Aristotle’s Politics - Course Materials



ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS

Aristotle: 384 – 322 BCE

Aristotle was born in Stagira, Macedonia, in what is now part of northern Greece. The city was a seaport on the coast of Macedon. (Since most Greeks were known only by one name, they were often identified by the city of their birth. Hence Aristotle was known in his lifetime as Aristotle of Stagira.) The Macedonians, during Aristotle’s life, dominated the rest of Greece and much of Europe, under King Philip and then Alexander the Great, of whom Aristotle was a teacher. Aristotle was the son of a doctor, Nichomachus, who was closely allied to the court in Macedonia. As such, throughout his life, Aristotle was seen as close to the rulers of Macedonia, considered by the citizens of the other Greek city-states as foreign conquerers.

Aristotle moved to Athens in 367 BCE, attending Plato’s Academy until Plato’s death in 347 BCE. During this twenty-year period, Plato wrote many of his most important and mature works, including the Timaeus, Sophist, Statesman, and Laws. These works had an enormous influence on Aristotle’s own work, even if, in the end, he disputes a number of Plato’s claims.

Aristotle left the Academy and Athens in 347 BCE. First, he moved to Atarneus in Mysia. Here, Aristotle married Pythias, a niece of Hermeias, the ruler of Atarneus. They had a daughter, also called Pythias. After the death of his wife, Aristotle had a son Nicomachus with Herpyllis. Later, Aristotle left for the island of Lesbos, and then back to Macedon. Back home, Aristotle again was close to the ruling family of Macedon, tutoring the young Alexander the Great. In 334 BCE, Aristotle returned to Athens, founding his own school, the Lyceum.

It is important to note that Aristotle’s works that survive were texts of lectures from his days at the Lyceum. While many parts of his texts were polished enough to suggest that he would publish them, other parts of Aristotle’s surviving work includes incomplete sentences and paraphrased notations. Aristotle's lectures were preserved by a student, Theophrastus, who put the books in a vault. For close to 300 years, Aristotle’s work was lost to the world, until discovered by a Roman scholar in 100 BCE. The order in which Aristotle’s works appear in the Greek manuscripts goes back to early editors and commentators during the era of the late Roman empire. As such, the titles to Aristotle’s work were provided by these editors. For example, it is usually assumed that Aristotle “invented” metaphysics due to the book of this name. However, the term metaphysics was placed on a certain text of Aristotle’s, since it was agreed that this text would follow the Physics in a published edition of Aristotle’s work. That is, the text would be meta, after or above, the text of the Physics, which preceded it.

In 323 BCE, Alexander the Great passed away and so with him the influence of Macedon on the other Greek city states. The Macedonian-led government of Athens fell and the new rulers brought charges of impiety against Aristotle. Aristotle left Athens amidst a fervor of anti-Macedonian feeling for the island of Euboea, where he died in 322 BCE of a stomach illness. Before leaving Athens, fearing for his life, Aristotle is reputed to have said “The Athenians might not have another opportunity of sinning against philosophy as they have already done in the person of Socrates.”

For Aristotle, as he puts it in his Metaphysics and NE, we must begin with what is “better known to us” (1029b3). In essence, what we know best is the empirical world around us. Aristotle’s method is to use induction from particular observations, generalizing from a set of phenomena to reach a principle. But this principle must continually be tested against further empirical data and other principles. In philosophical inquiry, Aristotle argues that we must begin “empirically” by critically studying the common beliefs of the community and the thoughts of prior philosophers. This should not be taken to suggest that Aristotle considered knowledge learned from the senses as the only form of knowledge. Aristotle argued for universals and ultimate causes, such as justice and God, which may not necessarily be found in the sensory world. Yet, for Aristotle, “what is better known to us” must always be the starting point for a philosophical or scientific investigation.

Another feature of Aristotle’s method is to begin by way of analysis, which is defined as breaking up what is being investigated into its component parts. As he puts it in Book I of The Politics, “What I am saying will be clear if we examine the matter according to the method of investigation that has guided us elsewhere … A composite has to be analyzed until we reach things that are incomposite, since these are the smallest parts of the whole, so if we also examine the parts that make up a city-state, we shall see better both how these differ from each other, and whether or not it is possible to gain some expertise in connection with each of the things we have mentioned” (1252a15-20).

Key Terms for Reading the Politics

In order to better understand Aristotle’s Politics, we must first get on the same page, so to speak, with regard to the terminology that Aristotle is using. We will also need to review terms that would have been familiar to Aristotle’s Greek readers, but are less familiar to 21st century readers. However, no definition is ever set in stone and good scholars argue over the precise meaning of Aristotle’s terminology, from what he means by knowledge (epitemē) to his conception of virtue. In other words, as critical readers, you should use these definitions and comments as a help in reading the text; only a thorough reading of the assigned text will help you in gaining a foothold with Aristotelian terminology. (One note on terminology: I use the term “man” and “men” quite a bit below in reference to citizenship and the community. This sexist terminology is purposeful since Aristotle, as we shall see, explicitly excludes women from acting within the political realm; they have reason but they do not “give it authority” over their passions, as he puts it in Book I.)

Action (praxis): We get the English word “practice” from the Greek “praxis,” which is the result of deliberate choice. Aristotle differentiates in Book I of the Politics between praxis and production. Praxis is an end in itself, while production has an end, is for the sake of, what is produced, for example when one makes a chair. For Aristotle, only free people can act in this specific sense, since the end of any action is acting well, which is the action itself. Action, like happiness, is an end in itself. It is not for the sake of anything but itself; it is the mark of a free man that he can act since he makes a decision to act, and action doesn’t merely happen to him.

ARCHÊ: An archē is both the name for an office held by a ruler and is also the term Aristotle uses in his metaphysics to refer to first principles or the starting cause of other things.

AUTARKEIA: This refers to self-sufficiency, a key aim of each city state.

Common Beliefs (endoxa): Aristotle begins most of his treatises, and thus his form of dialectic, by treating common beliefs first.

City-State (polis): The dominant political unit in Ancient Greece. The city-states were generally small with one common culture among their inhabitants, except for that of foreign-born slaves. City-states included Athens, Sparta, and Thebes. For Aristotle, the non-deviant city-state would be one in which free and equal citizens are bound together in a community whose end is the most mutually beneficial life possible.

Community: Men, according to Aristotle, are by nature political animals. The first communities, according to Aristotle, were families spaced out across the landscape. Aristotle is almost unique among political philosophers in his claim that the political community is “natural,” that is, not something artificially produced (see the distinction above between action and production). The family is a natural result of man’s wish to partake in the divine by way of a quasi-immortality, by producing offspring that will continue the blood-line of a family. As Aristotle traces it in Politics Book I, the family naturally gathers together in mutual need (exchange of goods, etc.) into villages, the second type of community. This community is modelled on the family, according to Aristotle, with a king presiding over the village as a father does over a family and its slaves. Finally, a number of villages joined together for mutual benefit is the most mature type of community, the city-state., which “comes to be for the sake of living, but it remains in existence for the sake of living well” (1252b).

DEMOCRACY: Demokratia is a lesser kind of politeia or constitution, since it does not rule for the interests of the whole, according to Aristotle, but for the sake of the poor by the poor multitude.

DECISION (prohairesis): A decision, according to Aristotle, is the result of a wish for something that is good for us, and comes about after delibertation using one’s practical wisdom (phronesis).

EDUCATION: Paideia is of ultimate political importance to Aristotle. Without this a community would not produce virtuous citizens and would not be unified into a whole. It would thus be unable to be self-sufficient.

Ethics and Politics: Put simply at this point, ethics, for Aristotle, is the ability to review blameworthy and praiseworthy actions of human beings. Ethics seeks to discover a careful balance between the good of the individual and the good of the community. The Nichomachean Ethics proceeds from the standpoint of the individual while the Politics proceeds from the standpoint of the community. Each domain, the political and the ethical, is concerned with what Aristotle takes to be the ultimate good, namely happiness, which is an end for its own sake.

The word “ethics” is derived from the Greek adjective ēthikos, which itself is derived from the Greek word ēthos, which means character. For Aristotle, in order to form a good character or ēthos, one must have formed good habits, or ethoi (note: this a different Greek word—no long “e”), formed through a good education.

END (telos): As Aristotle explains in book I of the NE, the nature of anything is its end. In his Metaphysics, A. argues that there are four causes of any event or object; we will illustrate this with the example of the statue:

1. The material cause. Bronze or marble would be the material cause of the statue; it is its material make-up.

2. The formal cause. This would in most cases be the form of the event or thing; it is the definition of what the thing is. For example the statue of liberty is in the form of a woman holding a torch and representing a beacon of freedom.

3. The efficient cause. This is the direct source, which brought the statue into being. It would be better to think of the efficient cause as the “cause of change.” The sculptor would be the efficient cause of the statue.

4. Final cause. Most important for the discussion in the Politics is the final cause, the telos or event of the event or object. For example, the final cause of a statue is to represent something, such as Lady Liberty. An acorn’s final cause would be a tree; it is the goal for which it exists.

Taking up any event or object, one cause is usually more relevant to the discussion. For the city-state, the most important cause is the final cause. But as we will also see, the formal cause, the particular form (aristocracy, democracy etc.) will also be important to Aristotle. For now, it is important to keep in mind that the final cause of any community, the development it will ultimately lead to, is found in the city-state. And the final cause of the city-state, that for which it is set up, is the good, what Aristotle will define as “living well,” and what we might loosely think of as happiness.

FUNCTION (ergon): The Greek word ergon also means “work,” and the use of ergon in the NE has been argued over. Essentially, Aristotle argues that each thing or animate being (that is, anything with a soul) works in a particular way or has a certain function. If it performs its function well, then it is said to have an aretē, an excellence about it. To perform one’s function (ergon) excellently (with aretē), for Aristotle, is to be a fully ethical human being, and to be happy.

GOOD (agathos): For Aristotle, the ultimate end, that which is “good” for each human being, is happiness. A good is the result of an action, what we seek in doing something. Everything we do is for the sake of some good. Some things are “good in themselves,” for example, happiness. We do not seek happiness in order to get wealth. Rather wealth, which is a good, is sought for a larger good, a good in itself, namely happiness.

HAPPINESS (eudaimonia): This is the ultimate goal of all human praxis and is the ultimate goal of any community. Happiness is found in reflecting upon God, practicing philosophy, or enjoying the company of one’s friends. All of these activities are only available, according to Aristotle, in a political community that affords its free citizens the leisure time to do so. But we should not confuse eudaimonia with our contemporary notion of happiness, which is simply a synonym for pleasure. Certainly, there is pleasure involved in the happiness that Aristotle is talking about, but it is also the ultimate fulfillment of the life of a citizen freely acting within the community. It will be an important part of your task in reading Book I of the Ethics to seek out what Aristotle means by this. As he notes, all men have a different notion of happiness based on their different lives.

JUSTICE (dikē): Justice is the “common benefit.” For Aristotle, a city-state cannot exist without justice, which for Aristotle is the virtue, the defining property, of a city-state.

MEAN (mesotēs): Aristotle is famous for what is called the “Aristotelian mean.” As outlined in Book IV of the NE, and explained further in book VI, if we perform our function well as human beings, we seek the mean or the intermediate between two extremes in order to practice virtue. For example, in order to practice courage, we must react to our fears in a moderate fashion, aiming for a mean or intermediate state between two extremes: (1) showing no restraint in the face of our fears, which would be cowardice, but (2) also not ignoring our fear, which, in the face of overwhelming odds, for example on the battlefield, which would be stupidity. It is brave to fight when one has a possibility of succeeding, even if the odds are slim; it is not brave, according to Aristotle, to fight when there are no odds of winning. This is not bravery and does not find the mean between the two extremes.

NOBLE (kalon): For Aristotle, what is noble is the result of virtue, and free citizens prefer what is noble to all else. The noble is an end in itself, in contrast to what is useful, something used in order to get something else (i.e. using a slave to plow the fields).

OIKONOMIA: Household management is the best translation for a term that would become, in English, economics. This is the epistemê that deals with the use of property, the mastering of slaves, marriage, and procreation.

PLEASURE (hēdonē): We get our word “hedonism,” for the belief that pleasure is the ultimate good, from the Greek word hēdonē. Aristotle was not, however, a hedonist. He believed that we must not mistake pleasure for happiness, as many of his contemporary Greeks did and many still do today. Rather pleasure is a by-product of things that are good, including being a virtuous human being. Pleasure is important in Aristotle: if we are educated rightly, and form a good character, we will derive pleasure from doing what is good for others, from performing our virtues. A person that is not rightly educated will instead find pleasure in things that are destructive to our communities.

PRUDENCE PRACTICAL WISDOM (phronēsis): In the Nichomachean Ethics distinguishes between phronēsis, translated as “practical wisdom,” and thēoria, pure contemplation. Practical wisdom is used by the statesman, while thēoria is the province of the philosopher. For Aristotle, it is important that the virtuous person, under whatever constitution the state operates, is a virtuous person performing virtue for its own sake. This virtue requires a special kind of “knowledge,” different from the theorizing of the philosopher. A person with practical wisdom deliberates upon a course of action to take using his or her prudence. Pracitcal wisdom therefore entails grasping the nature of what is going on in the city-state to make a definitive decision here and now. For Aristotle, practical wisom is built up by experience, because it is not just a set of rules that can be applied mechanically. In other words, one can’t just learn practical wisdom by reading a book.

SLAVES and WOMEN: Aristotle’s ethical and political theory is marked by an oppressive view of slaves and women. For Aristotle, slaves are a natural part of the family, ruled over by a master. It is natural, he believes, for Greeks to rule over non-Greeks; non-Greeks captured during war were taken home as slaves. A slave lacks reason, according to Aristotle, which it must get from the orders of its master. For Aristotle, the slave is better off under the rule of his master since he would otherwise not be able to partake in the use of reason (albeit indirectly by following the orders of his master), thus reducing him totally to animality. In addition, men are natural rulers and women are always to be ruled. A woman has some ability to reason, but this ability “lacks any authority.” It’s never made clear what Aristotle means by this, except the implication that a woman will do something differently than what her reason tells her to do. She might figure out the best course of action, but do something completely different. In the hierarchy that Aristotle sets up, the lowest rung is taken up by animals, hen slaves, women, male boys, and men, in ascending order. Male boys have an ability to deliberate and will someday grow into full citizens.

SOUL (psuchē): For Aristotle, the soul is nothing other than the activity of a living body. A way to understand this would be that if there were no soul, then animals and human beings would not have a soul. Yes, animals have a soul, according to Aristotle, though one that is limited to perception and desire. For Aristotle, the human soul has appetites or desires, the ability to sense and perceive, and also the ability to reason, which is what differentiates our souls from those of animals. The soul is not separate from the body, but is rather the cause of its activity from within itself. If we are to be ethical, according to Aristotle, then one part of the soul (the non-rational part, the one that is based in perception and desires things) must be ruled over by the other part of the soul, the one based in reason. The rational part of the soul, for a virtuous person who has formed good habits, will be the only one who is able to act ethically.

VIRTUE (aretē): This is the center of Aristotle’s political and ethical theory. In Aristotle’s use of the term, virtue means more than simply having “ethical virtue” as we use the term. A man’s virtue is that which makes him a good man: his intelligence, courage, practical wisdom, etc.

OUTLINE

ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS: Book I

Aristotle’s Politics begins famously: “[E]very city-state [polis] is a community [koinonia] of some sort, and every community is established for the sake of some good [agathon],” that is, some goal or end that this special thing we call the political seeks. (I am relying for the most part on CDC Reeve’s translation [New York: Hackett, 1998] though I may shift translations below without warning, for the sake of clarity in the lecture.) We know from his Nichomachean Ethics that it is happiness (eudaemonia) that is this good, which at the level of the city-state is providing for the living well, which in turn is something beyond mere living (zēn), which we share with animals. Inasmuch as we are political animals (politikon zôon [1253a3]), that is, we are by nature (phusei) in community with others, there can be no happiness without this living well (euzēn), without this koinonia. Anyone who is without a community, he writes, is “like an isolated piece” left over from a game of draughts (1253a12), or more pointedly, is so self-sufficient (autarkeian) as to be “either a beast [therion] or a god [theos]” (1253a28-9), as we learn in chapter 2. We are political animals because we are those who have language—we can deliberate with others about a share future; we can express pleasure and pain, and see out ways with others to augment one and minimize the other, and so on. As we read this chapter, let’s concentrate on why he thinks we are indeed political animals, especially since we live in a political era in which we are highly individualistic.

Aristotle’s Politics, before its very first pages, sets out the results of a number of philosophical decisions:

1. Method: I think the best way in part to read Book I is Aristotle’s penchant for using diairēsis or definitional splitting as a manner of isolating what specific terms mean. We should not simply confuse the statesman with a king with a household manager with a master. All have particular forms of knowledge (epistemē) that belong to them, even as Aristotle tells us the highest, most authoritative (kuriôtatê) science belongs to the one that makes all others possible, namely political science. And as such, all are practiced differently and it would be against nature to use one form of science for another area of existence: we should not rule (archein) over free men in the same way that a master rules over a slave. While also speaking of method, we should note two different beginning points (also archai) in the Politics:

a. Quasi-historically Aristotle provides an analysis of the component parts of the polis. This analytical method “which has guided [him] elsewhere,” shows that parts that will have become the whole: the first community (koinonia), the household (oikos), made up of a man, a woman, children, and slaves, the latter of which are tools for taking care of our need for the necessities (pros ten anagkaian chreian [1253b16]). Here we come upon the first major fault-line in Aristotle’s Politics. There are communities brought together for the sake of that which is forced upon us or is necessary (anagkê) for the sake of living which ought never to be confused with what belongs by nature [para phusin] to the political community whereby men who are free (eleutheria) rule and are ruled in turn [kata meros archôn archomenos (1252a15)], as happens in an aristocracy among those with the practical wisdom (phronêsis) to rule. This is a fundamental distinction for Aristotle: politics is for a particular kind of freedom (eleutheria, not license of passionate masses, exousia) enabled by rational self-control, which is also enabled by an equality by which one rules and is ruled in turn. When politics becomes mastery, then it is only for the sake of living, not living well. Thus the science of household management (oikonomia) should not be confused with the political science of statesmanship, and hence we will get natural and unnatural kinds of ruling (archein) in Book III of the Politics. In any event, these households come together to form a village, which were originally led by kings who were essentially the pater familias, the father of a large family of blood relations. We then form villages together and we get the polis:

A complete community constituted out of several villages, once it reaches the limit [peras] of total self-sufficiency [tês autarkeias] is a city-state [polis]. It comes to be for the sake of living, but it remains in existence for the sake of living well [givnomenê men tou zên heneken, ousa de tou eu zên[ (1252b28-30)].

b. Thus analytically, we can begin with the formal cause of the polis, which is always prior to its historical beginnings, since a polis is the whole of which the rest are a part: “the city-state is prior in nature to the household and to each of us individually since the whole is necessarily prior to the part” (1253a20).

c. Also methodologically, we must divide two different modes in which Aristotle writes. First, he reports what has been said previously about the political and reports this. In sum, though he finds the constitutions on offer in Ancient Greece wanting he certainly will need to say what has been said (often confusedly in his view) about the political. But, given his philosophical naturalism, Aristotle also has a an account of what politics should be, which means offering his own views on aristocracy and the problems of deficient regimes, which in sum do not rule by turns but is rule by one part or faction for its own sake, without a view to the whole (the despot who rules for himself or family, the oligarchy that rules to enhance its properties, the demos or multitude who rule for the masses).

2. Philosophical naturalism. There is no easy translation for what Aristotle means by phûsis, from which we get such terms as physics, though his first Roman translators used natura or nature as an ample substitute. But his view of nature of human beings and their differences comes up at crucial points: women by nature have the ability to reason, but do not give it authority. Slaves are not a political category, but belong only in the household, and they have no rational self-control, except through their master.

Much of Book I is taken up, in fact, with household management: this is for two reasons: 1) I think he wants to combat the view that Plato held, that ruling a household was like ruling a state and vice-versa. But 2) he also wants to make clear how important it was for free men to rule properly over their household affairs so that they could enter politics. In chapter 9, he makes what is a canonical distinction between wealth acquisition that is done for the sake of household affairs, which is appropriate and has limitations, and that kind that is unlimited, where we make money for money’s sake. This Aristotle—as did most Greeks and the whole of history until the advent of capitalism—found abhorrent: these are people who are “pre-occupied by living (zēn), not living well (euzēn)” (1257b41).

In any event Book I sets out that there are different forms of knowledge for wealth acquisition, mastering a household, and so on, but those who are free will have “theoretical knowledge” on all things needed to take part in action or praxis: this is not a minor word for Aristotle, as can be seen in the glossary. Not everything is action: he specifically uses the term for political action, using one’s words and deeds in concert with others for the sake of one’s community.

Question for understanding the text as you read:

1. Why are men by nature political animals?

2. Why does Aristotle begin by saying city-states or politics is natural?

3. How does he come at the rise of the city-state in two different directions?

4. How does Aristotle excuse the use of slaves in ancient Greece?

5. What kinds of wealth acquisition are according to nature?

ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS: Book III 1-4, IV 1-4

We began the course last time with a straightforward quotation from Aristotle’s Politics: “[E]very city-state [polis] is a community [koinonia] of some sort, and every community is established for the sake of some good [agathon],” that is, some goal or end that this special thing we call the political seeks. This brings us back to what Aristotle writes in Book III, where he asks if a good citizen is equal to the good man. As Aristotle makes clear, each constitution provides for the virtues that ought to be produced in its wake. We will have different virtues for different regimes and so the “virtue of a man and of a citizen cannot be unqualifiably be the same” (1277a13). In this way we can answer a tricky question: is it better to have a good man or a good citizen? Aristotle’s answer is that it’s best to have a good citizen, one whose virtues might not be unqualifably excellent otherwise, but which are necessary for a given community, a given partnership of a certain people. The material cause of a polis is the citizen, who, Aristotle writes, is “someone who is eligible to participate in a deliberative and judicial office [and] is a citizen in this city-state, and that a city-state, simply speaking, is a multitude of such people, adequate for life’s self-sufficiency” (1275b16-20). In Book II, which we didn’t read, Aristotle had begun his study of politics per se through different constitutions; here, he begins by look at the “parts” of the city, that is, the citizens. The “unqualified citizen,” we learn, is one who takes part in the offices of the city (1275a22-3).

Aristotle then turns to the statesman, one who can rule and be ruled in turn (kata meros), which is properly “political rule,” not the mastery one finds in the household, which is never “by turns.” And thus while the virtues of different cities will be different, “a good citizen must [always and everywhere] have the knowledge and ability both to be ruled and to rule, and this is the virtue [aretê] of a citizen, to know the rule of free people from both sides” (1277b8-10). And what is the virtue that always obtains for this kind of ruler? “Phronêsis” or practical wisdom: “Practical wisdom the only virtue particular to a rule; for the others, it would seem, must be common to both rulers and ruled. At any rate, practical wisdom is not the virtue of one who is ruled, but true opinion is [discuss the Platonic point here]. For those ruled are like makers of flutes [they have experience and know how to put them together] whereas rulers are like flute players who use them” (1277b25-29). Phronêsis is the prudence or practical wisdom that the man of action (praxis) must have in order to lead well, to make correct decisions on the battlefield, in the courts, in the agora and the places of persuasion, and so on, and detailing these necessary abilities of the statesman (politikos; not a despotes or master) is the purview of a political science (epistemê), which looks looks at

1. what the best constitution (politeia) is. (1288b22).

2. which, given that there are typically obstacles to #1, detailing “which constitution is appropriate for which city-states” (1288b24).

How do we figure out which “constitution is best given certain assumptions.” He writes:

[F]or a statesman must be able to study how any given constitution might initially come into existence and it be preserved for the longest time. I mean, for example, when some city-state happens to be governed neither by the best constitution (not even having the necessary resources) nor by the bst one possible in existing circumstances, but by a worse one (1288b28-30).

This seems to mean that we would have a city-state that is despotic and the statesman, in that situation, does what is possible.

3. The statesman will also consider “which constitution is most appropriate for all city-states (1288b35). I’m unclear how this is different from #1, but Aristotle goes on to say that we must not give in to idealism, but must find those regimes for which the people will be “easily persuaded to accept and be able to participate in given what they already have.”

4. Clearly, then, this politikos will help to reform or form constitutions based upon a knowledge of the varieties of constitutions (namely the six varieties A. provides).

5. Finally, the statesman will use his phronêsis, which is based on empeiria or experience, to “see both which laws are best and which are appropriate for each of the constitutions” (1289a12). Note how this is different than Plato, for whom the statesman was to have a technê or epistemê (science) that was not based on experience but theoretical knowledge—and he rule over others such that he didn’t get involved in the offices Aristotle mentions.

This is not a theoretical exercise for Aristotle--or not merely so. As we read in Book IV, he is clear that against Plato one must not only study what is “best,” but “also what is possible and similarly what is easier and attainable by all” (1288b36-38). What changes is the particular parts that exist in this particular polis and Book V (1-4) takes itself up with the parts of the city-state, moving from the citizens to the statesman to the different classes of society: (1) the multitude of farmers, (2) the “vulgar” craftsman, (3) the traders whose commerce moves these crafts around and also takes in crafts from elsewhere, (4) hired laborers, (5) the defensive warriors, (6) Hmm. Looking at our own text, the editor has no six (pg. 108 of our edition) and just moves (am I going blind) to (7) those who perform public service (leitourgia), and (8) the civil servants of a city. Note well: he doesn’t include women and slaves, since (again!) they are not a political category, but are by nature left to the oikos or household.

Aristotle declares a hierarchy of the six states he has given us:

1. Kingship. This is not wholly idealized buy Aristotle suggests at points that this would be the best if we found someone who had a great virtue that everyone such that we could not be better ruled. But this most “divine of constitutions”--divine because it is like the rule of the one god over the world--is also liable to become the worst.

2. Aristocracy: rule kata meros by the virtuous few.

3. Polity: rule by the many following the laws and constitution.

4. Democracy: rule by the many, but without a constitution. But still “more moderate” than the other deviations below.

5. Oligarchy: when the rich and well born, who are few in number, rule.

6. Tyranny. This he says it the farthest from a constitution, since it replaces mastery for statesmanship, and is mostly ruled at a whim of the passions of one without phronêsis.

For the future of this class, for what it will have been in the legacy that is the West, we should pause where our reading does, namely on Aristotle’s reading of the democratic:

The first kind of democracy therefore is the one which receives the name chiefly in respect of equality [δημοκρατία μὲν οὖν ἐστι πρώτη μὲν ἡ λεγομένημάλιστα κατὰ τὸ ἴσον]. For the law [ὁ νόμος] of this sort of democracy ascribes equality to the state of things in which the poor have no more prominence than the rich, and neither class is sovereign [κυρίους], but both are alike ἀλλ᾽ ὁμοίουςἀμφοτέρους]; for assuming that freedom is chiefly found [ἐλευθερία μάλιστ᾽ ἔστιν] in a democracy, as some persons suppose, and also equality, this would be so most fully when to the fullest extent all alike share equally in the government. And since the people are in the majority, and a resolution passed by a majority is paramount, this must necessarily be a democracy. This therefore is one kind of democracy, where the offices are held on property qualifications, but these low ones, although it is essential that the man who acquires the specified amount should have the right to hold office, and the man who loses it should not hold office. (1292b30-40)

Now given what has been said, let me move through what Aristotle says is the different types of democracy (and never quote this long on papers):

And another kind of democracy is for all the citizens that are not open to challenge to have a share in office, but for the law to rule; and another kind of democracy is for all to share in the offices on the mere qualification of being a citizen, but for the law to rule. Another kind of democracy is where all the other regulations are the same, but the multitude is sovereign and not the law; and this comes about when the decrees of the assembly over-ride the law. This state of things is brought about by the demagogues; for in the states under democratic government guided by law a demagogue does not arise, but the best classes of citizens are in the most prominent position; but where the laws are not sovereign, then demagogues arise; for the common people become a single composite monarch, since the many are sovereign not as individuals but collectively. Yet what kind of democracy Homer means by the words ‘no blessing is the lordship of the many’—whether he means this kind or when those who rule as individuals are more numerous, is not clear. However, a people of this sort, as being monarch, seeks to exercise monarchic rule through not being ruled by the law, and becomes despotic, so that flatterers are held in honor. And a democracy of this nature is comparable to the tyrannical form of monarchy, because their spirit is the same, and both exercise despotic control over the better classes, and the decrees voted by the assembly [20] are like the commands issued in a tyranny, and the demagogues and the flatterers are the same people or a corresponding class, and either set has the very strongest influence with the respective ruling power, the flatterers with the tyrants and the demagogues with democracies of this kind. And these men cause the resolutions of the assembly to be supreme and not the laws, by referring all things to the people; for they owe their rise to greatness to the fact that the people is sovereign over all things while they are sovereign over the opinion of the people, for the multitude believes them. Moreover those who bring charges against the magistrates say that the people ought to judge the suits, and the people receive the invitation gladly, so that all the magistracies are put down. And it would seem to be a reasonable criticism to say that such a democracy is not a constitution at all; for where the laws do not govern there is no constitution, as the law ought to govern all things while the magistrates control particulars, and we ought to judge this to be constitutional government; if then democracy really is one of the forms of constitution, it is manifest that an organization of this kind, in which all things are administered by resolutions of the assembly, is not even a democracy in the proper sense, for it is impossible for a voted resolution to be a universal rule. (1292a5-36)

Here we have, beyond Plato, a classic set of classifications of democracies, with all the language we will use later for democracies that become states of emergency, ruled by decree and not by law, and where the proper limit between making the law and ruling over the particular, is not respected. Here in Aristotle’s writings we have what will become a crucial discussion later in the semester: the threat from within democracy to want to govern all things, which means not ruling at all, since laws are thrown to the wind in the name of safety or some such. Guided by freedom and equality--or so the good democrat says--democracy itself produces a tyrannical rule where law is but another name for the levers of power, a rule by decree that is an ever present threat where in the name of security one rules by decree, since the rule of the mob is always the frightening possibility when it is the many or multitude (dêmos), ruled by their passions, who have the power (kratos) in a democratic (dis)order. Let us look at one more quotation regarding democracy:

[They] define freedom incorrectly. For there are two things by which democracy is to be defined: by the majority being in supreme authority (kurios) and by freedom (eleutheria). For justice is held (sôtêrion) to be equality; equality is for the opinion (doxa) of the multitude to be in authority; and freedom is doing whatever one likes… But this is bad. For living in a way that suits the constitution should be considered not slavery but salvation (sôtêrian). (1310a28-35)

Questions for understanding the text as you read:

1. What is his definition of a citizen?

2. Is a good citizen a good human being? Why or why not?

3. Why do different constitutions produce different kinds of citizens?

4. Why do citizens combine together to form cities?

5. What is the best form of constitution? Why?

6. Does Aristotle tell us whether it is better to be ruled without the law or according to the law?

7. What is the better form of democracy? Why is Aristotle hesitant about democracy in the first place?

ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS: VII, 1-3, 8-10

Aristotle argues in chapter 1 of the Book VII that in considering politics and the best kinds of constitution (politeia), we must know the most choice-worthy life. He begins by separating out three kinds of “goods” (things that are good for us, but also goals we seek): (1) external goods, which are the instruments we use for augmenting our life (tools and the like), (2) goods of the body, such as health, and (3) goods of the soul (psuchê). Aristotle clearly thinks the goods of the soul are the best—these are our ways of reasoning. Unlike the other goods, we can’t have enough of these goods (1323b10-11) and indeed “the more excessive it is, the more useful it is” (1323b11). Everyone chooses the other goods for the sake of their soul, not vice-versa. He writes:

Let us then take it as agreed between us that to each man there falls just so large a measure of happiness (eudaemonias) as he achieves of virtue (aretê) and wisdom (sophia) and of virtuous and wise action (aretês kai phronêseôs…prattein): in evidence of this we have the case of God, who is happy and blessed, but is so on account of no external goods, but on account of himself, and by being of a certain quality in his nature; since it is also for this reason that prosperity is necessarily different from happiness—for the cause of goods external to the soul is the spontaneous and fortune, but nobody is just or temperate as a result of or owing to the action of fortune. And connected is a truth requiring the same arguments to prove it, that it is also the best state, and the one that does well, that is happy. But to do well is impossible save for those who do good actions, and there is no good action either of a man or of a state without virtue and wisdom; and courage, justice and wisdom belonging to a state have the same meaning and form as have those virtues whose possession bestows the titles of just and wise and temperate on an individual human being.(1323b22-36)

Hence the best life with others is the life of virtuous political action, which is also one of temperance or moderation: if we have enough citizens like this, the city-state, too, will be “one that is best and acts nobly.”

In chapter 2, Aristotle makes clear, then, that the best constitution is one that provides for this, but he falls into the question of whether it is the theoretical, contemplative life or the life of action that is more choice worthy. All choices in the political state must be for the sake of happiness, especially war, which can indeed be noble: some think that war is for the sake of ruling others like despots or masters, a view Aristotle does not share, since this would engage us in constant battles that are unnecessary for the city-state’s self-sufficiency and happiness. What needs to be discussed is how for Aristotle, happiness is action; it is not an “internal feeling” or some such. One must be engaged with others not to rule still other people, but in a proper aristocracy, “among those who are similar, ruling and being ruled in term [kata meros] is just and noble, since this is equal or similar treatment” (1325b5-7).

Moving to the later chapters, Aristotle, Aristotle begins the important discussion of what is shared in a city-state when justice rules. Each state has a population, food supplies, and territory. The best cities have all of the materials they need, but the aim, again, is not living, but living well. Aristotle also makes clear that while we may need certain types of people in the city (e.g., craftsman), this does not mean they are virtuous—they need to be led by those who are. The point, though, is that people are agreed on the general goals of the community: “a city-state is a community of similar people aiming at the best possible life…[But] it is by seeking happiness in different ways and by different means that individual groups create different ways of life and different constitutions,” which is to say, factions within the city that may ultimately tear it apart (1328a35-1328b1).

Questions for understanding the text as you read:

1. Which is the most choice-worthy life for Aristotle? Why?

2. Why is it that while men agree that happiness is the best thing in life, they nevertheless think it is different things?

3. What are the necessary things that a city needs? What is the most important thing?

4. What virtues should we educate people to have in a city-state?

5. How should the aristocrats rule each other? Why?

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