Aristotle's Ethical Works: Magna Moralia, Eudemian Ethics, Nicomachean Ethics: Volume II Notes

Terence Irwin examines Aristotle's three ethical works-the Magna Moralia, the Eudemian Ethics, and the Nicomachean Ethics. This book is the first in English to study all three texts in detail and compare them systematically. Aristotle's Ethical Works argues that we can trace a development in his thought by analysing these texts.

The main elements of Aristotle's moral philosophy are shown to be common to all three works, but their exposition and defence become clearer and more convincing in his later discussions. While the Nicomachean Ethics is the clearest account of Aristotle's ethics, we can understand its position better by seeing how Aristotle arrived at it.

Volume I contains the Greek text with a facing English translation. Volume II contains detailed notes on the text. Volume III contains essays on literary, historical, and philosophical questions abut the three ethical works.

The essays can be understood without knowledge of Greek. Some of the notes refer to details of the Greek text, but the main exposition and discussion are accessible to readers without Greek. The Notes are keyed to lemmata in English, and Greek terms used in the Notes are all transliterated.

This is the first English commentary on the Greek text of the Eudemian Ethics and Magna Moralia, as well as the first work in English to examine in detail the questions about the authorship of the Magna Moralia. The conclusion, that this is Aristotle's first work on ethics, is defended throughout the Notes and Essays. The Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics also provide the first English commentary on the Greek text for over a century.

The notes help the reader to understand and appreciate Aristotle's moral philosophy. They examine the text paragraph by paragraph, in order to discuss the philosophical content of each of the three works, and to compare their views. They aim at an accurate detailed interpretation that will be a sound basis for philosophical judgments. With this aim in view, the notes also discuss questions of translation and interpretation, examining the syntax and structure of Aristotle's complex sentences.