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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Aristotelian Perspectives For Post-modern Reason (i) Phronesis in Aristotle Aristotle characterizes prudence ( phronesis ) as ‘A true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man.’[^26] . By means of this definition he distinguishes prudence from other notions.

Given that it is a disposition, or state of capacity ( héxis ), it will be distinguished from science ( episteme ), for prudence will be knowledge linked with human action. In the second place, as it is practical ( praktike ), its result will be an action, not an object, which distinguishes it from art or technique ( tekhne ). The demand for rationality and truth (‘... metà lógoy alethe ’) distinguishes prudence from moral virtues and sets it among the intellectual ones.

Finally, the fact that it deals with what is good and bad for mankind, and not right and wrong in an abstract way, sets prudence apart from wisdom ( sophia ).

So far we have sketched the limits of the notion of prudence and others akin to it, and the points where they overlap[^27] , but we must not forget that ‘Regarding practical wisdom [ phronesis ] we shall get at the truth by considering who are the persons we credit with it’.[^28] Texts about prudence suggest that it is an intellectual virtue, but that it implies experience lived, which concerns both means and ends, for its final horizon is the good life as a whole, and that it is at the service of wisdom, that is, it is an instrument for obtaining this.

However, Aristotle goes as far as to say: ‘We ought to attend to the undemonstrated saying and opinions of experienced and older people or of people of practical wisdom [ phronimos ] not less than to demonstrations; for because experience has given them an eye they see aright.’[^29] In general, prudence pursues wisdom and wisdom stimulates human prudence. It is best to ‘possess both, or preferably prudence’[^30] .

Of animals, Aristotle says that they too are prudent[^31] , but as they lack wisdom their prudence is certainly limited. For all this, prudence is worth pursuing for itself, regardless of its possible usefulness, given that it is a virtue[^32] . Prudence is a virtue, and virtue, for Aristotle, is: ‘a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e.