Aristotle

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Aristotle was one of the greatest philosophers of all time and many of his ideas hold true today. As a Greek philosopher and scientist, Aristotle set the precedent for modern western thinking. Yet his theories and ideas on politics need to be examined in the context of the history and the ideas of the time in which they were developed. Aristotle’s views on politics were influenced by Plato and the state of Greece at the time of Aristotle’s life. Aristotle studied and worked with a Plato at the Academy of Plato for 20 years. Plato was anti-democratic and believed in the utopian ideal states (Hitz). Although Aristotle shared some of the same views as Plato, he differed on key points. One of these key points is the abolition of private property. In Plato’s “Republic”, Plato proposes communizing as many things as possible. This includes women, children, and land in order to unify the city. Aristotle rebukes this idea by saying that this will only cause the citizens of the community to be unable to feel certain emotions such as love and the basic family relationships would be unknown to individuals.1 Communizing children would destroy the social class system2. As for the sharing of land, Aristotle believes that communizing destroys the virtues of temperance and liberality3. He also says that when there is community property, more arguments and fights ensue compared to when private property is owned4. Another idea that Aristotle disagrees with is the pursuit of excessive unity of the common state. He believes that true unity can only be achieved by sharing education within the community5. Aristotle also believed in the collective wisdom of assembly (Hitz). In this idea, he proposes that instead of one person making the decisions for ... ... middle of paper ... ...stotle offers many other reasons as to why men are superior. He talks about nature, politics, virtue as being reasons why men are superior. Aristotle lived during a time when Athens was plagued with many battles and was in a constant state of turmoil. Aristotle represented some of the events of his time in his work on politics. The views of Greece at the time can be divided into two different categories; kingship and rule by free citizens is a representation of the battles that took place between Greek city states and the kings of Persia. While the battles between Athens and Sparta can be shown in the struggle between oligarchy and democracy0. Another major historical event was that King Philip II of Macedonia took over many Greek states. This major shift of political power could have caused Aristotle to question politics and search for the best form of government.

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