Aristotle's Politics

The second Book of the Politics has been object of multiple considerations, but it has called the attention of the scholars mainly because of its detailed criticism of Plato's political projects, especially the Republic. In fact Aristotle devotes 6 of the 12 chapters of Book II to examine Plato's proposals. Most of the scholarly contributions are focused on the criticism of Plato trying either to demonstrate the justice of Aristotle's reproaches or to invalidate his chapters on the basis of a supposed inexactness of his words.

Le zoonosi contemporanee ci costringono a porci una domanda che già gli antichi pensatori si erano posti più o meno esplicitamente. Le risposte sono spiazzanti e per molti versi attuali: mangiamo gli animali perché non siamo dèi (e quindi perché non siamo mai stati – o non siamo più – puri) o perché, semplicemente, siamo onnivori. Per Aristotele, nello specifico, mangiamo gli animali perché le tecniche a nostra disposizione ce lo permettono, anche se in ciò che ci viene permesso – secondo lui – dovrebbe sempre esserci una misura.

In this essay, I undertake a critical phenomenological exposition of the conditions of ethical community as they present themselves in light of the anthropocene. I begin by approaching the present human condition by following Arendt in her considerations of what more recently has been termed the Anthropocene. I will take her notion of the process character of action as a lodestar in a so-called anarcheological reading of Aristotle that opens for a thinking of unbounded possibility and unbounded affinity, and that shows how Aristotle's ethics, like so many other ethical and moral theories, is really a project of metaphysical closure in the face of the poignantly sensed, but theoretically marginalized, anarchic apertures of communitary life. In order to prepare for an ethics capable of perpetually affirming, rather than closing off, these anarchic apertures of the human condition, I bring the insights won in the anarcheological reading of Aristotle into conversation with accounts of the ethical responses presented by the Native American nation of the Crow toward the end of the 19 th century, when they-in a sense not-dissimilar to what we now experience in the anthropocene-faced the end of the world. I conclude by extracting form this some elements for a thinking of ethics at the end of worlds that affirms the unbounded apertures of human community.

Suppose you are preacher who wants to speak a word to a polarized situation. Words take on meaning within a context and unfortunately yours is a situation divided between " right " and " left " (here meant very generally to signify the two poles of a divided society) with the result that your word will inevitably be subsumed into the narrative of one context or the other. This is unfortunate because the meaning of what you want to say is distorted when taken up into an alien context: if you speak you are bound to be misunderstood, whatever you say. Call this the preacher's dilemma. As a matter of fact, a third option is silence, but this too may be misunderstood, so it's probably more accurate to speak of a trilemma. However, this phrase is not so snappy and does not convey the tragic note that " dilemma " does, so I have decided to sacrifice pedantic accuracy in this instance. Perhaps I am caught up in the very dilemma about which I am writing. The preacher's dilemma was in my mind last week as I followed the papal visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh. Pope Francis had to decide whether or not to say the word Rohingya. He had previously shown solidarity with the Rohingya nine months ago in February calling them by their name, making clear that the Rohingya are " good people, " peaceful, and that they are unjustly persecuted. However, that word is taboo in Myanmar. The Muslims in Rakhine state are recognised neither by Myanmar nor Bangladesh, and so to refer to the stateless group is to wade into an ongoing political struggle, something that the Pope would wish to avoid. Moreover, local Catholic bishops advised him against antagonising the majority Buddhist society for fear of backlash, and the Pope would obviously regret that outcome, not only because of the harm done, but because he would aspire to work collegially, heeding local advice. On the other hand, not to use the word would upset Rohingya activists, and probably the Rohingya as a whole. In view of the attention of the world media the Pope possessed a megaphone like few others, so his words were at this moment were at a premium. Surely he should seize the opportunity for justice. What to do? If the Pope failed to speak truth to power (with the thundering volume of a Guardian editorial) that would appear an understandable betrayal. The author of the Politics once wrote that most men will what is noble but do what is expedient, and perhaps this was how western, liberal journalists framed the situation. No wonder, then, that Catholic commentators did not anticipate the visit with relish. It was planned when the de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi carried the hopes of a peaceful resolution, before the military crackdown had expelled 600,000 Rohingya. But now the situation had become notorious and the UN had spoken in terms of ethnic cleansing. So, the pope's dilemma was compared with that of Pius XII who was criticised for not speaking out strongly against the Nazis (albeit to protect the innocent). Still, Francis had tweeted that he had looked forward to the visit: there was no going back. What happened was that the Pope met the leaders of Myanmar, first the military (in a rescheduled visit on Monday) and later the Nobel Laureate. On the Tuesday he spoke up publically for the rights of all, and the need for decisive action, but to the dismay of activists, refrained from mentioning Rohingya or ethnic cleansing. Then he travelled to Bangladesh and on the Friday in Dhaka at an inter-faith gathering met twelve Rohingya including a twelve year old girl whose entire family had been murdered by the military. Unscripted, and in the midst of tears, Francis finally pronounced the word: the presence of God today is also

Aristotle's Politics provides an analysis of the kinds of political community that existed in his time and shows where and how these cities fall short of the ideal community of virtuous citizens. A polis is literally a " city " or in ancient Greek time it is the " city-state ". However, it can also mean citizenship and body of citizens. And that is what Aristotle's Politics focuses on-the things concerning the Polis or city.

There is a long-standing debate over which constitution Aristotle regards as best in Politics. I attempt to clarify his view by reconstructing four principles he uses to assess constitutions, in both ideal and more ordinary circumstances: (i) the supremacy-of-virtue principle, (ii) the more-virtuous-citizens-are-better-than-fewer principle, (iii) the equality principle, and (iv) the stability principle. I apply these principles to defend a rank-ordering of constitutions, which situates the ideal aristocracy of Books VII and VIII at the top, and tyranny, along with unmixed forms of democracy and oligarchy, at the bottom.

Grote identifies in the power entrusted to an elite that would justify its powers on the basis of possession of an alleged virtue as the common matrix of the reflection about the system of government both in Aristotle and in Plato. This should ideally be based only on the men who have received education, thus creating a 'perfect' oligarchy; but the same political history of classical Greece, and also that of Victorian England, shows the utopia in the Aristotelian proposals.

Studying Aristotle’s Politics in the 15th century. Summaries and anthologies in the Greek manuscripts, in S. FARRINGTON (ed.), Enthousiasmos. Essays in Ancient Philosophy, History, and Literature. Festschrift for Eckart Schütrumpf on his 80th Birthday, Academia Verlag-Nomos, Baden-Baden 2019, pp. 147-174.

""En Filipo II y el Arte de la Guerra tendremos la oportunidad de conocer en profundidad a uno de los más grandes reyes de la antigua Macedonia. Gracias a su habilidad como estratega, diplomático, político y soldado, heredó un reino pobre, débil y acosado por innumerables enemigos y lo transformó en el más poderoso de toda Grecia.

A lo largo de sus páginas podremos conocer la historia del reino Macedonio, desde sus orígenes míticos hasta la formación de un imperio, de la mano del que, a la postre, se convertiría en el padre del mítico Alejandro Magno y en el forjador de un nuevo ejército que cambiaria el devenir de la guerra en la Antigüedad. Filipo II fue el creador de la falange macedonia, formación que se demostraría como inigualable en el campo de batalla y que reportaría incontables victorias sobre poderosos enemigos, como los ilirios, los tesalios, los tracios, los beocios o los atenienses. Pero no sólo eso, logró integrar en el campo de batalla a la infantería y a la caballería para emplearlos en nuevas formaciones tácticas: armó a sus soldados con las míticas sarissas y apreció como pocos las posibilidades militares que la maquinaria de guerra podía proporcionarle, siendo el mecenas de numerosos avances en este campo. Soñó con conquistar el Imperio persa, cuando ya había logrado lo que nadie antes fue capaz: el control de Grecia.

Sólo la muerte le arrebató esa hazaña, pero sentó las bases de lo que más tarde conseguiría su propio hijo. Su figura levantó tanto odios como pasiones; se le conocía como mujeriego y bebedor, pero también por su habilidad para la oratoria, por sus astucia, determinación y valor. Siempre luchó en primera línea junto a sus soldados y nunca permitió que éstos le llamaran rey, sino solo "General".

This study, first published by the Academy of Athens in 1998, subsequently formed a chapter in the book: Exopolitics (Nova, N.Y. 1999).
The excerpt here focuses on the effects of the classical theories of Plato and Aristotle relating to war and peace. The Greek philosophers searched for the root causes of war and the conditions of peace, including power politics, natural law, and world order. Thus, we shall describe and explain their conclusions about the causes for large scale organized violence, as well as their proposals of the way to establish a more lasting peace.
Although they only know their microcosm twenty-five centuries ago, their philosophic ideas are so fundamental as to be still pertinent and may help us resolve or attenuate these perennial problems in our global world.

This paper examines Aristotle's view that there are natural slaves, able-bodied people who lack the capacity to deliberate about the good and bad in life, who are ideally suited to be 'tools of action' for practically intelligent masters. After reconstructing Aristotle's reasoning for the view that there are natural slaves in Politics I, and proposing a philosophical motivation for his interest in natural slavery, the paper reflects on what this case suggests about scholarly engagement with the political views of ancient philosophers when these are so contrary to our own. Keywords Aristotle – natural slavery – political rule – deliberation – natural teleology

In the article, I try to refute an old and widespread superstition according to which the new political philosophy created by Niccolo Machiavelli breaks with classical political philosophy by taking a novel position toward the political; that is, that classics were idle "idealists" while Machiavelli is a cold-blooded "realist". To do that, I compare the most explicit part of The Prince (chapters XIV-XIX) with the end of the fifth book of Aristotle's Politics and attempt to show that in the most pivotal chapters of his most famous work, the Florentine, in fact, often borrows Aristotle's advice on how to preserve a tyrannical rule.

Elaborating on the term “Digital Zoning” – this paper discusses the use of urban planning procedures as a form of technology regulation.

Emerging developments within a range of technologies including augmented reality, facial recognition, spatial sensors, and 5g positioning are rapidly expanding the domain and precision of technology in physical space. The use of smartphones and wearable technologies increasingly bring spatial technologies into the experience and governance of everyday life. Recent debate on risks to user privacy and surveillance in urban environments suggest close links between these spatial technologies and the overall political framework of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2018). An interesting development in this matter has been the call for regulation from several high-level tech executives - portraying the rare case of a business sector requesting its own regulation. Additionally, various cities and public venues around the world have begun to experiment with “tech-free zones” such as the city of Hobart, Tasmania, discussing the implementation of tech-free parks, the city of San Francisco banning facial recognition, and London experimenting with a tech-free café. These developments as a whole signal a growing need in developing coherent theories and techniques for technology regulation in physical space.

Challenging Silicon Valley’s claim that “The online world is not truly bound by terrestrial laws (...) it’s the world’s largest ungoverned space.” (Schmidt, Cohen, 2014) the paper proposes that the framework of zoning in urban planning may be useful legal tools of technology regulation. As future 5G networks will allow for highly precise environments for positioning, we will likely witness not only an enabling of a large amount of location-based services and applications but also the capacity to regulate such services based on their position in space. This functions in parallel with a technique called “geofencing”, in which virtual perimeters are created for real-world geographic areas. This technique as a form of zoning may specify ways in which a physical space could have a digital policy. The paper demonstrates how this form of regulation may safeguard user privacy while allowing for a level playing field in which all digital services proposals are applied through the same set of regulations. This allows for a condition in which zoning provides a tool for authorities, public services, or planning councils to enforce an intended digital policy upon a specific district based on local needs or practices. Finally, the paper demonstrates various self-conducted experiments in Oslo, Norway with installations in public space as part of a larger body of research on the “Nordic Digital City.”

Some recent commentators have thought that if updated with the findings of modern embryology Aristotle’s views on abortion would yield a pro-­‐life conclusion. On the basis of a careful reading of the relevant passage from Politics VII, I argue that the matter is more complicated than simply replacing his defective empirical embryological claims with our more accurate ones. Since Aristotle’s view on abortion was shaped not only by a defective embryology, but also an acceptance of the classical Greek practice of exposure / infanticide, substituting a more accurate embryology will not straightforwardly generate a strongly pro-­‐life conclusion. In the end, this reveals much about how different Aristotle’s ethical thought on this matter really is from the contemporary discussion of abortion.

""In his « little Treatise in English» on Human nature (1640), and, later, in Leviathan (1647 – 1650), Thomas Hobbes examines and redefines the passions. Basing his argument upon the concept of motion, he conceives them as thoughts: passions are nothing but perceptions, which transit through the brain, and then move towards the heart. There they cause various sensations of pleasure or pain, by helping or hindering « vital motion ».
Anger, Hobbes claims, is a break-through in front of a sudden opposition, not the response to an outrage, as the Ancients had erroneously claimed. « Courage, in a large signification, is the absence of fear in the presence of any evil whatsoever; but in a stricter and more common meaning, it is contempt of wounds and death, when they oppose a man in the way to his end. Anger (or sudden courage) is nothing but the appetite or desire of overcoming present opposition. It hath been commonly defined to be grief proceeding from an opinion of contempt; which is confuted by the often experience we have of being moved to anger by things inanimate and without sense, and consequently incapable of contemning us. » (Leviathan, I, 6, 1-2.  Cf. Human Nature, VII, 1-2).
The definition of 'orge', as the grief for an undeserved slight, joined to the wish to retaliate, comes from Aristotle’s 'Rhetoric', a text Hobbes not only knew, but also translated. Anger was, for Aristotle, the political passion par excellence. It is because we are insulted that we revolt, and that our revolt is justified. It is in anger that we commit tyrannicide. Be it a tumultuous explosion or a long lasting grudge, ire is by definition the reasoned answer of a social actor, who suffers in his body as well as in the social image that he has  created for herself, and on behalf of justice: one does not recognize this person for that which he wishes to be considered. The gender mark is intended, given the heroic context. This criticism might appear to be just a minor detail, confined to Hobbes’ typology of the passions.  But since the new description of anger disconnects the emotion from any justification (thus from justice), refuting Aristotle was crucial for the consistency of Hobbes’ theory of the state. Leviathan must have zero tolerance for any form of social violence, from sedition (his sickness) to civil war (his death). Therefore the celebration of the noble killing of a king (conveniently labeled “tyrant”), has no place in modern politics. Those who come to treat a sovereign as an obstacle in their way understand nothing of the nature of the state, which is artificial and vulnerable, always threatened by a return to the state of nature.
    Furthermore, to object to Aristotle on anger was consistent with Hobbes’ profound weariness with classical political theory. One of the most insidious causes of the dangerous misunderstanding of the state, Hobbes argues, was ideological. People learned to cultivate dissent and glamorize discontent from subversive, poisonous political theories: those of the Ancients. « From the reading, I say, of such books, men have undertaken to kill their Kings, because the Greek and Latin writers, in their books and discourses of Policy, make it lawful and laudable, for any man so to do ; provided, before he do it, he call him tyrant. For they say not regicide, that is, killing a king, but tyrannicide, that is, killing of a tyrant is lawful » ('De Corpore Politico', XXVII,  10).  No learning of a language, Hobbes dryly comments, has ever been paid with so much blood, as that of Greek and Latin (Ibidem, 150).
In the transition from a theory of man as a political animal, naturally inclined to sociability (Aristotle), to a vision of human nature, made up of movement and competition, Hobbes rethought the anthropological underpinnings of politics. This required the simplification of the passions, and the rejection of that interlacing of rights, habits and body, which framed the complexity of the emotions in the classical past. The demystification of anger was critical.
 

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La crítica de Platón a la retórica y a la democracia tienen un punto en común: la idea de que los ciudadanos carecen de competencia y de virtud para participar en las deliberaciones públicas y en los procesos judiciales. La retórica es para Platón sofística pura, es decir, arte del engaño que permite la manipulación de un auditorio ignorante. Un orador persuade con éxito porque está frente a personas que no saben qué es lo justo, lo conveniente o lo bello. Y mucho menos, diferenciar las opiniones verdaderas de las falsas. Sin embargo, Aristóteles, además de reivindicar el arte de la retórica, plantea una teoría del discurso persuasivo cuyo centro es la figura del auditorio y su posibilidad o facultad para juzgar (κρίνειν). Esta conferencia tiene como fin exponer la repuesta de Aristóteles a estos problemas. Palabras clave: retórica, auditorio, teoría de la argumentación, dialéctica, oratoria. La siguiente ponencia se encuentra dividida en tres partes: en la primera parte hablaré de la opinión que tiene Platón sobre la naturaleza poco virtuosa de los ciudadanos y la consecuencia de poner en estos las responsabilidades del Estado. En la segunda parte, mencionaré los aspectos más importantes de la teoría retórica de Aristóteles relacionados con el auditorio y finalmente expondré unas conclusiones. I La crítica de Platón a la retórica y a la democracia tienen un punto en común: la idea de que los oyentes o ciudadanos carecen de competencia y de virtud (ἀρετή) para participar en las deliberaciones y en los juicios. Las nefastas consecuencias de un gobierno democrático son expuestas por Platón en un pasaje del Gorgias: Se me ocurre lo mismo que le decía a Polo, que seré juzgado como lo sería, ante un tribunal de niños un médico a quien acusara un cocinero. Piensa en efecto, de qué modo podía defenderse el

Intellectual slavery is the condition bound to philosophical bondage by somebody controlling the information generally dependent on scholastic pursuit. Intellectual slavery is focused on the scholarly world generally in underdeveloped nations. Intellectual slavery is unique about the slavery endured by our predecessors hundreds of years prior in the name of financial or government decisions. It is riskier because it transforms us, citizens, into self-repeating robots making more slaves without anyone else. Intellectual slavery didn't start today. It has its foundations in the old provincial outlook. It will probably absolutely control what is comprehensible by an individual or a gathering of individuals using power dimensions. It is quite clear that no one sees it. Intellectual Slavery was encoded in the pilgrim model of schooling to restrict what the citizens can know, and how to know it. Western instruction was made to inculcate the personalities of colonized citizens to think with a certain goal in mind. This paper discusses some of the nuances of intellectual slavery in the modern context.

Since music affects emotions and dispositions,
it plays a fundamental role in
the political philosophy of both Plato
and Aristotle. This paper discusses
how education utilizes various keys
and modes, in particular how the works
Laws and Republic praise the doric
mode, while banishing representative
of the cult of Dionysos, unlike to
Aristotle’s Politics. This difference
corresponds to a peculiar production
of political order, resulting from the
control of emotional disorder. Therefore
the aim of this paper is not only
to indicate the laws of music, but to
understand music’s systematic role in
politics through an analysis of various
therapies of emotions.
Politics 7-8 displays a homeopatic
therapy according to the tragic catharsis
in Poetics: sounds and instruments
provoking enthusiasm purge one’s soul
of disorderly movements. In this way,
Aristotle frees music from merely educational
and political determination. On
the other hand, Plato chooses at first in
Republic an allopathic therapy, but accepts
later in Laws a homeopathic one
as well. Since music (and dance) is the
medium that support these therapies,
it possesses a fundamental function in
Plato’s ontological-political system.
The viewpoint of this system is the divine
Idea of the Good or nous basileus
and demands a peculiar music, which
Plato would define ‘divine’.

Recent scholars (e.g., Bodéüs 1993; Mara 2000; Smith 2001; Tessitore 1996) have fruitfully proposed that we must strive to understand Aristotle’s distinctive didactic strategy as a writer. By attending more to the interrelationship between the Ethics and the Politics, and to the contrast with modern liberal theorizing on the issue of educative strategy, I show how Aristotle’s rhetorical strategy is at once a reaction to, and thereby a revelation of, his most profound reflections on the fraught relation between theorizing and its political context. The upshot is threefold: a new, more satisfactory comprehension of Aristotle’s manifold educational aims in writing for his diverse intended audience; a deeper insight into Aristotle’s conception of the relation between theory and practice (including publication)—in profound contrast to our Enlightenment liberal conception; and a new guide for how Aristotle’s political treatises ought to be studied and appreciated.

Art has the capacity to host, to entertain and to distribute the weak political power that is in effect within collective ways of going on to do things for the pleasure of getting better regardless of how good anyone is. If art can have a liberating effect today, it is by virtue of a strategic weakness. Rehearsing collectivity on the occasion of art exhibitions, performances, interventions, we will become in time familiar with the fact that
the effectiveness of organising collectively does not follow energy equations: weak powers can be responsible for some of the strongest collective effects.

What is the relationship between friendship and human flourishing? This is a central topic in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and one to which Maimonides also returned throughout his career. Despite the relative neglect of this topic in recent scholarship, I argue that friendship (philia) was an important link between moral and intellectual perfection for Maimonides. He identified Aristotle’s virtue friendship with the love between students and teachers and also interpreted many of the divine commandments as efforts to promote both family and virtue friendship among the Jewish people. Friendship was aligned thematically in Maimonides’ writings with topics like kinship and sexuality, circumcision, and the ethics of speech, all of which point in different ways to the unresolved tension between rational and sensual aspects of our human condition. This article therefore contributes to the investigation of the relationship between Maimonides’ legal and philosophical writing on social themes. While Aristotle clearly influenced his reading of biblical and rabbinic texts for example, I will also argue that Maimonides’ religious and communal commitments helped to push his reading of Aristotle in a broadly inclusive direction— both with respect to the range of different goods that are appropriate to an ideal human life as well as the potential accessibility of those goods to different classes of persons. I offer this article as a corrective to the exaggerated focus on seclusion and solitary contemplation that has characterized academic scholarship on Maimonides.

This paper discusses Aristotle's definition of the state and of the several constitutions in his Politics I and III. It is argued (1) that the definition of the state must be extracted from two passages of the beginning of the treatise, that (2) the state is defined by its peculiar purpose and (3) that important political theorems in Politics III use this initial definition of the state as a premise. The ultimate purpose of this paper is to contribute to the assessment of the role of definitions within the method of Aristotle's moral and political philosophy.

Aristotle's concept of common good is not synonymous with the good life, as has often been thought; it is a standard for evaluating political justice in light of what the city " actually is. " He argues from a sociological analysis of the reality of all cities, querying first the essential constituents and purposes of a city, and then asking, what distribution of benefits and burdens could be just, and so render its common action a common good? The life of virtue is only one answer to this question. As a conceptual tool, common good requires neither the political goal of virtue nor an ancient Greek setting, so theorists today can faithfully apply Aristotle's notion of common good without being bound to his conclusions. Aristotle's original use of common good is worth retrieving for the way it combines empirical and normative concerns in an analysis of political membership. " The political good is the just, and this is the common advantage. " Aristotle, Politics 1282b17-18 1 Does politics need an overarching substantive goal? The typical liberal answer is negative— protecting rights or some procedural standard is enough. In the opposing corner, one will often find Aristotle named as the paradigmatic defender of substantive political goals, because of his well-known doctrine that politics is to be judged by the standard of the common good. 2 Aristotle is indeed the father of discourse about the common good, but I will argue that the substantive nature of his doctrine has been greatly exaggerated. The common good is a memorable but shadowy figure, not only in the political thought of Aristotle himself, but also in the work of influential Aristotelians such as Thomas Aquinas. Though used at important moments, the term is rarely defined. In the Politics the common good is the normative hinge of the general account 1 References to Aristotle's main political works will be incorporated into the text with the standard Bekker pagination. The main texts and translations used are

In this paper, I concentrate on some of the more peculiar, perhaps even polemical, features of Aristotle’s discussions of Plato’s Republic in the second book of the Politics. These features include Aristotle’s several rather sharp or ironic remarks about Socrates and his project in the Republic, his use of rhetorical questions, or his tendency to bring out the most extreme consequences of Socrates’s theory (such as that it will destroy the polis and that it will lead to incestuous relationships). As I argue, some of these polemical features result from the special character of Socrates’ theory that Aristotle criticizes whereas others are consciously aimed at countering the attractive force of Socrates’s image of the ideal city, which can and does appeal to readers over and above its theoretical, purely rational credentials.