Aristotle: Life, Politics, Ethics, and Human Nature
1. Life and Work
Aristotle was born in Stagira (Macedonia) in 385/4 BC. His father, Nicomachus, served as a physician to King Amyntas III of Macedon, who claimed descent from Asclepius, the god of medicine. In his childhood, Aristotle was linked to the Macedonian court. In 367/6 BC, at the age of seventeen, he moved to Athens to study at Plato’s Academy, retaining ties to Stagira. Plato, around fifty years old at the time, considered Aristotle one of his most brilliant disciples. After Plato’s death in 347 BC, who had designated his nephew Speusippus as his successor at the Academy, Aristotle left Athens for Asso (Aeolis) with Xenocrates and Theophrastus. There, they engaged in Platonic studies. Aristotle became a political advisor and friend to Hermias, the tyrant of Atarnea. He later married Hermias’ niece, Pythias. After Hermias was killed by the Persians, Aristotle was summoned by Philip II of Macedon to tutor his son, Alexander. Following Alexander’s death in 323 BC, anti-Macedonian sentiment arose in Athens, and Aristotle, due to his connections with the Macedonian monarchy, fled to Chalcis in Euboea, his mother’s birthplace and where his family owned property. There, he died the following year at the age of sixty-three, seemingly from a stomach ailment.
6. Aristotelian Politics
Aristotelian Politics is a practical field of knowledge aimed at guiding the government of the polis (city-state). The starting point is that man is a politikon zoon, a political animal. By nature, individuals come together to form families, then villages (demoi), and finally the polis. From a political viewpoint, the natural order of political organization is the polis. However, in reality, the opposite is true: the polis comes first, followed by villages and families. To determine the best form of government, Aristotle, unlike Plato, employs an empirical method based on past experience. He instructed his aides at the Lyceum to gather constitutions from around 350 Greek city-states. Aristotle then applied a comparative approach, extracting laws that seemed most effective. This practice led to designing an ideal city, addressing questions such as optimal location, population size, territory, and forms of government. He followed Plato’s classification of government types (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, and their degenerate forms). In a monarchy (rule by one), if the king prioritizes only his interests, it degenerates into tyranny. Aristocracy (rule by the few) degenerates into oligarchy, and democracy (rule by the many) into demagoguery. These ideas are reflected in Aristotle’s work, Politics.
4. Humans
The Human Being is a natural substance composed of matter and form, like any other substance. Matter is the body, and form is the soul, which has three functions: vegetative (nutrition and reproduction), sensitive (sensation and appetite), and rational (intellectual knowledge and will). For Aristotle, there are not two separate realities, but a complex whole encompassing body and soul, matter and form. While Plato viewed body and soul as distinct entities, Aristotle considered them two aspects of one reality. Images reacting to this process arise from our perception. We have a generic entity, its form, which is its essence. For Aristotle, form is identified with action and passion with matter. Aristotle distinguishes between active and passive intellect. Knowledge is an activity, a change that cannot be explained as a simple transition from potency to act. There is a potential intellect (passive) and an active intellect. The active intellect produces forms, is all forms, and possesses a divine and immortal nature.
5. Ethics of Aristotle
Ethics of Aristotle
- It is a practical knowledge, like politics, aiming to guide human action towards the good, which is happiness, the proper goal of man.
- Man is social by nature; happiness is achievable only in society.
- Happiness depends on human nature itself, achieving what we naturally tend towards, a state of completeness. There is a distinction between ethical naturalists (the good for man is determined by his nature) and non-naturalists. Aristotle’s ethics is naturalistic. Happiness or the good lies in the completeness of individuals. Those who have achieved completeness acquire skills, either individual (musician, painter, scientist, etc., developed through practice leading to excellence or virtue) or specific (logos, leading to wisdom through practice). Aristotle considered wisdom as science, encompassing theoretical knowledge: mathematics, physics, and metaphysics. These are an absolute good, producing inexhaustible satisfaction. Aristotle distinguishes between perfect happiness (wisdom, attaining knowledge) and the good life (possessing the necessities for happiness, a friendly environment, and practicing virtue). For Aristotle, only a few can attain perfect happiness.