Splendid necessities

Richard Cobb-Stevens

pp. 107-119

in: John Drummond, James G. Hart (eds), The truthful and the good, Berlin, Springer, 1996

Abstract

These remarks are taken from the closing pages of Robert Sokolowski's book Moral Action.¹ I propose to offer some reflections on the implications of Sokolowski's synthesis of Husserlian and Aristotelian themes in this work and in a more recent essay entitled "Knowing Essentials."² In Moral Action, he shows how Husserl's general description of the role of categorial forms in the presentation of things may be extended to the special forms of identity and difference operative in moral transactions, choices, and judgments. In so doing, Sokolowski clarifies and enriches the Aristotelian notion of practical wisdom. In "Knowing Essentials," he suggests that discernment of essentials in any domain calls for appropriate virtues in the agent: "There is a spoudaios for recognizing the essentials of a thing, just as there is a virtuous agent for sizing up a situation calling for action."³ He thus clarifies and enriches Husserl's contrast between distinct and vague thinking by linking this distinction to Aristotle's analysis of the virtues requisite for both intellectual inquiry and practical action.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Sokolowski Robert