Polis Aristotle

Aristotle’s society in The Politics, is that of a realistic society, a city of man. Aristotle defines a citizen as a political animal, which means that for man to optimize the society in which he lives in, he must be politically active (Aristotle 1253a). By nature, they want to cooperate together in society. Aristotle defines a citizen as a person who has full political rights to participate in judicial or deliberative office. (Aristotle 1275b) Each citizen has the ability to possess moral virtues. This is in contrast to Plato’s ideal state, where only the ruling class is able to be politically involved. Each citizen is able to posses private property, for one should call the city-state happy not by looking at a part of it but at all the citizens (Aristotle 1329a). This means that all classes of the state as a whole should be happy, not just one sole tier.

     With the possible exception of Plato, Aristotle is the most influential philosopher in the history of logical thought. Logic into this century was basically Aristotelian logic. Aristotle dominated the study of the natural sciences until modern times. Aristotle, in some aspect, was the founder of biology; Charles Darwin considered him as the most important contributor to the subject. Aristotle’s Poetic, the first work of literary notice, had a string influence on the theory and practice of modern drama. Aristotle’s great influence is due to the fact that he seemed to offer a system, which although lacked in certain respects, was as a whole matchless in its extent.

What is of greater underlying significance for Aristotle, however, is not so much the size of the citizen-body as the stark contrast between the respective ideas that “those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice” and “those which aim only at the common good of the rulers are wrong” (The Politics, 3:6, 1279a16, p. 189). In practice, Aristotle’s juxtaposition is implicitly suggestive that if one is ruling in their own self-interest, regardless of the size of the group, and be that for themselves or the minority to which they belong, then they are in essence missing the point of what it is that they are supposed to be doing. Thus, the key point Aristotle is trying to make is this: the ruler of a polis or state; be that one person, a few people, or many people; should govern in accordance with the interests of the polis or state as a whole at heart rather than with the interests of a select few.

Aristotle argues that in order for a polis to emerge, a union between man and women must convene. Later a household must be introduced which unites with other households to form a village, villages come together to form city-states. This theory is Aristotle’s natural view that an individual can not be self sufficient Plato argues that, in order to achieve absolute justice, a city-state is needed.

Aristotle provides very unique and compelling arguments for what he believes to be the ideal form of government for a city-state, but because of the time period he was alive, he did not have the necessary knowledge to realize how limited his view of human nature was. Due to its limited power and sole purpose being to protect individuals’ right to own property, which in turn allows individuals to live happy lives, Locke’s form of government is more

In Plato’s republic, a philosophical account on the kallipolis (the beautiful city) is built on the perspective of Socrates and his discussion between his companions. In the republic, the city in which ones live in depends on the soul and the character of the city one lives in. In this paper the character of human nature and politics will be discussed in how a city is ought to be by the influence of human nature and politics. Firstly, the influence of human nature on politics will be looked at, for example according to Plato on behalf of Socrates; he claims that a just soul creates a just society, where it is human nature to be just, that influences in creating a just political system. Secondly, politics influences human nature, where in

In The Republic Book IV, pp. 130e-136d, Socrates sets out to prove that societal justice is analogous to individual justice. In order to substantiate the analogy, Socrates compares the individual and the city. As he previously defined, justice in the city involves the power relationships between the different parts of the city, namely the guardians, the auxiliaries, and the producers.

When I think about a political community, I usually associate it with elections, politicians, and advertisements that bad mouth candidates from the different political parties. Politicians try to persuade citizens to vote for them by making promises that they may never fulfill. But a political community is more than that. A comparison of Aristotle and John Locke’s nature and purpose of a political community has given me a new insight. I learned that, even though the political community is responsible to provide security, its main purpose is aimed for the highest good of all its citizens, which is virtue and happiness.

In the Greek Polis, people only drank wine because most of the water was diseased/ standing and they didn’t want to risk getting sick. They also ate great amounts of oil, olives, figs, and fish because they are filled with fats that the Greeks thought were nutritious fats for the brain. Also, lots of the meat they had were also used as sacrifices to please the Gods. A food taboo for Islam in Indonesia is the consumption of pork and meats like beef and chicken. They can’t eat meats like these for they feel as though the animals aren’t slaughtered to Islamic standards. The image above shown above shows the fusion of the Greek and Islamic culture because it shows the wine that the Greeks drink and the lamb that the Islamic people would eat.

In book VI of The Republic, Plato uses Socrates as his mouthpiece to reveal the ideal city. Plato points out that the idea city is based on the foundations of three basic forms. Consequently, these three forms are manifested in the individuals that make up the city. The functioning of the city will thus depend on the analogy of the structures within the city and within the souls of the people. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the argument by Socrates with respect to the three forms in the city and in the soul. Additionally, the paper seeks to analyze the rationale behind Socrates’ comparison and subsequent establishment of analogy between the forms in the city and the forms in the city in the context of justice. The paper also

What one can take away from both the implicit and explicit criticisms given by Xenophon and Aristotle is that political life is incredibly messy and problematic and, moreover, the best regime, the telos of political life, may not be unattainable. Both works indicate that virtue must be a main component of the regime, yet it appears human beings have difficulty remaining virtuous in the face of 1) material wealth and 2) the allure of

‘The Republic’ is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato around 380 BC, concerning about the order of justice, the order and character of just men and just city/states. The Republic is considered as the best known work of Plato and is considered one of the world’s most influential works of politics, history and philosophy. In this Socratic dialogue, Socrates discusses about the notions of justice and whether the just man is very happy when compared with his unjust, Athenian and foreign counterparts. Socrates considers the various facets of the existing regimes and proposes a series of hypothetical cities that are entirely different from his considerations. Such heated discussions result in the culmination of discussing kallipolis, a hypothetical city-state that was ruled by a philosopher king. In this paper, we are going to consider Socrates arguments about democracy by examining whether the concept of democracy always remains inconsistent with philosophical goals.

For Aristotle the human is "by nature" destined to live in a political association. Yet not all who live in the political association are citizens, and not all citizens are given equal share in the power of association. The idea of Polity is that all citizens should take short turns at ruling (VII, 1332 b17-27). It is an inclusive form of government: everyone has a share of political power. Aristotle argues that citizen are those who are able to participate in the deliberative and judicial areas of government (III, 1279a32-34). However, not all who live in a political association are citizens. Women, children, slaves, and alien residents are not citizens. Some groups; the rich, the poor, those who

Plato and Aristotle’s views on the nature of a human being and the city are fundamental blocks of forming the best political regime. The ideal city of Plato stands upon the four virtues: wisdom, courage, moderation and justice. The concept of justice embodies the understanding that only when citizens are fulfilling their obligated roles while not interfering with others can a city achieve harmony. For this purpose, farmers, artisans, and shepherds will do what’s expected of them per their expertise while the Guardians, a special class, is fit to rule the state. So his view that since every individual has a different yet pertinent role in the city and as most men are only

Aristotle proposes that the city naturally results from the physical necessity, as the natural completion of small partnership of household and village. Aristotle points out in his ethics that "man is naturally social" so therefore he is "naturally political." Humans have speech, which can be used to communicate their ideas about what is right or wrong as well as just and unjust. If the nature of man is not revealed then the man itself is an animal without any potential. Speech serves man as a weapon to protect himself from what is just or unjust. A man naturally belongs to the city because that is where he can exercise his sociability and can debate with others upon his virtue. Virtues are habits of the soul by which one acts well. Virtuous actions express correct, high reasoning, which are acquired through practice and habituation. The city is prior to the individual because the individual apart from the city is not self-sufficient and therefore he has to be something else rather than a human being. A man has potential to do good, but if he is not capable to use his virtue and is without any boundaries, he can be worse than any animal. In Aristotle's point of view the city is self-sufficient because it contains all the necessities for humans to lead a good life. The city provides humans with partnership with others, which plays a big role in the sake of basic survival, but it exists for the well being of human kind.