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Book No. – 4 (Political Science)
Book Name – Western Political Thought (Shefali Jha)
What’s Inside the Chapter? (After Subscription)
1. A THEORY OF MORAL ACTION
2. FROM MORAL THEORY TO POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
3. THE POLITY AND ARISTOTLE’S CLASSIFICATION OF CONSTITUTIONS
4. ARISTOTELIAN TELEOLOGY
5. PROBLEMS IN ARISTOTLE’S POLITICAL THEORY
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Aristotle (384–322 BCE): Moral Action and the Best Constitution
Chapter – 3
Table of Contents
- The choice between being a Platonist or an Aristotelian is particularly challenging in political philosophy.
- Plato’s principle of combining philosophy with politics leads to an anti-democratic regime; however, Aristotle’s belief in natural hierarchies and exclusion of slaves and women complicates his view of political rule.
- Aristotle, a Macedonian born in Stagira, was Plato’s faithful student at the Academy until Plato’s death in 347 BCE.
- Aristotle was not an Athenian and had early interests in medical and biological studies. His father was a physician and served the king of Macedon.
- Aristotle had personal ties with Philip of Macedon and tutored his son, Alexander, for several years.
- In 367 BCE, Aristotle moved to Athens and studied under Plato. After Plato’s death, he left the Academy due to a leadership change.
- After some time in Asia Minor, Aristotle became Alexander’s tutor in 342–336 BCE and returned to Athens in 335 BCE to establish his own school, the Lyceum.
- After Alexander’s death, Aristotle fled Athens in 323 BCE due to rebellion against Macedon and died in exile in 322 BCE.
- Aristotle was a prolific writer, producing works like Metaphysics, Physics, Rhetoric, Poetics, Politics, and Nicomachean Ethics.
- Neo-Platonism dominated philosophy during the Middle Ages, leading to the suppression of Aristotle’s works, except for some logic texts.
- Aristotle’s works were lost to the Western tradition until translations into Latin in the 12th–13th centuries.
- Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, Arab scholars, played a key role in preserving and translating Aristotle’s works into Latin.
- Aristotle’s early works, like Protrepticus, showed Plato’s influence, but his differences with Plato became clearer over time.
- Aristotle rejected Plato’s method of seeking truth in the Forms and emphasized investigating appearances (phainomena) and beliefs (endoxa) from everyday life.
- While Plato dismissed sense perception and shared language, Aristotle believed truth could be found in appearances, reconciling contradictions through proper investigation.
- Aristotle’s method was empirical, collecting data on 158 constitutions of his time, though only the Athenian Constitution survives.
- He used these empirical observations to write Politics, a treatise on political science, reflecting his respect for practical knowledge and Athenian social practices.
- In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle’s moral theory contrasts with Plato’s, and in Book II of Politics, he spends the first six chapters criticizing Plato’s theories in Republic and Laws.