Professor Benjamin Morison, “Δόξα and ἐπιστήμη in Aristotle: some implications for ethical thought”
Professor Benjamin Morison, “Δόξα and ἐπιστήμη in Aristotle: some implications for ethical thought”
Abstract: According to Aristotle, one part of our soul grasps scientific truths and can achieve ἐπιστήμη concerning them. A different part knows about practical truths, including truths about morality, and has a different kind of grasp of those truths, a kind of δόξα. Yet according to Aristotle in Posterior Analytics I 33, it is impossible to have ἐπιστήμη and δόξα of the same thing at the same time. So what would he say about propositions which are at once scientific truths belonging to a science and yet are also practically ethically relevant (e.g. that humans are social animals)? Can a virtuous person not have scientific knowledge of such a proposition? And in general, surely someone’s scientific knowledge is available to them to be used in their everyday deliberations? I sketch some Aristotelian answers.
