Being, Aristotle tells us, "is said in many ways ". So are the good and many other fundamental things. Fair enough, but what on earth does this mean? What, to narrow the focus to the basic question, does Aristotle mean by in phrases such as and other constructions where is used in the same sense? While scholars have presented us with an array of different translations for this difficult term, not all of them are compatible and none seem adequate. Yet (...) it is crucial for us to have a precise and accurate understanding of what Aristotle means by this term and the constructions in which it appears if we are to have a clear grasp of many fundamental areas of his philosophy.The main purpose of this essay is to. (shrink)

There is a passage in the Nicomachean Ethics that holds out the promise of giving us a profound insight into Aristotle’s view of the good, A6: 1096a23-29. Unfortunately, the passage - where Aristotle argues, contra Plato, that the good cannot be one thing - has proven remarkably resistant to satisfactory interpretation, defying the efforts of scholars over the last nine decades or so. This essay offers an interpretation which, while attempting both to be true to Aristotle’s text and to avoid (...) the pitfalls of past efforts, shows that he makes a solid case for the claim that goods are irreducibly diverse. It is driven by new theses on several topics: the meaning he attaches to legetai in phrases such as legetai pollacwV, his method for identifying the significance of words, his method for identifying what the good is, and the fundamental manner in which the good is predicated for him. (shrink)