EQUALITY, CITIZENSHIP AND JUSTICE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ARISTOTLE

• Autor(a) principal: De Freitas, Patricia Regina
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Encontros
• Texto Completo: https://portalespiral.cp2.g12.br/index.php/encontros/article/view/1130
• topic: citizenship; equality; justice; democracy; education. Ancient Greece.; cidadania; igualdade; justiça; democracia; educação; Grécia Antiga.

The article addresses the concepts of equality, citizenship and justice from the perspective of Aristotle. However, the discussion is not circumscribed to the analysis of the philosopher's texts, but also it covers the debate developed by Cornelius Castoriadis and Hannah Arendt on the same theme. The analysis of the concepts of citizenship and equality in Aristotle gives us the possibility to understand the deep differences between the democracy which has been practiced in contemporary times and the one that had existed in the Greek city-states of Antiquity. It also opens up the possibility of reflecting the political role and the foundation of education in our society. Specifically, the article intends to establish, at first, a dialogue between the Aristotelian perspective and the view of Hannah Arendt and Cornelius Castoriadis upon the same concepts. The pieces of Aristotle’s work on which we are basing our arguments are Nicomachean Ethics (1973) and The Politics (1998). These works were written in the fourth century a. C., therefore they refer to a political experience monopolized by a specific social group. Following this train of thought, the concepts of citizenship and political equality are presented at the time of its inception and, for this reason, they unveil how the political participation in the Greek democracy was defined. The texts selected by us provide one of the last theoretical works elaborated during the democratic period in classical Greece and thus they allow us to observe democratic institutions in their full functioning.