ARISTOTELE - Ethica. Translation into the vernacular with commentary by Bernardo Segni, Florence 1550.
contemplation, through which man enjoys for brief moments the condition that is normal for God (ibid., X, 7; VII, 15; Met., XII, 7).
A. divides the virtues into dianoetic and ethical virtues (E. N., I, 13; II, 1; 7). Among the dianoetic virtues, prudence (φρόνησις) has particularly practical value: “a true practical disposition accompanied by reasoning and concerned with what is good or evil for man” (ibid., VI, 5). It depends entirely on experience and, as regards its end, on the goodness of dispositions, the sum of which constitutes character (ἔθος); it is from this that the ethical virtues derive their name (ibid., 8-13). The ethical virtues have the passions as their matter (II, 4; 1-2), and, since each of these entails an excess and a deficiency, the corresponding virtue consists in a mean between the two extremes and is opposed to two vices. Whereas passion is involuntary, virtue is the effect of free choice: a conscious and permanent disposition, which each person voluntarily forms for himself through the repetition of similar acts. The same holds for vices, which are contrary dispositions (ibid., 6; 3-9). The voluntariness (τὸ ἐκούσιον) of virtue raises the problem of freedom of the will (τὸ ἐφ' ἡμῖν), which, in the terms in which it had been formulated by Socrates and Plato, is none other than the problem of practical error: that is, how it comes about that, although βούλησις is directed toward the good, the determined act of will can be directed toward evil. The act of will has the form of a syllogism, whose premises are one universal (the major) and the other particular. The first concerns the good; the second, whose judge is sense perception and upon which action depends, concerns the particular object that provokes orexis (E. N., VII, 5). The form of the good is correlative to dispositions; but since dispositions are formed through the repetition of similar acts, if the error lies in the major premise, by tracing back the series of these acts one arrives at a first action in which, since the dispositions had not yet become established, the will was still good and the major premise correct, so that the error lay in the minor premise (ibid., III, 7; 8, 1114 b 31; VI, 5, 1140 b 19). In what does this error consist? In an act of intemperance (ἀνακέτεια): the will, which always has it in its power to act or not to act (ibid., III, 7), either failed to heed the light of reason and yielded to the immediate pleasure of sensory representation (προσέτεια), or, though deliberating, yielded to it through weakness (ἀσθένεια) (ibid., VII, 2; 5; 8, 1150 b 19). In either case, what Socrates denied follows: “video meliora proboque - deteriora sequor”.
9. POLITICS
Among the ethical virtues A. devotes an extensive treatment to justice (E. N., V) and friendship (ibid., VIII-IX). With these one passes from the sphere of the individual to that of society, whose primary form is the family, which, in the need for procreation, unites male and female, as required by a necessity common to all living beings, and, in that of preservation, master and servant. A servant is anyone who is not capable by himself of attaining the good, so that servitude is natural, and the ends of master and servant coincide (Pol., I, 2; 4). From the family, which suffices only for the needs of the day, one proceeds, driven by necessity, to the village, and from the village to the city (πόλις), “in which autarkeia reaches its completion, and which, having arisen for the sake of the mere necessities of life, now has the happy life as its end” (ibid., 2). It is therefore natural, just as “by nature man is a political animal” (ibid., I, 2; E. N., I, 5). Citizens are those who enjoy deliberative and judicial rights, rights that vary according to the ordinances (τέξις) from which the constitution (πολιτεία) of the city is formed (Pol., III, 1-5). In l. III, which belongs to the earliest redaction, the constitutions are divided, in Platonic fashion, into three correct and three degenerate forms. According to whether power is exercised by one, by a few, or by the many, the first category comprises monarchy, aristocracy, and politeia (per excellency); the second, in which the interest of the rulers replaces that of the city, comprises tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. To number, however, must also be added the difference in wealth: in oligarchy power belongs to the rich, in democracy to the poor (ibid., 7-8). The best form is monarchy, followed by aristocracy, but these require men of a kind difficult to find on this earth; under normal conditions, a city is preferable in which, with the law prevailing, power lies in the hands of the majority (ibid., 11-13; 15-16). This does not mean that philosophy should not address the problem of the absolutely best State (ibid., 18), and A. takes up the question, following and correcting Plato, in ll. VII and VIII, but the treatment remained incomplete. Since virtue in its higher forms requires men free from manual occupations, A. admits among the citizens only warriors, magistrates, and priests (ibid., VII, 8-9). He rejects both the community of women and the community of property advocated by Plato. As for land, however, he wishes part of it to belong to the State, for the performance of religious rites and for communal meals, which he retains (ibid., 10; II, 2-5).In ll. IV-VI, A., without theoretically abandoning the constitution “most desirable,” assigns politics the task of investigating: 1) which of the constitutions already established is the most suitable; 2) given a constitution, what means will preserve it for the longest time (and it is here that he anticipates Machiavelli); 3) which constitution is generically the best and capable of being implemented (ibid., IV, 1). Having adopted the standpoint of positive investigation, he repeatedly and in various ways corrects the classificatory criterion of the preceding books. The principles to which, despite various fluctuations, he most commonly adheres are two: wealth and freedom. The first constitutes oligarchy, the second democracy (ibid., 3-4). A third principle is virtue, the foundation of aristocracy. But virtue absolutely considered is that defined by ethics, and aristocracy is in that case the ideal State. Taken in a relative sense, it is the excellence of education and social position proper to the rich, and aristocracy then reduces to oligarchy (ibid., 7-8). According to the relationship between the classes and the forms of the State, oligarchy and democracy fluctuate between a minimum and a maximum of the principle on which they are defined (ibid., 4-6). From the mixture of the different forms arise mixed forms, and among these one must seek the relatively best constitution, or politeia (ibid., 8-9). Founded on the principle of the mean, it has its basis in the middle class, equally distant from oligarchic arrogance and democratic license, which, when they reach the extreme, pass over into tyranny (ibid., 11; cf. 10; V, 5-7). Ll. V and VI, devoted to revolutions and to the means of preserving States, constitute one of the masterpieces of political literature of all time.
10. RHETORIC
All the arts, insofar as they aim at the production of a good, are subordinate to politics, and among them rhetoric, which is the art of “discovering what, on any given subject, is apt to persuade” (Rhet., I, 2). Indeed, rhetoric borrows from politics one part, that concerning character (ἔθη), which belongs to ethics, while in the other it is “the counterpart of dialectic” (ibid., 1; 2, 1356 a 25; 3, 1359 b 8). The means it employs are partly non-technical (ἄτεχνα τίστες), partly technical (ἔντεχνα). The former include testimonies, the results of investigations, documents, and everything of that kind. The latter are of three types: 1) those relating to the ethos of the speaker; 2) those relating to the state of mind (διέθεσις) of the hearer; 3) those relating to argumentation. The last are the most important, and it is by virtue of them that rhetoric is a part of dialectic. They are the enthymeme, which corresponds to the syllogism, and the example, which corresponds to induction. Rhetoric and dialectic have in common the fact that they argue on any subject, for and against, independently of any specific knowledge, in a purely general form (ibid., 1). As for the ethos of the speaker, this does not mean his personal character, but the character with which he presents himself to his hearers as an orator. With regard, then, to the state of mind of the latter, rhetoric must know all forms of emotion and the means of arousing and calming them. The treatise that has come down to us devotes the greater part of Books I and II to the study of the “topics” and the passions. Book III, which, as H. Diels demonstrated (Über d. 3 B. der Aristot. Rhetorik, in Abh. d. K. preuss. Ak., 1886), was an independent work, is devoted to style and to the arrangement of the parts of the discourse.11. POETICS
In the broad sense, poetics is every art (τέχνη), but the name is given above all to poetry and to the arts that accompany it in its various forms: aulos playing, cithara playing, and dance. Together with the visual arts, these have in common that they are imitations (μυρῆσις), but they differ from them in their means: speech, rhythm, and harmony. These, however, although they distinguish the species, do not suffice to constitute the genus. The poems of Empedocles are poems only in form; in themselves they are prose. Conversely, the mimes of Sophron and Senarchus and the Socratic dialogues of Plato, although they do not use meter, are imitations and therefore poetry. The object of poetic imitationis “characters, passions, and actions,” but passions and characters must be grasped in the act by which action manifests them: the object of poetry is “man in action” (Poet., 1). Yet poetry does not take this object from “what has historically happened”: the events it imitates are those “that could happen: possible events according to probability and necessity.” “Therefore poetry is more philosophical and more elevated than history, since it has the universal rather as its object, whereas history is confined to the particular” (ibid., 9). According as the imitation is of ordinary men, or of men worse or better than they, and is made through representation or narration, or by combining the two modes, as in epic poetry, and uses one or all of the three means listed above, the different genres into which poetry is divided arise (ibid., 2-5). The most complete, in which poetry reaches its end, is drama, in its two forms of tragedy and comedy. Tragedy is “the imitation of an action that is elevated in character, complete in itself and possessing a certain extent, in language embellished with different adornments according to the different parts, in dramatic rather than narrative form, and which through pity and terror arrives at the purgation proper to such passions (ἐν' ἐλθὼν καὶ φῶον περσίνοντα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν [ibid., 6], where the many translations that have been offered take no account at all of the attributive position of the genitive τῶν π.)”. The final words have been the object of endless discussions and controversies since the Renaissance, and the question is still sub indice. That both the term and the notion of catharsis derive from medicine is shown by Pol., VIII, 7, 1341 b 38; II, 7, 1267 a 5, and by Probl., I, 42, 864 a 32. It must not, however, be interpreted in such a way as to make tragedy a kind of homeopathic remedy. Tragedy, whose proper function is to arouse pity and terror (the definition goes back to the fifth century: cf. M. Pohlenz, Die Anfänge der griechischen Poetik, in Nachr. d. Gesell. d. Wiss. zu Göttingen, phil.-hist.-Kl., 1920, p. 142 sgg.), at the same time effects their purgation in the manner appropriate to such emotions. A. says this in correction of Plato’s doctrine. Whether this occurs through the pleasure proper to this kind of poetry (Poet., 14, 1453 b 10) or through the release that passion finds in its very excess is another question.
12. OVERALL ASSESSMENT
A. was one of the greatest intellectuals who ever lived. In the history of Greek thought he marks a summit to which, later, only Plotinus would rise. But Plotinus was only a philosopher. A. was also the greatest scientist and the organizer of all the knowledge of his time. The frameworks he created endured for centuries and still lie at the foundation of our language today. The mean, in which he locates virtue, characterizes his intelligence, which reconciled two opposing attitudes: the meditative longing for the ideal, nourished during the years of his early formation by Plato’s religiosity, and the taste for minute observation, which came to him from the ancestral tradition of the Asclepiads, to whom he belonged. Both were articulated and kept in motion by a spirit of inquiry that the acute analytical sense of his incomparable nature as a logician and his habit of dialectic continually renewed. Goethe’s judgment is well known: the heavens to Plato, the earth to A. It is true only in part. A. searches the earth in order to find the heavens there, toward which his soul is always turned. Nothing better characterizes his position as thinker and man than what he wrote in that “discourse on method” (Jaeger) which is chapter 5 of Depart. an., I. After saying that of divine realities we can know only little, but that even this little is far more pleasing to us than what we find on earth, just “as, with things that are loved, if one succeeds in seeing even a small part, this is sweeter than seeing with complete precision many other things, even important ones,” he continues: “In all beings of nature there is something marvelous. And just as it is related that Heraclitus said to those who had come to visit him and, seeing him warming himself at the stove, had stopped at the threshold, and he told them to take courage and enter, because even there were the gods, so one must proceed in the study of every animal and feel no repugnance, since in all there is a part of nature and beauty. For the law by which the things of nature are governed is the law of finality and not of chance, and the end for the sake of which a being is constituted or born is precisely its beauty.” But nature, as he teaches, derives the principle of all its movement from God. The universe is not for us today what it was for him and what Dante sang. The principles and problems, however, are still the same, and unchanged is the need for that transcendent Being who, in his thought, is not, as Jaeger would have it, an unresolved remnant of Platonism, but the necessary and inevitable complement of his metaphysics and physics. All Greek thought, oriented toward the ideal, tended toward the affirmation of God (not even Epicurus could eliminate him from his worlds of atoms), but it also ran the risk of making him an abstract principle. A. made him a person. Revelation gave this person content, making him, besides an object, the subject of love and Father.BIBLI: Fonti per la vita: D. Laersio, V; Dionigi d'Alicarnasso, Lettera ad Amneo, cap. 5; Vita Menagiana, dal Menagius, che la pubblicò per primo: risale a Esichio; Suida (concordanze letterali con la Vita Men.): una Vita di origine neoplatonica, in 3 redazioni: a) Vita Marciana (dal cod. marc. 257); b) Vita Pseudomnoniana; c) Vita latina (in corrispondenza con a e b messa insieme da V. Rose di su un traduttore del sec. XIII). La fonte prima è il peripatetico Tolomeo (1 o 11 sec. d. C.), che risale ad Andronico di Rodi. Per le biografie siro-arabe V. A. Baumstark, Arist. bei den Syrem vom V-VIII Jahr, herausg., übers. u. unters., I, Lipsia 1900. Altri testi antichi: W. Dittenberger, Syll. Inscr. Grac., 3ª ed., Lipsia 1915, n. 275; Filodemo, Acad. philos. Ind. Herc., pp. 23, 34, 38; Mekler: id., in Pap. Herc. 1015, 832; V. S. Sudhaus, in Rhein. Mus., 48 (1893), p. 552 sgg. Nuovi elementi sono stati forniti dal Commento di Didimo a Demostene, di su pap. egiz. edito da H. Diela e W. Schubart, Lipsia 1904.
Edizioni: A) Complete: A.s Opera ed. Acad. Ros. Borussica, 5 voll., Berlino 1831-70; voll. I-II: testo, ed. I. Bakker (1831); vol. III: trad. lat. di varii (1831); vol. IV: scolii, ed. Chr. Brandis ed. H. Usener (1836); vol. V: A. squiferebantur librorum fragmenta, ed. Val. Rose, Supplementum scholiorum, ed. H. Usener, Index a cura di H. Bonitz (1870). Un Supplementum Aristotelicum in 3 voll. (Berlino 1885-1903) contiene, oltre varie opere di commentatori, la Res publica Atheniensium a cura di F. G. Kenyon (vol. III, II). A.s Opera omnia, ed. F. Duebner, U. Bussemaker, E. Heitz, 4 voll., Parigi 1848-69; vol. V, continentis indicem nominum et rerum, ivi 1874. Incompleta è a tutt'oggi l'edizione delle singole opere della Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Trukneriana; B) Ed. speciali: A. griech. u. deutsch mit sacherbl. Anm., von Prantl, Aubert, Wimmer, Susemihl, Frantzius, 7 voll. (incompleta), Lipsia 1854-79. Nella Collection des Universités de France (Ass. G. Budé) sono finora apparsi (testo, trad. e note): la Fisica, la Retorica, I e II, la Costituzione d'Atene e la Poetica. Fra le edizioni commentate delle singole opere vanno ricordate: l'Organon di Th. Waitz, 2 voll., Lipsia 1844-46; la Fisica di W. D. Ross, Oxford 1936; il De gener. et corrupt. di H. H. Joachim, Oxford 1922; per il De anima, 1 ed. di E. Wallace (con trad.). Cambridge 1882; per la Metafisica le edd. di H. Bonitz, 2 voll., Bonn 1848-49; di W. D. Ross, 2 voll., Oxford 1924; per l'Etica Nicomachea 1 ed. di A. Grant, 4ª ed., Londra 1885; il solo commento di J. A. Stewart, Oxford 1892; per la Politica è fondamentale l'ed. di W. L. Newman, 4 voll., Oxford 1887-1902; per la Retorica 1 ed. di E. M. Cope e J. E. Sandys, 3 voll., Londra 1877; per la Poetica le edd. di J. Vahlen 3ª ed., Lipsia 1885; di S. H. Butcher, 4ª ed., Londra 1920; di A. Rostagni, Torino 1927, 2ª ed., ivi 1934; una versione araba della Poetica è stata edita con trad. lat. da D. S. Margoliouth, Londra 1911. Per la Costituzione
d'Atene, restituitaci da due papiri egiziani, l'ed. princeps è quella del Kenyon, Londra 1891 (3ª ed., Oxford 1920), che nello stesso anno pubblico il papiro in fac-simile. Per i Fraumeni, alla sua prima ed. del 1870 il Rose fece seguire una seconda in 2 voll. nella Bibliotheca Teubneriana: A. pseudopigraphus, Lipsia 1883, ed. A.s qui fer. libr. fragm., ivi 1886. Gli studi del Jaeger e del Bignone avendone notevolmente aumentato il numero, una nuova edizione è stata curata per i soli dialoghi da R. Walzer, A.s dialogorum Fr. nel 1934 a Firenze.
Traduzioni: Una traduzione completa è la francese di Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Parigi 1879-92, ma è quasi inservibile. Onima ma ancora incompleta la trad. inglese iniziata nel 1923 sotto la direzione di J. A. Smith e W. D. Ross. Una trad. annotata francese è in corso ad opera di J. Tricot. Nella Collezione dei filosofi antichi del Laterza (Bari) sono apparsi in italiano: la Metafisica di A. Carlini, la Politica di V. Costanzi e la Poetica di M. Valgimigli. Traduzioni parziali si hanno in diverse collezioni scolastiche: la migliore è quella della Casa Laterza.
Il repertorio bibliografico più ricco è quello di Moïse Schwab, Bibliographie d'A., Parigi 1896, con più di 3700 numeri. Fino al 1926 si veda il manuale di Fr. Ueberweg, 12ª ed. curata da K. Praechter, Berlino 1926. Per gli anni posteriori l'Année Bibliographique di J. Marouzeau. Fra le storie generali della filosofia antica basterà ricordare: Ed. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, II Teil, 2 Abt., 3ª ed., Lipsia 1879, e Th. Gompers, Griechische Denker, Bd II, 3ª ed., ivi 1912 (trad. franc., vol. III, Parigi 1910).
Opere d'insieme: G. Grosz, Aristotle, 3ª ed., Londra 1883; E. Wallace, Outlines of the Philos. of A., 3ª ed., Cambridge 1887; Cl. Piat, Aristote, 2ª ed., Parigi 1912; A. E. Taylor, Aristotle, 2ª ed., Londra 1919; O. Hamelin, La système d'A., Parigi 1920; H. Siebeck, Aristoteles, 4ª ed., Stoccarda 1922 (trad. ital. Palermo 1911, con ampia bibl.); L. Robin, Aristote, Parigi 1944.
Per lo sviluppo storico d'A. è fondamentale W. Jaeger, Aristoteles, Grundlegung einer Gesch. seiner Entwicklung, Berlino 1923 (trad. ital. con aggiunte dell'autore, Firenze 1933). Vanno aggiunti: J. Stenzel, Zahl u. Gestalt, Lipsia 1924; F. Solmsen, Entw. d. arist. Logik u. Rhetorik, in Neue Philolog. Unters., Berlino 1929; E. Bignone, L'A. perduto, 2 voll., Firenze 1936.
Studi speciali: U. V. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Die Philosophenschulen u. die Politik e Die rechtliche Stellung der Philosophensch., in Antigonus von Karvatos, Berlino 1881; H. Chernica, A.s criticism of Pres. Philosophy, Baltimore 1935; id., A.s Criticism of Plato and the Academy, Baltimore 1944; A. Trendelenburg, Elementa logica aristotelicae, 9ª ed., Berlino 1892 (escolta di testi con commento); C. Prantl, Gesch. der Logik im Abendlande, I, Monaco 1853 (v. id., in Abh. Beyer, Ab. Phil.-hist. Kl., VII, 1 [1853]); H. Maier, Die Syllogistik des A., 3 voll., Tübingen 1896-1900; G. Calogero, I fondamenti della logica aristotelica, Firenze 1927; Fr. Wolmsen, op. cit.; J. M. Le Blond, Logique et méthode chez A., Parigi 1939; F. Ravaisson, Essai sur la Métaphysique d'A., 2 voll., Parigi 1837-46; W. Jaeger, Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des A., Berlino 1917; J. Stenzel, op. cit.; R. Mugnier, La théorie de Premier Moteur et l'évol. de la pensée d'A., Thèse Clermont, Parigi 1930; A. Manson, Introduction à la physique aristotélicienne, 2ª ed., Lovanio 1947; J. Nuyens, L'évolution de la psychologie d'A., Lovanio 1948 (di grande importanza per la confutazione dello Jaeger); M. De Corte, La doctrine de l'intelligence chez A., Parigi 1934; L. Ollé-Lapruno, La morale d'A., Parigi 1881; U. V. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, A. und Athen, 2 voll., Berlino 1893; E. Barker, Political thought of Plato and A., Londra 1906; M. Defourny, A., Etudes sur la politique, Parigi 1932; J. Bernays, Grundzüge der verlor. Abhandl. des A. über die Wirkung der Tragedie, Breslavia 1857, 2ª ed., sotto il titolo Zwei Abhandl. über die arist. Theorie des Dramas, Berlino 1880; C. Giacon, Il divenire in A., Padova 1947.
Carlo Diano
II. A.’S PEDAGOGY. – A. did not fail to take an interest, like his great master Plato, in the educational problem. In Books VII and VIII of his Politics he left us a concrete plan concerning the education of the young; since it has come down to us incomplete, however, it says nothing about higher education, which certainly must have given particular attention to the study of the positive disciplines, such as mathematics and physics. Education in A. is wholly centered in the State. Like Plato, A. wants the State to intervene in the lives of its citizens and regulate their education, without, however, going so far as the Platonic vision that brought women, children, and property into common ownership within the sphere of state life, thereby suppressing the family and all its particular ethical function within the state organism. For A., the happiness of the State depends upon the virtue of its citizens. Virtue does not arise from fortune but from free will and intelligence. The State must attend to the education of its citizens in order to direct them toward virtue, because it is through the virtues that external goods are acquired, and not vice versa. Now there can be no virtue in the State if virtue itself is lacking in the citizens who compose it; therefore it is of particular interest to the State that citizens, through education, be directed toward virtue. A. thus sets out his educational plan, of which the following are the essential lines.
A. believes that soul and body are two distinct things, and accordingly sees in the soul two parts: the rational and the irrational, and two forms in which these parts manifest themselves, namely instinct and intelligence. And just as the body precedes the generation of the soul, so too the irrational precedes the rational. The education of the body must therefore precede that of the soul. The aim of the State and of the legislator, says A., is that children should grow up physically healthy and vigorous. But for this aim to be achieved, it is necessary that the generation of children not be left to the irrational forces of human nature but be regulated by laws. Thus attention must be paid to the proper time for marriages, to the persons entering into them, and, in addition, to a whole series of hygienic, sanitary, and moral regulations: to the age of the spouses, which should be about thirty-seven for the man and about eighteen for the woman; to the most propitious season, to the winds, and so forth. Good parents are those whose physical constitution has been tempered by exertion, though not excessive exertion, nor exertion of only one kind, but one suited to all exercises worthy of free men. Pregnant women, in order to bear healthy children, must take care of their bodies; they must not be idle and must not eat scanty food. The legislator should prescribe that every day they visit the altars of the goddesses who have the patronage of childbirth. A. considered it appropriate to have a law prohibiting the rearing of crippled children, and, because of the multitude of children, wanted newborn infants to be exposed. He then allows abortion in cases where the parents conceive beyond the prescribed limit, an abortion that must be induced before the fetus has acquired sensation and vitality. For him, the innocence or guilt of the act is relative to sensation and vitality. Procreation must be regulated: it may be permitted up to the fullest development of intelligence, which for a man is around the age of fifty; anyone who has exceeded this age by four or five years must be forbidden to beget children. Once the children are born, nutrition is of great importance for making the body vigorous: feeding with milk is good. Wine is harmful. Physical exercises are useful for children, provided they are proportionate to their age. It is beneficial to accustom children to the cold from infancy. In this connection A. praises the custom of certain peoples of immersing newborn infants in a stream of cold water. After infancy, until the age of five, when they are still too immature to receive instruction or endure exertion, children should exercise as much as is needed to overcome bodily lethargy through childish games. The magistrates whom A. calls «pedonomi» must also be concerned with the speeches and stories that children are to hear: these constitute a preparation for maturity, because it is the first impressions that leave the most lasting mark upon the soul. Children’s cries and screams are not to be prevented; indeed, they aid their development. The pedonomi must also see to it that children, since until the age of seven they are to be educated within the family, do not associate with slaves, because, being still of tender age, they would easily be led, through their ears and eyes, to learn bad habits. The legislator should also ban foul language from the city. Young people should have no contact with those who use obscene words, because the way from word to deed is short. But in order to ban foul language, it is also necessary to prohibit spectacles of obscene figures and representations. The performance of iambs and comedies must therefore be forbidden to children until the age at which they are admitted to the sissitii (common tables in which children did not participate)
and until their education has made them wary of the drunkenness and harm that arise from such spectacles.
According to A., education is to be divided into two age periods: from the age of seven to puberty, and from puberty to the twenty-first year. The state cannot remain indifferent to the education of the young because, if education is neglected in the polis, the state itself will suffer all the harmful consequences. The state educates according to the concept informing its constitution. A democratic education of the young generally preserves democracy, while an oligarchic education preserves oligarchy. Since the state has a single end, education too must be one and the same: hence, according to A., education must be entrusted to the state. The exercise of individual citizens’ activities must be subordinated to the collective interest, because the citizen is not the absolute master of himself but, like all the others, belongs to the city, since each person is a part of it, and the care of each part is subordinate to the care of the whole. The state, therefore, must not remain indifferent to education, which must be imparted communally. Among useful disciplines, those should be taught that do not debase the spirit of whoever practices them. Debasing are those disciplines that render the body, soul, or intellect useless for the use and practice of virtue, such as activities undertaken for material gain. This does not mean, however, that a free man may not acquire notions concerning illiberal disciplines; the important point is that they retain the character proper to a non-utilitarian end. The disciplines customarily taught are four: letters, gymnastics, music, and drawing. Letters and drawing are useful in life and beneficial for many purposes; gymnastics prepares one for courage; music produces concord. A. considers music in the restricted sense, not including poetry in it, as Plato had done. Music is the finest recreation of the free man; it must be imparted without any regard for utility or necessity, «but for its intrinsic spiritual beauty, which makes it worthy of a free man». Music, which by its nature is among the most delightful and soothing things, is a source of innocent pleasures and can provide the soul with formation, but pleasure cannot constitute the principal aim of this instruction. Music is suited to the formation of character because it speaks a universal language capable of expressing and communicating all the movements of the soul; it awakens in listeners feelings that can be translated into inner habits, which subsequently make themselves felt in virtuous action. Music is harmony and finds an immediate correspondence in the soul, which some wise men call a harmony, while others say that it contains a harmony. Education must aim at education, not at musical performance. It will not be amiss for children, from their earliest years, to practice music in order to acquire competence in judging and, once they have grown to maturity, to enjoy, through the refinement of judgment, the fruits of practice. In other words, musical training must not aim at profit, but must be a means of enriching one’s culture and refining one’s spirit. It has value if it succeeds in making us better and if it contributes to harmonizing, through the powers of reason, the unreasonable element within us. Free men must devote themselves to simple and tranquil music, choosing certain instruments and excluding others, such as the flute. In public performances livelier music may be admitted, while for the common people and slaves a freer kind of music may be used.
The principle affirmed concerning musical training, which must be imparted not only because it is useful but above all because it ultimately contributes to the moral formation of the young, is also affirmed by A. with regard to the other disciplines. Drawing, in fact, must be taught not merely to avoid being deceived when buying paintings, but because it refines taste in contemplating the beauty of bodies. To seek utility everywhere is unbecoming to the elevation of spirit and the liberal dispositions of a well-born man. And since the body must be educated before the soul, it follows that gymnastics acquires particular importance in the education of children: children must first be accustomed to gymnastics and gymnastic exercises.
Gymnastics increases the body’s strength and dignity, while the other exercises increase ease of movement. Physical education itself becomes moral education insofar as it must aim at strengthening courage, which belongs to the virtuous man and is distinct from ferocity. The Spartans, in fact, by giving great preference to gymnastics in order to strengthen and harden the body, making it fit for the hardships of war, awakened in the young a ferocity that disturbed the balance between soul and body in which true education consists. To prevent it from causing physical harm, A. wants gymnastics to begin only from adolescence; naturally, with light exercises suited to the children’s age.
As can be seen, in A.’s educational vision the state is placed at the center of education, but A. recognizes a particular ethical function in the family, which has no place whatsoever in the ideal Platonic republic, because it is only within the family that the finest and deepest human sentiments live and are strengthened—sentiments that would scarcely find in a communistic society a favorable ground for their growth and affirmation.