NICOMACHEANETHICS(BOOKVI) 197
his own interests is regarded as a man of practical wisdom, while men whose concern is
politics are looked upon as busybodies. Euripides’ words are in this vein:
How can I be called “wise,” who might have filled a common soldier’s place, free
from all care, sharing an equal lot...? For those who reach too high and are too
active....For people seek their own good and think that this is what they should do. This opinion
has given rise to the view that it is such men who have practical wisdom. And yet, surely
one’s own good cannot exist without household management nor without a political
system. Moreover, the problem of how to manage one’s own affairs properly needs clar-
ification and remains to be examined.
An indication that what we have said is correct is the following common observa-
tion. While young men do indeed become good geometricians and mathematicians and
attain theoretical wisdom in such matters, they apparently do not attain practical wis-
dom. The reason is that practical wisdom is concerned with particulars as well [as with
universals], and knowledge of particulars comes from experience. But a young man has
no experience, for experience is the product of a long time. In fact, one might also raise
the question why it is that a boy may become a mathematician but not a philosopher or
a natural scientist. The answer may be that the objects of mathematics are the result of
abstraction, whereas the fundamental principles of philosophy and natural science come
from experience. Young men can assert philosophical and scientific principles but can
have no genuine convictions about them, whereas there is no obscurity about the essen-
tial definitions in mathematics.
Moreover, in our deliberations error is possible as regards either the universal
principle or the particular fact: we may be unaware either that all heavy water is bad, or
that the particular water we are faced with is heavy.
That practical wisdom is not scientific knowledge is [therefore] evident. As we
stated, it is concerned with ultimate particulars, since the actions to be performed are
ultimate particulars. This means that it is at the opposite pole from intelligence. For
the intelligence grasps limiting terms and definitions that cannot be attained by reason-
ing, while practical wisdom has as its object the ultimate particular fact, of which there
is perception but no scientific knowledge. This perception is not the kind with which
[each of our five senses apprehends] its proper object, but the kind with which we
perceive that in mathematics the triangle is the ultimate figure. For in this direction, too,
we shall have to reach a stop. But this [type of mathematical cognition] is more truly
perception than practical wisdom, and it is different in kind from the other [type of
perception which deals with the objects proper to the various senses].
- Practical Wisdom and Excellence in Deliberation:There is a difference
between investigating and deliberating: to deliberate is to investigate a particular kind
of object. We must also try to grasp what excellence in deliberation is: whether it is
some sort of scientific knowledge, opinion, shrewd guessing, or something generically
different from any of these.
Now, scientific knowledge it is certainly not:* people do not investigate matters
they already know. But good deliberation is a kind of deliberation, and when a person
51015202530*Here, as in most of the following paragraph, Aristotle seems to be taking issue with Plato, who had
identified the two, e.g., in Republic,Book IV, 428b.
1142 b