5.23 Maria Silvia Vaccarezza – La phronesis-prudentia fra traditio ed inventio

While it is undeniable that tradition, in the sense of traditum, plays a fundamental role in the constitution of the morality of individuals and groups, it is equally clear that it requires a continuous revision and rediscovery. On the one hand, experience would be opaque from a tabula rasa, and becomes intelligible only through a particular “lens”, which allows one to understand the situation, and to grasp its moral relevance, but, on the other, the lens itself needs to improve, to become more and more comprehensive by incorporating new cases, to be able to adapt to new and different circumstances, which are often unpredictable. The Aristotelian and Thomistic account of phronesis-prudentia is illuminating from this point of view. Phronesis represents an ability to see the particular situation in the light of the end, the novelty and the change in the light of the past, the unexpected in the light of the traditum. Therefore, it is the trait d’union which brings together the particular and the universal, building up one’s unique story and moral character. Its creativity is a solid and grounded one: while firmly grounded on the universal end, that it knows, but does not create, phronesis acknowledges at the same time its partial indeterminacy, which needs to be clarified and enriched in the light of the particular contingency. That’s why it can be said that phronesis acts as a connection between traditio and inventio, making these two poles the interlocutors of an ongoing and fruitful dialogue.