Abstract

There is, of course, a very obvious sense in which the historical study of a work such as the Politics can be of philosophical significance. "The wisdom of Aristotle grows on the mind as one ponders upon it", in the sense that many of his thoughts and observations may be immediately assimilated to political situations and types of political thinking which are wholly different. But to stop there would be inadequate from the viewpoint of both the historian and the philosopher. A Politics "in modern dress" could be full of misleading modern concepts or at least overtones, obscuring the real meaning of Aristotle in its desire to make it mean something to the modern reader; historically inadequate, it would by the same token be philosophically almost irrelevant, since it would achieve little more than random confirmation, or enrichment in mere details, of views previously held by the modern thinker. A profounder task is set at once by historical and philosophical exigencies: a Politics "in modern dress" must really convey in modern English language the meanings, connotations, overtones of its ancient Greek words. What this involves perhaps only the philosopher can fully understand: for behind the unending struggle to dispel modern connotations and overtones, possessed by English terms roughly corresponding to the Greek, emerges the need for subjecting to criticism one's own unconscious philosophical presuppositions. Imperative for the historical understanding of works such as the Politics, this effort is required also for their profounder philosophical fruitfulness for the modern thinker. Our present situation illustrates this fact: if the philosopher of today offers no more than a political doctrine or "ideology," his will be but one of the views on the market, excelling the others perhaps in degree but not in principle. Only if he starts out with making radically conscious the specific unconscious presuppositions of modern political thought can he hope to arrive at a position lifted in principle above the conflicting ideologies. But to discharge this notoriously difficult task there is no better means than the study of different significant thinking in different significant situations; and of all objects of such studies none is more satisfactory than Greek political thought,--because it is at once profoundly different from modern thought and yet sufficiently related to it to remain relevant, and, it need hardly be added, because it is always great.--To take the example of Aristotle's "shocking" views on slavery and censorship: within the framework of other political doctrines, we should find such views irrelevant philosophically, simply ignoring them after our shock; in the case of Aristotle, however, even these views are rooted in moral ideals partly our own, and therefore the shock becomes here an unbearable challenge of profound philosophical fruitfulness, forcing us to face Aristotle articulate on first principles on such first matters as the nature of man and of political association.