Read PDF Politics by Aristotle

Free download. Book file PDF easily for everyone and every device. You can download and read online Politics by Aristotle file PDF Book only if you are registered here. And also you can download or read online all Book PDF file that related with Politics by Aristotle book. Happy reading Politics by Aristotle Bookeveryone. Download file Free Book PDF Politics by Aristotle at Complete PDF Library. This Book have some digital formats such us :paperbook, ebook, kindle, epub, fb2 and another formats. Here is The CompletePDF Book Library. It's free to register here to get Book file PDF Politics by Aristotle Pocket Guide.
Aristotle's political science thus encompasses the two fields which modern philosophers distinguish as ethics and political philosophy. (See the.
Table of contents

And it is the pursuit of virtue rather than the pursuit of wealth or security or safety or military strength that is the most important element of a city: "The political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together" a1. Having described the basic parts of the city, Aristotle returns in Chapter 3 of Book I to a discussion of the household, beginning with the matter of slavery, including the question of whether slavery is just and hence an acceptable institution or not.

This, for most contemporary readers is one of the two most offensive portions of Aristotle's moral and political thought the other is his treatment of women, about which more will be said below. For most people today, of course, the answer to this is obvious: slavery is not just, and in fact is one of the greatest injustices and moral crimes that it is possible to commit.

Although it is not widely known, there are still large numbers of people held in slavery throughout the world at the beginning of the 21st century. It is easy to believe that people in the "modern world" have put a great deal of moral distance between themselves and the less enlightened people in the past, but it is also easy to overestimate that distance.


  • Your Every Color!
  • Kids Home Library: Volume I!
  • Incarceration Creations: Recipes from the Big House.
  • Trail Wolves (A Bannerman the Enforcer Western Book 6).
  • DS Performance - Strength & Conditioning Training Program for Volleyball, Plyometric, Advanced.
  • The Politics of Aristotle | Peter L. Phillips Simpson | University of North Carolina Press.

In Aristotle's time most people - at least the ones that were not themselves slaves — would also have believed that this question had an obvious answer, if they had asked the question at all: of course slavery is just. Virtually every ancient Mediterranean culture had some form of the institution of slavery. Slaves were usually of two kinds: either they had at one point been defeated in war, and the fact that they had been defeated meant that they were inferior and meant to serve, or else they were the children of slaves, in which case their inferiority was clear from their inferior parentage.

Aristotle himself says that the sort of war that involves hunting "those human beings who are naturally suited to be ruled but [are] unwilling…[is] by nature just" b What is more, the economies of the Greek city-states rested on slavery, and without slaves and women to do the productive labor, there could be no leisure for men to engage in more intellectual lifestyles.

The greatness of Athenian plays, architecture, sculpture, and philosophy could not have been achieved without the institution of slavery. Therefore, as a practical matter, regardless of the arguments for or against it, slavery was not going to be abolished in the Greek world. This is not to excuse Aristotle or those of his time who supported slavery, but it should be kept in mind so as to give Aristotle a fair hearing.

Before considering Aristotle's ultimate position on the justness of slavery - for who, and under what circumstances, slavery is appropriate — it must be pointed out that there is a great deal of disagreement about what that position is. That Aristotle believes slavery to be just and good for both master and slave in some circumstances is undeniable.

That he believes that some people who are currently enslaved are not being held in slavery according to justice is also undeniable this would apparently also mean that there are people who should be enslaved but currently are not.

Accessibility links

How we might tell which people belong in which group, and what Aristotle believes the consequences of his beliefs about slavery ought to be, are more difficult problems. Remember that in his discussion of the household, Aristotle has said that slavery serves the interest of both the master and the slave. Now he tells us why: "those who are as different [from other men] as the soul from the body or man from beast - and they are in this state if their work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them — are slaves by nature…. For he is a slave by nature who is capable of belonging to another — which is also why he belongs to another — and who participates in reason only to the extent of perceiving it, but does not have it" b Those who are slaves by nature do not have the full ability to reason.

Obviously they are not completely helpless or unable to reason; in the case of slaves captured in war, for example, the slaves were able to sustain their lives into adulthood and organize themselves into military forces. They are incapable of fully governing their own lives, and require other people to tell them what to do. Such people should be set to labor by the people who have the ability to reason fully and order their own lives.

Labor is their proper use; Aristotle refers to slaves as "living tools" at I. Slaves get the guidance and instructions that they must have to live, and in return they provide the master with the benefits of their physical labor, not least of which is the free time that makes it possible for the master to engage in politics and philosophy. One of the themes running through Aristotle's thought that most people would reject today is the idea that a life of labor is demeaning and degrading, so that those who must work for a living are not able to be as virtuous as those who do not have to do such work.

Indeed, Aristotle says that when the master can do so he avoids labor even to the extent of avoiding the oversight of those who must engage in it: "[F]or those to whom it is open not to be bothered with such things [i.

Historical Context for Politics by Aristotle | The Core Curriculum

First, Aristotle points out that although nature would like us to be able to differentiate between who is meant to be a slave and who is meant to be a master by making the difference in reasoning capacity visible in their outward appearances, it frequently does not do so. We cannot look at people's souls and distinguish those who are meant to rule from those who are meant to be ruled - and this will also cause problems when Aristotle turns to the question of who has a just claim to rule in the city. Second, in Chapter Six, Aristotle points out that not everyone currently held in slavery is in fact a slave by nature.

The argument that those who are captured in war are inferior in virtue cannot, as far as Aristotle is concerned, be sustained, and the idea that the children of slaves are meant to be slaves is also wrong: "[T]hey claim that from the good should come someone good, just as from a human being comes from a human being and a beast from beasts. But while nature wishes to do this, it is often unable to" b3. We are left with the position that while some people are indeed slaves by nature, and that slavery is good for them, it is extremely difficult to find out who these people are, and that therefore it is not the case that slavery is automatically just either for people taken in war or for children of slaves, though sometimes it is b In saying this, Aristotle was undermining the legitimacy of the two most significant sources of slaves.

If Aristotle's personal life is relevant, while he himself owned slaves, he was said to have freed them upon his death. In Chapter 8 of Book I Aristotle says that since we have been talking about household possessions such as slaves we might as well continue this discussion. The discussion turns to "expertise in household management. Aristotle uses the discussion of household management to make a distinction between expertise in managing a household and expertise in business.

The former, Aristotle says, is important both for the household and the city; we must have supplies available of the things that are necessary for life, such as food, clothing, and so forth, and because the household is natural so too is the science of household management, the job of which is to maintain the household.

Aristotle's Politics

The latter, however, is potentially dangerous. This, obviously, is another major difference between Aristotle and contemporary Western societies, which respect and admire business expertise, and encourage many of our citizens to acquire and develop such expertise. For Aristotle, however, expertise in business is not natural, but "arises rather through a certain experience and art" a5.

It is on account of expertise in business that "there is held to be no limit to wealth and possessions" a1. This is a problem because some people are led to pursue wealth without limit, and the choice of such a life, while superficially very attractive, does not lead to virtue and real happiness.

It leads some people to "proceed on the supposition that they should either preserve or increase without limit their property in money. The cause of this state is that they are serious about living, but not about living well; and since that desire of theirs is without limit, they also desire what is productive of unlimited things" b Aristotle does not entirely condemn wealth - it is necessary for maintaining the household and for providing the opportunity to develop one's virtue. But Aristotle strongly believes that we must not lose sight of the fact that wealth is to be pursued for the sake of living a virtuous life, which is what it means to live well, rather than for its own sake.

So at b1 he agrees with those who object to the lending of money for interest, upon which virtually the entire modern global economy is based. Someone who places primary importance on money and the bodily satisfactions that it can buy is not engaged in developing their virtue and has chosen a life which, however it may seem from the outside or to the person living it, is not a life of true happiness.

This is still another difference between Aristotle and contemporary Western societies. For many if not most people in such societies, the pursuit of wealth without limit is seen as not only acceptable but even admirable. At the same time, many people reject the emphasis Aristotle places on the importance of political participation. Many liberal democracies fail to get even half of their potential voters to cast a ballot at election time, and jury duty, especially in the United States, is often looked on as a burden and waste of time, rather than a necessary public service that citizens should willingly perform.

In Chapter 11, Aristotle notes that there is a lot more to be said about enterprise in business, but "to spend much time on such things is crude" b Aristotle believes that we ought to be more concerned with other matters; moneymaking is beneath the attention of the virtuous man.

Related Articles

In this Aristotle is in agreement with the common opinion of Athenian aristocrats. He concludes this discussion with a story about Thales the philosopher using his knowledge of astronomy to make a great deal of money, "thus showing how easy it is for philosophers to become wealthy if they so wish, but it is not this they are serious about" a Their intellectual powers, which could be turned to wealth, are being used in other, better ways to develop their humanity.

In the course of discussing the various ways of life open to human beings, Aristotle notes that "If, then, nature makes nothing that is incomplete or purposeless, nature must necessarily have made all of these [i. Though not a directly political statement, it does emphasize Aristotle's belief that there are many hierarchies in nature, as well as his belief that those who are lower in the natural hierarchy should be under the command of those who are higher.

In Chapter 12, after the discussion of business expertise has been completed, Aristotle returns to the subject of household rule, and takes up the question of the proper forms of rule over women and children. This means that it is natural for the male to rule: "[T]he relation of male to female is by nature a relation of superior to inferior and ruler to ruled" b And just as with the rule of the master over the slave, the difference here is one of reason: "The slave is wholly lacking the deliberative element; the female has it but it lacks authority; the child has it but it is incomplete" a There is a great deal of scholarly debate about what the phrase "lacks authority" means in this context.

Aristotle does not elaborate on it. This question cannot be settled here. I will simply point out the vicious circle in which women were trapped in ancient Greece and still are in many cultures. The Greeks believed that women are inferior to men or at least those Greeks who wrote philosophy, plays, speeches, and so forth did. These people, of course, were all men. What Greek women thought of this belief is impossible to say.

This belief means that women are denied access to certain areas of life such as politics. Denying them access to these spheres means that they fail to develop the knowledge and skills to become proficient in them. This lack of knowledge and skills then becomes evidence to reinforce the original belief that they are inferior. What else does Aristotle have to say about the rule of men over women?

He says that the rule of the male over the female and that of the father over children are different in form from the rule of masters over slaves. Aristotle places the rule of male over female in the household in the context of the husband over the wife female children who had not yet been married would have been ruled by their father. Marriage for girls in Athens typically took place at the age of thirteen or fourteen.


  1. The Isle of Palms and Other Poems!
  2. Politics by Aristotle - Free at Loyal Books;
  3. Poor Side of Town.
  4. Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday?
  5. The Churches Of Venice: Sacred Places Or Museum Spaces?!

    6. Aristotle says at a40 that the wife is to be ruled in political fashion. We have not yet seen what political rule looks like, but here Aristotle notes several of its important features, one of which is that it usually involves "alternation in ruling and being ruled" b2 , and another is that it involves rule among those who "tend by their nature to be on an equal footing and to differ in nothing" b5. In this case, however, the husband does not alternate rule with the wife but instead always rules. Apparently the husband is to treat his wife as an equal to the degree that it is possible to do so, but must retain ultimate control over household decisions.

    Women have their own role in the household, preserving what the man acquires.