Abstract

Aristotle gives an account of pleasure in two different treatises of the Nicomachean Ethics. In book VII he identifi es pleasure with the pleasurable activity,while in book X he treats pleasure as something different from the pleasurable activity. These two treatises give two ways to study pleasure from a philosophical point of view. We can ask for the conditions that an activity must fulfi l to be pleasurable (what is pleasurable: book VII) or we can ask for the metaphysicalcategory of pleasure (what is pleasure: book X). In this paper I try to answer to these questions and to approach to Aristotle’s concept of pleasure, relating theconcept of ›ἐνέργεια’‹ that Aristotle uses in book X with the self-perception and the perfection of the vital activities.