Abstract

The thesis of this Dissertation is that Politics 3 presents democracy restrained by the rule of law as Aristotle's Best Regime. This thesis contends that the two dominant interpretations about what is Aristotle's best regime do not pay close attention to the arguments being advanced, give short shrift to the importance of justice as the architectonic in human affairs, rely upon inaccurate translations of the Greek text, read into the Greek text their preconceptions and then point to their reading as justifying their interpretation, and ignore the rhetorical and argumentative structure of the given arguments. In opposition to the traditional interpretations, this work argues that when one goes back to the original text and looks at it without preconceptions about what one should expect to find, Politics 3 presents a case for popular rule understood to be democratic rule and the rule of law. Thus the political excellence of the rule of the many , expressed in terms of its superior deliberative wisdom, and the political superiority of the rule of law to the naturally superior ruler are two "peaks" in the argumental structure of Politics 3. ;In this work, I address the issues of Aristotle's relevance to contemporary readers, problems which arise from the text of the Politics such as issues of structure and the transmission of the text as we currently possess it, and issues concerning interpretation and the transmission of textual meaning. I also frame the discussion of Aristotle's relevance to contemporary readers in the debate about democratic theory which is occurring in the Political Science profession. It is my contention that Aristotle's presentation of democracy restrained by the rule of law as the best regime is a persuasive alternative to the two prevailing democratic theories: elite theory and participatory democracy. Aristotle's support for democracy avoids the pitfalls of those two approaches by stressing not only the reality of human nature but the limits of the political process, in a way that does not deny or exaggerate the political capacities of human beings