%0 Journal Article %T Epistemological Place of Phronesis and its Importance in Aristotle’s Philosophy of Ethics %J History of Philasophy %I Iranian Society of History of Philosophy %Z 2008-9589 %A Ali Nazemi Ardakani %A Reza Davari Ardakani %A Malek Hosseini %D 1398 %\ 1398/09/27 %V 1 %N 10 %P 63-78 %! Epistemological Place of Phronesis and its Importance in Aristotle’s Philosophy of Ethics %K Phronesis practical wisdom Sophia theoretical wisdom practico-ethical wisdom %X Phronesis or practical wisdom is one of the intellectual virtues which Aristotle has defined as a predisposition for continuously becoming involved in practice while thinking wisely about good and evil affairs. The outcome of this predisposition or phronetic act is the product of a kind of philosophical thinking which, in addition to viewing certain established principles, attends to madīna (polis) as a cradle for the development of acts; to finite, particular, and changing affairs as the subject of knowledge, and to Man as a free agent. The irregularity and, at the same time, legitimacy of phronesis provides individuals with a strategy not to surrender to fixed and strict scientific laws as the only legitimate tools of knowledge acquisition. Through making a methodological distinction between sophia or theoretical wisdom and phronesis, Aristotle has in fact founded the independence and irreducibility of practico-ethical knowledge about what is correct; practical deliberation cannot be reduced to logical arguments. In Aristotle’s ethical philosophy, accidental knowledge, as the knowledge of finite, particular, possible, and changing affairs, is a complement to essential knowledge, which pertains to pre-eternal and universal affairs and primal and fixed basic principles. Sophia and phronesis can lead to happiness only in case they function as the two sides of the same coin. %U http://rimag.ir/fa/Article/23455