How to Cite

Repici, Luciana: Aristotle’s Reflections on Old Age, in Neumann, Christian Alexander (Ed.): Old Age before Modernity: Case Studies and Methodological Perspectives, 500 BC ‒ 1700 AD, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2023 (Online-Schriften des DHI Rom. Neue Reihe: Pubblicazioni online del DHI Roma. Nuova serie, Volume 8), p. 59–73. https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.1086.c14933

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https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.1086
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02/23/2023

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Authors

Luciana Repici

Aristotle’s Reflections on Old Age

Abstract Old age in Aristotle’s view is a ‘natural illness’, that is to say a nonpathological condition through which human beings gradually but inexorably lose their vital powers. In such a process, body and soul are jointly involved: as the cognate vital heat slowly decreases and extinguishes in the body, so the mental faculties correspondingly weaken and decline. Based on these premises, the analysis shows if and in what terms the above ‘uneasy’ psychophysiological condition affects elderly people in their moral habits and behaviours, influencing their social life and conditioning the possibility for them to exercise functions in the institutional apparatus of the polis.