Table Of ContentARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF THE STATE
Aristotle's
Theory of the State
Curtis N. Johnson
Associate Professor of Political Science
Lewis and Clark College,
Portland, Oregon
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-20878-4 ISBN 978-1-349-20876-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20876-0
©Curtis N. Johnson 1990
Reprint of the original edition 1990
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1990
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Johnson, Curtis N., 1948--
Aristotle's theory of the state I Curtis N. Johnson.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-312-03678-2
1. Aristotle. Politics. 2. State, The. I. Title.
JC71.A7J65 1990
320.1 '01-dc20 89--37268
CIP
For Loretta, Sophia and Alexis
Contents
Preface xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
A Note on Aristotle's Text xiv
Introduction xv
Notes xxii
Part I: DESCRIPTIVE POLITICAL SCIENCE
1 Aristotle's Theory of the State 1
The Nature of the Problem 1
The Constitution 2
Political Theory 3
Nature 5
Theory and Practice 10
Notes 12
2 First-Order and Second-Order Questions in the
Politics 16
First-Order and Second-Order Questions in the Politics 16
'Idealism' and 'Empiricism' in the Politics 20
The Four Causes 23
Statesmanship and Practical Virtue in the Politics 25
Conclusion 28
Notes 30
3 Aristotle's Method in the Politics 34
Introduction 34
The Rules Governing Classification 35
Two Additional Rules of Classification 39
Notes 43
4 The Essential Nature of the State and Specific
Identities in Aristotle's Politics 47
The Essential Nature of the Polis and Its Parts 47
vii
viii Contents
The Essential Nature of Constitutions 51
Discovering Constitutional Identities 55
The Taxonomies of the Politics 57
Notes 61
5 Evaluating Regimes: Establishing the Goodness of
Constitutional Forms 66
Assessment of the Goodness of Politeiae 66
Individual Criteria of Normative Ordering 69
Evaluation of Specific Forms 74
The Moral Hierarchy 85
Notes 86
Part II: EXPLANATORY POLITICAL SCIENCE
6 Why Constitutions Differ: Causation in the Politics 91
Introduction 91
Causality in Aristotle's Thought 92
Efficient Cause 93
Formal Cause 97
Material Cause 102
Final Cause 105
Notes 110
7 The Citizen and the Sovereign Office in the Politics 115
Introduction 115
The Citizen 115
The Citizen in the Actual Practices of the Regimes 117
The Complete Citizen 121
Citizenship and Civic Virtue 122
The Sovereign Office 125
Sovereignty and Citizenship 128
The Deliberative Element and Sovereignty 129
The Problem of Divided Sovereignty 131
Conclusion 135
Notes 136
Part III: APPLIED POLITICAL SCIENCE
8 Empiricism in the Politics: Polity and the Middle
Regime 143
Contents ix
Introduction 143
Difficulties in Aristotle's Presentation of Polity 144
The Identity of Polity: Nomenclature 145
The Classification of Polity 146
Polity and the 'Middle Constitution' 148
Notes 152
9 Idealism in the Politics: The 'Best State Absolutely' 155
Introduction 155
Constitutional Classification and the Best State 157
The Middle Constitution 158
Aristotle's Best State Absolutely 162
Notes 166
Bibliography 170
Additional Reading 184
Index 189
Preface
The work that follows is intended more for those who are already
interested in Aristotle's political thought than to arouse the interest
of those who are not. Indeed, I do not know how one would
approach the latter audience. But to the former there is a great deal
to say, even about a single Aristotelian text. Such is the richness
and abundance of his thought that even a detailed commentary
can usually hope to be little more than an introduction. My work
does not aim for anything more.
I have organized this work around a single question, what
Aristotle evidently regarded as the 'first question' of politics, 'what
is the state, or constitution?' I believe this is the fundamental
question with which the Politics is concerned. There are other
questions raised in this work by Aristotle, many other and impor
tant ones. None, though, has the centrality to the treatise that this
one does. To discover the state is the ultimate goal of the
philosopher in this work. His pursuit of it gives the shape - the
logical structure - to the Politics as it has come down to us.
I have attempted in this work to be as attentive to the recent
scholarly literature as is appropriate to my theme and as space
allowed. In cases of dispute or uncertainty, however, I have made
it a requirement to be faithful only to a single text, that of Aristotle
himself. I am seldom far away from his own words, at least as I
have been able to understand them (and there are admittedly times
when this has not been easy). I have often, though not invariably,
supplied Latinized transliterations of Greek passages in the Politics
to enable the reader better to see upon what basis I have fashioned
my interpretation. All Greek passages are also given in translation;
familiarity with Attic Greek is unnecessary for following the
particulars of my arguments.
In a few instances I have provided elsewhere more detailed
arguments and defenses of positions adopted in this book. A
longer and more detailed version of the first half of Chapter 7
appeared in Phronesis 29 (1984) as 'Who Is Aristotle's Citizen?' The
second half of the same chapter appeared in more detailed form as
the 'Hobbesian Concept of Sovereignty and Aristotle's Politics' in
Journal of the History of Ideas 46 (1985). Chapter 8 in this work is
based upon an article called 'Aristotle's Polity: Mixed or Middle
xi
xii Preface
Constitution?' that appeared in the Spring 1988 issue of History of
Political Thought. I am grateful to those publications and their
editors for allowing me to draw from these articles.
lowe, and wish to ilcknowledge, debts of gratitude to those who
helped me in the thinking and writing of this work: To Sheldon
Wolin, Henry Janssen and Herbert Deane, whose lectures on
Aristotle to a young studet¥ planted the first seeds of interest (the
latter two also read the manuscript in various stages of develop
ment and contributed wisely and generously in their comments);
to Julian Franklin and Dwight Anderson for sharpening my
political understanding; to Trevor Saunders and Jonathan Barnes
for reading and commenting upon sections of the manuscript. The
work that appears here has been immeasurably improved by the
labors of these people; the author claims sole responsibility for its
remaining deficiencies.
I also must thank members of the Political Theory Discussion
Group in Portland, Oregon, for several years of running commen
tary on this and related questions in politics, and to members of my
Department at Lewis and Clark College, especially Don Balmer
and Jack Crampton, for inexhaustible support and assistance with
any manner of difficulty through many years of toil.
I have benefitted greatly from the wise counsel and kind
encouragement of my parents and other members of my family.
Several other members of the Lewis and Clark College faculty have
assisted in a variety of ways. Lewis and Clark College provided me
generous assistance in the form of several Faculty Research Grants;
it also awarded me a Junior Sabbatical in order to work on this
project. Invaluable technical support has been provided to me
throughout the preparation of the manuscript by Robbie Roy.
Above all I wish to thank my wife Loretta who has brought her
own intellectual acumen to bear on virtually every section of this
work, and who has been a constant source of encouragement and
support through the whole course of my labors.
CN. JOHNSON
Portland, 1989
