View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. As Aristotle says in X.3, according to some people, if pleasure is not classed among qualities, it is also not classed among what?

2. What virtue does Aristotle state is concerned with the same things, and is present in the same things, as friendship?

3. What quality does Aristotle state is involved in friendship in IX.6?

4. What is the immediate source of action, according to Aristotle in VI.2?

5. With which of the following conditions does Aristotle compare the incontinent person in VII.10?

Short Essay Questions

1. For Aristotle, in what does the relationship between man's nature and his need for friends consist?

2. What is the essential unity that Aristotle claims between knowledge and action in the person possessed of practical judgment?

3. Give an example of something affirmed by knowledge, as that which cannot be otherwise than it is.

4. Why is it difficult, in the opinion of Aristotle, for a person to have many close and virtuous friends?

5. What is meant by Aristotle saying that pleasures from different sources can be impediments to activities?

6. Why do friendships of utility quickly come about and subsequently dissolve, according to Aristotle?

7. What is the significance of Aristotle saying that the active conditions of the soul that are the intellectual virtues produce something, not as medicine produces health, but as health produces health?

8. Explain the distinction of Aristotle between having goodwill and having friendship that Aristotle points to in IX.5.

9. Explain the three sorts of friendship described in Book VIII.

10. Why is it said by Aristotle that the lesser types of friendship are called friendship only insofar as they resemble the highest?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Of the intellectual virtues, art is the only one inherently ordained for some other end and not at all for itself, for it is concerned entirely with making. Discuss the virtue of art in a thoroughly well-reasoned analytical essay. Why is art a virtue? With what sort of things is art concerned, in particular? What are some specific examples of art as a virtue? Why is art in some way lesser than the other intellectual virtues? Why is art a necessary virtue?

Essay Topic 2

Compose an analytical essay which insightfully compares and contrasts the states of moral character of those whose souls are in conditions of self-restraint and a lack of restraint. How are they related to the other states of character? How are they related to one another? With what sort of things do they struggle? How do they improve or worsen their conditions? What do they demonstrate about the nature of virtuous action and human desires?

Essay Topic 3

Analyze in a comparative essay the three archetypal kinds of friends--utility, pleasure, and virtue--as they relate to man and to man's happiness. Which is the most perfect and truest kind of friendship, and why? What does true friendship do for man's moral character? What does true friendship have to do with happiness? What is the relationship between happiness and the lesser levels of friendship? What is the principal lesson that one ought to take away from Aristotle's extensive discussion of the topic of friendship?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,150 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample