258 Aristotle and his school
In the light of this argumentative situation inEth. Eud. 8. 2 it can be
understood, on the one hand, why Aristotle repeatedly makes concessions
to the champions of a rational way to human success; for this reason he pays
much attention to the part played by ‘intellect’ ($0 3 8 )
in lines 26 – 9 ; he asserts that intellect, reasoning and deliberation ($0
!and<-
), too, go back to God ( 18 – 21 ; 27 ); and he admits that
rational divination, too, ‘uses’ God ( 34 – 7 ). On the other hand, it has now
become clear why Aristotle repeatedly stresses the existence of aneutuchia
which is based neither on reason nor on chance (a 32 , 34 , 39 ,b 4 ), and why
he explains that it is not profitable for the ‘irrationally lucky’ people to use
deliberation (<-
) – on the contrary, they owe their success to the
very fact that their reasoning faculty is disengaged (" ! ).
In this chapter, then, I have tried to solve a problem of textual consistency
both withinEth. Eud. 8. 2 and betweenEth. Eud. 8. 2 andOn Divination in
Sleep. As a result of this interpretation, the concept ofeutuchiahas become
much less isolated from Aristotle’s ethical and theological ideas in general
than used to be assumed. However, a discussion of the implications of the
theory ofEth. Eud. 8. 2 for a possible development in Aristotle’s theology is
beyond the scope of this chapter.^67
Postscript
Since the original publication of this chapter, the Oxford Classical Text of
theEudemian Ethicsedited by Walzer and Mingay has come out ( 1991 ) and
has been incorporated in Woods’ ( 1992 ) revision of his ( 1982 ) commentary
(with discussion of textual problems on 196 – 8 ). Other discussions of this
chapter can be found in Bode ́ ̈us ( 1992 ); Verbeke ( 1985 ); Kenny ( 1992 ); and
Johnson ( 1997 ). None of these publications, however, have led me to change
my interpretation of the text ofEth. Eud. 8. 2 or my overall views on what
Aristotle argues in this chapter.
(^67) [See Bod ́eus ( ̈ 1992 ) 242 – 57 .]