IMAGINING OTHER
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY – A PRIMER
Aristotle 384 - 322 BC (pp3)
Links:
Imagining
Other Index Page
Contents:
1. Aristotle’s Life
2. His Importance/originality
3. Aristotle’s method
4. Aristotle’s theory of
knowledge
5. An important
digression: Aristotle on eudaimonia
6. Aristotle’s Politics –
outline of its contents
7. Conclusion and
appraisal
8. A footnote on
Aristotle’s ethics
Main Sources Used:
M = McClelland, J.S. – A History of Western
Political Thought – Routledge 1966 – 0-415-11962-6
S = Sabine, G.H.
& Thorsen, T.L. – History of Political Theory – 4th edn.
Holt, Reinhart & Winston/Dryden Press 1973 - 0-03-910283
TI: Irwin, T:
History of Western Philosophy 1. Classical Thought OUP 1989 (Opus)
1989 – 0-19-2891774-4
See also: D Ross, Aristotle, Routledge 1995 (6th edn)
1. Aristotle’s Life
Aristotle was born in a Greek colony in
In 367, age 17, he went to
Then in 343 he became tutor to Alexander of Macedonia, who was then
aged only 13, but who was later to become Alexander the Great – an imperial
ruler. This is somewhat paradoxical, since Aristotle’s ideas were all based on
the city-state, a form of political organisation that was disappearing (to be
replaced by empires).
In 334, Aristotle went back to
In 323, at the death of Alexander, anti-Macedonian feelings arose and
Aristotle (regarded as pro-Macedonian) left
2. His Importance/originality:
Aristotle’s writing is less "literary" than Plato, and his
political philosophy is less "radical" or "visionary". His
strength lay in his use of logic, and in the sheer breadth of his writings (he
wrote about what we now would call the life sciences, - botany, biology,
zoology – as well as astronomy, mathematics, ethics and politics: in those times
intellectual study was not divided into separate ‘disciplines’).
Aristotle was highly influential, though not on his immediate
successors (the stoics and epicureans, who were more materialist; after these,
Plato was popular: the neo-Platonists). His influence became stronger in the
Middle Ages, where some of his ideas (especially his ‘teleological’ approach –
perhaps also his unfortunate ideas on the differences between men and women)
were adopted by Christianity.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, with the reaction against religion,
Aristotle again fell out of favour, but he has more recently been given a more
sympathetic treatment. (TI p 144)
3. Aristotle’s method.
To understand Aristotle, it is helpful if we start with his method: his work was based on observations
of "phainomena" i.e. phenomena – things and events that can be
observed. (M calls this "naturalistic"), and, unlike Plato, he was
not sceptical about the real world. He stressed:
(3.1) the variety of existing things – for example he collected the
details of 158 constitutions of city-states.
(3.2) (TI p 122) that there were common features to living things and
social/political organisations: in particular, he observed that both exhibited growth and change (which perhaps he saw as dialectical?). He argued (as we
shall see below) that it was in the nature of living things to grow towards
fulfilment: if we understand the ‘end’ (telos)
towards which something is growing, we understand its nature. (Hence the
description ‘teleological’)
(3.3) we can break down complex things into simpler parts to help us to
understand them (see Extracts)
(3.4) Aristotle is ‘naturalistic’ in his use of description and
observation, but in stressing the importance of telos he adds a prescriptive
(normative) element, since it follows from his approach, for example, that once
we have identified the ‘natural end’ of human life we can also identify (and
remove?) what is unnatural…
[Many modern thinkers are suspicious of this kind of argument: that we
can identify what is ‘natural’. It has had too many unfortunate consequences
for anyone who behaves in a way other than what has been accepted.
(3.5) he identified common sense beliefs; if there were contradictions
in an argument, the dialectic (logic) can remove them. (TI)
4. Aristotle’s theory of
knowledge.
We now call the study of ‘how we know’: epistemology. Again, it is helpful, I believe, in understanding
Aristotle’s political ideas, if we deal with this first.
4.1 Aristotle identified and distinguished between three kinds of knowledge:
(i)
theoretical knowledge (knowledge he believed was truly philosophical or
scientific, e.g. theology, astronomy, mathematics, biology, botany); here
knowledge is most certain, universal, “necessary”, provable etc.
(ii)
practical knowledge: ethics, rhetoric, politics, i.e. where the data on which
the knowledge is based arises from human activity, and it is therefore less
stable (Skinner), less certain, universal, provable. This is a very important
argument when it comes to ethics: for Aristotle ethical judgements apply only
"for the most part" (is it always wrong to lie?). This kind of
knowledge is a matter of “judgement” (based on “experience”?) – in contrast to
Plato’s “philosophers” whose knowledge is theoretical and not necessarily
suitable for practical affairs (Foster)…
Similarly,
Aristotle is saying (in contrast to Plato) that there is no one best political
system; rather, we need to take into account particular circumstances.
[This
will probably strike most of us as common sense – though if we examine the
current dominant belief that ‘democracy’ can and must be applied everywhere,
then it becomes perhaps less obvious that common sense is right?
[It would
be wrong, I believe, to argue that Aristotle’s position leads to ‘relativism’ –
that there is no way of differentiating between good and bad political systems
etc. We shall see below that his recognition of differences is accompanied by a
strong sense of what would be right or wrong.
(iii) productive knowledge
– how to make things – was the lowest kind of knowledge. I need hardly say that
this belief has persisted to modern times, and for me there
is a problem with this
view, as it is a hierarchical approach (not too different from Plato’s
classification of functions in the state). It also led, with Aristotle, to his
looking down on economics
and trade.
4.2 Comparison with Plato’s theory of knowledge:
Whereas Plato distinguished between, and contrasted, ‘particulars’
(real things) and ‘universals’ (ideas or forms) – Aristotle distinguished
between ‘substance’ or ‘immanence’ and ‘end’ or ‘purpose’ (= telos), and for Aristotle both are real.
(TI p 124, 5)
Aristotle and Plato both believed that ‘the good’ is knowable, and the
aim of the city and the citizen is the knowledge of goodness/truth (synderesis...?). However, whilst for
Plato this knowledge was, in a very real sense, ‘ideal knowledge’ and as we
saw, only philosopher-rulers could reach it, for Aristotle it is in our very
nature to pursue ‘the good’ for us. This will lead us to eudaimonia.
4.3 Comparison with Plato’s political ideas in the Republic:
Aristotle
does not accept that only one group (philosophers) should rule, because this
would lead to them deciding things in their own interests (making themselves
happy) – the aim of the state is to serve the interests of all (for all to have
eudaimonia) – if philosophers ruled it would be more like a master/slave
relationship (see the outline below, especially Book II).
He regards Plato’s
proposals as ‘extreme’ (Book II, v) - especially the ‘communism’ of the rulers…
(Plato had said that rulers would not be distracted from the interest of the
state if they had no private families and no property). Aristotle advocates ‘moderation’ – if the rich rule, they
will look after their riches, if the poor rule they will try to get more for
themselves – only ‘moderate’ (middle-class?) citizens can stick to what is good
for everyone (Book II) In Book IV he
discusses the merits of the "middle"
or "mixed" constitution. This (see the characteristics of each
identified below) would combine virtue
and wealth and freedom. He believes that the "middle" classes
would be moderate in their outlook.
5. Aristotle on eudaimonia.
The idea that living things grow towards the fulfilment of their nature
is perhaps Aristotle’s most important idea. For humans, this end or purpose is
‘eudaimonia’ (roughly = happiness, better: well-being, flourishing,
fulfilment - TI p 133). The telos also has a priority in logic, since we cannot
tell what something really is until it has grown fully (M).
In his Ethics, Book 1, Aristotle says:
"Our task is to become good men, or to achieve the highest
good. That good is happiness
(eudaimonia); and happiness is an activity (energia) of the soul… in accordance
with (perfect) virtue."
Note that ‘happiness’ is not a "capacity or faculty"
(hexis) nor a state of mind... Happiness
means something like "living well, or acting well". To live well is also to be of ‘good character’
– in fact the Greek word ethika (roughly) means ‘character’... Mere morally
good behaviour is second-best to the rational pursuit, by those who understand
the basic principles of life, of what it is to live most fully as human
beings... (S). It is also important to stress that this view is not the same as
our individualistic view of ‘the pursuit of happiness’ – though it does perhaps
contain the seed of this...
[there are brief further notes on Aristotle’s ethics at the end
6. Aristotle’s Politics –
outline of its contents (and see ‘Extracts’).
Note the disordered arrangement: the text we have seems to be
lecture-notes, which may have been assembled by Aristotle’s students. There
also seem to be two sections, one on existing states, and one on ideal states,
but the chapters containing these ideas are interwoven (S).
Book I:
1. every association has an
end (its "goodness" or ‘virtue’), the state is an association, its
end is the highest good (chapter i – see
‘extracts’)
Further comments: note the importance of the word ‘virtue’ (areté):
= purpose, function, skill: a good knife is sharp, sharpness is the knife’s
‘virtue’. Aristotle then examines the different kinds of ‘virtue’ that exist in
objects, living things and people: (in my own words:)
- all things have a
‘purpose’ – for inanimate things this is what they are used for,
- for living things the
fact of growth comes in, and the purpose of a living thing is its ‘end’ or
‘telos’ (the purpose of an acorn… etc),
- for humans, the
ability to reason and to decide what is right or wrong comes in, and the ‘end’
or ‘telos’ is the ‘good’ or the ‘best’ that the human can become (eudaimonia).
This is a ‘naturalistic’
argument. [The only objection to it that I can think of is: does it really matter
if humans do not try to improve themselves as human beings? Why should we not
just live our lives in pursuit of pleasure?]
The rest of this section
follows some of Aristotle’s discussion of the question: what is the ‘virtue’ of
different men and different citizens? Is a good man and a good citizen the same
thing? He is, as always, categorizing and distinguishing between
(similar) things.
2. We need to undertake an examination of the relationships that are the
basis of an association - because analysing the parts and their relationships
will enable us to understand the whole.
[we might recognise ideas
from ecology here?
Aristotle notes that some things cannot exist without
others e.g. male/female, ruler/ruled; but
he goes on to argue that it is not true that the role of a
household-manager or a master of slaves is the same as that of a
statesman – there is a qualitative difference, and not just a difference in
numbers. (See 5. below: citizens are free...).
- we also need to identify the origins
of the state, and how it has grown (chapter
ii – see ‘extracts’):
3. The origins of community or association lie in the fact that people
are not self-sufficient: the individual’s needs therefore lead to (are fulfilled
in) the family; a family will still not be self-sufficient, so families group
together to form a village, and villages group together to form a state – the
end or purpose is self-sufficiency
(TI: = completeness?) which is a better or higher condition that depending on
something outside ourselves. So, while the origins of the state are to secure life
itself, it continues in being to secure the good life – the state
therefore exists by nature, (physis:
natural, ct. nomos: man-made), and "man is a political animal"
(i.e. cannot live without a community...)
[we might find notions of ‘sustainability’ here?
Further points (not in the ‘extracts’):
4. man also differs from animals in the ability to (speak and to) tell
right from wrong, good from bad; this shared perception also leads to the
formation of the state i.e. an agreement over what is "just" (political
virtue or areté = adherence to the law of the community).
5. In making further comparisons between different kinds of
relationships, Aristotle argues that the rule of a master over a slave differs
from political rule because citizens are free (vii) (and equal to ruler M p
74).
6. in a section dealing with what we would now call economics,
Aristotle defines household-management as to do with acquiring goods; this is a
natural process - animals etc are there to be taken by humans for their use;
acquisition is natural if it is for the purpose of, or the good of the
household or state (ix).
- but acquiring goods for exchange, also charging interest, are
disapproved of (cf. Marx) (x). Aristotle actually argues that acquiring goods
for exchange is not only not natural, but undesirable because it is unlimited,
and it serves the passions!!
7. We must remember that Aristotle, in common with Plato, took slavery
for granted – as ‘natural’ in fact; here he argues that there is a crucial
difference between slavery and citizenship: citizens have a "deliberative
faculty" (ability to reason), which slaves do not. We would find this
offensive of course, as we would find the associated points: women possess the
deliberative faculty only imperfectly, and children have not yet developed it.
(xiii)
Book II:
1. Here Aristotle makes several criticisms of Plato's and others'
constitutions: he rejects what he calls the "unity" of Plato's state,
since "reciprocal equivalence" is what is needed to keep a state
going (ii). That is, for Aristotle there is not the extreme hierarchical
division between philosopher-rulers and the rest of the members of the state:
citizens, as he later states, must know ‘how to rule and how to be ruled’.
2. He also rejects P's "communism", since private property is
natural (but mustn't be in excess) (v). Moreover, we should be generous and
give to good causes, but we cannot do this if we have no property.
3. Also against Plato, he argues that if the same people rule all the
time there will be "faction", and if only the rulers are happy (by
ruling) they cannot make the state happy - this can only happen if all
citizens rule (because all must be free and equal) (v) and because
co-operation is for every individual's good. As I have stated, this sounds more
like our version of democracy – but there are important qualifications (see
also below on workers).
4. Aristotle stresses the importance of moderation (vi) (see
also Book III (xi) and IV (xii)…)
[On the face of it an uncontroversial standpoint, but is it that
simple?
Book III:
1. Aristotle makes his clearest definition of a citizen – a citizen is
defined by their participation (i)
2. Drawing on his observations, but making a very important point about
‘difference’ as well (see above): different constitutions produce different
kinds of citizen (ii)
3. In Aristotle’s mind a state seems to be synonymous with its
constitution: constitutions change, therefore states change (iii)
4. A good citizen will also vary according to the constitution: a good
ruler and a good citizen are not the same, since the latter should be able
to rule and be ruled (chapter iv
– see part (iii) of the ‘extracts): there is an analogy here with the
crew of a ship – whilst the captain has oversight, all members of the crew have
the same end or purpose, i.e. the ‘safe conduct of the voyage.’ Thus, along
with their specific roles, citizens have the role of contributing to the
wellbeing of the state.
However, he also seems to differentiate the areté of the ruler: the
citizens are like people who construct musical pipes, whilst the ruler knows
how to play them (the ruler has practical knowledge whilst the citizens have
‘correct opinion’). This seems to be a return to the hierarchy of kinds of
knowledge discussed above...
5. Workers, however, since they are not free i.e. they don't have free
time, which is necessary to develop good a citizen, cannot be citizens (v). Women
and slaves are also excluded.
6. If in a state only the rulers benefit, this is like a master-slave
relationship and this is not just – the state is an association of free men
(vi).
7. Rulers should therefore rule for the benefit of the citizens, and if
they don't, the state deteriorates. In a passage which shows how much we owe to
the ancient Greeks when it comes to describing different kinds of political
system, Aristotle argues that various ‘right’ constitutions can become
deviations when the rulers act only in their own interests. Thus he classifies
constitutions by ‘who rule?’ (on/few/all) and ‘in whose interests?’
(ruler/all):
(i) Rule by one person, in the interests of all is called a monarchy.
Rule by one person in the interests of that one person is a tyranny.
(ii) Rule by a few for the good of the people is an aristocracy.
Otherwise (when ruled for the benefit of the ruling few) it is an oligarchy.
(iii) Rule by all citizens, (the many – but note that this also means
the less well-off, see viii) for the good of all is what Aristotle calls a polity.
Rule by the citizens for their own interests – is a democracy.
It may be clear from this that Aristotle did not prefer democracy – his
ideal was probably an aristocracy, though seeing the dangers of this becoming
an oligarchy, he settled on a polity as the best practicable form of state.
He also notes that there are different ‘virtues’ associated with each
type of constitution:
(i) Monarchy is characterised by education, good government, virtue, honours.
(ii) Aristocracy is characterised by wealth,
since the wealthy are few (see viii).
(iii) Polity is characterised by freedom.
8. Aristotle distinguishes between justice and equality - they are not
the same thing (ix). He examines different groups who might hold power, in
terms of the justice of the system, and rejects them all, because they would be
partial (looking after their own interests). The criterion for ruling should be
the good of state.
Thus,
whilst considering the question of justice, he opposes oligarchy, because it
would mean justice for the unequal few; and he opposes democracy as it would
mean
equality for all, which is not the same thing as justice. The state is
concerned with living well, or with ‘virtue’.
See 8: a note on Aristotle’s Ethics.
9. For Aristotle, collective judgement is the ideal, and the law may be
biased (x and xi), but again, in identifying what is most practicable, he
supports the sovereignty of law (what we would call the rule of law).
10. He (logically!) recognises the possibility that a perfectly good
individual could rule, as their aim would be the good of the state...
Book IV:
1. As we have seen, Aristotle makes a distinction between identifying the
"ideal" and identifying the "best in the circumstances."
The latter necessitates "making do with what [we] have" and a
"constitution that would suit pretty well all states" (ii - x) [i.e.
both the "best" and "what is possible"
2. (xi, xii) here there is further consideration of the different
possible forms of constitution, and he discusses the merits of the
"middle" or "mixed" constitution. This (in terms of the
characteristics of each discussed above) would combine virtue and wealth and
freedom. He believes that the "middle" classes would be moderate in
their outlook (the wealthy and the poor both seek their own interests at the
expense of the good of the whole state) He describes a polity as a mixture of
oligarchy and democracy.
3. In another passage that contains ideas that are now at the core of
thinking about politics, Aristotle divides the constitution into several
‘elements’ (we call this the ‘separation of powers’): the deliberative, the
executive, and the judicial.
Book V: concerns change in constitutions
Book VI: deals with preserving democracy
etc
Book VII:
This book brings in an idea which Sabine says begins to undermine the
whole basis of Aristotle’s thought: he discusses the ideal of the ‘philosophic
life’, which would be based on contemplation. (Again, workers would not have
the time – leisure – for contemplation!). Sabine’s point is that contemplation
is something that an individual does, and this is no longer a ‘collectivist’
outlook. However, Sabine suggests, this forms a link between Aristotle and the
Christian age.
Aristotle also defines happiness as ‘an activity of the soul according
to perfect virtue.’ He disagrees with those who argue that happiness (in the
state) comes from national aggrandisement, power-seeking or war.
7. Conclusion and
appraisal.
As suggested, modern readers will probably find Aristotle more
sympathetic than Plato – he has more time for democracy and stresses the
participation of the citizen – together with an emphasis on ‘moderation’ that
can appeal.
However, some aspects of Aristotle’s thought are clearly contrary to
our own (his views on women and on slavery). Some critics have said he is too
‘aristocratic’... others that he is too collectivist... Another criticism that
is made is that his emphasis on contemplation is odd: it seems to be separate
from the actions of rulers (or citizens) – unlike for Plato, who at least
argued that it is the rulers’ ability to reason well that makes them best
suited for the job! Perhaps this apparent tension in Aristotle marks the
beginning of a way of thinking that was essential to Christianity: philosophy,
in the sense of the pursuit of the truth, is not a practical pursuit after all
– like the word of God it is beyond our understanding, and too perfect for mere
mortals to use in building their political institutions (a debate we will cover
in the next few weeks!).
8. A footnote on
Aristotle’s ethics:
He identifies four virtues (which are guided by rational desires):
courage, temperance (i.e. not to excess...), wisdom, and justice.
In Ethics he looks for
general principles/generalisations, subject to their being found inappropriate
in particular circumstances - e.g. "doctrine of the golden mean":
avoiding extremes, for moderation; e.g. courage is between cowardice and
foolhardiness, generosity is between profligacy and meanness. Note also that
Aristotle’s definition of justice is that it involves moderation and
compromise.