ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
Aristotle: 384 – 322 BCE
Aristotle was born in Stagira, Macedonia, in what is now part of northern Greece.
The city was a seaport on the coast of Macedon. (Since most Greeks were known
only by one name, they were often identified by the city of their birth. Hence
Aristotle was known in his lifetime as Aristotle of Stagira.) The Macedonians, during
Aristotle’s life, dominated the rest of Greece and much of Europe, under King Philip
and then Alexander the Great, of whom Aristotle was a teacher. Aristotle was the
son of a doctor, Nichomachus, who was closely allied to the court in Macedonia. As
such, throughout his life, Aristotle was seen as close to the rulers of Macedonia,
considered by the citizens of the other Greek city-states as foreign conquerers.
Aristotle moved to Athens in 367 BCE, attending Plato’s Academy until Plato’s death
in 347 BCE. During this twenty year period, Plato wrote many of his most important
and mature works, including the Timaeus, Sophist, Statesman, and Laws. These
works had an enormous influence on Aristotle’s own work, even if, in the end, he
disputes a number of Plato’s claims.
Aristotle left the Academy and Athens in 347 BCE. First, he moved to Atarneus in
Mysia. Here, Aristotle married Pythias, a niece of Hermeias, the ruler of Atarneus.
They had a daughter, also called Pythias. After the death of his wife, Aristotle had a
son Nicomachus with Herpyllis. Later, Aristotle left for the island of Lesbos, and then
back to Macedon. Back home, Aristotle again was close to the ruling family of
Macedon, tutoring the young Alexander the Great. In 334 BCE, Aristotle returned to
Athens, founding his own school, the Lyceum.
It is important to note that Aristotle’s works that survive were texts of lectures from
his days at the Lyceum. While many parts of his texts were polished enough to
suggest that he would publish them, other parts of Aristotle’s surviving work
includes incomplete sentences and paraphrased notations. Aristotle's lectures were
preserved by a student, Theophrastus, who put the books in a vault. For close to 300
years, Aristotle’s work was lost to the world, until discovered by a Roman scholar in
100 BCE. The order in which Aristotle’s works appear in the Greek manuscripts goes
back to early editors and commentators during the era of the late Roman empire. As
such, the titles to Aristotle’s work were provided by these editors. For example, it is
usually assumed that Aristotle “invented” metaphysics due to the book of this name.
However, the term metaphysics was placed on a certain text of Aristotle’s, since it
was agreed that this text would follow the Physics in a published edition of
Aristotle’s work. That is, the text would be meta, after or above, the text of the
Physics, which preceded it.
In 323 BCE, Alexander the Great passed away and so with him the influence of
Macedon on the other Greek city states. The Macedonian-led government of Athens
fell and the new rulers brought charges of impiety against Aristotle. Aristotle left
Athens amidst a fervor of anti-Macedonian feeling for the island of Euboea, where
he died in 322 BCE of a stomach illness. Before leaving Athens, fearing for his life,
Aristotle is reputed to have said “The Athenians might not have another opportunity
of sinning against philosophy as they have already done in the person of Socrates.”
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For Aristotle, as he puts it in his Metaphysics and NE, we must begin with what is
“better known to us” (1029b3). In essence, what we know best is the empirical
world around us. Aristotle’s method is to use induction from particular
observations, generalizing from a set of phenomena to reach a principle. But this
principle must continually be tested against further empirical data and other
principles. In philosophical inquiry, Aristotle argues that we must begin
“empirically” by critically studying the common beliefs of the community and the
thoughts of prior philosophers. This should not be taken to suggest that Aristotle
considered knowledge learned from the senses as the only form of knowledge.
Aristotle argued for universals and ultimate causes, such as justice and God, which
may not necessarily be found in the sensory world. Yet, for Aristotle, “what is better
known to us” must always be the starting point for a philosophical or scientific
investigation.
Another feature of Aristotle’s method is to begin by way of analysis, which is defined
as breaking up what is being investigated into its component parts. As he puts it in
Book I of The Politics, “What I am saying will be clear if we examine the matter
according to the method of investigation that has guided us elsewhere … A
composite has to be analyzed until we reach things that are incomposite, since these
are the smallest parts of the whole, so if we also examine the parts that make up a
city-state, we shall see better both how these differ from each other, and whether or
not it is possible to gain some expertise in connection with each of the things we
have mentioned” (1252a15-20). We will see this in our reading of the NE.
Key Terms for Reading the Politics
In order to better understand Aristotle’s Politics, we must first get on the same page,
so to speak, with regard to the terminology that Aristotle is using. We will also need
to review terms that would have been familiar to Aristotle’s Greek readers, but are
less familiar to 21st century readers. However, no definition is ever set in stone and
good scholars argue over the precise meaning of Aristotle’s terminology, from what
he means by knowledge (epitemē) to his conception of virtue. In other words, as
critical readers, you should use these definitions and comments as a help in reading
the text; only a thorough reading of the assigned text will help you in gaining a
foothold with Aristotelian terminology. (One note on terminology: I use the term
“man” and “men” quite a bit below in reference to citizenship and the community.
This sexist terminology is purposeful since Aristotle, as we shall see, explicitly
excludes women from acting within the political realm.)
ACTION (praxis): We get the English word “practice” from the Greek “praxis,” which
is the result of deliberate choice. Aristotle differentiates in Book I of the Politics
between praxis and production. Praxis is an end in itself, while production has an
end, is for the sake of, what is produced, for example when one makes a chair. For
Aristotle, only free people can act in this specific sense, since the end of any action is
acting well, which is the action itself. Action, like happiness, is an end in itself. It is
not for the sake of anything but itself; it is the mark of a free man that he can act
since he makes a decision to act, and action doesn’t merely happen to him.
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ARCHÊ: An archê is both the name for an office held by a ruler and is also the term
Aristotle uses in his metaphysics to refer to first principles or the starting cause of
other things.
AUTARKEIA: This refers to self-sufficiency, a key aim of each city state.
COMMON BELIEFS (endoxa): Aristotle begins most of his treatises, and thus his form
of dialectic, by treating common beliefs first.
CITY-STATE (polis): The dominant political unit in Ancient Greece. The city-states
were generally small with one common culture among their inhabitants, except for
that of foreign-born slaves. City-states included Athens, Sparta, and Thebes. For
Aristotle, the non-deviant city-state would be one in which free and equal citizens
are bound together in a community whose end is the most mutually beneficial life
possible.
COMMUNITY: Men, according to Aristotle, are by nature political animals. The first
communities, according to Aristotle, were families spaced out across the landscape.
Aristotle is almost unique among political philosophers in his claim that the political
community is “natural,” that is, not something artificially produced (see the
distinction above between action and production). The family is a natural result of
man’s wish to partake in the divine by way of a quasi-immortality, by producing
offspring that will continue the blood-line of a family. As Aristotle traces it in Politics
Book I, the family naturally gathers together in mutual need (exchange of goods,
etc.) into villages, the second type of community. This community is modelled on the
family, according to Aristotle, with a king presiding over the village as a father does
over a family and its slaves. Finally, a number of villages joined together for mutual
benefit is the most mature type of community, the city-state., which “comes to be for
the sake of living, but it remains in existence for the sake of living well” (1252b).
DEMOCRACY: Dêmokratia is a lesser kind of politeia or constitution, since it does not
rule for the interests of the whole, according to Aristotle, but for the sake of the poor
by the poor multitude.
DECISION (prohairesis): A decision, according to Aristotle, is the result of a wish for
something that is good for us, and comes about after delibertation using one’s
practical wisdom (phronesis).
EDUCATION: Paideia is of ultimate political importance to Aristotle. Without this a
community would not produce virtuous citizens and would not be unified into a
whole. It would thus be unable to be self-sufficient.
ETHICS AND POLITICS: Put simply at this point, ethics, for Aristotle, is the ability to
review blameworthy and praiseworthy actions of human beings. Ethics seeks to
discover a careful balance between the good of the individual and the good of the
community. The Nichomachean Ethics proceeds from the standpoint of the
individual while the Politics proceeds from the standpoint of the community. Each
domain, the political and the ethical, is concerned with what Aristotle takes to be the
ultimate good, namely happiness, which is an end for its own sake.
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The word “ethics” is derived from the Greek adjective ēthikos, which itself is derived
from the Greek word ēthos, which means character. For Aristotle, in order to form a
good character or ēthos, one must have formed good habits, or ethoi (note: this a
different Greek word—no long “e”), formed through a good education.
END (telos): As Aristotle explains in book I of the NE, the nature of anything is its
end. In his Metaphysics, A. argues that there are four causes of any event or object;
we will illustrate this with the example of the statue:
1. The material cause. Bronze or marble would be the material cause of the
statue; it is its material make-up.
2. The formal cause. This would in most cases be the form of the event or thing;
it is the definition of what the thing is. For example the statue of liberty is in
the form of a woman holding a torch and representing a beacon of freedom.
3. The efficient cause. This is the direct source, which brought the statue into
being. It would be better to think of the efficient cause as the “cause of
change.” The sculptor would be the efficient cause of the statue.
4. Final cause. Most important for the discussion in the Politics is the final cause,
the telos or event of the event or object. For example, the final cause of a
statue is to represent something, such as Lady Liberty. An acorn’s final cause
would be a tree; it is the goal for which it exists.
Taking up any event or object, one cause is usually more relevant to the discussion.
For the city-state, the most important cause is the final cause. But as we will also see,
the formal cause, the particular form (aristocracy, democracy etc.) will also be
important to Aristotle. For now, it is important to keep in mind that the final cause
of any community, the development it will ultimately lead to, is found in the citystate. And the final cause of the city-state, that for which it is set up, is the good,
what Aristotle will define as “living well,” and what we might loosely think of as
happiness.
FUNCTION (ergon): The Greek word ergon also means “work,” and the use of ergon
in the NE has been argued over. Essentially, Aristotle argues that each thing or
animate being (that is, anything with a soul) works in a particular way or has a
certain function. If it performs its function well, then it is said to have an aretē, an
excellence about it. To perform one’s function (ergon) excellently (with aretē), for
Aristotle, is to be a fully ethical human being, and to be happy.
GOOD (agathos): For Aristotle, the ultimate end, that which is “good” for each
human being, is happiness. A good is the result of an action, what we seek in doing
something. Everything we do is for the sake of some good. Some things are “good in
themselves,” for example, happiness. We do not seek happiness in order to get
wealth. Rather wealth, which is a good, is sought for a larger good, a good in itself,
namely happiness.
HAPPINESS (eudaimonia): This is the ultimate goal of all human praxis and is the
ultimate goal of any community. Happiness is found in reflecting upon God,
practicing philosophy, or enjoying the company of one’s friends. All of these
activities are only available, according to Aristotle, in a political community that
affords its free citizens the leisure time to do so. But we should not confuse
eudaimonia with our contemporary notion of happiness, which is simply a synonym
for pleasure. Certainly, there is pleasure involved in the happiness that Aristotle is
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talking about, but it is also the ultimate fulfillment of the life of a citizen freely acting
within the community. It will be an important part of your task in reading Book I of
the Ethics to seek out what Aristotle means by this. As he notes, all men have a
different notion of happiness based on their different lives.
JUSTICE (dikē): Justice is the “common benefit.” For Aristotle, a city-state cannot
exist without justice, which for Aristotle is the virtue, the defining property, of a citystate.
MEAN (mesotēs): Aristotle is famous for what is called the “Aristotelian mean.” As
outlined in Book IV of the NE, and explained further in book VI, if we perform our
function well as human beings, we seek the mean or the intermediate between two
extremes in order to practice virtue. For example, in order to practice courage, we
must react to our fears in a moderate fashion, aiming for a mean or intermediate
state between two extremes: (1) showing no restraint in the face of our fears, which
would be cowardice, but (2) also not ignoring our fear, which, in the face of
overwhelming odds, for example on the battlefield, which would be stupidity. It is
brave to fight when one has a possibility of succeeding, even if the odds are slim; it is
not brave, according to Aristotle, to fight when there are no odds of winning. This is
not bravery and does not find the mean between the two extremes.
NOBLE (kalon): For Aristotle, what is noble is the result of virtue, and free citizens
prefer what is noble to all else. The noble is an end in itself, in contrast to what is
useful, something used in order to get something else (i.e. using a slave to plow the
fields).
OIKONOMIA: Household management is the best translation for a term that would
become, in English, economics. This is the epistemê that deals with the use of
property, the mastering of slaves, marriage, and procreation.
PLEASURE (hēdonē): We get our word “hedonism,” for the belief that pleasure is the
ultimate good, from the Greek word hēdonē. Aristotle was not, however, a hedonist.
He believed that we must not mistake pleasure for happiness, as many of his
contemporary Greeks did and many still do today. Rather pleasure is a by-product of
things that are good, including being a virtuous human being. Pleasure is important
in Aristotle: if we are educated rightly, and form a good character, we will derive
pleasure from doing what is good for others, from performing our virtues. A person
that is not rightly educated will instead find pleasure in things that are destructive
to our communities.
PRUDENCE PRACTICAL WISDOM (phronēsis): In the Nichomachean Ethics
distinguishes between phronesis, translated as “practical wisdom,” and theoria, pure
contemplation. Practical wisdom is used by the statesman, while theoria is the
province of the philosopher. For Aristotle, it is important that the virtuous person,
under whatever constitution the state operates, is a virtuous person performing
virtue for its own sake. This virtue requires a special kind of “knowledge,” different
from the theorizing of the philosopher. A person with practical wisdom deliberates
upon a course of action to take using his or her prudence. Pracitcal wisdom
therefore entails grasping the nature of what is going on in the city-state to make a
definitive decision here and now. For Aristotle, practical wisom is built up by
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experience, because it is not just a set of rules that can be applied mechanically. In
other words, one can’t just learn practical wisdom by reading a book.
SLAVES and WOMEN: Aristotle’s ethical and political theory is marked by an
oppressive view of slaves and women. For Aristotle, slaves are a natural part of the
family, ruled over by a master. It is natural, he believes, for Greeks to rule over nonGreeks; non-Greeks captured during war were taken home as slaves. A slave lacks
reason, according to Aristotle, which it must get from the orders of its master. For
Aristotle, the slave is better off under the rule of his master since he would
otherwise not be able to partake in the use of reason (albeit indirectly by following
the orders of his master), thus reducing him totally to animality. In addition, men
are natural rulers and women are always to be ruled. A woman has some ability to
reason, but this ability “lacks any authority.” It’s never made clear what Aristotle
means by this, except the implication that a woman will do something differently
than what her reason tells her to do. She might figure out the best course of action,
but do something completely different. In the hierarchy that Aristotle sets up, the
lowest rung is taken up by animals, hen slaves, women, male boys, and men, in
ascending order. Male boys have an ability to deliberate and will someday grow into
full citizens.
SOUL (psuchē): For Aristotle, the soul is nothing other than the activity of a living
body. A way to understand this would be that if there were no soul, then animals
and human beings would not have a soul. Yes, animals have a soul, according to
Aristotle, though one that is limited to perception and desire. For Aristotle, the
human soul has appetites or desires, the ability to sense and perceive, and also the
ability to reason, which is what differentiates our souls from those of animals. The
soul is not separate from the body, but is rather the cause of its activity from within
itself. If we are to be ethical, according to Aristotle, then one part of the soul (the
non-rational part, the one that is based in perception and desires things) must be
ruled over by the other part of the soul, the one based in reason. The rational part of
the soul, for a virtuous person who has formed good habits, will be the only one who
is able to act ethically.
VIRTUE (aretē): This is the center of Aristotle’s political and ethical theory. In
Aristotle’s use of the term, virtue means more than simply having “ethical virtue” as
we use the term. A man’s virtue is that which makes him a good man: his
intelligence, courage, practical wisdom, etc.
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