Abstract

JONATHAN BARNES HAS WRITTEN RECENTLY that "Aristotle's remarks [on property] in the Politica are too nebulous to sustain any serious critical discussion." Some scholars are more confident about successfully getting to the bottom of Aristotle's opinions concerning property, but few have dealt with the topic in any detail. In this essay I shall investigate the relevant texts on property from the Aristotelian corpus, beginning with an especially careful look at Aristotle's criticism of Plato's communism of property. I shall also consider the historical and cultural context in which Aristotle was writing. The result will be, I hope, a full account of, and hence a better understanding of, Aristotle's views on property.