Theory of the City-State
VI. Aristotle: Political Actualities
A. Lays groundwork for the study of politics separate from the study of ethics
B. Looks at the ethical basis, arrangement of offices, social classes within state,
as well as recognizing the differences between the legal constitution and
the constitution in practice
C. Analysis based upon an understanding of the political and economic
constitution of the state
1. Democracies differ according to inclusiveness and economic structure
of the state
2. Oligarchies differ on eligibility and distribution of property
D. Three branches of government: deliberative, administrative and judiciary
E. Combining best of both types is the polity or constitutional government*
1. Foundation of large middle class which is the most stable as not too
rich or too poor
2. Balancing of quality (aristocracy) and quantity (democracy)
F. Defines state as community between contractual relations and paternal rule
G. State originates from bare needs of life but continues for the sake of the good
life -- which is the first truly civilized form.
H. The "nature"of a thing revealed after growth has taken place; nature redefined
as convention. Through the growth of community comes the state.
I. The state is natural because it contains the possibility of a fully civilized life
but conditions must be right, thus an arena for the statesman to act.
J. Fundamental constituents of nature: form, matter and movement
1. Statesman must be descriptive and empirical to ascertain the possibilities
of the actual
2. Also must consider the ideal to give form to the possibilities
*Note: Aristotle divides governments into six types, three ruled by the best one, few or many and their negative forms were rule is in the hand of those not guided by reason but by self-interest.
Next week: The Twilight of the City-State
Theory of the City-State
V. Aristotle: Political Ideals
A. Pupil of Plato at the Academy
B. Politics is probably not a unified work but a collection of essays
C. The Politics can be divided into two parts
1. Books II, III, VII and VIII on an ideal state
2. Books IV, V and VI offer final thoughts on political science
3. Book I considers nature-convention problem
D. Prefers to stick more to common experience rather than logical departures
from it.
E. His ideal state is the second best of Plato, never accepted Plato's ideal
1. Best was constitutional
2. Based on some degree of moral equality of men [citizens]
3. Rejects the model of the father's rule over children
F. Aristotle sees law as "reason unaffected by desire"
1. Law gives authority of the magistrate a "moral quality" to which all are
obliged
G. Under constitutional rule, the public, or general, interest determines law
rather than factions or tyrannous rule by one or some
1. Government carried out by general regulations not arbitrary decrees
2. Government of willing subjects not merely due to force
H. Saw experience of ages as embedded in law, or capable of being so,
contrary to Plato
1. Saw possible supremacy of collective wisdom over single wise lawgiver
2. Wisdom that should guide the state goes from being the exclusive domain
of the philosopher to being the result of social custom embodied in law.
I. Aristotle's ideal state based on Plato's Laws.
J. Wisdom as embodied in custom must be the guiding principle in taking
advantage of actual conditions to gradually reform them. (For Plato, the
ideal often in radical opposition to facts.)
K. The state is the association of men to realize the good in the form of the best
moral life
L. Looks to build up the best state from experience and from not a preexisting
ideal
1. Saw some merit in the usual claiments for power -- democrats and
aristocrats
2. Reasoned that since none had absolute claim, law (good law) must be
supreme
M. Aristotle saw forces working on and through real agents and not from Plato's
Ideal Forms. [Perhaps two sides of the dialectic.]
Next week: Aristotle: Political Actualities
For episode 3 see
here.
Theory of the City-State
IV.Plato: The Statesman and The Laws
A. Written much later than The Republic
B. Resemblance between the two
1. Marked difference from The Republic
2. Plato's final reflections on the city-state
C. Of greater influence on political thought after Plato, departure point for
Aristotle
D.The Laws sketches a government in which law is supreme
1. Was a change from government of philosopher-kings of The Republic
2. Plato did not fully recognize these changes in his theory
3. Law-based government is still only the second best and not logically
compatible with it
4. The Republic presumed opposition between intelligence and perception
5. Law was seen by the Greeks as on the side of perception and experience
(i.e., convention)
6. Even now, law can be seen as irrational obstacle to intelligent chance or
action
7. For Plato, the good ruler, one who rules through knowledge and reason
should not be bound by law as that is meant to govern the average man
8. In The Laws, law become a surrogate for reason
E. The Statesman puts off The Republic as an ideal model not usually attainable
1. Has six-fold classification of governments, three good and three bad that
Aristotle later used
2. Sees democracy more favorably
F. The state in The Laws constructed with temperance as its chief virtue
1. Seeks to achieve harmony through a spirit of obedience to law
2. This meant a mixed state as the mode of political organization
G. The mixed state -- harmony through balance of forces or tendencies
1. Mixed monarchic principle of wisdom with democratic principle of
freedom
2. Saw original 'state of nature' as the life of peaceful herdsmen. With
agriculture comes civilization.
3. Urges study of politics attached to history of civilization (causes and
changes in political stability)
H. In The Laws, still favors communism but concedes private property and
private family life, due to human frailty, but regulates both
1. Land inherited but not to be divided or alienated
2. Produce goes to common (public) mess
3. Property to be equal except for limited personal items allowed
4. Citizens not to engage in industry or trade; what is necessary to be done
by resident aliens
5. Use of property regulated, only token currency, no loans with interest
I. Government belongs to the citizens, those who can afford to leave private
business of earning a living to slaves (on farms) and aliens. This was not
Periclean democracy.
1. State still to be weighted in favor of richer through four-fold division on
basis of private property
2. Education and religion remain roughly the same as in The Republic except
education becomes institutionalized
3. Religious persecution and the Nocturnal Council out of line with the rest
J. Government in the [ideal city]* of The Republic follows the rule of the father
over children, while The Laws more in line with government of and by
responsible citizens through law.
*Note: Sabine's reading of The Republic, Laws and Statesman follows traditional lines. He takes them literally, especially The Republic. But if one reads Plato's Socratic dialogues closely, it should be noticed that he actually is focused on justice, virtue (arete) of the individual. The Republic presents the model for the healthy soul balanced between its three parts with reason guiding desire and will. Socrates presents the outer polis to better see the inner one. As Plato understood the 'ideal city' of The Republic to be difficult to achieve in reality, he offered in The Laws a model for a city guided by reason embodied in law. (Even here he did not trust any particular system so added the Nocturnal Council, a group to be guided by philosophy to meet at night and review that was done during the day.) In The Statesman, he offers a model for rule by an individual guided by knowledge. But such a person would also be hard to find achieving or holding power.
Next week: Aristotle: Political Ideals
For episode 2 see
here.
Theory of the City-State
III.Plato: The Republic
A. Elaborated from Socrates the belief that there is a discoverable, objective
good life for the individual and the polis
B. Political philosophy is the effort to discover this 'good life'
C. Plato's version primarily found in The Republic, Statesman and Laws (written
in that order)
D. The Republic concerns the good man and the good life and the means for
knowing what these are and how to attain them
1.Political theory of The Republic an over simplified version of the later
presentation. Plato's fundamental focus was the soul (psych, the inner polis]
2. The good is objectively real, will is secondary
3. Man with knowledge of the good ought to have decisive power in the polis
4. Association of man with man in society depends on reciprocal needs and
resulting exchange of goods and services.
5. Philosopher attends to his share of the work, three classes are all
necessary
6. Class-based specialization of function depends on natural aptitude and
training (whereby the given is made better)
7. Two parts of the theory:
i. government ought to be art (techne) depending on exact knowledge
ii. society is mutual satisfaction of needs by persons whose capacities
supplement each other
E. The public is the great sophist
1. Man has a split nature, higher and lower
2. Politicians, especially in a democracy, are ignorant and incompetent
3. The incompetence of popular opinion ought to be countered through
education -- the coupling of questioning and training
F. Factional conflict arises from class, property owners vs the poor
G. The Republic presented the 'ideal city' because it was important for the
statesman -- the 'physician' of the state -- to know the healthy city
1. Plato wanted to establish the art of politics
2. The ideal city modeled along the lines of geometry and ideal types
H. Conceived society as a system of services in which every member both gives
and receives
1. Men have many wants
2. No man is self-sufficient
3. The state seeks to arrange the most adequate satisfaction of needs and
most harmonious interchange of services
I. Man receives freedom not for exercise of free will as much as for the practice
of his calling (given by nature)
1. Exchange implies division of labor
2. Man has natural aptitudes which become skills when men apply them-
selves to what they are given, as they work at it.
3. Philosopher rules because his knowledge is at once his right and duty to
do so
4. Assumes that properly educated, man is not anti- or unsocial and can live
in harmony.
i. Man and the state have underlying structure
ii. These structures are parallel, what is good for one is prevented from
being different from what is good for the other (the polis is the individual
"writ large)
J. The division of labor necessitates division into three classes
1. Workers and Guardians (divided into soldiers and rulers)
2. Rulers were source of sound knowledge of the good leaving the others as
political onlookers
K. Justice is the bond holding society together
1. All should fill the station to which he is entitled
2. "giving to every man his due"
i. Man should be due treatment as what he is, in light of his capacity
and training
ii. Due from him is an honest performance of tasks which place accorded
him requires
3. What is due is based on services performed not power or "rights"
L. The task becomes reaching perfect balance between human beings and
possibilities of significant employment that the state affords
1. Achieved by removing hindrances to good citizenship; and
2. Creating positive conditions of good citizenship through education
M. Achieved for rulers through 'communism'
1. Prohibited from holding private property
2. Abolition of permanent monogamous sexual relations
3. Controlled breeding
4. Wealth equalized to remove disturbing influence on government, along
with abolition of family (affection)
N. Education is the positive means to direct human nature
1. Main reliance placed here
2. State would control compulsory education
3. Elementary till age 20, gymnastics and "music" as training, direct or
indirect, for the mind
O. The Republic has been eternally the voice of the scholar, as such overly
simplified, leaving out human dignity and the person
P. Omits law and influence of public opinion
Next week: Plato: The Statesman and The Laws
For episode 1 see
here.
Theory of the City-State
II. Political Thought Before Plato (5th century BC)
A. Political discussion was very widespread and popular
1. Already three-fold classification of forms of government existed:
monarchy, aristocracy, democracy.
2. Two centuries prior saw active party (class) struggle and rapid
constitutional change.
3. Awareness of economic nature of conflict between democrats (favoring
overseas commerce) vs landed aristocrats
B. Assumptions of pre-philosophy period affected later political thought
1. Basic ideas of harmony and proportion applied both to physical ethical
matters
2. Sophists and Socrates reflected movement from concern with physical
world to humanism. [Note: Bruno Snell's The Discovery of the Mind: The
Greek Origins of European Thought traced the emergence of reason and
philosophy from the Homeric epics through the pre-classic lyric poets
(Sappho) and the tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides).]
3. Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things, of what is that is and of
what is not that is not."
4. Search for essential physical substance that underlies appearance
became search for "law of nature" -- permanence amid change, unity
amid the manifold
5. Issues became about defining 'the natural' and 'nature versus convention'
(God vs man)
6. Sophist Antiphon saw law (justice) as convention and contrary to
nature which was egoism
7. Contrary view saw justice and right inherent in human beings
C. Socrates moved suggestive ideas into explicit philosophy
1. Believed that virtue (arete) equaled knowledge
2. Pursued precise definition
3. His vision of rational science of politics picked up by Plato
Next week: Plato: The Republic
