Abstract

E.N. 1. 6 may be divided into three approximately equal paragraphs. The first of these contains four arguments against Academic positions associated with the phrase ‘Idea of the Good’. All these arguments also occur, together with others, in the Eudemian Ethics. The second paragraph consists of the consideration and rejection of an objection to the whole or a part of A, and is new to E.N. The third, also new to E.N., consists of the putting forward and dismissal of two alternative answers to the question ;—answers different, presumably, to that or those rejected in A. My concern is with B. This paragraph is linked with A by the words, ‘a controversy can just be seen in what has been said’. These words, referring back to arguments that appear also in E.E., suggest to me that the objection Aristotle is about to discuss is one that had actually been brought against those arguments, after they had been delivered in their Eudemian or some other earlier form, by an opponent who might have belonged to the Academy, but might equally well have belonged to the Lyceum itself. For ease of exposition, I shall in what follows assume this to be the case, and shall refer to the author of the objection as the Objector. This assumption is not, however, essential to the main argument of this article.