Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
The second half of the Fourth Century B.C. was a time of crisis for Greek city states. Aristotle lived through this crisis. He began to reflect on the ideal organization of the polis. In his analyses of ethics (Nicomachean Ethics: NE) and of politics (Politics: P), can be found the conceptual framework for the socio-economic organization of the polis in light of its “development crisis”. In these texts Aristotle distinguishes himself from practitioners of political economics (as, for example, Isocrates and Xenophon) by declaring what could be called the socio-economic paradigm of a school theoretician.
This article is the text presented at the congress “Individual and Society: Aristotle's Influence in the Mediterranean World”, Istanbul, January 5-9, 1986.