Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 99 Heft: 1 Seiten: 31-63.

Drawing upon Aristotle’s understanding of phronesis, this paper argues for the importance of listening to older people who have practical wisdom. The paper begins by responding to the objection that practical wisdom is not age-related, arguing that while advanced age is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for having practical wisdom, there is a correlation between the two. Next, the paper turns to the relevance of practical wisdom in the philosophy classroom, specifically with whether wisdom can be taught, and, if (...) it can be taught, what is the best method for teaching it. After concluding that practical wisdom is age-related, something cultivated over a lifetime, and something that is possible to develop in the classroom, the paper describes an assignment where students engage a phronimos (a person of advanced age whom students consider has a high level of practical wisdom). (shrink)

Drawing upon Aristotle’s understanding of phronesis, this paper argues for the importance of listening to older people who have practical wisdom. The paper begins by responding to the objection that practical wisdom is not age-related, arguing that while advanced age is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for having practical wisdom, there is a correlation between the two. Next, the paper turns to the relevance of practical wisdom in the philosophy classroom, specifically with whether wisdom can be taught, and, if (...) it can be taught, what is the best method for teaching it. After concluding that practical wisdom is age-related, something cultivated over a lifetime, and something that is possible to develop in the classroom, the paper describes an assignment where students engage a phronimos (a person of advanced age whom students consider has a high level of practical wisdom). (shrink)

Foni phronimos - An interview with Edmund D. Pellegrino.

This article examines the relation between shame and the notion of the noble starting from Alexander’s Ethical Problems. Problem 21 is prompted by the Aristotelian discussion of the concept of shame. NE 2.7 1108a30–35 and NE 4.9 1128b15–21 present an apparent contradiction that Alexander aspires to solve: in the former passage, Aristotle states that shame is virtue-like in being praiseworthy; in the latter, shame’s praiseworthiness is restricted to young people. Alexander solves this contradiction by rejecting the second passage: shame is (...) not an emotion and its praiseworthiness applies to virtuous adults in particular. This article claims that, although Alexander rightly relates shame to the knowledge of the noble, neither of the Aristotelian passages must be rejected. The emotional status of shame is exhibited by Aristotle’s definition of shame as fear of disrepute. However, by considering shame and fear as ethical motivations, particularly in the case of courageous citizens and learners, the article shows that shame, unlike fear, implies knowledge of as well as sensitivity towards the noble. Moreover, the restriction of shame’s praiseworthiness to young people is defended by showing that shame is the best option in the absence of virtue. By contrast, the fully virtuous adult, i.e. the phronimos, is not supposed to feel shame. Neither does the phronimos act out of shame, nor does he feel prospective or retrospective shame. (shrink)

Preliminary assessment of Aristotle’s treatment of justice suggests that he would consider unjust Jesus’s injunction to turn your other cheek to one who has unjustly struck you. Further consideration, however, shows that obeying such an injunction would qualify, even by Aristotle’s criteria, as a more just response than reciprocating the blow. Turning one’s cheek provides the assailant an opportunity to make a choice that could improve his character, which improvement is crucial to the political good that is the primary concern (...) of justice in the full sense. Remaining concerns about rectification are obviated by considering how the megalopsukhos navigates honor. (shrink)

It is increasingly clear that virtue ethics has an important role to play in environmental ethics. However, virtue ethics—which has always been characterized by a degree of ambiguity—is faced with substantial challenges in the contemporary “postmodern” cultural milieu. Among these challenges is the lure of relativism. Most virtue ethics depend upon some view of the good life; however, today there is no unambiguous, easily agreed-upon account of the good life. Rather, we are presented with a bewildering variety of conflicting accounts (...) of the good life. Narrative—in particular Paul Ricoeur’s account of narrative identity—has much to contribute to virtue ethics, including resources that can help us respond to the chal­lenges presented by the postmodern context. Narrative constitutes an “ethical laboratory” by providing us with an “as if” experience through which we can try out various ethical alternatives. Two sorts of environmental narratives, working in concert, further help to limit relativist objections: (1) narratives of environmental survival (which identify dispositions, such as simplicity, necessary for our long-term survival) and (2) narratives of environmental flourishing (which make a virtue of necessity by pointing out those dispositions necessary for our survival often contribute to our flourishing beyond mere survival). (shrink)

It is increasingly clear that virtue ethics has an important role to play in environmental ethics. However, virtue ethics—which has always been characterized by a degree of ambiguity—is faced with substantial challenges in the contemporary “postmodern” cultural milieu. Among these challenges is the lure of relativism. Most virtue ethics depend upon some view of the good life; however, today there is no unambiguous, easily agreed-upon account of the good life. Rather, we are presented with a bewildering variety of conflicting accounts (...) of the good life. Narrative—in particular Paul Ricoeur’s account of narrative identity—has much to contribute to virtue ethics, including resources that can help us respond to the chal­lenges presented by the postmodern context. Narrative constitutes an “ethical laboratory” by providing us with an “as if” experience through which we can try out various ethical alternatives. Two sorts of environmental narratives, working in concert, further help to limit relativist objections: narratives of environmental survival and narratives of environmental flourishing. (shrink)

Aristotle’s phronimos is a model of the virtues: he fuses sound practical reasoning with well formed desires. Among the skills of practical reasoning are those of finding the right words and arguments in the process of deliberation. As Aristotle puts it, virtue involves doing the right thing at the right time and for the right reason. Speaking well, saying the right thing in the right way is not limited to public oratory: it pervades practical life. Aristotle’s phronimos must acquire the (...) habits that are engaged in rhetorical persuasion. (shrink)

This paper has a twofold aim. On the one hand, we will discuss the much debated question of the source of normativity (which traditionally has nature and practical reason as the two main contenders to this role) and propose a new answer to it. Second, in answering this question, we will present a new account of practical wisdom, which conceives of the ethical virtues as ultimately unified in the chief virtue of phronesis, understood as ethical expertise. To do so, we (...) will first criticize the main current view of phronesis and its bearer (the phronimos), then offer another view of the nature of phronesis and of its relation to the other ethical virtues. Our proposal should not be intended as an interpretation of Aristotle’s own view; rather, it should be seen as a broadly Aristotelian theoretical proposal, which we believe can satisfyingly address most of the problems that afflict the more traditional accounts of practical wisdom. In section 2 of this paper, after criticizing first-nature naturalistic views of moral virtue, we take practical reason to be the cornerstone of second-nature naturalistic views; in section 3, we will outline criticisms to which, in our view, the traditional views of phronesis are ill-suited to respond, and, in section 4, we will outline our view of phronesis as ethical expertise – a view which in our view is immune to the above-mentioned criticisms – by spelling out the three main tenets of phronesis as ethical expertise: a conceptual thesis, an epistemic thesis, and the educational implications of the two. Finally, we will support our proposal with some empirical evidence taken from cognitive science. (shrink)

The prevailing accounts of Aristotle's view of practical wisdom pay little attention to all the intellectual capacities discussed in Nicomachean Ethics Book 6. They also contrast the phronimos with the wicked, the continent or the incontinent, rather than with those who have 'natural virtue' (innate or habituated), and thereby they neglect the importance of experience, through which those capacities are acquired. When we consider them, we can see what sort of experience is needed and hence what sort aspirants to full (...) virtue should be trying to acquire. It turns out that much of the knowledge such experience yields is just plain worldly knowledge. But it is not to be despised on that account. The phronimos must meet a threshold of knowledge that he will, indeed, share with some of the wicked, but will have a superior version that goes beyond theirs. (shrink)

A standard thesis of contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics and some recent Heideggerian scholarship is that virtuous behavior can be performed immediately and spontaneously without engaging conscious processes of deliberative thought. It is also claimed that phronēsis either enables or is consistent with this possibility. In the Nicomachean Ethics, however, Aristotle identifies phronesis as the excellence of the calculative part of the intellect, claims that calculation and deliberation are the same and that it is the mark of the phronimos to be (...) able to deliberate well. He also insists that for an action to count as virtuous it must issue from rational choice, which he characterizes as determined by deliberation. It thus seems that any exegetically respectable attempt to explain virtuous action within an Aristotelian framework would need to integrate with some account of deliberative choice. This creates a tension in Aristotelian scholarship. In this paper, I shall formalize this tension in terms of an apparently inconsistent triad of claims and shall examine the merits of at least one prominent interpretation of phronesis with respect to its reconciliation. (shrink)

1. Logic, perception, and the practical syllogism -- 2. The "physical" structure of the human act -- 3. Internal articulation and force -- 4. The constituents of human action and ignorance thereof -- 5. Intelligibility and the per se -- 6. Action, [phronåesis], and pleasure -- 7. [Phronåesis] and the [phronimos] -- 8. Some other character types.

La recherche d’une définition de la raison droite ( orthos logos ) au livre VI de l’ Éthique à Nicomaque d’Aristote n’est pas une recherche des “raisons droites” ou du “raisonnement droit” que produit l’expert – il ne tente pas de caractériser (et moins encore de “définir”) le type de justification ou de délibération qu’un médecin ou un phronimos produisent avant de choisir la bonne façon de procéder. A fortiori, il ne recherche pas des règles de conduite. Il recherche plutôt (...) les propriétés qui caractérisent l’âme d’une personne qui est capable de raisonner correctement: la “raison droite” comprise comme perfection de la partie rationnelle de l’âme. Dans cet article, j’examine la description aristotélicienne de la phronēsis, la vertu de la pensée ( dianoētikē aretē ) qui a rapport à l’action, et l’ euboulia, en tant qu’elle en est l’excellence caractéristique. (shrink)

En su libro Verdad y Método H.G. Gadamer fomentó el renacimiento de la filosofía práctica de Aristóteles. Sin embargo, de acuerdo a su interpretación, la filosofía práctica tiende a ser identificada con la phrónesis, i.e. con la sabiduría práctica. Para Aristóteles, la filosofía práctica es un conocimiento científico, si bien es menos rigurosa que la filosofía teórica, y hace uso de demostraciones, aunque sus demostraciones no son siempre válidas, sino sólo en la mayoría de los casos. Además, la filosofía práctica (...) emplea un método dialéctico que consiste en la discusión de diferentes opciones a la luz de las premisas más aceptadas. La phrónesis, por el contrario, es una virtud, i.e. una excelencia de la razón, que consiste en la capacidad de llevar a cabo una deliberación correcta, i.e. escoger los medios que resulten más aptos para alcanzar un fin adecuado. Consecuentemente, para Aristóteles el phrónimos no necesita ser filósofo pero, en cambio, el filósofo que desea alcanzar la sophía, debe ser un phrónimos. (shrink)

CONTENTS: Walter Hopp: How to Think about Nonconceptual Content Jeff Yoshimi: Husserl on Psycho-Physical Laws Mark van Atten: Construction and Constitution in Mathematics Ronald Bruzina: Husserl's "Naturalism" and Genetic Phenomenology Andrea Staiti: Different Worlds and Tendency to Concordance: On Husserl's Phenomenology of Culture Rosemary R. P. Lerner : The Cartesian Meditations' Foundational Discourse: An Obsolete Project? Sebastian Luft: Lerner on Foundation, Person, and Rationality George Heffernan: The Phronimos, the Phainomena, and the Pragmata: Are We Responsible for the Things that Appear (...) to Us to Be Good for Us? Michael J. Sigrist: Husserl on God, Existence, and Transcendental Analysis Hans Pedersen: On Heidegger's Appropriation of Aristotle's Concept of Phronesis Ka-wing Leung: Heidegger on Animal and World Abraham Stone: On the Teaching of Virtue in Plato's Meno and the Nature of Philosophical Authority Michael Kelly: A Glimpse of Envy and its Intentional Structure Anne C. Ozar : The Value of a Phenomenology of the Emotions for Cultivating One's Own Character Review Essay Molly Brigid Flynn: The Agent of Truth: Reflections on Robert Sokolowski's Phenomenology of the Human Person (Noesis 2011). (shrink)

This book engages in cross-tradition scholarship, investigating the processes associated with cultivating or nurturing the self in order to live good lives. Both Ancient Chinese and Greek philosophers provide accounts of the life lived well: a Confucian junzi, a Daoist sage and a Greek phronimos. By focusing on the processes rather than the aims of cultivating a good life, an international team of scholars investigate how a person develops and practices a way of life especially in these two traditions. They (...) look at what is involved in developing practical wisdom, exercising reason, cultivating equanimity and fostering reliability. Drawing on the insights of thinkers including Plato, Confucius, Han Fei and Marcus Aurelius, they examine themes of harmony, balance and beauty, highlight the different concerns of scepticism across both traditions, and discuss action as an indispensable method of learning and, indeed, as constitutive of self. The result is a valuable collection opening up new lines of inquiry in ethics, demonstrating the importance of philosophical ideas from across cultural traditions. (shrink)

En Éthique à Nicomaque II 4-6, Aristote entend donner une définition cohérente de la vertu éthique. Cependant, de manière assez surprenante, la dernière étape de la définition mentionne le phronimos et par son intermédiaire la sagesse pratique ( phronêsis ), qui est une vertu intellectuelle et non une vertu éthique : la vertu éthique est « une disposition à décider ( hexis proairetikê ), située dans un juste milieu relatif à nous, déterminé par la raison, et comme le déterminerait le (...) prudent ». Pour résoudre cette énigme, on soutient ici que la recherche d’une définition de la vertu éthique est en partie motivée par le débat autour de l’unité de la vertu. En disant que la vertu éthique est proairetikê, Aristote réserve une place à la sagesse pratique dans sa définition. Ce faisant, il renforce sa propre conception de l’unité (ou réciprocité) des vertus : une distinction sans séparation. (shrink)

W niniejszym artykule zaprezentowana została wizja mądrości praktycznej w ujęciu Paula Ricoeura. Głównym celem rozważań było sprawdzenie, na ile jego propozycja umożliwia dokonanie oceny zjawisk wpływających negatywnie na zdolności krytyczne człowieka. Omawiane zagadnienie przedstawiono w świetle poglądów innych współczesnych myślicieli, takich jak Alasdair MacIntyre czy Charles Taylor. Przeprowadzone analizy wykazały, że mądrość praktyczna kreuje wizję dobrego życia, buduje więzi przyjaźni, domaga się teleologicznego sposobu urzeczywistniania idei sprawiedliwości. Konfrontacja wątków podjętych przez Ricoeura ze specyfiką kultury liberalizmu neutralnego pozwoliła na stwierdzenie, że (...) współcześnie ograniczeniu uległa możliwość kwestionowania własnych sądów moralnych, co jest podstawową umiejętnością phrónimos – człowieka rozsądnego. (shrink)

Prevailing interpretations of Aristotle’s use of syllogistic language outside the Organon hold that he offers a single, comprehensive theory of the practical syllogism spanning his ethical and biological works. These comprehensive theories of the practical syllogism are plausible neither philosophically nor as interpretations of Aristotle. I argue for a multivocal account of the practical syllogism that distinguishes (1) Aristotle’s use of syllogistic language to explain aspects of his account of animal motion in MA from (2) his use of syllogistic language (...) to explain aspects of his account of the distinctive practical cognition of the phronimos in EN. I offer a novel account of the role of syllogistic language in ethics, arguing that it elucidates a nuanced account of universals and particulars in ethics according to which acting virtuously requires an understanding of underlying universal values and a capacity to relate them to concrete, particular features of our circumstances. (shrink)

Both Ancient Chinese and Greek philosophers provide accounts of the life lived well: a Confucian junzi, a Daoist sage and a Greek phronimos. Cultivation in Early China and Ancient Greece engages in comparative, cross-tradition scholarship and investigates the processes associated with cultivating or nurturing the self in order to live such lives. -/- By focusing on the processes rather than the aims of cultivating a good life, an international team of scholars investigate how a person develops and practices a way (...) of life. They look at what is involved in developing practical wisdom, exercising reason, cultivating equanimity and fostering reliability. Using the thought of those thinkers central to both traditions, including Plato, Confucius, Han Fei and Marcus Aurelius, they examine themes of harmony, balance and beauty, and highlight the different concerns of scepticism across both traditions. They also discuss the action of doing as an indispensable method of learning. As a result, Cultivation in Early China and Ancient Greece is a valuable collection opening up new lines of inquiry in ethics and demonstrating the importance of drawing on philosophical ideas from across cultural traditions. (shrink)

La nature du projet de Danielle Lories est exposée clairement dans les premières pages de l’ouvrage. L’auteure situe les origines de son entreprise dans la volonté d’affronter la difficulté que présente la notion de «sens commun», aux paragraphes 18, 22 et 40 de la Critique de la faculté de juger de Kant, mais aussi le propos de Hannah Arendt tiré de «La crise de la culture» qu’elle cite en page 2, sur la jonction des sens communs kantien et aristotélicien. Ce (...) qui préoccupe essentiellement l’auteure, dans la pers-pective d’une pensée de la «spécificité du jugement praxique», est ici la façon dont s’articulent le sens commun en tant qu’unification de l’expérience sensorielle par-delà la diversité des cinq sens, et le sens communautaire en vertu duquel nous communions dans une même appréhension du réel, la constitution d’un rapport au réel étant d’abord affaire de sens: «Chez Arendt, tout se passe comme si le partage des choses perçues avec autrui et donc leur réalité “objective” était le prolongement naturel du partage d’une même chose perçue par nos divers sens». En arrière-plan de l’entreprise figure un intérêt pour les rapports entre jugements pratique et esthétique. L’auteure se trouve amenée à traiter d’Aristote, et entend montrer que si chez lui le sens commun du De anima et des Parva naturalia est bien un sens global du réel, il n’a guère encore cette dimension communautaire que présente en revanche la φρόνησισ, «excellence du jugement pratique et excellence politique», laquelle φρόνησισ se trouve en continuité avec la discrimination perceptive unitaire, dans la mesure où pour l’une comme pour l’autre, l’objet est le particulier du monde réel perçu. Danielle Lories est également conduite à examiner si, entre le livre VI de l’Éthique à Nicomaque, d’une part, et la Critique de la faculté de juger d’autre part, il n’y a «rien qui vaille mention». Ayant travaillé sur Shaftesbury, un des pères britanniques de la philosophie du sens commun, sous l’espèce notamment du sens moral, par ailleurs précurseur du désintéressement esthétique kantien, et enfin lecteur d’Épictète, l’auteure se trouve orientée dans la direction de sa source stoïcienne. De là cette fois, malgré l’obstacle apparent que constitue le fait pour le stoïcisme de s’apparenter davantage au platonisme qu’à l’aristotélisme en concevant la φρόνησισ comme une science et en l’identifiant à la σοφία, tout en faisant en outre à peu près silence sur l’αἴσθησισ κοινή, l’idée d’«étudier l’éventuel apport du stoïcisme — ancien — à l’analyse du jugement pratique — celui du phronimos au sens où l’entendait Aristote», la thèse étant que la marque du stoïcisme dans l’histoire de la pensée occidentale du jugement pratique «consiste à faire converger dans ce jugement plusieurs formes de “sens commun” dont certaines sont dérivées de l’aisthèsis koinè ou encore de la phronèsis aristotéliciennes». (shrink)

Ao se apropriar da phronesis de Aristóteles e integrá-la à estrutura da hermenêutica filosófica, Gadamer acaba por apontar para sua dimensão ética. Consciente das infindáveis controvérsias sobre o conceito de phronesis em Aristóteles, neste artigo proponho tomá-lo como sabedoria prática, inerente à teoria e à prática hermenêutica. A sua concretização institui uma virtude que possibilita a conquista da felicidade, a fixação do sentido e o crescimento do nosso modo de ser e de agir. Para tanto, inicialmente exploro a noção de (...) phronesis como modelo estrutural da hermenêutica gadameriana. Em seguida, justifico a práxis da hermenêutica como exercício da virtude da sabedoria prática, pois é um exercício circular deliberativo entre meios e fins. Assim como o phronimos, o hermeneuta busca compreender o real a fim de fomentar um ethos destinado a estabelecer harmonia, responsabilidade mútua e eudaimonia. A título de ilustração, relaciono o texto com as posturas hermenêuticas de Tirésias e Haimon, que criticam Creonte por ser insensato. São representantes exemplares da necessidade de ponderar circularmente meios e fins, de ter discernimento, de levar a sério que outros possam ter boas ideias para a instituição de um ethos mais harmonioso e feliz. Ao final apresento implicações dessa reflexão e destaco o fato dela fazer parte da fundamentação da hermenêutica ética, que constitui o foco de minha pesquisa sobre a tradição hermenêutica. (shrink)

Jonathan Lear in Radical Hope tackles the idea of cultural devastation, in the specific case of the Crow Indians. What do we mean by “annihilation” of a culture? The moral point of view that he imagines as he reconstructs the eve and aftermath of this annihilation is not second personal, of obligation, but first personal, in the collective and singular, as told by the Crows, with Lear as “analyst.” Radical Hope is a study of representative character of a people—of virtue, (...) courage, resilience, and hope in the face of cultural collapse. The leading questions are shaped by ancient Greek ethics, but with a twist: On the brink of cultural death , what counts for us as good living and what is the nature of the virtues or excellences that constitute it? How might a leader, a phronimos , exemplify it? This puts it too narrowly. The questions, also, are Wittgensteinian: How does a nation go on, when the concepts and way of life it has lived by for centuries are no more? What does it mean to go on? What does it mean to stop when the marks of going on are no longer? (shrink)

Jonathan Lear in "Radical Hope" tackles the idea of cultural devastation, in the specific case of the Crow Indians. What do we mean by "annihilation" of a culture? The moral point of view that he imagines as he reconstructs the eve and aftermath of this annihilation is not second personal, of obligation, but first personal, in the collective and singular, as told by the Crows, with Lear as "analyst." "Radical Hope" is a study of representative character of a people—of virtue, (...) courage, resilience, and hope in the face of cultural collapse. The leading questions are shaped by ancient Greek ethics, but with a twist: On the brink of cultural death, what counts for us as good living and what is the nature of the virtues or excellences that constitute it? How might a leader, a phronimos, exemplify it? This puts it too narrowly. The questions, also, are Wittgensteinian: How does a nation go on, when the concepts and way of life it has lived by for centuries are no more? What does it mean to go on? What does it mean to stop when the marks of going on are no longer? (shrink)

윌리엄스는 ‘A는 φ 할 이유가 있다’라는 형식의 진술에 관하여 외재적(external) 해석을 거부하고 내재적(internal) 해석을 지지한다. 그는 가장 단순한 내재주의 정식화를 ‘흄의 아류 모형’으로 명명하고 이것을 보완 및 수정한다. 그리고 ‘A는 자신의 실제 동기의 집합 안에 있는 동기로부터 건전한 숙고 과정에 의해 φ 할 결론에 도달할 수 있을 때에만 φ 할 이유가 있다’라는 내재주의 정식화를 완성한다. 그러면서 외재적 해석이 가능하려면 “사태를 올바르게 고려하여 이유 진술을 믿고 그것 때문에 동기를 획득해야” 함을 입증해 보일 것을 요구한다. 맥도웰은 윌리엄스가 상정한 외재적 해석을 거부하고 대안적인 (...) 외재적 이유 정식화를 제안하면서 ‘교육(upbringing)’과 ‘전향(conversion)’을 예로 든다. 그러나 맥도웰이 적절하게 교육된 자로 염두에 두는 ‘프로니모스(phronimos)’의 행위 이유는 설명적 측면과 규범적 측면에서 검토한 결과 행위자 A의 행위 이유로 전환되기에 어려운 것으로 분석된다. 행위 이유는 특정 행위자의 동기 및 숙고적 제약에 의존할 수밖에 없으며 따라서 설명적 이유와 규범적 이유는 분리되지 않는다. 이 둘을 분리할 경우 별도의 합리성이 요구된다. 그러나 외재주의 자가 원하는 ‘합리성’의 자리는 따로 마련되어 있지 않으며, ‘A는 φ 할 이유가 있다’라는 사람들의 발화 안에서 발견되는 ‘이유’만이 있을 뿐이다. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of the virtuous person, which I take to be the same as the good person. I argue that goodness in a person is based on her desires. Contra Aristotelians, I argue that one does not need practical wisdom to be good. There can be a perfectly good person with mental retardation or autism, for example, whether or not such conditions are compatible with the Aristotelian kind of wisdom. Contra Kantians, I argue that the sense of (...) duty - which does exist! - is compatible with a desire-based moral psychology. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger was the first philosopher to see skillful coping as the basis of our understanding of the world and ourselves. But he acknowledges that such average understanding is banal and conceals more than it reveals. He, therefore, holds that, to ground intelligibility, people must conform to everyday practical norms, but that, by acting in the face of anxiety, a person can resist conformism and refine standard ways of acting. His model is Aristotle’s phronimos (man of practical wisdom) who responds (...) with ethical expertise to the demands of the concrete situation. Further, Heidegger suggests that, when a person is fully authentic, he or she can transform everyday practice. Here, his model is Kierkegaard’s reborn individuals whom Heidegger sees as radical world disclosers capable of changing the issue for their age and so of changing history. (shrink)

Anthony Celano argues that after Thomas Aquinas the flexibility of Aristotle’s ethics gives way to the universal codes of Christian morality. His argument posits that the Schoolmen adopted a line of moral reasoning that follows a Platonic tradition of taking universal moral principles as the basis of moral reasoning. While Thomas does work in a tradition that, resemblant of the Platonic tradition, incorporates inerrant principles of moral reasoning in the habit of _synderesis_, his understanding of those principles is distinctly Aristotelian (...) in character and thus the flexible moral reasoning of Aristotle’s _phronimos_ is retained. For Thomas _synderesis_ is the first principle of practical reason and is the source rather than the inhibitor of personal and spontaneous moral reasoning. This article will first outline Celano’s position, detail the thought of Thomas’ predecessors, and then show how Thomas employs the principle of _synderesis_ in a distinctly Aristotelian framework. (shrink)

The essays in this collection focus on Christine as a political writer and provide an important resource for those wishing to understand her political thought. They locate her political writing in the late medieval tradition, discussing her indebtedness to Aristotle, Aquinas and Augustine as well as her transformations of their thought. They also illuminate Christines political epistemology her understanding of political wisdom as a part of theology, the knowledge of God. New light is thrown on the circumstances which prompted Christine (...) to write on political issues and on her attitude to Isabeau of Bavaria. These essays show that Christines originality consisted in her capacity to modify and feminise the tradition of Christian Aristotelianism through the use of elements of Christian imagery, in particular Mariology, in order to construct an image of the virtuous and prudent monarch which had lost the explicitly manly and warlike character of the Aristotelian phronimos. (shrink)