DA PAIXÃO ERÓTICA AO AMOR PELA OBLAÇÃO: AMIZADE DE ACORDO COM ARISTÓTELES, ÉTICA NICOMACHEANA

For Aristotle, friendship is the act of necessary mutual love that constitutes, with its three levels, the cement of the “polis,” the political community, and the “city.” It can be studied according to Aristotelian categories themselves as well as to the theory of matter and form, potency, and act. This paper, after analyzing what friendship is as an act of love, applies such Aristotelian theories to the understanding of friendship.Para Aristóteles, a amizade é o ato de amor mútuo necessário que constitui, com seus três níveis, o cimento da "polis", a comunidade política, e a "cidade". Ela pode ser estudada de acordo com as próprias categorias aristotélicas, assim como com a teoria da matéria e da forma, da potência e do ato. Este trabalho, após analisar o que é a amizade como ato de amor, aplica tais teorias aristotélicas à compreensão da amizade

Hitler’s political action as anticipated by Churchill

Having read Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Churchill understood what he calls "the granite pillars" of the Nazi Leader’s policy, thus knowing, step by step, what the Dictator wanted to do, was going to do. This allowed Churchill to start counter acting successfully Hitler’s actions even before being the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Thus Mein Kampf became both Hitler’s and Churchill’s guide, leading them in quite opposite directions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Churchill on philosophy "Intellectual dynamite"

Mature Winston Churchill, writing his memoirs on his youthful days reflects on his tardy found desire of academic type knowledge and the wonders and joys he discovered practising philosophy in a Socratic mood, manifesting his view on education, higher and lower. This article also discusses the possible influence of his odd education path on his ability to comprehend political reality in a very different way, allowing him to perceive Hitler’s aims with almost pinpoint accuracy

As If Plato Had Read Freud

In Politeia, Plato analyses the types of human desirability, showing that there are perverse desires, detrimental to the possibility of the existence of common-good. The paragon of human perversity is the tyrant, precisely the one whose "paideia", annulling the corrective political instances – the "super-me" –, lead to an absolute hold of power, enslaving all other human beings. Briefly, this is how Plato read Freud

Portuguese women para-troop nurses (1961-1980)

Portugal had a group of military Para-Troop women composed by trained Nurses, whose main mission was to respond to evacuation calls for wounded soldiers, nursing them, keeping them alive until they could reach military hospitals in the rear. The idea, the path to convincing the men in power, the creation and development of this very small but very significant and effective force, along with the service it delivered, constitute a dramatic historical and noble part of the Portuguese Colonial War. The action of these paradigmatic women proved, beyond any honest doubt, the capacity of apparently common women to perform even the harshest and most difficult tasks, never losing, in their case, the profound sense of humane action that had been the ethic core of their formation as Nurses

Churchill on Religion: The Intuition

Having had an initial twofold education on religion, first under the paradigm of "simple faith" through the example of his Nanny, Mrs. Everest, on which a bourgeois mode of understanding religion was poured at Harrow and Sandhurst, when facing the mortal perils of frontline soldier life, Churchill evolved to a peculiar personal mode of understanding and living the relation with the divine

Utopia as Common Good

The narrative that presents the "polis"of "Utopia"does not build an image of a "place without place", but demonstrates that which could and should be – at least structurally – the form of a real community, the one that erects itself as an act of "common-wealth/common-good/common-goodness". The utopian societies, the ones that should have "no place" in human affairs, are the ones that exist historically. So it is really an inversion of "topoi"the one that Sir Thomas operates, making us remember that the reality of humanity is not a society of Hobbes like wolves, but a community of Augustine like good-doers, even if not perfect, even if never perfect

Human rights, why and what for?

The constant presence of barbaric acts along the history of humanity calls for an "imperial rule of law" in order to avoid the continuation of such a tragic tradition; the Declaration of Human Rights is the basis for such a lawful empire.A presença constante de actos bárbaros ao longo da história da humanidade exige o "império do estado de direito", de modo a evitar a continuação de tão trágica tradição; a Declaração dos Direitos Humanos é a base para tal império da Lei

MANUAL PRÁTICO DO MAJOR-GENERAL SIR COLIN GUBBINS

When the world prepared itself for what would be WWII, Colin Gubbins created a practical handbook in which he laid the foundations of guerrilla warfare as a methodology and an art largely contributing for the defeat of apparently stronger military forces employed by an attacking enemy on an apparently weaker force. Guerrilla, scientifically structured, is the equalizing tool that permits the initially weaker power to diminish the superiority of the stronger, thus allowing for a goal not just of a lighter defeat, but of a possible victory. This effectiveness of guerrilla warfare is most useful when the perspective of the attacked power is an existential one.Quando o mundo se preparava para o que viria a ser a Segunda Guerra Mundial, Colin Gubbins criou um manual prático em que lançou as fundações para a guerra de guerrilha como metodologia e arte que contribuiu grandemente para a derrota de forças militares aparentemente mais fortes empregues por um inimigo agressor sobre uma força aparentemente mais fraca. A guerrilha, cientificamente estruturada, é o instrumento que permite pôr em igualdade de circunstâncias tais inimigos, fazendo que o mais fraco diminua a superioridade do mais forte, proporcionando-lhe como fim não apenas uma derrota menos pesada, mas uma possível vitória. Esta efectividade da guerrilha é de maior utilidade quando a perspectiva da potência atacada é da ordem existencial

Absolute Being: The Divine According to Hesiod and Plato

The matrix of all Hellenic culture is the intuition of the absolute difference between the existence of something and its contradiction, for which there are no proper words. Hesiodic myth, as well as the narratives of Homer and the great dramatic authors, portray the first conception of this relation, depicted in many detailed forms. Plato, following Socrates’ teachings, proposes Goodness as that absolute difference, asthe absolute ontological positivity that produces/creates being