Ancient philosophy a new history of western philosophy volume 1 (new history of western philosophy) ( PDFDrive ) 105

ARISTOTLE TO AUGUSTINE

Aristotle’s Political Theory
Even in the EE it is ‘the service and contemplation of God’ that sets the
standard for the appropriate exercise of the moral virtues, and in the NE
this contemplation is described as a superhuman activity of a divine part of
ourselves. Aristotle’s Wnal word here is that in spite of being mortal we
must make ourselves immortal as far as we can. When we turn from the
Ethics to their sequel, the Politics, we come down to earth. ‘Man is a political
animal’, we are told: humans are creatures of Xesh and blood, rubbing
shoulders with each other in cities and communities.
Like his work in zoology, Aristotle’s political studies combine observation and theory. Diogenes Laertius tells us that he collected the
constitutions of 158 states—no doubt aided by research assistants in
the Lyceum. One of these, The Constitution of Athens, though not handed
down as part of the Aristotelian corpus, was found on papyrus in 1891.
In spite of some stylistic diVerences from other works, it is now generally
regarded as authentic. In a codicil to the NE that reads like a preface to
the Politics, Aristotle says that, having investigated previous writings on
political theory, he will inquire, in the light of the constitutions collected,
what makes good government and what makes bad government,
what factors are favourable or unfavourable to the preservation of
a constitution, and what constitution the best state should adopt (NE 10.
9. 1181b12–23).
The Politics itself was probably not written at a single stretch, and here as
elsewhere there is probably an overlap and interplay between the records of
observation and the essays in theory. The structure of the book as we have
it corresponds reasonably well to the NE programme: books 1–3 contain a
general theory of the state, and a critique of earlier writers; books 4–6
contain an account of various forms of constitution, three tolerable
(monarchy, aristocracy, polity) and three intolerable (tyranny, oligarchy,
and democracy); books 7 and 8 are devoted to the ideal form of constitution. Once again, the order of the discourses in the corpus probably

diVers from the order of their composition, but scholars have not reached
agreement on the original chronology.
Aristotle begins by saying that the state is the highest kind of community, aiming at the highest of goods. The most primitive communities are
families of men and women, masters and slaves. He seems to regard the
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