Renu asked:

I would like some insight on how to read a philosophical text for maximum understanding. At present,
I am grappling with the Nicomachean Ethics. To be able to follow Aristotle's intricate arguments is a
daunting task, but to be able to analyse the text and find contradictions in it and come up with own's
argument is proving more daunting.

Thanks for your valuable website.

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The Nicomachean Ethicsis one of the most difficult texts on ethics; it basically began the whole field,
and there are not many general issues that Aristotle overlooked. That being the case... it's about the
same problem as your being given, say, Newton's Principia,or one of Kant's Critiques, and
attempting to criticize it, cold. When I first had a course in it, my instructor (who had two PhDs, one in
Philosophy and one in Literature), took over 2 hours on the first page. Yes. So my reaction to your
dilemma is to say, forget it until you've read at least, oh, 20 or so commentaries on it. Otherwise, even
if you are exceptionally brilliant and do manage to understand it reasonably well, you will, at best, be
repeating the work of otherexceptionally brilliant people who have read and commented on it in the
last 2000 years.

The way to approach it, then, is to expect to not fully understand it, and to find out what others have
said about it. Then go back to it. Then look at a few more commentaries, when you understand it, and
the previous commentaries, in more depth. Then go back to it. Repeat this process for about 6
months to a year, minimum. You will then have, unless you have concurrently been taking courses in
ethics and meta-ethics (in which case you might be ready to write a teeny commentary which actually
said something original — although that's unlikely), the beginning of an understanding of the issues
involved.

Now if you're in a basic ethics course and your instructor is just sort of pointing you at this and saying:
write something. Well... why not? Just don't expect that you'll do anything like a real analysis; that's
simply a class exercise to see if you're getting something out of it.

Steven Ravett Brown