More on Aristotle's Intellectual Virtues.

Personally, I am not happy with any of the standard translations of nous, sophia, and phronesis, especially "prudence" for phronesis. "Wisdom" does not work right for either sophia or phronesis, and I would rather render them theoretical and practical reason respectively. (The principal disadvantage with this choice is that it obscures the fact that Aristotle believes that both are virtues and not faculties, a concept alien to the Greek mind.) Aristotle is obviously correct in observing that there are many experts in the theoretical sciences who should not be trusted to rule other people’s lives let alone their own, so it is particularly inapt to use the word wisdom for the sophia these people display. Aristotle also allows the possibility that some animals display practical reason, so it is also inadvisable to call "wise" those who simply use but have not mastered phron‘sis. These people Aristotle called enkrates, those literally "having the will" to overcome temptation and develop the virtues as opposed to the akrates, those "having no will" to live in the mean and therefore very likely to develop the vices. The truly wise person is the sophron, the one who is at ease with her virtue and one who knows her true purposes and knows the means to attain them. Therefore, I propose that we should call wisdom mature phronesis.

Nous is that human faculty that apprehends fundamental principles, both theoretical and practical. Nous apprehends these truths directly and without demonstration or inference, which is the job of theoretical reason (sophia). The importance that Aristotle gives to nous is seen in this definition of human nature: "Intelligence (nous), above all else, is man" (1178a8). Nous is also used to refer to practical reasoning, and in one passage he states that we love nous in this practical sense more than any other human faculty (1169a3). Aristotle follows Plato in using the metaphor of nous as the "eye of the soul" (1143b13; 1144a30), the mind's eye or the "third eye" that "looks" inward at rational things rather than outward towards sensible objects. One could call it a form of nonsensuous perception.

Sophia is a combination of knowledge of fundamental principles (nous) and knowledge of what follows from those principles (theoria). Sophia is science "in its consummation . . . the science of the things that are valued most highly" (1141a20-1). Aristotle observes that practical reasoning could even be discerned in some animal behavior, but theoretical reasoning is unique to humans and the gods and that is presumably why we should value it more. Aristotle, however, is not consistent on this essential point. While he praises Anaxagoras and Thales for their theoretical achievements, he charges that "their knowledge [was] useless because the good they are seeking is not human" (1141b8-9). Even more troublesome is Aristotle’s statement that sophia will not "make a man happy" (1143b19), and another where it does indeed produce eudaimonia after all (1144a3). The solution to this problem is to preserve Aristotle’s distinction between the intellectual and moral virtues; maintain the essential role of practical reason in their formation; insist, contrary to some indications in Book Ten, that the moral virtues are a necessary condition for eudaimonia; and conclude that sophia alone cannot make humans happy.

Phronesis differs from science (theoria) in that the objects of the latter do not change, whereas phronesis deliberates about things that can be other than they are. Phronesis differs from "art" (techne) because it deals with actions rather than products. ("For production has an end other than itself, but action does not: good action is itself an end" [1140b6-7].) Phronesis gives us the ability to develop virtues that are means "relative to us"; and enables us to determine the right amount, the right means, the right goal, the right time, the right situation, the right person, etc. I would like to call this Aristotle's "contextual pragmatism": "what is suitable is . . . relative to the person, the circumstances, and the object" (1122a25-6). We will find the same contextual pragmatism in Confucius.

Aristotle's distinction between theoretical and practical reason represents a decisive break with Plato, who, at least in the Socrates of the early dialogues, equated theoretical knowledge and virtue. In stark contrast Aristotle observes that while young people gain theoretical wisdom by studying geometry and math, "they apparently do not attain phronesis. The reason is that practical wisdom is concerned with particulars as well (as with universals), and knowledge of particulars comes from experience" (1142a10ff). Later on Aristotle phrases his point with an odd, but effective locution, fusing the particular with the universal (or a telos, to be more precise): phronesis "is concerned with ultimate particulars, since the actions to be performed are ultimate particulars" (1142a23-5). Aristotle adds that there is a nonsensory perception of these ultimate particulars but there is no theoria, presumably because it would be relative and particular to each individual. Later on Aristotle will call this nonsensory perception the "eye of with which [we] can see correctly" (1143b13). As we have already seen that this is the eye of nous, which obviously has taken on a practical function here.

Let us now summarize how practical reason functions in the moral life. First, phronesis allows us to discover the reasons why we must be virtuous. This knowledge then gives the proper motivation for virtue so that it is not a mindless emulation of others’ behavior. In this way the virtues are fully internalized and made truly our own. Second, since any idea of the good life is always going to be rather general, phronesis allows us to determine the proper means to the specific ends of our own lives. (Nancy Sherman argues that in Aristotle’s view of the law phronesis allows us to apply the law to specific cases.) Third, phronesis, as opposed to other intellectual virtues, is attuned to context and aids us in finding our own personal mean between deficient and excessive behavior.