Tra vita contemplativa e vita attiva: il De Officiis di Cicerone e le sue radici aristoteliche

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between contemplative and active life in Cicero’s last philosophical work, the De officiis. This highly studied topic in the philosopher’s work and life embraces fundamental issues such as sapientia and prudentia, utilitas, and the characteristics of human nature, in its twofold and irreducible value, both descriptive and prescriptive.The second part of the paper explores how Cicero thought about these themes in connection with Aristotelian philosophy and, more specifically, with the ethical-political reflection of the Stagirite. In fact, Cicero’s text contains evident references, albeit with interesting repositioning and changes, to crucial questions about contemplative and active life already posed by Aristotle, above all the role and meaning of sapientia and prudentia, notions that Cicero explicitly connects, although in a thorny process of concordia discors, with the ones of σοφία and φρόνησις