The Practical Philosophy of Aristotle

Abstract

The article examines the practical philosophy of Aristotle: his ethics and politics. It is established when the term “practical thinking” first appears, what is the difference between practical and theoretical knowledge, on what basis ethics and politics are combined and how they differ as two practical sciences. The ethical works that came down under the name of Aristotle as part of the Aristotelian corpus of writings are characterized in terms of their authenticity, chronology, and book composition. The article describes the history of the issue of three common books in the manuscripts of Nicomachean and Evdemean ethics and provides arguments in favor of solving the question of which ethics they originally belonged to. Definitions of the key provisions of the doctrine and concepts are given: goodness, virtue, conscious choice, middle ground, foundations, reason, intelligence, friendship, happy life.

The second part of the article examines the basic concepts of Aristotle's political teaching: the state and the state system, parts of the state, types of government, political conflicts and coups d'etat, the doctrine of the best state system and the principles of education.