Quick-reference definitions of the Greek terms used across this knowledge base, each with its policy relevance in one line.
Core terms #
Eudaimonia — Flourishing; living well. The highest human good: the active exercise of human capacities in accordance with excellence, over a complete life (NE I). Policy relevance: the purpose test for any technology deployment.
Arete — Excellence or virtue; the quality that makes a thing perform its function well. Policy relevance: applies to institutions as well as people — an excellent agency is one that reliably does its work well.
Hexis — A settled, stable disposition of character acquired through repeated practice (NE II). Policy relevance: the difference between an agency with AI principles and an agency with AI character.
Telos — End, goal, or purpose; that for the sake of which something exists or is done. Policy relevance: every AI system has a telos; governance makes it explicit and contestable.
Phronesis — Practical wisdom: deliberating well about action, grasping the morally relevant particulars of a situation, and acting accordingly (NE VI). Policy relevance: the principled basis for human-judgment requirements in automated processes.
Phronimos — The person of practical wisdom, whose judgment defines where the mean lies (NE II, 1107a). Policy relevance: institutionally approximated by experienced, deliberative, accountable decision bodies.
Techne — Craft or productive skill; knowledge of how to make things (NE VI). Policy relevance: engineering excellence is techne; deciding whether and how to deploy is phronesis. Confusing the two is a category error common in AI debates.
Episteme — Scientific knowledge of what cannot be otherwise (NE VI). Policy relevance: Aristotle’s warning against demanding scientific precision from practical matters (1094b) cautions against purely quantitative regulatory thresholds.
The mean and its failures #
The mean (mesotes) — The intermediate state between a vice of excess and a vice of deficiency, relative to circumstances and determined by right reason (NE II). Policy relevance: a calibration vocabulary for regulation.
Akrasia — Weakness of will: acting against one’s own better judgment under pressure or appetite (NE VII). Policy relevance: the agency that knew and deployed anyway; countered by structure, not exhortation.
Justice terms #
Distributive justice — Proportional allocation of goods and burdens according to merit — where the criterion of merit is itself the contested question (NE V, 1131a). Policy relevance: fairness-metric selection.
Corrective justice — Rectification of wrongs between parties, restoring what was lost (NE V). Policy relevance: appeal, remedy, and restoration requirements.
Epieikeia — Equity: correction of the law where its universal terms fail the particular case (NE V.10). Policy relevance: human override authority in automated systems.
Community terms #
Polis — The political community; for Aristotle, the setting in which human flourishing is achieved. Policy relevance: AI governance is not a technical add-on but part of constituting a good community.
Civic friendship (philia politike) — The goodwill and trust that hold a political community together (NE VIII–IX). Policy relevance: public trust in government AI is built like character — by repeated trustworthy action.
