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Aims and Methods in Aristotle's Politics1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. J. Rowe
C. J. Rowe
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
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Extract

This paper originated in an attempt to come to terms with the problems which arise from the structure of the Politics. It is no news to anyone who has the slightest familiarity with the Politics that the work reads, to borrow a phrase of Barker's, not as a composition, but as composite. Broadly speaking, it falls into three parts: Books I–III, Books IV-VI, and Books VII-VIII.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , May 1977 , pp. 159 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1977

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References

2 Barker, E., ‘The Life of Aristotle and the Composition and Structure of the Polities’, CR 45 (1931), 167.Google Scholar

3 For a partial list of the arrangements adopted by different editors and commentators, see Weil, R., Aristote et l'histoire, p. 60.Google Scholar

4 1288b21 ff.

5 On which see e.g. Susemihl, F. and Hicks, R.D., The Politics of Aristotle, Books I–V, pp. 47–8,Google Scholar and Jaeger, W., Aristoteles, Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwicklung, p. 281.Google Scholar

6 1289a26 ff.

7 On my own count, the figures are: for IV–VI, ten certain backward references in thirty-three pages; for VII–VIII, two in nineteen (judgements about what constitutes a ‘certain’ reference may of course differ; but the general conclusion will remain the same).

8 See n.3 above.

9 Aristotle's Politics, Books III and IV, p. ix.Google Scholar

10 Aristoteles, English translation by Robinson, R., 2nd edn., p. 273.Google Scholar

11 Op. cit., p. 268.Google Scholar

12 Moraux, P., in the discussion of R. Stark's paper, ‘Der Gesamtaufbau der aristotelischen Politik’, in La Politique d'Aristote, Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique xi, pp. 42–3.Google Scholar

13 Op. cit. (see preceding note).

14 Theiler, W., ‘Bau und Zeit der Aristotelischen Politik’, Mus. Helv. 9 (1952), 65–78.Google Scholar

15 The Politics of Aristotle, tr. Barker, E., pp. xliii–xliv.Google Scholar

16 SirRoss, David, ‘The Development of Aristotle's Thought’, in Aristotle and Plato in the Mid-Fourth Century(Proceedings of the First Symposium Aristotelicum, 1957), p. 9.Google Scholar

17 Op. cit., pp. 32 ff.Google Scholar

18 1329a19ff.;cf. 1332a28ff.

19 See especially IV.8, 9.

20 1288b38–9.

21 At N.E. 1180a24–6, he says that ‘in the city of the Spartans alone, (or) with a few others, does the legislator seem to have paid attention to questions of nurture and habits ;at 1102a10–12, the lawgivers of Crete and Sparta are used to illustrate the point that it is the business of the to make the citizens good (see also Pol. 1337a31–2, where the Spartans are mentioned alone). But at Pol. 1271a41 ff., Aristotle explicitly accepts Plato's fundamental criticism of the onesidedness of Spartan education (cf. 1338b9 ff.).

22 ‘Utopianism Ancient and Modern’, in The Use and Abuse of History, pp. 180– 1.Google Scholar

23 Ferguson, J., Utopias of the Classical World, p. 88. Stark implies a similar view (see above).Google Scholar

24 Op. cit., p. 80.Google Scholar

25 1328a38–41.

26 See especially IV.12, VI.l ff.

27 1289b9–ll.

28 Aristotle, pp. 269–70.Google Scholar

29 On p. 271, Jaeger writes: ‘in [IV–VI] the unbiased observation of empirical reality has led [Aristotle] to a wholly different mode of treatment, which starts from the particular phenomena and seeks to discover their inner law, like a scientist observing the characteristic motions and emotions of a living thing. The theory of the diseases of states and of the method of curing them is modelled on the physician's pathology and therapy. It is scarcely possible to imagine a greater contrast to the doctrine of an ideal norm, which constituted Plato's political theory and that of Aristotle in his early days, than this view, according to which no state is so hopelessly disorganized that one cannot at least risk the attempt at a cure. Radical methods would certainly destroy it in short order; the measure of the powers of recovery that it can exert must be determined solely by examining itself and its condition’. According to this account, as I understand it, the difference between IV–VI and VII–VIII is in the type of treatment proposed for diseased states: whereas in VII–VIII Aristotle had envisaged no alternative to large-scale surgery, in IV–VI he accepts that more moderate measures may be in order; for he now sees that some states will be incapable of being completely cured (through the realization of the best constitution), but that these will nevertheless be able to achieve at any rate a partial cure (some approximation to the best). The basis of this interpretation seems to be 1288b37 ff., which Jaeger takes as self-criticism, but which need not be taken in that way. Even if it is self-criticism, at the worst it would merely suggest a broadening in Aristotle's idea of the concerns of scarcely enough to cause the embarrassment Jaeger detects in IV. 1.

30 Sabine, G.H., A History of Political Theory,3 p. 91.Google Scholar

31 Top. 101b5 ff., Rhet. 1355b10ff., N.E. 1100b35ff.

32 1288b16–19. Strictly speaking, the examples of the trainer and coach are not applied to but are used to illustrate one of the four headings into which all generally are said to divide their subject-matter. But since the particular task of in question is obviously intended to fall under that general heading (because a) the statement about the aims of is derived directly from that about the concerns of all b21), and b) the other three tasks assigned to correspond to the other three assigned to all it is reasonable to expect that the example of the trainer and the coach will throw light on it too.

33 N.E. 1094a8–9.

34 N.E. 1129a13–14.

35 1355a28ff.

36 Rhet. 1355a30–3, in the Oxford translation.

37 1253b15 ff., 1258b9–10, 1279bll ff., 1299a28–30.

38 Op. cit., p. 101.Google Scholar

39 See especially IV.14–16.

40 Ad loc.

41 1313a34ff.

42 ‘The Ancestral Constitution’, in The Use and Abuse of History, p. 52.Google Scholar

43 ‘The Life of Aristotle’ etc., p. 164.

44 1252b30, 1278b20ff., 1280a31–2, b39; cf. 1291a16–18.

45 In Rhet. 1366a5–6, the of aristocracy is summed up as

46 1311a9–10; cf. 1286b15–16.

47 1321a41–bl.

48 Rhet. 1366a4.

49 Cf. Pol. 1317bll ff.

50 1328a38–b2.

51 N.B. especially 1296a7

52 e.g. at 1280a7 ff., 1301b35 ff., 1309a36–9.

53 N.E. 1161a32 ff.

54 1279a17–21.

55 1134b18ff.

56 Cf. 1282bll–13

57 I assume here that the best constitution will turn out to possess the highest degree of justice (even though this is not the criterion by which Aristotle calls it best)–higher than ‘polity’, in so far as office is distributed by reference to virtue.

58 1279b7 ff., etc.

59 See especially 1309b18 ff.

60 Cf. 1307a5 ff.

61 1315b8–10, in Barker's translation.

62 Cf. Ross, , loc. cit. (n.16 above).Google Scholar

63 1181b15–22; Jaeger, , Aristotle, p. 265.Google Scholar

64 Loc. cit.

65 i.e. in IV.1.

66 1179b31–4 in the Oxford translation.

67 1180a29–34 (Ross's translation here is slightly adapted; similarly in the case of the two following citations from Aristotle).

68 1181b6–12.

69 1181a9–12.

70 1181b12–15.

71 Immisch, O., ‘Der Epilog der nikomachischen Ethik’, Rh. Mus. 84 (1935), 54–61.Google Scholar

71 1102a10.

73 See n.21 above.

74 The Politics of Aristotle, vol. ii, Appendix A.Google Scholar

75 1099b29–32, 1102a7–10.

76 1141b23 ff.

77 Jaeger, , Aristoteles, p. 282.Google Scholar

78 That is, if we assume that the programme is of a piece with the rest of X.9. This is doubted e.g. by J.A. Stewart (Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, ad loc.), who regards everything from b 12 to the end as an interpolation. But the chapter plainly cannot end at b 12, for this would leave us without any positive answer to the crucial question raised at 1180b28–9. It is possible that Aristotle could have ended with b 15; but even supposing this were so, the case for which I am arguing could still be made. At b12–13, Aristotle begins Now if at this point he had been looking forward to a Politics without IV–VI, these words would surely be inexplicable, since Plato must be included among (pace K. von Fritz and E. Kapp, in the introduction to their translation of the Athenaion Politeia, p. 43), and VII–VIII, which would then form the main positive part of the work, are beyond doubt heavily indebted to the Laws (that the Laws predates this chapter of the N.E. is established by the unmistakable reference to it at 1180a5 ff. Morrow's suggestion, in his paper ‘Aristotle's Comments on Plato's Laws’ (Plato and Aristotle in the Mid-Fourth Century, pp. 145–62), that not all of the Laws may have been known to Aristotle at the time when he was writing his criticisms of the work, seems to me to be based on insufficient grounds). It is IV–VI that are plainly thought of as going beyond Plato (see especially 1288b35 ff., which may well give at least part of the justification for Aristotle's seemingly extravagant claim in the lines under discussion (i.e. N.E. 1180b12–13); although the main justification for it seems to lie in the reference that has been made to the collected constitutions–no one else, perhaps Aristotle is saying, has done the necessary groundwork, in the way that I have. Cf. Gauthier and Jolif ad loc. X.9 itself is anchored to the rest of the N.E. by what looks like a reference to it at V.2, 1130b26–9–unless we regard the position of Book V itself as doubtful.Google Scholar

79 Compare the general judgement reached by Augustin Mansion: ‘on pourrait, en effet, adopter jusque dans les détails l'hypothèse historique de W.J[aeger] sur la formation graduelle des traités d'Aristote, et même sur l'évolution de ses conceptions philosophiques, on n'aurait de ce chef aucune raison de concevoir autrement qu'on ne l'a fait jusqui'ici, ce qu'on a coutume d'appeler “le système d'Aristote”’ ('La genèse de l'oeuvre d'Aristote d'après les travaux récents’, Rev. néosc. de philosophie 29 (1927), 464;Google Scholar restated by Suzanne, Mansion, Le Jugement d'existence chez Aristote, p. 4.Google Scholar

80 1288b37 ff.

81 1289b9–ll.