Plato, Aristotle, and the Purpose of Politics

Plato, Aristotle, and the Purpose of Politics

Author: Kevin M. Cherry

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-04-30

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1107379873

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this book, Kevin M. Cherry compares the views of Plato and Aristotle about the practice, study and, above all, the purpose of politics. The first scholar to place Aristotle's Politics in sustained dialogue with Plato's Statesman, Cherry argues that Aristotle rejects the view of politics advanced by Plato's Eleatic Stranger, contrasting them on topics such as the proper categorization of regimes, the usefulness and limitations of the rule of law, and the proper understanding of phronēsis. The various differences between their respective political philosophies, however, reflect a more fundamental difference in how they view the relationship of human beings to the natural world around them. Reading the Politics in light of the Statesman sheds new light on Aristotle's political theory and provides a better understanding of Aristotle's criticism of Socrates. Most importantly, it highlights an enduring and important question: should politics have as its primary purpose the preservation of life, or should it pursue the higher good of living well?


Plato, Aristotle, and the Purpose of Politics

Plato, Aristotle, and the Purpose of Politics

Author: Kevin M. Cherry

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-01-02

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781107633506

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this book, Kevin M. Cherry compares the views of Plato and Aristotle about the practice, study, and, above all, the purpose of politics. The first scholar to place Aristotle's Politics in sustained dialogue with Plato's Statesman, Cherry argues that Aristotle rejects the view of politics advanced by Plato's Eleatic Stranger, contrasting them on topics such as the proper categorization of regimes, the usefulness and limitations of the rule of law, and the proper understanding of phronēsis. The various differences between their respective political philosophies, however, reflect a more fundamental difference in how they view the relationship of human beings to the natural world around them. Reading the Politics in light of the Statesman sheds new light on Aristotle's political theory and provides a better understanding of Aristotle's criticism of Socrates. Most importantly, it highlights an enduring and important question: Should politics have as its primary purpose the preservation of life, or should it pursue the higher good of living well?


The Politics

The Politics

Author: Aristotle

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 1981-09-17

Total Pages: 455

ISBN-13: 0141913266

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Twenty-three centuries after its compilation, 'The Politics' still has much to contribute to this central question of political science. Aristotle's thorough and carefully argued analysis is based on a study of over 150 city constitutions, covering a huge range of political issues in order to establish which types of constitution are best - both ideally and in particular circumstances - and how they may be maintained. Aristotle's opinions form an essential background to the thinking of philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli and Jean Bodin and both his premises and arguments raise questions that are as relevant to modern society as they were to the ancient world.


Aristotle's Politics

Aristotle's Politics

Author: Eugene Garver

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2011-10-30

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0226284042

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“Man is a political animal,” Aristotle asserts near the beginning of the Politics. In this novel reading of one of the foundational texts of political philosophy, Eugene Garver traces the surprising implications of Aristotle’s claim and explores the treatise’s relevance to ongoing political concerns. Often dismissed as overly grounded in Aristotle’s specific moment in time, in fact the Politics challenges contemporary understandings of human action and allows us to better see ourselves today. Close examination of Aristotle’s treatise, Garver finds, reveals a significant, practical role for philosophy to play in politics. Philosophers present arguments about issues—such as the right and the good, justice and modes of governance, the relation between the good person and the good citizen, and the character of a good life—that politicians must then make appealing to their fellow citizens. Completing Garver’s trilogy on Aristotle’s unique vision, Aristotle’s Politics yields new ways of thinking about ethics and politics, ancient and modern.


The Household as the Foundation of Aristotle's Polis

The Household as the Foundation of Aristotle's Polis

Author: D. Brendan Nagle

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-03-13

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0521849349

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Among ancient writers Aristotle offers the most profound analysis of the ancient Greek household and its relationship to the state. The household was not the family in the modern sense of the term, but a much more powerful entity with significant economic, political, social, and educational resources. The success of the polis in all its forms lay in the reliability of households to provide it with the kinds of citizens it needed to ensure its functioning. In turn, the state offered the members of its households a unique opportunity for humans to flourish. This 2006 book explains how Aristotle thought household and state interacted within the polis.


Aristotle

Aristotle

Author: Richard Kraut

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 9780198782001

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book presents a wide-ranging overview of Aristotle's political thought that makes him come alive as a philosopher who can speak to our own times. Beginning with a critique of subjectivist accounts of well-being, Kraut goes on to assess Aristotle's objective and universalistic account ofeudaimonia and excellent activity. He offers a detailed interpretation of Aristotle's conception of justice in the Nicomachean Ethics, and then turns to the major themes of the Politics: the political nature of human beings, the city's priority over the individual, the justification of slavery, thedefence of the family and property, the pluralistic nature of cities and the need for their unification, the distinction between good citizenship and full virtue, the value and limits of popular control over elites, the corrosive effects of poverty and wealth, the critique of democratic conceptionsof freedom and equality, and the radically egalitarian institutions of the ideal society. Aristotle's political philosophy, as Kraut reads it, provides a model of the way in which a rich understanding of human well-being can guide the amelioration of a world in which agreement about the human goodis rarely, if ever, achieved.


Arendt on the Political

Arendt on the Political

Author: David Arndt

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-10-24

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1108498310

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Shows how Hannah Arendt opened up new ways of thinking about politics and a new approach to interpreting political history.


Politics

Politics

Author: Aristotle

Publisher:

Published: 2010-12-01

Total Pages: 26

ISBN-13: 1434428044

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first eighth of Aristotle's (384-322 BC) work of political philosophy.