aristotle perspective about self essay

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Aristotle’s Concept of the Self

Aristotle was undoubtedly the most brilliant student of Plato. Yet, Aristotle diverged from most of Plato’s fundamental philosophies, especially on the concept of the self.

As we may already know, Plato is sure that the true self is the soul, not the body. And to be specific, the true self for Plato is the rational soul which is separable from the body. Aristotle’s concept of the self is quite the opposite.

Aristotle’s concept of the self is more complicated as he talked about so many things in this topic. However, there is one main theme in Aristotle’s narrative of the soul that guides us in understanding his concept of the self, that is, the human person is a “rational animal”. In other words, for Aristotle, the human person is simply an animal that thinks.

How did Aristotle come up with the idea that the human person is just an animal that thinks? His idea of the soul provides the key.

Aristotle defines the soul as the principle of life. And as the principle of life, it causes the body to live. This explains why for Aristotle all living beings have souls. Because for Aristotle all living beings have souls, then it follows that plants and animals (in addition to humans) have souls too. Thus, Aristotle distinguishes three levels of soul, namely, vegetative soul, sensitive soul, and rational soul.

According to Aristotle, the vegetative soul is found in plants, while the sensitive and rational souls are found in animals and humans respectively.

According to Aristotle, plants have souls because they possess the three basic requirements for something to be called a “living being”, that is, the capacity to grow, reproduce, and feed itself.

Sensitive souls also grow, reproduce, and feed themselves; but unlike vegetative souls, sensitive souls are capable of sensation.

Finally, rational souls grow, reproduce, feed themselves, and feel; but unlike the sensitive souls, rational souls are capable of thinking. According to Aristotle, this highest level of soul is present only in humans.

Since humans possess all the characteristics of animals, that is, the capacity to grow, reproduce, feed itself, and feel, in addition to being rational, Aristotle concludes that the human person is just an animal that thinks. As Aristotle’s famous dictum on the human person goes, “Man is a rational animal.”

Again, this explains why for Aristotle the human person is just an animal that thinks.

Now, for Aristotle, the human person is not a soul distinct from the body as Plato would have us believe. Aristotle argues that the self or the human person is a composite of body and soul and that the two are inseparable. Aristotle’s concept of the self, therefore, was constructed in terms of hylomorphism.

Aristotle views the soul as the “form” of the human body. And as “form” of the body, the soul is the very structure of the human body which allows humans to perform activities of life, such as thinking, willing, imagining, desiring, and perceiving.

While Aristotle believes that the human person is essentially body and soul, he was led to interpret the “true self” of humans as the soul that animates the body. However, Aristotle believes that the body is as important as the soul as it serves as “matter” to the soul.

Although Aristotle contends that the soul is the form of the body, he did not argue for the primacy of the former over the latter. Again, Aristotle’s concept of the self is hylomorphic, that is, the self or the human person is composed of body and soul. The two are inseparable. Thus, we cannot talk about the self with a soul only or a self with a body only. For Aristotle, the self is essentially body and soul. Indeed, for Aristotle, the self is a unified creature.

Hellenic values; a volunteer helps a refugee girl after arriving on an inflatable boat at Lesbos, Greece, March 2016. Photo by Alexander Koerner/Getty

Why read Aristotle today?

Modern self-help draws heavily on stoic philosophy. but aristotle was better at understanding real human happiness.

by Edith Hall   + BIO

In the Western world, only since the mid-18th century has it been possible to discuss ethical questions publicly without referring to Christianity. Modern thinking about morality, which assumes that gods do not exist, or at least do not intervene, is in its infancy. But the ancient Greeks and Romans elaborated robust philosophical schools of ethical thought for more than a millennium, from the first professed agnostics such as Protagoras (fifth century BCE) to the last pagan thinkers. The Platonists’ Academy at Athens was not finally closed down until 529 CE, by the Emperor Justinian.

That longstanding tradition of moral philosophy is an invaluable legacy of ancient Mediterranean civilisation. It has prompted several contemporary secular thinkers, faced with the moral vacuum left by the decline of Christianity since the late 1960s, to revive ancient schools of thought. Stoicism, founded in Athens by the Cypriot Zeno in about 300 BCE, has advocates. Self-styled Stoic organisations on both sides of the Atlantic offer courses, publish books and blogposts, and even run an annual Stoic Week. Some Stoic principles underlay Dale Carnegie’s self-help classic How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948). He recommended Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations to its readers. But authentic ancient Stoicism was pessimistic and grim. It denounced pleasure. It required the suppression of emotions and physical appetites. It recommended the resigned acceptance of misfortune, rather than active engagement with the fine-grained business of everyday problem-solving. It left little room for hope, human agency or constructive repudiation of suffering.

Less familiar is the recipe for happiness ( eudaimonia ) advocated by Aristotle, yet it has much to be said for it. Outside of philosophy departments, where neo-Aristotelian thinkers such as Philippa Foot and Rosalind Hursthouse have championed his virtue ethics as an alternative to utilitarianism and Kantian approaches, it is not as well known as it should be. At his Lyceum in Athens, Aristotle developed a model for the maximisation of happiness that could be implemented by individuals and whole societies, and is still relevant today. It became known as ‘peripatetic philosophy’ because Aristotle conducted philosophical debates while strolling in company with his interlocutors.

The fundamental tenet of peripatetic philosophy is this: the goal of life is to maximise happiness by living virtuously, fulfilling your own potential as a human, and engaging with others – family, friends and fellow citizens – in mutually beneficial activities. Humans are animals, and therefore pleasure in responsible fulfilment of physical needs (eating, sex) is a guide to living well. But since humans are advanced animals, naturally inclining to live together in settled communities ( poleis ), we are ‘political animals’ ( zoa politika ). Humans must take responsibility for their own happiness since ‘god’ is a remote entity, the ‘unmoved mover’ who might maintain the universe’s motion but has neither any interest in human welfare, nor any providential function in rewarding virtue or punishing immorality. Yet purposively imagining a better, happier life is feasible since humans have inborn abilities that allow them to promote individual and collective flourishing. These include the inclinations to ask questions about the world, to deliberate about action, and to activate conscious recollection.

Aristotle’s optimistic, practical recipe for happiness is ripe for rediscovery. It offers to the human race facing third-millennial challenges a unique combination of secular, virtue-based morality and empirical science, neither of which seeks answers in any ideal or metaphysical system beyond what humans can perceive by their senses.

B ut what did Aristotle mean by ‘happiness’ or eudaimonia ? He did not believe it could be achieved by the accumulation of good things in life – including material goods, wealth, status or public recognition – but was an internal, private state of mind. Yet neither did he believe it was a continuous sequence of blissful moods, because this could be enjoyed by someone who spent all day sunbathing or feasting. For Aristotle, eudaimonia required the fulfilment of human potentialities that permanent sunbathing or feasting could not achieve. Nor did he believe that happiness is defined by the total proportion of our time spent experiencing pleasure, as did Socrates’ student Aristippus of Cyrene.

Aristippus evolved an ethical system named ‘hedonism’ (the ancient Greek for pleasure is hedone ), arguing that we should aim to maximise physical and sensory enjoyment. The 18th-century utilitarian Jeremy Bentham revived hedonism in proposing that the correct basis for moral decisions and legislation was whatever would achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number. In his manifesto An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Bentham actually laid out an algorithm for quantitative hedonism, to measure the total pleasure quotient produced by any given action. The algorithm is often called the ‘hedonic calculus’. Bentham spelled out the variables: how intense is the pleasure? How long will it last? Is it an inevitable or only possible result of the action I am considering? How soon will it happen? Will it be productive and give rise to further pleasure? Will it guarantee no painful consequences? How many people will experience it?

Bentham’s disciple, John Stuart Mill, pointed out that such ‘quantitative hedonism’ did not distinguish human happiness from the happiness of pigs, which could be provided with incessant physical pleasures. So Mill introduced the idea that there were different levels and types of pleasure. Bodily pleasures that we share with animals, such as the pleasure we gain from eating or sex, are ‘lower’ pleasures. Mental pleasures, such as those we derive from the arts, intellectual debate or good behaviour, are ‘higher’ and more valuable. This version of hedonist philosophical theory is usually called prudential hedonism or qualitative hedonism.

Train yourself to be the best possible version of yourself until you do the right thing habitually, on autopilot

There are few philosophers advocating hedonist theories today, but in the public understanding, when ‘happiness’ is not defined as the possession of a set of ‘external’ or ‘objective’ good things such as money and career success, it describes a subjective hedonistic experience – a transient state of elation. The problem with both such views, for Aristotle, is that they neglect the importance of fulfilling one’s potential. He cites approvingly the primordial Greek maxim that nobody can be called happy until he is dead: nobody wants to end up believing on his deathbed that he didn’t fulfil his potential. In her book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying (2011), the palliative nurse Bronnie Ware describes exactly the hazards that Aristotle advises us to avoid. Dying people say: ‘I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.’ John F Kennedy summed up Aristotelian happiness thus: ‘the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope’.

For Aristotle insisted that happiness is constituted by something greater from and different to an accumulation of agreeable experiences. To be happy, we need to sustain constructive activities that we believe are goal-directed. This requires conscious analysis of our goals and conduct, and practising ‘virtue ethics’, by ‘living well’. It requires being nurtured effectively to develop your intellectual and physical capacities, and identify your potential (Aristotle had strong views on education), and also training yourself to be the best possible version of yourself until you do the right thing habitually, on autopilot. If you deliberately respond in a friendly way to everyone you encounter, you will begin to do so unconsciously, making yourself and others happier.

Historically, of course, many philosophers, such as Egoists, have questioned whether virtue is inherently desirable. But, since the mid-20th century, others rehabilitated virtue ethics and focused intensively on Aristotle’s ideas: unfortunately, this academic interest has yet to achieve any real public presence in broader culture in the way that Stoicism has.

S ome thinkers today distinguish between two sub-categories of virtue: between virtues such as courage, honesty and integrity, which affect your own and your community’s happiness; and ‘benevolence virtues’ such as kindness and compassion, which benefit others but are less obviously likely to gratify the agent. But Aristotle, for whom self-liking is necessary to virtue, argues that virtues do have intrinsic benefits, a view he shares with Socrates, the Stoics and the Victorian philosopher Thomas Hill Green. For part of his life, Aristotle lived in the Macedonian court tyrannised by the decadent and ruthless Philip II, whose lieutenants and concubines resorted to plots, extortion and murder to further their self-advantage. He knew what an immoral person looks like, and that such people were often subjectively miserable, despite the outward trappings of wealth and success. In the Nicomachean Ethics , he wrote (all translations my own):

Nobody would call a man ideally happy if he has not got a particle of courage nor of temperance nor of decency nor of good sense, but is afraid of the flies that flutter by him, cannot refrain from any of the most outrageous actions in order to gratify a desire to eat or to drink, and ruins his dearest friends for the sake of a penny …

Aristotle says that if happiness is not god-sent, ‘then it comes as the result of a goodness, along with a learning process, and effort’. Every human being can practise a way of life that will make him happier. Aristotle is not offering a magic wand to erase all threats to happiness. There are indeed some qualifications to the universal capacity for pursuing happiness. He accepts that there are certain kinds of advantage that you either have or you don’t. If you have the bad luck to have been born very low down the socio-economic ladder, or have no children or other family or loved ones, or are extremely ugly, your circumstances, which you can’t avoid, as he puts it, ‘taint’ delight. It is harder to achieve happiness. But not impossible. You do not need material possessions or physical strength or beauty to start exercising your mind in company with Aristotle, since the way of life he advocates concerns a moral and psychological excellence rather than one that lies in material possessions or bodily splendour. There are, he acknowledges, even more difficult obstacles: having children or friends who are completely depraved is one such obstacle. Another – which Aristotle saves until last and elsewhere implies is the most difficult problem any human can ever face – is the loss of fine friends in whom you have invested effort, or especially the loss of children, through death.

Yet, potentially, even people poorly endowed by nature or who have experienced terrible bereavements can live a good life. It is possible to undergo even apparently unendurable disasters and still live well: ‘even in adversity goodness shines through, when someone endures repeated and severe misfortune with patience; this is not owing to insensibility but from generosity and greatness of soul.’ In this sense, Aristotle’s is a deeply optimistic moral system. And it has practical relevance to ‘everyone’, implied by Aristotle’s inclusive use of the first personal plural: ‘This sort of philosophy is different from most other types of philosophy, since we are not asking what goodness is for the sake of knowing what it is, but with the aim of becoming good, without which our enquiry would be useless.’ In fact, the only way to be a good person is to do good things and treat people with fairness recurrently.

Aristotle insists that individuals who want to treat others fairly need to love themselves

Friendships are important to the Aristotelian, and adopting virtue ethics need not disrupt your life. An Aristotelian goal is moral self-sufficiency so that you are invulnerable to psychological manipulation, but he recognises that even the most self-sufficient person’s life is enhanced by having friends, and writes brilliantly on different types of relationship, from marriage or its equivalents to reciprocal cooperation between co-workers and fellow citizens. We might be able to cope alone, but why would we ever choose isolation? Moreover, you need no ‘natural talent’ at virtue, indeed Aristotle says that we are not born either good or bad. Nor is it ever too late: you can decide to retrain yourself morally at any point in your life. Most appealing of all, Aristotle insists that individuals who want to treat others fairly need to love themselves . There is no room for self-hatred, self-flagellation or self-deprivation in his humane system. Aristotle saw long before Sigmund Freud that our biological instincts are natural rather than morally despicable. This makes his ethics compatible with modern psychoanalysis.

An innovative Aristotelian idea is that supposedly reprehensible emotions – even anger and vengefulness – are indispensable to a healthy psyche. In this respect, Aristotle’s philosophy contrasts with the Stoic view that, for example, anger is irrational, and a form of temporary madness that should be eliminated. It’s just that such emotions need to be present in the right amount, the ‘middle’ or ‘mean’. Sexual desire, since humans are animals, is excellent in proportion. Either excessive or insufficient sexual appetite is conducive to unhappiness. Anger is also essential to a flourishing personality. An apathetic individual who never gets angry will not stand up for herself or her dependents when appropriate, and can’t achieve happiness. Yet anger in excess or with the wrong people is a vice.

Aristotle’s ethics are inherently flexible. There are no strict doctrines. Intention is always a crucial gauge of right behaviour: he writes penetratingly about the problems that arise when intended altruistic ends require immoral means. But every ethical situation is different. One person might jump on a train without a ticket because he is rushing to see a child who is in hospital; another might methodically dodge fares when she’s commuting to a well-paid job. Aristotle thought that general principles are important, but without taking into account the specific circumstances, especially intention, general principles can mislead. This is why he distrusted fixed penalties. He believed that the principle of equity needed to be integral to the judiciary, which is why some Aristotelians call themselves ‘moral particularists’. Each dilemma requires detailed engagement with the nuts and bolts of its particulars. When it comes to ethics, the devil really can be in the detail.

Politically speaking, a basic education in Aristotelianism could benefit humanity as a whole. Aristotle is positive about democracy, with which he finds fewer faults than other constitutions. Unlike his elitist tutor Plato, who was skeptical about the intelligence of the lower classes, Aristotle believed that the greatest experts on any given topic (eg zoology, of which he is the acknowledged founding father) are likely to be those who have accumulated experience of that topic (eg farmers, bird-catchers, shepherds and fishermen), however low their social status; scholarship must be informed by what they say. The trust that Aristotle felt in humanity’s general good sense enabled him to conceive a prototype of the ‘smart mob’ – a group that, rather than behaving in the loutish manner often associated with crowds, draws on universally distributed intelligence to behave with maximum efficiency. The idea, introduced by Howard Rheingold in Smart Mobs (2003), was anticipated in Aristotle’s Politics : where many people come together to deliberate, and become ‘a single person with many feet and many hands and many senses, so also it becomes one personality as regards the moral and intellectual faculties’.

A ristotle was the first philosopher to make explicit the distinction between doing wrong by omission and by commission . Not doing something when it is right to do it can have just as bad effects as a misdemeanour. This vital ethical principle has ramifications for the way in which we assess public figures. We do ask whether politicians have ever slipped up. But how often do we ask what they have not done with their power and influence to improve societal wellbeing? We do not ask enough what politicians, business leaders, presidents of universities and funding councils have failed to do, the initiatives that they have never launched, thus abnegating the duties of leadership. Aristotle was also clear that rich people who do not use a significant proportion of their wealth to help others are unhappy (because they are not acting according to the virtuous mean between fiscal irresponsibility and financial meanness). But they are also guilty of injustice by omission.

Aristotle is a utopian. He imagines the possibility that everyone will one day be able to realise his potential and make full use of all his faculties (the distinctive ‘Aristotelian principle’ according to the political philosopher John Rawls). Aristotle envisages a futuristic world in which technological advances would render human labour unnecessary. He remembers the mythical craftsmen Daedalus and Hephaestus, who constructed robots that worked to order: ‘for if every tool could perform its own work when ordered, or by seeing what to do in advance, like the statues of Daedalus in the story, or the automatic tripods of Hephaestus … if shuttles could weave like this, and plectrums strum harps of their own accord, master-craftsmen would have no need of assistants and masters no need of slaves’. It is almost as if he anticipated modern developments in artificial intelligence.

Aristotle’s political theory is flexible. You can be a capitalist or socialist, a businesswoman or a charity worker, vote for (almost) any political party, and still be a consistent Aristotelian. However, Aristotelian capitalists need to find indigence among their fellow citizens intolerable. Aristotle knew that humans come into conflict when commodities are scarce: ‘poverty is the parent of revolution and crime’. In his insistence on grounding political theory in humanity’s basic needs, Aristotle conceived the most advanced economic ideas ever to have appeared in his time, which was why Karl Marx admired him. Aristotle agrees with the recommendation in Plato’s Laws that gross inequality in assets owned by citizens produces divisive litigation and revolting obsequiousness towards the super-rich. Yet Aristotelian socialists need to acknowledge that extending compulsory public ownership to domestic accommodation does not work. People look after things because they enjoy the sense of private ownership, and because the things have value for them; both these qualities are diluted if shared with others. Aristotle thinks that ‘everybody loves a thing more if it has cost him trouble’.

Scientists and classicists agree: Aristotle would be an environmental campaigner today

A climate-change denier could find no encouragement in Aristotle. As a natural scientist who believed in meticulous research based on repeated acts of empirical observation and rigorous examination of hypotheses, he would be alarmed at the current evidence of human-caused environmental damage. The first reference to the extinction of a species by human activity (over-fishing) occurs in Aristotle’s The History of Animals . By seeing humans as animals, he effected a transformation in the ethical relationship between us and our material environment that has unlimited significance. His commitment to living planned lives in a deliberated way, taking long-term and total responsibility for our physical survival as well as our mental happiness, would, scientists and classicists agree, make him an environmental campaigner today. Only humans have moral agency, and therefore, as co-inhabitants of planet Earth with an astounding number of plants and animals, have the unique responsibility for conservation. But humans also have the capacity, because of their unique mental endowment, to cause terrible damage: as Aristotle said, drawing a chilling distinction, a bad man can do 10,000 times more harm than an animal.

The applicability of Aristotle’s holistic ethical and scientific outlook to our 21st-century problems such as theocracy and pollution prompts the question of why is there so little public awareness of his ideas. One is certainly his much-cited prejudices against women and slaves. He was a well-to-do male householder, and in his Politics he endorses slavery in the case of Greeks enslaving non-Greeks, and pronounces that women are incapable of reasoned deliberation. Yet he would have entertained reasoned arguments to the contrary, if backed up by empirical evidence. In every field of knowledge, he argued that all beliefs must be perpetually open to adjustment: ‘medicine has been improved by being altered from the ancestral system, and gymnastic training, and in general all the arts and faculties’. The laws the Greeks used to live by ‘were too simple and uncivilised’: he cites as examples the obsolete practices of purchasing wives and bearing of arms by citizens. He insists that law-codes need revision, ‘because it is impossible that the structure of the state can have been framed correctly for all time in relation to all its details’.

Yet the most important reason why Aristotle is so unfamiliar is that his surviving works are advanced treatises, written in specialist academic language for his colleagues and students. In fact, he did write several famous works for the public, in accessible, flowing prose that encouraged many thousands of ancient Greeks and Romans, over 10 centuries, to become practising virtue ethicists. They included peasant farmers and cobblers as well as kings and statesmen. This is because, as Themistius, one of the greatest ancient commentators on Aristotle, insisted, he was simply ‘more useful to the mass of people’ than other thinkers. The same still holds. The philosopher Robert J Anderson wrote in 1986: ‘There is no ancient thinker who can speak more directly to the concerns and anxieties of contemporary life than can Aristotle. Nor is it clear that any modern thinker offers as much for persons living in this time of uncertainty.’

One of the reasons why Stoicism is enjoying a revival today is that it gives concrete answers to moral questions. Aristotle’s ethical writings, however, contain few explicit instructions about how to act. Aristotelians need to take full responsibility in deciding what is the right way to behave and in repeatedly exerting their own judgment. The chief benefit that Aristotle can bestow on us today, which makes him so useful and practically applicable, is his alternative conception of ‘happiness’. It cannot be acquired by pleasurable experiences but only by identifying and realising our own potential, moral and creative, in our specific environments, with our particular family, friends and colleagues, and helping others to do so. We need to review both what we choose to do and what we avoid doing, because wrongs caused by omission can be just as destructive as those we commit. This involves embracing emotional impulses but also ensuring that we are using them as guides to what is good rather than letting them dictate our actions. And we need to do these thing continuously, since cultivating virtue, and the happiness that comes with this approach to life, can never be anything less than a lifelong goal.

Thinkers and theories

Our tools shape our selves

For Bernard Stiegler, a visionary philosopher of our digital age, technics is the defining feature of human experience

Bryan Norton

The cell is not a factory

Scientific narratives project social hierarchies onto nature. That’s why we need better metaphors to describe cellular life

Charudatta Navare

Stories and literature

Terrifying vistas of reality

H P Lovecraft, the master of cosmic horror stories, was a philosopher who believed in the total insignificance of humanity

Sam Woodward

The dangers of AI farming

AI could lead to new ways for people to abuse animals for financial gain. That’s why we need strong ethical guidelines

Virginie Simoneau-Gilbert & Jonathan Birch

A man beyond categories

Paul Tillich was a religious socialist and a profoundly subtle theologian who placed doubt at the centre of his thought

Public health

It’s dirty work

In caring for and bearing with human suffering, hospital staff perform extreme emotional labour. Is there a better way?

Susanna Crossman

6.2 Self and Identity

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Apply the dilemma of persistence to self and identity.
• Outline Western and Eastern theological views of self.
• Describe secular views of the self.
• Describe the mind-body problem.

Today, some might think that atomism and Aristotle’s teleological view have evolved into a theory of cells that resolves the acorn-oak tree identity problem. The purpose, or ergon, of both the acorn and the oak tree are present in the zygote, the cell that forms when male and female sex cells combine. This zygote cell contains the genetic material, or the instructions, for how the organism will develop to carry out its intended purpose.

But not all identity problems are so easily solved today. What if the author of this chapter lived in a house as a child, and years later, after traveling in the highly glamorous life that comes with being a philosopher, returned to find the house had burned down and been rebuilt exactly as it had been. Is it the same home? The generic questions that center on how we should understand the tension between identity and persistence include:

• Can a thing change without losing its identity?
• If so, how much change can occur without a loss of identity for the thing itself?

This section begins to broach these questions of identity and self.

The Ship of Theseus

Consider the following thought experiment. Imagine a wooden ship owned by the hero Theseus. Within months of launching, the need to replace decking would be evident. The salt content of sea water is highly corrosive. Accidents can also happen. Within a common version of the thought experiment, the span of one thousand years is supposed. Throughout the span, it is supposed that the entire decking and wooden content of the ship will have been replaced. The name of the ship remains constant. But given the complete change of materials over the assumed time span, in what sense can we assert that the ship is the same ship? We are tempted to conceptualize identity in terms of persistence, but the Ship of Theseus challenges the commonly held intuition regarding how to make sense of identity.

Similarly, as our bodies develop from zygote to adult, cells die and are replaced using new building materials we obtain though food, water, and our environment. Given this, are we the same being as we were 10 or 20 years ago? How can we identify what defines ourselves? What is our essence? This section examines answers proposed by secular and religious systems of belief.

Write Like a Philosopher

Watch the video “ Metaphysics: Ship of Theseus ” in the series Wi-Phi Philosophy . You will find five possible solutions for making sense of the thought experiment. Pick one solution and explain why the chosen solution is the most salient. Can you explain how the strengths outweigh the stated objections—without ignoring the objections?

Judeo-Christian Views of Self

The common view concerning identity in Judeo-Christian as well as other spiritual traditions is that the self is a soul. In Western thought, the origin of this view can be traced to Plato and his theory of forms. This soul as the real self solves the ship of Theseus dilemma, as the soul continuously exists from zygote or infant and is not replaced by basic building materials. The soul provides permanence and even persists into the afterlife.

Much of the Christian perspective on soul and identity rested on Aristotle’s theory of being, as a result of the work of St. Thomas Aquinas . Aquinas, a medieval philosopher, followed the Aristotelian composite of form and matter but modified the concept to fit within a Christianized cosmology. Drawing upon portions of Aristotle’s works reintroduced to the West as a result of the Crusades, Aquinas offered an alternative philosophical model to the largely Platonic Christian view that was dominant in his day. From an intellectual historical perspective, the reintroduction of the Aristotelian perspective into Western thought owes much to the thought of Aquinas.

In Being and Essence , Aquinas noted that there was a type of existence that was necessary and uncaused and a type of being that was contingent and was therefore dependent upon the former to be brought into existence. While the concept of a first cause or unmoved mover was present within Aristotle’s works, Aquinas identified the Christian idea of God as the “unmoved mover.” God, as necessary being, was understood as the cause of contingent being. God, as the unmoved mover, as the essence from which other contingent beings derived existence, also determined the nature and purpose driving all contingent beings. In addition, God was conceived of as a being beyond change, as perfection realized. Using Aristotelian terms, we could say that God as Being lacked potentiality and was best thought of as that being that attained complete actuality or perfection—in other words, necessary being.

God, as the ultimate Good and Truth, will typically be understood as assigning purpose to the self. The cosmology involved is typically teleological—in other words, there is a design and order and ultimately an end to the story (the eschaton ). Members of this tradition will assert that the Divine is personal and caring and that God has entered the narrative of our history to realize God’s purpose through humanity. With some doctrinal exception, if the self lives the good life (a life according to God’s will), then the possibility of sharing eternity with the Divine is promised.

Think Like a Philosopher

Watch this discussion with Timothy Pawl on the question of eternal life, part of the PBS series Closer to the Truth , “ Imagining Eternal Life ”.

Is eternal life an appealing prospect? If change is not possible within heaven, then heaven (the final resting place for immortal souls) should be outside of time. What exactly would existence within an eternal now be like? In the video, Pawl claimed that time has to be present within eternity. He argued that there must be movement from potentiality to actuality. How can that happen in an eternity?

Hindu and Buddhist Views of Self

Within Hindu traditions, atman is the term associated with the self. The term, with its roots in ancient Sanskrit, is typically translated as the eternal self, spirit, essence, soul, and breath (Rudy, 2019). Western faith traditions speak of an individual soul and its movement toward the Divine. That is, a strong principle of individuation is applied to the soul. A soul is born, and from that time forward, the soul is eternal. Hinduism, on the other hand, frames atman as eternal; atman has always been. Although atman is eternal, atman is reincarnated. The spiritual goal is to “know atman” such that liberation from reincarnation ( moksha ) occurs.

Hindu traditions vary in the meaning of brahman . Some will speak of a force supporting all things, while other traditions might invoke specific deities as manifestations of brahman . Escaping the cycle of reincarnation requires the individual to realize that atman is brahman and to live well or in accordance with dharma , observing the code of conduct as prescribed by scripture, and karma , actions and deeds. Union of the atman with brahman can be reach though yoga, meditation, rituals, and other practices.

Buddha rejected the concept of brahman and proposed an alternate view of the world and the path to liberation. The next sections consider the interaction between the concepts of Atman (the self) and Brahman (reality).

The Doctrine of Dependent Origination

Buddhist philosophy rejects the concept of an eternal soul. The doctrine of dependent origination , a central tenet within Buddhism, is built on the claim that there is a causal link between events in the past, the present, and the future. What we did in the past is part of what happened previously and is part of what will be.

The doctrine of dependent origination (also known as interdependent arising) is the starting point for Buddhist cosmology. The doctrine here asserts that not only are all people joined, but all phenomena are joined with all other phenomena. All things are caused by all other things, and in turn, all things are dependent upon other things. Being is a nexus of interdependencies. There is no first cause or prime mover in this system. There is no self—at least in the Western sense of self—in this system (O’Brien 2019a).

The Buddhist Doctrine of No Self ( Anatman )

One of many distinct features of Buddhism is the notion of anatman as the denial of the self. What is being denied here is the sense of self expressed through metaphysical terms such as substance or universal being. Western traditions want to assert an autonomous being who is strongly individuated from other beings. Within Buddhism, the “me” is ephemeral.

Listen to the podcast “ Graham Priest on Buddhism and Philosophy ” in the series Philosophy Bites.

Suffering and Liberation

Within Buddhism, there are four noble truths that are used to guide the self toward liberation. An often-quoted sentiment from Buddhism is the first of the four noble truths . The first noble truth states that “life is suffering” ( dukkha ).

But there are different types of suffering that need to be addressed in order to understand more fully how suffering is being used here. The first meaning ( dukkha-dukkha ) is commensurate with the ordinary use of suffering as pain. This sort of suffering can be experienced physically and/or emotionally. A metaphysical sense of dukkha is viparinama-dukkha . Suffering in this sense relates to the impermanence of all objects. It is our tendency to impose permanence upon that which by nature is not, or our craving for ontological persistence, that best captures this sense of dukkha. Finally, there is samkhara-dukkha , or suffering brought about through the interdependency of all things.

Building on an understanding of “suffering” informed only by the first sense, some characterize Buddhism as “life is suffering; suffering is caused by greed; suffering ends when we stop being greedy; the way to do that is to follow something called the Eightfold Path” (O’Brien 2019b). A more accurate understanding of dukkha within this context must include all three senses of suffering.

The second of the noble truths is that the cause of suffering is our thirst or craving ( tanha ) for things that lack the ability to satisfy our craving. We attach our self to material things, concepts, ideas, and so on. This attachment, although born of a desire to fulfill our internal cravings, only heightens the craving. The problem is that attachment separates the self from the other. Through our attachments, we lose sight of the impermanence not only of the self but of all things.

The third noble truth teaches that the way to awakening ( nirvana ) is through a letting go of the cravings. Letting go of the cravings entails the cessation of suffering ( dukkha ).

The fourth truth is founded in the realization that living a good life requires doing, not just thinking. By living in accordance with the Eightfold Path, a person may live such that “every action of body, mind, and speech” are geared toward the promotion of dharma.

Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths

Part of the BBC Radio 4 series A History of Ideas , this clip is narrated by Steven Fry and scripted by Nigel Warburton.

The Five Aggregates

How might the self ( atman ) experience the world and follow a path toward liberation? Buddhist philosophy posits five aggregates ( skandhas ), which are the thoughtful and iterative processes, through which the self interacts with the world.

• Form ( rupa ): the aggregate of matter, or the body.
• Sensation ( vedana ): emotional and physical feelings.
• Perception ( samjna ): thinking, the processing of sense data; “knowledge that puts together.”
• Mental formation ( samskara ): how thoughts are processed into habits, predispositions, moods, volitions, biases, interests, etc. The fourth skandhas is related to karma, as much of our actions flow from these elements.
• Consciousness ( vijnana ): awareness and sensitivity concerning a thing that does not include conceptualization.

Although the self uses the aggregates, the self is not thought of as a static and enduring substance underlying the processes. These aggregates are collections that are very much subject to change in an interdependent world.

Secular Notions of Self

In theology, continuity of the self is achieved through the soul. Secular scholars reject this idea, defining self in different ways, some of which are explored in the next sections.

Bundle Theory

One of the first and most influential scholars in the Western tradition to propose a secular concept of self was Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776). Hume formed his thoughts in response to empiricist thinkers’ views on substance and knowledge. British philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) offered a definition of substance in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In Book XXIII, Locke described substance as “a something, I know not what.” He asserted that although we cannot know exactly what substance is, we can reason from experience that there must be a substance “standing under or upholding” the qualities that exist within a thing itself. The meaning of substance is taken from the Latin substantia , or “that which supports.”

If we return to the acorn and oak example, the reality of what it means to be an oak is rooted in the ultimate reality of what it means to be an oak tree. The ultimate reality, like the oak’s root system, stands beneath every particular instance of an oak tree. While not every tree is exactly the same, all oak trees do share a something, a shared whatness, that makes an oak an oak. Philosophers call this whatness that is shared among oaks a substance.

Arguments against a static and enduring substance ensued. David Hume’s answer to the related question of “What is the self?” illustrates how a singular thing may not require an equally singular substance. According to Hume, the self was not a Platonic form or an Aristotelian composite of matter and form. Hume articulated the self as a changing bundle of perceptions. In his Treatise of Human Nature (Book 1, Part IV), Hume described the self as “a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.”

Hume noted that what has been mistaken for a static and enduring self was nothing more than a constantly changing set of impressions that were tied together through their resemblance to one another, the order or predictable pattern (succession) of the impressions, and the appearance of causation lent through the resemblance and succession. The continuity we experience was not due to an enduring self but due to the mind’s ability to act as a sort of theater: “The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations” (Hume 1739, 252).

Which theories of self—and substance—should we accept? The Greek theories of substance and the theological theories of a soul offer advantages. Substance allows us to explain what we observe. For example, an apple, through its substance, allows us to make sense of the qualities of color, taste, the nearness of the object, etc. Without a substance, it could be objected that the qualities are merely unintelligible and unrelated qualities without a reference frame. But bundle theory allows us to make sense of a thing without presupposing a mythical form, or “something I know not what!” Yet, without the mythical form of a soul, how do we explain our own identities?

Anthropological Views

Anthropological views of the self question the cultural and social constructs upon which views of the self are erected. For example, within Western thought, it is supposed that the self is distinct from the “other.” In fact, throughout this section, we have assumed the need for a separate and distinct self and have used a principle of continuity based on the assumption that a self must persist over time. Yet, non-Western cultures blur or negate this distinction. The African notion of ubuntu , for example, posits a humanity that cannot be divided. The Nguni proverb that best describes this concept is “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” sometimes translated as “a person is a person through other persons” (Gade 2011). The word ubuntu is from the Zulu language, but cultures from southern Africa to Tanzania, Kenya, and Democratic Republic of the Congo all have words for this concept. Anthropological approaches attempt to make clear how the self and the culture share in making meaning.

The Mind as Self

Many philosophers, Western and non-Western, have equated the self to the mind. But what is the mind? A monist response is the mind is the brain. Yet, if the mind is the brain, a purely biological entity, then how do we explain consciousness? Moreover, if we take the position that the mind is immaterial but the body is material, we are left with the question of how two very different types of things can causally affect the other. The question of “How do the two nonidentical and dissimilar entities experience a causal relationship?” is known as the mind-body problem. This section explores some alternative philosophical responses to these questions.

Physicalism

Reducing the mind to the brain seems intuitive given advances in neuroscience and other related sciences that deepen our understanding of cognition. As a doctrine, physicalism is committed to the assumption that everything is physical. Exactly how to define the physical is a matter of contention. Driving this view is the assertion that nothing that is nonphysical has physical effects.

Listen to the podcast “ David Papineau on Physicalism ” in the series Philosophy Bites.

Focus on the thought experiment concerning what Mary knows. Here is a summary of the thought experiment:

Mary is a scientist and specializes in the neurophysiology of color. Strangely, her world has black, white, and shades of gray but lacks color (weird, but go with it!). Due to her expertise, she knows every physical fact concerning colors. What if Mary found herself in a room in which color as we experience it is present? Would she learn anything? A physicalist must respond “no”! Do you agree? How would you respond?

John Locke and Identity

In place of the biological, Locke defined identity as the continuity lent through what we refer to as consciousness. His approach is often referred to as the psychological continuity approach, as our memories and our ability to reflect upon our memories constitute identity for Locke. In his Essay on Human Understanding , Locke (as cited by Gordon-Roth 2019) observed, “We must consider what Person stands for . . . which, I think, is a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider it self as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places.” He offered a thought experiment to illustrate his point. Imagine a prince and cobbler whose memories (we might say consciousness) were swapped. The notion is far-fetched, but if this were to happen, we would assert that the prince was now the cobbler and the cobbler was now the prince. Therefore, what individuates us cannot be the body (or the biological).

John Locke on Personal Identity

Part of the BBC Radio 4 series A History of Ideas , this clip is narrated by Gillian Anderson and scripted by Nigel Warburton.

The Problem of Consciousness

Christof Koch (2018) has said that “consciousness is everything you experience.” Koch offered examples, such as “a tune stuck in your head,” the “throbbing pain from a toothache,” and “a parent’s love for a child” to illustrate the experience of consciousness. Our first-person experiences are what we think of intuitively when we try to describe what consciousness is. If we were to focus on the throbbing pain of a toothache as listed above, we can see that there is the experiencing of the toothache. Curiously, there is also the experiencing of the experiencing of the toothache. Introspection and theorizing built upon first-person inspections affords vivid and moving accounts of the things experienced, referred to as qualia .

An optimal accounting of consciousness, however, should not only explain what consciousness is but should also offer an explanation concerning how consciousness came to be and why consciousness is present. What difference or differences does consciousness introduce?

Listen to the podcast “ Ted Honderich on What It Is to Be Conscious ,” in the series Philosophy Bites.

Rene Descartes and Dualism

Dualism , as the name suggests, attempts to account for the mind through the introduction of two entities. The dualist split was addressed earlier in the discussion of substance. Plato argued for the reality of immaterial forms but admitted another type of thing—the material. Aristotle disagreed with his teacher Plato and insisted on the location of the immaterial within the material realm. How might the mind and consciousness be explained through dualism?

Mind Body Dualism

A substance dualist, in reference to the mind problem, asserts that there are two fundamental and irreducible realities that are needed to fully explain the self. The mind is nonidentical to the body, and the body is nonidentical to the mind. The French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) offered a very influential version of substance dualism in his 1641 work Meditations on First Philosophy. In that work, Descartes referred to the mind as a thinking thing ( res cogitans ) and the body as an extended nonthinking thing ( res extensa ). Descartes associated identity with the thinking thing. He introduced a model in which the self and the mind were eternal.

Behaviorism

There is a response that rejects the idea of an independent mind. Within this approach, what is important is not mental states or the existence of a mind as a sort of central processor, but activity that can be translated into statements concerning observable behavior (Palmer 2016, 122). As within most philosophical perspectives, there are many different “takes” on the most correct understanding. Behaviorism is no exception. The “hard” behaviorist asserts that there are no mental states. You might consider this perspective the purist or “die-hard” perspective. The “soft” behaviorist, the moderate position, does not deny the possibility of minds and mental events but believes that theorizing concerning human activity should be based on behavior.

Before dismissing the view, pause and consider the plausibility of the position. Do we ever really know another’s mind? There is some validity to the notion that we ought to rely on behavior when trying to know or to make sense of the “other.” But if you have a toothache, and you experience myself being aware of the qualia associated with a toothache (e.g., pain, swelling, irritability, etc.), are these sensations more than activities? What of the experience that accompanies the experience?

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• Authors: Nathan Smith
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Introduction to Philosophy
• Publication date: Jun 15, 2022
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-philosophy/pages/1-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-philosophy/pages/6-2-self-and-identity

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16 Aristotle on Memory and the Self

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This essay argues that Aristotle’s view of memory is more like that of the modern psychologist than that of a modern philosopher; he is more interested in accurately delineating different kinds of memory than in discussing philosophical problems of memory. The short treatise On Memory and Recollection is considered a treatise on memory and loosely associated phenomenon and recollection. It is suggested that this work is better regarded as a treatise on two kinds of memory.

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Configuring the Moral Self: Aristotle and Dewey

• Published: 19 June 2008
• Volume 13 , pages 239–250, ( 2008 )

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• Nicholas O. Pagan 1  

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Focusing on the concept of “the moral self” this essay explores relationships between Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and John Dewey’s moral pragmatism and tries to evaluate the extent to which in his work on ethics Aristotle may be considered a pragmatist. Aristotle foreshadows pragmatism, for example, in preferring virtue-based to rule-based ethics, in contending that the moral status of a person’s actions and the nature of the person’s selfhood are interdependent, and in stressing the key role of habits in character formation. Aristotle, however, may seem far from the status of pragmatist when he privileges the life of contemplation and posits a moral self that is more static than the one proposed by Dewey. This essay contends that if more attention is paid to Aristotle’s treatment of friendship and to his highlighting of the need for reciprocity then the moral self that emerges from Nicomachean Ethics becomes more dialectical and more at one with that proposed by the American pragmatist. Aristotle, then, may be regarded as setting Dewey on the path towards a model of moral self that is not only deeply concerned about the lives of others but that is also dependent on others for its own existence.

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Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics is abbreviated as NE (Please see footnote 2).

John Dewey (1976–1983). The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899–1924 . Ed. Jo Ann Boydston. 15 vols. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press) is abbreviated as MW (Please see footnote 3).

John Dewey (1981–1990). The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925–1953 . Ed. Jo Ann Boydston. 17 vols. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press) is abbreviated as LW (Please see footnote 3).

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Pagan, N.O. Configuring the Moral Self: Aristotle and Dewey. Found Sci 13 , 239–250 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-008-9137-8

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Aristotle - Contemporary Perspectives on his Thought

On the 2400th anniversary of aristotle's birth.

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• Language: English
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• Audience: Scholars and students of Aristotle, Ancient Philosophy, Classical Studies, Humanities, Aristotle and Contemporary Thought.
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Plato and the Divided Self

Peter lautner , pázmány péter catholic university. [email protected].

The volume is a collection of papers delivered on different occasions, mostly at two conferences held at University of Toronto and Cornell respectively.

In Plato, the ‘true self’ is discussed in the context of knowledge and embodiment, and involves the view that we acquire our true self when we activate our latent knowledge of the Forms. The question is whether the sheer fact of embodied existence does not raise an insurmountable obstacle to our reaching this state. Iakovos Vasiliou distinguishes two positions. In the Phaedo , philosophers search for wisdom but do not achieve it; possession of wisdom awaits death. By contrast, in the Republic philosophers are supposed to attain knowledge while embodied in the world. Wisdom involves knowledge of Forms. The citizens of the lower two classes in the ideal state described there, however, will be more similar to the philosophers described in the Phaedo . They recognize that Forms are not identical with sensible things or properties, and also recognize that sensible things have properties in virtue of participating in the relevant Form, but they cannot give an account of the Form. The relation between wisdom and the other virtues in the Phaedo is also a complicated issue, tackled thoroughly in the paper. One might claim that, by saying that wisdom is a purifying rite (69c3), whereas courage and temperance are purifications, Plato seems to attribute an instrumental role to wisdom. In that case, wisdom might not be chosen for its own sake only. The situation described in the Phaedo will be paradoxical since, if full wisdom is acquired upon death only, and courage and temperance depend on wisdom, then courage and temperance will be acquired upon death, with no practical relevance anymore.

Louis-André Dorion sets himself a threefold aim: to discuss the link between the virtue of self-mastery (ἐγκράτεια) and the partition of the soul in the Republic , to show that such a link is to be found in the Gorgias as well, and to explain why Plato never fully rehabilitates ἐγκράτεια. Tripartition, he argues, is not necessary for ἐγκράτεια since bipartition would already be sufficient: indeed, the bipartite scheme in the Gorgias allows for an assimilation of self-government (ἑαυτοῦ ἄρχειν, 491d9) to self-mastery (ἐγκρατῆ αὐτὸν ἑαυτοῦ, 491d12) with regard to pleasures. But we only ever get a partial ‘rehabilitation’ of ἐγκράτεια even in the Republic since, conceived of as a distinct force, ἐγκράτεια would be without purpose. It is reason, supported by the spirited part, that is ultimately responsible for controlling the passions.

The tripartition of the soul in the Republic invites the question, discussed by Eric Brown, of whether we are allowed to talk about the unity of the soul. According to Brown’s argument, there is a unity which is complex, both serving as the locus of moral responsibility and explaining the unity of consciousness. The complexity is shown by the ‘argument from conflict’, restated at 439b3-6, which allows a human agent to move in one part but stay still in another. The unity of the soul is a function of the order or harmony of its parts. The harmony is produced by the parts as they are causally related to one another. To me, this seems to be an excessively normative notion of unity and one may ask for an explanation of the unity of disharmonious souls. The principle of psychological hegemony serves to account for the rule of desire/spirit in the soul, but does not explain normative unity.

In order to explain the unity of the soul, we have to be clear about the nature of its parts. Rachana Kamtekar argues that Plato’s psychology represents our motivations as themselves person-like. They are personified to the extent that all three parts of the soul are considered subjects of desires and beliefs which can initiate movement. Personification is a persistent feature of Plato’s psychology and can be explained with reference to his protreptic to philosophical virtue. In contrast to civic virtue (430a-c), philosophical virtue does develop the best of our abilities and requires the disciplining of the others. We find the same model in the Phaedrus as well, and Kamtekar claims that the treatment of the soul here is quite similar to Plato’s treatment of stories about the gods in the Republic . She supposes that the immortality and the self-motion of the soul act as a kind of constraint on the content of a likely account, analogous to the god’s goodness in the Republic .

Tad Brennan focuses on one part of the soul, the spirited, and invites us to think about it from the point of view of psychogony. He argues that the introduction of the spirited soul can be best understood as a reaction to the threats posed by the appetitive soul. All of its functions involve a response to its potentially harmful activities. It works as a bond between appetite and reason and has two roles, since it deals with manifestations of appetitive activity in other people as well in oneself. The former function leads, among other things, to competitive virtues and a sensitivity to honour, while the control of our own appetites leads to moderation. Distribution of appetitive goods is tied to the system of honour. As honour can sometimes act as a value that is opposed to appetite, so spirit can choose honour instead of pleasure. The fact that the spirit responds to the concept of οἰκεῖον, referring to the cohesiveness of social groupings, shows that Plato attributes a cognitive content to spirit (116). As a kind of objection one may ask about the origin of this content. If it is the rational soul, how shall we explain the possible conflict between reason and spirit? 1

James Wilberding focuses on the education of appetite. He argues that ὁμοδοξία in the soul involves the appetitive part containing a sort of belief; it is in some sense capable of conceptualization (although this differs from reasoning). Moreover, it develops an attitude towards the abstract claim of following the guidance of reason, which happens by habituation. The Timaeus offers a good parallel (47e5-48a5 where necessity is persuaded the intellect), while Proclus’ commentary on Alcibiades I helps to elucidate different kinds of education, which are adjusted to the various parts of the soul ( in Alc. I 193.21-194.17). Wilberding takes it to support his interpretation of the Republic that appetite is trained by γυμναστική, understood as diet, and not physical exercise. We might add that the Timaeus passage highlights the limits of habituation since intellect can persuade necessity to a certain extent only.

Raphael Woolf discusses the passage on the true nature of the soul in Rep. 10, 611b9-612a6, and shows that the analogy between Glaucus and the soul is far from clear. The accretions on the sea-god cannot be likened to appetite and spirit, which are genuine parts of the soul. What is more, Socrates has doubts about whether even an immortal soul must be simple, which come from a methodological difficulty rather than metaphysical assumptions. It would be easy if we could infer that the soul must be incomposite because it is immortal; but that conclusion would have to be revoked were one to discover a soul that, in addition to being immortal, is in fact composite. Such a discovery would show that the two features are compatible. Justice poses a special problem, since in Book 4 it is defined as a harmony of the three parts. Even so, Socrates’ methodological prescription for seeing the soul in its unencrusted state leaves undetermined the soul’s relation to justice and injustice. Justice must bear on happiness and the Glaucus passage presents a challenge to explain the relation more precisely.

Jennifer Whiting reads the Republic as allowing for ‘radical psychic contingency’, involving (1) contingency of the internal structure the soul-parts have in any given individual, and (2) contingency in the number of soul-parts belonging to any individual soul. (2) means that the Republic can permit a model such as that described in the Phaedo : the model described in the Republic itself is meant to refer to the soul of most folk. Based on Book 4, 443c10-e2, Whiting argues that the only agent-like thing in a person is the person himself; that Plato is open to the possibility of there being more than three parts in the embodied soul; and also that many psychic parts might become one. The argument from opposites in Republic 4 allows for the possibility of there being, between reason and appetite, more than one element which is partly but not fully responsible to reason. Even appetite is doubled since its form in corrupt souls differs from the form it has in well-ordered souls, although a difference between the collective and distributive use of the term ἐπιθυμία can take different forms.

Developments after the Republic are discussed in four papers. Frisbee Sheffield examines the accounts of ἔρως in the Symposium and the Phaedrus . Her aim is to show that these dialogues do not provide evidence for the commonly held view that Plato revised – or even renounced – the account he gave the tripartite soul. The Symposium does not contain any psychological commitment alternative to the notion of threefold soul, or incompatible with it. Moreover, the supposedly intellectualistic strand of the Symposium needs to be re- evaluated since even though Plato had an intellectualistic view of ἔρως, the dialogue avoids a more general claim about desire as such. On the other hand, the Phaedrus may also lack a clear commitment to the tripartite soul; the difference lies between the three distinct kinds of movement or desire. Furthermore, the view on ἔρως in the Symposium was not revised or recant substantially. The concept of rational desire was held throughout in these dialogues. Reason has no need to borrow desiderative forces elsewhere in the soul.

Hendrik Lorenz suggests that in the Timaeus Plato supplies appetite with cognitive resources even if he denies understanding or belief to it. It is equipped not only with information through sense-perception, but also with ϕαντασία. The nature of the liver is an important factor since it transmits – but does not reshape – the pictorial accounts formulated by reason. One might raise the question of how appetite is connected to sense-perception directly. After all, the physiology of perception suggests that it is connected to the brain, which implies that sensory information also reaches the appetite via reason. But if so, how do its pictures differ from the ones given by ϕαντασία?

Pictures are examined by Jessica Moss too, who doubts if we are entitled to generalize the claim made in the Republic that the seats of passions are the non-rational parts of the soul. She points out that both in the Philebus and in the Timaeus passions are endowed with cognitive characteristics. They can respond to evaluative appearances (distinguishing between good and bad) and, in the Philebus , are judgments that something is the case. Rational desires, pleasures and ἔρως are formed by cognition that is not image-based but rational. Hence Plato anticipates much of what Aristotle says in the Rhetoric .

Luc Brisson asks two questions: is there a radical shift between the Republic and the Laws concerning ethics and politics, and does Plato renounce the tripartition of the soul and the state? He shows that the threefold division is present in the Laws . Brisson argues that the position on ethics and politics in the Laws is much the same as in the Republic . Even if one agrees with the overall claim, it may be interesting to see that, e.g., the relation of the four cardinal virtues to one another (see Laws 1. 631b-d) differs from the one we find in Republic 4.

The section on developments after Plato is meagre, but consists of fine contributions. Jan Opsomer examines Plutarch’s theory of the world soul and human soul, showing that their structure is identical, and that both have a kinetic and cognitive aspect. In discussing Plato’s tripartition in De virt. mor. , Plutarch manages to reconcile it with his own twofold division by saying that both appetite and spirit belong to the non-rational part of the soul. The non-rational is an essential part of human nature and its cure of excessive passions is our moral task. This also shows that Plutarch’s theory of the soul is intimately linked to his ethics which promotes moderation in passions.

Unlike Plutarch, Galen is committed to the Platonic division. 3 Drawing on his arguments for tripartition in PHP , Mark Schiefsky examines the psychological and physiological sides of the theory. As sources of motivation, the psychic parts are situated in the brain, the heart and the liver, which are the principles of the three main duct systems of the body: the nerves, the arteries and the veins respectively. To prove it, especially in the case of the liver, Galen faced considerable difficulties, and his explanation of ἀκρασία seems also problematic.

Relying on Enn. VI 8.6.19-22, Eyólfur Kjalar Emilsson analyses Plotinus’ view of the link between soul and external action. Plotinus emphasizes internal activity, that is thinking and contemplation, and argues that it is hard to see how virtuous action can be ‘up to us’ since Plotinus believes that, as an event in the physical world, action is determined externally. It can only be ‘up to us’ insofar as it flows from internal activity: such action then is like an image of a paradigm, a view to be linked with Republic 443c. But there is no clear link between a harmonious soul and the nature of the action. It simply happens that some actions bolster and preserve internal harmony whereas others have the opposite effect since actions are determined by external forces. Plotinus does not account for the reason why some are harmful.

The volume is welcome addition to the study of ancient moral psychology. It is supplied with bibliography and two indices.

1 . Interestingly enough, the argument from conflict in Republic 4 is not applied to the relation between spirit and reason explicitly, except for the claim that bad upbringing may be the cause of their possible conflict.

2 . Woolf also claims that the main function of reason is deliberation. The claim may need to be modified since ruling and deliberating go together, and in 442c6 reason is said to command (παρήγγελλεν) and it must rule, which is due to its share in σωϕροσύνη (442c10-12).

3 . Although not in Meth. med. 9.10. I owe this point to a reader at BMCR.

The Perception of the Self according to Socrates Essay

The perception of the self, according to Socrates explains the nature of man and the rationale on which man thinks. Socrates believed that, man is a product of his thoughts. Socrates questioned the way we attach importance to what people say without understanding the principle of individual thinking.

The capacity of a man is a product of the self in him; this formed the basis of Socrates argument. He emphasized that; man must believe in his or her principles and should not follow the wagon effect of the society. We find ourselves in situations that will require our careful examination, but we often accept what people say on the issue. Socrates proposed that logical thoughts would be more productive than accepting a patterned way of doing things.

The product of logical thinking is a patterned thought which is not influenced by the majority. To further his arguments, Socrates proposed a method of logical thinking. He believed that this would help each person evaluate his or her actions and thoughts based on the strength of logical thinking (Noe 4).

• Critically examine people’s comment and assumption: The common belief should be subjected to examination. The belief that it pays to work hard or that marriage makes a man responsible.
• Put forward a reversal to these statements: It is true that the society follows fashioned assumptions. One should be able to find a reversal to these assumptions. Provide a proof that man can be responsible without being married, and show that hard work do not always pay in the end. These reversals to a patterned way of life will help an individual build his or her confidence.
• There are no credible statements than yours: When you are able to fine the reversals to the statements, you will conclude that many statements and assumptions are misleading. This will help you build your confidence in logical thinking.
• Formulate your statements from observations: The examination of logical thinking will provide the basis of new statements. Marriage can make a responsible man live happily and wrong work is different from hard work.
• Develop yourself: Make it a habit to always examine the statements of people and find the reversal to those statements.

The strength of a man is weighed by his actions and statements; this is the defining principle on which we must stand. Socrates argued that philosophy can be analyzed not only by the elites, but by the common man. The ability to make a statement devoid of what people think or say is a product of self.

Socrates emphasized that the human soul is immortal and is a product of different perceptions. Socrates believed that the human soul exists in two forms; the transformation realm and the constant position. The evil in the human mind is a product of the benefits he or she imagined. An individual will act based on his or her perceived thoughts which is based on what good he or she will derive from the action (Noe 3).

In conclusion, we are what we think of ourselves and we must act accordingly. Socrates provided examples to show that philosophical thinking can be done even by the common man. Logical thinking is the ability to examine each statement independently not minding the opinion of the majority.

Works Cited

Noe, Alva 2009, Direct Perception . Web.

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IvyPanda. (2023, October 28). The Perception of the Self according to Socrates. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-perception-of-the-self-according-to-socrates/

"The Perception of the Self according to Socrates." IvyPanda , 28 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/the-perception-of-the-self-according-to-socrates/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'The Perception of the Self according to Socrates'. 28 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "The Perception of the Self according to Socrates." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-perception-of-the-self-according-to-socrates/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Perception of the Self according to Socrates." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-perception-of-the-self-according-to-socrates/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Perception of the Self according to Socrates." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-perception-of-the-self-according-to-socrates/.

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Aristotle’s Political Theory

Aristotle (b. 384–d. 322 BCE), was a Greek philosopher, logician, and scientist. Along with his teacher Plato, Aristotle is generally regarded as one of the most influential ancient thinkers in a number of philosophical fields, including political theory. Aristotle was born in Stagira in northern Greece, and his father was a court physician to the king of Macedon. As a young man he studied in Plato’s Academy in Athens. After Plato’s death he left Athens to conduct philosophical and biological research in Asia Minor and Lesbos, and he was then invited by King Philip II of Macedon to tutor his young son, Alexander the Great. Soon after Alexander succeeded his father, consolidated the conquest of the Greek city-states, and launched the invasion of the Persian Empire. Aristotle returned as a resident alien to Athens, and was a close friend of Antipater, the Macedonian viceroy. At this time (335–323 BCE) he wrote, or at least worked on, some of his major treatises, including the Politics . When Alexander died suddenly, Aristotle had to flee from Athens because of his Macedonian connections, and he died soon after. Aristotle’s life seems to have influenced his political thought in various ways: his interest in biology seems to be reflected in the naturalism of his politics; his interest in comparative politics and his qualified sympathies for democracy as well as monarchy may have been encouraged by his travels and experience of diverse political systems; he reacts critically to his teacher Plato, while borrowing extensively, from Plato’s Republic , Statesman , and Laws ; and his own Politics is intended to guide rulers and statesmen, reflecting the high political circles in which he moved.

Supplement: Characteristics and Problems of Aristotle’s Politics

Supplement: Presuppositions of Aristotle’s Politics

Supplement: Political Naturalism

4. Study of Specific Constitutions

5. aristotle and modern politics, glossary of aristotelian terms, a. greek text of aristotle’s politics, b. english translations of aristotle’s politics, c. anthologies, d. single-authored commentaries and overviews, e. studies of particular topics, other internet resources, related entries, 1. political science in general.

The modern word ‘political’ derives from the Greek politikos , ‘of, or pertaining to, the polis’. (The Greek term polis will be translated here as ‘city-state’. It is also commonly translated as ‘city’ or simply anglicized as ‘polis’. City-states like Athens and Sparta were relatively small and cohesive units, in which political, religious, and cultural concerns were intertwined. The extent of their similarity to modern nation-states is controversial.) Aristotle’s word for ‘politics’ is politikê , which is short for politikê epistêmê or ‘political science’. It belongs to one of the three main branches of science, which Aristotle distinguishes by their ends or objects. Contemplative science (including physics and metaphysics) is concerned with truth or knowledge for its own sake; practical science with good action; and productive science with making useful or beautiful objects ( Top . VI.6.145a14–16, Met . VI.1.1025b24, XI.7.1064a16–19, EN VI.2.1139a26–8). Politics is a practical science, since it is concerned with the noble action or happiness of the citizens (although it resembles a productive science in that it seeks to create, preserve, and reform political systems). Aristotle thus understands politics as a normative or prescriptive discipline rather than as a purely empirical or descriptive inquiry.

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle describes his subject matter as ‘political science’, which he characterizes as the most authoritative science. It prescribes which sciences are to be studied in the city-state, and the others — such as military science, household management, and rhetoric — fall under its authority. Since it governs the other practical sciences, their ends serve as means to its end, which is nothing less than the human good. “Even if the end is the same for an individual and for a city-state, that of the city-state seems at any rate greater and more complete to attain and preserve. For although it is worthy to attain it for only an individual, it is nobler and more divine to do so for a nation or city-state” ( EN I.2.1094b7–10). The two ethical works (the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics ) explain the principles that form the foundations for the Politics : that happiness is the highest human good, that happiness is the activity of moral virtue defined in terms of the mean, and that justice or the common advantage is the political good. Aristotle’s political science thus encompasses the two fields which modern philosophers distinguish as ethics and political philosophy. (See the entry on Aristotle’s ethics .) Political philosophy in the narrow sense is roughly speaking the subject of his treatise called the Politics . For a further discussion of this topic, see the following supplementary document:

2. Aristotle’s View of Politics

Political science studies the tasks of the politician or statesman ( politikos ), in much the way that medical science concerns the work of the physician (see Politics IV.1). It is, in fact, the body of knowledge that such practitioners, if truly expert, will also wield in pursuing their tasks. The most important task for the politician is, in the role of lawgiver ( nomothetês ), to frame the appropriate constitution for the city-state. This involves enduring laws, customs, and institutions (including a system of moral education) for the citizens. Once the constitution is in place, the politician needs to take the appropriate measures to maintain it, to introduce reforms when he finds them necessary, and to prevent developments which might subvert the political system. This is the province of legislative science, which Aristotle regards as more important than politics as exercised in everyday political activity such as the passing of decrees (see EN VI.8).

Aristotle frequently compares the politician to a craftsman. The analogy is imprecise because politics, in the strict sense of legislative science, is a form of practical knowledge, while a craft like architecture or medicine is a form of productive knowledge. However, the comparison is valid to the extent that the politician produces, operates, maintains a legal system according to universal principles ( EN VI.8 and X.9). In order to appreciate this analogy it is helpful to observe that Aristotle explains the production of an artifact such as a drinking cup in terms of four causes: the material, formal, efficient, and final causes ( Phys . II.3 and Met . A.2). For example, clay (material cause) is molded into a roughly cylindrical shape closed at one end (formal cause) by a potter (efficient or moving cause) so that it can contain a beverage (final cause). (For discussion of the four causes see the entry on Aristotle’s physics .)

One can also explain the existence of the city-state in terms of the four causes. It is a kind of community ( koinônia ), that is, a collection of parts having some functions and interests in common ( Pol . II.1.1261a18, III.1.1275b20). Hence, it is made up of parts, which Aristotle describes in various ways in different contexts: as households, or economic classes (e.g., the rich and the poor), or demes (i.e., local political units). But, ultimately, the city-state is composed of individual citizens (see III.1.1274a38–41), who, along with natural resources, are the “material” or “equipment” out of which the city-state is fashioned (see VII.14.1325b38–41).

The formal cause of the city-state is its constitution ( politeia ). Aristotle defines the constitution as “a certain ordering of the inhabitants of the city-state” (III.1.1274b32–41). He also speaks of the constitution of a community as “the form of the compound” and argues that whether the community is the same over time depends on whether it has the same constitution (III.3.1276b1–11). The constitution is not a written document, but an immanent organizing principle, analogous to the soul of an organism. Hence, the constitution is also “the way of life” of the citizens (IV.11.1295a40–b1, VII.8.1328b1–2). Here the citizens are that minority of the resident population who possess full political rights (III.1.1275b17–20).

The existence of the city-state also requires an efficient cause, namely, its ruler. On Aristotle’s view, a community of any sort can possess order only if it has a ruling element or authority. This ruling principle is defined by the constitution, which sets criteria for political offices, particularly the sovereign office (III.6.1278b8–10; cf. IV.1.1289a15–18). However, on a deeper level, there must be an efficient cause to explain why a city-state acquires its constitution in the first place. Aristotle states that “the person who first established [the city-state] is the cause of very great benefits” (I.2.1253a30–1). This person was evidently the lawgiver ( nomothetês ), someone like Solon of Athens or Lycurgus of Sparta, who founded the constitution. Aristotle compares the lawgiver, or the politician more generally, to a craftsman ( dêmiourgos ) like a weaver or shipbuilder, who fashions material into a finished product (II.12.1273b32–3, VII.4.1325b40–1365a5).

The notion of final cause dominates Aristotle’s Politics from the opening lines:

Since we see that every city-state is a sort of community and that every community is established for the sake of some good (for everyone does everything for the sake of what they believe to be good), it is clear that every community aims at some good, and the community which has the most authority of all and includes all the others aims highest, that is, at the good with the most authority. This is what is called the city-state or political community. [I.1.1252a1–7]

Soon after, he states that the city-state comes into being for the sake of life but exists for the sake of the good life (2.1252b29–30). The theme that the good life or happiness is the proper end of the city-state recurs throughout the Politics (III.6.1278b17–24, 9.1280b39; VII.2.1325a7–10).

To sum up, the city-state is a hylomorphic (i.e., matter-form) compound of a particular population (i.e., citizen-body) in a given territory (material cause) and a constitution (formal cause). The constitution itself is fashioned by the lawgiver and is governed by politicians, who are like craftsmen (efficient cause), and the constitution defines the aim of the city-state (final cause, IV.1.1289a17–18). Aristotle’s hylomorphic analysis has important practical implications for him: just as a craftsman should not try to impose a form on materials for which it is unsuited (e.g. to build a house out of sand), the legislator should not lay down or change laws which are contrary to the nature of the citizens. Aristotle accordingly rejects utopian schemes such as the proposal in Plato’s Republic that children and property should belong to all the citizens in common. For this runs afoul of the fact that “people give most attention to their own property, less to what is communal, or only as much as falls to them to give attention” ( Pol. II.3.1261b33–5). Aristotle is also wary of casual political innovation, because it can have the deleterious side-effect of undermining the citizens’ habit of obeying the law (II.8.1269a13–24). For a further discussion of the theoretical foundations of Aristotle’s politics, see the following supplementary document:

It is in these terms, then, that Aristotle understands the fundamental normative problem of politics: What constitutional form should the lawgiver establish and preserve in what material for the sake of what end?

3. General Theory of Constitutions and Citizenship

Aristotle states, “The politician and lawgiver is wholly occupied with the city-state, and the constitution is a certain way of organizing those who inhabit the city-state” (III.1.1274b36–8). His general theory of constitutions is set forth in Politics III. He begins with a definition of the citizen ( politês ), since the city-state is by nature a collective entity, a multitude of citizens. Citizens are distinguished from other inhabitants, such as resident aliens and slaves; and even children and seniors are not unqualified citizens (nor are most ordinary workers). After further analysis he defines the citizen as a person who has the right ( exousia ) to participate in deliberative or judicial office (1275b18–21). In Athens, for example, citizens had the right to attend the assembly, the council, and other bodies, or to sit on juries. The Athenian system differed from a modern representative democracy in that the citizens were more directly involved in governing. Although full citizenship tended to be restricted in the Greek city-states (with women, slaves, foreigners, and some others excluded), the citizens were more deeply enfranchised than in modern representative democracies because they were more directly involved in governing. This is reflected in Aristotle’s definition of the citizen (without qualification). Further, he defines the city-state (in the unqualified sense) as a multitude of such citizens which is adequate for a self-sufficient life (1275b20–21).

Aristotle defines the constitution ( politeia ) as a way of organizing the offices of the city-state, particularly the sovereign office (III.6.1278b8–10; cf. IV.1.1289a15–18). The constitution thus defines the governing body, which takes different forms: for example, in a democracy it is the people, and in an oligarchy it is a select few (the wealthy or well born). Before attempting to distinguish and evaluate various constitutions Aristotle considers two questions. First, why does a city-state come into being? He recalls the thesis, defended in Politics I.2, that human beings are by nature political animals, who naturally want to live together. For a further discussion of this topic, see the following supplementary document:

Aristotle then adds, “The common advantage also brings them together insofar as they each attain the noble life. This is above all the end for all both in common and separately” (III.6.1278b19–24). Second, what are the different forms of rule by which one individual or group can rule over another? Aristotle distinguishes several types of rule, based on the nature of the soul of the ruler and of the subject. He first considers despotic rule, which is exemplified in the master-slave relationship. Aristotle thinks that this form of rule is justified in the case of natural slaves who (he asserts without evidence) lack a deliberative faculty and thus need a natural master to direct them (I.13.1260a12; slavery is defended at length in Politics I.4–8). Although a natural slave allegedly benefits from having a master, despotic rule is still primarily for the sake of the master and only incidentally for the slave (III.6.1278b32–7). (Aristotle provides no argument for this: if some persons are congenitally incapable of governing themselves, why should they not be ruled primarily for their own sakes?) He next considers paternal and marital rule, which he also views as defensible: “the male is by nature more capable of leadership than the female, unless he is constituted in some way contrary to nature, and the elder and perfect [is by nature more capable of leadership] than the younger and imperfect” (I.12.1259a39–b4).

Aristotle is persuasive when he argues that children need adult supervision because their rationality is “imperfect” ( ateles ) or immature. But he is unconvincing to modern readers when he alleges (without substantiation) that, although women have a deliberative faculty, it is “without authority” ( akuron ), so that females require male supervision (I.13.1260a13–14). (Aristotle’s arguments about slaves and women appear so weak that some commentators take them to be ironic. However, what is obvious to a modern reader need not have been so to an ancient Greek, so that it is not necessary to suppose Aristotle’s discussion is disingenuous.) It is noteworthy, however, that paternal and marital rule are properly practiced for the sake of the ruled (for the sake of the child and of the wife respectively), just as arts like medicine or gymnastics are practiced for the sake of the patient (III.6.1278b37–1279a1). In this respect they resemble political rule, which is the form of rule appropriate when the ruler and the subject have equal and similar rational capacities. This is exemplified by naturally equal citizens who take turns at ruling for one another’s advantage (1279a8–13). This sets the stage for the fundamental claim of Aristotle’s constitutional theory: “constitutions which aim at the common advantage are correct and just without qualification, whereas those which aim only at the advantage of the rulers are deviant and unjust, because they involve despotic rule which is inappropriate for a community of free persons” (1279a17–21).

The distinction between correct and deviant constitutions is combined with the observation that the government may consist of one person, a few, or a multitude. Hence, there are six possible constitutional forms ( Politics III.7):

This six-fold classification (which is doubtless adapted from Plato’s Statesman 302c–d) sets the stage for Aristotle’s inquiry into the best constitution, although it is modified in various ways throughout the Politics . For example, he observes that the dominant class in oligarchy (literally rule of the oligoi , i.e., few) is typically the wealthy, whereas in democracy (literally rule of the dêmos , i.e., people) it is the poor, so that these economic classes should be included in the definition of these forms (see Politics III.8, IV.4, and VI.2 for alternative accounts). Also, polity is later characterized as a kind of “mixed” constitution typified by rule of the “middle” group of citizens, a moderately wealthy class between the rich and poor ( Politics IV.11).

Aristotle’s constitutional theory is based on his theory of justice, which is expounded in Nicomachean Ethics book V. Aristotle distinguishes two different but related senses of “justice” — universal and particular — both of which play an important role in his constitutional theory. Firstly, in the universal sense “justice” means “lawfulness” and is concerned with the common advantage and happiness of the political community ( NE V.1.1129b11–19, cf. Pol. III.12.1282b16–17). The conception of universal justice undergirds the distinction between correct (just) and deviant (unjust) constitutions. But what exactly the “common advantage” ( koinê sumpheron ) entails is a matter of scholarly controversy. Some passages imply that justice involves the advantage of all the citizens; for example, every citizen of the best constitution has a just claim to private property and to an education ( Pol. VII.9.1329a23–4, 13.1332a32–8). But Aristotle also allows that it might be “in a way” just to ostracize powerful citizens even when they have not been convicted of any crimes (III.13.1284b15–20). Whether Aristotle understands the common advantage as safeguarding the interests of each and every citizen has a bearing on whether and to what extent he anticipates what moderns would understand as a theory of individual rights. (See Fred Miller and Richard Kraut for differing interpretations.)

Secondly, in the particular sense “justice” means “equality” or “fairness”, and this includes distributive justice, according to which different individuals have just claims to shares of some common asset such as property. Aristotle analyzes arguments for and against the different constitutions as different applications of the principle of distributive justice (III.9.1280a7–22). Everyone agrees, he says, that justice involves treating equal persons equally, and treating unequal persons unequally, but they do not agree on the standard by which individuals are deemed to be equally (or unequally) meritorious or deserving. He assumes his own analysis of distributive justice set forth in Nicomachean Ethics V.3: Justice requires that benefits be distributed to individuals in proportion to their merit or desert. The oligarchs mistakenly think that those who are superior in wealth should also have superior political rights, whereas the democrats hold that those who are equal in free birth should also have equal political rights. Both of these conceptions of political justice are mistaken in Aristotle’s view, because they assume a false conception of the ultimate end of the city-state. The city-state is neither a business enterprise to maximize wealth (as the oligarchs suppose) nor an association to promote liberty and equality (as the democrats maintain). Instead, Aristotle argues, “the good life is the end of the city-state,” that is, a life consisting of noble actions (1280b39–1281a4). Hence, the correct conception of justice is aristocratic, assigning political rights to those who make a full contribution to the political community, that is, to those with virtue as well as property and freedom (1281a4–8). This is what Aristotle understands by an “aristocratic” constitution: literally, the rule of the aristoi , i.e., best persons. Aristotle explores the implications of this argument in the remainder of Politics III, considering the rival claims of the rule of law and the rule of a supremely virtuous individual. Here absolute kingship is a limiting case of aristocracy. Again, in books VII-VIII, Aristotle describes the ideal constitution in which the citizens are fully virtuous.

Although justice is in Aristotle’s view the foremost political virtue ( Pol . III.9.1283a38–40), the other great social virtue, friendship, should not be overlooked, because the two virtues work hand in hand to secure every sort of association ( EN VIII.9.1159b26–7). Justice enables the citizens of a city-state to share peacefully in the benefits and burdens of cooperation, while friendship holds them together and prevents them from breaking up into warring factions (cf. Pol . II.4.1262b7–9). Friends are expected to treat each other justly, but friendship goes beyond justice because it is a complex mutual bond in which individuals choose the good for others and trust that others are choosing the good for them (cf. EE VII.2.1236a14–15, b2–3; EN VIII.2.1155b34–3.1156a10). Because choosing the good for one another is essential to friendship and there are three different ways in which something can be called ‘good’ for a human being—virtuous (i.e., good without qualification), useful, or pleasant—there are three types of friendship: hedonistic, utilitarian, and virtuous. Political (or civic) friendship is a species of utilitarian friendship, and it is the most important form of utilitarian friendship because the polis is the greatest community. Opposed to political friendship is enmity, which leads to faction or civil war ( stasis ) or even to political revolution and the breakup of the polis, as discussed in Book V of the Politics. Aristotle offers general accounts of political or civic friendship as part of his general theory of friendship in EE VII.10 and EN VIII.9–12.

The purpose of political science is to guide “the good lawgiver and the true politician” (IV.1.1288b27). Like any complete science or craft, it must study a range of issues concerning its subject matter. For example, gymnastics (physical education) studies what sort of training is best or adapted to the body that is naturally the best, what sort of training is best for most bodies, and what capacity is appropriate for someone who does not want the condition or knowledge appropriate for athletic contests. Political science studies a comparable range of constitutions (1288b21–35): first, the constitution which is best without qualification, i.e., “most according to our prayers with no external impediment”; second, the constitution that is best under the circumstances “for it is probably impossible for many persons to attain the best constitution”; third, the constitution which serves the aim a given population happens to have, i.e., the one that is best “based on a hypothesis”: “for [the political scientist] ought to be able to study a given constitution, both how it might originally come to be, and, when it has come to be, in what manner it might be preserved for the longest time; I mean, for example, if a particular city happens neither to be governed by the best constitution, nor to be equipped even with necessary things, nor to be the [best] possible under existing circumstances, but to be a baser sort.” Hence, Aristotelian political science is not confined to the ideal system, but also investigates the second-best constitution or even inferior political systems, because this may be the closest approximation to full political justice which the lawgiver can attain under the circumstances.

Regarding the constitution that is ideal or “according to prayer,” Aristotle criticizes the views of his predecessors in the Politics and then offers a rather sketchy blueprint of his own in Politics VII–VIII. Although his own political views were influenced by his teacher Plato, Aristotle is highly critical of the ideal constitution set forth in Plato’s Republic on the grounds that it overvalues political unity, it embraces a system of communism that is impractical and inimical to human nature, and it neglects the happiness of the individual citizens ( Politics II.1–5). In contrast, in Aristotle’s “best constitution,” each and every citizen will possess moral virtue and the equipment to carry it out in practice, and thereby attain a life of excellence and complete happiness (see VII.13.1332a32–8). All of the citizens will hold political office and possess private property because “one should call the city-state happy not by looking at a part of it but at all the citizens.” (VII.9.1329a22–3). Moreover, there will be a common system of education for all the citizens, because they share the same end ( Pol . VIII.1).

If (as is the case with most existing city-states) the population lacks the capacities and resources for complete happiness, however, the lawgiver must be content with fashioning a suitable constitution ( Politics IV.11). The second-best system typically takes the form of a polity (in which citizens possess an inferior, more common grade of virtue) or mixed constitution (combining features of democracy, oligarchy, and, where possible, aristocracy, so that no group of citizens is in a position to abuse its rights). Aristotle argues that for city-states that fall short of the ideal, the best constitution is one controlled by a numerous middle class which stands between the rich and the poor. For those who possess the goods of fortune in moderation find it “easiest to obey the rule of reason” ( Politics IV.11.1295b4–6). They are accordingly less apt than the rich or poor to act unjustly toward their fellow citizens. A constitution based on the middle class is the mean between the extremes of oligarchy (rule by the rich) and democracy (rule by the poor). “That the middle [constitution] is best is evident, for it is the freest from faction: where the middle class is numerous, there least occur factions and divisions among citizens” (IV.11.1296a7–9). The middle constitution is therefore both more stable and more just than oligarchy and democracy.

Although Aristotle classifies democracy as a deviant constitution (albeit the best of a bad lot), he argues that a case might be made for popular rule in Politics III.11, a discussion which has attracted the attention of modern democratic theorists. The central claim is that the many may turn out to be better than the virtuous few when they come together, even though the many may be inferior when considered individually. For if each individual has a portion of virtue and practical wisdom, they may pool these moral assets and turn out to be better rulers than even a very wise individual. This argument seems to anticipate treatments of “the wisdom of the multitude” such as Condorcet’s “jury theorem.” In recent years, this particular chapter has been widely discussed in connection with topics such as democratic deliberation and public reason.

In addition, the political scientist must attend to existing constitutions even when they are bad. Aristotle notes that “to reform a constitution is no less a task [of politics] than it is to establish one from the beginning,” and in this way “the politician should also help existing constitutions” (IV.1.1289a1–7). The political scientist should also be cognizant of forces of political change which can undermine an existing regime. Aristotle criticizes his predecessors for excessive utopianism and neglect of the practical duties of a political theorist. However, he is no Machiavellian. The best constitution still serves as a regulative ideal by which to evaluate existing systems.

These topics occupy the remainder of the Politics . Books IV–VI are concerned with the existing constitutions: that is, the three deviant constitutions, as well as polity or the “mixed” constitution, which are the best attainable under most circumstances (IV.2.1289a26–38). The mixed constitution has been of special interest to scholars because it looks like a forerunner of modern republican regimes. The whole of book V investigates the causes and prevention of revolution or political change ( metabolê ) and civil war or faction ( stasis ). Books VII–VIII are devoted to the ideal constitution. As might be expected, Aristotle’s attempt to carry out this program involves many difficulties, and scholars disagree about how the two series of books (IV–VI and VII–VIII) are related to each other: for example, which were written first, which were intended to be read first, and whether they are ultimately consistent with each other. Most importantly, when Aristotle offers practical political prescriptions in Books IV–VI, is he guided by the best constitution as a regulative ideal, or is he simply abandoning political idealism and practicing a form of Realpolitik?For a further discussion of this topic, see the following supplementary document:

Aristotle has continued to influence thinkers up to the present throughout the political spectrum, including conservatives (such as Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, and Eric Voegelin), communitarians (such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Sandel), liberals (such as William Galston and Martha C. Nussbaum), libertarians (such as Tibor R. Machan, Douglas B. Rasmussen, and Douglas J. Den Uyl), and democratic theorists (such as Jill Frank and Gerald M. Mara).

It is not surprising that such diverse political persuasions can lay claim to Aristotle as a source. For his method often leads to divergent interpretations. When he deals with a difficult problem, he is inclined to consider opposing arguments in a careful and nuanced manner, and he is often willing to concede that there is truth on each side. For example, though he is critical of democracy, in one passage he allows that the case for rule by the many based on the superior wisdom of the multitude “perhaps also involves some truth” ( Pol. III.11.1281a39–42). Again, he sometimes applies his own principles in a questionable manner, for example, when he reasons that because associations should be governed in a rational manner, the household should be run by the husband rather than by the wife, whose rational capacity “lacks authority” (I.13.1260a13). Modern commentators sympathetic with Aristotle’s general approach often contend that in this case he applies his own principles incorrectly–leaving open the question of how they should be applied. Further, the way he applies his principles may have seemed reasonable in his socio-political context–for example, that the citizen of a polity (normally the best attainable constitution) must be a hoplite soldier (cf. III.7,1297b4)–but it may be debatable how these might apply within a modern democratic nation-state.

The problem of extrapolating to modern political affairs can be illustrated more fully in connection with Aristotle’s discussion of legal change in Politics II.8. He first lays out the argument for making the laws changeable. It has been beneficial in the case of medicine, for example, for it to progress from traditional ways to improved forms of treatment. An existing law may be a vestige of a primitive barbaric practice. For instance, Aristotle mentions a law in Cyme that allows an accuser to produce a number of his own relatives as witnesses to prove that a defendant is guilty of murder. “So,” Aristotle concludes, “it is evident from the foregoing that some laws should sometimes be changed. But to those who look at the matter from a different angle, caution would seem to be required” (1269a12–14). Since the law gets its force from the citizens’ habit of obedience, great care should be exercised in making any change in it. It may sometimes be better to leave defective laws in place rather than encouraging lawlessness by changing the laws too frequently. Moreover, there are the problems of how the laws are to be changed and who is to change them. Although Aristotle offers valuable insights, he breaks off the discussion of this topic and never takes it up elsewhere. We might sum up his view as follows: When it comes to changing the laws, observe the mean: don’t be too bound by traditional laws, but on the other hand don’t be overeager in altering them. It is obvious that this precept, reasonable as it is, leaves considerable room for disagreement among contemporary “neo-Aristotelian” theorists. For example, should the laws be changed to allow self-described transsexual persons to use sexually segregated restrooms? Conservatives and liberals might agree with Aristotle’s general stricture regarding legal change but differ widely on how to apply it in a particular case.

Most scholars of Aristotle advisedly make no attempt to show that he is aligned with any contemporary ideology. Rather, insofar as they find him relevant to our times, it is because he offers a remarkable synthesis of idealism and pragmatism unfolding in deep and thought-provoking discussions of perennial concerns of political philosophy: the role of human nature in politics, the relation of the individual to the state, the place of morality in politics, the theory of political justice, the rule of law, the analysis and evaluation of constitutions, the relevance of ideals to practical politics, the causes and cures of political change and revolution, and the importance of a morally educated citizenry.

• action: praxis
• citizen: politês
• city-state: polis (also ‘city’ or ‘state’)
• community: koinônia
• constitution: politeia (also ‘regime’)
• faction: stasis (also ‘civil war’)
• free: eleutheros
• friendship: philia
• good: agathos
• happiness: eudaimonia
• happy: eudaimôn
• justice: dikaiosunê
• lawgiver: nomothetês
• master: despotês
• nature: phusis
• noble: kalon (also ‘beautiful’ or ‘fine’)
• people ( dêmos )
• political: politikos (of, or pertaining to, the polis )
• political science: politikê epistêmê
• politician: politikos (also ‘statesman’)
• practical: praktikos
• practical wisdom: phronêsis
• revolution: metabolê (also ‘change’)
• right: exousia (also ‘liberty’)
• ruler: archôn
• self-sufficient: autarkês
• sovereign: kurios
• virtue: aretê (also ‘excellence’)
• without qualification: haplôs (also ‘absolute’)
• without authority: akuron

Note on Citations . Passages in Aristotle are cited as follows: title of treatise (italics), book (Roman numeral), chapter (Arabic numeral), line reference. Line references are keyed to the 1831 edition of Immanuel Bekker which had two columns (“a” and “b”) on each page. Politics is abbreviated as Pol. and Nicomachean Ethics as NE . In this article, “ Pol . I.2.1252b27”, for example, refers to Politics book I, chapter 2, page 1252, column b, line 27. Most translations include the Bekker page number with column letter in the margin followed by every fifth line number.

Passages in Plato are cited in a similar fashion, except the line references are to the Stephanus edition of 1578 in which pages were divided into five parts (“a” through “e”).

Caveat on Bibliography. Although fairly extensive, this bibliography represents only a fraction of the secondary literature in English. However, the items cited here contain many references to other valuable scholarly work in other languages as well as in English.

• Dreizehnter, Alois, Aristoteles’ Politik , Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1970 [generally the most reliable critical edition].
• Ross, W. D., Aristotelis Politica , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957.
• Barker, Ernest, revised by Richard Stalley, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Jowett, Benjamin, revised in The Complete Works of Aristotle (The Revised Oxford Translation), Jonathan Barnes (ed.), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984, vol. II, pp. 1986–2129.
• Lord, Carnes, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013, revised edition.
• Rackham, H., Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press, 1932.
• Reeve, C. D. C., Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2017 (new translation).
• Simpson, Peter L. P., Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
• Sinclair, T. A., revised by Trevor J. Saunders, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983.

The Clarendon Aristotle Series (Oxford University Press) includes translation and commentary of the Politics in four volumes:

• Trevor J. Saunders, Politics I–II (1995).
• Richard Robinson with a supplementary essay by David Keyt, Politics III–IV (1995).
• David Keyt, Politics V–VI (1999).
• Richard Kraut, Politics VII–VIII (1997).
• Also of interest is the Constitution of Athens , an account of the history and workings of the Athenian democracy. Although it was formerly ascribed to Aristotle, it is now thought by most scholars to have been written by one of his pupils, perhaps at his direction toward the end of Aristotle’s life. A reliable translation with introduction and notes is by P. J. Rhodes, Aristotle: The Athenian Constitution . Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984.
• Barnes, Jonathan, Malcolm Schofield, and Richard Sorabji (eds.), Articles on Aristotle (Volume 2: Ethics and Politics), London: Duckworth, 1977.
• Boudouris, K. J. (ed.), Aristotelian Political Philosophy, 2 volumes, Athens: Kardamitsa Publishing Co., 1995.
• Deslauriers, Marguerite, and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• Höffe, Otfried (ed.), Aristoteles Politik , Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001.
• Keyt, David, and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.
• Kraut, Richard, and Steven Skultety (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: Critical Essays , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
• Lockwood, Thornton, and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
• Lord, Carnes, and David O’Connor (eds.), Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science , Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
• Patzig, Günther (ed.), Aristoteles’ Politik: Akten des XI. Symposium Aristotelicum , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990.
• Aquinas, Thomas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics , translated by Richard J. Regan, Indianapolis Publishing Co.: Hackett, 2007.
• Barker, Ernest, The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle , London: Methuen, 1906; reprinted, New York: Russell & Russell, 1959.
• Bodéüs, Richard, The Political Dimensions of Aristotle’s Ethics , Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.
• Brill, Sara, Aristotle on the Concept of the Shared Life , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Hansen, Mogens Herman, Reflections on Aristotle’s Politics , Copenhagen: Tusculaneum Press, 2013.
• Keyt, David, Nature and Justice: Studies in the Ethical and Political Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle , Leuven: Peeters, 2017.
• Kontos, Pavlos, Aristotle on the Scope of Practical Reason: Spectators, Legislators, Hopes, and Evils , Abingdon, New York: Routledge, 2021.
• Kraut, Richard, Aristotle: Political Philosophy , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Miller, Fred D., Jr., Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Mulgan, Richard G., Aristotle’s Political Theory , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
• Newman, W. L., The Politics of Aristotle , 4 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1887–1902; reprinted Salem, NH: Ayer, 1985.
• Nichols, Mary, Citizens and Statesmen: A Study of Aristotle’s Politics , Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992.
• Pangle, Lorraine Smith, Reason and Character: The Moral Foundations of Aristotelian Political Philosophy , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.
• Pellegrin, Pierre, Endangered Excellent: On the Political Philosophy of Aristotle , translated by Anthony Preus, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2020.
• Riesbeck, David J., Aristotle on Political Community , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
• Roberts, Jean, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle and the Politics , London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
• Schütrumpf, Eckart, Aristoteles: Politik , 4 vols. Berlin and Darmstadt: Akademie Verlag, 1999–2005.
• Simpson, Peter, A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle , Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
• Strauss, Leo, “On Aristotle’s Politics,” in The City and Man , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, pp. 13–49.
• Susemihl, Franz, and R. D. Hicks, The Politics of Aristotle , London: Macmillan, 1894. [Includes books I–III and VII–VIII renumbered as IV–V.]
• Trott, Adriel M., Aristotle on the Nature of Community , New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• Veogelin, Eric, Order and History (Vol. III: Plato and Aristotle ), Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.
• Yack, Bernard, The Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Political Thought , Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

1. Biographical and Textual Studies

• Barker, Ernest, “The Life of Aristotle and the Composition and Structure of the Politics ,” Classical Review , 45 (1931), 162–72.
• Jaeger, Werner, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948.
• Kelsen, Hans, “Aristotle and the Hellenic-Macedonian Policy,” in Jonathan Barnes et al. (eds.), Articles on Aristotle (Volume 2: Ethics and Politics), London: Duckworth, 1977, pp. 170–94.
• Lord, Carnes, “The Character and Composition of Aristotle’s Politics ,” Political Theory , 9 (1981), 459–78.

2. Methodology and Foundations of Aristotle’s Political Theory

• Adkins, A. W. H., “The Connection between Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics ,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 75–93.
• Cherry, Kevin M., Plato, Aristotle and the Purpose of Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
• Depew, David J., “The Ethics of Aristotle’s Politics ,” in Ryan K. Balot (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 399–418.
• Frank Jill, “On Logos and Politics in Aristotle,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 9–26.
• Frede, Dorothea, “The Political Character of Aristotle’s Ethics,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 14–37.
• Gerson, Lloyd, “On the Scientific Character of Aristotle’s Politics,” in K. I. Boudouris, K. I. (ed.), Aristotelian Political Philosophy, Athens: Kardamitsa Publishing Co., 1995, vol. I, pp. 35–50.
• Irwin, Terence H., “Moral Science and Political Theory in Aristotle,” History of Political Thought , 6 (1985), pp. 150–68.
• Kahn, Charles H., “The Normative Structure of Aristotle’s Politics ,” in Günther Patzig (ed.) Aristoteles’ ‘Politik’ , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990, pp. 369–84.
• Kamtekar, Rachana, “The Relationship between Aristotle’s Ethical and Political Discourses ( NE X 9),” in Ronald Polansky (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 370–82.
• Keyt, David, “Aristotle’s Political Philosophy,” in David Keyt, Nature and Justice: Studies in the Ethical and Political Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle , Leuven: Peeters, 2017, 165–95.
• Lockwood, Thornton, “ Politics II: Political Critique, Political Theorizing, Political Innovation,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 64–83.
• Miller, Fred D., Jr., “The Unity of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics,” in David Konstan and David Sider (eds.), Philoderma: Essays in Greek and Roman Philosophy in Honor of Phillip Mitsis (Siracusa: Parnassos Press, 2022), pp. 215–43.
• Ober, Joshua, “Aristotle’s Political Sociology: Class, Status, and Order in the Politics ,” in Carnes Lord and David O’Connor (eds.), Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science , Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
• Pellegrin, Pierre, “On the ‘Platonic’ Part of Aristotle’s Politics ,” in William Wians (ed.) Aristotle’s Philosophical Development , Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996, pp. 347–59.
• –––, “Is Politics a Natural Science?” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 27–45.
• –––, “Aristotle’s Politics ,” in Christopher Shields (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 558–85.
• Peonids, F., “The Relation between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics Revisited,” History of Political Thought 22 (2001): 1–12.
• Rowe, Christopher J., “Aims and Methods in Aristotle’s Politics ,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 57–74.
• Salkever, Stephen G., “Aristotle’s Social Science,” Political Theory , 9 (1981), pp. 479–508; reprinted in Richard Kraut and Steven Skultety (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: Critical Essays , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 27–64.
• –––, Finding the Mean: Theory and Practice in Aristotelian Political Philosophy , Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
• Santas, Gerasimos X.,“The Relation between Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics,” in K. I. Boudouris, K. I. (ed.), Aristotelian Political Philosophy, Athens: Kardamitsa Publishing Co., 1995, vol. I, pp. 160–76.
• Smith, Nicholas D. and Robert Mayhew, “Aristotle on What the Political Scientist Needs to Know,” in K. I. Boudouris (ed.) Aristotelian Political Philosophy , Athens: International Center for Greek Philosophy and Culture, 1995, vol. I, pp. 189–98.
• Vander Waerdt, Paul A., “The Political Intention of Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy,” Ancient Philosophy 5 (1985), 77–89.
• –––, “The Plan and Intention of Aristotle’s Ethical and Political Writings,” Illinois Classical Studies 16 (1991), 231–53.

3. Political Naturalism

• Ambler, Wayne, “Aristotle’s Understanding of the Naturalness of the City,” Review of Politics , 47 (1985), 163–85.
• Annas, Julia, “Aristotle on Human Nature and Political Virtue,” The Review of Metaphysics , 49 (1996), 731–54.
• Berryman, Sylvia, Aristotle on the Sources of the Ethical Life , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2919, esp. Ch. 3 “Naturalism in Aristotle’s Politics. ”
• Chan, Joseph, “Does Aristotle’s Political Theory Rest on a Blunder?” History of Political Thought , 13 (1992), 189–202.
• Chappell, Timothy, “‘Naturalism’ in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy,” in Ryan K. Balot (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 382–98.
• Cherry, K. and E. A. Goerner, “Does Aristotle’s Polis Exist ‘By Nature’?” History of Political Thought , 27 (2006), 563–85.
• Cooper, John M., “Political Animals and Civic Friendship,” in Günther Patzig (ed.), Aristoteles’ ‘Politik’ , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990, pp. 220–41; reprinted in Richard Kraut and Steven Skultety (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: Critical Essays , Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 65–89.
• DePew, David J., “Humans and Other Political Animals in Aristotle’s Historia Animalium ,” Phronesis , 40 (1995), 156–76.
• –––, “Political Animals and the Genealogy of the Polis : Aristotle’s Politics and Plato’s Statesman ,” in Geert Keil and Nora Kreft (eds.), Aristotle’s Anthropology , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 238–57.
• Everson, Stephen, “Aristotle on the Foundations of the State,” Political Studies , 36 (1988), 89–101.
• Karbowski, Joseph, “Political Animals and Human Nature in Aristotle’s Politics ,” in Geert Keil and Nora Kreft (eds.), Aristotle’s Anthropology , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 221–37.
• Keyt, David, “The Meaning of BIOS in Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics ,” Ancient Philosophy , 9 (1989), 15–21; reprinted in David Keyt, Nature and Justice: Studies in the Ethical and Political Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle , Leuven: Peeters, 2017, 101–9.
• –––, “Three Basic Theorems in Aristotle’s Politics ,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 118–41; reprinted in David Keyt, Nature and Justice: Studies in the Ethical and Political Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle , Leuven: Peeters, 2017, 111–38.
• Kullmann, Wolfgang, “Man as a Political Animal in Aristotle,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 94–117.
• Lloyd, Geoffrey, “Aristotle on the Natural Sociability, Skills and Intelligence of Animals,” in Verity Harte and Melissa Lane (eds.), Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 277–94.
• Miller, Fred D., Jr., “Aristotle: Naturalism,” in Christopher J. Rowe and Malcolm Schofield (eds.), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 321–43.
• Mulgan, Richard, “Aristotle’s Doctrine that Man is a Political Animal,” Hermes , 102 (1974), 438–45.
• Reeve, C. D. C., “The Naturalness of the Polis in Aristotle,” in Georgios Anagnostopoulos (ed.), A Companion to Aristotle , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 512–25.
• Roberts, Jean, “Political Animals in the Nicomachean Ethics ,” Phronesis , 34 (1989), 185–202.

4. Household: Women, Children, and Slaves

• Booth, William James, “Politics and the Household: A Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics Book One,” History of Political Thought , 2 (1981), 203–26.
• Brunt, P. A., “Aristotle and Slavery,” in Studies in Greek History and Thought , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 434–88.
• Chambliss, J. J., “Aristotle’s Conception of Children and the Poliscraft,” Educational Studies , 13 (1982), 33–43.
• Cole, Eve Browning, “Women, Slaves, and ‘Love of Toil’ in Aristotle’s Moral Psychology,” in Bat-Ami Bar On (ed.), Engendering Origins: Critical Feminist Readings in Plato and Aristotle , Albany: SUNY Press, 1994, pp. 127–44.
• Deslauriers, Marguerite, “The Virtues of Women and Slaves,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy , 25 (2003), 213–31.
• –––, “Political Rule Over Women in Politics ,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 46–63.
• Fortenbaugh, W. W., “Aristotle on Slaves and Women,” in Jonathan Barnes et al. (eds.), Articles on Aristotle , vol. 2, Ethics and Politics. London: Duckworth, 1977, pp. 135–9.
• Frank, Jill, “Citizens, Slaves, and Foreigners: Aristotle on Human Nature,” American Political Science Review , 98 (2004), 91–104.
• Freeland, Cynthia, Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle , University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.
• Garnsey, Peter, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Lindsay, Thomas K., “Was Aristotle Racist, Sexist, and Anti-Democratic?: A Review Essay,” Review of Politics 56 (1994), 127–51.
• Lockwood, Thornton, “Justice in Aristotle’s Household and City,” Polis , 20 (2003), 1–21.
• –––, “Is Natural Slavery Beneficial?” Journal of the History of Philosophy , 45 (2007), 207–21.
• Mayhew, Robert, The Female in Aristotle’s Biology: Reason or Rationalization , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
• Modrak, Deborah, “Aristotle: Women, Deliberation, and Nature,” in Bat-Ami Bar On (ed.), Engendering Origins: Critical Feminist Readings in Plato and Aristotle , Albany: SUNY Press, 1994, pp. 207–21.
• Mulgan, Robert G., “Aristotle and the Political Role of Women,” History of Political Thought , 15 (1994), 179–202.
• Nagle, D. Brendan, The Household as the Foundation of Aristotle’s Polis , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• Pellegrin, Pierre, “Natural Slavery,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 92–116.
• Saxenhouse, Arlene W., “Family, Polity, and Unity: Aristotle on Socrates’ Community of Wives,” Polity , 15 (1982), 202–19.
• Schofield, Malcolm, “Ideology and Philosophy in Aristotle’s Theory of Slavery,” in Günther Patzig (ed.) Aristoteles’ ‘Politik’ , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990, pp. 1–27; reprinted in Richard Kraut and Steven Skultety (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: Critical Essays , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 91–119.
• Senack, Christine M., “Aristotle on the Woman’s Soul,” in Bat-Ami Bar On (ed.), Engendering Origins: Critical Feminist Readings in Plato and Aristotle , Albany: SUNY Press, 1994, pp. 223–36.
• Simpson, Peter, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Socrates’ Communism of Wives and Children,” Apeiron , 24 (1991), 99–114.
• Smith, Nicholas D., “Plato and Aristotle on the Nature of Women,” Journal of the History of Philosophy , 21 (1983), 467–78.
• –––, “Aristotle’s Theory of Natural Slavery,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 142–55.
• Spelman, E. V., “Aristotle and the Politicization of the Soul,” in Sandra Harding and M. B. Hintikka (eds) Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science , Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983, pp. 17–30.
• –––, “Who’s Who in the Polis,” in Bat-Ami Bar On (ed.), Engendering Origins: Critical Feminist Readings in Plato and Aristotle , Albany: SUNY Press, 1994, pp. 99–125.
• Stauffer, Dana J., “Aristotle’s Account of the Subjection of Women,” Journal of Politics , 70 (2008), 929–41.

5. Political Economy

• Ambler, Wayne H., “Aristotle on Acquisition,” Canadian Journal of Political Science , 17 (1984), 487–502.
• Crespo, Ricardo F., A Re-assessment of Aristotle ’ s Economic Thought . London: Routledge, 2014.
• Dobbs, Darrell, “Aristotle’s Anticommunism,” American Journal of Political Science , 29 (1985), 29–46.
• Finley, M. I., “Aristotle and Economic Analysis,” in Jonathan Barnes et al. (eds.), Articles on Aristotle , vol. 2, Ethics and Politics. London: Duckworth, 1977, pp. 140–58.
• Gallagher, Robert L., Aristotle’s Critique of Political Economy with a Contemporary Application. London: Routledge, 2018.
• Hadreas, Peter, “Aristotle on the Vices and Virtue of Wealth,” Journal of Business Ethics, 39 (2002), 361–76.
• Hartman, Edwin M., “Virtue, Profit, and the Separation Thesis: An Aristotelian View,” Journal of Business Ethics ,99 (2011), 5–17.
• –––, Virtue in Business: Conversations with Aristotle . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• Inamura, Kazutaka, “The Role of Reciprocity in Aristotle’s Theory of Political Economy,” History of Political Thought , 32 (2011), 565–87.
• Irwin, Terence H., “Aristotle’s Defense of Private Property,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.). A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 200–25.
• Judson, Lindsay, “Aristotle on Fair Exchange,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy , 15 (1997), 147–75.
• Keyt, David, “Aristotle and the Joy of Working,” in David Keyt, Nature and Justice: Studies in the Ethical and Political Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle , Leuven: Peeters, 2017, pp. 223–39.
• Mathie, William,“Property in the Political Science of Aristotle,” in Anthony Parel & Thomas Flanagan(eds.), Theories of Property: Aristotle to the Present . Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1979, pp. 12–35.
• Mayhew, Robert, “Aristotle on Property,” The Review of Metaphysics , 46 (1993), 802–31.
• McNeill, D., “Alternative Interpretations of Aristotle on Exchange and Reciprocity,” Public Affairs Quarterly , 4 (1990), 55–68.
• Mei, Todd S., “The Preeminence of Use: Reevaluating the Relation between Use and Exchange in Aristotle’s Economic Thought,” American Journal of the History of Philosophy 47 (2009), 523–48.
• Meikle, Scott, “Aristotle on Money” Phronesis 39 (1994), 26–44.
• –––, Aristotle’s Economic Thought , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Miller, Fred D. Jr., “Property Rights in Aristotle,” in Richard Kraut and Steven Skultety (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: Critical Essays , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 121–44.
• –––, “Was Aristotle the First Economist?” Apeiron , 31 (1998), 387–98.
• –––, “Aristotle and Business: Friend or Foe?” in Eugene Heath and Byron Kaldis (eds.), Wealth, Commerce and Philosophy: Foundational Thinkers and Business Ethics , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017, pp. 31–52.
• Morris, Tom, If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business , New York: Henry Holt, 1997.
• Nielsen, Karen Margrethe, “Economy and Private Property,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 67–91.
• Solomon, Robert C., “Corporate Roles, Personal Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach to Business Ethics,” Business Ethics Quarterly , 2 (1992), 317–39.
• –––, “Aristotle, Ethics, and Business Organizations,” Organization Studies, 25 (2004), 1021–43.

6. Political Justice and Injustice

• Brunschwig, Jacques, “The Aristotelian Theory of Equity,” in Michael Frede and Gisela Striker (eds.), Rationality in Greek Thought , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 115–55.
• Marguerite Deslauriers, “Political Unity and Inequality,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 117–43.
• Georgiadis, Constantine, “Equitable and Equity in Aristotle,” in Spiro Panagiotou (ed.), Justice, Law and Method in Plato and Aristotle , Edmonton: Academic Printing & Publishing, 1987, pp. 159–72.
• Keyt, David, “Aristotle’s Theory of Distributive Justice,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 238–78.
• –––, “The Good Man and the Upright Citizen in Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics ,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), Freedom, Reason, and the Polis: Essays in Ancient Greek Political Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 220–40. Reprinted in David Keyt, Nature and Justice: Studies in the Ethical and Political Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle , Leuven: Peeters, 2017, 197–221.
• –––, “Nature and Justice,” in David Keyt, Nature and Justice: Studies in the Ethical and Political Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle , Leuven: Peeters, 2017, pp. 1–19.
• Lockwood, Thornton, “Polity, Political Justice, and Political Mixing,” History of Political Thought , 27 (2006), 207–22.
• Morrison, Donald, “The Common Good,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 176–98.
• Nussbaum, Martha C., “Nature, Function, and Capability: Aristotle on Political Distribution,” in Günther Patzig (ed.), Aristoteles’ ‘Politik’ , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990, pp. 153–87.
• Roberts, Jean, “Justice and the Polis,” in Christopher J. Rowe and Malcolm Schofield (eds.), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 344–65.
• Rosler, Andrés, “Civic Virtue: Citizenship, Ostracism, and War,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 144–75.
• Saxonhouse, Arlene W., “Aristotle on the Corruption of Regimes: Resentment and Justice,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 184–203.
• Schütrumpf, Eckart, “Little to Do With Justice: Aristotle on Distributing Political Power,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 163–83.
• Young, Charles M., “Aristotle on Justice,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy , 27 (1988), 233–49.
• Zingano, Marco, “Natural, Ethical, and Political Justice,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 199–222.

7. Political Friendship and Enmity

• Hatzistavrou, Antony, “Faction,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 301–23.
• Irrera, Elena, “Between Advantage and Virtue: Aristotle’s Theory of Political Friendship,” History of Political Thought , 26 (2005), 565–85.
• Jang, Misung, “Aristotle’s Political Friendship as Solidarity,” in Liesbeth Huppes-Cluysenaer, & Nuno M.S. Coelho (eds.), Aristotle on Emotions in Law and Politics, Dordrecht: Springer, 2018. pp. 417–33.
• Kalimtzis, Kostas, Aristotle on Political Enmity and Disease: An Inquiry into Stasis , Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000.
• Kreft, Nora, “Aristotle on Friendship and Being Human,” in Geert Keil and Nora Kreft (eds.), Aristotle’s Anthropology , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 182–99.
• Kronman, Anthony, “Aristotle’s Idea of Political Fraternity,” American Journal of Jurisprudence , 24 (1979),114–138.
• Leontsini, Eleni, “The Motive of Society: Aristotle on Civic Friendship, Justice, and Concord,” Res Publica , 19 (2013), 21–35.
• Ludwig, Paul W., Rediscovering Political Friendship: Aristotle’s Theory and Modern Identity, Community, and Equality , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
• Miller, Fred D., Jr., “Aristotle on Deviant Constitutions,” in K. I. Boudouris, K. I. (ed.), Aristotelian Political Philosophy, Athens: Kardamitsa Publishing Co., 1995, vol. II, pp. 105–15.
• Mulgan, Richard, “The Role of Friendship in Aristotle’s Political Theory,” in Preston King, and Heather Devere (eds.), The Challenge to Friendship in M odernity , London: Frank Cass, 2000, pp. 15–32.
• Schofield, Malcolm, “Political Friendship and the Ideology of Reciprocity,” in Saving the City , London: Routledge, 1999, pp. 82–99.
• Schwarzenbach, Sibyl, “On Civic Friendship,” Ethics , 107 (1996), 97–128.
• Skultety, Steven C.,. “Defining Aristotle’s Conception of Stasis in the Politics ,” Phronesis 54 (2009), 346–70.
• –––, Conflict in Aristotle ’ s Political Philosophy , Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 2019.
• Sosa, Javier Echeñique & Jose Antonio Errázuriz Besa, “Aristotle on Personal Enmity,” Ancient Philosophy , 62 (2022), 215–31.
• Ward, Ann, “Friendship and politics in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics ,” European Journal of Political Theory , 10 (2011), 443–62.
• Weed, Ronald, Aristotle on Stasis: A Psychology of Political Conflict , Berlin: Logos Verlag, 2007.
• Yack, Bernard, “Community and Conflict in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy,” Review of Politics , 47 (1985), 92–112.
• –––, “Natural Right and Aristotle’s Understanding of Justice,” Political Theory , 18 (1990), 216–37.

8. Citizenship, Civic Obligation, and Political Rights

• Allan, D. J., “Individual and State in the Ethics and Politics ,” Entretiens sur l’Antiquité Classique IX, La ‘Politique’ d’Aristote , Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 1964, pp. 53–95.
• Barnes, Jonathan, “Aristotle and Political Liberty,” in Günther Patzig (ed.), Aristoteles’ ‘Politik’ , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990, pp. 249–63; reprinted in Richard Kraut and Steven Skultety (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: Critical Essays , Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 185–201.
• Collins, Susan D., Aristotle and the Rediscovery of Citizenship , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• Frede, Dorothea, “Citizenship in Aristotle’s Politics ,” in Richard Kraut and Steven Skultety (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: Critical Essays , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 167–84.
• Horn, Christoph, “Law, Governance, and Political Obligation,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 223–46.
• Irwin, Terence H., “The Good of Political Activity,” in Günther Patzig (ed.), Aristoteles’ ‘Politik’ , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990, pp. 73–98.
• Kraut, Richard, “Are There Natural Rights in Aristotle?” The Review of Metaphysics , 49 (1996), 755–74.
• Lane, Melissa, “Claims to Rule: The Case of the Mutlitude,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 247–74.
• Long, Roderick T., “Aristotle’s Conception of Freedom,” The Review of Metaphysics , 49 (1996), 775–802; reprinted in Richard O. Brooks and James Bernard Murphy (eds.), Aristotle and Modern Law , Aldershot Hants, UK: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2003, pp. 384–410.
• Miller, Fred D., Jr., “Aristotle and the Origins of Natural Rights,” The Review of Metaphysics , 49 (1996), 873–907.
• –––, “Aristotle’s Theory of Political Rights,” in Richard O. Brooks and James Bernard Murphy (eds.), Aristotle and Modern Law , Aldershot Hants, UK: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2003, pp. 309–50.
• Morrison, Donald, “Aristotle’s Definition of Citizenship: A Problem and Some Solutions,” History of Philosophy Quarterly , 16 (1999), 143–65.
• Mulgan, Robert G., “Aristotle and the Value of Political Participation,” Political Theory , 18 (1990), 195–215.
• Roberts, Jean, “Excellences of the Citizen and of the Individual,” in Georgios Anagnostopoulos (ed.), A Companion to Aristotle , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 555–65.
• Samaras, Thanassis, “Aristotle and the Question of Citizenship,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 123–41.
• Schofield, Malcolm, “Sharing in the Constitution,” The Review of Metaphysics , 49 (1996), 831–58; reprinted in Richard O. Brooks and James Bernard Murphy (eds.), Aristotle and Modern Law , Aldershot Hants, UK: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2003, pp. 353–80.
• Zuckert, Catherine H., “Aristotle on the Limits and Satisfactions of Political Life,” Interpretation , 11 (1983), 185–206.

9. Constitutional Theory

• Balot, Ryan, “The ‘Mixed Regime’ In Aristotle’s Politics ,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 103–22.
• Bates, Clifford A., Aristotle’s “Best Regime”: Kingship, Democracy, and the Rule of Law , Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003.
• Bobonich, Christopher, “Aristotle, Decision Making, and the Many,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 142–62.
• Cherry, Kevin M., “The Problem of Polity: Political Participation in Aristotle’s Best Regime,” Journal of Politics , 71 (2009), 406–21.
• Coby, Patrick, “Aristotle’s Three Cities and the Problem of Faction,” Journal of Politics , 50 (1988), 896–919.
• Destrée, Pierre, “Aristotle on Improving Imperfect Cities,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 204–23.
• Dietz, Mary G., “Between Polis and Empire: Aristotle’s Politics ,” American Political Science Review 106 (2012), 275–93.
• Garsten, Bryan, “Deliberating and Acting Together,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 324–49.
• Huxley, G., “On Aristotle’s Best State,” in Paul Cartledge and F. D. Harvey (eds.), Crux: Essays Presented to G. E. M. de Ste. Croix , London: Duckworth, 1985, pp. 139–49.
• Johnson, Curtis N., Aristotle’s Theory of the State , New York: Macmillan, 1990.
• Keyt, David, “Aristotle and Anarchism,” Reason Papers , 18 (1993), 133–52; reprinted in Richard Kraut and Steven Skultety. Aristotle’s Politics: Critical Essays , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 203–22.
• Kraut, Richard, “Aristotle’s Critique of False Utopias,” in Otfried Höffe (ed.), Aristoteles Politik , Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001, pp. 59–73.
• Lintott, Andrew, “Aristotle and Democracy,” The Classical Quarterly (New Series), 42 (1992), 114–28.
• Mayhew, Robert, Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Republic , Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997.
• –––, “Rulers and Ruled,” in Georgios Anagnostopoulos (ed.), A Companion to Aristotle , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 526–39.
• Miller, Fred D., Jr., “Aristotle on the Ideal Constitution,” in Georgios Anagnostopoulos (ed.), A Companion to Aristotle , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 540–54.
• –––, “The Rule of Reason,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 38–66.
• Mulgan, Richard, “Aristotle’s Analysis of Oligarchy and Democracy,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 307–22.
• –––, “Constitutions and the Purpose of the State,” in Otfried Höffe (ed.), Aristoteles Politik , Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001, pp. 93–106.
• Mulhern, J. J., “ Politeia in Greek Literature, Inscriptions, and in Aristotle’s Politics : Reflections on Translation and Interpretation,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 84–102.
• Murray, O., “Polis and Politeia in Aristotle,” in Mogens Herman Hansen (ed.), The Ancient Greek City-State , Copenhagen: Muksgaard, 1993, pp. 197–210.
• Ober, Joshua, “Aristotle’s Natural Democracy,” in Richard Kraut and Steven Skultety (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: Critical Essays , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 223–43.
• –––, “Democracy’s Wisdom: An Aristotelian Middle Way for Collective Judgment,” American Political Science Review , 107 (2013), 104–22.
• –––, “Nature, History, and Aristotle’s Best Possible Regime,” in Thornton Lockwood and Thanassis Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 224–43.
• Polansky, Ronald, “Aristotle on Political Change,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 322–45.
• Rosler, Andres, Political Authority and Obligation in Aristotle , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
• Rowe, C. J., “Reality and Utopia,” Elenchos , 10 (1989), 317–36.
• –––, “Aristotelian Constitutions,” in Christopher J. Rowe and Malcolm Schofield (eds.), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 366–89.
• Strauss, Barry, “On Aristotle’s Critique of Athenian Democracy,” in Carnes Lord and David O’Connor (eds.), Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science , Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, pp. 212–33.
• Vander Waert, Paul A., “Kingship and Philosophy in Aristotle’s Best Regime,” Phronesis , 30 (1985), 249–73.
• Waldron, Jeremy, “The Wisdom of the Multitude: Some Reflections on Book 3, Chapter 11 of Aristotle’s Politics ,” Political Theory , 20 (1992), 613–41; reprinted in Richard Kraut and Steven Skultety (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: Critical Essays , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 145–65.
• Wilson, James L., “Deliberation, Democracy, and the Rule of Reason in Aristotle’s Politics ,” American Political Science Review , 105 (2011), 259–74.

10. Education

• Burnyeat, Myles F., “Aristotle on Learning to Be Good,” in Amelie O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics , Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980, pp. 69–92.
• Curren, Randall R., Aristotle on the Necessity of Public Education , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
• Depew, David J., “Politics, Music, and Contemplation in Aristotle’s Ideal State,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 346–80.
• Destrée, Pierre, “Education, Leisure, and Politics,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 301–23.
• Frede, Dorothea, “The Deficiency of Human Nature: The Task of a ‘Philosophy of Human Nature’,” in Geert Keil and Nora Kreft (eds.), Aristotle’s Anthropology , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 258–74.
• Jimenez, Marta, Aristotle on Shame and Learning to Be Good , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
• Kraut, Richard, “Aristotle on Method and Moral Education,” in Jyl Gentzler (ed.), Method in Ancient Philosophy , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 171–90.
• –––, “Aristotle on Becoming Good: Habituation, Reflection, and Perception,” in Christopher Shields (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 529–57.
• Lord, Carnes, Education and Culture in the Political Thought of Aristotle , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982.
• Lynch, John Patrick, Aristotle’s School , Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
• Muzio, G. D., “Aristotle on Improving One’s Character,” Phronesis , 45 (2000), 205–19.
• Reeve, C. D. C,  “Aristotelian Education,” in A. O. Rorty (ed.), Philosophers on Education , London: Routledge, 1998, pp. 51–65.
• Stalley, Richard, “Education and the State,” in Georgios Anagnostopoulos (ed.), A Companion to Aristotle , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 566–76.
• Brooks, Richard O. and James B. Murphy (eds.), Aristotle and Modern Law , Aldershot Hants, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003.
• Burns, Tony, “Aristotle and Natural Law,” History of Political Thought , 19 (1998), 142–66.
• Duke, George, Aristotle and Law: The Politics of Nomos , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Gordley, James R., “Tort Law in the Aristotelian Tradition,” in Salvador Rus Rufino (ed.), Aristoteles: El Pensamiento Politico y Juridico . León & Seville: University of León & University of Seville, 1999, pp. 71–97.
• Hamburger, Max, Morals and Law: The Growth of Aristotle’s Legal Theory , New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951.
• Huppes-Cluysenaer, Liesbeth & Nuno M..S. Coelho (eds.), Aristotle on Emotions in Law and Politics , Dordrecht: Springer, 2018.
• Miller, Eugene, “Prudence and the Rule of Law,” American Journal of Jurisprudence , 24 (1979), 181–206.
• Miller, Fred D., Jr., “Aristotle’s Philosophy of Law,” in Fred D. Miller, Jr. and Carrie-Ann Biondi (eds.), A History of the Philosophy of Law from the Ancient Greeks to the Scholastics [vol. 6 of A Treatise of Legal Philosophy and General Jurisprudence , ed. Enrico Pattaro]. Dordrecht: Springer, 2007, pp.79–110.
• Schroeder, Donald N., “Aristotle on Law,” Polis , 4 (1981), 17–31; reprinted in Richard O. Brooks and James Bernard Murphy (eds.), Aristotle and Modern Law , Aldershot Hants, UK: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2003, pp. 37–51.
• Wormuth, F. D., “Aristotle on Law,” in M. R. Korvitz and A. E. Murphy (eds.), Essays in Political Theory Presented to G. H. Sabine,  Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1948, pp. 45–61.
• Zanetti, Gianfrancesco, “Problematic Aspects of Aristotle’s Philosophy of Law,” Archiv f ü r Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie , 81 (1995), 49–64.

12. Aristotle and Contemporary Politics

• Biondi, Carrie-Ann, “Aristotle on the Mixed Constitution and Its Relevance for American Political Thought,” in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), Freedom, Reason, and the Polis: Essays in Ancient Greek Political Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 176–98.
• Frank, Jill, A Democracy of Distinction: Aristotle and the Work of Politics , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
• Galston, William A., Justice and the Human Good , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
• Garver, Eugene, Aristotle’s Politics: Living Well and Living Together , Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2011.
• Goodman, Lenn E. and Robert Talise (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics Today , Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003.
• Kraut, Richard, “Aristotle and Rawls on the Common Good,” in Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 350–74.
• Lord, Carnes, “Aristotle and the Idea of Liberal Education,” in Josiah Ober and Charles Hedrick (eds.), Demokrateia: A Conversation of Democracy, Ancient and Modern , Princeton: Princeton University Press Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, pp. 271–88.
• Machan, Tibor R., “Aristotle and the Moral Status of Business,”  Journal of Value Inquiry , 38 (2004), 217–33.
• Mara, Gerald M., “The Culture of Democracy: Aristotle’s Athênaiôn Politeia as Political Theory,” in Aristide Tessitore (ed.), Aristotle and Modern Politics: The Persistence of Political Philosophy , Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002, 307–41.
• Mulgan, Robert G., “Was Aristotle an ‘Aristotelian Social Democrat’?” Ethics , 111 (2000), 79–101.
• Murphy, James Bernard, The Moral Economy of Labor: Aristotelian Themes in Economic Theory , New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
• Nussbaum, Martha C., “Aristotelian Social Democracy,” in R. Bruce Douglas, Gerald M. Mara, and Henry S. Richardson (eds.) Liberalism and the Good , London: Routledge, 1990, pp. 203–52.
• –––, “Capabilities and Human Rights,” Fordham Law Review , 66 (1997), 273–300; reprinted in Richard O. Brooks and James Bernard Murphy (eds.), Aristotle and Modern Law , Aldershot Hants, UK: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2003, pp. 413–40.
• –––, “Aristotle, Politics, and Human Capabilities: A Response to Anthony, Arneson, Charlesworth, and Mulgan,” Ethics , 111 (2000), 102–40.
• Pack, Spencer J., “Aristotle’s Difficult Relationship with Modern Economic Theory,” Foundations of Science , 13 (2008), 256–80.
• Rasmussen, Douglas B. and Douglas J. Den Uyl, Liberty and Nature: An Aristotelian Defense of Liberal Order , La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1991.
• –––, Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics , University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.
• Schollmeier, Paul, Rewriting Contemporary Political Philosophy with Plato and Aristotle: An Essay on Eudaimonic Politics,  London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.
• Salkever, Stephen S., Finding the Mean: Theory and Practice in Aristotelian Political Philosophy , Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
• Tessitore, Aristide (ed.), Aristotle and Modern Politics: The Persistence of Political Philosophy , Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002.
• Wallach, John C., “Contemporary Aristotelianism,” Political Theory , 20 (1992), 613–41.

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