Abstract

Aristotle's criticism of Plato's Republic in Politics II 1-5 is generally held to be unfair, uninteresting and/or unimportant--certainly not Aristotle at his best. The aim of this dissertation is to show that these chapters are important, and that a careful investigation of them can be fruitful. They are important because they focus on what turns out to be a crucial issue: the unity of the city, or to put it another way, the relationship between the individual and the state. ;After discussing preliminary material necessary for understanding Aristotle's criticism of Plato's Republic, I turn to the criticisms themselves. I look first at Aristotle's claim that the unity of the best city of the Republic might be proper for a household or natural organism, but that it is too much unity for a city. By examining the types of unity possessed by households and natural organisms, we discover that in Aristotle's view the city is not an organism of which the citizens are mere parts. In fact, he believes citizens must possess a relatively high degree of independence. ;I look next at Aristotle's criticism of the attempt made in the Republic to achieve unity through the communism of women and children. Plato's Socrates believes that the intense feelings of affection in all for all will have positive results. But Aristotle replies that this intense affection is impossible, and that such an attempt actually leads to the dilution of affection, and thus to disunity. ;In the final chapter, I explain why Aristotle rejects the communism of property in favor of a system of private property. He criticizes Plato for attempting to achieve good results through laws controlling property. It is better for the city to let citizens own property privately, but to educate them in such a way that they use it properly . ;In a brief conclusion I argue that although we should not consider Aristotle a liberal or proto-liberal , it is clear that he does recognize that individuals are individuals, not parts of the city in any essential way, and, that they require a certain degree of independence if they are to live the highest life possible. We should therefore reject the view that Aristotle had strong totalitarian tendencies