Aristotle

Overview

Aristotle studied under Plato and later tutored Alexander of Macedon, but his political work is empirical where Plato's is ideal: with his students he collected and compared the constitutions of Greek cities, and the Politics reasons from that material. He argues that human beings are by nature political animals, that a city exists not merely for survival but for living well, and that the best practical constitution mixes rule by the few and the many and rests on a large middle group with enough property to be independent and not enough to be predatory. He also defends positions modern readers reject outright, including natural slavery and the exclusion of women from citizenship, and reading him honestly means holding both halves at once. Start with Books I and III of the Politics, and read the Nicomachean Ethics alongside them, since he treats the two as one inquiry.

Where to start reading

• Politics c. 340 BC

  His comparative study of constitutions: what a city is for, who should count as a citizen, why regimes fall, and which mixed arrangement is most stable.

  Read it in the library

• Nicomachean Ethics c. 340 BC

  The companion inquiry into character and the good life, which the Politics assumes: the city exists to make that life possible.

Part of

• Republicanism

Sources

1. Aristotle's Political Theory Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
2. Aristotle: Politics Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy