GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS*
From Martin Ostwald's translation of the Nicomachean Ethics
(Bobbs-Merrill, 1962). Aristotle's key Greek terms, with Ostwald's English
renderings (set in small capitals) and his explanatory notes. Each entry
has its own link — Ostwald's footnotes in the reader point here.
- akōn, akousion (ἄκων, ἀκούσιον): See hekōn.
# - akratēs (ἀκρατής): A morally weak man. See sōphrōn.
# - anisos (ἄνισος): See isos.
# - archē (ἀρχή): In its most concrete sense, beginning or starting point. It designates that which stands at the head or at the beginning, without which everything that follows would not be what it is. Thus, in addition, the term may denote any kind of source, beginning, or foundation: it may describe public office, ruling, or government over a people, the starting point of an argument as well as of a foot race, the basis or foundation of a conviction, which might then become the cause or initiating motive of an action, or the irreducible first principle or fundamental principle of realities apprehended by the intelligence.
# - aretē (ἀρετή): Of fundamental importance in all Greek ethical systems. This term, which is the noun corresponding to the adjectives agathos, 'good,' aristos, 'best,' originally denoted the excellence of a brave or noble warrior; in Homer, aretē is almost a synonym for courage, and agathos generally means 'brave' or 'of noble birth.' This military and aristocratic sense of the word underlies the later usage, although, within the structure of the polis, aretē came to signify 'civic virtue' and moral qualities other than courage which distinguish the outstanding citizen. The full history of the term would involve a history of Greek moral ideas, but it is important to realize that aretē was eventually generalized to denote the functional excellence of any person, animal, or thing. For example, the aretē of a shoemaker is that quality which makes him produce good shoes; in a race horse, it is the quality which will make the horse run to victory; and the aretē of a musical instrument will make it respond well and correctly to the manipulations of the player. In other words, aretē is that quality which enables its possessor to perform his own particular function well. It is against this background that any Greek discussion of the aretē of man as man has to be seen: his aretai or 'virtues' are those qualities which make him function well in relation to his fellow men, that is, the qualities which make him play his part in human society well. This means that the overtone of divine sanction of human morality, which is the cornerstone of any Judaeo-Christian system of ethics, is absent from the Greek. The value of aretē is that it is an end in itself, realized in living human society: there is no promise of a Kingdom of Heaven as the reward for virtuous conduct. The English translation 'virtue' seems too narrow, though often inescapable, and we use, accordingly, excellence, goodness, virtue, or a combination of these, depending on the context.
# - dianoia (διάνοια): thought or understanding. It is used both as the most general term to describe the mind, or a mentality, and in a narrower sense to describe the discursive thinking which is involved in any act of reasoning or understanding.
# - dikaiosynē (δικαιοσύνη): The usual translation is justice. Though Aristotle often uses dikaiosynē in the narrow English sense of 'justice,' he remains ever conscious of the wider connotations of the term: 'justice' is for him the same as 'righteousness,' honesty. It is, in short, the virtue which regulates all proper conduct within society, in the relations of individuals with one another, and to some extent even the proper attitude of an individual toward himself.
# - dynamis (δύναμις): Fundamentally, power, force, strength, ability. But Aristotle uses the word and its derivatives in the very narrow sense of a power which is only inherent in something without as yet manifesting itself. In order to be made manifest, energeia, 'active exercise,' 'activity,' 'actuality,' is needed. For example, a man who knows the art of building possesses the dynamis, capacity or 'potentiality,' of building a house; but this capacity is only something latent in him until he actively exercises it (energeia) by actually building a house. Similarly, the various parts of the soul, the seats, respectively, of nutrition, perception, desire, locomotion, and thought, are called dynameis, 'capacities,' in De Anima II. 3, 414a31, because they exist only potentially until actively exercised. Similarly, too, the technai or 'arts' are regarded as dynameis as long as they are not yet translated into activities. For a full definition of dynamis and its relation to energeia, see Metaphysics Δ. 12, 1019a15-32, and Θ (entire).
# - eidos (εἶδος): Translated as specific form or simply form, eidos is that set of qualities which a scientific definition (logos) analyzes into its constituent parts. Each thing is a composite of matter (hylē) and form (eidos); e.g., a tree is composed of wood, the matter, and "treeness," the specific form without which the matter would remain unintelligible. To analyze this form into its constituent parts (in the case of the tree, having bark, leaves, certain definite proportions, etc.) is to define the tree. Eidos is also the kind or species into which a genos ('genus') is divided.
# - eirōneia (εἰρωνεία): self-depreciation is perhaps the least inaccurate rendering of eirōneia, from which English 'irony' is derived. But the partly humorous, partly malicious connotation of 'irony' is not inherent in the Greek term. Eirōneia is the exact opposite of boastfulness and involves qualities such as understatement, pretending ignorance, mock modesty and the like, but sometimes also has overtones of slyness.
# - eleutheriotēs (ἐλευθεριότης): Frequently translated 'liberality,' because, like the Latin liberalitas, it denotes the quality of a free man as opposed to a slave. However, by the fourth century B.C., the term was so restricted to money matters that it seems advisable to use the more idiomatic generosity in preference to the somewhat antiquated term 'liberality.'
# - energeia (ἐνέργεια): The noun energeia, activity, active exercise, does not occur in Greek literature before Aristotle. The adjective energos, however, is found in the meaning of 'active,' 'at work,' and refers, for example, to men or material in active use, or to fields under active cultivation as opposed to those lying fallow. Aristotle uses the noun and its cognate verb form energein in two ways. (1) In its widest sense, energeia denotes the state of 'being busy' or 'active,' regardless of whether the activity has a palpable result (as it does, for example, in the case of a craftsman) or whether it is self-contained (as, for example, the activity or active exercise of seeing, hearing, etc.). In this sense, energeia has a wider range than either praxis, 'action,' i.e., 'acting' or 'doing something to' another human being, or poiēsis, 'production,' which always results in a product accessible to the senses. (2) In a narrower and more technical sense, energeia ('actuality') is the opposite of dynamis ('potentiality'). But even this technical sense is closely related to the ordinary use of energos mentioned above. See dynamis.
# - enkratēs (ἐγκρατής): A morally strong man. See sōphrōn.
# - epagōgē (ἐπαγωγή): induction. Cf. Topics I. 12, 105a13-16: "Induction is the procedure which leads from particulars to universals, e.g., if the best helmsman and the best charioteer are those who have knowledge, it is true as a general rule that in each particular field the best is he who has knowledge."
# - epieikēs (ἐπιεικής): Describes a person whose actions are always seemly, fair, right, equitable, decent, honest and the like. Aristotle seems to use the word as a less precise and less scientific way of saying good. In V. 10 the word and its derivatives also carry the notion of 'equity,' i.e., of those questions of justice and injustice, right and wrong, that cannot be determined by formula, but only by some sense of fair play.
# - epistēmē (ἐπιστήμη): In the strict sense, disinterested, objective, and scientific knowledge, thus also translated as science or pure science, which differs from technē in that it is knowledge for its own sake. Aristotle, however, occasionally uses the term in a loose way for knowledge of any kind, even if that knowledge is a means to an end other than itself.
# - ergon (ἔργον): The literal and most basic meaning is work, both in a functional sense, e.g., the 'work' of a hammer is to drive in nails, and in the concrete sense in which we speak of the 'works' of a poet, sculptor, or craftsman. Accordingly, the term has to be translated differently in different contexts. In using product, we take that word in a slightly wider sense than good English usage permits; for Aristotle also calls, for example, health the ergon of medicine. In other contexts, translations such as function, result, or achievement are more appropriate.
# - eudaimōn (εὐδαίμων): happy, usually in the sense of a happiness attained by man through his own efforts. Cf. makarios.
# - eupraxia (εὐπραξία): One of the key concepts in Aristotle's ethical theory. It is a noun formation of an adverb-verb combination that means not only 'to act well,' good action, but also 'to fare well,' 'to be successful,' 'to be happy.' In other words, as the principal ingredient in the good life, the noun is practically equivalent to 'happiness.'
# - gnōmē (γνώμη): The most common use describes a particular 'insight' or judgment, especially as it is related to matters affecting the conduct of one's life. But the term may denote both a particular judgment and a man's ability to pass good judgments in general, i.e., what we might call his good sense or 'sound understanding.' In addition, a gnōmē is the equivalent of 'maxim,' 'adage.' In VI. 11 Aristotle relates gnōmē to several cognates, such as syngnōmē, 'forgiveness,' 'pardon,' 'sympathetic understanding' (literally 'judgment with' or 'on the side of' another person), and eugnōmōn, 'well-judging' in the sense of 'kindly,' 'well disposed.'
# - hekōn, hekousion (ἑκών, ἑκούσιον): An agent is described as hekōn when he has consented to perform the action he is performing. This consent may range from mere passive acquiescence to intentional and deliberate conduct. Conversely, an akōn is a man who has not given his consent to his action, regardless of whether he acts unconsciously, inadvertently, or even against his own will. The action performed in each case is the neuter hekousion, voluntary action, and akousion, involuntary action.
# - hetairos (ἑταῖρος): With derivative adjective hetairikos, translated as bosom companion, but may also have the more technical meaning of 'member of a hetaireia or club.' Such clubs were political in character toward the end of the fifth century B.C., but when a law, enacted shortly after the restoration of the democracy in 403 B.C., prevented the formation of such clubs for political purposes, they became purely social in character.
# - hexis (ἕξις): characteristic, also trained ability, characteristic condition, characteristic attitude. A noun related to the verb echein, 'to have,' 'hold,' 'hold as a possession,' 'be in a certain condition,' designating a firmly fixed possession of the mind, established by repeated and habitual action. Once attained, it is ever present, at least in a potential form. The Latin interpreters of Greek philosophy rendered the term by habitus, a word which well retains the original relation with habēre = echein. Hence 'habit' has often been used as an English equivalent.
# - homonoia (ὁμόνοια): concord, primarily a political concept. Literally, it designates the quality of 'being of the same mind,' 'thinking in harmony.'
# - isos (ἴσος): Isos and anisos are translated as equal and unequal, respectively. But they have a much wider sense than their English equivalents, especially when referring to a share assigned in a distribution; in this sense the terms correspond to fair and unfair.
# - kalokagathia (καλοκαγαθία): For the Greeks, what the ideal of the 'gentleman' is for the British, though the two terms are far from identical in meaning. The noun combines the adjectives kalos and agathos, which express external and internal excellence, respectively. In other words, the term, translated as goodness and nobility, combines qualities of good appearance, good bearing, good manners and the like with moral qualities such as honesty, courage, self-control, etc.
# - koinōnia (κοινωνία): One of the key concepts of Aristotle's social and political thought, and one of his most profound contributions to political philosophy is his definition of the state as a form of koinōnia in Book I of the Politics. Koinōnia is any kind of group whose members are held together by something they have 'in common' with each other, i.e., by some kind of common bond. The size of the group or the nature of the bond is immaterial: at its largest, mankind might be described as a koinōnia, held together by the common bond of humanity; a state is a koinōnia in that it is held together by the common interest of its citizens; similarly, a club, a village, or even as small a unit as the family are spoken of as different kinds of koinōnia. association perhaps comes closest to rendering the concept in English, but it fails to bring out the bond so prominent in the Greek. community, society, human relations, social organism, and partnership are also used in this translation, depending on the context.
# - leitourgia (λειτουργία): A public service, the costs of which are defrayed by a private individual. Such leitourgiai included services such as equipping a warship, training and costuming a tragic or comic chorus, paying the expenses of a sacred embassy sent by the state to consult an oracle, etc.
# - logos (λόγος): Fundamental meaning is speech, statement, in the sense that any speech or statement consists of a coherent and rational arrangement of words. From this derives the wider application of the term to a rational principle or reason underlying a great variety of things. In this sense it may be translated rational account, explanation, argument, treatise, or discussion. Logos is also used in a normative sense, describing the human faculty of reason which comprehends and formulates rational principles and thus guides the conduct of a good and reasonable man.
# - makarios (μακάριος): blessed or supremely happy, to describe god-given happiness. Cf. eudaimōn.
# - megaloprepeia (μεγαλοπρέπεια): magnificence seems to be the closest English equivalent. Literally, the term means 'greatness befitting (an occasion).' This virtue involves the kind of public spirit that was exhibited in Athens by the so-called "liturgies" (see leitourgia), i.e., the financing of dramatic productions, of the equipment of warships, etc.
# - megalopsychia (μεγαλοψυχία): Literally means 'greatness of soul' and was translated into Latin as magnanimitas, from which English 'magnanimity' is derived. However, since the connotations of megalopsychia are much wider than the modern meaning of 'magnanimity,' high-mindedness seems better suited to rendering the pride and confident self-respect inherent in the concept.
# - mousikē (μουσική): Though the concept includes music, it actually encompasses all the artistic and intellectual activities over which the Muses preside. Accordingly, it ranges from the writing and reciting of poetry to dancing, astronomy, etc.
# - pathos (πάθος): In its most rudimentary sense, pathos is the opposite of praxis, 'action,' and denotes anything which befalls a person or which he experiences. In most cases, emotion comes closest to what Aristotle means; but when the connotations of this are too narrow or misleading, affect is used, in Spinoza's sense of affectus.
# - phantasia (φαντασία): A noun derived from phainō, 'bring to light,' 'make appear,' and usually translated imagination. Aristotle defines it in De Anima III. 3, 429a1-2 as "a motion engendered by the exercise of sense perception." In other words, the data assembled by sense perception create a certain image in the mind, which then forms the basis of memory, action, and thought. Inasmuch as sense perception can be true or false, and its survival in the mind more or less accurate, so phantasia may be more or less accurate.
# - philētos (φιλητός): Usually rendered lovable. However, since 'love' is too strong for the noun philia ('friendship,' 'affection'), to which it is related, object worthy of affection is preferred; 'lovable' is used whenever the former seems awkward. Similarly, the verb philein is translated either as 'to feel affection' or as 'to love,' depending on the context.
# - philia (φιλία): Though usually translated friendship, the connotations of the Greek term are wider. Philia describes (1) the human relation that is 'friendship,' (2) the characteristic most conducive to the establishment of friendship, i.e., friendliness, 'amiability,' or (3) sometimes even the emotion underlying friendship, affection. In general, philia is best summed up in the Greek proverb: κοινὰ τὰ τῶν φίλων, "friends hold in common what they have." It designates the relationship between a person and any other person(s) or being(s) which that person regards as peculiarly his own and to which he has a peculiar attachment. This includes the bond holding the members of any association together, regardless of whether the association is the family, the state, a club, a business partnership, or even the business relation between buyer and seller.
# - phronēsis (φρόνησις): Phronēsis and sophia may both be translated as 'wisdom,' and are normally used as synonyms in the dialogues of Plato. But Aristotle, in working toward a more precise terminology, prefers to distinguish them. His usage takes account of the fact that phronēsis tends to imply wisdom in action, and hence a moral intelligence, practical wisdom, while sophia originally indicated technical competence and artistic skill (e.g., in poetry or handicraft), but came to be used for scientific competence and theoretical wisdom (as in philosophia, the 'love of wisdom'). For a detailed discussion of these terms, see VI. 5 and 7.
# - politeia (πολιτεία): An abstract noun, derived from politēs, 'citizen,' itself derivative of polis, 'city-state.' It designates the peculiar bond that unites citizen to citizen to form the state, and, in fact, it is politeia, or the nature of this bond, that gives the state its identity. constitution or political system are perhaps the closest English approximations to this concept. But in addition, Aristotle gives politeia, both in Nic. Eth. VIII. 10 and in Politics III-VI, a normative meaning to describe one of the three good forms of government to which a corrupt form (which is in this sense not a politeia) corresponds. Although the normative sense can often be rendered by 'constitution,' constitutional government shall occasionally have to be substituted for it.
# - politikē (πολιτική): Implicit in the term is the etymological connection with the polis, the 'city-state,' and with the politēs, 'citizen,' who was a free member of the polis. Accordingly, politikē (technē) is the science of the city-state and its members, not merely in our narrow sense of politics or political wisdom, but also in the sense that the polis, according to Plato and Aristotle, is the only form of civilized human existence. Thus the term polis also covers our concept 'society' (for which the Greeks had no independent word), and politikē is the science of society as well as the science of the state.
# - proairesis (προαίρεσις): choice, or moral choice, one of the key terms in Aristotle's ethical system. The word is a compound of pro- 'before,' and hairesis, 'a taking,' 'a choosing,' and thus literally means 'a choosing ahead,' 'preference.' Accordingly, the noun describes the act of making up one's mind as a result of deliberation prior to undertaking a particular course of action. See III. 2.
# - sophia (σοφία): See phronēsis. Aristotle understands by sophia the highest intellectual, and especially philosophical, excellence of which the human mind is capable, and which is the result of studying nature for its own sake; in this sense it is translated theoretical wisdom. In a more current and general sense, it is simply equivalent to our wisdom.
# - sōphrōn (σώφρων): A sōphrōn is a person aware of his limitations in a positive as well as a negative sense: he knows what his abilities and nature do and do not permit him to do. He is a self-controlled man in the sense that he will never want to do what he knows he cannot or should not. Aristotle differentiates him from the enkratēs, a man who also knows what his abilities and nature permit and do not permit, but who, though feeling drawn to what he cannot or should not do, has the moral fiber to resist temptation and follow the voice of reason instead. (His opposite, the akratēs, or 'morally weak man,' succumbs to temptation.) These terms refer not only to different virtues, but also to essentially different types of personality. A sōphrōn is well-balanced through and through; he gives the impression of self-control without effort or strain. The enkratēs, on the other hand, has an intense and passionate nature which he is, indeed, strong enough to control, but not without a struggle. He is 'morally strong' in his victory; the sōphrōn, on the other hand, is not even tempted.
# - sōphrosynē (σωφροσύνη): Literally translated, means 'soundness of mind,' and describes the full knowledge of one's limitations in a positive as well as negative sense: the sōphrōn, who possesses this virtue, knows what he is capable of as well as what he is incapable of doing. 'Temperance,' which is often used to translate this concept, is entirely negative, and is nowadays almost exclusively applied to abstention from alcoholic beverages, a connotation entirely uncharacteristic of the Greek word; 'moderation,' too, has largely negative connotations and has, in addition, a flabbiness that is alien to the Greek term. Though self-control is also more negative than positive in modern usage, if the word is taken more literally than it usually is, i.e., if 'control' is not merely taken as 'restraint' but also as 'mastery,' it comes closer to sōphrosynē than most alternative renderings.
# - spoudaios (σπουδαῖος): Literally, 'serious man,' whom Aristotle frequently invokes for purposes similar to those which make modern laws invoke the "reasonable man." However, Aristotle's stress is less on the reasonableness of a man under particular circumstances than on a person who has a sense of the importance of living his life well and of fulfilling his function in society in accordance with the highest standards. of high moral standard, of great moral value, morally good and similar expressions are the most appropriate English equivalents, depending upon the context.
# - synesis (σύνεσις): Translated understanding, denoting primarily the comprehension of what someone else has said; but it also contains the notion of understanding practical problems.
# - technē (τέχνη): The skill, art, or craft and general know-how, the possession of which enables a person to produce a certain product. The term is used not only to describe, for example, the kind of knowledge which a shoemaker needs to produce shoes, but also to describe the art of a physician which produces health, or the skill of a harpist which produces music. Thus technē as an applied science concerned with production is often contrasted with epistēmē, which is pure scientific knowledge for its own sake. See VI. 4.
# - teleios (τέλειος): The adjective derived from telos, 'end,' 'conclusion.' Its meaning corresponds most closely to Latin perfectum: it means 'final' not only in the sense that an end has been reached and completion attained, but also in that this completion constitutes a perfection which (in Aristotle's language) is the complete actuality of a thing (entelecheia). To render the term in its various contexts, complete, final, and perfect are used.
# - theōrein (θεωρεῖν): The literal meaning of this verb is 'to inspect' or 'to keep one's gaze fixed on.' Aristotle used it to describe that activity of the mind most closely associated with sophia ('theoretical wisdom'), in which the mind contemplates or studies or observes the knowledge of universal truths which it already possesses. See also theōria.
# - theōria (θεωρία): That kind of mental activity in which we engage for its own sake, or rather for the attainment of truth. It is a contemplation of nature in its widest sense, in which man, as a detached spectator, simply investigates and studies things as they are without desiring to change them. Thus, theōria is different, on the one hand, from such practical sciences as ethics and politics, of which the aim is action rather than contemplation, and, on the other hand, from the productive sciences, which aim at the creation of some kind of product. While most translations conventionally render the noun by 'contemplation,' the present translation has preferred theoretical knowledge or study. However, it is difficult to avoid translating the adjective theōrētikos by 'contemplative' when it describes the kind of life which is devoted to theōria.
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* The English terms used in the translation are set off in capital letters in this Glossary.