Making the City Safe for Philosophy: Nicomachean Ethics, Book 10

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (4) ◽  
pp. 1251-1262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aristide Tessitore
Keyword(s):  
Civic Virtue ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
Fundamental Tension ◽  
The City

The perennially problematic relationship between philosophy and politics, though recognized as an important theme in the Platonic corpus, is virtually ignored in the writings of his most famous student. This is not due to the absence of the problem but the deftness of Aristotle's treatment. Attentiveness to both the requirements of moral-political life and the nature of philosophy gives rise to the rhetorical design of the Nicomachean Ethics. In the final book of the Ethics Aristotle establishes the value of philosophy by placing his argument within a broader context that reveals to what extent moral and intellectual excellence can be regarded as similar and even complementary. Without actually denying the existence of a fundamental tension between the requirements of philosophy and civic virtue, Aristotle succeeds in winning an at-least-partial acceptance of philosophy on the part of those who are (or will be) most responsible for the welfare of the city.

scholarly journals PARA ALÉM DA CIDADE: UMA REFLEXÃO ACERCA DAS RELAÇÕES ENTRE POLÍTICA, EXCELÊNCIA E RACIONALIDADE EM ARISTÓTELES

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (121) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Richard Romeiro Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The City ◽  
Contemplative Life

Como se sabe, a Ética a Nicômaco de Aristóteles culmina na contundente afirmação de que a melhor forma de vida para o homem, a vida mais feliz e excelente, é não a vida engajada nos negócios e práticas da cidade, mas a vida consagrada ao exercício da atividade teorética ou contemplativa, a qual se impõe, assim, como o verdadeiro bem soberano e como um horizonte superior à vida política. O presente artigo busca examinar em que medida esse elogio da supremacia da vida contemplativa sobre a vida política, determinando uma forma de eudaimonía intelectual superior à ordem comunitária da cidade, aponta para a constituição, em Aristóteles, de um ideal de individualidade noética que transcende as fronteiras da pólis.Abstract: As it is known, AristotleÊs Nicomachean Ethics has its climax in the assertion of that the best way of life for man, i. e., the happiest and most excellent life for us, is not the life engaged in the business and practical affairs of the city, but the life dedicated to the exercise of theoretical or contemplative activity, which therefore imposes itself as the true sovereign good and as an axiological reference superior to political life. This paper seeks to examine how this praise of the supremacy of contemplative life above political life, determining a type of intellectual eudaimonia superior to the communitarian order of the city, points to the constitution in Aristotle of an ideal of noetical individuality that transcends the borders of the polis. 

City Management and the Emerging Welfare State: Evolution of City Budgets and Civic Responsibilities in Montreal, 1931–1951

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre Collin
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Fiscal Crisis ◽  
Political Life ◽  
City Management ◽  
Political Machines ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
State Evolution ◽  
The City

The Great Depression of the 1930s transformed municipal political life in Montreal, as it did that in other major cities in North America. For one thing, the debate between populists and reformers was revived as the electoral scene underwent fundamental changes. In many cities, political machines running on patronage became more influential as the middle class began to desert the city for the suburbs. At the same time, the margin of budgetary maneuvering available to cities was shrinking, and local public finances were reduced. Municipalities that had been obliged to borrow to meet social needs resulting from the depression were faced with a prolonged fiscal crisis, which for many of them resulted in bankruptcy and trusteeship. This was Montreal's fate in 1940.

El pueblo de México y la política capitalina, 1808 y 1812

1994 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Guedea
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Significant Growth ◽  
Substantial Role ◽  
The People ◽  
New Nation ◽  
The City

Beginning in 1808 the people started to play a prominent role in the political life of Mexico. This article examines the significant growth of popular political participation in the City of Mexico during the period 1808-1812. In particular, it analyzes the substantial role that the people played in the elections of 1812, a role they would continue to play in the early years of the new nation.

scholarly journals Public Reveal: Finding a place for Civic Architecture in the Contemporary City.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Amber Venter
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Spatial Arrangement ◽  
City Council ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Civic Architecture ◽  
Design Case ◽  
Design Case Study ◽  
Design Proposal ◽  
The City

<p><b>This research is an architectural enquiry into how the visibility of local government can mimic the performance of everyday political life. Using the conceptual framework of place and understanding of the collective community. The intention of this design proposal is to encourage the transparency of local authority through an architectural intervention in the city.</b></p> <p>The driver of this research is the reduced physical presence of civic practices, with particular regard to the congregating place of local government. A framework is developed as a precursor to develop an understanding of the traditional civic architype. The aim is to reimagine a contemporary civic architecture which is detached from the corporate functions of local government. Architecture supports the celebration of collective rituals of movement and meeting.</p> <p>An archetype investigation formalises a set design criteria by which the design case study is evaluated against. The background research comprises a critique of the spatial arrangement of the traditional town hall. An additional background task is consisted of a comparative inquiry into today’s local government accommodation.</p> <p>The site is located in Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland City. The site analysis criteria utilised by this thesis is grounded in the research of Jan Gehl and his understanding of architectures impact on peoples’ behaviour in cities.</p> <p>Finally the design case study is driven by dynamic circulation, which establishes a celebration of the formal and informal interactions between the participants of local government. Transparency and hierarchy are used to challenge the spatial and functional qualities of Auckland City Council. The result of the research will contribute to the inclusive understanding of the ordinary rituals of local government through architecture in the city.</p>

scholarly journals Stoic Ethics as a Guide to the Political Life in Marcus Aurelius

Escritos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (61) ◽  
pp. 51-61
Author(s):  
Bruno Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Marcus Aurelius ◽  
Simple Part ◽  
The Common ◽  
The City ◽  
Political Actions

Marcus Aurelius reigned from 161 A.D. to 180 A.D., and he ranks among the most successful emperors of the antonine dynasty. The success of his administration may be attributed to his philosopher personality and, more than that, to his stoic character. Meditations presents thoughts of a stoicism devotee, which reflects in moments of intimacy on the challenges that he faced throughout his life as an emperor. It is in the practice of the ethical precepts of stoicism that he finds his refuge. The text consists of a series of spiritual exercises which reaffirm the indifference to pleasures, contempt for fame, detachment from riches and abnegation for political power. This paper is a study of Meditations, and its main purpose is to elucidate how the stoic way of life is incorporated in the figure of the philosopher emperor; this, as a military function, as he was a commander of the Roman army in the war against the Nordics, where political virtue was tested. Amid the chaos of an insane struggle for the survival of Rome, he found in stoicism a precious source of inspiration. Marcus Aurelius was not dazzled by the cult of the emperor's personality; he acted for the natural right to freedom and guided his political actions for the common good. His stoic perseverance reveals itself in a harmonious conduct with the city, the rational and cosmic organism from which the emperor is a simple part.

Key Identity Features of Urban Youth: The Case of Krasnodar Krai

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-171
Author(s):  
Irina Vladimirovna Samarkina ◽  
Igor Stanislavovich Bashmakov
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Urban Youth ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Local Identity ◽  
Krasnodar Krai ◽  
City Life ◽  
Youth Identity ◽  
The City

This article is devoted to the study of urban youth local identity in a large and medium city. This identity is manifested in everyday interaction with the urban community, its socio-political institutions and visitors and affect the level of public and political participation, the presence of constructive civic practices. The aim is to identify and describe the main components and place of local youth identity in the system of social identities in large and medium-sized cities of Krasnodar krai (Krasnodar, Novorossiysk, Sochi and Armavir). The empirical basis of the study was made up of focus group transcripts conducted with various groups of young people (schoolchildren, students, and working youth). To verify the conceptual model a modified version of the Kuhn-McPartland method was used. On the basis of the conducted empirical research, the place of local identity in the system of urban youth social and territorial identities was revealed. The dependence between the size of a city and a cohort of young people and a local identity was shown. Such components of young people local identity as awareness of the city and its socio-political life, attitude towards representatives of other communities, a sense of their involvement in city life, the desire to stay and live in the city, the will to work for the benefit of the city, to participate in its socio-political life. The study made it possible to identify the valence of youth identity (negative, neutral, positive). The trajectories of young people spatial mobility that affect the degree of actualization and valence of local identity were also described. The dependence between the strength of youth local identity and participation in public and political activity for the benefit of the city and the region, participation in the activities of public and political organizations has been revealed.

Conclusion

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Kamen
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Athenian Democracy ◽  
Dominant Ideology ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. Through close analysis of various forms of evidence—literary, epigraphic, and legal—this book demonstrated that classical Athens had a spectrum of statuses, ranging from the base chattel slave to the male citizen with full civic rights. It showed that Athenian democracy was in practice both more inclusive and more exclusive than one might expect based on its civic ideology: more inclusive in that even slaves and noncitizens “shared in” the democratic polis, more exclusive in that not all citizens were equal participants in the social, economic, and political life of the city. The book also showed the flexibility of status boundaries, seemingly in opposition to the dominant ideology of two or three status groups divided neatly from one another: slave versus free, citizen versus noncitizen, or slave versus metic versus citizen.

Cross-cultural contact: psychosis and the city in modern life

2019 ◽  
pp. 152-169
Author(s):  
Shuo Zhang ◽  
Vishal Bhavsar ◽  
Dinesh Bhugra
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Cultural Contact ◽  
Urban Mental Health ◽  
Rapid Industrialization ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Places

In the modern globalized world with rapid industrialization and urbanization the city has once again become the focus of modern social, economic and political life. Urban spaces and places have been the focus of research by many disciplines, including epidemiology, sociology, anthropology, and urban studies. In this chapter, the authors outline the importance and the role of culture in urban mental health employing various historical, sociological, and epidemiological contexts. The authors point out that modern multicultural approaches in viewing the metropolis can be conceptualized as a global hub of migration. This therefore becomes a place where individuals encounter the other and various boundaries between spaces and residence, and between wellness and illness, intersect. Acculturation to the urban places may take some time and the authors propose that the psychological process of acculturation is a useful beginning in terms of unpicking and understanding the phenomenology of identity formation and cross-cultural contact. The chapter traces the historical development of the city in parallel to the literature on psychosis and the city in developed and developing contexts, before critically examining the role of culture in informing our explanatory and interpretive frameworks of psychosis epidemiology.

Sulla’s Sack of Athens

2020 ◽  
pp. 195-222
Author(s):  
Ian Worthington
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
The People ◽  
The City

Chapter 10 begins with a consideration of the constitution and political activity in Athens, followed by a change in the Athenian attitude toward Rome and the activities of Mithridates VI of Pontus. Mithridates’ clashes with Rome led to him seek allies in Greece, especially Athens. His case polarized Athenian politics, but the people voted to support him, and hence declared war on Rome. The Romans sent Sulla to Greece, who besieged Athens. Eventually the city capitulated, and Sulla’s men then killed many citizens and destroyed many buildings. The city’s economy was destroyed; Delos defected; further restraints were made on the city’s political life; and even artistic output was affected. Yet Roman visitors to Athens began to increase in the years after Sulla, including to study there, and Greek culture continued to be attractive to Romans.

Utrum sapienti competat prolem habere?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvain Piron
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Unit ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

This chapter considers fourteenth-century Italian debates about the costs of marriage to the work of a philosopher. Following Heloise’s famous injunction against the idea of marriage to Abelard, when she railed against the impact it would have upon his work, this chapter investigates how the terms of this conversation were transformed by the insights of lay intellectuals of cities like Arezzo, Bologna, and Florence, who were grappling with the implications of fatherhood as part of the economic unit of the household, and its role in the political life of the city.

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