PHIL 603: Aristotle: Selected Works
PHIL 603-DL2: Aristotle: Selected Works: Nicomachean Ethics and Politics
(Spring 2026)
04:30 PM to 05:45 PM MW
Online
Section Information for Spring 2026
This semester PHIL 603 will study two works of Aristotle, namely the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. Taken together, they offer an account of humanity as always simultaneously natural and social, creative and rational, animal and political, emotional and theoretical, cooperative and competitive.
The Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics are presented by Aristotle as parts of the same project: the search for understanding of the nature, potential, and promise of human communities, with respect to how to lead a human life in the best possible ways, whatever those turn out to be. Aristotle frames this project within the wider question of the nature of human good and how it might be pursued.
We will consider Aristotle’s explorations of these questions in their historical context, and also with regard to contemporary applications.
Recent scholarship is bringing to the forefront some important problems within the very fabric of the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, problems that challenge not only Aristotle’s arguments but our approaches to reading them. For example:
- In places Aristotle frames his explorations very hypothetically; in other places the same discussions include what look to be direct and often unwarranted claims.
- Some passages seem to suggest an inclusive and pluralistic notion of who and what is human, while others appear to be exclusory.
- Some arguments seem to establish that the condition of slavery is never just; others seem to suggest that there may be a place for some slavery even in a society that purports to seek justice.
- Some passages seem to feature a pluralistic framework for identifying both human good and the social structures that would enable us to pursue it; others are more limited, without a stated reason for the limitations.
- Some passages suggest that some segments of a population (women, “slavish” people) are unfit for the decision-making that characterizes the ways of life most worth living, ways that will define the society’s laws and institutions; others suggest that all can be educated to make these kinds of decisions.
- And the education involved sounds at times modeled on what would support a particular kind of upper-class Greek male identity; yet elsewhere it seems to admit much more variety.
What are we to make of these apparent discrepancies? Are they real fundamental discrepancies, or can seemingly opposed aspects be reconciled? Do they affect the other parts and features of these (and other) works of Aristotle, so that their flaws and exclusions vitiate the substance of Aristotle’s proposals? Can the other proposals instead be considered in isolation? Must these texts be treated as historical relics fatally flawed by prejudices and areas of ignorance? Or are there other ways we can learn from these texts?
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Course Information from the University Catalog
Credits: 3
Enrollment limited to students with a class of Advanced to Candidacy, Graduate, Junior Plus, Non-Degree or Senior Plus.
Enrollment is limited to Graduate, Non-Degree or Undergraduate level students.
Students in a Non-Degree Undergraduate degree may not enroll.
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
The University Catalog is the authoritative source for information on courses. The Schedule of Classes is the authoritative source for information on classes scheduled for this semester. See the Schedule for the most up-to-date information and see Patriot web to register for classes.