Pratica e attitudine della tolleranza in Aristotele. Una lettura contemporanea

This essay aims to underscore the existence of a possible (although embryonic and utterly sui generis) view of toleration in the ancient world by way of targeted references on Aristotle’s thought. I shall adopt the methodological distinction worked out by Williams between a “practice of toleration” and an “attitude of toleration” as lead criterion for my investigation. Special concern will be devoted to the subdivision of the latter category into (a) non-virtuous and (b) virtuous attitudes of toleration. By applying such a conceptual taxonomy to the study of Aristotle, I will take into examination some passages of the Politics, and I will maintain that the situations introduced in the passages at issue represent paradigmatic cases of a practice of toleration grounded on a non-virtuous attitude. In the last part of this paper, I will identify in the notion of “self-control” formulated in the Nicomachean Ethics a potential form of “virtuous attitude of toleration”.