# Plato — Nicomachean Ethics character guide

> Plato in Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0003-book-i

## Snapshot

Aristotle's teacher, present in the text as a remembered voice whose questions about likeness, friendship, and the good still set the terms of debate.

## Who they are

Plato's influence surfaces in the puzzles Aristotle inherits: whether friendship requires likeness or thrives on opposition, whether the good is one or many. The text treats these as live difficulties rather than settled doctrine, and Plato stands behind them as the teacher whose positions must be tested, not merely repeated. His absence as a named speaker is itself telling—Aristotle is working in a tradition, not starting from nothing.

## Relationships

### [Speusippus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/characters/speusippus)

_family_

Speusippus was Plato's nephew and successor as head of the Academy.

## In the story

### [Nicomachean Ethics](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/nicomachean-ethics)

Aristotle's teacher, whose views on the Forms and the good are critically engaged.

### [The End](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/the-end)

His theory of Ideas is directly criticized in the discussion of the 'universal good.'

### [The Highest Good and Happiness](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/iv)

Referenced for his distinction between proceeding from or to starting-points.

### [Critique of the Universal Good](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/vi)

His theory of the Form of the Good is the primary target of Aristotle's critique.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/iii)

Cited for the idea that education should train youth to find pleasure and pain in the right objects.

### [Book X: Pleasure and the Contemplative Life](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/book-x)

Cited for his argument that pleasure cannot be the good, since the pleasant life is more desirable with wisdom than without.

### [Pleasure](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/pleasure)

Referenced for his argument that pleasure cannot be the good because adding wisdom makes the pleasant life more desirable.

### [Chapter II: Eudoxus on Pleasure as the Good](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/ii)

Cited as arguing that pleasure cannot be the good because the pleasant life is more desirable with wisdom, implying pleasure is not the ultimate good.

### [Conclusion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/conclusion)

Influence evident in the discussion of the best part of the soul and the ideal of contemplation.

### [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/endnotes)

Referenced in a note citing Plato's Republic.

## Links

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- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/characters