Quotation
Last reviewed:
“It is the mark of an educated person to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits.”
Aristotle · Aristotelianism · Ancient · c. 340 BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that an educated person demands only as much exactness as the subject allows, so ethics will not look like geometry. A competing reading hears a licence to be vague about hard questions, which the passage does not grant: 'for the most part' is still a standard. The remark sits in Nicomachean Ethics I.3, as a warning to students who want mathematical proof in politics. It is not the fake line about entertaining a thought without accepting it.
Did Aristotle really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A close translation of a real Aristotelian sentence. It is often confused with the fake line about entertaining a thought without accepting it, which is not in Aristotle.
Where it comes from
Nicomachean Ethics I.3, 1094b
Approximate date: c. 340 BCE.
How to use it
A dispute about a fair rota at work will not produce a proof like a VAT receipt, and a dispute about the receipt will not be settled by 'that's just my view'. Ask which kind of exactness the question can bear. Using the wrong one is a way of dodging the actual disagreement.
A mindset reading
Precision is a virtue with a range. Too much of it, in the wrong place, is a kind of crudeness, and too little is another. The habit is to name the standard you are applying before you accuse someone of being sloppy or pedantic.
Understand the philosophy
Aristotle is answering the demand that political and ethical arguments be certain. He says they hold 'for the most part', his phrase for what is usual but not exceptionless. Education, here, is knowing which kind of exactness fits a subject. Disappointment at the lack of geometry is a mistake about the subject, not a discovery that ethics is mere opinion.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that an educated person demands only as much exactness as the subject allows, so ethics will not look like geometry. A competing reading hears a licence to be vague about hard questions, which the passage does not grant: 'for the most part' is still a standard. The remark sits in Nicomachean Ethics I.3, as a warning to students who want mathematical proof in politics. It is not the fake line about entertaining a thought without accepting it.
Did Aristotle really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A close translation of a real Aristotelian sentence. It is often confused with the fake line about entertaining a thought without accepting it, which is not in Aristotle.
Which work is it in?
Nicomachean Ethics I.3, 1094b Approximate date: c. 340 BCE.