is not the highest good for Aristotle because:
1. Happiness is continuous and pleasure is not (1177 a 20);
2. Pleasure is good and allows us to get back to the hard work of virtue (1175 a 20);
3. The philosopher should learn how to make the hard work of virtue pleaurable (1176 a 1);
4. Pleaure is a limited action of the body but happiness is the unlimited action of the mind (1177 b
25);
5. Pleasure is a tool for happiness, just as money, power, fame, beauty and priviledge (1099 b 1);
6. And happy people know that the best pleasure is found in friendship (1155 a 5).

Next, whether the life of pleasure might be excellent? Yes, since
1. The happy and excellent person can usually figure out the genuine cause of pleasure (1174 a 15);
2. Pleasure is natural and necessary for life (1172 b 10);
3. But there's more to life than amusing oneself all day (1176 b 35). What is there more to life? Making pleasure inferior to friendship, since friends will encourage us to do the hard work of virtue.

Anybody who wants to know more about ethical theory should definitely read Nicomachean Ethics, as well as the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant and Utilitarianism by John Stewart Mill. This is a good translation and part of a good series of books on ethics. The binding is solid and, of course, the work within is great.

Irwin's translation cannot be better. The only failure of the Hacket Edition is the material which is made out --both the cover and the pages are of a very weak stuff. Well, maybe it is just proporcional to the prize...
Anyway, an excellent translation. The notes and commentary are quite useful, too. The "further reading" section at the end may show some Englsih chavinism -there is hardly one item in a language which happens not to be English!

If there is only one book to pass on for continuation, this is the book.
Easy to read, even to me (English is my 4th language), excellent translation.
Quotation from the book:" there are many ways to be wrong and only one way to be correct".
There are so many gems in this book, Aristotle wrote it 2400 years ago, mind blowing when you think about it. ... and how little humans changed.

This book is excellent. Although my ethics professor authorized us to use any translation, this is the one he really recommended. Irwin's notes are robust and very helpful.

I write this to convince anyone who, like me, lived a good chunk of their life without investigating this book, that it's time to get a copy and carve out a few hours. Civilizations have ordered themselves around concepts like the "Golden Mean," that every ethical virtue involves finding a balance between excess and deficiency, or that virtue is an end in itself--one that can only be lived and not merely talked about. I personally like the idea that many of the cultures of the world were tutored by the thinking of the man who wrote: "We are not studying in order to know what virtue is, but to become good, for otherwise there would be no profit in it." (NE 2.2)