{"id":141,"date":"2021-03-25T10:23:08","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T10:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/chapter\/4-of-knowledge-of-things-variable-viz-2-of-art-in-what-we-make\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T19:49:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T19:49:55","slug":"4-skill","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/chapter\/4-skill\/","title":{"rendered":"Section 4: Skill"},"content":{"raw":"

<\/span>In the variable are included both things made and things done; making and acting are different (for their nature we treat even the discussions outside our school as reliable); so that the reasoned state of capacity to act is different from the reasoned state of capacity to make. Hence too they are not included one in the other; for neither is acting making nor is making acting.<\/p>\r\nNow since architecture is a skill and is essentially a reasoned state of capacity to make, and there is neither any skill that is not such a state nor any such state that is not a skill, skill is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning. All skill is concerned with coming into being, that is, with contriving and considering how something may come into being which is capable of either being or not being, and whose origin is in the maker and not in the thing made. For skill is concerned neither with things that are, or come into being, by necessity, nor with things that do so in accordance with nature (since these have their origin in themselves).\r\n\r\nMaking and acting being different, art must be a matter of making, not of acting. And in a sense chance and skill are concerned with the same objects; as Agathon says, \"skill loves chance and chance loves skill.\" Skill, then, as has been said, is a state concerned with making, involving a true course of reasoning, and lack of skill on the contrary is a state concerned with making, involving a false course of reasoning; both are concerned with the variable.","rendered":"

<\/span>In the variable are included both things made and things done; making and acting are different (for their nature we treat even the discussions outside our school as reliable); so that the reasoned state of capacity to act is different from the reasoned state of capacity to make. Hence too they are not included one in the other; for neither is acting making nor is making acting.<\/p>\n

Now since architecture is a skill and is essentially a reasoned state of capacity to make, and there is neither any skill that is not such a state nor any such state that is not a skill, skill is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning. All skill is concerned with coming into being, that is, with contriving and considering how something may come into being which is capable of either being or not being, and whose origin is in the maker and not in the thing made. For skill is concerned neither with things that are, or come into being, by necessity, nor with things that do so in accordance with nature (since these have their origin in themselves).<\/p>\n

Making and acting being different, art must be a matter of making, not of acting. And in a sense chance and skill are concerned with the same objects; as Agathon says, “skill loves chance and chance loves skill.” Skill, then, as has been said, is a state concerned with making, involving a true course of reasoning, and lack of skill on the contrary is a state concerned with making, involving a false course of reasoning; both are concerned with the variable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"menu_order":4,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-141","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":134,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":501,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/141\/revisions\/501"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/134"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/141\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}