Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics: Promise of Enrichment, Threat of Destruction

CONCLUSION: Imaginative Construction

In this concluding chapter, I will begin a process of assessing Aristotle’s account of the cognitive component of ethical virtue by giving a new characterization of cognition of value in Aristotle’s ethics, by pointing to some of the strengths of Aristotle’s account, and by pointing to some of the weaknesses of his account. 1 As we have now seen, the central kind of cognition in Aristotle’s ethics is unmediated awareness of the value of particulars. This awareness has different names and types. Aristotle often calls it ‘perception’. By this he means, as we have seen in chapter 2, section 1, awareness of particulars as instances of ends or goods (De Motu 6 700b19–22). Perception of particulars as end or good, as we saw in chapter 6, section 2, is not perception by the special senses (sight, hearing, smell, etc.) but is perception by all the senses of the common sense-objects (unity, number, movement, etc.). Parallel to the common perception of, say, a human being as one or moving is the common perception of a thing, person, or state of affairs of some particular sort as good (or beautiful). When the unmediated awareness of particulars as instances of evaluative universals is least articulate (since such awareness differs in degree of articulation), Aristotle will sometimes call it ‘insight’ (ennoia) 179 CONCLUSION Imaginative Construction as we have seen in chapter 5, sections 2 and 3: [the many] “do not even have an insight into what is beautiful and truly pleasant since they have not had a taste of it” (NE 10.9 1179b15–16). Insight (ennoia) is the unarticulated initial operation of theoretical insight (nous) on particulars that makes Aristotelian induction, the derivation of universals from particulars, possible. At his most technical, Aristotle of course calls unmediated awareness of particulars as instances of ends or goods ‘practical insight’ (phrone\sis). More precisely, unmediated awareness of particulars as instances of ends or goods is a component of practical insight (though Aristotle often speaks imprecisely). Practical insight, he says, is a “true apprehension (hypole\psis) of the end” (NE 6.9 1142b32–33) as we saw in chapter 4, section 3. He also describes it as contemplation (theo\rein), appearance (phainetai), and acquaintance (gno\rizein)—and, of course, as perception (aisthe\sis): “practical insight is of the ultimate of which there is not knowledge but perception” (NE 6.9 1142a26–27). Finally, sometimes Aristotle mentions not perception or insight but our capacity to receive appearances, namely, imagination (phantasia). In some cases our actions are motivated not by a particular perceived as good or beautiful (common perception) but, instead, by a particular that appears to us as good or beautiful. In those cases, appearances take the place of percepts as we saw in chapter 2, section 1, and chapter 6, section 1 (De An. 3.7 431a9–14). In cases of practical insight, of course, one sees a particular as good or beautiful when it is good or beautiful. To be good or beautiful is, as I have argued, to be complete or developed or constitutive of completion or development. Hence, the person with practical insight sees a particular as good or beautiful when it is complete or developed or constitutive of completion or development, and not when it is not. For example, he or she would see food as good that leads to health or fitness—that is, to the development of my body—or at least is not destructive of it. He or she would value people who possess intelligence and character and not just wealth or good birth. I propose that we call this kind of perception an example of ‘imaginative construction’. As we have seen, to see an action as part of a larger whole is to see it as good or beautiful according to Aristotle (chapter 5, section 7). For, as I have argued, for Aristotle, ‘good’ means ‘end’ and ‘beautiful’ means ‘form’, where form is substance (ousia) understood as the principle by virtue of which something is a whole and not a heap or arbitrary collection of parts and end is the principle by virtue of which something is a whole and not a heap or arbitrary collection of parts through time and change (Met. 7.17 1041b11–27). For example, to see rushing forward in 180 CONCLUSION battle as a constituent in the larger, complete action of a successful strategy of...