Aristotle's Greatness of Soul

Peter Lawler posts this:

Greatness of Soul

Here's a comment I got on the thread below:

A quick and obvious point in light of the discussion on No Left Turns: Aristotle's treatment of the magnanimous man in the Ethics for the most part oscillates between a report of what he thinks of himself and what other non-magnanimous men say about him. Unlike the discussion of Socrates' magnanimity in the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle here largely treats magnanimity from the perspective of the city and hence political life.

I agree with you that as Aristotle tends to present him in the Ethics, the magnanimous man is the paradigmatic example of the overly stuffed shirt-he thinks (and others think he thinks) that nothing is greater than himself and that no one can perform the great deeds he can. For this reason, he is "slow to act and procrastinates, except when some great honor is at stake; his actions are few but they are great and distinguished"--interestingly in this last statement Aristotle speaks in his own name.

As you point out, the magnanimous man tends to think about himself in abstraction from everyone else; this explains his belief in his own self-sufficiency. And as you also note, this is most obviously the case in his indifference or unwillingness to wonder and our related need for love and friendship.

Yet, to me, Aristotle presents the magnanimous man as being aware of a chink in his armor; in particular he seems to have nagging doubts and perhaps a begrudging recognition of his greatness resting on others. To the extent that he thinks in terms of great political actions, the magnanimous man must on some level recognize that he is dependent on the city and its citizens-at least in terms of it providing opportunities-for his actions. His estimation of himself rests in part on his, to be sure, unstated recognition that he must live with other men in order to act magnanimously and in order to be honored as magnanimous.

One cannot really think of himself as a magnanimous man if he lives alone or among a small group of human beings. Rather, he needs the venue on which his "great and distinguished" actions can be performed and put on display.

This also raises the related problem of potential frustrations that would nag a man who thinks he may be magnanimous: what if one lives at a time when "great and distinguished" actions are not needed or called for--this obviously gets expressed in your criticism of the end of history thesis.

But apart from the fictive and undesirable nature of an end of history, it may well be the case that the greatest external impediment to magnanimity is the failure of a human being to live in truly interesting-hence humanly fertile-times.