Politics

481 Pages·1998·6.85 MB·English

by  R. F. Stalley

OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS
POLITICS
ARISTOTLE (384-32 2 BC), with Plato one o f the tw o greates t
philosophers of antiquity, and in the view of many the greates t
philosopher of all time, lived and taught in Athens for most of
his career. He began as a student in Plato's Academy and may for
some time have acted as tutor to Alexander the Great. He left writ-
ings on a prodigious variety of subjects, covering the whole field of
knowledge from biology and astronomy to rhetoric and literary
criticism, from politica l theory to the most abstract reaches of
philosophy. The Politics was probably written towards the end of his
career when he was head of the Lyceum and draws on Aristotle's
own extensive research into the constitutional affairs of the Greek
cities. It is possibly the most influential book on political theory
ever to be written.
Sir ERNEST BARKER (1874-1960) held fellowships at several Oxford
colleges before becoming Principal of Kings College London i n
1920 and Professo r o f Political Science a t Cambridge in 1928 .
He retired in 1939. He was one of the most distinguished scholars of
his day and had a lifelong love for Aristotle's Politics. His many
publications included The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle
(London, 1906). His translation of the Politics was first published in
1946.
R. F. STALLEY studied Classics and Philosophy at Oxford and spent
a year at Harvard as Frank Knox Memorial Fellow. He subsequently
taught philosophy at the University of Glasgow. His main interest
has been in the political philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Hi s
publications in this field include An Introduction to Plato's Lao's
(Oxford, 1983).
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OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Translated by
ERNEST BARKER
Revised with an Introduction and Notes by
R. F. STALLEY
OXTORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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CONTENTS
Introduction vi i
Note on the Text xxxi x
Select Bibliography xl i
Chronological Table: Aristotle and Greek Politics 510-322 xl v
THE POLITICS i
Explanatory Notes 31 8
Map: Th e World of the Politics 41 0
Index 413
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INTRODUCTION
ARISTOTLE'S Politics raises more clearly than any other text
some of the most fundamental issues which confront anyone
who attempt s to thin k seriousl y abou t the ways in which
human societies are organized and governed. These issues are
as pressing now as they were in the fourth century BC when
the Politics was first written. But although the Politics can
still speak to us with a powerful voice there are a number of
ways in which it is unlike any modern text and in which it can
appear puzzling to the modern reader. First, it is not the work
of a narrow specialist but is part of what is probably the most
comprehensive system of thought ever devised. We need there-
fore to relate the Politics to the general principles and methods
of Aristotle's philosophy. Secondly, the world in which Aris-
totle lived was very different from our own. So, although the
fundamental issues may be the same as those which concern
us, the context in which Aristotle raises them may seem very
unfamiliar. We have therefore to study the Politics against the
background o f th e Gree k worl d a s i t wa s i n th e fourt h
century BC— a worl d i n whic h th e basi c uni t o f politica l
organization was not the nation state but the small independ-
ent city-state or polis. Thirdly, there are, as one might expect,
difficulties in the style, organization, and vocabulary of Aris-
totle's writing which have to be addressed if we are to read it
with any understanding.
Aristotle on the Nature of Society
Aristotle was not only a great philosopher but also what we
would now call a scientist. In particular he wrote extensively
on biological topics and his study of biology clearly exercised
a powerful influence on his thought in other areas. It makes
sense therefore to begin a study of the Politics by thinking
about Aristotle's conception o f nature (phusis) i n its bearing
on political matters.
During the fifth century the Greeks had evidently become
Vlll INTRODUCTIO N
particularly consciou s that law s and custom s varie d fro m
people to people and from plac e to place. According to a
story told by Herodotus (in. 8), the Greeks were shocked to
hear that som e Indian peoples ate their dead. The Indians
were equally shocked to hear that the Greeks burned theirs.
Thus wha t seeme d righ t t o on e peopl e seeme d wron g to
another. To understand such phenomena many Greek think-
ers used the tw o contrasting term s phusis or 'nature ' an d
nomos, which is commonly translated a s 'law', 'custom', or
'convention'. Examples like the burial practices described by
Herodotus demonstrate that nomos, convention, varies from
place to place. But nature, phusis, is the same everywhere. We
must therefore distinguish between what holds by phusis and
what holds by nomos. This distinction between phusis and
nomos could be used in different ways. One could, on the one
hand, argue that there are some beliefs about right and wrong
which are universally accepted and which may thus be attrib-
uted t o phusis, even though many particula r practice s ar e
based simply on a nomos accepted by a particular community.
But, on the other hand, one could also use the distinction in
more radical ways. In particular i t could be argued that all
beliefs about right and wrong are a matter of nomos and thus
depend purely on human convention. Thus in Plato's Republic
(358e-359b), Glaucon refer s to the view that w e would all
really lik e the freedo m t o d o whateve r har m w e want t o
others but do not, of course, want others to have the same
freedom t o harm us . We therefore make 'laws and mutual
agreements'. In other words we forgo the freedom to harm
other people in return for a guarantee that we will not suffe r
harm from them. On this view, morality and law have their
basis in human convention and the state too is an artificial
creation constructed by human beings to protect themselves
from one another.
In the Republic, Plato opposes this conventionalist view by
arguing that there are what he calls Forms, which cannot be
perceived throug h th e sense s but ca n b e graspe d b y th e
reason. One function of the Forms is to serve as ideal stand-
ards. The views of the ordinary man about right and wrong
embody a dim recollection of the Form of justice, but a true
INTRODUCTION I X
philosopher would be able to grasp the Form in full clarity.
Thus only a society ruled by philosophers could be perfectly
just. In his later work, the Laws, Plato says nothing of the
Forms but offers instead a picture of law as the deliverance of
reason—the same divine reason which governs the universe as
a whole and whose operations are beautifully displayed in the
movements of the heavens. Thus Plato seeks to answer those
who se e morality a s an artificia l creation b y appealing t o
eternal standard s which are outside th e changing world of
ordinary experience, and are grasped by reason rathe r than
by observation.
Aristotle share s Plato's antipathy t o th e conventionalis t
view and the conception of nature and society which he offers
has much more in common with Plato's than is often supposed,
but the route by which he gets there is very different. Rather
than turning away from the world of perception, Aristotle' s
method is to start with the data of experience—what he calls
the phenomena. In a natural science, like biology, this means
that one must study the various facts of observation in order
to achieve a grasp of the underlying principles. Observation
of different animals may, for example, enable one to grasp the
underlying general truths about their nature. In the case of
ethics and politics the phenomena include laws and customs
of different communities, but they also include the differen t
opinions of men at large and in particular of those deemed to
be wise. The fact that Aristotle starts from this kind of data
does not mean that he is committed to seeing all institutions
as equally valuable or to accepting as true every opinion that
has popular support. What it does mean is that he examines
and sift s these data in order to discover the truths that lie
within. I t is characteristic o f him not t o reject an opinio n
outright but to see it as involving a partial truth—that is as
being true in one way but not in another.
The concept of form may be as important for the under-
standing of Aristotle's political philosophy as it is for Plato's,
but to explain its significance requires a digression. We can
begin by thinking about artefacts, such as a statue or a house.
A sculptor who creates a statue imposes a form on a certain
quantity of matter. He may, for example, impose on a lump