Responsabilità e creatività. Alla ricerca di un uomo nuovo(secoli XI-XIII. Atti del Convegno Internazionale,Brescia 12-14 settembre 2013

The new cycle of La Mendola-conferences suggests that we fi rst look at ethics. While dealing with ethics at a more philosophical level or from the vantage point of the history of philosophy, the papers are mostly concerned with ethical contexts – environments, that is, in which ethics was implemented, represented and, judging from most papers’ conclusions, defi ned: the monasteries and the schools, as one may expect, but also the cities, the courts and even the countryside. Both this diversity and this creativity refl ect the dynamism of European societies between the 11th and 13th centuries. Yet they may also make ethics more practical than even the classical distinction between theoretical and practical wisdom – to which ethics belonged– suggests. Far from endorsing Aristotle’s social conservatism, the papers point to a shift from an aristocratic and monastic environment to a more diverse and dynamic society and culture in which schools and universities, the communes, secular courts and independent artists occupy the central ground.