Aristotle: Political Philosophy, Misc

In this thought-provoking book, you’ll find timeless questions explored through a fresh lens. First delving into the profound significance of Socrates’ dialogical method and the inescapable nature of conflict, it ponders the rational capacities of humanity in terms of establishing harmonious communities. But this isn’t merely a philosophical debate; it’s a pragmatic exploration of real-world challenges. No longer limiting itself to abstract theories, the book then seeks to navigate the practical terrain of science and politics. Drawing inspiration from Aristotle, renowned (...) for his investigations into the intricate connections between theory, technology, ethics, and politics, it tackles the essential question: How can we reconcile divergent views? At the book’s core lies Aristotle’s revolutionary concept of dialogue, which portrays truth as a delicate equilibrium between opposing forces, transcending the rigid boundaries of true and false. Join this captivating journey as the author reveals the hidden paths to meaningful coexistence in a world filled with conflicting perspectives. (shrink)

In the introduction to the volume, the editors explain the overarching aim of the volume and contextualize the main themes of its chapters. Even if the notions of biopolitics and biopower have played a crucial role in philosophy, the humanities, and the social sciences over the last decades, they have been used in various and at times diverging senses, which has also produced different narratives about the history of biopolitics. The main aim of the volume is to clarify whether and (...) to what extent the concept of biopolitics is applicable to antiquity. To answer such questions, the chapters collected in the volume address three main topics, namely the possible presence of biopolitical discourse in ancient thought, the extent to which the application of a biopolitical approach to ancient thought requires qualifications, and some influential contemporary interpretations of the relation between biopolitics and antiquity. (shrink)

The profusion of senses of justice in NE V.1–7 has left many readers with a general impression of chaos, but also gives rise to pressing questions about Aristotle’s conception of justice. Specifically, why does Aristotle claim that there are two parts to justice as equality, but go on to discuss three types of equality in the subsequent chapters? What is the relationship between political justice and the distinction between general justice and particular justice? I argue in this essay that the (...) notion of reciprocity, central to the first question, can also help us address the second. Specifically, I show that reciprocity is not a third species of particular justice, but rather a prior condition for political community and for political justice. Political justice is best understood as a redescription of particular justice that highlights how distributive and corrective justice maintain equality among citizens in an existing political community. In addition to explaining the unity of Aristotle’s thought in these chapters of NE V, I demonstrate a number of philosophical consequences for understanding Aristotle’s conception of justice. (shrink)

Ryan Tonkens has issued a seemingly impossible challenge, to articulate a comprehensive ethical framework within which artificial moral agents satisfy a Kantian inspired recipe—"rational" and "free"—while also satisfying perceived prerogatives of machine ethicists to facilitate the creation of AMAs that are perfectly and not merely reliably ethical. This series of papers meets this challenge by landscaping traditional moral theory in resolution of a comprehensive account of moral agency. The first paper established the challenge and set out autonomy in Aristotelian terms. (...) The present paper interprets Kantian moral theory on the basis of the preceding introduction, argues contra Tonkens that an engineer does not violate the categorical imperative in creating Kantian AMAs, and proposes that a Kantian AMA is not only a possible goal for Machine ethics research, but a necessary one. (shrink)

Il est communément admis, aussi bien par les spécialistes que les non-spécialistes de la Grèce antique, qu'Aristote considère le barbaros ou l'autre Non-Grec comme radicalement distinct des Grecs (peut-être même racialement) et intrinsèquement inférieur à eux. Cette idée puise sa source dans ses remarques sur l'esclavage, sur les institutions politiques non grecques, sur les caractères naturels ou ethniques. Mais l’idée la plus répandue manque de nuance, et est souvent affirmée à tort en faisant l’économie d’un examen attentif des bases textuelles. (...) Cet article, qui est une sous-section d'un essai plus vaste sur les institutions politiques non-grecques (comme le traitement par Aristote de la politeia de Carthage dans Politique 2.11), soutient qu'Aristote ne distingue pas catégoriquement (et encore moins racialement) les Grecs et les Non-Grecs, ni n’approuve l’assertion selon laquelle les Grecs sont supérieurs aux non-Grecs. En effet, Aristote s'appuie régulièrement sur des institutions politiques non-grecques dans sa propre formulation de la meilleure constitution. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates the possibilities of relating scientific knowledge, practical and theoretical, with normative accounts. Firstly, we investigate how the particularized aspect of political science guarantees a degree of normative appropriateness between laws according to habit and the activity of phrónesis as a form of political intelligence. Secondly, we investigate how the universal aspect attributed to theoretical science and written laws could identify a criterion of epistemological validity that expresses normativity. In this sense, the reader will find in this essay (...) a study about methodological questions in Aristotelian philosophy, mainly in the direction in which the texts of practical philosophy establish a methodological relation with the texts of theoretical philosophy. The possibility of inferring normative aspects in Aristotle’s political philosophy depends on the direct results of this kind of methodological connection. (shrink)

Aristotle’s account of natural slavery as presented in his Politics is often treated by historians of philosophy as an account that can be analyzed purely internally in terms of its argumentative structure without referring to social factors. Against this view, Aristotle’s account of natural slavery is seen to be ideological according to at least one variant of the Marxist concept of ideology, and cannot be understood without reference to Aristotle’s socioeconomic context. The ideological nature of Aristotle’s account of natural slavery (...) is especially evident in his “proto-racialization” of the category of the “natural slave.” The Marxist concept of ideology is demonstrably useful in the historical study of philosophy, as compared with internalist historians of philosophy who claim that referring to nonphilosophical factors such as class interests inevitably obscures the philosophical content of the texts that are the objects of analysis. (shrink)

I argue that Aristotle’s unmodern conception of politics can only be understood by first understanding his distinctive picture of human agency and the excellence of political wisdom. I therefore undertake to consider three related puzzles: why at the outset of the Nicomachean Ethics [NE] is the human good said to be the same for a city and for an individual, such that the NE’s inquiry is political? why later on in the NE is political wisdom said to be the same (...) state of soul as practical wisdom? why in the Politics does Aristotle identify practical wisdom as the peculiar excellence of rulers when deliberation was said to be the common work of all citizens insofar as they are genuinely citizens? While these puzzles have individually received treatment in the literature, they have seldom been treated together. Taken independently, the passages in question can seem to express a more familiar conception of politics. In particular, each of the sameness claims made in and has too easily been assimilated to a more modern conception of the relation of ethics to politics and thereby domesticated. As I hope to show, in Aristotle is not simply asserting that the human good in a city supervenes on the good as achieved by its inhabitants ; and in he is not claiming only that political wisdom is a species of practical wisdom, but is rather asserting a more thoroughgoing identity between various types of deliberative excellence that are conventionally distinguished and assigned different names. Working through these passages will provide a sufficient basis for tackling, the question about the respective excellences of rulers and citizens. I will show that, despite his restriction of the exercise of practical wisdom to rulers, Aristotle imagines that non-ruling citizens will also exercise their political agency and thereby require a distinct rational excellence. More precisely, for Aristotle, there are two forms of political agency, deliberation on behalf of one’s community, which is perfected by practical-political wisdom, and the comprehension exercised by citizens on the basis of the view of life preserved by their character-virtues. Understood this way, the division of labor between rulers and citizens does not generate two spheres of activity, political and private, which could have unrelated excellences or concern distinct goods. (shrink)

In this paper I take up the question about the unity of justice in Aristotle and advocate for a robust relationship between lawfulness and equality, the two senses of justice that Aristotle distinguishes in Nicomachean Ethics V. My strategy is to focus on Aristotle’s indication in NE V 2 that “other-relatedness” is the common element shared by the two justices and turn to Aristotle’s discussion of the notion of self-love in EN IX 8 to explain what that means. I argue (...) that the other-relatedness of justice can be characterized in terms of proper self-love. Concretely, the discussion of self-love makes clear that those who are concerned with the well-being of others in their community over their own material gain—i.e., those who are lawful and not grasping or pleonectic—are able to see that their own self-interest is in harmony with acting in benefit of their community. This shows that there is an intimate link between lacking pleonectic inclinations and being able to act for the sake of the common good—and in general, between lacking pleonectic inclinations and being virtuous in relation to others. (shrink)

In this article, it is claimed that it is not possible to find a modern capitalist order in Ancient Greece. This claim is supported by the economic activities and historical findings of the ancient period and it is also shaped by reference to the 'primitivist-modernist debate'. In this context, firstly, Mosses I. Finley's primitivist views that claim capitalism cannot be possible in ancient Greece will be explained by taking into consideration the accounting system, commercial activity, social status, labor usages, and (...) land treatments. Secondly, the article will analyze Michael I. Rostovtzeff’s objection to primitivist ideas, and reveal his thoughts by supporting modernist ideas on the existence of capitalism in ancient Greek. Based on these analyses, it is concluded that it is unreasonable to talk about the existence of capitalism in ancient Greece. (shrink)

Abstract According to Aristotle, human beings are by nature political animals. It is now common knowledge that being political is not a human privilege for him: bees, wasps, ants and cranes are other political species. Although they are not the only political animals, human beings, for Aristotle, are still more political than the other political animals. The present article investigates the precise sense of this comparison; and it claims that the higher degree of human politicalness is not to be explained (...) by reference to those exclusively human features like having capacity for speech and moral perception. It is claimed that human beings are more political rather because they live in a multiplicity of communities differing in form. -/- . (shrink)

For the last four decades, David Keyt has devoted substantial scholarly energy to the reconstruction of political and ethical arguments in Aristotle’s <i>Nicomachean Ethics</i> and <i>Politics</i>, and to a lesser degree the same in Plato’s <i>Republic</i>. Although Keyt’s translation of and commentary on <i>Politics</i> Books V and VI in the Aristotle Clarendon series (1999), to my mind, is his most substantial contribution to ancient philosophy scholarship, close competitors are his scholarly articles which seek to reconstruct the philosophical positions of Aristotle (...) (and to a lesser extent Plato) with pain-staking logical and philological care. <i>Nature and Justice</i> contains eleven such articles, eight previously published and three appearing for the first time. (Titles are listed at the end of the review.) Several of the articles are landmark works of Aristotle scholarship both for the scholarly controversies which they have sparked and for the methodological approach they exhibit. (shrink)

In this article, I use the expanded hohfeldian model presented by Wenar to argue that, according to Aristotle's theory of friendship, every bond of friendship that is based on utility or virtue creates duties and hohfeldian incidents between those who are friends. In section 1, I provide a quick presentation of Hohfeld's work and of Wenar's hohfeldian model. In section 2, I present my thesis about the creation of certain hohfeldian incidents and certain duties in virtue and utility friendships as (...) conceived by Aristotle. In section 3, I give a broad characterization of Aristotle's theory of friendship and of the three great kinds of friendship that he recognizes. In section 4, I defend the thesis that it is only in virtue and utility friendships that duties are created. In section 5, I specify what are the hohfeldian incidents created by these two kinds of friendship. In section 6, I specify the two ways in which, according to Aristotle, these incidents and duties might be created. In section 7, I conclude with a brief recapitulation of the argument. En este artículo utilizo el modelo hohfeldiano extendido, presentado por Wenar, para argumentar que, según la teoría de la amistad de Aristóteles, todo lazo de amistad basado en la utilidad o la virtud crea deberes e incidentes hohfeldianos entre aquellos que son amigos. En la sección 1 proporciono una presentación rápida de la obra de Hohfeld y del modelo hohfeldiano de Wenar. En la sección 2 presento mi tesis sobre la creación de ciertos incidentes hohfeldianos y ciertos deberes en las amistades basadas en la virtud y la utilidad tal como fueron concebidos por Aristóteles. En la sección 3 ofrezco una caracterización general de la teoría de la amistad de Aristóteles y de los tres grandes tipos de amistad que reconoce. En la sección 4 defiendo la tesis de que los deberes se crean solamente en las amistades basadas en la virtud y la utilidad. En la sección 5 especifico cuáles son los incidentes hohfeldianos creados por estos dos tipos de amistad. En la sección 6 especifico las dos maneras en que, según Aristóteles, podrían crearse estos incidentes y deberes. En la sección 7 concluyo con una breve recapitulación de la argumentación. (shrink)

Human beings, according to Aristotle, are not the only political animals. Bees, wasps, ants and cranes are the other political species mentioned by Aristotle in the History of Animals. Politics, I, 2 confirms this point and makes the additional statement that human beings, if not the only political animals, are nevertheless more political than the other political animals. There has been a traditional scholarly agreement that the capacity for rational speech is the reason why human beings are more political. This (...) traditional view seems to have some support from the same chapter of Politics, where Aristotle addresses, right after having stated that human beings are more political, the role of language in human beings’ political life. This paper contests this traditional view about language and claims that it is the more political character of human beings which explains the political role of language and not vice versa. -/- . (shrink)

This paper is a study about the social dimension of the philosophical education according to Aristotle. Aristotle is not a individualistic thinker but he understands the philosophical activity in the social context of the friendship.

Aristotle’s account of kingship in Politics 3 responds to the rich discourse on kingship that permeates Greek political thought (notably in the works of Herodotus, Xenophon and Isocrates), in which the king is the paradigm of virtue, and also the instantiator and guarantor of order, linking the political microcosm to the macrocosm of the universe. Both models, in separating the individual king from the collective citizenry, invite further, more abstract thought on the importance of the king in the foundation of (...) the polity, whether the king can be considered part of, or separate from, the polis, and the relationship between polis and universe. In addressing these aspects of kingship theories, Aristotle explores a ‘metaphysics of monarchy’, part of the long-running mereological problem of parts and wholes in the construction of the polis, and connecting his account of kingship to his thought on citizenship and distributive justice within the polis. (shrink)

Aristotle claims that human beings are by nature political animals. We might think there is a way for non-Aristotelians to affirm something like this—that human beings are political, though not by nature in the Aristotelian sense. It is not clear, however, precisely what this amounts to. In this paper, I try to explain what the claim that human beings are political animals might mean. I also consider what it would it look like to defend this claim, which I call the (...) normative political animal thesis. I argue that this thesis cannot be given a general defense. Successful arguments for the normative political animal thesis must be made within particular ethical frameworks. To illustrate what such an argument might look like, I sketch a defense of the normative political animal thesis within a roughly Lockean rights theory, where its adoption seems especially promising. (shrink)

Ιn this paper I aim to analyze Aristotle’s account of political justice (to politikon dikaion) in both the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics, since it is these accounts that are most relevant to his advocacy of moderation and mixed constitution, and I aim to show how justice and equality are crucial for the promotion of the common interest of the polis. In addition, I explore the connection made between justice, equality, democracy, liberty, and friendship, and attempt to further excavate Aristotle’s (...) conception of political justice and moderation in the polis. We will see how this bears on questions in contemporary political philosophy concerning the role of justice as the most fundamental virtue for society, and as an institution that serves to fix the limits of human conduct and to settle the principles specifying the just distribution of benefits and burdens in a democratic society of equals. (shrink)

It has often been argued, in scholarly debate, that Aristotle’s denial of citizenship to the working population of his ideal city in Book VII of the Politics constitutes a fundamental injustice. According to this view, although it is true that their way of life prevents them from living a morally virtuous life, it does not follow that the working people are naturally devoid of the human qualities required for such a life. So, rather than finding a just way to distribute (...) citizenship among the diversity a city’s population would naturally exhibit, Aristotle would commit himself to oligarchic measures in Book VII. In this article, it is argued that the main concern of Book VII is less with a just determination of the extent of citizenship than with conceiving the most efficient way for a city to be happy: this consists in establishing a community composed of individuals who lay claim to happiness in the same way and to the same degree. In other words, it consists in reducing the diversity of Book III to a certain kind of homogeneity. (shrink)

In EN V.3, Aristotle offers an abstract definition of distributive justice that is agreed to by all, namely that it should be governed by geometrical proportionality: ‘equals should be treated equally, unequals should be treated in proportion to their inequalities’. At the same time, he acknowledges that we need a more substantive definition of the currency of equality, i.e. to tell us who are equal and who unequal at each distribution, since this would be the only way to avoid each (...) group of people to identify its own conception with the universal concept of justice. In Pol. III.12 (1282b18-23) Aristotle is arguing that it is the task of the political philosopher to define what kinds of equality or inequality are relevant in distribution of political power. In order to do so, Aristotle has to answer the question who is a citizen, that is, who should share in the constitution (Pol. III.1 1274b40-41). First he clears away the false conceptions and claims about citizenship and then he offers two criteria for political distribution—political capacity and contribution to the polis—which prima facie seem inconsistent. This paper explores the relation of the two criteria and the fundamental role of political capacity within the context of political distribution; I intend to argue that they are actually two stages in the process of political distribution, where political capacity is indexical prior to the contribution to the polis. It is also suggested that the Aristotelian model is egalitarian, in the sense that all politically capable individuals, regardless of the degree of political capacity they possess, are awarded citizenship. (shrink)

A defense of the value of studying what Aristotle, in the Politics, refers to as useless things, and thereby a defense of the 'uselessness' of the study of the liberal arts.

The term “polity” is used casually today to describe almost any political community. It is so broad that it has lost any theoretical import. In contrast, it had a much more focused – even technical – meaning in ancient, and especially Aristotelian thought.

It is widely agreed that Aristotle holds that the best moral education involves habituation in the proper pleasures of virtuous action. But it is rarely acknowledged that Aristotle repeatedly emphasizes the social and political sources of good habits, and strongly suggests that the correct law‐ordained education in proper pleasures is very rare or non‐existent. A careful look at the Nicomachean Ethics along with parallel discussions in the Eudemian Ethics and Politics suggests that Aristotle divided public moral education or law‐ordained habituation (...) into two types. One type is a defective form practiced by the Spartans, producing civic courage and similar defective virtue‐ like states motivated by external incentives. By contrast Aristotle endorses the law‐ordained musical education described in Politics 8. The chapter argues that Aristotle considers the well‐habituated state of proper pleasures in virtue to be best cultivated by this kind of musical education; and that this explains both his emphasis on good laws and on their scarcity. (shrink)

This article addresses Rancière’s critique of Aristotle’s political theory as parapolitics in order to show that Aristotle is a resource for developing an inclusionary notion of political community. Rancière argues that Aristotle attempts to cut off politics and merely police (maintain) the community by eliminating the political claim of the poor by including it. I respond to three critiques that Rancière makes of Aristotle: that he ends the political dispute by including the demos in the government; that he includes the (...) free masses only incidentally because, by chance, the rule is political, not based on mastery; and that he attempts to close off politics by determining in advance what speech counts as speech. I argue that Aristotle attempts to institute this contest by accepting the incommensurable claims of arithmetic and geometric equality. Aristotle puts this conflict at the root of political life in such a way that serves Rancière’s larger project of perpetuating politics. (shrink)

Two prominent metaphors in Greek and Roman political philosophy are surveyed here, with a view to determining their possible meanings and the plausibility of the claims advanced by those possible meanings.

Je otrok podle Aristotela vykořisťovaným nástrojem výroby stojícím na úrovni zvířete, nebo méně nadaným jedincem, jenž může svoje omezené možnosti naplnit pouze jako podřízený člen domácnosti? Aristotelští badatelé zdůrazňují jednu z možností podle toho, nakolik jsou sami liberálně, či komunitaristicky orientováni: buď je Aristotelova teorie panství vykládána jako nelidská a ideologická, nebo jako realistická a solidární. Spor se však netýká pouze „liberalismu“ a „komunitarismu“ v Aristotelovi, nýbrž – jelikož je otrok v obou výkladech chápán jako nástroj pána – také dvou (...) základních pojetí techniky a v důsledku moderní civilizace obecně, jež jsou zastoupeny na jedné straně Lévinasovým Gagarinem a na druhé straně Heideggerem. Aristotelés naznačuje – a to pomocí technicky přesného důkazu – možnost techniky, která osvobozuje od nutnosti, přitom si je však vědom podmíněnosti každého takového osvobození. Výdobytkem Aristotelovy teorie panství je to, že se v ní hledisko rovnosti a svobody a hledisko podřízení a nutnosti nikoli vylučují, nýbrž vzájemně doplňují. (shrink)

Cette étude examine la conception de la royauté et de la tyrannie chez le Socrate de Xénophon, et la compare à celles qui sont défendues par Aristote, le Socrate de Platon, et d’autres. Le Socrate de Xénophon soutient que le consentement des gouvernés et le règne de la loi sont les caractéristiques qui distinguent un roi d’un tyran, alors qu’Aristote soutient que la différence tient plutôt à la nature des intérêts qui sont poursuivis, selon qu’il s’agit des intérêts des sujets, (...) dans le cas de la royauté, ou du dirigeant, dans le cas de la tyrannie. On se penche également sur la nature de l’art de gouverner selon le Socrate de Platon, sur le rôle de la sagesse, et l’on examine enfin si ces différents auteurs reconnaissent ou non la possibilité, sur le plan conceptuel, d’un bon tyran.This paper explores the account of kingship and tyranny in Xenophon’s Socrates, and contrasts them with those of Aristotle, Plato’s Socrates, and others. Xenophon’s Socrates holds that consent of the ruled and rule by law are what distinguish a tyrant from a king, whereas Aristotle holds the difference is a matter of whose interests are pursued, the subject’s or the ruler’s . Also considered the nature of the art of ruling in Plato’s Socrates, the role of wisdom, and whether or not a good tyrant is conceptually possible according to the various accounts. (shrink)

In the Poetics, Aristotle criticizes Herodotus by claiming that poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history. Aristotle's remark may be understood as a defense of poetry against Herodotus's attempt to supplant the political teaching of the poets and the wise men. Aristotle aligns poetry with philosophy because the poets' political teaching serves the city at the same time that it anticipates political philosophy. In the second section of the article Herodotus's quarrel with the political teaching of the poets, (...) especially Homer, is considered in light of Aristotle's account of the poets. Approaching Herodotus in this manner underscores the significance, for Aristotle, of the politics of Herodotus's History. The third section of the article begins with a discussion of Herodotus's indebtedness to, and difference from, the pre-Socratic philosophers, and goes on to consider Herodotus's quarrel with the wise men. Herodotus's quarrel with the poets and the wise men provides us with a better idea of why Aristotle sought to associate poetry with philosophy, and distinguish them from history. (shrink)

The article attempts to give a coherent expression to a recurrent theme in the history of political theory. The theme is that men and communities must be subjected to stress in various forms (e.g., Poverty, Insecurity, Conflict, Dissension) in order to maintain whatever faculties, qualities, capabilities and institutions they regard as (a) practically necessary in the long run, or (b) an essential part of their conception of a good life. The ideas dealt with have been drawn from philosophers, political scientists (...) and sociologists from Plato and Aristotle through Machiavelli, Mill, Nietzsche, Durkheim, Sorel, and Ortega y Gasset. (shrink)