Knowing and Acting Well: Aristotle on the Acquisition of Virtuous hexeis

• Applicant: Dr. Antonio Ferro
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy ; Theoretical Philosophy
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 519067623

The present project aims to illuminate Aristotle's concept of virtue or excellence (aretê) as well as its application to his epistemology and theory of action. Aristotle characterises virtue as a stable disposition (hexis) to exercise a bodily or psychic capacity in the best possible way. Moreover, he ranks scientific knowledge (epistêmê), intellect (nous) and practical wisdom (phronêsis) among the intellectual virtues and contrasts these with ethical or character virtues such as courage, generosity, temperance, and so on. The former are dispositions of a human subject to exercise their thought or rational soul part in the best way possible. The latter are dispositions of the subject to exercise the non-rational soul part so that they experience pleasure and pain in way appropriate to the specific circumstances of action. The overarching aim of my research project is, therefore, to explore the fruitfulness of the notion of virtue, in order to build a bridge between Aristotle's epistemology and theory of action. Firstly, I set out to address Aristotle's doctrine intellectual learning (dianoêtikê mathêsis) and teaching (didaskalia) in the Posterior Analytics. The focus of this section will be on the acquisition of epistêmê and nous through the methods of deduction and induction. Secondly, I will turn to Aristotle's account of the acquisition of character virtue and phronêsis in the Nicomachean Ethics (books 2 and 6): Aristotle's conception of virtuous action takes into account both the role of habituation (ethos, ethismos) and the role of intellectual learning in the acquisition of deliberative excellence (euboulia). The current readings of the Posterior Analytics as well as the most influential interpretations of the Nicomachean Ethics overlook four structurally similar problems arising in both domains. As I will argue, it is only by drawing a principled analogy between them that one can get to grips with these difficulties. Such an analogy must rest on the notion of virtue as an excellent disposition (hexis). The main output of my research will be a full-length monograph, which will argue that the four aforementioned problems can be effectively dealt with within Aristotle's theory. His solution to these problems relies on a number of conceptual resources: (a) the distinction between natural capacities (dynameis) and acquired dispositions (hexeis), (b) the idea that intellectual learning serves to perfect or complete cognitive capacities into virtuous dispositions, and (c) the distinction between learning and habituation as processes through which intellectual resp. character virtues are acquired.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants