Politics 5300/6376
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Spring 2010
Week
1 19/21 Happiness
2 26/28
de Alvarez
B210/x5344
alvarez@udallas.edu
1094a1 - 1095a13 (1. i-iv); 1095a14 - 1099b8 (1.v-ix).
1099b8 - 1103a10 (1.x-xiii).
3 02/04 Virtues & Vices 1103a14 -1105b19 (2.i-iv); 1105b19- 1109b27 (2.v-ix).
4 09/11 Choice & the Mean 1109b30-1115a5 (3.i-v).
5 16/18 Courage & Temperance
Liberality/Magnanimity
6 23/25
Justice
7 02/04
1115a5-1119b19 (3.vi-xi)
1119b22 - 1125a36 (4.i-iii).
1125b1 – 1128b36 (4.iv-ix)
1129a6 - 1134a16 (5. i-vi).Examination Feb. 25
1134a17-1138b15 (5.vii-xi).
Spring Break
8 16/18
Intellectual Virtues 1138b18-1145a12 (6. i-xiii).
9 23/25
10 30/01 Continence
Bk. 7
11 06/08 Friendship
Bk. 8
12 13/15 Friendship
Bk. 9
13 20/22
14 27/29 Happiness
Bk. 10
15 04/06
This course is a close reading of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the most
complete presentation of his thought on ethics. The relation of ethics to politics is that
ethics is the study of the soul and politics is the treatment or care of the soul. As he says
at the end of the NE, it is insufficient to know about virtue, one must try to have it and
use it, and the formation of the soul is the task of politics. The foundation of politics,
then, is the understanding of the soul and its excellences or virtues.
There will be a midterm and a final.
Text: Nicomachean Ethics. Translation, Glossary, and Introductory Essay by Joe
Sachs. Focus Publishing, R. Pullins Co.: Newburyport, MA, 2002.