Abstract

The article discusses Plato’s and Aristotle’s writings on the sovereignty of the state. It claims that the reflections of the two philosophers on the nature and role of the polis was for them only the result of a shift in attention from the individual man to the whole of social relations that surround him. Just as man’s life in the biological dimension depends on whether he encounters around himself favorable conditions for nourishment, shelter, and longer life, so man’s spiritual life depends on how the political community has been shaped, which is man’s natural spiritual environment. A badly formed political community makes it impossible for man to live well or find fulfillment, and in an extreme case, as in the example of Socrates, it can even put him to death. For that reason, Plato and Aristotle examined the nature of the polis, tried to understand it, and to plan its functioning so that it would best serve virtue and man’s fulfillment. Ultimately, only such a polis ultimately can be called sovereign.