Aristotle on Action and Fitting Oneself to the World

Christiana Olfert (Tufts University)

As readers of Aristotle’s ethics know, his theory of practical reasoning holds that the aim, end, or goal of practical reasoning is acting well (eupraxia).  However, in another, less often discussed set of comments, Aristotle also holds that the ergon – the basic function or characteristic activity – of all rational capacities is to be concerned with “the true and the false”; that our capacity for practical reasoning should be classified as a doxastic capacity, that is, a capacity for forming beliefs; that practical wisdom (phronêsis) is a rational state in which we grasp the truth; and that what makes practical reasoning distinct from other kinds of reasoning is its concern for a special kind of truth, namely, “practical truth.”  So we might wonder: What is the relationship between practical reason's concern for the truth and its aim of acting well, on an Aristotelian picture?  I will argue that the answer lies, in part, in a provocative Aristotelian account of rational action, according to which rational actions are attempts to fit ourselves and our activities to the world.