Politics ( Πολιτικά , Politiká ) is a work of political philosophy by Aristotle , a 4th-century BC Greek philosopher.
128-577: At the end of the Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle declared that the inquiry into ethics leads into a discussion of politics. The two works are frequently considered to be parts of a larger treatise — or perhaps connected lectures — dealing with the "philosophy of human affairs". In Aristotle's hierarchical system of philosophy he considers politics, the study of communities, to be of higher priority than ethics, which concerns individuals. The title of Politics literally means "the things concerning
256-527: A genos , "family"; the Italics, a gens . Corresponding to Greek phratry , a group of families, was the Italic curia . Corresponding to Greek phyle , a tribe of multiple phratries, was the tribus . The comparison of IE cultures is a solid technique, but it is not enough to develop a solid model of "the ancient city", which must take historical disparities into consideration. From the analogy Coulanges weaves
384-473: A sovereign state . As a strict rule, the definition fails on its exceptions. A polis may not be urban at all, as was pointed out by Thucydides regarding the "polis of the Lacedaemonians", that it was "composed of villages after the old fashion of Hellas". Moreover, around the five villages of Lacedaemon, which had been placed in formerly Achaean land, were the villages of the former Achaeans, called
512-463: A "just city" are wisdom, courage, moderation and justice. With all of these principles, classes and virtues, it was believed that a "just city" (polis) would exist. Breaking away from Plato and the academy, a professor there, Aristotle, founded his own school, the Lyceum, a university. One of its strongest curricula was political science, which Aristotle invented. He dispatched students over the world of
640-510: A bankrupt state, the latter must be the one that prevails. For survival the citizens of each city build a privately owned pool of diverse resources, which they can exchange for mutual ("reciprocal") benefit. The theory of equal reciprocity is nothing more than a statement that owners of diverse assets must make profitable deals with each other. Nature (philosophy)#Classical nature and Aristotelian metaphysics Nature has two inter-related meanings in philosophy and natural philosophy . On
768-470: A bed have no tendency to become a bed.) In terms of Aristotle's theory of four causes , the word natural is applied both to the innate potential of matter cause and the forms which the matter tends to become naturally. According to Leo Strauss , the beginning of Western philosophy involved the "discovery or invention of nature" and the "pre-philosophical equivalent of nature" was supplied by "such notions as 'custom' or 'ways'". In ancient Greek philosophy on
896-484: A city nor an acropolis, but all the historiographers referred to it as a polis. The rule of the city-state persisted until late in the 20th century, when the accumulation of mass data and sponsored databases made possible searches and comparisons of multiple sources not previously possible, a few of which are mentioned in this article. Hansen reports that the Copenhagen Centre found it necessary to "dissociate
1024-590: A community politically or to enlarge the buildings in which it resides. Finally in the Classical Period and later, the -z-/-s- extension began to be used, as evidenced in Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plutarch: sunoik-izein, "combine or join into one city", with its nouns sunoik-isis and sunoik-ismos, "founding a city", from which the English scholarly term synoecism derives. All poleis looked back to
1152-489: A different polis. These are three. A polis has a particular location, population, and constitution ( politeia ). For example, if a polis moves en masse, receives a different form of government, or an influx of new population, it is not the same polis. Aristotle expresses two main definitions of polis, neither of which is possible as stated. In the second (see below for the first) a polis is "a collection of citizens...." (Book III I 2). If they already are citizens, then there
1280-445: A doctrine about how it is possible that people know things: "If nothing exists apart from individual things, nothing will be intelligible; everything will be sensible, and there will be no knowledge of anything—unless it be maintained that sense-perception is knowledge". Those philosophers who disagree with this reasoning therefore also see knowledge differently from Aristotle. Aristotle then, described nature or natures as follows, in
1408-514: A federation with binding membership, etc. The Perioeci were included in this category. When the models are set aside as primary sources (which they never were) it is clear that historiography must be founded on what the authors and inscriptions say. Moreover, there is a time window for the active polis. The fact that polis was used in the Middle Ages to translate civitas does not make these civitates into poleis. The Copenhagen Study uses quite
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#17327802653181536-521: A few evidential indications of a probable polis, in addition to the manuscripts and inscriptions, some of which are victory in the Panhellenic Games, participation in the games, having an official agent, or proxenos, in another polis, presence of civic subdivisions, presence of citizens and a Constitution (Laws). Modern theorists of the polis are theorizing under a major disadvantage: their topic has not been current for thousands of years. It
1664-533: A foreign empire. As a Macedonian and tutor to Alexander the Great, Aristotle was well-placed to be in the good graces of the political leadership of his time, until Athens challenged Macedonian power towards the end of Aristotle's life, and he went into exile from Athens to avoid the possibility of being attacked by anti-Macedonian Athenians. Aristotle's Politics is divided into eight books, which are each further divided into chapters. Citations of this work, as with
1792-403: A household or village are only different in size, but rule over slaves was a different kind of rule. He then examines in what way the city may be said to be natural . He concludes that "the state is a creation of nature": [W]hile the state came about as a means of securing life itself, it continues in being to secure the good life.… This association is the end of those others [the household and
1920-416: A human-like consciousness involved in the causation of all things, even things which are not man-made. Nature itself is attributed with having aims. The artificial, like the conventional therefore, is within this branch of Western thought, traditionally contrasted with the natural. Technology was contrasted with science , as mentioned above. And another essential aspect to this understanding of causation
2048-428: A maximum of 2,943. A study of inscriptions found 1,450 that use polis prior to 300 BC, 425 Athenian and 1,025 from the rest of the range of poleis. There was no difference in meaning between literary and inscriptional usages. Polis became loaded with many incidental meanings. The major meanings are 'state' and 'community'. The theoretical study of the polis extends as far back as the beginning of Greek literature, when
2176-399: A network of micro-states. Many of the settlements still exist; e.g., Marseille , Syracuse , Alexandria , but they are no longer Greek or micro-states, belonging to other countries. The ancient Greek world was split between homeland regions and colonies. A colony was generally sent out by a single polis to relieve the population or some social crisis or seek out more advantageous country. It
2304-411: A new state. He then turns to the question of how the virtues of a person qua person line up with the virtues of a person qua citizen: where they are coincident and where they may differ. Next, Aristotle classifies varieties of constitution , in their good and bad forms (in good ones, the rulers rule in the interest of the common good ; in bad ones, for the benefit of the rulers themselves). "The state
2432-613: A precedent of jumping over the wall in mockery of it. There were no families, no phratries, no tribes, except among the already settled Latins, Greeks, and Etruscans. The warriors acquired a social structure by kidnapping the nearby Italic Sabines (" the Rape of the Sabine Women ") and settling the matter by agreeing on a synoecism with the Sabines also, who were Latins. Alba Longa was ignored, later subdued. The first four tribes were not
2560-518: A priori assumptions as though they were substantiated facts and were not the pure speculations they actually are. One of the most influential of these translative models was the French La Cite antique , translated again into English "the ancient city", by Coulanges. Only to read the title gives credibility to the idea that there is a model type inclusive of all ancient cities, and that the author need only present it without proving it. This type
2688-513: A relaxing of property requirements to be considered a qualified oligarch) can also gradually transform an oligarchy into something more resembling a democracy. Aristocracies and polities most often fall when they economically exploit and unjustly mistreat the lower classes. As in oligarchies, demagogues will exploit this to agitate the lower classes and peel them away their loyalty to the constitutional order. Polities that lean towards oligarchy or towards democracy tend to continue to slide gradually in
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#17327802653182816-521: A research project of collecting 158 constitutions of various city-states in order to examine them for their strong and weak points. This evidence-based, descriptive approach to the study of politics was a hallmark of Aristotle's method, and a contrast with the more idealistic from-first-principles approach of Plato , as seen for example in the Republic . As with the Nicomachean Ethics ,
2944-542: A restive underclass something to do at some distance from the ruling class. There is a reference in the Politics to the assassination of Philip II of Macedon , which happened in 336 BC. So we know that at least some of the work was composed after the expansion of the Macedonian kingdom under Philip II which resulted in its dominion over Athens and much of the rest of Greece, subordinating Greece's many city-states to
3072-500: A single site, and the single city belongs to its citizens in common." Aristotle's description fits the landscape archaeology of the poleis in the Copenhagen Study well. The study defines settlement patterns of first-, second-, and third-order. The third, dispersed , is individual oikiai distributed more or less evenly throughout the countryside. The other two orders are nucleated, or clustered. 2nd-order settlements are
3200-461: A source of motion; for the matter is called "nature" because it is capable of receiving the nature, and the processes of generation and growth are called "nature" because they are motions derived from it. And nature in this sense is the source of motion in natural objects, which is somehow inherent in them, either potentially or actually. It has been argued, as will be explained below, that this type of theory represented an oversimplifying diversion from
3328-521: A spark can set off a fire that burns down the constitutional order. That spark can be something seemingly trivial and far-removed from the actual underlying causes that are causing the constitutional order to decay. By the time this happens, it's too late. It's important to address constitutional instability before the straw breaks the camel's back. Different sorts of constitutional orders fall in different ways. Democracies are most easily toppled by demagogues who either become tyrants themselves or who provoke
3456-446: A synoecism under any name as their source of politeia . Not all settlements were poleis; for example, an emporion, or "market reserved for foreign trade", might be part of a polis or out on its own. In any particular synoecism recorded by either ancient or modern epigraphists a major problem has been to fit the model credibly to the instance. For example, Thucydides refers to Spartan lack of urbanity as "not synoecised", where synoecism
3584-422: A tale of imaginary history. Families, he asserts, originally lived dispersed and alone (a presumption of Aristotle as well). When the population grew to a certain point, families joined into phratries. Further growth caused phratries to join into tribes, and then tribes into a city. In the city the ancient tribes remained sacrosanct. The city was actually a confederacy of ancient tribes. Coulange's tale, based on
3712-429: A threatened oligarchy into seizing power to prevent a populist uprising that threatens their property and status. They can also decay slowly into worse forms of democracy if too many people are given the vote and electioneering and pandering to voters becomes the main way to get political power. Oligarchies become vulnerable when the oligarchs become haughty and abusive, when powerful and jealous people are denied entry to
3840-498: A way quite different from modern science: " Nature " means: (a) in one sense, the genesis of growing things — as would be suggested by pronouncing the υ of φύσις long—and (b) in another, that immanent thing from which a growing thing first begins to grow. (c) The source from which the primary motion in every natural object is induced in that object as such. All things are said to grow which gain increase through something else by contact and organic unity (or adhesion, as in
3968-600: A while, in part to tutor a young Alexander the Great , and then went back to Athens to found his own school, the Lycaeum . Though he spent most of his life and career in Athens, he was never an Athenian citizen, but more of a resident alien , with few political rights (he could not own property, for instance). Indeed, throughout his life, he was never a fully-fledged citizen of any Greek polis . Citizenship in Greek city-states
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4096-534: Is Aristotle 's principal work on nature. In Physics II .1, Aristotle defines a nature as "a source or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily". In other words, a nature is the principle within a natural raw material that is the source of tendencies to change or rest in a particular way unless stopped. For example, a rock would fall unless stopped. Natural things stand in contrast to artifacts, which are formed by human artifice, not because of an innate tendency. (The raw materials of
4224-416: Is "by nature" is contrasted to what is "by convention". The concept of nature taken this far remains a strong tradition in modern Western thinking . Science , according to Strauss' commentary of Western history is the contemplation of nature, while technology was or is an attempt to imitate it. Going further, the philosophical concept of nature or natures as a special type of causation - for example that
4352-467: Is a direct descendant of the ancient word and roughly means 'city' or an urban place. However, the Ancient Greek term that specifically meant the totality of urban buildings and spaces was asty ( ἄστυ ), rather than polis. The ancient word polis had socio-political connotations not possessed by the modern. For example, today's πόλη is located within a χώρα ( khôra ), "country", which
4480-449: Is a sort of mix of democracy and oligarchy: "A constitution which is a really well-made combination of oligarchy and democracy," Aristotle says, "ought to look like both and like neither." It tends to most empower the middle-class, and is most healthy if economic inequality is kept within reasonable bounds. To prevent the majority from seizing power by force of numbers, you can use a variety of financial incentives that nominally disadvantage
4608-428: Is a sound man, may yet, taken all together, be better than the few, not individually but collectively." This is one argument for letting a broad base of people engage in political decision-making even though none of them are individually particularly qualified to do so. He argues against the idea that extraordinarily virtuous people ought to be given the reins of the state. Rather, "such men we must take not to be part of
4736-448: Is a πατρίδα (patrida) or "native land" for its citizens. In ancient Greece, the polis was the native land; there was no other. It had a constitution and demanded the supreme loyalty of its citizens. χώρα was only the countryside, not a country. Ancient Greece was not a sovereign country, but was a territory occupied by Hellenes , people who claimed as their native language some dialect of Ancient Greek. Poleis did not only exist within
4864-429: Is actually a lessening of unity and would destroy the state. The individual is actually most united and effective; the polis the least. To take away the property and therefore the powers of the individual diminishes the state to nothing, as it is composed of citizens, and those citizens have been rendered null and void by the removal of their effectiveness. As an example Aristotle gives a plot of land, which owned by one man
4992-416: Is already present, we say that they have not their nature yet unless they have their form and shape. That which comprises both of these exists by nature; e.g. animals and their parts. And nature is both the primary matter (and this in two senses: either primary in relation to the thing, or primary in general; e.g., in bronze articles the primary matter in relation to those articles is bronze, but in general it
5120-477: Is an association intended to enable its members, in their households and the kinships, to live well," says Aristotle, "its purpose is a perfect and self-sufficient life." So what is important is not so much who has the power, but whether that power is deployed skillfully toward that end. Political organizations based on equality of power, or on power distributed proportionally to wealth or nobility, are at best approximations to this. Ideally, those who contribute most to
5248-588: Is based on the ancient practice of translating polis in Greek literature to civitas (early form of city) in Latin literature and vice versa. Coulanges' confidence that the Greek and Italic cities were the same model was based on the then newly discovered Indo-European language : "Go back as far as we may in the history of the Indo-European race, of which the Greeks and Italians are branches,...." The Greeks had
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5376-414: Is carefully tended, but owned by the whole community belongs to no one and is untended. The ideal state therefore is impossible, a mere logical construct accounting for some of the factors, but failing of others, which Aristotle's examples suffice to demonstrate. For example, in some hypothetical place of no polis, a buyer would apply to an individual builder for a house. In an ideal polis, he would apply to
5504-449: Is concerned with the two underlying principles of any society: mutual needs and differences in aptitude. Starting from these two principles, Socrates deals with the economic structure of an ideal polis. According to Plato there are five main economic classes of any polis: producers, merchants, sailors/shipowners, retail traders and wage earners. Along with the two principles and five economic classes, there are four virtues. The four virtues of
5632-574: Is highly critical. The Theory of the State is not so much political by today's definition. The politics are covered by the New Plan. The topic of the Old Plan is rather society , and is generally presented today in sociology and cultural anthropology . At the end of Book III, however, Aristotle encounters certain problems of definition that he cannot reconcile through theorization and has to abandon
5760-511: Is necessary to a point, but that does not make it a part of household management any more than it makes medicine a part of household management just because health is necessary. He criticizes income based upon trade and upon interest , saying that those who become avaricious do so because they forget that money merely symbolizes wealth without being wealth, and that interest is "contrary to nature" because it increases by itself not through exchange. Book I concludes with Aristotle's assertion that
5888-434: Is no need for anyone to collect to create a polis, as it already exists. If they are not citizens then they cannot be defined as a polis and cannot act as such. Aristotle's only consistent meaning is that at the moment of collecting together a population creates a polis of which they are now citizens. This moment of creation, however long it might be, is a logical necessity; otherwise, the citizenship recedes indefinitely into
6016-409: Is not left to the moderns to redefine polis as though it were a living institution. All that remains to ask is how the ancients defined it. It is not to be redefined now; for example, a polis is not a list of architectural features based on ruins. Any community might have those. Moderns can only ask, what did the ancient Greeks think a polis is. Whatever they thought must per force be so, as they invented
6144-445: Is not whether poleis can be found to fit a particular model (some usually can), but whether the model covers all the poleis, which, apparently, no model ever has, even the ancient ones. The re-defining process continues. The Copenhagen study rejects either model and proposes instead the microstate. Some few scholars have become totally cynical, rejecting the idea that any solution has been or can be found. This argument places polis in
6272-441: Is perhaps water—that is if all things which can be melted are water) and the form or essence , i.e. the end of the process, of generation. Indeed from this sense of "nature," by an extension of meaning, every essence in general is called "nature," because the nature of anything is a kind of essence. From what has been said, then, the primary and proper sense of "nature" is the essence of those things which contain in themselves as such
6400-481: Is produced; e.g., bronze is called the "nature" of a statue and of bronze articles, and wood that of wooden ones, and similarly in all other cases. For each article consists of these "natures," the primary material persisting. It is in this sense that men call the elements of natural objects the "nature," some calling it fire, others earth or air or water, others something else similar, others some of these, and others all of them. Again in another sense "nature" means (e)
6528-406: Is the creation of common living quarters (see above). Here apparently it means only the building of a central urban area. The reader of Plutarch knows that another synoecism existed, one instituted by Lycurgus, founder of the military state. The single overall synoecism is apparently double, one for the facilities, missing in this story, and one for the constitution. He uses the same word to describe
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#17327802653186656-509: Is the one that leads to the common good. The philosopher king is the best ruler because, as a philosopher, he is acquainted with the Form of the Good . In Plato's analogy of the ship of state , the philosopher king steers the polis, as if it were a ship, in the best direction. Books II–IV of The Republic are concerned with Plato addressing the makeup of an ideal polis. In The Republic , Socrates
6784-440: Is to know what information to select for a model and what to neglect as probably irrelevant. Classical studies of the last few hundred years have been relatively stable in their views of the polis, relying basically on just a few models: the concept of a city-state, and Fustel de Coulange's model of the ancient city. However, no model ever seems to resolve all the paradoxes or provide for every newly considered instance. The question
6912-688: Is typically divided into different varieties of court, each specializing in a different sort of dispute or auditing function. Aristotle next examines political instability in greater detail, beginning with factionalism. According to Aristotle, factionalism can arise due to ordinary human biases: people are biased toward self-interest. They usually find that people in situations like their own are not getting as much power, status, or resources as they deserve, and they are drawn to join with others of their situation to try to improve their lot. The following causes are examples of situations that can also lead to destabilizing factionalism: If conditions like these prevail,
7040-540: The Perioeci ("dwellers round"). They had been left as supposedly free poleis by the invaders, but they were subject to and served the interests of the Dorian poleis. They were not city-states, failing the criterion of sovereignty. Lacedaemon by the city-state rule thus falls short of being a polis. The earlier Achaean acropolis stood at the edge of the valley and was decrepit and totally unused. Lacedaemon had neither
7168-538: The Politics is not a polished work as Aristotle would have written it for publication. There are various theories about the text which has come down to us. It may have been assembled from a set of shorter works on certain political themes, combined with or interlaced with his marginal notes or with the notes taken by those who attended his Lyceum lectures. Aristotle was Macedonian . He attended Plato's Academy in Athens for about twenty years. He returned to Macedonia for
7296-673: The guardians will increase rather than decrease dissensions, and sharing of wives and children will destroy natural affection. He concludes that common sense is against this arrangement for good reason, and claims that experiment shows it to be impractical. He next analyzes the regime presented in Plato's Laws . Aristotle then discusses the systems presented by two other philosophers, Phaleas of Chalcedon (who promoted methods of enforcing wealth egalitarianism) and Hippodamus of Miletus (who had detailed plans for utopian communities). After addressing regimes invented by theorists, Aristotle moves to
7424-451: The πόλις ( polis )", and is the origin of the modern English word politics . As Aristotle explains, this is understood by him to be a study of how people should best live together in communities — the polis being seen by him as the best and most natural community for humans. The history of Greek city-states, their wars and intrigues and political churning, was well-documented. In addition to such documentation, Aristotle pursued
7552-484: The Acarnanian people and poleis. A colony from there would then be considered Acarnanian, no matter how far away from Acarnania it was. Colonization was thus the main method of spreading Greek poleis and culture. Ancient Greeks did not reserve the term polis solely for Greek-speaking settlements. For example, Aristotle's study of the polis names also Carthage , comparing its constitution to that of Sparta. Carthage
7680-622: The Aegean for a few thousand years prior to the Dorian invasions , forming an "aggregate, the pre-Doric city". This type of city is not to be regarded as "the Hellenic type of the polis". The Greeks set adrift by the Dorian invasions countered by joining ( synoecism ) to form the Hellenic poleis. The polis can thus be dated to this defensive resettlement period (the Dark Age). Quite a few poleis fit
7808-419: The Greek conception ... but this was rather owing to their less vivid mental powers than to the absence of the phenomenon." Polis is thus often translated as ' city-state '. The model, however, fares no better than any other. City-states no doubt existed, but so also did many poleis that were not city-states. The minimum semantic load of this hyphenated neologism is that the referent must be a city and must be
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#17327802653187936-415: The Hellenic poleis and was continuous with the pre-Doric city phase, then pre-Doric Athens must have been a Hellenic polis even then. The model fails in its chief instance. A second approach to the modelling of the polis is not to use the word polis at all, but to translate it into the language of the historiographer. The model is thus inherent in the translation, which has the disadvantage of incorporating
8064-454: The Newer were united with a political synoecism. The first sentence of Politics asserts that a polis is a community ( koinonia ). This is Aristotle's first definition of polis (for the second, see above). The community is compared to a game of chess. The man without community is like an isolated piece (I.9). Other animals form communities, but those of men are more advantageous because men have
8192-513: The Trojan War and had placed a polis (Livy's urbs) on one of the hills named Pallantium , later becoming Palatine . He had actually raised the Trojan boys and supported them now. When the band of marauders became populous enough Romulus got them to agree to a synoecism of settlements in the hills to form a new city, Rome, to be walled in immediately. Remus had to be sacrificed because he had set
8320-659: The area of the modern Republic of Greece . A collaborative study carried by the Copenhagen Polis Centre from 1993 to 2003 classified about 1,500 settlements of the Archaic and Classical ancient-Greek-speaking population as poleis. These ranged from the Caucasus to southern Spain, and from southern Russia to northern Egypt, spread over the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. They have been termed
8448-420: The argument there is "For it is by proportionate requital that the city holds together .... and if they cannot do so there is no exchange, but it is by exchange that they hold together." In short Aristotle had stated two systems of property, one in which the polis holds everything, distributing it equally, and one in which some property is held in common but the rest is privately owned. As the former only leads to
8576-411: The association of people living together for the sake of noble action are entitled to a larger share of state authority. Justice means more than just conformity to constitutional norms; whatever destroys the health of society is not just, even if it was accomplished legally. In chapter 11, Aristotle explains the wisdom of the crowd phenomenon: "[I]t is possible that the many, no one of whom taken singly
8704-477: The case of embryos). Organic unity differs from contact; for in the latter case there need be nothing except contact, but in both the things which form an organic unity there is some one and the same thing which produces, instead of mere contact, a unity which is organic, continuous and quantitative (but not qualitative). Again, "nature" means (d) the primary stuff, shapeless and unchangeable from its own potency, of which any natural object consists or from which it
8832-475: The citizenry, can be divided up in various ways, depending on the constitutional order, the purpose of the state, and the nature of the society it governs. At minimum, a state will have "organs" (analogous to the functional organs of a body) of sorts like agricultural, mechanical (manufacturing), commercial, labor, capital, military, judicial & deliberative/legislative, and executive/bureaucratic. He next considers varieties of democracy, including those in which
8960-400: The citizens and simultaneously a collection of some of the citizens. Similarly property shared by all cannot be shared by men who do not own it. These fictions led to endless conflict between and within poleis as the participants fought for citizenship they did not have and shares they did not own. A village (kome) is a community of several families (I.2). Aristotle suggests that they came from
9088-450: The commons for economic gain. Oligarchy sets in, followed by tyranny, and then democracy, such that "one might say that it is hard to avoid having a democratic constitution." Political science, says Aristotle, should address the following questions: He distinguishes laws from constitutions: Of the constitutional varieties Aristotle categorized in the previous book, he ranks them as follows (best to worst): Aristotle says that states, and
9216-449: The concept of polis from the concepts of independence and autonomia". They were able to define a class of "dependent poleis" to consist of 15 types, all of which the ancient sources call poleis, but were not entirely sovereign, such as cities that had been independent, but were later synoecized into a larger polis, new colonies of other poleis, forts, ports, or trading posts some distance removed from their mother poleis, poleis that had joined
9344-551: The democratic. "Liberty" is the usual principle behind democracy, Aristotle says, and what is typically meant by this is that people take turns being the ruler and being the ruled, the majority makes the decisions, and people are generally left alone to live as they please (or, to the extent that they are ruled over, they at least get to rule over others in turn). Polis Polis ( pl. : poleis) means 'city' in Ancient Greek . The Modern Greek word πόλη ( polē )
9472-401: The direction of their lean, with occasional lurches in the opposite direction when the people on the other side feel wronged enough to do something about it. Monarchies and tyrannies are undermined by resentment of injustice and ill-treatment, fear of things getting worse (we'd better overthrow the tyrant now while we still can), contempt for the tyrant's character (for example, when the heir to
9600-584: The examination of three existing regimes that were commonly held to be well managed. These are the Spartan , Cretan , and Carthaginian . The book concludes with some observations on regimes and legislators, and on the reforms of Solon in Athens. Aristotle considers citizenship and who counts as a citizen. He asserts that a citizen is anyone who is "entitled to participate in office, deliberative or judicial". This excludes honorary citizens, resident aliens, slaves, women, foreigners even if they have some access to
9728-404: The fragmentary history of priesthoods, does not much resemble the history of cities such as it survives. For example, there was no familial and tribal development of Rome. Livy (Book I), the grandest of the historians of early Rome, portrays a city formed under competitive duress by a collaboration of warriors, some of whom were from among the neighboring Etruscans , led by Romulus and Remus ,
9856-433: The holding relationship implies. In Book II Aristotle begins to face the problem. The "polis men", politai , translated as 'citizens', must logically hold everything there is to hold, nothing, or some things but not others (II.I.2). In this sociological context politai can only be all the householders sharing in the polis, free or slave, male or female, child or adult. The sum total of all the specific holdings mentioned in
9984-406: The idea that there is a sort of natural lifecycle of states: A state begins when it is founded by an outstanding individual, capable of conferring benefits on others, who becomes the monarch. As more people of good character emerge in the state, they begin to agitate for more political power, and an aristocracy emerges. But corruption then sets in as the aristocracy leverages their political power over
10112-422: The ideal state incapable of sustaining itself. Aristotle says, "A collection of persons all alike does not constitute a state." He means that such a collection is not self-sufficient (II.1.4). He alleges the opposite: "components which are to make up a unity must differ in kind .... Hence reciprocal equality is the preservative of states, as has been said before in (Nichomachean) Ethics (1132b, 1133a)." In summary
10240-454: The individual. Families are bound by three relationships: husband to wife, owner to slave, and father to children. Thus slaves and women are members of the polis. The proper function of a family is the acquisition and management of wealth . The oikia is the primary land-holder. The koinonia, then, applied to property, including people. As such it is just as impossible as the collection of citizens mentioned previously, which cannot be both all
10368-467: The komai, while the 1st order is the poleis. Approaching the polis from the outside of an aerial photograph one would pass successivle orders 3, 2, and 1. By the end of Book I of Politics Aristotle (or one of the other unknown authors) finishes defining the polis according to one scheme and spends the next two books trying to tie up loose ends. It is generally agreed that the work is an accumulation of surviving treatises written at different times, and that
10496-479: The language of the historiographer. For example, Eric Voegelin wrote a work in English entitled "The World of the Polis". In works such as this the author intends to define polis himself; i.e., to present a model of society from one or more of a list of ancient Greek cities (poleis) culled from ancient Greek literature and inscriptions. For example, Voegelin describes a model in which "town settlements" existed in
10624-440: The legal incorporation of the settlements around Athens into the city by King Theseus , although no special building was required. The central polis already existed. In this story also there is a duality of synoecism with an absent change of physical facilities. Apparently a synoecism can be of different types, the selection of which depends on the requirements of the sunoikisteres. Lippman applies two concepts previously current,
10752-446: The legal system through commercial treaties, boys too young for military service, or people who have been exiled or stripped of their citizenship. Aristotle is also doubtful about whether citizenship should extend to the banausos or working classes. He next considers what sort of entity a state is, whether it is a single thing, and under what circumstances it can be considered to have changed or, alternatively, to have been supplanted by
10880-488: The main logical break is the end of Book III. Books I, II, and III, dubbed "Theory of the State" by Rackham in the Loeb Edition , each represents an incomplete trial of the "Old Plan". Books !V, V, and VI, "Practical Politics", are the "New Plan". Books VII and VIII, "Ideal Politics", contains Aristotle's replacement of Plato's ideology, openly called "communist" by modern translators and theoreticians, of which Aristotle
11008-678: The majority rules but has restraints into what they can do with that rule, and those in which the majority rules utterly. He says that demagogues are typically the catalyst for a democracy going rogue and exercising power irresponsibly. Demagogues have a similar role in a decaying democracy as toadies have in a decaying monarchy: they flatter the ruler(s) into ever more arbitrary and selfish exercises of power. There are four varieties of oligarchy: those based on property; those originally based on property but that you cannot just buy your way into; those that are hereditary but limited by law and precedent; and those that are hereditary and arbitrary. A polity
11136-453: The many one-castle principates that abounded at the time. The name was applied to the polis by Herder in 1765. Fowler anglicised it: "It is, then, a city-state that we have to deal with in Greek and Roman history; a state in which the whole life and energy of the people, political, intellectual, religious, is focused at one point, and that point a city." He applied the word polis to it, explaining that, "The Latin race, indeed, never realised
11264-437: The master/slave relationship, and the village. The highest form of community is the polis. Aristotle comes to this conclusion because he believes the public life is far more virtuous than the private and because "man is by nature a political animal". He begins with the relationship between the city and man, and then specifically discusses the household. He takes issue with the view that political rule, kingly rule, and rule over
11392-400: The model, no doubt, which was widely promulgated in the 20th century. Classical Athens , however, is a paradox in this model, to which Voegelin has no answer. He says, "in the most important instance, that of Athens, the continuity between the Aegean settlement and the later polis seems to have been unbroken." It seems a matter of simple logic that if Athens was a Hellenic polis in the time of
11520-504: The oligarchy, or when internal intrigue divides the oligarchs. Demagogues can exploit these things to lead populist democratic uprisings. Oligarchies may also fall by "temporarily" ceding power to a military leader during time of war, who then either refuses to relinquish power or decides to devolve it to a military junta rather than to the original oligarchs. Independent, "non-political" militaries can evolve into political factions of their own that can undermine oligarchies. Reforms (for example
11648-497: The one hand, it means the set of all things which are natural, or subject to the normal working of the laws of nature . On the other hand, it means the essential properties and causes of individual things. How to understand the meaning and significance of nature has been a consistent theme of discussion within the history of Western Civilization , in the philosophical fields of metaphysics and epistemology , as well as in theology and science . The study of natural things and
11776-416: The other hand, Nature or natures are ways that are "really universal" "in all times and places". What makes nature different is that it presupposes not only that not all customs and ways are equal, but also that one can "find one's bearings in the cosmos" "on the basis of inquiry" (not for example on the basis of traditions or religion). To put this "discovery or invention" into the traditional terminology, what
11904-487: The person enslaved or is always unjust and bad. He distinguishes between those who are slaves because the law says they are and those who are slaves by nature , saying the inquiry hinges on whether there are any such natural slaves. Only someone as different from other people as the body is from the soul or beasts are from human beings would be a slave by nature, Aristotle concludes, all others being slaves solely by law or convention. Some scholars have therefore concluded that
12032-407: The polis to study the society and government of individual poleis, and bring the information back to document, placing the document in a political science section of the library. Only two documents have survived, Politics and Athenian Constitution . These are a part of any political science curriculum today. Both major ancient Greek philosophers were concerned with elucidating an existing aspect of
12160-472: The political synoecism and the physical synoecism, to events at the polis of Pleuron (Aetolia) described by Strabo . Pleuron, in danger of being sacked by the Macedonians, was officially moved up the slope of a nearby mountain, walled in, and named Newer Pleuron. This act was a physical synoecism. After the Macedonian threat vanished the former location was reinhabited and called Old Pleuron. The old and
12288-448: The power of speech as well as a sense of right and wrong, and can communicate judgements of good or bad to the community (I.10). A second metaphor compares a community to a human body: no part can function without the whole functioning (I.11). Men belong to communities because they have an instinct to do so (I.12). The polis is a hierarchy of community. At the most subordinate level is the family ( oikia ), which has priority of loyalty over
12416-419: The proper object of household rule is the virtuous character of one's wife and children, not the management of slaves or the acquisition of property. Rule over the slaves is despotic, rule over children kingly, and rule over one's wife political (except there is no rotation in office). Aristotle questions whether it is sensible to speak of the "virtue" of a slave and whether the "virtues" of a wife and children are
12544-409: The qualifications for natural slavery preclude the existence of such a being (though Aristotle was convinced that natural slaves were a thing). Aristotle then moves to the question of property in general, arguing that the acquisition of property does not form a part of household management ( οἰκονομική , oikonomikē ) and criticizing those who engage in excessive chrematistics . Wealth accumulation
12672-509: The regular laws which seem to govern them, as opposed to discussion about what it means to be natural, is the area of natural science . The word "nature" derives from Latin nātūra , a philosophical term derived from the verb for birth , which was used as a translation for the earlier ( pre-Socratic ) Greek term phusis , derived from the verb for natural growth. Already in classical times, philosophical use of these words combined two related meanings which have in common that they refer to
12800-504: The relinquishing of property to form the polis is advantageous, and the maximum advantage is maximum possession of common property by a polis. The principle of advantage is unity. The more united, the more advantageous (compare the action of a lever, which concentrates advantage). The ideal commun-ity would be commun-ism, the possession of all property by the community. Personal property, such as wives and children, are included (II.1). Aristotle argues that this eminent domain of all property
12928-512: The rest of the works of Aristotle , are often made by referring to the Bekker section numbers . Politics spans the Bekker sections 1252a to 1342b. In the first book, Aristotle discusses the city ( πόλις , polis ) or "political community" ( κοινωνία πολιτική , koinōnía politikē ) in comparison with other types of communities and partnerships such as the household ( οἶκος , oikos ),
13056-410: The result of any previous social evolution. They were the first municipal division of the city manufactured for the purpose. They were no sort of confederacy. Rome initially was ruled by Etruscan kings. Coulanges work was followed by the innovation of the English city-state by W. Warde Fowler in 1893. The Germans had already invented the word in their own language: Stadtstaat, "city-state", referring to
13184-544: The same as those of a man. He thinks that such people have their own sort of virtues, though not the same set as those of free men, and that even to the extent that they have virtues with the same names as those of free men, they mean somewhat different things. Book II examines various views concerning the best regime. It opens with an analysis of the regime presented in Plato 's Republic . Aristotle maintains that, contrary to Plato's assertions, communal share of property between
13312-427: The same category of Plato's indefinable abstracts, such as freedom and justice. However, there is a practical freedom and a practical justice, although not theoretically definable, and the ancient authors must mean something consistent when they use the word polis . The problem is to find it. In modern historiography of the ancient world πόλις is often transliterated to polis without any attempt to translate it into
13440-478: The same or similar. It is a figure of speech, the most general instance being sunoik-eioun, "to be associated with", its noun being sunoik-eiosis, the act of association. A second verb, sunoik-ein, "to live together," can mean individuals, as in marriage, or conjointly, as in a community. The community meaning appears in Herodotus. A closely related meaning, "to colonize jointly with", is found there also, and in
13568-480: The society in which they lived, the polis. Plato was more interested in the ideal; Aristotle, the real. Both had a certain view of what the polis was; that is, a conceptual model. All models must be tested, by definition. Aristotle, of course, could send direct observers. The only way to know a polis now is through study of the ancient literature (philology), and to some extent archaeology. There are thousands of pages of writing and certainly thousands of sites. The problem
13696-399: The sociology in favor of the New Plan, conclusions resulting from research on real constitutions. The difficulties with the Old Plan begin with the meaning of koinonizein, "to hold in common". Typically the authors of the Old Plan use the verb in such expressions as "those holding in common", "A holding in common", "the partnership", and the like, without specifying who is holding what or what
13824-420: The splitting (apoikia, "colonization") of families; that is, one village contains one or more extended families , or clans . A polis is a community of villages, but there must be enough of them to achieve or nearly achieve self-sufficiency. At this point of his theorization, Aristotle turns the "common" noun stem (koino-) into a verb, koinonizein, "to share" or "to own in common". He says: "A single city occupies
13952-409: The stages of timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and finally tyranny. Aristotle says that this is oversimplified, does not make theoretical sense, and fails the empirical test of looking at regime change in the historical record. History shows a much larger variety of transformations than these have taken place. Aristotle next looks more closely at democratic and at oligarchic constitutions. He begins with
14080-408: The state, which would send other members of the united polis to do the work. They would also be sent for any other task: plumbing, farming, herding, etc., as any task could be performed by any member. This view is contrary, as Aristotle points out, to the principle of division of labor . The output of one professional building crew far exceeds the efforts any number of amateur ideal statists, rendering
14208-399: The state... there is no law that embraces men of that calibre: they are themselves law." Indeed, a wise state might be better off showing such people the door so that they do not become sources of political instability. Finally, he returns to his division of varieties of constitution, and begins to analyze them in greater detail, beginning with varieties of monarchy/tyranny. He also explores
14336-420: The substance of natural objects; as in the case of those who say that the "nature" is the primary composition of a thing, or as Empedocles says: Of nothing that exists is there nature, but only mixture and separation of what has been mixed ; nature is but a name given to these by men. Hence as regards those things which exist or are produced by nature, although that from which they naturally are produced or exist
14464-488: The term. There were no doubt many ancient experts on the polis, but time has done its work. The one surviving expert, Aristotle, is thus an indispensable resource. A polis is identified as such by its standing as polis among the community of poleis. Poleis have ambassadors, can join or host the Hellenic Games, etc. According to Aristotle, their most essential characteristics are those that, if changed, would result in
14592-497: The threat is also usually to the monarch and not to the constitution: the revolutionaries want vengeance more than they want to seize power. Aristotle gives some advice about how to preserve and stabilize various types of constitutional order: Finally, Aristotle criticizes Plato's suggestion from the Republic that there is a natural lifecycle of constitutions in which they begin as aristocracies and then progressively decay through
14720-401: The throne turns out to be inept), when the tyranny confiscates property, or when someone has ambitions to seize some of the honor and riches the tyrant is hoarding. Some of this is similar to the sources of instability in other constitutional orders, but in a monarchy it's more personal: the target of the resentment is usually the monarch himself rather than the constitutional order. And therefore
14848-428: The treatise amount to the anthropological sense of property : land, animals, houses, wives, children, anything to which the right of access or disposition is reserved to the owner. This also happens to be Plato's concept of property, not an accident, as Aristotle was a renegade Platonist. The polis, then, is communal property. The theory of its tenancy is where Aristotle and Plato differ sharply. Plato had argued that
14976-521: The true descendants of the Trojans who with the aborigines had earlier formed the Latin people. They were not welcome among the Latins of Alba Longa, and so they had turned to raiding from their base in their seven hills. The myth supposes they had been nourished by a she-wolf and lived a wild life camping in the country. They were, however, supported by an ally. Evander had led a colony from Arcadia before
15104-408: The unknown past. All current citizenships must have had their first moments, typically when the law-maker had gotten his laws ratified, or the colony had broken with the metropolis. The ancient writers referred to these initial moments under any of several words produced with the same prefix, sunoik- (Latinized synoec-), "same house", meaning objects that are from now on to be grouped together as being
15232-408: The village], and nature is itself an end; for whatever is the end-product of the coming into existence of any object, that is what we call its nature… Moreover the aim and the end is perfection; and self-sufficiency [ αὐτάρκεια , autarkeia ] is both end and perfection. Aristotle discusses the parts of the household, which includes slaves. He considers whether slavery can ever be just and better for
15360-587: The way in which things happen by themselves, "naturally", without "interference" from human deliberation, divine intervention, or anything outside what is considered normal for the natural things being considered. Understandings of nature depend on the subject and age of the work where they appear. For example, Aristotle 's explanation of natural properties differs from what is meant by natural properties in modern philosophical and scientific works, which can also differ from other scientific and conventional usage. The Physics (from ta phusika "the natural [things]")
15488-626: The way particular humans are is partly caused by something called "human nature" is an essential step towards Aristotle 's teaching concerning causation , which became standard in all Western philosophy until the arrival of modern science. Whether it was intended or not, Aristotle's inquiries into this subject were long felt to have resolved the discussion about nature in favor of one solution. In this account, there are four different types of cause: The formal and final cause are an essential part of Aristotle's " Metaphysics " - his attempt to go beyond nature and explain nature itself. In practice they imply
15616-508: The wealthy to keep the lower classes satisfied with giving the wealthy more power (for example you can fine the wealthy for neglecting to serve on a jury but let the poor skip out without penalty). Aristotle next discusses the legislative element of government, which he says has the following responsibilities: The executive branch has more variety, depending on the particular government, its constitutional structure, and how its members are chosen. The judicial branch varies in this way as well. It
15744-401: The whole gamut of historical writers, Xenophon, Plato, Strabo, Plutarch; i.e., more or less continuously through all periods from Archaic to Roman. Associated nouns are sunoik-ia, sunoik-esion, sunoik-idion, sunoik-eses, sunoik-isis, a multiplication to be expected over centuries of a single language. These can all mean community in general, but they have two main secondary meanings, to institute
15872-408: The works of Homer and Hesiod in places attempt to portray an ideal state. The study took a great leap forward when Plato and the academy in general undertook to define what is meant by the good, or ideal, polis. Plato analyzes the polis in the Republic , the Greek title of which, Πολιτεία ( politeia ), itself derives from the word polis . The best form of government of the polis for Plato
16000-574: Was a Phoenician -speaking city. Many nominally Greek colonies also included municipalities of non-Greek speakers, such as Syracuse. The word polis is used in the first known work of Greek literature, the Iliad , a maximum of 350 times. The few hundred ancient Greek classical works on line at the Perseus Digital Library use the word thousands of times. The most frequent use is Dionysius of Halicarnassus , an ancient historian, with
16128-411: Was called a metropolis or "mother city". The Greeks were careful to identify the homeland region and the metropolis of a colony. Typically a metropolis could count on the socio-economic and military support of its colonies, but not always. The homeland regions were located on the Greek mainland. Each gave an ethnic or "racial" name to its population and poleis. Acarnania , for example was the location of
16256-411: Was the distinction between the accidental properties of a thing and the substance - another distinction which has lost favor in the modern era, after having long been widely accepted in medieval Europe. To describe it another way, Aristotle treated organisms and other natural wholes as existing at a higher level than mere matter in motion. Aristotle's argument for formal and final causes is related to
16384-594: Was usually limited to a minority of adult males. It included more responsibilities than the more passive matter-of-fact citizenship that is typical today. And it usually assumed that those who were citizens shared common goals, a common outlook, and a mutual interest in the success of the polis . Greece was divided politically into territories ruled by many independent city-states. These often formed alliances and sometimes centrally-governed confederations (particularly in times of war). Some developed colonies, both as ways of finding new agricultural land and as ways of giving
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