Aristotle Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Politics === {{Main|Politics (Aristotle)}} In addition to his works on ethics, which address the individual, Aristotle addressed the city in his work titled ''[[Politics (Aristotle)|Politics]]''. Aristotle considered the city to be a natural community. Moreover, he considered the city to be prior in importance to the family, which in turn is prior to the individual, "for the whole must of necessity be prior to the part".{{sfn| Politics | pp=1253a19β124}} He famously stated that "man is by nature a political animal" and argued that humanity's defining factor among others in the animal kingdom is its rationality.{{sfn| Aristotle | 2009 | pages=320β321}} Aristotle conceived of politics as being like an organism rather than like a machine, and as a collection of parts none of which can exist without the others. Aristotle's conception of the city is organic, and he is considered one of the first to conceive of the city in this manner.{{sfn| Ebenstein | Ebenstein | 2002 | page=59}} [[File:Aristotle's constitutions.svg| thumb|upright=1.5 | Aristotle's classifications of political constitutions.]] The common modern understanding of a political community as a modern state is quite different from Aristotle's understanding. Although he was aware of the existence and potential of larger empires, the natural community according to Aristotle was the city (''[[polis]]'') which functions as a political "community" or "partnership" (''koinΕnia'')<!-- (1252a1) -->. The aim of the city is not just to avoid injustice or for economic stability<!-- (1280b29β31) -->, but rather to allow at least some citizens the possibility to live a good life, and to perform beautiful acts: "The political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together<!-- (1281a1β3) -->." This is distinguished from modern approaches, beginning with [[social contract]] theory, according to which individuals leave the [[state of nature]] because of "fear of violent death" or its "inconveniences".{{efn-ua | For a different reading of social and economic processes in the ''Nicomachean Ethics'' and ''Politics'' see Polanyi, Karl (1957) "Aristotle Discovers the Economy" in ''Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi'' ed. G. Dalton, Boston 1971, 78β115.}} In ''[[Protrepticus (Aristotle)|Protrepticus]]'', the character 'Aristotle' states:{{sfn| Hutchinson | Johnson | 2015 | p=22}} {{blockquote | For we all agree that the most excellent man should rule, i.e., the supreme by nature, and that the law rules and alone is authoritative; but the law is a kind of intelligence, i.e. a discourse based on intelligence. And again, what standard do we have, what criterion of good things, that is more precise than the intelligent man? For all that this man will choose, if the choice is based on his knowledge, are good things and their contraries are bad. And since everybody chooses most of all what conforms to their own proper dispositions (a just man choosing to live justly, a man with bravery to live bravely, likewise a self-controlled man to live with self-control), it is clear that the intelligent man will choose most of all to be intelligent; for this is the function of that capacity. Hence it's evident that, according to the most authoritative judgment, intelligence is supreme among goods.{{sfn| Hutchinson | Johnson | 2015 | p=22}}}} As Plato's disciple Aristotle was rather critical concerning democracy and, following the outline of certain ideas from Plato's ''[[Statesman (dialogue)|Statesman]]'', he developed a coherent theory of integrating various forms of power into a so-called mixed state: {{blockquote| It is β¦ constitutional to take β¦ from oligarchy that offices are to be elected, and from democracy that this is not to be on a property-qualification. This then is the mode of the mixture; and the mark of a good mixture of democracy and oligarchy is when it is possible to speak of the same constitution as a democracy and as an oligarchy. |Aristotle. ''Politics'', Book 4, 1294b.10β18|source=}}[[Aristotle's views on women]] influenced later [[Western philosophy|Western philosophers]], who quoted him as an authority until the end of the [[Middle Ages]], but these views have been controversial in modern times. Aristotle's analysis of procreation describes an active, ensouling masculine element bringing life to an inert, passive female element. The biological differences are a result of the fact that the female body is well-suited for reproduction, which changes her body temperature, which in turn makes her, in Aristotle's view, incapable of participating in political life.<ref>See Marguerite Deslauriers, "Sexual Difference in Aristotle's Politics and His Biology," ''Classical World'' 102 3 (2009): 215β231.</ref> On this ground, proponents of [[feminist metaphysics]] have accused Aristotle of [[misogyny]]{{sfn| Freeland | 1998}} and [[sexism]].{{sfn| Morsink | 1979 | pp=83β112}} However, Aristotle gave equal weight to women's happiness as he did to men's, and commented in his ''Rhetoric'' that the things that lead to happiness need to be in women as well as men.{{efn-ua | "Where, as among the Lacedaemonians, the state of women is bad, almost half of human life is spoilt."{{sfn| Rhetoric | p=Book I, Chapter 5}}}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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