Note 94 — Chapter XXXII · PHILEBUS.
Reading edition
See especially Ethic. Nikom. i. 4, 1096-1097. Aristotle reasons there directly against the Platonic ἰδέα ἀγαθοῦ, but his arguments have full application to the exposition in the Philêbus. He distinguishes pointedly the ethical from the physical point of view. In his discussion of friendship, after touching upon various comparisons of the physiological poets, and of Plato himself repeating them, he says:— τὰ μὲν οὖν φυσικὰ τῶν ἀπορημάτων παραφείσθω· οὐ γὰρ οἰκεῖα τῆς παρούσης σκέψεως· ὅσα δ’ ἐστὶν ἀνθρωπικά καὶ ἀνήκει εἰς τὰ ἤθη καὶ τὰ πάθη, ταῦτ’ ἐπισκεψώμεθα, Ethic. Nikom. viii. 1, 1155, b. 10.
The like contrast is brought out (though less clearly) in the Eudemian Ethics, viii. 1. 1235, a. 30.
He animadverts upon Plato on the same ground in the Ethica Magna, i. 1, 1182, a. 23-30. ὑπὲρ γὰρ τῶν ὄντων καὶ ἀληθείας λέγοντα, οὐκ ἔδει ὑπὲρ ἀρετῆς φράζειν· οὐδὲν γὰρ τούτῳ κἀκείνῳ κοινόν.