Aristotle doctrine that “Man is
by Nature a Zōon Politikon”
a) Richard Mulgan, Aristotle’s Political
Theory chs. 1&2.
b) Bernard Yack, ‘Community and Conflict...’
pp. 92-103.
c) Wolfgang Kullman, ‘Man as a Political
Animal’ in Keyt and Miller.
d) Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition 737.
Aristotle - 1253a1-15.
1.Zōon
 [transliterated as zōon] includes all living beings,
men, animals and Gods.
Some common mistakes even by famous philosophers:
A. Giorgio Agamben in Homo Sacer argues that Aristotle
conceives of human animal ‘life’ this sense (zoē), and
distinguishes it from man’s political and ethical life (bios).
Agamben interprets (zoē), as “simple natural life” [la
semplice vita naturale] and explains that this kind of life
“mere living was excluded from the polis and confined to
the oikos or household, which was a sphere concerned
exclusively with reproduction [riproduzione] and
subsistence [sussistenza]. This is the meaning he
subsequently assigns to “bare life” [la nuda vita].
• Zōon = man’s natural existence, or the social existence
of the polis existence “by nature” where this expression
does not refer to (but specifically) excludes the
teleological meaning of nature.
• The instinctual basis of the polis – desire for
companionship.
• The metaphysical/reproductive basis of the polis.
• The drive for self-preservation.
• The economic and material basis of the polis.
B. Martin Heidegger interprets the phrase “politikon zōon”
as a reference to man’s animal existence.
Martin Heidegger, On Humanism, 1949, p13
“We must be clear that human beings in the final
analysis are enclosed in the sphere of animal being
(animalitas), even if he is not equated with beasts, but is
given a specific difference. In principle one must always
think of the homo animalis…this positioning is a kind of
metaphysics.”
So Heidegger thinks that man’s status as a zōon, marks
him out as an animal.
However, zōon/zōē is not a pejorative
designation. It means “ensouled being” or “living
being” in a wide and non-pejorative sense,
which excludes only plants, but includes animals
and Gods. (Animal by contrast, in the Roman
and Christian traditions is pejorative.)
C. As Hans Jonas puts it  “does not mean animal ( =
bestia), but every ensouled (= living) being, excluding
plants but including demons, Gods, ensouled stars,
indeed the ensouled universe as the greatest and most
perfect living being itself.” (Hans Jonas, ‘Zwischen Nichts
und Ewigkeit. Zur Lehre vom Menachen’ cited in Günther
Bien, Die Grundlegung der Politischen Philosophie bei
Aristoteles, Freiburg, Karl Alber, 1973, p. 123.)
• Remember the sphere of human existence or properly
human affairs – in which politics and ethics have their
proper place, like human existence itself, is demarcated
from above and from below, suspended between the
divine (the life of the Gods and the heavenly bodies) and
the animal.
• So Aristotle means it literally when he says that “he who
is by nature and not by luck without a polis is either a
bad man, or above all men.” 1252a3
Humans as living beings share some features of their
existence with animals/beasts, and some with Gods.
2. Politikon
It is commonly claimed that Aristotle define the human
beings as a Zōon Politikon.
Let’s take some famous examples.
A.
Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality vol. III, p. 188
“Ever since Aristotle defined man as a “political animal”
… modern man is an animal whose politics calls his
existence as a living being into question.”
B.
Hannah Arendt
“Aristotle’s definition of man as a zōon politikon was not
only unrelated and even opposed to the natural
association experienced in household life; it can be fully
understood only if one adds his second famous definition
of man as a zōon logon ekhon.” Hannah Arendt, The
Human Condition, Chicago, 1954, p. 27
N.B. The only opposition here is that the life of citizens
“sharing in the constitution” that is “ruling and being ruled
in turn” and hence participating in a just political order, is
opposed to the natural hierarchies of the household
master/(natural) slave, and man woman, which are
based on instinct, affection and exist for the purpose of
survival and economic and material need.
Aristotle is not claiming that the social glue that cements
the family plays not role in cementing the political
community.
He claims that it is necessary but not sufficient to do this,
in addition to all this one needs a constitution, laws, a
just political order.
There is no opposition as such between the bases of
natural association (that are sufficient for family ties) and
the bases of political order.
Still Arendt implies that Aristotle has several definitions of
man/human being/ and she is right about this.
Aristotle offers lots of other much better candidate
definitions of man.
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Man is the only animal who can speak.
Man is the only animal who can deliberate and decide.
Man is the only animal who can act.
Man is the only animal who can count.
Man is the only animal who can remember.
Man is the only animal who can do science.
In his biological writings, Aristotle notes that there are
several different kinds of ‘political animal’.
In History of the Animals he distinguishes between
gregarious animals [tōn angelaiōn] and solitary animals
[tōn monadikōn].
Some gregarious animals, (not those that herd or flock
together or swim together in shoals) are political animals
“Animals that live politically are those that have any kind
of activity in common, which is not true of all gregarious
animals. Of this sort are: man, bee, wasp and crane.”
Aristotle, (HA 1.1. 487 b33ff)
‘Political’ as a biological attribute and differentium of a
small sub-class of gregarious animals, including human
beings but not limited to them.
Look again at Aristotle’s supposed ‘definition’ of man in Book I of
The Politics:
It is clear that man is a political animal more than any bee or any
gregarious animal. Aristotle, (Politics, 1253a7 my emphasis.
The specific difference that determines the genus of political
animals, insofar as Aristotle canvasses one, is that human beings
have logos.[2] ‘Aristotle’s claims that
“man is the only animal who has speech/reason” [logon de monon
anthrōpos ekhei tōn zōōn] (1253a9).
Man is thE only animal with a sense of justice.
(See also 1334b15 where Aristotle claims that both reason [logos]
and intellection [nous] are the end toward which nature strives
[ēmin…tes phuseōs telos], so that birth and education in customs
should be ordered with a view to them.)
• “[s]peech…serves to make clear what is
beneficial and what is harmful, and so also what
is just and unjust. For by contrast with the other
animals [ta alla zōa] he alone can perceive what
is good and bad, and just and unjust) Politics
(1251a16-19) See also Politics 1332b5. Man
and man alone has reason [monos gar echei
logon].
• “the virtue of justice [dikaiosunē] is what is
political, and justice [dikē] is the basis on which
the political association is ordered, and the
virtue of justice is a judgement about what is
just”. (1253a33-5)
Mulgan versus Kullmann
Richard Mulgan. p. 24
1. The ‘political’ animal, in the narrow sense, means the
polis-animal.
Mulgan claims this is its “literal” meaning.
2. Aristotle uses the term in the wider sense of ‘social
animal to denote “any species which co-operates in a
common enterprise.” Calls this its metaphorical meaning.
3. Aristotle unsuccessfully tries to align both meanings at
1253 a1-15 with the claim that “man is more of a political
animal than a bee or any other gregarious animal.”
What he should have said is that other animals in a
metaphorical sense only whereas man is political in a
literal sense too.
4. Mulgan suggests that the proposition, “Man is a political
animal is a premise, which “is to be used to prove that
the polis is natural.” p.24.
The mistake he diagnoses is that Aristotle only shows
the biological basis of man’s social nature, not “that this
society and state must be of the polis-type.” Mulgan,
p.25.
• Look at the text. The proposition is presented not as the
premise but as a conclusion of argument, which shows
first, that the polis exists by nature, and that man is a
political animal.
“Hence it clearly follows that the state exists by nature,
and that man is a political animal.” 1253a1
5. Mulgan: In order to do this Aristotle has to make
”unwarranted claims of biological universality for values
which are, at least in part, peculiar to one social context.”
p. 25