Μεσότητα και «Τρίτος Άνθρωπος» στην Αριστοτελίζουσα Θεωρία των Ανταλλακτικών Αξιών

This paper deals with key open issues involved in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics and related to the theory of exchange values. On the basis of the Modern Classical theory of value-income distribution and the concept of ‘social abstract labour’, the paper argues that: (i) the Aristotelian approach to the market relative prices as “means between extremes”, and to these means as optimum points, is not completely barren; and (ii) Aristotle could not support the view that the “substance of value” is “human labour in general” (K. Marx) because he would contradict the “Third Man Argument”, which forms one of his own fundamental counter-arguments against Plato’s theory of Ideas.