AristotleNicomachean Ethics

After all these millennia, this is still the best basic work on explaining the philosophical concepts of how to improve oneself and make the highest possible contributions to the advancement of democratic society in the process. As a classic Greek philosopher, Aristotle leaves plenty of room for the reader to "participate" in the conversation by clearly explaining and offering examples of his lines of thought that can readily be followed with some appropriate focused thought given by the reader to each topic he advances. As with any deeply conceived tome on these matters, a good suggestion is to make and keep some of your own notes, do some exploring on points of interest to you and have your own reference points available to return later and reconsider with more perspective as you travel deeper into the mind of this master philosophical progenitor. Worth every penny — and more. The education is literally — and literarily — priceless.

Irwin (the translator) says in the into that this version is specifically for the serious student, not the person trying to get a general feeling for the work. I would consider myself in between - reading this book on my journey through the great works, but wanting a deeper understanding than a wiki or a short video. I was very satisfied by this volume and got a lot out of the experience.In general, Nicomachean Ethics describes Aristotle's pathway to maximize the happiness/living well/flourishing ("eudaimonia") of an individual. It is a practical exercise where eudaimonia is identified as the ultimate human end based on informal survey. The qualities that maximize eudaimonia are then inductively reasoned back to first principles. These principles include the virtues of character (and the rest of the soul's nonrational parts) and the virtues of the soul's rational parts. Book X wraps the investigation up and transitions into a politics informed through these ethics.The translation itself is 200 pages, along with a 30 page intro, over 100 pages of notes, a dictionary of common terms, and translated excerpts from Aristotle's other works that tangentially connect to this one. I ended up using the dictionary quite a lot. Aristotle is very specific with his choice of words and those words do not translate cleanly from Greek to English (ex: happiness, state, action, virtue, etc). The dictionary helped me sort everything out.Reader be warned: Aristotle is challenging to read, mostly due to the aforementioned vocabulary. This is a trait of Aristotle himself; I am currently working through Reeves' translation of Politics and the challenging prose remains consistent despite the different translator. The Socratic dialogues of Plato were comparatively easy as Plato often repeats himself or rephrases his points in what turns out to be an excellent teaching tool. By contrast, Aristotle's works are lecture notes that spend much of the time breezing through the main points and only making detours to rebut "puzzles" that challenge his argument (likely the results of past conversations of his with students or friends). He will summarize his main points, but it's very useful to track the flow of the arguments on paper to review before the next reading session.

Great book. Provides a lot of background information as well as references and commentary as well as referring to other sections reflecting consistancy in writing.

ON the construction of the book itself- Very good quality, opens and lays flat, nice size for readability

The overall ideas presented throughout the book

Irwin is still my favorite translation, tho the new Penguin is clever. The text is divided up analytically, notes flag significant issues, & it’s got an excellent glossary that helps us Greekless dolts understand the ranges of meaning in the original that don’t match up to English words. (I often consult it when reading other ancient Greek works.). If you’re reading the NE for the first time, I would absolutely recommend this edition.

Exactly what I was looking for and the most reasonably priced for my class.

For amateurs wishing to understand Aristotle's ethics, this edition provides little or no benefit. As a text for philosophy students, this book may be instructive and comprehensive. Having studied Aristotle's rhetoric in college, I'm familiar with his work. As an editor and writer, I offer this critique of the book: 1) The lengthy introduction, while well-meaning as a summary, possesses such poorly written text as to be unreadable to any level of reader. The number of sentences with inactive verbs (specifically "is") reaches such a high level, one cannot believe these pages were written by a college professor. The number of unspecific subjects (such as "there" or "it") follows close behind. Who wrote and/or edited this? 2) While the author qualifies this translation as a) for readers who want accurate details (p. xxxii) and b) where the extensive notes will answer open questions (p. xxxiii), the average person will find more confusion than explanation. This adaptation reads as a convoluted grouping of words. Rarely does any sentence form a complete thought or any paragraph a complete argument. Reading the actual Greek would be easier. Or maybe that's the point. Either way, I was hoping for a lucid translation.