Aristotle was Plato’s student who studied under him in his Academy in Athens. Unlike Plato’s philosophical approach to politics, Aristotle’s approach to politics was more grounded in reality. He did not agree with Plato’s idea that our perception of reality was not real and that you have to escape it to understand the objective truths of the universe.
He called human beings ‘political animals’. He believed that even though both humans and animals live in societies, humans have the power of speech and a sense of logic and reasoning. Therefore, humans by nature are political animals. He compared a city to an organism, which requires all of its parts to work harmoniously for proper function. He believed that a good city balances the interests of the different classes by governance of law.
His book ‘Politics’ is the most important book about his political philosophies, which discusses how a government should be organized. He believed that study of politics was a practical science. He view was that all humans have a natural purpose to be happy and politics helps in fulfilling that purpose, and is therefore essential for every human being. A well organized state led by a virtuous government would lead to happy life of its citizens.
His thought that the purpose of a state was coming together of likeminded people, who would organize their society in a way that would maximize its purpose- happy and virtuous life of its citizens. This idea of a state is much different from modern definitions of a state, which is that a state needs to provide safety and security to its citizens, who are then free to pursue their own ambitions and happiness in it. He stated that many animals live in communities, just like human beings. However, human beings have the power of speech and reasoning ability, which enable them to make form a state and make proper decisions. The citizens of the state would thus participate in the decision making.
Aristotle’s ideas on who could be citizens:
Aristotle believed that only free men of a state would be allowed to be citizens, because they have proper reasoning abilities. Slaves lacked any reasoning abilities and were therefore unsuitable for the role of citizens. Women had reason, but lacked authority and thus were also unfit to be citizens. Some accounts also claim that he thought that women were too emotional and let their emotions supersede their reasoning abilities. Either way, he did not think that women were suitable for decision making. He also thought that people must have enough wealth to be able to devote their time into political activities. Therefore artists and workers would also not be citizens.
ARISTOTLE’S SIX FOLD TYPOLOGY
Aristotle created 6 typologies of political regimes, depending on the ruling interest of the government and number of rulers. There would be three good types of regimes- monarchy, aristocracy and polity, and three deviant forms of regimes- tyranny, oligarchy and democracy.
Something important to note here is that like Plato, Aristotle also saw democracy as a deviant from of regime. He thought that in any population, the rich were few and the poor were many. So in an oligarchic regime, the few rich would take control and exploit the poor. However in a democracy, the many poor would use their power to gain wealth. He also did agree with Plato’s idea of a people with immense wisdom ruling a state, since he believed such ideal persons are almost impossible to find.
So, his philosophy of an ideal form of government was a polity – a combination of aspects of oligarchy and democracy. He however does not give a proper explanation of how a polity would function or if a proper polity has ever existed.
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