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.
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), 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.
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