Analysis Of Tannenbaum's Inventors Of Ideas

This paper explores Aristotle’s sentiment, “that man is a political animal”, as interpreted by Tannenbaum in his work, Inventors of Ideas (2012, p. 35). Thus, it seeks to elaborate on this writer’s interpretation of Aristotle’s intent with this statement. Additionally, this analysis incorporates this writer’s opinion about Aristotle’s perspective as it relates to political and social science in the twenty first century; specifically, it’s this writer’s position that Aristotle’s viewpoint about the actions of the “political animals” within our polis is, indeed, relevant to our modern day politics. That is to say, we seem to have passed an inflection point in our recent political institutions, which has propelled us to the brink of sanity. Hence, our polis is now experiencing, and suffering, the consequences of the irrational behaviors of the “beasts” within our social and

Thus, if we are not cautious, we may plunge ourselves off of the cliff of democracy and meet our own demise in the chasm of fascism. Indeed, political and social scientists in today’s world might benefit from reflecting back to Aristotle’s interpretation as a means of identifying the “beasts” and “gods” in various democratic and non-democratic regimes around the world today. To begin, this writer interprets Aristotle’s vision of “man is a political animal” to mean that man’s disposition is dependent on the natural order of life. “Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal” (Liberty Fund, Inc., 2008). That is to say, that man is an individual within the community, within the state; therefore, he is