The Polis: Origins and Constituents
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Transcript The Polis: Origins and Constituents
Politics, Book I:
The Polis
PHIL 2011
2006-07
Aristotle’s Ball of Yarn
Key Ethical & Political Terms:
Virtue
Happiness (final end)
Nature
Polis
Hierarchy
Final Cause/End—Telos
These are intertwined like the ball of yarn,
which unravels when one tugs the string.
Two Ways to Understand Polis
Historically:
Household: master rules
wife, slaves, children
Villages: ruled by chief
or king = monarchical;
City: equal citizens rule
in turns as statesmen:
constitutional rule;
Each form is natural;
Different kinds of rule in
different organizations.
Organically:
Body-polis Analogy
The polis is the body, the
whole that is prior to
the parts;
The citizens are the
interdependent parts;
Whole could do w/out
some parts, but parts
cannot do w/out whole.
Therefore:
The Whole is greater than the
sum of its parts.
What are some implications?
Nature of Man
‘…we must look for intentions of nature in
those things which retain their nature’;
Study therefore the best man, not just
average man (Pol. 1.5).
Man is political, social animal;
Intended by nature for a social life;
Anyone who is not social is ‘either a beast or
a god’ (Pol. 1.2);
Each person contains ruling and ruled
elements (see next slide).
Hierarchy & Its Justification
Ruling
Element
Corresp.
Body part
Man
Master
Husband
Reason
Woman
Mother
Wife
Partial
Reason
Slave
Barbarian
non-Greek
Brain
Brain &
Body
Body
Appetite
Each person’s fundamental
attributes are by nature.
Therefore: Hierarchy is natural.
Master-Slave relationship
(Pol. 1.6)
Slaves = living tools or instruments
Master should not abuse his authority;
Master and Slave can be friends and
have common interest;
BUT only if relation is natural, not if it is
conventional!
Why?
Actual Slavery
Status
No rights;
Property of master, who
could kill or punish in
any way he wished;
Law required slaves to
be tortured when giving
evidence;
Manumission (grant of
freedom) rare in ancient
Greece (common in
Rome).
Sources of slaves
Birth
Conquest/War
Criminal conviction; in
Athens this meant being
sent to the silver mines,
where death was
certain;
The reality was different
from Aristotle’s theory!
Other views of slavery
Sophists: teachers of rhetoric to lawyers
They taught that slavery is a convention;
Not a natural institution;
People become slaves through capture in war
(or birth), but there is no slave by nature;
It is therefore incorrect to assume that
Aristotle’s review simply reflects the view of
his peers!
This would be Historicism: reduction of a view
or idea to being simply a product of its era.
Aristotle’s view of conventional
slavery (Pol. 1.6)
Convention is not necessarily right, it’s just customary
(although ‘a sort of justice’);
E.g. convention that people captured in war may be
made slaves;
Why? Because the cause of a war may not be just;
Aristotle could have added: war itself may be unjust
(he later criticizes Sparta for making war its goal);
Idea of kings (presumably more excellent than
ordinary men) being slaves seems absurd.
Aristotle on Women
Husband’s “rule over his wife is like that of a
statesman over fellow citizens” (Pol. 1.12).
Women have a degree of governing capacity, i.e. for
child care, but ‘without authority’ (Pol. 1.13);
‘Silence is a woman’s glory’ (Sophocles, quoted in
Pol. 1.13);
Aristotle favors moderate exercise for women;
Women should be much younger than their husbands
(18 for wife, mid-30’s for husband) (Pol. 7.16).
Actual Status of Women
Athens:
Confined to home:
weaving and child care;
Allowed outside for
important religious
festivals;
No sports!
Forbidden to marry or
have relations with
metics (foreign males);
Metic women had
greater freedom.
Sparta:
Young women exercised
in public;
Participated in sports;
Did not perform
household labor;
Responsible for
childcare;
Old husbands
introduced young men
to their wives for
procreation.
Next time:
Household Management
Two views:
1) Art of acquiring wealth (a lesser
goal); wealth only a means to an end,
not an end in itself (Pol. 1.8-9);
-critique of retail trade (Pol. 1.9);
-critique of usury (Pol. 1.10);
2) Art of managing people (‘human
resource management’) (Pol. 1.11-13).