Abstract

This article states that practice and action are more important than intellectual knowledge and contemplation. If this thesis were false, one cannot understand why prudence and the prudent person are the supreme virtue and the model of the good life in Aristotle. The initial question is: how should the rationality of desire be understood, or what does reasoned desire mean? This implies two additional issues: what is the practical syllogism, and what is its relationship to correct reason? How are practical reasoning, prudence, and the prudent person related? These questions are analyzed to determine some of the similarities and differences among the practical syllogism, various kinds of practical inferences, and other types of reasoning. This will involve trying to show how developing a character or mode of being, correct reason, and the practical syllogism are related