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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following intellectual virtues does Aristotle say the incontinent person cannot have, at the beginning of VII.10?

2. With what sort of friendship is VIII.12 concerned?

3. How many things does Aristotle state there are in the soul that govern action and truth?

4. What person does Aristotle claim most notably feels love just in knowing a person, and not in receiving love returned?

5. In what status of life is having good friends considered beautiful by Aristotle in IX.11?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Aristotle state that words concerning feelings and actions are less believable than actions themselves?

2. Why do friendships of utility quickly come about and subsequently dissolve, according to Aristotle?

3. Give an example of something affirmed by knowledge, as that which cannot be otherwise than it is.

4. In what way does Aristotle agree with Socrates concerning knowledge and moral action?

5. Explain the distinction of Aristotle between having goodwill and having friendship that Aristotle points to in IX.5.

6. In what way, for Aristotle, do the pursuits of actions in accord with the virtues that pertain to politics and war differ from those that pertain to contemplation?

7. Why is it that having friends in a time of one's good fortune is, in the philosophy of Aristotle, more beautiful than in other times?

8. Explain Aristotle's distinction between affection and friendship.

9. What is the essential unity that Aristotle claims between knowledge and action in the person possessed of practical judgment?

10. What is the Aristotelian relationship between happiness, the gods, human beings, and animals, as discussed in X.8?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Oftentimes, a true friend is considered to be, in a certain sense, a second self. Compose an essay which considers this claim in the context of Aristotle's examination of friendship. What would it mean for someone to be a second self? How is true friendship related to others? How is friendship related to the self? In what sort of acts does one treat another as though a second self? What characterizes these acts?

Essay Topic 2

Compose an analytical essay which presents a clear thesis on some aspect of justice as Aristotle discusses it in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics. Be sure to answer the following:

-What is justice?

-Why is justice a virtue?

-What is unique about justice as a virtue?

Essay Topic 3

Truly vicious men are rare, though not so rare as truly virtuous men. Most men exist in one or another state of struggle. Examine this struggle, that which is experienced by both the man of self-restraint and the unrestrained man, in regards to the pleasures with which all men are concerned, in a thoughtful and well-organized critical essay. Why are only these two states of character truly states of struggle? How do they confront these struggles? What emotions, feelings, and reactions accompany these struggles? With what do these men struggle? What characterizes the pleasures that are most likely to cause a man to struggle?

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