Why read Aristotle today?
By Judith Swanson
Professor Swanson’s Reader’s Guide to Aristotle’s Politics (with C. David Corbin, Continuum Books) was
recently translated into Korean. Here she addresses why students of politics should still find Aristotle
relevant.
The insights of a philosopher who lived 2400 years ago must surely be irrelevant. Especially
now that engineering and the natural and computer sciences pledge solutions to the world’s
gamut of problems—from the Ebola virus to the War on Terror. The hard sciences have trumped
the soft sciences. But if we notice respects in which Aristotle’s science is hard as well as soft,
then we may see its common ground with contemporary sciences and the ground for considering
what it offers otherwise.
Not all sons are like their fathers, but scholars of Aristotle often note, to account for his empirical
bent, that his father was a physician. Aristotle was indeed a prolific observer. “We see that” he
says, again and again. But unlike his father, he observed not only human bodies but also human
conduct and speech, what people do and say, leading him to write about ethics, politics, and
rhetoric, as well as about biology. By showing that actions and opinions form conventions,
Aristotle helped establish social science and respect for evidence.
His science also shares with contemporary sciences the impetus to make sense of observations;
to organize and draw conclusions about them. And by the same means: namely, reason.
Aristotle does not simply record observations; he analyzes them. In his time that was a new and
bold undertaking because it challenged prevailing norms, in particular the belief in the Greek
gods and their power over man and the cosmos, defying comprehension. Aristotle thus shows, as
did his philosophic predecessors the pre-Socratics, Socrates, and Plato, that reason can try to
understand the world.
Seeking to understand everything that he possibly could, from the soul to the universe, led
Aristotle to draw a distinction between theoretical and practical sciences. He accordingly
concluded that “it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things
just so far as the nature of the subject admits” (Nicomachean Ethics I.3). While that conclusion
does not vitiate the importance he gives to evidence and reason, it does mean that we should not
expect mathematical results from studies of practical affairs.
But it also does not mean, at the other extreme, that studies of practical affairs can yield only
information, never any constant or robust results. Remarkably, according to Aristotle, the locus
of practices, the city-state—seemingly the most man-made entity ever—is natural, which implies
that constancies or truths characterize it. If they did not, there could be no knowledge of it, no
political science. Evidently then, the distinction between theoretical and practical sciences is not
complete; not like night and day but like dawn or dusk.
The liaison between theoretical and practical knowledge according to Aristotle is prudence, the
virtue of the good man, whether citizen or ruler. “Man is by nature a political animal” because
he has “perception of good and bad and just and unjust” (Politics I.2). We form communities on
shared moral perceptions or judgments, Aristotle says. If we cannot help making moral
judgments, then we cannot form ethically-neutral communities. The recognition that ethical
neutrality or moral relativism is not an option for human beings puts the chilling possibility of
moral dogmatism in stark relief. Indeed among the reasons to read Aristotle today are his many
and varied depictions of dogmatic righteousness, indicating the political necessity of regimes that
mix by participation diverse ideas of justice.
Aristotle discerned participation as the lifeblood of politics. A citizen is by definition one who
participates in a regime. Without the participation of citizens, regimes cannot survive.
Inherently participatory, political life depends on freedom and equality and thus seeks more of
each. Seeking freedom and equality, political activity thus tends to create democracies, the most
common type of regime according to Aristotle.
He nonetheless notes that our wish to live well checks the tendency of political life towards
democracy. We want not only to be free and equal but also to thrive. All communities aim at
some good, and the political community aims at the most authoritative good of all, Aristotle says
at the start of The Politics. The rest of the book provides insights into the nature of politics to
lead us in the charge to realize the best possible political community our circumstances allow.
The tremendous accomplishments of science and technology today masquerade as all we need to
realize the best political community. While Aristotle encouraged the strenuous use of our
faculties and would applaud our scientific and technological discoveries, he compels us to
consider the moral ends toward which we want to strive. Thus while it’s fair to ask, ‘Why read
Aristotle today?’ it may be fair to answer, ‘because we acutely need, in these times dominated by
hard sciences, all the sound ethical and political advice we can get.’
Judith A. Swanson
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
Boston University
December 4th, 2014
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