Love of Beauty in Aristotle’s Politics. The Case of Ostracism

ARTICOLI / 2 / di Elena Irrera

DOI


In this paper I examine love of beauty (φιλοκαλία) in Aristotle’s thought, and suggest that he treats it as an emotion (πάθος) able to develop and strengthen good moral habits. I propose that Aristotle appeals to the love of beauty of some of his addressees – namely, those who are particularly sensitive to the “aesthetic” aspect of politics – to persuade them about the appropriateness of political measures which, if taken at a face value, might not appear ethically sound. After a preliminary discussion of the power of emotions to shape virtuous conditions of the soul, I briefly address the issue of the main properties of beauty: order, proportion and definiteness. Finally, I introduce the issue of ostracism discussed in Book III of the Politics and present it as a paradigmatic case of a political procedure which can be justified on grounds not only of common utility, but also of beauty.

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Lo Sguardo è un progetto full open access. Puoi scaricare gratuitamente tutto il nostro archivio, ma saremmo lieti di ricevere un piccolo contributo tramite PayPal.
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Support Lo Sguardo
Lo Sguardo is a full open access project. You can download all the articles for free, but we will be glad to receive a little support through PayPal.
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