Aristotle: Political Philosophy

This essay explores Oakeshott's life-long engagement with the political thought of Aristotle. By examining unpublished notebooks from the 1920's and comparing them with Oakeshott's published writings we find that Oakeshott's critique of Rationalism, his account of skillful human conduct and practical judgment, and even his account of civil association owe remarkable debts to Aristotle. In particular, Aristotle's critique of Platonic and Spartan perfectionism, is strongly echoed in Oakeshott's contrast between civil and enterprise association.

No other English-language translation comes close to the standard of accuracy and readability set here by Reeve. This volume provides the reader with more of the resources needed to understand Aristotle's argument than any other edition. An introductory essay by Reeve situates _Politics_ in Aristotle's overall thought and offers an engaging critical introduction to its central argument. A detailed glossary, footnotes, bibliography, and indexes provide historical background, analytical assistance with particular passages, and a guide both to Aristotle’s philosophy and to (...) scholarship on it. (shrink)

Aristotle's Politics is a key document in Western political thought; it raises and discusses many theoretical and practical political issues which are still debated today. This volume contains a clear and accurate translation of the first two books, together with a philosophical commentary. It is well suited to the requirements of students, including those who do not know Greek.

This reissue of Richard Robinson's classic volume on Aristotle's Politics contains his clear and accurate translation of, and commentary on, books III and IV, brought up to date by a supplementary essay and new bibliography by David Keyt. This is the ideal companion to study these important books of a classic text in the history of political philosophy.

The Politics is one of the most influential texts in the history of political thought, and it raises issues which still confront anyone who wants to think seriously about the ways in which human societies are organized and governed. By examining the way societies are run--from households to city states--Aristotle establishes how successful constitutions can best be initiated and upheld. For this edition, Sir Ernest Barker's fine translation, which has been widely used for nearly half a century, has been extensively (...) revised to meet the needs of the modern reader. The accessible introduction and clear notes examine the historical and philosophical background of the work and discuss its significance for modern political thought. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est une critique sévère de la philosophie politique d'Aristote. Sans entrer dans les détails (il faut le lire pour se faire sa propre idée), ce qui est très significatif, c'est précisément qu'on a choisi de l'ignorer du côté des études aristotéliciennes: tel est le sort réservé aux critiques qui ne se contentent pas de soulever des problèmes d'interprétation en circuit fermé, et qui osent soulever des problèmes fondamentaux remettant en cause la pensée d'Aristote.

At least since the time of Plato’s writings, epideictic rhetoric has been criticized as deceptive, as epistemologically bankrupt, and as politically irrelevant. Aristotle himself emphasizes that the key ‘topic’of epideictic is amplification and stresses that the epideictic orator chiefly adds ‘size’ and ‘beauty’ to widely shared memories. This paper reinterprets Aristotle’s statements and argues that Aristotle’s account brings to light significant civic resources embodied in epideictic. A genuine statesman uses ceremonial speech to articulate and explain a regime’s underlying ethos and (...) purposes; thus he defines the regime’s telos and orients the citizenry toward it. In that way, it is argued, epideictic oratory is not the trivial cousin of deliberative and judicial rhetoric, but rather the rhetorical genre whose essential function is to explain and defend the fundamental building blocks of the regime. (shrink)

There is so much truth in the conception of the state as a natural organism and of man as a political animal, as commonly contrasted with the various theories of the state as an artificial formation based on contract, or implied contract, that Aristotle's proposition is rarely criticized from any other standpoint. When Aristotle said that man was a political animal, that is that political life was his nature, and consequently that the state, as the ultimate development of his nature, (...) was a natural institution, or, as we should say, an organism, he was, we may say with a good deal of certainty, speaking in the light of this contrast. But his theory must be judged on its own merits, and not on the demerits of that which he was attacking. We may grant that the state is natural; but we may nevertheless mean by “natural” something other than Aristotle means. And if our conception of Nature is different from his, it will follow that our agreement about the state is one of words only. (shrink)

En este artículo, nos preguntamos si es pertinente un análisis del personaje de Medea de Eurípides, y más concretamente, de su filicidio, a la luz de la doctrina aristotélica de la acción. Resulta dudoso, y quizás equívoco, hablar de "responsabilidad" (en sentido aristotélico) en el caso de la heroína, ya que sus motivaciones, como las de todo héroe trágico, tienen un doble signo: enfrentado a una ἀνάγκη superior, también desea lo que está forzado a hacer. Además, Medea no es una (...) mujer común: es un personaje ontológicamente complejo que participa, más de lo que frecuentemente se ha enfatizado, del plano divino. In this article we wonder if it is pertinent to analyse the character of Euripides' Medea and, more precisely, her filicide, in the light of Aristotle's doctrine of action. With regard to the heroine, it is doubtful and perhaps confusing to talk about "responsibility" (in Aristotelian terms) because her motivations, as all tragic heroes', are two-sided: faced to a superior ἀνάγκη he wants what he is forced to do as well. In addition, Medea is not an ordinary woman: she is an ontologically complex character that has a share in the divine level, a share which is more crucial than what has usually been emphasized. (shrink)

Aeschylus' Oresteia supports Aristotle's claim about the naturalness of the city and the city's role in shaping justice for humans. In the Oresteia, Aeschylus shows how the city's justice is the only way to control the wrath of the Furies . Aeschylus shows that the city and its justice tames the Furies and provides for the only way by which the husband-wife relation, which is not a blood tie but provides the basis for which the family is even possible, can (...) be preserved and be secure from the passions the Furies release in their quest for revenge. The Furies and their desire for vengeance for the violation of the blood bond, threaten to undermine the very basis on which the family is founded: the husband-wife bond. Thus Aeschylus gives support and aids Aristotle's position that the husband-wife bond is a political bond and rests within the realm of the city and the political. (shrink)

Contemporary political discourse is marked with the language of democracy, and Western countries in particular seek to promote democracy at home and abroad. However, there is a sublimated conflict in general political discourse between a desire to rely on alleged political experts and a desire to assert the supposed common sense of all men. Can the struggle between the democratic and aristocratic values embodied in this conflict be reconciled? The question is perennial, and raises issues that are central to constitutional (...) design. Aristotle, developing in significant ways insights made by his teacher Plato, grapples with it in his Politics. Aristotle's views on these matters are relevant—by way of the American Founders'—to contemporary American politics and modern democracies generally. During the eighteenth century, the Founders, some of whom explicitly reached back to Aristotle's work, also struggled—especially in The Federalist Papers—with these thorny issues of constitutional design. They created the U.S. Constitution in part to address these very same problems and issues. We are living in some ways, then, in the shadow of Aristotle's political theorizing, albeit as transposed by the American Founders. Both Aristotle and some of the American Founders theoretically favor aristocracy over democracy, but concede that in practice a blend of the two has to be integrated into the fundamental structure of political society. We need to reconnect with these important political discussions in order to come to terms with aristocratic and democratic values in our current circumstances. Footnotesa I am grateful to Fred Miller and David Keyt for many helpful suggestions and thoughtful questions throughout the editing process. I would also like to thank Irfan Khawaja for valuable feedback on an earlier version of this essay. (shrink)

Aristotle's treatment of the choice between the political and contemplative lives (in EN I 5 and X 7-8) can seem awkward. To offer one explanation of this, I argue that when he invokes self-sufficience (autarkeia) as a criterion for this choice, he appeals to two different and incompatible specifications of "lacking nothing." On one specification, suitable to a human being living as a political animal and thus seeking to realize his end as an engaged citizen of a polis, a person (...) lacks nothing by possessing a wide range of goods that directly require other people. On the other, more suitable to a god or a beast, a person lacks nothing by having no need of goods that directly require other people. The ambiguity of this criterion renders the choice between the political and contemplative lives difficult. (shrink)

The dominant Greek and Roman ideology held that the best human life required engaging in politics, on the grounds that the human good is shared, not private, and that the activities central to this shared good are those of traditional politics. This chapter surveys three ways in which philosophers challenged this ideology, defended a withdrawal from or transformation of traditional politics, and thus rethought what politics could be. Plato and Aristotle accept the ideology's two central commitments but insist that a (...) few exceptional human beings could transcend the good of human activities. Epicurus argues that the human good is private, not shared. Socrates and some of his followers, including especially the Stoics, argue that the activities central to the shared human good are not those of traditional politics. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.