La Stoa en la aretología del siglo XIII

El Canciller Felipe y la problemática de la naturaleza de la virtud

Abstract

The brilliant decision of Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus regarding the nature human´s own virtue is part of the speculative effort made by a line of medieval authors that, through a series of documentation methods, have gathered theses from the Late Antiquity, such as the ones belonging from the Stoa, in an exegesis that re-elaborates them and integrates them into an aretology still governed by the authority of the Augustinian maxim on vera virtus. In the early XIII century, Chancellor Philip´s treaty “De virtute in communi” of the Summa de bono reveals the state of the art regarding the compilation of the different current definitions of virtue contained in it. However, the Chancellor´s work also contains an analytical revision of the matter and expresses his purpose of developing and justifying a conception of human nature that can support the self-determination an act of virtue demands. The purpose of this research is to distinguish the influence of the stoic thesis in the development of Master Philip´s Summa about the notion of virtue and its anthropological assumptions as contributor to subsequent medieval developments.