Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 December 2021
The sixth chapter concerns the valuation accorded to theoria, both as festival-attendance and as philosophical contemplation. As the former, the activity primarily has practical benefits or instrumental value, whereas as the latter, it has primarily intrinsic value, or value in itself. For the value attached to festival-attendance concerns fulfilling a social, political role for the city, and that of sanctuary visitation is similarly instrumental, although more individual given its aim concerned with healing physical maladies. Plato and Aristotle signal a departure from the position that accords theoria primarily instrumental value. The two philosophers concur that theoria as philosophical contemplation, by nature, is an activity desired for itself and is good in itself. However, in a secondary way, Plato and Aristotle also hold that theoria-thinking produces good effects, and in this regard, their view partly coincides with the valuation connected to the traditional practice.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.