A [sophrosyne] em Aristóteles

• Ano de defesa: 2023
• Autor(a) principal: Bernardo César Diniz Athayde Vasconcelos
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
• Palavras-chave em Português: Filosofia - Teses; Filosofia antiga - Teses; Aristóteles - Teses; Virtudes - Teses
• Link de acesso: https://hdl.handle.net/1843/79466

The study deals with the conception of sophrosyne (σωφροσύνη) in Aristotle, but it has a broad focus, initially addressing the question of the etymology of the term to show that the currently most accepted option -- “mental health/sanity”, coming from Henri Etienne's Thesaurus Graecae Linguae (1572) -- is incorrect; and that its more precise meaning -- related to an aerodynamic model of the soul found in the Homeric poems -- would be “preservation of/in the mind”, which reclaims the etymology proposed by Plato and seconded by Aristotle. Next, we will see how both conceive of it as a way of controlling the appetites and treat it as a guardian of correct deliberation that ensures a concordance between appetite and reason, thus constituting harmony in the soul. Among the divergences presented by Aristotle - such as the option for a profusion of virtues as opposed to the economical but problematic Platonic cardinal model - the most serious seems to be the limitation of the control of the appetites to a purely somatic dimension linked to the pleasures derived from the sensation of contact; not anywhere, but only in certain parts of the body. As we shall see, this can be explained by the association with the soul faculties responsible for preserving life itself, which are the vegetative soul and the sensitive soul. This means that σωφροσύνη would be the fundamental virtue for young people, who must acquire by habit, and in stages, what nature has left unfinished in their relationship with [the pleasures of] food, drink and sex. For Aristotle, it regulates everything directed towards the preservation of one's own life; more specifically, it focuses on the pleasure derived from these activities and aims its exercise at the health of the body, virtue and beauty. This habit has the particularity of being one of the few unavoidable areas in the Aristotelian framework of virtues. It is Aristotle's first virtue, in the temporal sense of the term - which was recognized in the first lines of Aspasius' commentary, the oldest commentary on a work by Aristotle.