Abstract

In this overview of ancient Greek thought Saxonhouse argues that Aristotle invents political science by recognizing the necessity and virtue of diversity in the polis. His predecessors are driven by their fear of diversity to demand an extreme unity that is ultimately destructive of life because it denies or seeks to eliminate the multiplicity that characterizes the world we encounter through our senses, which is the world where the polis must exist. She examines this fear of diversity from its roots in the philosophy of the pre-Socratics, through its examination in the works of the playwrights and in Plato's dialogues, up to its overcoming in Aristotle's Politics.