A new translation of one of the most important philosophical works of all time
A Penguin Classic
Aristotle’s classic treatise is based on his famous doctrine of the golden mean, which advocates taking the middle course between excess and deficiency. Reacting against Plato’s absolutism, Aristotle insisted that there are no definitive moral standards and that ethical philosophy must be based on human nature and experience.
Treating such topics as moral worth, intellectual virtue, pleasure, friendship, and happiness, The Nicomachean Ethics asks above all: What is the good life, and how can we live it?
Aristotle was born at Stageira, in the dominion of the kings of Macedonia, in 384 BCE. For 20 years he studied at Athens in the Academy of Plato, on whose death in 347 he left, and, sometime later, became tutor of the young Alexander the Great. When Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedonia in 335, Aristotle returned to Athens and established his school and research institute, the Lyceum, to which his great erudition attracted a large number of scholars. After Alexander's death in 323, anti-Macedonian feeling drove Aristotle out of Athens, and he fled to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. His writings, which were of extraordinary range, profoundly affected the whole course of ancient and medieval philosophy, and they are still eagerly studied and debated by philosophers today. Very many of them have survived and among the most famous are the Ethics and the Politics.
View titles by Aristotle
A new translation of one of the most important philosophical works of all time
A Penguin Classic
Aristotle’s classic treatise is based on his famous doctrine of the golden mean, which advocates taking the middle course between excess and deficiency. Reacting against Plato’s absolutism, Aristotle insisted that there are no definitive moral standards and that ethical philosophy must be based on human nature and experience.
Treating such topics as moral worth, intellectual virtue, pleasure, friendship, and happiness, The Nicomachean Ethics asks above all: What is the good life, and how can we live it?
Author
Aristotle was born at Stageira, in the dominion of the kings of Macedonia, in 384 BCE. For 20 years he studied at Athens in the Academy of Plato, on whose death in 347 he left, and, sometime later, became tutor of the young Alexander the Great. When Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedonia in 335, Aristotle returned to Athens and established his school and research institute, the Lyceum, to which his great erudition attracted a large number of scholars. After Alexander's death in 323, anti-Macedonian feeling drove Aristotle out of Athens, and he fled to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. His writings, which were of extraordinary range, profoundly affected the whole course of ancient and medieval philosophy, and they are still eagerly studied and debated by philosophers today. Very many of them have survived and among the most famous are the Ethics and the Politics.
View titles by Aristotle
