Characters in the Dialogue on Aristotle's Ethics

Contact: Dr. Jan Garrett

Revised September 4, 2007

Aristotle's position can only be understood in relation to two groups of thinkers, one non-philosophers, the other philosophers.

Non-philosophers (people taking first steps toward philosophy?)

Mona: the money-lover
Hedda: the ordinary hedonist (not a philosophical hedonist, hêdonê= pleasure)
Niki: the lover of victory, power, winning (nikê = victory)
Tim: the pursuer of honor, recognition, praise (timê = honor, office)
Aretha: the lover of moral excellence (aretê = virtue)

Stella (a follower of Stoic philosophy):

The good is virtue and virtuous willing. It is incompatible with the passions, but compatible with poverty and an early death. (The Stoic School was actually founded in 300 B.C., 22 years after Aristotle's death. But the key ideas of Stoicism must have already been around because Aristotle seems to consciously distance himself from them.)