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The Temporal Structure of Deed in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics






According to Aristotle, every human action belongs either to π ο ί η σ ι ς or to π ρ ἃ ξ ι ς. The first is a creative work in the largest sense of what is made by human while a π ρ ἃ ξ ι ς is a human deed, i.e. all that have done by man. Both kinds of activity suppose some conscious decision but, at the same time, they belong to two different kinds of causalities: final and efficient.

Therefore Aristotle says: “Purpose, then, is the case – not the final but the efficient cause or origin – of action, and the origin of purpose is desire and calculation of means; so that purpose necessarily implies on the one hand the faculty of reason and its exercises, and on the other hand a certain moral character or state of desires; for right action and the contrary kind of action are alike impossible without both reasoning and moral character” [3].

Following this Aristotle’s definition, we can say that a π ο ί η σ ι ς is a kind of activity that is directed at some concrete result. This result originally pre-exists as the ε ἶ δ ο ς, which is the possibility of the result itself. For example, Phidias’ work is an embodiment in the stone of some idea that has existed in Phidias’ mind before its actualization. Therefore, a π ο ί η σ ι ς is none other than a change from the possibility of work to its actuality.

Contrary to this, a π ρ ἃ ξ ι ς belongs to efficient but not to final causality. Defining the nature of π ρ ἃ ξ ι ς, Aristotle says: “ For in making anything you always have an ulterior object in view – what you make is desired not as an end in itself but only as a means to, or a condition of, something else; but what you do is an end in itself, for well-doing or right action is the end, and this is the object of desire” [3].

How we can understand Aristotelian words? We can do it only in a sense that “well-doing” (ε ὑ π ρ α ξ ι α) is not actualization of idea of some “good”. The deed is not anything like to creative activity of the master. To put it differently, a π ο ί η σ ι ς is an activity which is directed at the work as its external ends, while the result of well-doing is a deed itself. The attitude of possibility toward actuality has completely changed here. As we have already said, the work of master exists originally as its own eidetic possibility. The work of master cannot exceed this possibility because it is the same idea of the work. At the same time, as we have seen, the purpose towards to which the deed is directed is a deed itself; it means that there are not any possibilities, which would exist before the deed as an act. In other words the deed is not actualization of any a priory given possibilities. Therefore, we can say that deed as an absolute priority of the actuality over possibility opens the horizon of new and unforeseen possibilities. We face here the future that is uncertain and hopeless. This future cannot be foreseen from the point of any “present”. More, being considering from the “present” the possibilities of this kind are looked as pure impossibilities, as anything that can be never actualized.

The disclosure of unforeseen and non-calculating future we call the event. We deal here with profound temporal paradox that expresses the same nature of event: since the purpose of deed is only a deed itself it means that end of deed is its own beginning. As Aristotle said, only a human being is the beginning of deed; but, on the other hand, the human being as an actor of deed emerges only in the same act of deed. Some temporal uncertainty follows from here: the beginning of deed is given never in any present that would be the beginning of deed; it is given only in the immemorial past of something that already has been the beginning.

 

[4] Stefan Hessbrueggen-Walter

National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russian Federation


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