Citizens and Statesmen: A Study of Aristotle’s Politics

246 Pages·1991·15.5 MB·English

by  Mary P. Nichols

CITIZENS AND STATESMEN

CITIZENS AND
STATESMEN
A Study of Aristotle's Politics
Mary P. Nichols
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham' Boulder' New York· Toronto' Oxford
ROWMAN Be LITTLEFIELD PUBUSHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
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Copyright © 1992 by Rowman Be Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
AU rights reserved. No part of this publication may
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British Cataloging in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nichols, Mary P.
Citizens and Statesmen: A Study ofAristotlc's
Politics / Mary P. Nichols.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Aristotle. Politics. 2. Aristotle-Contributions in
political science. I. Title.
JC71.A7N49 1991 320.1-dc20 91-21326 elP
ISBN 0-8476-7702-8 (cloth, alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8476-7703-0 (pbk., alk. paped
Printed in the United States of America
eQ TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
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PREFACE
M y first introduction to political philosophy in graduate school
was a course on Plato's Gorgias. Like many others, I experi
enced the profound effect of Joseph Cropsey's instruction, an effect
somewhat like what Meno experienced when he encountered Socra
tes-an inability to answer even apparently simple questions, an effect
that he attributed to Socrates' wizardry. As students, we entered a
world of immense beauty and awe, where questions touching the
essence of human life-of knowledge and virtue, of individual excel
lence and common good, of philosophy and politics-were directly
before us. We were filled with a desire to engage in a life-long task of
exploring the possible answers, their implications and ramifications,
even if we could never come to any final resolution.
The attraction of Socrates' siren charms was not that of a youthful
idealism, which provided as Socrates did for Glaucon a vision of
perfection, a world in which there was no conflict, for example,
between the just and the good. To the contrary, it was the vision of
such conflicts, essential in nature and inescapable in human life, that
philosophy revealed. If the philosophic effect of this vision was endless
toil, the political effect was serene resignation.
My first book, Socrates and the Political Community: An Ancient
Debate, explores Plato's defense of this philosophic life represented
by Socrates, against the common sense complaint of Aristophanes.
Socratic philosophy, the poet thought, draws its adherents away from
families and political communities, and the deeds of ordinary life in
which they can find happiness. Although Plato replied to Aristophanes
by showing how Socrates addressed concerns of politics and justice,
he too acknowledged the conflict between philosophy and politics, and
the irreconcilable differences between philosophers and the rest of
humanity.
It is this debate between Aristophanes and Plato that led me to
vii
viii Preface
Aristotle. Like Aristophanes, Aristotle criticized Socrates for being
insufficiently political, and for neglecting the full potential of human
association, in families, political communities, and friendships. Like
Plato, on the other hand, Aristotle defended the theoretical life of
philosophy as the best life. He demonstrated its activity, especially in
his political theory, in philosophizing about human affairs, and thereby
acknowledged his part in a community with other human beings.
I concluded Socrates and the Political Community with an analy
sis of Book II of Aristotle's Politics, where he suggests through his
criticism of Socrates a different understanding of the tension between
philosophy and politics-an understanding based on their mutual need
and the possibility of their mutual benefit. Philosophy is completed by
becoming political philosophy and by engaging in a kind of statesman
ship in an attempt to improve political life. Its political activity be
comes a source of knowledge of the limits and potentials of human
nature. Political communities, in tum, are completed by philosophy
and by approaching their highest potentials when they are directed by
thought.
Citizens and Statesmen, which is an analysis of the Politics as a
whole, explores this community between thought and action, philoso
phy and politics, as a kind of political rule, the shared rule that
Aristotle associates with politics. The community between the philos
opher and the city is a version of that between statesmen and citizens,
as they rule and are ruled in tum. Citizens and Statesmen thus
examines the meaning of Aristotle's argument that human beings are
by nature political animals. While Aristotle's thought does full justice
to the world of beauty and awe that Plato's philosophy reveals, it does
not separate that world from ordinary life, just as it does not view the
philosopher as separate from the rest of humanity. Indeed, it is
ordinary life that is of immense beauty and the source of awe. This is
because there is a kind of commOn good, so that the good and the just,
the individual and other human beings, while they thankfully do not
become one, can at least hold hands. The effect of this vision is less
serene resignation than hopeful, if restrained, activism.
I would like to thank those who forced me to improve this book
by their helpful criticisms: Daniel Mahoney, for his detailed comments
On the manuscript at its early stages; Susan Benfield, for her editing
skills and for making me a better writer; and the anonymous readers
of the manuscript, especially one to whom I am indebted for countless
refinements of my argument. A generous grant from the Earhart
Foundation allowed me to complete the manuscript, for which I am
Preface IX
grateful. My husband David in all senses made this book possible-his
criticisms, his encouragement, and his constant reminders that philos
ophy should not be isolated in the clouds, but address human beings.
It is this simple truth about human nature that is at the heart of this
book.