Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Government Kenneth Leonardo was recently accepted into the visiting “Scholars from Overseas” program at Kansai University in Osaka, Japan.
For two weeks in June, Leonardo will conduct research for his article titled “Way(s) of the Warrior? The Pursuit of Virtue in Aristotle and Tsunetomo.” The paper focuses on honor, something he says is “a perennially important theme across the entire history of political philosophy” and “a significant motivating factor in the pursuit of virtue, or human excellence, within a multitude of cultures.”
The article compares “Aristotle’s view of nobility and goodness in the context of Ancient Greece with Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s view of the way of the warrior for the Japanese samurai” in an analysis that he says is “vital because it sets up a comparison between two distinguished cultures to highlight some pivotal differences and unduly neglected similarities.”
