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"The state is an association intended to enable its members, in their households and the kinships, to live well," says Aristotle, "its purpose is a perfect and self-sufficient life." So what is important is not so much who has the power, but whether that power is deployed skillfully toward that end.
A state should not be confused with a government; a government is an organization that has been granted the authority to act on the behalf of a state. [22] Nor should a state be confused with a society; a society refers to all organized groups, movements, and individuals who are independent of the state and seek to remain out of its influence. [22]
Aristotle's main notion is that the ancient Greek polis, or city-state, is the natural end of human beings; they start in family groups, progress naturally to forming villages, and finally come together in cities. Thus, the family forms the root of human relationships, but the city is the flower.
Aristotle's conception of the city is organic, and he is considered one of the first to conceive of the city in this manner. [144] 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.
Politeia (πολιτεία) is an ancient Greek word used in Greek political thought, especially that of Plato and Aristotle. Derived from the word polis ("city-state"), it has a range of meanings from "the rights of citizens" to a "form of government".
Aristotle is notable for the theories that humans are social animals, and that the polis (Ancient Greek city state) existed to bring about the good life appropriate to such animals. [16] Roman political philosophy was influenced by the Stoics and the Roman statesman Cicero. [17]
Aristotle's son was the next leader of Aristotle's school, the Lyceum, and in ancient times he was already associated with this work. [ 5 ] A fourth treatise, Aristotle's Politics , is often regarded as the sequel to the Ethics, in part because Aristotle closes the Nicomachean Ethics by saying that his ethical inquiry has laid the groundwork ...
Athens, however, was a particularly important state, and where Aristotle was living at the time; therefore it is plausible that, even if students composed the others, Aristotle composed that one himself as a model for the rest. On the other hand, a number of prominent scholars doubt that it was written by Aristotle. [3]