Aristotle's Practical Epistemology

Aristotle's ethical writings are among the most influential in the history of Western thought. Key to these writings is the idea that some people better understand how they should act in order to lead successful lives as part of their communities. Their knowledge is called practical wisdom (phronesis). Some of what Aristotle says suggests that this kind of knowledge is intuitive or unreflective, but at other times it seems abstruse and theoretical. Aristotle's Practical Epistemology presents a novel interpretation of Aristotle's influential account of practical wisdom (phronesis) by situating the topic within his broader theory of ethical knowledge. Interpreters have long struggled to make sense of the disparate features Aristotle seems to attribute to practical wisdom, particularly its role in bringing about individual choices and actions in the domain of ethical action, of theoretical wisdom (sophia) and craft (tekhne). Dhananjay Jagannathan contends that these features can be united when we see that phronesis is a distinctively practical form of understanding.

Chapter 1 - Deflationism about Practical Knowledge
Chapter 2 - Ethical Experience in the Nicomachean Ethics
Chapter 3 - The Nature of the Virtues of Thought
Chapter 4 - Practical Understanding and Ethical Science
Chapter 5 - Knowledge of Practical Universals
Chapter 6 - Political Wisdom

Dhananjay Jagannathan was trained in classics and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin; Balliol College, Oxford; St John's College, Cambridge; and the University of Chicago, where he received his PhD in 2017. He previously taught at Dartmouth College and has been on the faculty of Columbia University since 2017. His articles have appeared in Philosophy & Literature, Apeiron, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, and Ergo. [He is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy, and Director of Graduate Studies of the Classical Studies Program, at Columbia University.]