Prudencia, kairosz, decorum. A konzervativizmus időszemléletéről
Prudence, kairos, decorum. On the time conception of conservatism

Summary/Abstract: Our age preoccupied with information challenges the basic human insitincts regarding therelevance of the temporal axis and its vectors for the human being and her society. This challenge is expressed in the realm of political philosophy by a misconceived opposition between a past-oriented Conservatism and a future-oriented Leftism. This paper aims at rethinking the time conception of conservatism along the lines of ancient Greco-Roman philosophy as represented in the ideas of Aristotle and Cicero. This alternative understanding of the relevance of time for humanity is based on the notions of kairos (the right time to act), prudence (practical cleverness to make the right judgement and to act it out) and decorum (propriety). Relying on an analysis of Titian’s painting “The Allegory of Prudence”, the author argues that this view of the relationship between mankind and her time supports a more balanced view of the relevance of the temporal dimensions of the past, the present and the future, and offers a more elaborate picture of the “sense of time” in the conservative perspective, as opposed to the simplified version of past-fetishism, which is commonly associated with the conservative political attitude.

• Details
• Contents