HPhil Seminar: October 24, 2024

The HPhil (History of Philosophy) Research Group of the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon announces the 2024/25 edition of its permanent seminar on the history of philosophy, devoted to the presentation of conferences by renowned specialists while also creating opportunities to emerging scholars, aiming to promote advanced studies in groundbreaking debates and the permanent training of its academic community.

In this session of the seminar, George Karamanolis (University of Vienna) will present a paper, entitled “A Forgotten Aristotelian Ethical Work: The case of Magna Moralia”, (abstract below)

The session will take place on October 24, 2024 at 5 p.m., in the Room C201.J (Room Mattos Romão, Department of Philosophy). Admission is free.

Abstract

The Magna Moralia is one of the three ethical works attributed to Aristotle since the antiquity, next to the Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics. Unlike the last two works however, the Magna Moralia has been largely neglected in modern scholarship. We still do not have a critical edition of the Magna Moralia, no adequate translation into English (or German, French, or Italian), and no good commentary that examines in detail the ethical theory of the Magna Moralia. The need for a new appreciation of this treatise on the basis of a critical edition of the text is one of the clearest in the field of ancient philosophy. The appreciation of the Magna Moralia will greatly improve on the one hand our understanding of the development of Aristotle’s ethics, because it contains interesting differences in ethical doctrine from his other works in ethics. The Magna Moralia is significant on the other hand from a more general philosophical point of view, because it addresses questions concerning the overriding good, which do not turn up in the other ethical works of Aristotle, that is, questions concerning the best action when conflicting ethical courses of action are possible. In my talk I will give an overview of the scholarly debate over the MM, then I will focus on its ethical content, and I will finally address the topic of the virtue of character in the treatise. The MM asks a question that does not occur in the other two ethical works of Aristotle, namely whether the virtues resemble other good things, such as the goods of the body or property (1200a12-14), and gives an interesting answer to it, which I will examine.