Abstract
Many commentators suppose that the principles of Aristotle’s Politics are received from his theoretical works. Yet this way of understanding the Politics does not sufficiently appreciate Aristotle’s division of sciences, and it obscures the relevance of his political reflections for our time. We argue that Aristotle’s treatment of the polis and all it entails does not require his natural science and the principles of theoretical fields. Instead, despite wording that recalls theoretical treatises, Aristotle is careful to develop his political argumentation without any such dependence.
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Notes
- 1.
Book VIII.2.1337a36–b3 states this about education: “not everyone supposes that the young should learn the same things, whether with a view to virtue or with a view to the best life, nor is it evident whether it is more appropriate that it be with a view to thought or with a view to the character of soul. Investigation on the basis of current education results in confusion, since it is not at all clear whether people should be trained in what is useful for life, in what conduces to virtue, or in something out of the ordinary. For all these proposals have acquired some advocates. Also, nothing is agreed about what furthers virtue. For, to begin with, people do not all esteem the same virtue, so that it is reasonable to expect them also to diverge about the training needed for it.” Hence, education for some may be directed to exceptional intellectual development. Throughout we use (and slightly alter at times) the new Reeve translation of the Politics.
- 2.
Though Aristotle does not anywhere use the phrase ἐπιστήμη πρακτική for practical science, passages such as Topics VI.6.145a15–18 and VII.1.152b4, Metaphysics II.1.993b20–21, VI.1.1025b18–27, 2.1026b4–5, XI.7.1064a10–18, and NE VI.2.1139a26–31 and 4.1140a1–6 clearly justify speaking of it.
- 3.
See Alasdair MacIntyre (2007), pp. 58, 148, 162, 196–97, and Bernard Williams (1985), pp. 52, and (1993), p. 161, for insistence on dependence. For MacIntyre Aristotle’s ethics requires his ‘metaphysical biology’; for Williams it needs Aristotle’s psychology and biology. This provokes their dissatisfaction (see Polansky [2017], p. 278, n. 1). David Keyt (1991) takes the arguments in Pol I.2 to depend upon theoretical principles and to fail on these principles. Wolfgang Kullmann (1991), p. 108, has the Politics rely on biology in order to place “[its] political investigations on a very firm foundation”, and Pierre Pellegrin (2020), esp. ch. 2, regards Pol I as ‘social naturalism’. Fred Miller (1995), pp. 31–32 and 37, takes Aristotle to successfully argue for the naturalness of the polis from principles from the Physics. In here honoring Fred, we offer him a completely independent practical science.
- 4.
Our rejection of any theoretical foundation for Aristotle’s practical science extends to any well-considered ethics and practical science. Elizabeth Anscombe (1958), p. 1, constructively critiques modern ethics, but we question her seeking an improved “philosophy of psychology” as the basis for ethics; we reject any Heideggerian prioritizing of fundamental ontology. Plato’s Statesman may seem to make statesmanship theoretical, as among the gnōstikai sciences, but this misconstrues the Eleatic stranger’s meaning. Practical science as universal is hardly theory or theoretical, only becoming practical by practical application. Phronēsis develops universal science and applies it, much as productive sciences may teach universal accounts and make products.
- 5.
See An. Post I.7 together with James Lennox (2021).
- 6.
Myles Burnyeat (2012) aims to show that prior to Kant philosophers did not “insulate” their philosophical positions from ordinary, vulgar thought. Burnyeat says, “Aristotle might seem a more promising source for insulation [than Plato, where insulation is to distinguish completely philosophical results from ordinary views]. … But on closer examination it turns out that what Aristotle is insisting upon is not insulation but the departmentalization of inquiry” (p. 339). We embrace Burnyeat’s position, if it keeps practical and theoretical sciences distinct, i.e., departmentalized; yet Burnyeat gets into conflict with his own position by supposing that first philosophy is “delivering conclusions which the sciences subordinate to it can use as first principles.”
- 7.
An. Post II.1 has science establish that its subject matter is and what or on account of what it is. Aristotle initially accepts the view that the polis is a human association; his genetic account defends this and illumines what and on account of what it is, the supreme, natural human association aimed at self-sufficiency.
- 8.
tēn hyphēgēmenēn methodon, I.1.1252a17–18. Cf. I.8.1256a1–2 and see Kullmann (1991), p. 95.
- 9.
We consider our position in agreement with that of Miller (1995), pp. 40–1, “a thing exists by nature if, and only if, it has as its function the promotion of an organism’s natural ends and it results, in whole or in part, from the organism’s capacities and impulses” and Miller (1996), p. 446, “the polis arises out of more primitive communities (ultimately households), that are themselves natural because they arose out of natural human impulses, and that the polis promotes a natural end of a higher order than do these primitive communities”.
- 10.
Aristotle suggests that this is a familiar mode of inquiry. It is familiar as dealing with whole-part relationships, as in logic, grammar, first philosophy, natural works (cf. HA I.1.486a5–25), and practical and productive sciences. So, we resist as overly narrow that Aristotle “resorts to principle and methods that he usually uses in biology” (Pellegrin (2020), p. 68). Kathrin Koslicki (2006), esp. pp. 732–36 criticizes Aristotle for assuming, “(i) the conceptual connection he sets up right from the start between unity and indivisibility into parts; and (ii) the principle that a mereologically complex object must always derive its unity from some source, whose own unity in turn cannot be open to further question.” But the two assumptions hold when ousia in the strict sense is restricted to living beings, mortal or eternal. The polis, divisible into substantial beings, is not itself strictly a substance (cf. footnote 47 and context below).
- 11.
Keyt (1991), p. 128.
- 12.
Keyt favors Thomas Hobbes’ argumentation over Aristotle’s. Yet neither can Hobbes demonstrate his first principles that humans are naturally in conflict and that the commonwealth is an artifact. Leviathan ch. 13 appeals to equality, competition, diffidence, and glory to support conflict. Plato’s Republic depicts similar competing interpretations of the phenomena. In Rep. II Glaucon purports to disclose insatiable natural human desire with the ring of invisibility. Conflict thus being natural, human association according to laws must be merely convention. Opposing this, Socrates claims that humans do not naturally aspire to unlimited acquisition, since only uneducated appetites and the very power of invisibility from the ring provoke unlimited desire. Political thinkers can read the phenomena in opposed ways as a practical determination: either humans are naturally rational, political, and unequally talented for arts and ruling, or humans are naturally nonrational, apolitical, and either equal or unequal beings. Rousseau and Marx present an historicized rendition of these themes according to which humans are naturally largely blank, their desires develo** due to civilization and its modes of production. This can be regarded as a radicalization of the Promethean tale related by Protagoras in Plato’s Protagoras.
- 13.
This animal comparison and those to follow merely require acquaintance with obvious facts, rather than theoretical investigation. Yet John Ferguson (1995), p. 261, insists, “There is in fact a clear biological basis to Aristotle’s political thought. His first example of teleology applied to politics is male and female coming together for the propagation of offspring.”
- 14.
Woman and slave differ by nature, nature not making things stingily, as a knife doing several functions moderately well. What is natural need not be merely a single function (ergon), but what naturally has multiple functions must perform each function better than anything else would (see Rep. I.352d–e). Telos is wider than ergon.
- 15.
- 16.
See footnote 9 above and footnote 36 below.
- 17.
Parts of a mortal living being have their own natural function and contribute to the end of the living being, which applies analogously to natural associations of living beings. Ferguson (1995), p. 265, says regarding master and slave, “Each has his own ἔργον, and together they have a common ἔργον.” Miller (1996), p. 447, rightly resists “the strict constructionist view that ‘existing by nature’ has the strict sense of the Physics,” for “the … Politics introduces an extended sense of ‘nature’ such that an artifact could be due to both nature and art” (see footnote 28 below on the limited way the polis is an artifact).
- 18.
We deviate from Reeve’s translation here, reading mallon as ‘rather than’ instead of ‘more than’.
- 19.
Those below the human condition are inclined to war, along the lines of Hobbes, whereas those who are superior will be the theoreticians discussed in book VII.
- 20.
HA I.1.488a7–8 says, “Political are those among which there is some one common function for all (ἕν τι καὶ κοινὸν γίνεται πάντων τὸ ἔργον)”, which pertains to other animals differently from humans. Other animals that are ‘political’ have the common function of doing well only somehow collectively, i.e., all together, whereas humans have self-sufficiency (autarkeia) as their aim and function distributively, i.e., individually, and collectively, i.e., in association; hence humans can be dualizers. Moreover, how humans individually or collectively seek self-sufficiency can be very varied by their pattern of living. In theoretical treatises, however, Aristotle never declares that beasts seek self-sufficiency.
- 21.
While Aristotle could state that humans are more political animals than bees and other herd animals, we deny this fits the context. Miller (1995), p. 31, interpreting with other contexts in mind, opts for “more” as construal, so Aristotle allows that the other animals are political. But why is this now of interest? Some beasts are political in a biological context, being gregarious and having a common ergon, but Aristotle goes on to stress that these do not speak, which is so crucial for politics, since politics is about persuading rather than forcing. For the statesman, then, only the human is political, i.e., belongs naturally in the polis. Yet Pellegrin (2020), pp. 79–80, states, “since ‘political’ is, as we have seen, a biological characteristic, we will have to turn to biology, as Politics I.2 invites us to do. Only the reader versed in Aristotle’s biology can elucidate the signification of that famous formula that makes man a ‘naturally political animal.’ So, we indeed have here an effect of the ‘biological turn’ in our reading of the Politics” (cf. Kullmann [1991], p. 106). In a practical context, it seems a joke to suppose nonhuman animals naturally belong in a polis, except as domesticated or eaten.
- 22.
Keyt (1991), p. 119.
- 23.
Ibid., p. 131.
- 24.
In Physics VIII Aristotle argues that all self-movers and nonliving natural beings require something external to initiate their self-motion: the removal of what hinders motion for nonliving beings, an object of desire for animals, and some environmental change for plants. Neither involvement of external mover nor self-motion excludes natural motion.
- 25.
Keyt (1991), p. 124.
- 26.
- 27.
Kullmann (1991), p. 105.
- 28.
Humans need to feed and defend themselves, and they develop arts to do so effectively. Arts such as fishing, farming, and hunting, together with the martial arts, are neither innate nor simply conventional, but fulfilments of natural human needs and abilities.
- 29.
Kullmann (1991), p. 99.
- 30.
Pellegrin (2020), pp. 89–91.
- 31.
Ibid., p. 91.
- 32.
Aristotle’s remarks on barbarians leave it ambiguous whether he considers them lacking capability for the polis, or instead “proto-Greeks,” preparing sometime to attain the polis (cf. Thucydides I.6.5–6). Surely Carthage, the best actual constitution, is a barbarian community.
- 33.
Since Aristotle adds “as we say” (ὡς φαμέν), he might winkingly allude to other works, though does his case really hinge on this, or is his present speaking, to which he points, more definitely instantiating just what he is talking about in his claim? Human speech, despite various languages, seems natural, as without it humans cannot fulfil most of what their natural ability enables, as in Aristotle’s own present speaking. Speech’s naturalness resembles that of the polis (cf. footnote 36 below).
- 34.
Though priority is explained in Met V.11, there is no compelling evidence that Aristotle uses ‘prior’ here in Politics I with greater technicality than in Cat 12. The lower associations can be separate from the polis, though they are lesser than when composing it, since they fulfill their ultimate aim less, and a human is more or less than human when separated from the polis. There is a practical sense, however, in which the theoretician is beyond the polis.
- 35.
The god arguments tend to appear only last of a series of arguments. This might suggest that Aristotle saves the best for last, but we suggest instead that this fact indicates that he relies least on such argumentation that in fact falls outside the context. It is a final desperate way to convince those so far unconvinced or perhaps preferring religious appeals.
- 36.
Miller (1995), pp. 21–22, sets out three modes of interpretation: (1) “to explicate his thought in his own terms and within his own context”, (2) “to try to understand the text not only on its own terms but also by applying external concepts, theories, and techniques”, and (3) “to philosophize in the tradition, more or less broadly understood, of a given philosopher… There are in fact no sharp lines between these three hermeneutical methods, and many studies of Aristotle use more than one method”. We take approach (1) strictly, denying that theoretical notions occupy the practical context. Aristotle argues for the naturalness of the polis much as the Laws do in Plato’s Crito. Are laws merely conventional or have they a natural basis? When Crito agrees to hold to previous agreements, is such agreement merely conventional, or does human conversation and association naturally require it? When the Laws initially remind Socrates that he has been nurtured by the polis and by his parents under the laws, this reminder applies generally to any polis and implies that humans naturally belong in a polis that oversees their generation and education. Humans naturally require the polis, though their belonging in Athens, Sparta, Thebes, etc., is conventional. Politics is thus a combination of nature and convention, as is human speech and conversation. The polis is the grand conversation, and Athens’ Laws link themselves with their brother laws in Hades (54c), i.e., with natural human standards.
- 37.
Aristotle holds that if some humans differ from others as much as body differs from soul (I.5.1254a28–b2), or a beast from a human, then some are naturally slaves and others are naturally masters, this being advantageous for both (I.5.1254b14–20). The argumentation is hypothetical in establishing slavery by nature, and Aristotle clearly does not appeal to theoretical positions.
- 38.
See Karl Polanyi (1968), pp. 79, 97–99, about the significance of nature’s generosity as opposed to the view that nature is stingy. In Politics I Aristotle asserts that practically everything is provided by nature for human use, whereas in Physics II he asserts that we employ everything as if for human use (see II.2.194a34–35). David Sedley (1991) misses this distinction. Whether there are in fact a sufficient number of natural, rather than conventional, slaves may be questioned.
- 39.
If the desire for life, and even for the good life, is “unlimited” (see I.9.1257b18–1258a14), Aristotle must mean “unlimited” here with respect to time, i.e., always, rather than with respect to quantity. The productive arts aim for their end unlimitedly, i.e., always, but not the means to the end unlimitedly (I.9.1257b24–29).
- 40.
In beginning by inquiring whether all associations are the same and in ending by inquiring whether everyone shares the same function and virtues, Politics I displays a ring structure. In theoretical contexts Aristotle speaks of the parts of a natural whole having a function, but only in the practical context of ethics does he emphasize that the whole human being has a natural, practical function. The ‘function argument’ in NE I.7, as practical and regarding humans, finds all its assumptions in its own context (see Polansky [2017]). The History of Animals and the Politics are other texts that possibly argue that a whole, rather than just a part, has a natural function. Yet, in the Politics the whole is an association of humans, while in the History of Animals the whole is a species of animals or an association of such animals. About political animals Joseph Karbowski (2019), pp. 221–22, states: “I identify two structural features of broadly political animal kinds that have been overlooked in the literature. First, broad political species naturally divide into functionally distinct subgroups, e.g. bees naturally divide into kings, workers, and drones. And, the members of these subgroups exhibit natural morphological and psychological differences coordinate with their distinct roles in the community, e.g. king bees are larger than workers in virtue of their reproductive role. These two features are well attested in the biological works, and there is strong evidence that they informed Aristotle’s conception of the structure of human nature in the Politics. A major benefit of this interpretation is that it renders intelligible Aristotle’s postulation of psychological differences between human beings, and illuminates the place of natural slaves and women in his view of human nature.” And he adds, “From this description it is clear that the pursuit of a single, shared goal or end is central to a political way of life. What is not so clear, however, is that it, more specifically, involves the pursuit of a common goal by way of a distribution of individual tasks among the members of the species” (p. 223). HA I.1.488a10–13 further distinguishes some political animals—humans, bees, and cranes—as having leaders, which Karbowski leaves unmentioned. But the History of Animals confirms our claim, since ‘subgroups’ are parts of a whole association, and the common political function is quite innate and collective for the beasts, whereas humans also individually seek self-sufficiency, and their course of life impacts on the way they seek it (see footnote 20 above). Karbowski misses how, according to Aristotle, humans relate to self-sufficiency both as individuals and as members of an association. Consequently, Aristotle does not support his account in the Politics by reference to the History of Animals.
- 41.
In none of this discussion of the Republic’s advocating too much unity is there any allusion to first philosophy, physics, or mathematics for the significance of unity as first principle.
- 42.
The constitution might generate another like itself in establishing a colony.
- 43.
Strikingly, he denies that the polis exists for the sake of exchange and commercial relations, which can belong to associations within or beyond the polis, though the constitution and lawfulness (eunoia) require officials enforcing contracts and concerned with virtue and vice (III.9.1280a34–1281a8). An alliance wider than the polis will presumably be for the sake of the polis.
- 44.
Hobbes well recognizes that classical philosophical thought favors popular government, and he therefore decries its study, “And by reading of these Greek, and Latin authors, men from their childhood have gotten a habit (under a false shew of liberty,) of favouring tumults, and of licentiously controlling the actions of their sovereigns; and again of controlling those controllers, with the effusion of so much blood as I think I may truly say: there was never any thing so dearly bought, as these western parts have bought the learning of the Greek and Latin tongues” (Leviathan II.21.9).
- 45.
Book I has associations save the individual (see 2.1252a31 and 5.1254b13), and here the association is saved by mixing rich and poor to achieve the best practicable constitution, hardly differing from aristocracy (see IV.11.1295a25–34). This comes near the center of the entire Politics, as well as the center of book IV. See Mary Douglas (2007) on ring composition. A ring design is in the form ABCBA (chiastic structure), displaying the author’s careful contrivance, the composition’s completeness, and its centering of the most crucial material.
- 46.
In de Longitudine 5 Aristotle speaks of mortal life depending on heat and moisture, with the quantity and quality of moisture affecting the length of life. He does not refer to this at all in the Politics.
- 47.
A polis is only a general analogue of a mortal living being. The entire composite animal or plant is the self-moving substantial being, but the parts of the polis, people and the lower associations, are themselves self-movers, people being substantial beings within the polis.
- 48.
In book IV Aristotle likens the polis to a river with water constantly flowing and to an animal with specialized parts for locomotion and change, but neither analogue quite fits how the polis changes by changing its very form.
- 49.
The treatment may also be practical in another way, possibly providing a protreptic argument for the philosophical life in preference to the instability, danger, and tediousness of political life.
- 50.
‘Exoteric’ appears in VII.1.1323a22–23, b25, 3.1325b22, b29, and contrasting notions of what is solely with respect to oneself at 1.1323b21–29, 2.1325a1–6, and 3.1325b14–22.
- 51.
As indicated previously, either goods of soul are always good, in this way unlimited (see footnote 39), or they are as if asymptotically good, for eudaimonia is determinate, unlike unlimited acquisition based on incessant comparisons with others. If the soul’s worth surpasses that of the body, the soul’s good condition should proportionately surpass the body’s good condition.
- 52.
This discussion favors the theoretical life less decisively in the Politics than in the Nicomachean Ethics, since it would not be so practical to overdo the case for the theoretical life, which might not leave anyone to be a statesman. It is enough to have established that the polis has parts, so that it is possible for many to engage in politics and the practical life while some engage in the theoretical life. The theoretical life, though lived for its own sake, has side advantages.
- 53.
In considering the χώρα (territory) that one ought to pray for, he uses a term prominent in his treatment of place (τόπος) in Physics IV, and prominent in Plato’s Timaeus. But Physics IV has contrasted his own conception of place (topos) with his predecessors’ notion of space (χώρα) and the Timaeus’s notion of the receptacle. This may be a bit of fun, the polis having χώρα as its τόπος.
- 54.
Aristotle says this about spiritedness, alluding to Plato’s Republic:
In fact, some say that guardians should have this very quality, namely, friendly to those they know and fierce to those they do not, and spirit is what produced friendliness (philētikon), since it is the capacity of the soul by which we love (philoumen). A sign of this is that one’s spirit is roused more against associates and friends than against strangers, when one regards oneself as being treated contemptuously (II.7.1327b38–1328a3).
Spiritedness is the seat of affection and aggression. Spiritedness is a comparative and interpersonal feeling, based on self-regard. Self-regard and affection lead also to comparisons, and hence to competitiveness and aggressiveness. Intelligence regards only the truth?
- 55.
Discussion here of innovation, property, acquisition, and slavery gives ring structure to the Politics. Aristotle avoids depending on philosophers to rule, but instead, a leisured class with virtue, less involved in farming or trade. He directs the reflection toward the ergon of the polis more than Plato did. Aristotle speaks about the location and situation of the city for health and military requirements. He speaks about walls and military inventions, challenging Plato (and Hippodamus) regarding innovation. He deals with the layout of streets and the situations of temples, a free agora to foster virtue, and a market agora. He speaks of the countryside and its guard houses, messes, and temples, noting that it is easier to speak generally of these than practically to set them up, which depends upon chance (VII.12.1331b20–23). While virtue does not depend upon chance, what pertains to acquisition inevitably does.
- 56.
These passages occur in the discussion of slavery. Hence, the naturally best arrangement still requires ruler and ruled, superior and subordinate.
- 57.
We are especially grateful to David Keyt for many helpful suggestions.
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Polansky, R., Ward, K. (2024). The Practicality of Aristotle’s Politics: Practical Science’s Independence from Theory. In: Keyt, D., Shields, C. (eds) Principles and Praxis in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 155. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51146-2_14
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