Chiaroscuri. Figure dell'ethos

[Autom. eng. transl.] In the technique of chiaroscuro the images originate through the balancing, fusion and overlapping of light and dark shades according to a reciprocal ambivalence. The clear ones let the figures shine through, without being able to become transparent themselves, the shutters stand out nuances that, without opacity, cannot be detected. However, neither light nor dark tones can become totalizing, on pain of invisibility: of light in one case, of darkness in the other. Human life can be grasped in the same intrinsic ambivalence: it is not clear without a dark. However, philosophical ethics cannot coexist with the dynamism of chiaroscuro without trying to dispel shadows and ambiguity. A task that becomes all the more relevant when it comes to thinking about the figures of the ethos, understood as the most important ways of being and putting man in relation to himself and his relationships. Through the analyzes of thinkers such as Aristotle, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Arendt and Jankélévitch, intertwined with some of the most dizzying literary pages of Dostoevskij, the book introduces the reader into a philosophical journey that, starting from the distinction between ambivalence and ambiguity, addresses the most significant figures of moral life.