Aristotle tries to clarify REL-2 by saying, more directly, how pleasure perfects activity. Unfortunately, the only positive characterisation is given in the form of a simile:
Pleasure perfects (teleioi) the activity not in the way the disposition present in the subject perfects it, but as a sort of supervenient (epiginomenon) end (telos), like the bloom of manhood (hôra) on those in their prime (akmaiois). (X.4.1174b31-33)
This passage admits of two different interpretations, depending on how we understand the two crucial words akmaios and hôra. First, akmaios is often taken to be connected with youth.28 The Greek,
however, suggests that someone who is akmaios is not so much in his
28 For example, Ross translates ‘As the bloom of youth [supervenes] on those in the flower of their age’; similarly Irwin 1999:159; Anscombe’s paraphrase as ‘the bloom on the cheek of youth’ (1985:3) is even more explicit. Cf. Burnet 1900:453 ad loc and Hardie 1968:363.
youth, but rather in his full bloom, or prime of his life.29 This way,
Aristotle’s point fits better into the context: Aristotle links pleasure to perfection, as the most perfect activity is the most pleasant. Yet, comparing pleasure to something that supervenes on young people would connect pleasure with immaturity and incompleteness, thus undermining the link between pleasure and perfection. So, we can expect that Aristotle will have in mind those in their prime, as this fits much better his purposes of linking pleasure to perfection and completeness.
The meaning of the second key word, hôra, is more difficult to determine. The basic meaning of this word is ‘time’, and, closely related, ‘season’, ‘year’, or ‘hour’. The two relevant meanings of hôra in this context are: either i) hôra has to do with physical appearance, and could even be translated as ‘beauty’; or ii) it has to do with timing and can be translated as ‘springtime of life’, ‘height of youth’, or ‘time of maturity’ - depending on the context. These two different translations suggest two opposing interpretations.
29 LSJ s.v. akmaios. The English word ‘acme’ is a transliteration from the Greek akmê and captures well what the Greek means: ‘the point or period at which something is at its best or most highly developed’ or ‘the period of full growth’. OED, s.v. ‘acme’, accessed 26 Feb 2010, and LSJ, s.v. akmê. See also Hadreas 1997, van Riel 2000:57 and Bostock 2000:156. Hadreas 1997:371 contends that ‘at NE 1118b11, Aristotle in quoting Homer does mention he who is ὁ νέος καὶ ἀκμάζων, “young and in his prime”.’ which he apparently takes to imply that the akmazôn is young. So, one could argue that the related akmaios also means ‘youth’. But this is a mistake. First, akmazôn does not occur in the Homeric line (Il. 24, 130), it is something that Aristotle adds. Second, the kai does not further explain the neos, but adds something different. Aristotle’s point in that passage is that everyone has an appetite for food and sex. It would ruin the point if this was restricted to young people only (hence the kai akmazôn is not epexegetical of neos): clearly Aristotle’s point is that both the young and those in their prime desire food and sex. So, this passage seems to corroborate that akmaios, which is indeed related to akmazôn, should mean something different from youth. At Rhet. I.5.1361b11, Aristotle says explicitly that the akmazôn is between young and old, and in Rhet. II.14.1390b9-11 that the body is in its prime (akmazei) from thirty to thirty-five; the mind at about forty-nine.
1.Hôra as beauty. Since akmê and hôra in this sense mean different things, beauty would seem to be something different from, and additional to, being in one’s prime. The analogy is that beauty is a supervenient end on being in your prime which means that, although being in your prime is a necessary condition for beauty, it is not sufficient: being beautiful is not entailed by being in your prime.30 Yet, since beauty is clearly something desirable, it will be
an end that will, when it comes on top of being in one’s prime, make it better. So, the emphasis is on the supervenient end as something additional that comes on top of some other thing which is already perfect (being in your prime brings to completion your physical development). This would mean that pleasure, too, is something different from the perfection of the activity caused by the sense and sense-object. Pleasure would thus, at least logically, be separable from a perfect activity (even if this is impossible in practice). So, when pleasure comes on top of the perfect activity it would make it better, adding another feature of desirability. In this sense pleasure would be an additional end.
2.Hôra as related to time. Hôra picks out the prime time of a given period of time, and we should in this context settle for ‘time of maturity’. This makes akmê and hôra out as synonyms, referring to the same thing. So, there is just one perfection which can be referred to by different words: to say that you are in your prime is to say that you are in the time of your maturity. Transferred to pleasure, the simile would support the following account: to say that an activity is pleasant just is to say that it is perfect, for pleasure just is another word for the perfection of the activity. Note
30 At IV.3.1123b7-8 Aristotle may suggest that besides being pretty (asteios) and well-proportioned, as well as having a certain size are all necessary for being beautiful.
that this account is silent about what causes (in our sense of the word) the activity to be perfect (this role can be taken up by the sense and the sense-object). It is only clear that whatever the causes are, they cause a perfection - and this is a pleasure. So, pleasure in a perfect activity is not anything extra in the sense that it is something over and above the activity, but rather ‘it is the further fact that the activity is perfect.’.31
The two interpretations give a very different account of how pleasure completes the activity: if hôra means beauty, pleasure will be something distinct from, and additional to, the activity, something that, at least logically, may not set in even if the activity is perfect, whereas if hôra means time of maturity, pleasure will just be what makes the activity perfect. Hence, every complete or perfect activity will, on logical grounds, be pleasant. Since both translations are possible, so are both interpretations. The problem is that it is impossible to determine a priori the meaning of the crucial word hôra and hence the meaning of the passage. This can be established only by taking into account the broader context of the simile. However, that is to say that one has to make up one’s mind about how pleasure completes an activity before one translates the key words and interprets the simile.32 So, at best, the passage can serve as a
benchmark for an interpretation of EN X.4. It does not help us to understand REL-2, rather it replaces it with an equally puzzling claim:
31 Bostock 2000:157. Most interpreters settle for interpretation 1, with the exception of Gosling 1973-4, Gosling and Taylor 1982:212-13, and Bostock 2000:156-8 who opt for interpretation 2. Note that Taylor retreats from the view proposed in Gosling and Taylor in his 2003:263 n.16.
32 If so, the simile fails as explanatory tool. I suspect that this is why Anscombe accused Aristotle of ‘sheer babbling’ (1958:3).
[REL-2*] Pleasure completes the activity as sort of a supervenient end.