La notion de philanthropia chez Plutarque: contexte social et sources philosophiques

Abstract

In a period in which some natural feelings, like philia and philanthrōpia, are disappearing, it is natural that an intellectual, like Plutarch, asks for the reasons that have determined this disappearance. The philosopher from Chaeronea identifies them in the greed (pleonexia) and in the insatiability (aplēstia) that have invaded the soul of the aristocracy of his time. Due to these passions, which derive from wrong judgements and empty opinions, the soul has become attached to goods that are foreign to itself and eventually loses the emotional impulse for showing its proper virtues. Consequently, these passions end up wearing out human relations in such a way as to make man no more familiar and friend to his fellows (oikeios), but a stranger (allotrios). Regarding the philosophical coordinates, Plutarch’s philosophy of philanthrōpia as oikeiotēs seems to find its starting point in Aristotle’s EN and, more in general, in Peripatetic philosophy beginning with Theophrastus.