structural:scholar_edition, stylistic:style_transfer
Practical judgement (phronesis)

The closing chapters of Book VI examine phronesis (practical judgement, practical wisdom, or prudence) more closely.

Phronesis concerns practical matters, and matters that can be meaningfully influenced by human effort. Syllogistic reasoning is important to this variety of reasoning: you must be able to know the truth about the universal, the particular, and the syllogistic process that enables you to draw a conclusion from such truths.

Phronesis has subcategories for different spheres of human life:

People who apply practical wisdom to themselves and their homes are esteemed as wise, but people who apply their wisdom to other people's lives are considered meddlesome. Aristotle believes that such busybodies are nonetheless important to the health of the polis.

Phronesis seems to require experience; it is unlike mathematics that a talented child learn. Aristotle thinks this is because expertise in mathematics requires an understanding of abstract universals, while practical wisdom requires encounters with real-life particulars. A savant can grasp a mathematical truth immediately; but may be skeptical about a truth of practical wisdom and to need to see that truth exemplified in real-life examples before adopting it.

Practical wisdom also concerns intuitively-grasped particulars (somewhat resembling nous, which is intuition about universals). For example, recognizing a triangle without having to count the sides and add up the angles is using practical wisdom in this way.

People with practical wisdom deliberate well. Deliberation is a sort of inquiry into what would be a good course of action. It is not:

Understanding is like deliberation, but is meant to comprehend the nature of a thing or situation (which can then aid in deliberation). Understanding aids evaluating the knowledge or choices of others.

Gnome is notoriously difficult to translate. It is a deeper, holistic understanding of a situation. In particular, it is what allows a person to add epieikeia to their virtue of Justice.

Aristotle uses Nous in a different sense to tie understanding, deliberation, and gnome together. This use of Nous is understanding, deliberation, and gnome that is integrated and practiced. It aids in identifying the relevant aspects of a situation and the relevant hypotheses that enable best decisions. This is a skill that can only be acquired through experience, and is how elders earn their reputation for wisdom.

Aristotle ends his investigation by comparing the importance of practical wisdom (phronesis) and philosophical wisdom (sophia). Although Aristotle describes sophia as the more serious (it is concerned with higher things), he mentions the earlier philosophers, Anaxagoras and Thales, as examples proving that one can be wise, having both knowledge and intellect, and yet lack practical judgement. He describes the dependency of sophia upon phronesis as like the dependency of health upon medical knowledge. Wisdom is aimed at for its own sake, like health, a necessary component of that most complete virtue, happiness.

Aristotle closes by arguing that in their highest form, virtues all exist together.