The ruler's éthos and the political order: Philosophical keys to understanding virtue as a capacity from The Politician by Baltasar Gracián

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show, firstly, the centrality of the concept of political capacity as a capacity for government in Gracián's El Político and how this concept is rooted in the conception of virtue as dýnamis. Secondly, it shows how this centrality acquires its true meaning and scope when it is understood from the tension generated in the confrontation of the two political models that were consolidated in the Baroque period: the one that corresponds to the reason of the State and the model of the Christian prince. Finally, our work, by delving into the genealogy of the concept of virtue, aims to understand how the tension is generated in the Renaissance which, later on, leads to Gracián’s outline of his political capacity concept as a capacity for government. This tension can be seen paradigmaally in the opposition between Machiavelli and Erasmus of Rotterdam