Book VI continues with more fine distinctions. Unhelpfully translations differ, and you really need to know which Greek concept is being put in play. For example, the one we've been using wants to talk about "deliberation."
There is a difference between inquiry and deliberation; for deliberation is inquiry into a particular kind of thing. We must grasp the nature of excellence in deliberation as well whether it is a form of scientific knowledge, or opinion, or skill in conjecture, or some other kind of thing.
You will recall that we already discussed deliberation separately in III.2-3. The translation's use of the term here is ambiguous; the concept Aristotle was discussing in Book III was prohairesis but here it is phronesis, the latter of which began to discuss the other day. If any of you are reading the Irwin translation, he tries to keep the English words he uses linked carefully to the Greek words, but even then you'll see him talk of "inquiry" versus "deliberation" versus "intelligence" versus "wisdom."
Following this section exactly may not be possible on the first pass. These are intricate distinctions about invisible mental faculties, originally in ancient Greek and now in several English translations. If you really want to map this down, it will take a little time.
Scientific knowledge it is not; for men do not inquire about the things they know about, but good deliberation is a kind of deliberation, and he who deliberates inquires and calculates. Nor is it skill in conjecture; for this both involves no reasoning and is something that is quick in its operation, while men deliberate a long time, and they say that one should carry out quickly the conclusions of one's deliberation, but should deliberate slowly.
Irwin translates what they are giving as "it is not skill in conjecture" instead as that intelligence "is not good guessing." The problem with even very good guessing is that you could go wrong; what Aristotle is looking for from phronesis is a little more security that you'll choose your actions correctly.
Again, readiness of mind is different from excellence in deliberation; it is a sort of skill in conjecture. Nor again is excellence in deliberation opinion of any sort. But since the man who deliberates badly makes a mistake, while he who deliberates well does so correctly, excellence in deliberation is clearly a kind of correctness, but neither of knowledge nor of opinion; for there is no such thing as correctness of knowledge (since there is no such thing as error of knowledge)...
"There is no such thing as correctness of knowledge" and "there is no such thing as error of knowledge" both sound very suspicious to contemporary readers. You have to know that Aristotle's definition of knowledge assumes truth: knowledge, per the Posterior Analytics, is "Justified true belief." Thus, your knowledge can't be in error because it would then not be true, and if it's a false belief it wasn't knowledge to begin with.
So, just as he wants phronesis to be more secure than 'good guessing,' he defines knowledge to be safely true.
Socrates was aware of this theory of knowledge and had rejected it (at least in Plato's telling), but Aristotle found it satisfactory. This account of knowledge held up a very long time. It was not until the late 20th century that a serious problem was found with it (though the Wikipedia article does give some earlier examples of people asking questions about it). In 1963 kind of a fun challenge was raised by Edmund Gettier, which nobody has yet figured out how to solve. Actually, epistemology is a lot of fun all the way around. Nothing very serious hangs on it (except for little things like knowledge and truth), and it's a great deal of fun to think about.
...and correctness of opinion is truth; and at the same time everything that is an object of opinion is already determined. But again excellence in deliberation involves reasoning. The remaining alternative, then, is that it is correctness of thinking; for this is not yet assertion, since, while even opinion is not inquiry but has reached the stage of assertion, the man who is deliberating, whether he does so well or ill, is searching for something and calculating.
But excellence in deliberation is a certain correctness of deliberation; hence we must first inquire what deliberation is and what it is about. And, there being more than one kind of correctness, plainly excellence in deliberation is not any and every kind; for (1) the incontinent man and the bad man, if he is clever, will reach as a result of his calculation what he sets before himself, so that he will have deliberated correctly, but he will have got for himself a great evil.
So this is true, at least. The incontinent man is one who knows he shouldn't (say) smoke so much meth; but somehow he always manages to gain possession of meth in spite of financial and legal barriers that he must overcome in order to do that. He's deliberating about how to do that, and successfully; but that is not phronesis, because the object of the deliberation was wrongly chosen and out of order with moral action.
We will be hearing a lot more about incontinence in Book VII.
Now to have deliberated well is thought to be a good thing; for it is this kind of correctness of deliberation that is excellence in deliberation, viz. that which tends to attain what is good. But (2) it is possible to attain even good by a false syllogism, and to attain what one ought to do but not by the right means, the middle term being false; so that this too is not yet excellence in deliberation this state in virtue of which one attains what one ought but not by the right means.
One of the ways you can go wrong, for example, is to commit the existential fallacy in your syllogism. You might still get the right answer:
A: All students should bring the same number of pencils to class as unicorns have horns.
B: All unicorns have one horn on their head.
∴ Students should bring one pencil to class.
The students will get the right number of pencils, but the syllogism is not valid because there's no such thing as a unicorn. (Unless, as a former professor of mine argued, anything exists if you can make a true statement about it; another fun argument!)
Again (3) it is possible to attain it by long deliberation while another man attains it quickly. Therefore in the former case we have not yet got excellence in deliberation, which is rightness with regard to the expedient-rightness in respect both of the end, the manner, and the time. (4) Further it is possible to have deliberated well either in the unqualified sense or with reference to a particular end. Excellence in deliberation in the unqualified sense, then, is that which succeeds with reference to what is the end in the unqualified sense, and excellence in deliberation in a particular sense is that which succeeds relatively to a particular end. If, then, it is characteristic of men of practical wisdom to have deliberated well, excellence in deliberation will be correctness with regard to what conduces to the end of which practical wisdom is the true apprehension.
This assumption that virtues succeed at their ends is something we get more of as we go along; philosophers call it "thickness." Courage in the first books was the quality of being brave at war; but by the end it will be the quality that brings success in war. And it is; but as the thickness of the virtues grows, we begin to get some claims that are more doubtful. Very courageous men still lose at war, as an empirical fact.
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