The Problem of Aristippus at Cicero, De officiis 1.148

The manuscripts of De officiis all record something strange at 1.148: Cicero says that the philosophers Socrates and Aristippus had exceptional licence to flout social custom and convention owing to their ‘great and divine good qualities’ (magna et divina bona). There are no worries about Socrates, but the example of Aristippus seems preposterous. This paper makes the following argument: (1) elsewhere Cicero defines divina bona in such a way to exclude hedonists; this should rule out crediting Aristippus with magna et divina bona alongside Socrates; (2) all scholarly efforts to account for the presence of Aristippus at 1.148 fail to convince; (3) the name Aristippus at 1.148 should, therefore, be remedied; (4) there are excellent philosophical reasons to think that Antisthenes, a follower of Socrates who is credited with setting in motion the Cynic philosophical tradition, is the name that Cicero wrote or should have written in the original.

The Actor Analogy in Off. 1: A Platonic-Aristotelian Perspective for a Topic of Stoic Use

There has been much discussion about the origin of the actor analogy in Off. 1.107-115. Some scholars have considered that we are facing a theory of personality and even a proposal that would point towards the definition of a moral subject in Cicero’s work. Without discussing the Stoic origin of the analogy, this work argues that Cicero would take in De officiis a Stoic topic transforming it into a Platonic-Aristotelian sense. Thus, the interpretation according to which the first book of Cicero’s last philosophical work would have a profound academic and peripatetic influence is defended.

BREVES CONSIDERAÇÕES A UMA POSSÍVEL “REPÚBLICA DOS PRAZERES” DE VALLA

O pensamento político que se desenvolve no início do renascimento italiano deve muito de sua investigação ao legado das obras de Cícero. É através do De Officiis, sobretudo, que a moral estoica adquiri grande popularidade e penetração entre os autores da Renascença. Como já foi assinalado, encontramos nessa obra considerações sobre o horizonte moral para a ação do agente político, sobredeterminado pela definição do télos da ação moral, ainda que posto no registro do modo de vida particular do agente. Nesse sentido, seu arrazoado é menos especulativo, e mais relacionado aos usos da vida ordinária para formação indireta do sujeito político. Como desdobramento dessas orientações, entrará em curso uma querela sobre dois diferentes modos de vida ou costumes mais convenientes à vida cívica: o de origem estoica e epicurista. No Renascimento, a questão acerca da “finalidade dos bens”, o sumo bem, volta a ser alvo de acirradas disputas especulativas. Como defensor do modo de vida epicurista e, consecutivamente, do sumo bem do prazer, encontraremos a obra de Lorenzo Valla, De Voluptate (1431), da qual extrairei algumas de suas considerações sobre os bens para fundamento do que podemos chamar de sua “república dos prazeres”.

Os libertos e o trabalho no Império romano

Este artigo examina as menções às atividades laborais nas inscrições relacionadas às pessoas de origem servil no Império Romano. Após apresentarmos a visão depreciativa sobre o trabalho manifestada por Cícero em seu De Officiis, recorremos à documentação epigráfica do século I d.C. com o objetivo de averiguarmos as percepções e usos que as pessoas egressas da servidão faziam de suas respectivas ocupações. Nesta empreitada, argumentamos que sua ênfase nas atividades laborais constituía uma tentativa de reaver uma identidade pública para além de todos os preconceitos sociais advindos da escravidão.

Un tournant majeur de l'acculturation du cynisme à Rome : le De philosophia de Varron

In his De philosophia, Varro lists 288 philosophical schools on the highest good before presenting Antiochus’s doctrine as the only true one. One of the particularities of his moral doxography consists in including cynicism which has never been mentioned in the previous moral sources. This paper therefore aims to show that the De philosophia represents a major turning point for the Roman reflection on cynicism. First, Varro defines cynicism as a simple way of life (habitus) and not a doctrine (ratio) so that it could be adopted by all other philosophies. In fact, by ‘reducing’ cynicism to a way of life Varro makes it compatible with his conception of the highest good based on social duties. In that respect, his position on cynicism is opposite to Cicero’s who, in his De officiis, considers cynicism as a dangerous philosophy for Roman values. Finally, Varro uses cynicism as a conceptual tool for thinking, in philosophical terms, one of the most important issues that run through all his work: the relationship between happiness and Ancient Roman simplicity, especially in the context of Roman decadency. For instance, in Varro’s Menippean Satires, Cynics’s destitution partly reminds of the Ancient Romans’ austerity. Therefore, by mentioning cynicism in his moral doxography, Varro gives an original and Roman treatment of the Antiochian inquiry into the concept highest good.

Einleitung: Ethik der Integrität

Das vorliegende Themenheft „Ethik der Integrität“ (Herausgeber: Stefan Knauß, Universität Erfurt) der Zeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie (ZfPP) vereint Beiträge aus der Rechts-, Moral- und Umweltphilosophie, die sich mit den deskriptiven und normativen Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von „Integrität“ beschäftigen. Die Untersuchung von Integrität nimmt dabei die Anwendung des Konzepts auf menschliche Personen und nichtmenschliche Naturwesen wie Tiere, Pflanzen und Ökosysteme in den Blick. Integrität impliziert im weitesten Sinne die Annahme, Wesen könnten und sollten als „ganze“ betrachtet, auch gegen innere und äußere Widerstände in der Lage sein, gemäß ihrer eigenen „Zwecke“ zu verfahren. Zwar taucht integritas bereits bei Cicero in De officiis und bei Thomas v. Aquin in Summa theologiae vereinzelt auf, doch nimmt die Begriffsverwendung vor allem in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts zu. Es scheint offenkundig ein Bedürfnis danach zu bestehen, z.T. recht unterschiedliche Phänomene als „Ganzheiten“ zu beschreiben und deren „Intaktheit“ positiv zu bewerten. Personen sollten hiernach in elementaren, ihre Identität dennoch im umfassenden Sinne betreffenden Aspekten in „Übereinstimmung“ mit sich selbst leben können. Die Integrität der Natur wird in wichtigen klimapolitischen Verträgen wie dem Abkommen von Paris (2015) sowie bei der Kodifizierung der Rechte der Natur z. B. in der Verfassung von Ecuador (2008) als Wert normativ vorausgesetzt. Das naturwissenschaftliche Paradigma des Anthropozäns verwendet ebenfalls eine umfassende Perspektive auf Mensch und Natur, die auch als Plädoyer für die Schutzwürdigkeit der Erde als „ganzer“ ausgedeutet wird. Noch wissen wir nicht, ob dem Konzept der Integrität im 21. Jahrhundert eine ähnliche „Karriere“ bevorsteht, wie sie der Begriff der Würde im 20. Jahrhundert erlebt hat. Dieses Heft ist ein Versuch, die verschiedenen Verwendungskontexte zu überblicken und einige stichprobenartig zu überprüfen.

Cicero among the Martyrs: A Reassessment of the First Edition of Nicholas Grimald’s Thre bokes of duties (1556)

Nicholas Grimald’s translation of Cicero’s De officiis has long been revered as the standard version of one of the most popular Tudor school texts, as well as one of the first contributions towards a theory of translation in English. This article reassesses the work’s cultural and political impact through a close examination of its paratexts within the immediate publishing context at the office of Richard Tottel in 1556. It argues that Tottel’s material presentation of the book in a larger publishing program subtly re-encodes the work’s political, ideological, and religious message for his Marian readership. Tottel’s strategy in publishing Grimald’s Duties at this juncture was both to reclaim Cicero’s authority for the Marian program of Catholic restoration and to invest this program with the humanist credentials of influential early Tudor educational reformers.