Starting with Practical Reason in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics VI 1: About the Object of the Calculative Part of the Soul

This article is about the object of the calculative part of the rational soul, as it is characterized in Nicomachean Ethics VI 1. Lines 1139a6–8 are usually read as claiming that the calculative part deals with the contingent. I argue for another reading of these crucial lines, according to which the calculative part deals more specifically with actions and decisions, which are things whose principles can be otherwise. The difficulty of these lines is partly due to an ambiguity in the notion of “principle,” which can refer both to a moving principle and to a conceptual principle. My reading underlines the role of the agent as a (moving) principle of actions, and hence takes a distinctively practical perspective, based on which I also offer a way of accounting for the coexistence of both necessary and “true for the most part” principles in Aristotelian ethics.