Workshop in Ancient Philosophy (Thursday - Week 4, TT26)

Abstract: There is no consensus whatsoever concerning how to interpret the so-called “argument for a human function (ergon)” in Nicomachean Ethics I 7, and a number of prominent commentators regard Aristotle’s reasoning as embarrassingly weak. How might we overcome this interpretive impasse? Inspired by Geertz and Wittgenstein, I propose a different methodology according to which the interpretation of Aristotle’s original audience determines the meaning of the passage. Accordingly, after repunctuating and retranslating the text, I offer evidence that Aristotle’s original audience would have heard these lines as part of a Hesiodic tradition of thinking about work (ergon). From within this tradition, the audience would not only have agreed that a human being naturally has an ergon, but would also have understood that this ergon is kalon and that humans are morally obliged to achieve it—for themselves, for their families, and for the political community.

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