Prohairesis
Prohairesis ( ancient Greek προαίρεσις prohaíresis 'choice, decision', from πρό pro 'before' and αἵρεσις haíresis 'choice, choice, view, school') is a Greek phrase and a philosophical term from the Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle .
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes the process of προαίρεσις prohaíresis - that is, the decision - as one that is closely linked to action, because an act can only be described as that act that is first caused by a previous decision .
In the ethics of striving , which was based on Aristotle, according to Markus Riedenauer, prohaíresis stood for the “ unity of striving and reason and in it the answer to the good that appears”.
In the philosophical examination of the terms will and judgment, there are diverse applications and meanings of prohaíresis , each of which is based on different interpretations of the Nicomachean ethics. Hannah Arendt , for example, interpreted prohaíresis as “choice in the sense of preference between alternatives for one - rather than another”. Hermann Vetter translated this Arendtian interpretation into German with the choice in the sense of preferring one of several possibilities.
Arendt also used this term in an exchange of letters with Martin Heidegger , where she wrote:
“For the time being I left Kant quite aside on the problem of will; In contrast to thinking and judging, it seemed to me to be rather unproductive. Now I will have to reconsider all of this. I assumed that ancient Greece knew neither the will nor the problem of freedom (as a problem). So I begin the actual discussion with Aristotle (prohairesis, προαίρεσις), but only to show how certain phenomena present themselves when the will as an independent faculty is unknown, and then I go from Paul , Epictetus , Augustine , Thomas to Duns Scotus . "
literature
- Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger : Letters 1925 to 1975. And other testimonials . 3rd edition Vittorio Klostermann. Frankfurt / M. 2002, ISBN 3-465-03205-5 (from the papers edited by Ursula Ludz ).
- Hannah Arendt: From the life of the spirit. Thinking, wanting . Piper, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-492-22555-1 (edited by Mary McCarthy ).
- Aristotle : Nicomachean Ethics ("Ethica Nicomachea"). Reclam, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-008586-8 .
- Markus Riedenauer: Orexis and Eupraxia. Justification of ethics in striving in Aristotle's “Epistemata” philosophy . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-8260-1693-9 (also dissertation, University of Vienna 1997).
- Joachim Ritter u. a. (Ed.): Historical dictionary of philosophy . Schwabe, Basel 1971–2007, ISBN 3-7965-0115-X (13 vol., Completely revised edition of Rudolf Eisler's "Dictionary of Philosophical Terms", 1904).
Individual evidence
- ^ In: Willing, p. 59.