NE 1110b 10 and 24-25

Greek Learning Greek
1

Hello everyone,

I am reading Aristotle NE and I am having some trouble analyzing the syntax of two sentences: (i) ἕτερον δ᾽ ἔοικε τὸ δι᾽ ἄγνοιαν πράττειν τοῦ ἀγνοοῦντα and (ii) (αναγκάζειν γὰρ ἔξω ὄντα).

Can anyone provide some help?

thank you in advance.

2

I don’t know the context of either of these, but the first seems straightforward:

i)

ἕτερον δ᾽ ἔοικε τὸ δι᾽ ἄγνοιαν πράττειν τοῦ ἀγνοοῦντα <πράττειν>

The τὸ δι᾽ ἄγνοιαν πράττειν and τὸ ἀγνοοῦντα πράττειν appear (ἔοικε) ἕτερον from each other. ἕτερόν ἐστιν ἑκεῖνον ἐκείνου.

ii)

Without context, I’d assume that he’s talking about ἀναγκάζειν generally, and so ἀνακάζειν <ἐστὶν> ἔξω ὄντα. “ἔξω ὄντα” would mean “existing outside” to me. But it’s hard for me to know without seeing more of the surrounding text.

3

Hey, thank you very much for your reply. Here some context: (i) εἰ δέ τις τὰ ἡδέα καὶ τὰ καλὰ φαίη βίαια
εἶναι (αναγκάζειν γὰρ ἔξω ὄντα), πάντα ἂν εἴη αὐτῷ βίαια· τούτων γὰρ χάριν πάντες πάντα πράττουσιν. (ii)τοῦ δὴ δι᾽ ἄγνοιαν ὁ μὲν ἐν μεταμελείᾳ ἄκων δοκεῖ, ὁ δὲ μὴ μεταμελόμενος, ἐπεὶ ἕτερος, ἔστω οὐχ ἑκών· ἐπεὶ γὰρ διαφέρει, βέλτιον ὄνομα ἔχειν ἴδιον. ἕτερον δ᾽ἔοικε καὶ τὸ δι᾽ ἄγνοιαν πράττειν τοῦ αγνοοῦντα.

I understand more or less the meaning. However, in order to understand better I would like to know in (i) the syntactic function of the participle and the infinitive and in (ii) the syntactic function of “τοῦ”.


thanks

4

A little different from what I had thought then:

εἰ δέ τις τὰ ἡδέα καὶ τὰ καλὰ φαίη βίαια εἶναι (ἀναγκάζειν γὰρ ἔξω ὄντα)…

So ἀναγκάζειν is indirect speech – I think – with ἔξω ὄντα corresponding to the τὰ ἡδέα καὶ τὰ καλὰ, which are the subject of ἀναγκάζειν. This would be basically the same: φαίη τὰ ἡδέα καὶ τὰ καλὰ ἔξω ὄντα ἀναγκάζειν.

the syntactic function of “τοῦ”.

I looked up the further context to find out what Aristotle could be getting on about, and wished that I hadn’t. He is really doing some hair-splitting here – it makes me glad I skipped over my (English language) readings of NE in high school.

However, this one spot that you asked about is clear enough. I tried to bring that out with “ἕτερόν ἐστιν ἑκεῖνον ἐκείνου”. The first ἐκεῖνο, in the sentence would be τὸ δι᾽ ἄγνοιαν πράττειν. The second would be τὸ ἀγνοοῦντα <πράττειν>. That second will have to be genitive, of course. Hence ἕτερόν ἐστιν τὸ δι᾽ ἄγνοιαν πράττειν τοῦ αγνοοῦντα πράττειν.