Leon de Tinseau - "Ma Cousine Pot Au Feu"

G. A. Henty - "With Moore At Corunna"

Theodor Mommsen - "Römische Geschichte Book 3"

John Nichol - "Thomas Carlyle"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Ethics

A >> Aristotle >> Ethics




And so in respect of the mental states it is requisite not merely that
this should be true which has been already stated, but further that it
should be expressly laid down what Right Reason is, and what is the
definition of it.

[Sidenote: 1139a] Now in our division of the Excellences of the Soul, we
said there were two classes, the Moral and the Intellectual: the former
we have already gone through; and we will now proceed to speak of the
others, premising a few words respecting the Soul itself. It was
stated before, you will remember, that the Soul consists of two parts,
the Rational, and Irrational: we must now make a similar division of the
Rational.

Let it be understood then that there are two parts of the Soul possessed
of Reason; one whereby we realise those existences whose causes cannot
be otherwise than they are, and one whereby we realise those which can
be otherwise than they are (for there must be, answering to things
generically different, generically different parts of the soul naturally
adapted to each, since these parts of the soul possess their knowledge
in virtue of a certain resemblance and appropriateness in themselves to
the objects of which they are percipients); and let us name the
former, "that which is apt to know," the latter, "that which is apt to
calculate" (because deliberating and calculating are the same, and no
one ever deliberates about things which cannot be otherwise than they
are: and so the Calculative will be one part of the Rational faculty of
the soul).

We must discover, then, which is the best state of each of these,
because that will be the Excellence of each; and this again is relative
to the work each has to do.

II

There are in the Soul three functions on which depend moral action and
truth; Sense, Intellect, Appetition, whether vague Desire or definite
Will. Now of these Sense is the originating cause of no moral action, as
is seen from the fact that brutes have Sense but are in no way partakers
of moral action.

[Intellect and Will are thus connected,] what in the Intellectual
operation is Affirmation and Negation that in the Will is Pursuit and
Avoidance, And so, since Moral Virtue is a State apt to exercise Moral
Choice and Moral Choice is Will consequent on deliberation, the Reason
must be true and the Will right, to constitute good Moral Choice, and
what the Reason affirms the Will must pursue. Now this Intellectual
operation and this Truth is what bears upon Moral Action; of course
truth and falsehood than the conclusion such knowledge as he has will be
merely accidental.

IV

[Sidenote:1140a] Let thus much be accepted as a definition of Knowledge.
Matter which may exist otherwise than it actually does in any given case
(commonly called Contingent) is of two kinds, that which is the object
of Making, and that which is the object of Doing; now Making and Doing
are two different things (as we show in the exoteric treatise), and
so that state of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Do, is
distinct from that also conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Make: and
for this reason they are not included one by the other, that is, Doing
is not Making, nor Making Doing. Now as Architecture is an Art, and is
the same as "a certain state of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is
apt to Make," and as there is no Art which is not such a state, nor any
such state which is not an Art, Art, in its strict and proper sense,
must be "a state of mind, conjoined with true Reason, apt to Make."

Now all Art has to do with production, and contrivance, and seeing how
any of those things may be produced which may either be or not be, and
the origination of which rests with the maker and not with the thing
made.

And, so neither things which exist or come into being necessarily, nor
things in the way of nature, come under the province of Art, because
these are self-originating. And since Making and Doing are distinct, Art
must be concerned with the former and not the latter. And in a certain
sense Art and Fortune are concerned with the same things, as, Agathon
says by the way,

"Art Fortune loves, and is of her beloved."

So Art, as has been stated, is "a certain state of mind, apt to Make,
conjoined with true Reason;" its absence, on the contrary, is the same
state conjoined with false Reason, and both are employed upon Contingent
matter.

V

As for Practical Wisdom, we shall ascertain its nature by examining to
what kind of persons we in common language ascribe it.

[Sidenote: 1140b] It is thought then to be the property of the
Practically Wise man to be able to deliberate well respecting what is
good and expedient for himself, not in any definite line, as what is
conducive to health or strength, but what to living well. A proof of
this is that we call men Wise in this or that, when they calculate well
with a view to some good end in a case where there is no definite
rule. And so, in a general way of speaking, the man who is good at
deliberation will be Practically Wise. Now no man deliberates respecting
things which cannot be otherwise than they are, nor such as lie not
within the range of his own action: and so, since Knowledge requires
strict demonstrative reasoning, of which Contingent matter does not
admit (I say Contingent matter, because all matters of deliberation must
be Contingent and deliberation cannot take place with respect to things
which are Necessarily), Practical Wisdom cannot be Knowledge nor Art;
nor the former, because what falls under the province of Doing must be
Contingent; not the latter, because Doing and Making are different in
kind.

It remains then that it must be "a state of mind true, conjoined with
Reason, and apt to Do, having for its object those things which are good
or bad for Man:" because of Making something beyond itself is always the
object, but cannot be of Doing because the very well-doing is in itself
an End.

For this reason we think Pericles and men of that stamp to be
Practically Wise, because they can see what is good for themselves and
for men in general, and we also think those to be such who are skilled
in domestic management or civil government. In fact, this is the reason
why we call the habit of perfected self-mastery by the name which in
Greek it bears, etymologically signifying "that which preserves the
Practical Wisdom:" for what it does preserve is the Notion I have
mentioned, _i.e._ of one's own true interest, For it is not every kind
of Notion which the pleasant and the painful corrupt and pervert, as,
for instance, that "the three angles of every rectilineal triangle are
equal to two right angles," but only those bearing on moral action.

For the Principles of the matters of moral action are the final cause
of them: now to the man who has been corrupted by reason of pleasure or
pain the Principle immediately becomes obscured, nor does he see that it
is his duty to choose and act in each instance with a view to this final
cause and by reason of it: for viciousness has a tendency to destroy the
moral Principle: and so Practical Wisdom must be "a state conjoined with
reason, true, having human good for its object, and apt to do."

Then again Art admits of degrees of excellence, but Practical Wisdom
does not: and in Art he who goes wrong purposely is preferable to him
who does so unwittingly, but not so in respect of Practical Wisdom or
the other Virtues. It plainly is then an Excellence of a certain kind,
and not an Art.

Now as there are two parts of the Soul which have Reason, it must be the
Excellence of the Opinionative [which we called before calculative or
deliberative], because both Opinion and Practical Wisdom are exercised
upon Contingent matter. And further, it is not simply a state conjoined
with Reason, as is proved by the fact that such a state may be forgotten
and so lost while Practical Wisdom cannot.

VI

Now Knowledge is a conception concerning universals and Necessary
matter, and there are of course certain First Principles in all trains
of demonstrative reasoning (that is of all Knowledge because this is
connected with reasoning): that faculty, then, which takes in the first
principles of that which comes under the range of Knowledge, cannot be
either Knowledge, or Art, or Practical Wisdom: not Knowledge, because
what is the object of Knowledge must be derived from demonstrative
reasoning; not either of the other two, because they are exercised upon
Contingent matter only. [Sidenote: 1141a] Nor can it be Science which
takes in these, because the Scientific Man must in some cases depend on
demonstrative Reasoning.

It comes then to this: since the faculties whereby we always attain
truth and are never deceived when dealing with matter Necessary or even
Contingent are Knowledge, Practical Wisdom, Science, and Intuition, and
the faculty which takes in First Principles cannot be any of the three
first; the last, namely Intuition, must be it which performs this
function.

VII

Science is a term we use principally in two meanings: in the first
place, in the Arts we ascribe it to those who carry their arts to the
highest accuracy; Phidias, for instance, we call a Scientific or cunning
sculptor; Polycleitus a Scientific or cunning statuary; meaning, in this
instance, nothing else by Science than an excellence of art: in the
other sense, we think some to be Scientific in a general way, not in any
particular line or in any particular thing, just as Homer says of a man
in his Margites; "Him the Gods made neither a digger of the ground, nor
ploughman, nor in any other way Scientific."

So it is plain that Science must mean the most accurate of all
Knowledge; but if so, then the Scientific man must not merely know the
deductions from the First Principles but be in possession of truth
respecting the First Principles. So that Science must be equivalent
to Intuition and Knowledge; it is, so to speak, Knowledge of the most
precious objects, _with a head on_.

I say of the most precious things, because it is absurd to suppose
[Greek: politikae], or Practical Wisdom, to be the highest, unless it
can be shown that Man is the most excellent of all that exists in the
Universe. Now if "healthy" and "good" are relative terms, differing
when applied to men or to fish, but "white" and "straight" are the same
always, men must allow that the Scientific is the same always, but the
Practically Wise varies: for whatever provides all things well for
itself, to this they would apply the term Practically Wise, and commit
these matters to it; which is the reason, by the way, that they call
some brutes Practically Wise, such that is as plainly have a faculty of
forethought respecting their own subsistence.

And it is quite plain that Science and [Greek: politikae] cannot be
identical: because if men give the name of Science to that faculty which
is employed upon what is expedient for themselves, there will be many
instead of one, because there is not one and the same faculty employed
on the good of all animals collectively, unless in the same sense as you
may say there is one art of healing with respect to all living beings.

[Sidenote: 1141b] If it is urged that man is superior to all other
animals, that makes no difference: for there are many other things more
Godlike in their nature than Man, as, most obviously, the elements of
which the Universe is composed.

It is plain then that Science is the union of Knowledge and Intuition,
and has for its objects those things which are most precious in their
nature. Accordingly, Anexagoras, Thales, and men of that stamp, people
call Scientific, but not Practically Wise because they see them ignorant
of what concerns themselves; and they say that what they know is quite
out of the common run certainly, and wonderful, and hard, and very fine
no doubt, but still useless because they do not seek after what is good
for them as men.

But Practical Wisdom is employed upon human matters, and such as are
objects of deliberation (for we say, that to deliberate well is most
peculiarly the work of the man who possesses this Wisdom), and no man
deliberates about things which cannot be otherwise than they are, nor
about any save those that have some definite End and this End good
resulting from Moral Action; and the man to whom we should give the name
of Good in Counsel, simply and without modification, is he who in the
way of calculation has a capacity for attaining that of practical goods
which is the best for Man. Nor again does Practical Wisdom consist in
a knowledge of general principles only, but it is necessary that one
should know also the particular details, because it is apt to act, and
action is concerned with details: for which reason sometimes men who
have not much knowledge are more practical than others who have; among
others, they who derive all they know from actual experience: suppose a
man to know, for instance, that light meats are easy of digestion and
wholesome, but not what kinds of meat are light, he will not produce a
healthy state; that man will have a much better chance of doing so,
who knows that the flesh of birds is light and wholesome. Since then
Practical Wisdom is apt to act, one ought to have both kinds of
knowledge, or, if only one, the knowledge of details rather than
of Principles. So there will be in respect of Practical Wisdom the
distinction of supreme and subordinate.

VIII

Further: [Greek: politikhae] and Practical Wisdom are the same mental
state, but the point of view is not the same.

Of Practical Wisdom exerted upon a community that which I would call
the Supreme is the faculty of Legislation; the subordinate, which is
concerned with the details, generally has the common name [Greek:
politikhae], and its functions are Action and Deliberation (for the
particular enactment is a matter of action, being the ultimate issue of
this branch of Practical Wisdom, and therefore people commonly say, that
these men alone are really engaged in government, because they alone
act, filling the same place relatively to legislators, that workmen do
to a master).

Again, that is thought to be Practical Wisdom in the most proper sense
which has for its object the interest of the Individual: and this
usually appropriates the common name: the others are called respectively
Domestic Management, Legislation, Executive Government divided into two
branches, Deliberative and Judicial. Now of course, knowledge for
one's self is one kind of knowledge, but it admits of many shades of
difference: and it is a common notion that the man [Sidenote:1142a] who
knows and busies himself about his own concerns merely is the man of
Practical Wisdom, while they who extend their solicitude to society at
large are considered meddlesome.

Euripides has thus embodied this sentiment; "How," says one of his
Characters, "How foolish am I, who whereas I might have shared equally,
idly numbered among the multitude of the army ... for them that are busy
and meddlesome [Jove hates]," because the generality of mankind seek
their own good and hold that this is their proper business. It is then
from this opinion that the notion has arisen that such men are the
Practically-Wise. And yet it is just possible that the good of the
individual cannot be secured independently of connection with a family
or a community. And again, how a man should manage his own affairs is
sometimes not quite plain, and must be made a matter of inquiry.

A corroboration of what I have said is the fact, that the young come to
be geometricians, and mathematicians, and Scientific in such matters,
but it is not thought that a young man can come to be possessed of
Practical Wisdom: now the reason is, that this Wisdom has for its object
particular facts, which come to be known from experience, which a young
man has not because it is produced only by length of time.

By the way, a person might also inquire why a boy may be made a
mathematician but not Scientific or a natural philosopher. Is not this
the reason? that mathematics are taken in by the process of abstraction,
but the principles of Science and natural philosophy must be gained by
experiment; and the latter young men talk of but do not realise, while
the nature of the former is plain and clear.

Again, in matter of practice, error attaches either to the general rule,
in the process of deliberation, or to the particular fact: for instance,
this would be a general rule, "All water of a certain gravity is bad;"
the particular fact, "this water is of that gravity."

And that Practical Wisdom is not knowledge is plain, for it has to do
with the ultimate issue, as has been said, because every object of
action is of this nature.

To Intuition it is opposed, for this takes in those principles which
cannot be proved by reasoning, while Practical Wisdom is concerned with
the ultimate particular fact which cannot be realised by Knowledge but
by Sense; I do not mean one of the five senses, but the same by which
we take in the mathematical fact, that no rectilineal figure can be
contained by less than three lines, i.e. that a triangle is the ultimate
figure, because here also is a stopping point.

This however is Sense rather than Practical Wisdom, which is of another
kind.

IX

Now the acts of inquiring and deliberating differ, though deliberating
is a kind of inquiring. We ought to ascertain about Good Counsel
likewise what it is, whether a kind of Knowledge, or Opinion, or Happy
Conjecture, or some other kind of faculty. Knowledge it obviously is
not, because men do not inquire about what they know, and Good Counsel
is a kind of deliberation, and the man who is deliberating is inquiring
and calculating. [Sidenote:1142b]

Neither is it Happy Conjecture; because this is independent of
reasoning, and a rapid operation; but men deliberate a long time, and
it is a common saying that one should execute speedily what has been
resolved upon in deliberation, but deliberate slowly.

Quick perception of causes again is a different faculty from good
counsel, for it is a species of Happy Conjecture. Nor is Good Counsel
Opinion of any kind.

Well then, since he who deliberates ill goes wrong, and he who
deliberates well does so rightly, it is clear that Good Counsel is
rightness of some kind, but not of Knowledge nor of Opinion: for
Knowledge cannot be called right because it cannot be wrong, and
Rightness of Opinion is Truth: and again, all which is the object of
opinion is definitely marked out.

Still, however, Good Counsel is not independent of Reason, Does it
remain then that it is a rightness of Intellectual Operation simply,
because this does not amount to an assertion; and the objection to
Opinion was that it is not a process of inquiry but already a definite
assertion; whereas whosoever deliberates, whether well or ill, is
engaged in inquiry and calculation.

Well, Good Counsel is a Rightness of deliberation, and so the first
question must regard the nature and objects of deliberation. Now
remember Rightness is an equivocal term; we plainly do not mean
Rightness of any kind whatever; the [Greek: akrataes], for instance, or
the bad man, will obtain by his calculation what he sets before him as
an object, and so he may be said to have deliberated _rightly_ in one
sense, but will have attained a great evil. Whereas to have deliberated
well is thought to be a good, because Good Counsel is Rightness of
deliberation of such a nature as is apt to attain good.

But even this again you may get by false reasoning, and hit upon the
right effect though not through right means, your middle term being
fallacious: and so neither will this be yet Good Counsel in consequence
of which you get what you ought but not through proper means.

Again, one man may hit on a thing after long deliberation, another
quickly. And so that before described will not be yet Good Counsel, but
the Rightness must be with reference to what is expedient; and you must
have a proper end in view, pursue it in a right manner and right time.

Once more. One may deliberate well either generally or towards some
particular End. Good counsel in the general then is that which goes
right towards that which is the End in a general way of consideration;
in particular, that which does so towards some particular End.

Since then deliberating well is a quality of men possessed of Practical
Wisdom, Good Counsel must be "Rightness in respect of what conduces to a
given End, of which Practical Wisdom is the true conception." [Sidenote:
X 1143_a_] There is too the faculty of Judiciousness, and also its
absence, in virtue of which we call men Judicious or the contrary.

Now Judiciousness is neither entirely identical with Knowledge or
Opinion (for then all would have been Judicious), nor is it any one
specific science, as medical science whose object matter is things
wholesome; or geometry whose object matter is magnitude: for it has not
for its object things which always exist and are immutable, nor of those
things which come into being just any which may chance; but those in
respect of which a man might doubt and deliberate.

And so it has the same object matter as Practical Wisdom; yet the two
faculties are not identical, because Practical Wisdom has the capacity
for commanding and taking the initiative, for its End is "what one
should do or not do:" but Judiciousness is only apt to decide upon
suggestions (though we do in Greek put "well" on to the faculty and its
concrete noun, these really mean exactly the same as the plain words),
and Judiciousness is neither the having Practical Wisdom, nor attaining
it: but just as learning is termed [Greek: sunievai] when a man uses
his knowledge, so judiciousness consists in employing the Opinionative
faculty in judging concerning those things which come within the
province of Practical Wisdom, when another enunciates them; and not
judging merely, but judging well (for [Greek: eu] and [Greek: kalos]
mean exactly the same thing). And the Greek name of this faculty is
derived from the use of the term [Greek: suvievai] in learning: [Greek:
mavthaveiv] and [Greek: suvievai] being often used as synonymous.

[Sidenote: XI] The faculty called [Greek: gvomh], in right of which we
call men [Greek: euyvomoves], or say they have [Greek: gvomh], is "the
right judgment of the equitable man." A proof of which is that we most
commonly say that the equitable man has a tendency to make allowance,
and the making allowance in certain cases is equitable. And [Greek:
sungvomae] (the word denoting allowance) is right [Greek: gvomh] having
a capacity of making equitable decisions, By "right" I mean that which
attains the True. Now all these mental states tend to the same object,
as indeed common language leads us to expect: I mean, we speak of
[Greek: gnomae], Judiciousness, Practical Wisdom, and Practical
Intuition, attributing the possession of [Greek: gnomae] and Practical
Intuition to the same Individuals whom we denominate Practically-Wise
and Judicious: because all these faculties are employed upon the
extremes, i.e. on particular details; and in right of his aptitude
for deciding on the matters which come within the province of the
Practically-Wise, a man is Judicious and possessed of good [Greek:
gnomae]; i.e. he is disposed to make allowance, for considerations of
equity are entertained by all good men alike in transactions with their
fellows.

And all matters of Moral Action belong to the class of particulars,
otherwise called extremes: for the man of Practical Wisdom must know
them, and Judiciousness and [Greek: gnomae] are concerned with matters
of Moral Actions, which are extremes.

[Sidenote:1143b] Intuition, moreover, takes in the extremes at both
ends: I mean, the first and last terms must be taken in not by reasoning
but by Intuition [so that Intuition comes to be of two kinds], and that
which belongs to strict demonstrative reasonings takes in immutable,
i.e. Necessary, first terms; while that which is employed in practical
matters takes in the extreme, the Contingent, and the minor Premiss: for
the minor Premisses are the source of the Final Cause, Universals being
made up out of Particulars. To take in these, of course, we must have
Sense, i.e. in other words Practical Intuition. And for this reason
these are thought to be simply gifts of nature; and whereas no man is
thought to be Scientific by nature, men are thought to have [Greek:
gnomae], and Judiciousness, and Practical Intuition: a proof of which is
that we think these faculties are a consequence even of particular ages,
and this given age has Practical Intuition and [Greek: gnomae], we say,
as if under the notion that nature is the cause. And thus Intuition is
both the beginning and end, because the proofs are based upon the one
kind of extremes and concern the other.

And so one should attend to the undemonstrable dicta and opinions of the
skilful, the old and the Practically-Wise, no less than to those which
are based on strict reasoning, because they see aright, having gained
their power of moral vision from experience.

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