The sources of Nicomachean Ethics

1. Homer 6 authority 6 citations

   book 3 · book 6 · book 7 2 passages anchored here · book 8 2 passages anchored here

   Homer is named explicitly as the source backing a factual claim about human desire, functioning as an authority.

   just as Homer has represented Priam as saying of Hector, on account of his surpassing valor— nor seemed to be The son of mortal man, but of a god.

2. Aristotle 1 authority · 3 extended 4 citations · 6 passages

   book 4 2 passages anchored here · book 6 2 passages anchored here · book 8 2 passages anchored here

   The passage explicitly refers back to an earlier part of the same work regarding honor and ambition.

   It appears however that honor also, as was said in the first part of this work, has a certain virtue concerned with it, which may be held to bear the same relation to Greatness of Soul that Liberality bears to Magnificence.

3. Euripides 4 neutral 4 citations

   book 3 · book 5 · book 6 · book 8

   The passage cites a specific dramatic work and author as an example, without endorsing or refuting its content, but using it to support the argument that some acts are never truly excusable.

   for instance, we think it ridiculous that Alcmaeon in Euripides’ play is compelled by certain threats to murder his mother!

4. Plato 1 authority · 1 neutral · 1 refuted · 1 extended 4 citations · 19 passages

   book 1 17 passages anchored here · book 2 · book 10

   The passage explicitly names 'the authors of the Theory of Ideas' and 'the Ideal Good' and systematically refutes the doctrine while noting the difficulty of doing so given friendship for its authors.

   But perhaps it is desirable that we should examine the notion of a Universal Good, and review the difficulties that it involves, although such an inquiry goes against the grain because of our friendship for the authors of the Theory of Ideas.

5. Iliad Homer 2 authority 2 citations · 6 passages

   book 3 5 passages anchored here · book 5

   Homer's epic is repeatedly invoked as an authoritative poetic source of illustrative examples, without being argued against.

   This maybe illustrated by the ancient constitutions represented in Homer:

6. extraneous discourses 2 authority 2 citations

   book 1 · book 6

   The passage explicitly invokes 'extraneous discourses' as a source of teaching it adopts on the soul's structure.

   Now on the subject of psychology some of the teaching current in extraneous discourses is satisfactory, and may be adopted here:

7. Aeschylus 1 neutral 1 citation

   book 3

   A specific reported statement/incident attributed to Aeschylus is invoked to illustrate a category of ignorance.

   But a man may be ignorant of (2) what he is doing, as for instance when people say it slipped out while they were speaking, or they were not aware that the matter was a secret, as Aeschylus said of the Mysteries;

8. Hesiod 1 authority 1 citation

   book 1

   The passage explicitly reports Hesiod's words as an authority on wisdom and heeding advice.

   As for the person who neither knows nor can learn, let him hear the words of Hesiod:

9. Philoctetes Sophocles 1 neutral 1 citation · 2 passages

   book 7 2 passages anchored here

   Sophocles' play is cited twice by name as the source of the Neoptolemus example.

   And there are some who fail to abide by their resolves from some other cause than lack of self-restraint, for instance, Neoptolemus in the PhiIoctetes of Sophocles.

Each stands at a single passage. The chapter carries the anchors.

book 1 6 sources

Pythagorean table of opposites · Solon's maxim on judging happiness · doctrine of pleasure's superiority · epic poetry concerning Priam · inscription at Delos · laws of Crete and Sparta

book 2 4 sources

Iliad (elders' words concerning Helen) · Odyssey (advice on steering the ship) · Pythagorean table of opposites (imagery of limited/unlimited) · unspecified saying on anger

book 3 1 source

Doctrine that Courage is Knowledge

book 4 5 sources

Legal prohibitions on vilification · Old and new comic drama · Personal example of Socrates · epic poetry concerning Thetis and Zeus · unspecified saying on money

book 5 6 sources

Doctrine of the Pythagoreans on Reciprocity · Etymology of dikaion/dikast · Etymology of nomisma · Rule of Rhadamanthys · Saying of Bias · Unknown proverb collection

book 6 2 sources

Agathon · doctrine that all virtues are forms of Prudence

book 7 12 sources

Alope · Argument on pleasure and the neutral state · Doctrine that the good man is happy even on the rack · Philoctetes (Theodectes version) · Unknown comedy (satire on lawless states) · Unknown verse on habit and training · Verse on change being sweet · Verse on the persistence of common report · Views of those who deny pleasure is good · doctrine that knowledge cannot be overpowered · verse about the Milesians · verses of Empedocles

book 8 8 sources

Doctrine that like seeks like · Proverb on friends' shared property · Proverb on salt and friendship · Proverbs on similarity · Saying that amity is equality · Sayings on opposition and harmony · Unspecified verse (possibly Homeric or proverbial) · Verse on absence and forgotten friendship

book 9 9 sources

Phoenissae · Poetry (unspecified poetic tradition) · Proverbial saying · Traditional saying on noble deeds · poetic remark on the society of the good · proverbial saying on hospitality · remark on the seamy side of life · traditional proverbs of friendship · unspecified teaching practice report

book 10 6 sources

Motto: Play in order that you may work · Saying on the ass and gold · poetic sayings · sayings of the wise · unspecified sayings/opinion · unspecified view on happiness

The harvest records where a citation is made: the paragraph in the citing book, and the book that paragraph stands in. It does not record which page of this book is meant. Where the citing text names a locus, you will find it in the quotation.

1. The Rights of War and Peace Hugo Grotius 4 authority 4 citations · 6 passages

   chapter xii.: on contracts. 2 passages anchored here · ch. 24 · chapter xx.: on punishments. · ch. 31 2 passages anchored here

   Aristotle's work is named twice and used as governing authority

   The general demand for any thing, as Aristotle has clearly proved, constitutes the true measure of its value, which may be seen particularly from the practice prevailing among barbarous nations of exchanging one thing for another.

2. Institutes of Roman Law Gaius 1 neutral 1 citation

   ch. 121

   Cited once as comparative philosophical authority, distinct from the Rhetoric citation.

   Arist. Eth. v. 7.

3. al-Saʻādah fī falsafat al-akhlāq Miskawayh 1 endorsed 1 citation · 4 passages

   the book of happiness 4 passages anchored here

   Aristotle's ethical book is named and relied upon in four separated paragraphs.

   As for what is proper to man in his own essence, that is his book on ethics, a very great book of many benefits, which teaches how a man acquires an excellent endowment and a praiseworthy disposition from which fine acts and well-pleasing works issue.