Davia (2017) Aristotle and the Endoxic Method.

Davia, Carlo (2017). Aristotle and the Endoxic Method. Journal of the History of Philosophy 55 (3):383-405.

Standard Accounts

(1) The passage specifies a discrete, three-step procedure: first set the phenomena before us; second, discuss the difficulties; third, resolve those difficulties so as to prove the truth of the most and most authoritative endoxa (“reputable opinions”).
(2) By “set the phenomena before us,” Aristotle means to establish the starting points of inquiry by enumerating the endoxa about the subject matter.
(3)The endoxa to be proven true are among the set of endoxa enumerated at the outset of inquiry.
(4) The goal of this method is to develop a consistent set of the most and most authoritative endoxa concerning some subject matter.

There is, however, an even more pressing difficulty for holders of the Standard Account of the endoxic method; namely, the interpretation does not seem to reflect how Aristotle actually applies the method to any other topic besides akrasia. As Dorothea Frede argues, “there is no other passage that comes even close to approximating this model.”10 What we find is a number of passages that bear only a loose resemblance to the endoxic method as it is characterized by the Standard Account. We need not look beyond the EN to appreciate this, for only a few passages therein can plausibly be read as following the method: for example, the discussions of happiness (I.1–13), pleasure (VII.11–14, and X.1–5), and friendship (VIII–IX). None of these passages, however, clearly exhibit the alleged three-part procedure of the endoxic method. The accounts of happiness and friendship do not begin by neatly enumerating the endoxa from which theoretical difficulties are later raised, while the discussions of pleasure do not seem to prove the truth of any of the initial endoxa.

When an account of something is sharply at odds with how the thing appears to us, Aristotle insists that we should first question the paradoxical account, not our grasp of the appearances. I suggest that we do something similar for the endoxic method. Since our account of the method does not adequately capture how Aristotle appears to argue, we should amend our account.

In what follows, I argue that each of the four claims that characterize the Standard Account is misleading. I defend a deflationary interpretation of the endoxic method according to which:

1. The methodological remark only specifies two main steps: first set the phenomena before us, and then prove the truth of the relevant reputable opinions; raising theoretical difficulties is part of setting the phenomena before us.
2. By ‘phenomena,’ Aristotle refers to the subject matter themselves, not claims about them, and by ‘set the phenomena before us,’ Aristotle means present an account, not just establish the starting points of inquiry.
3. The endoxa to be proven true need not be enumerated at the outset of inquiry
4. The goal of the method is to give an account (typically, a definition) of some subject matter, and to make that account more persuasive by showing how it confirms the truth of the most authoritative endoxa about that subject.

My interpretation is deflationary insofar as it does not require all applications of the endoxic method to follow the rigid, three-step procedure allegedly guiding the account of akrasia. On my interpretation, the endoxic method is employed wherever Aristotle gives an account of some phenomenon that both resolves at least one theoretical difficulty and proves the truth of at least the most authoritative endoxa. The account given is often a definition or a clarification thereof.13 In cases like Aristotle’s inquiries into happiness or place, the account given is an essential definition. In other cases, like his inquiries into akrasia and enkrateia, Aristotle shows how those phenomena differ from vice and virtue (as he previously defined them). Aristotle develops these accounts on the basis of claims that need not be among those that motivate the theoretical difficulties. He then strengthens our conviction in his accounts by showing how they prove the truth of at least the most reputable opinions about the subject; these reputable opinions, however, also need not be among the claims that motivated the theoretical difficulties. This is all the endoxic method requires. It is a more relaxed and commonsensical investigative method than the standard interpretation allows, a method closer to the one employed by the Holmes we know, not the peculiar Holmes we have been imagining. And aside from attributing to Aristotle a more sensible philosophical method, there is a further upshot to my account of the endoxic method: when we loosen the strictures of the endoxic method in the way I propose, we not only more clearly identify the passages where Aristotle uses it, but also begin to resolve the aforementioned debates about its scope and purpose.