Φρóvησɩς and instrumentality : the import of Aristotle's book 6 of the Nicomachean ethics today

In book 6 of the Nicomachean Ethics, which contains the most comprehensive account of φÏόνησις (prudence) that has reached us from antiquity, Aristotle makes clear that it concerns a judgment about the calculation of means that are constitutive of acting. Differently put, phronesis involves instrumentality. However, if we survey the prevalent exegetical questions since the reintroduction of the Nicomachean Ethics to western philosophy in the thirteenth century, the instrumentality of phronesis"”or prudence, to use its Latinate equivalent"”is a peripheral preoccupation. The discussions focus primarily on the relation of phronesis to virtue and to happiness (εá½Î´Î±Î¹Î¼Î¿Î½Î¯Î±). For example, is phronesis a virtue in the same sense as other virtues like justice or temperance? Or is it a cognitive function presupposed by the virtues? And, what is the relation between phronesis and happiness? Regrettably, the focus on the relation of phronesis to virtue and happiness has resulted in the neglect of any consistent examination of its instrumentality. Such an exegetical tendency obscures a critical distinction that organizes the argument of book 6. This is the distinction between causality and instrumentality. My first aim here is to rectify this oversight in the interpretation of Aristotle's text. This requires a new reading of book 6 of the Nicomachean Ethics, which includes retranslating a key overlooked passage about instrumentality (see NE, VI.2, 1139a32). I will show that such a new reading of the instrumentality of phronesis has wide-ranging repercussions for the history of philosophy and for a conception of action, especially for the branch of philosophy that is customarily referred to as "continental" (I cannot possibly address all these in detail in a single paper). My second aim, more modestly, is to outline what is at stake in the instrumentality of phronesis.