Authors:Maria Carla Giammarco Abstract: Solon’s reform in Athens (early 6th century BC) is the subject of wide discussions: an organic constitutional reform (politeia) or individual sectoral laws' Plato’s testimony has received limited attention from critics, who are mainly focused on the passages from Charmides and Timaeus, alluding to the kinship (syngheneia) between the two. Indeed, the philosopher is not generous with details and does not explicitly describe the ‘constitution of Solon’; however, a thorough examination of the references – in as chronological an order as was possible – has revealed clear data and an evolving thought. Unlike Aristotle and Herodotus, Plato outlines a somewhat reductive portrait of Solon as a poet and wise man; but, as a legislator, in his dialogues of maturity Plato repeatedly counts Solon among the ‘greats’ of the past, those who, through reforming the politeia, have fixed their State bodies identity. Finally, in the Laws, his last work, Plato shows his expertise on some of the Solonic laws and expresses a mild appreciation for their author. On the whole, while Plato’s testimony does not contradict Aristotle’s much more thorough and favorable one, neither does it coincide with it: on the person of the legislator, as well as on the thorny questions connected to his ‘constitution’– such as the ideology of the ‘mixed constitution’ and that of the Athenian patrios politeia – the positions of the two philosophers prove to be distant, both in the conceptual framework and in the political judgment. PubDate: 2021-04-30 DOI: 10.6092/issn.2421-4124/12590 Issue No:Vol. 13 (2021)
Authors:Andrea Di Biase Abstract: The recent publication of Pascal’s “Opere complete” fills a certainly unjustifiable absence. Released last autumn in Bompiani’s “Il pensiero occidentale” series, the volume is now presented by Maria Vita Romeo and collects texts and documents never translated before. For the very first time the Italian public has so the opportunity to fully appreciate the author’s philosophical and scientific production. In this way, for the non-specialist reader, the vast panorama of single and sometimes partial translations of pamphlets, physical treatises, letters, biographical testimonies and minor Pascalian autographs is integrated and enriched, consequently favoring their more agile and broad consultation, as well as an approach more detailed and rigorous to the primary bibliography, even in its often neglected and yet fundamental offshoots. PubDate: 2021-04-30 DOI: 10.6092/issn.2421-4124/12591 Issue No:Vol. 13 (2021)
Authors:Gaetano Antonio Gualtieri Abstract: This essay takes into consideration the themes of work and freedom in the philosophy of three important exponents of Southern Italian modern culture: Gianvincenzo Gravina, Giambattista Vico and Francesco Longano. Work and freedom interlace in the speculations of these three thinkers, even though the issues they emphasize about them are different. Gravina deals with intellectual work: the wise man, according to the philosopher’s point of view, is the only one who can bridle both the impetuousness of people and the rulers’ authoritarianism. As a consequence, it is only by the work of the intellectual that it is possible to reach and conquer freedom. Vico presents work in its historical development, focusing on the conflict between «heroes» and «famoli», first, and «patricians» and «plebeians», then. In Vico’s opinion, work makes little by little the weakest classes aware of their unhappy condition and lays the foundations for a change of society towards democracy. Finally, Longano faces up to the problem of slavery, still very diffused in the second half of the Eighteenth century, by proposing a “communist” society in the utopian city of Filopoli, in which both freedom and equality in work are guaranteed. PubDate: 2021-04-30 DOI: 10.6092/issn.2421-4124/12592 Issue No:Vol. 13 (2021)
Authors:Silvana Bartoli Abstract: The text starts from the question posed by the nuns of Port-Royal: can the monastic condition ignore the voice of conscience' The dramatic results triggered by the questions had their roots in a book published in 1640: Augustinus by Cornelis Jansen who proposed uncompromising religiosity by appealing to the thought of the holy bishop. That book created around itself a spiritual movement that marked the seventeenth century with a brand of diversity and opposition to the ruling power, political and religious. But perhaps Jansenism would never have been such an attractive ethical reference without Port-Royal, which the king wanted to destroy precisely to disperse the movement. The Cistercian abbey, however, was first of all a community of women consecrated to prayer and yet, the extent of the theological controversies of which it became the center and the vast literary production that surrounded it, ended up eclipsing that primacy of the conversation with God that was the highest ambition of the religious group. On the other hand, it was difficult for a group of austere nuns who refused blind obedience not to cause scandal, in seventeenth-century France and beyond. However, the destruction of the abbey did not manage to silence the voices of its inhabitants and their behavior still challenges us. PubDate: 2021-04-30 DOI: 10.6092/issn.2421-4124/12593 Issue No:Vol. 13 (2021)
Authors:Piero Venturelli Abstract: This paper focuses on an important 18th Century admirer of Dante Alighieri, Agostino Paradisi the Younger. In 1758, at only twenty-two years of age, Paradisi published an inspired ode in defense of the Comedy so to highlight Dante’s ability to write in a masterly way regarding the divine mysteries, to investigate the depth of the human soul and to draw memorable images. Paradisi composed his poem, entitled Contra the Author of the Pseudo-Virgilian Letters to Lord Canon Ritorni, in reaction to the anonymous publication of the Ten Letters of Virgil (1757) by Saverio Bettinelli. The latter criticized, in these epistles, the Italian poetic tradition and above all the Comedy, a work he accused of obscurity, extravagance, deformity, and tediousness. For the rest of his life Paradisi would continue to praise Dante. This article ends with the full text of the apologetic ode written by Paradisi. PubDate: 2021-04-30 DOI: 10.6092/issn.2421-4124/12595 Issue No:Vol. 13 (2021)
Authors:Riccardo Bonfiglioli Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with a brief historical and historiographical summary of the main features of the cultural, political and social contexts in which Adam Smith develops his thought on human nature. There are two hypotheses to be demonstrated: 1) The need to talk about plural contexts rather than a single context in reference to the Scottish Eighteenth Century; 2) The fact that these contexts are characterized by three main elements: transition, progress and conflict. PubDate: 2021-04-30 DOI: 10.6092/issn.2421-4124/12596 Issue No:Vol. 13 (2021)
Authors:Piero Venturelli Abstract: This paper offers a brief account of the genesis and development of Voltaire’s interest in the figure of Peter the Great, and his immense homeland, Russia. Voltaire has dedicated two of his works to these topics: Anecdotes concerning Peter the Great (1748), and History of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great (1759-1763). In both texts, the famous sovereign is portrayed as an enlightened monarch who hated prejudice and ignorance, and managed to initiate a vehement modernization process that led to the civilization of the Russian folk, despite the vigorous opposition of the conservative forces (Eastern Orthodox Church, boyars, and streltsy). PubDate: 2021-04-30 DOI: 10.6092/issn.2421-4124/12594 Issue No:Vol. 13 (2021)
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