The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (175 page)

¹
1104
^a
11–27, 1106
^a
26–1107
^a
27.

²
1107
^a
1, Cf. 1103
^b
31, 1114
^b
29.

³
In iii. 6–v. 11.

⁴
1103
^a
3–7.

⁵
1102
^a
26–8.

⁶
An. Post.
71
^a
1.

⁷
Ib.
^b
9–23.

⁸
l. 9.

⁹
1141
^b
14–22.

¹⁰
i. e. as health, as an inner state, produces the activities which we know as constituting health.

¹¹
The other three being the scientific, the calculative, and the desiderative.

¹²
ll. 6–26.

1
      Let us now make a fresh beginning and point out that of moral states to be avoided there are three kinds—vice,
(15)
incontinence, brutishness. The contraries of two of these are evident—one we call virtue, the other continence; to brutishness it would be most fitting to oppose superhuman virtue,
(20)
a heroic and divine kind of nature, as Homer has represented Priam saying of Hector that he was very good,

Therefore if, as they say, men become gods by excess of virtue, of this kind must evidently be the state opposed to the brutish state; for as a brute has no vice or virtue, so neither has a god; his state is higher than virtue,
(25)
and that of a brute is a different kind of state from vice.

Now, since it is rarely that a godlike man is found—to use the epithet of the Spartans, who when they admire any one highly call him a ‘godlike man’—so too the brutish type is rarely found among men; it is found chiefly among barbarians,
(30)
but some brutish qualities are also produced by disease or deformity; and we also call by this evil name those men who go beyond all ordinary standards by reason of vice. Of this kind of disposition, however, we must later make some mention,
²
while we have discussed vice before;
³
we must now discuss incontinence and softness (or effeminacy),
(35)
and continence and endurance; for we must treat each of the two neither as identical with virtue or wickedness, nor as a different genus.
[1145b]
We must, as in all other cases, set the observed facts before us and, after first discussing the difficulties, go on to prove, if possible, the truth of all the common opinions about these affections of the mind, or, failing this, of the greater number and the most authoritative; for if we both refute the objections and leave the common opinions undisturbed,
(5)
we shall have proved the case sufficiently.

Now (1) both continence and endurance are thought to be included among things good and praiseworthy, and both incontinence and softness among things bad and blameworthy; and the same man is thought to be continent and ready to abide by the result of his calculations,
(10)
or incontinent and ready to abandon them. And (2) the incontinent man, knowing that what he does is bad, does it as a result of passion, while the continent man, knowing that his appetites are bad, refuses on account of his rational principle to follow them. (3) The temperate man all men call continent and disposed to endurance,
(15)
while the continent man some maintain to be always temperate but others do not; and some call the self-indulgent man incontinent and the incontinent man self-indulgent indiscriminately while others distinguish them. (4) The man of practical wisdom, they sometimes say, cannot be incontinent, while sometimes they say that some who are practically wise and clever
are
incontinent. Again (5) men are said to be incontinent even with respect to anger, honour, and gain.—These,
(20)
then, are the things that are said.

2
     Now we may ask (1) how a man who judges rightly can behave incontinently. That he should behave so when he has knowledge, some say is impossible; for it would be strange—so Socrates
⁴
thought—if when knowledge was in a man something else could master it and drag it about like a slave.
(25)
For
Socrates
was entirely opposed to the view in question, holding that there is no such thing as incontinence; no one, he said, when he judges acts against what he judges best—people act so only by reason of ignorance. Now this view plainly contradicts the observed facts, and we must inquire about what happens to such a man; if he acts by reason of ignorance, what is the manner of his ignorance? For that the man who behaves incontinently does not,
(30)
before he gets into this state,
think
he ought to act so, is evident. But there are
some
who concede certain of Socrates’ contentions but not others; that nothing is stronger than knowledge they admit, but not that no one acts contrary to what has seemed to him the better course, and therefore they say that the incontinent man has not knowledge when he is mastered by his pleasures, but opinion. But
if
it is opinion and not knowledge,
(35)
if it is not a strong conviction that resists but a weak one, as in men who hesitate, we sympathize with their failure to stand by such convictions against strong appetites; but we do not sympathize with wickedness, nor with any of the other blameworthy states.
[1146a]
Is it then
practical wisdom
whose resistance is mastered?
⁵
That is the strongest of all states. But this is absurd; the same man will be at once practically wise and incontinent, but
no one
would say that it is the part of a practically wise man to do willingly the basest acts. Besides, it has been shown before that the man of practical wisdom is one who will
act
(for he is a man concerned with the individual facts)
⁶
and who has the other virtues.
⁷
(5)

(2) Further, if continence involves having strong and bad appetites,
(10)
the temperate man will not be continent nor the continent man temperate; for a temperate man will have neither excessive nor bad appetites. But the continent man
must
; for if the appetites are good, the state of character that restrains us from following them is bad,
(15)
so that not all continence will be good; while if they are weak and not bad, there is nothing admirable in resisting them, and if they are weak and bad, there is nothing great in resisting these either.

(3) Further, if continence makes a man ready to stand by any and every opinion, it is bad, i. e. if it makes him stand even by a false opinion; and if incontinence makes a man apt to abandon any and
every opinion, there will be a good incontinence, of which Sophocles’ Neoptolemus in the
Philoctetes
⁸
will be an instance; for he is to be praised for not standing by what Odysseus persuaded him to do,
(20)
because he is pained at telling a lie.

(4) Further, the sophistic argument presents a difficulty; the syllogism arising from men’s wish to expose paradoxical results arising from an opponent’s view, in order that they may be admired when they succeed, is one that puts us in a difficulty (for thought is bound fast when it will not rest because the conclusion does not satisfy it,
(25)
and cannot advance because it cannot refute the argument). There is an argument from which it follows that folly coupled with incontinence is virtue; for a man does the opposite of what he judges, owing to incontinence, but judges what is good to be evil and something that he should not do, and in consequence he will do what is good and not what is evil.
(30)

(5) Further, he who on conviction does and pursues and chooses what is pleasant would be thought to be better than one who does so as a result not of calculation but of incontinence; for he is easier to cure since he may be persuaded to change his mind. But to the incontinent man may be applied the proverb ‘when water chokes, what is one to wash it down with?’ If he had been persuaded of the rightness of what he does,
(35)
he would have desisted when he was persuaded to change his mind; but now he acts in spite of his being persuaded of something quite different.
[1146b]

(6) Further, if incontinence and continence are concerned with any and every kind of object, who is it that is incontinent in the unqualified sense? No one has all the forms of incontinence, but we say some people are incontinent without qualification.
(5)

3
     Of some such kind are the difficulties that arise; some of these points must be refuted and the others left in possession of the field; for the solution of the difficulty is the discovery of the truth. (1) We must consider first, then, whether incontinent people act knowingly or not, and in what sense knowingly; then (2) with what sorts of object the incontinent and the continent man may be said to be concerned (i. e. whether with any and every pleasure and pain or with certain determinate kinds),
(10)
and whether the continent man and the man of endurance are the same or different; and similarly with regard to the other matters germane to this inquiry. The starting-point of our investigation is (
a
) the question whether the continent man and the incontinent are differentiated by their objects or by their attitude, i. e.
whether the incontinent man is incontinent simply by being concerned with such and such objects,
(15)
or, instead, by his attitude, or, instead of that, by both these things; (
b
) the second question is whether incontinence and continence are concerned with any and every object or not. The man who is incontinent in the unqualified sense is neither concerned with any and every object, but with precisely those with which the self-indulgent man is concerned,
(20)
nor is he characterized by being simply related to these (for then his state would be the same as self-indulgence), but by being related to them in a certain way. For the one is led on in accordance with his own choice, thinking that he ought always to pursue the present pleasure; while the other does not think so, but yet pursues it.

(1) As for the suggestion that it is true opinion and not knowledge against which we act incontinently, that makes no difference to the argument; for some people when in a state of opinion do not hesitate,
(25)
but think they know exactly. If, then, the notion is that owing to their weak conviction those who have opinion are more likely to act against their judgement than those who know, we answer that there need be no difference between knowledge and opinion in this respect; for some men are no less convinced of what they think than others of what they know; as is shown by the case of Heraclitus.
(30)
But (
a
), since we use the word ‘know’ in two senses (for both the man who has knowledge but is not using it and he who is using it are said to know), it
will
make a difference whether, when a man does what he should not, he has the knowledge but is not exercising it, or
is
exercising it; for the latter seems strange, but not the former.
(35)

(
b
) Further, since there are two kinds of premisses, there is nothing to prevent a man’s having both premisses and acting against his knowledge, provided that he is using only the universal premiss and not the particular; for it is particular acts that have to be done.
[1147a]
And there are also two kinds of universal term; one is predicable of the agent,
(5)
the other of the object; e. g. ‘dry food is good for every man’, and ‘I am a man’, or ‘such and such food is dry’; but whether ‘this food is such and such’, of this the incontinent man either has not or is not exercising the knowledge.
⁹
There will, then, be, firstly, an enormous difference between these manners of knowing, so that to
know in one way when we act incontinently would not seem anything strange, while to know in the other way would be extraordinary.

And further (
c
) the possession of knowledge in another sense than those just named is something that happens to men; for within the case of having knowledge but not using it we see a difference of state,
(10)
admitting of the possibility of having knowledge in a sense and yet not having it, as in the instance of a man asleep, mad, or drunk. But now this is just the condition of men under the influence of passion; for outbursts of anger and sexual appetites and some other such passions,
(15)
it is evident, actually alter our bodily condition, and in some men even produce fits of madness. It is plain, then, that incontinent people must be said to be in a similar condition to men asleep, mad, or drunk. The fact that men use the language that flows from knowledge proves nothing; for even men under the influence of these passions utter scientific proofs and verses of Empedocles,
(20)
and those who have just begun to learn a science can string together its phrases, but do not yet know it; for it has to become part of themselves, and that takes time; so that we must suppose that the use of language by men in an incontinent state means no more than its utterance by actors on the stage.

(
d
) Again, we may also view the cause as follows with reference to the facts of human nature.
(25)
The one opinion is universal, the other is concerned with the particular facts, and here we come to something within the sphere of perception; when a single opinion results from the two, the soul must in one type of case
¹⁰
affirm the conclusion, while in the case of opinions concerned with production it must immediately act (e. g. if ‘everything sweet ought to be tasted’, and ‘this is sweet’, in the sense of being one of the particular sweet things,
(30)
the man who can act and is not prevented must at the same time actually act accordingly). When, then, the universal opinion is present in us forbidding us to taste, and there is also the opinion that ‘everything sweet is pleasant’, and that ‘this is sweet’ (now this is the opinion that is active),
¹¹
and when appetite happens to be present in us, the one opinion bids us avoid the object, but appetite leads us towards it (for it can move each of our bodily parts); so that it turns out that a man behaves incontinently under the influence (in a sense) of a rule and an opinion,
(35)
and of one not contrary in itself, but only incidentally—for the appetite is contrary, not the opinion—to the right rule.
[1147b]
It also follows that this is the reason why the lower animals are not incontinent, viz. because they have no universal judgment but only imagination and memory of particulars.
(5)

The explanation of how the ignorance is dissolved and the incontinent man regains his knowledge, is the same as in the case of the man drunk or asleep and is not particular to this condition; we must go to the students of natural science for it. Now, the last premiss both being an opinion about a perceptible object, and being what determines our actions,
(10)
this a man either has not when he is in the state of passion, or has it in the sense in which having knowledge did not mean knowing but only talking, as a drunken man may mutter the verses of Empedocles.
¹²
And because the last term is not universal nor equally an object of scientific knowledge with the universal term,
(15)
the position that Socrates sought to establish
¹³
actually seems to result; for it is not in the presence of what is thought to be knowledge proper that the affection of incontinence arises (nor is it this that is dragged about’ as a result of the state of passion), but in that of perceptual knowledge.
¹⁴

This must suffice as our answer to the question of action with and without knowledge, and how it is possible to behave incontinently with knowledge.