194 ARISTOTLE
an applied science or art. It follows that, in general, a man of practical wisdom is he
who has the ability to deliberate.
Now no one deliberates about things that cannot be other than they are or about
actions that he cannot possibly perform. Since, as we saw, pure science involves demon-
stration, while things whose starting points or first causes can be other than they are do
not admit of demonstration—for such things too and not merely their first causes can all
be other than they are—and since it is impossible to deliberate about what exists by
necessity, we may conclude that practical wisdom is neither a pure science nor an art. It
is not a pure science, because matters of action admit of being other than they are, and it
is not an applied science or art, because action and production are generically different.
What remains, then, is that it is a truthful characteristic of acting rationally in
matters good and bad for man. For production has an end other than itself, but action
does not: good action is itself an end. That is why we think that Pericles* and men
like him have practical wisdom. They have the capacity of seeing what is good for
themselves and for mankind, and these are, we believe, the qualities of men capable
of managing households and states.
This also explains why we call “self-control”sophrosyne:it “preserves” our
“practical wisdom.” What it preserves is the kind of conviction we have described. For
the pleasant and the painful do not destroy and pervert every conviction we hold—not,
for example, our conviction that a triangle has or does not have the sum of its angles
equal to two right angles—but only the convictions we hold concerning how we should
act. In matters of action, the principles or initiating motives are the ends at which our
actions are aimed. But as soon as a man becomes corrupted by pleasure or pain, the goal
no longer appears to him as a motivating principle: he no longer sees that he should
choose and act in every case for the sake of and because of this end. For vice tends to
destroy the principle or initiating motive of action.
Necessarily, then, practical wisdom is a truthful rational characteristic of acting in
matters involving what is good for man. Furthermore, whereas there exists such a thing
as excellence in art, it does not exist in practical wisdom.** Also, in art a man who
makes a mistake voluntarily is preferable to one who makes it involuntarily; but in prac-
tical wisdom, as in every virtue or excellence, such a man is less desirable. Thus it is
clear that practical wisdom is an excellence or virtue and not an art. Since there are two
parts of the soul that contain a rational element, it must be the virtue of one of them,
namely of the part that forms opinions.*** For opinion as well as practical wisdom
deals with things that can be other than they are. However, it is not merely a rational
characteristic or trained ability. An indication that it is something more may be seen in
the fact that a trained ability of that kind can be forgotten, whereas practical wisdom
cannot.- (d) Intelligence:Since pure science or scientific knowledge is a basic convic-
tion concerning universal and necessary truths, and since everything demonstrable and
all pure science begins from fundamental principles (for science proceeds rationally),
the fundamental principle or starting point for scientific knowledge cannot itself be the
351140 b
51015202530*The name of Pericles (ca. 495–429 B.C.) is almost synonymous with the Athenian democracy.
**Because practical wisdom is itself a complete virtue or excellence, while the excellence of art
depends on the goodness or badness of its product.
***“Opinion” here corresponds to the “calculative element” in Chapter 1: both are defined by refer-
ence to contingent facts, those which may be otherwise than they are.