POLI 1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Physis, Politeia, Human Nature
Unit 2
I. Aristotle
a. 284-322 BCE
b. Socrates
i. Put to death (399BCE)
1. For corrupting the youth and creating new gods
c. Plato: student of Socrates; Aristotle: Student of Plato
d. Wrote founding books in disciplines still studied today
i. The Politics
ii. The Ethics
iii. The Poetics
e. His ideas are often superseded or rejected
f. The Politics
i. Foundational to political science
ii. Rejected in politics
1. Still important today
a. Often used as a common point of rejection
II. City (Polis) and Nature
a. Humans are naturally political
i. The city is natural
b. Nature
i. physis Greek- nature or grow
1. exists in itself
ii. nomos Greek- law or convention
1. human made/determined
c. Aristotle argues that the distinction between physis and nomos isn’t
obvious
i. Convention is a refinement of the natural law
ii. Human beings form (cities) according to nomos under the laws
of physis (the human is naturally political)
d. Happiness is the chief end of government
i. The city exists by nature because humans can only be happy in
a city
ii. A city is self-sufficient, and complete
1. For economic reasons
2. For sexual reasons
a. Formation of the family
i. The family+slaves=the household
e. Organization of humankind
i. Household>neighborhood>city>nation>empire
1. The city is the natural organization of humankind
III. The Household
a. Husband, wife, children, and servants/slaves
i. In modern society, we have rejected slavery
1. Aristotle acknowledges there are differing opinions on
slavery
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a. Aristotle argues for slavery being natural as
opposed to conventional
b. Aristotle determines that the soul rules the body
i. If people can differ in body and soul, there
is a natural slave
1. Agrees that not all enslaved are
justly so
b. Distinguishes between mastery and other types of rule
i. Kingly rule
1. Parents over children
ii. Political rule
1. Between equals
iii. Mastery
1. Between a master and slave
3/2/11
I. On Reading Aristotle’s Politics
a. Thought not to be a book, but a collection of his lecture notes
b. Meant to be wrestled with
c. Shows both sides of arguments with truth on both sides
d. Who makes the laws?
i. Laws are not themselves the regimes
ii. The laws don’t answer all questions
e. The city exists by nature
i. As does slavery
ii. Continually states that politics should occur between equals,
and not as a master to slaves
iii. The nature exists in the end a city is seeking
1. Not in infancy, but in maturity
iv. An aggregate of the people
II. Property
a. Distinction between household management and (household)
acquisition
i. Use (management) is greater than acquisition
1. Acquisition I for the sole point of use
2. For the end of happiness
b. Key to human happiness is the exercise of virtue
i. Activity of the soul in the activity of virtue
ii. Not acquisition of wealth
III. Family and Household
a. Economics
i. Oikos nomos
1. Household convention
ii. Political economy emerges in an industrial age
1. Aristotle includes piracy as a form of acquisition
iii. Aristotle is not a great supporter of commerce
1. (e doesn’t consider it to be noble
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a. The virtues involved in commerce, he considers
to be lesser virtues
b. Plato says a city should have no private property
i. Aristotle disagrees
1. Nobody cares for the common goods as much as
personal property
2. Also, friends share their private property
3. Private ownership, common use
c. Plato would abolish marriages between men an women to keep
equality between the sexes
i. Sexual difference is between bodies, not souls
ii. Aristotle suggests that the man is the head of the household
1. He clearly states that
a. Husband and wife relationship s different than
that between master and slave
b. Husband and wife relationship is political
i. Equals ruling each other
ii. They (should) take turns
IV. Book 3- Regime and Citizen
a. Citizens are important (not so much as households in this book)
b. City (polis) is defined by
i. Regime (politeia)
1. The form the city takes
ii. Citizens (polites)
1. One that partakes in the city
2. Especially true in democracy
3. 6 kinds of regimes
# of rulers
Serves common good (correct)
Serves the ruler (perverse)
One
Kingship (virtue)
Tyranny (power)
Few
Aristocracy (virtue)
Oligarchy (wealth)
many
Polity (military virtue)
Democracy (freedom)
3/4/11
I. The City and The Regime
a. Polity
i. May be described as Constitutional Democracy
b. The regime is the form of the city
c. City
i. A partnership of families and villages in a complete and self-
sufficient unit
ii. Partnership and sharing in what’s good
1. Shared sense of virtue
2. Shared morality
3. Sharing a good life
iii. This become more apparent after revolution
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