What Does Aristotle Mean In Chapter 1

Aristotle begins Book II chapter 1 by saying, “Virtues arise in us neither by nature nor against nature. Rather, we are by nature able to acquire them, and we are completed through habit” (page 18). If we activate and experience an activity we will began to learn that activity by practicing it over and over. As we said in our notes, we can acquire these by habit, training, repetition and practice. Aristotle then goes on to say, “For we learn a craft by producing the same product that we must produce when we have learned it; we become builders, for instance, by building… brave by doing brave actions” (page 19). I think what Aristotle is trying to say here is that experience is what makes us into something. We cannot become a harpist if we don’t

We want to be somewhere in the middle or in the mean. For the case of brave, we don’t want to be a scared of everything and be a coward or stand up to everything and become rash. If someone was to fall into the deficiency or excess category, doing one brave action doesn’t mean that they now are a brave person. Looking at the example we discussed in class, if someone were to run into a burning house to save someone that only might make them brave on that one account but won’t take them from being a coward or being rash to becoming brave. We would need ask other questions to decide if the person was brave such as were they stupid for running into the house, like if firefighters were just arriving on scene or if they ran into the fire just to get good publicity like if they were running for mayor.

Adding on to this as we also said in class, sometimes the person in the excess or deficiency category might call out the person in the mean category. An example of this I could think of would be someone who thinks they are afraid of nothing such a bully calls out someone for being a coward when that person is the brave person. It can also happen vice versa when a coward calls out the brave person for being to reckless when the coward just doesn’t want to do something because they are afraid