Il saggio stoico tra paradosso e parenesi

The Stoic Wise between Paradox and Parenesis · The Stoic topos ofthe wise and its apparents contradictions, but also to delineate the pedagogical aims the Stoicstried to reach by describing a human type apparently so alien to common people's mind-set. TheStoic sophos embodies the realization of the best known cornerstones of Stoic ethics and is thereforedescribed as such a model of perfection that seems implausible to propose as a realistic practicalgoal. My hypothesis is that the Stoa makes the wise the extreme case of perfected humanityfrom which almost all human beings (including Stoic philosophers) remain very far, to underlinethis last point exactly. The widespread distance of humanity from perfection actually corroboratesthe idea of the substantial equality of men, all imperfect but also all participating in the sameorder of reality made up of men and gods.