Some Moans:

1

• Some Moans
• 1. Voice! Is it clear who is making the claim in
  question.
• Happiness is an inclusive end.
• Ackrill argues that happiness is an inclusive
  end.
• 3. Ackrill claims that Aristotle conceives
  happiness as an inclusive end.
• Ackrill claims that the best way to interpret
  Aristotles argument in NE, is by construing
  happiness as an inclusive end.
• 2. Dont emulate! Use your own words.
• As is well known, the various participants of
  the nomos physis debate from the pre-Socratics
  onwards
• There are a variety of translation choices of
  the Greek word tuche, none of which is
  satisfactory
• This is one of the only occurrences of this verb
  in the entire Aristotelian corpus
• 3. Always back up your claims with evidence from
  the text.

2

• Read more widely (and carefully).
• Think more, before you write.
• Write more carefully. (Re-read and rewrite.)
• Ackrill or Aristotle The Politics ed. Stephen
  Everson, CUP 1988. Trevor Saunders
• Book I, 1-6, 13.
• Book III What is a citizen the relation between
  citizen and state vi criterion of good regime
  discussion of the different regimes.
• Book VII 1-5, 7-10, 13-15 The best state.
  Happiness and the good life for individuals and
  the polis
• Book VIII, 1 only.

3

• 1. Synopsis of the Aristotles Politics
• I. Introduction. The Origins of the Polis.
  Natural Orders and Hierarchies. Economy and
  Trade.
• II. Candidates for Good and Bad Constitutions or
  Regimes (of city-states)
• III IV Description and Systematic Classification
  of Good and Bad regimes
• IV Problems with various kinds of demokratia.
  1112 role of the middle classes.
• V (Largely repeats IV) Ch. 9 only loyalty and
  education. Causes of revolution.
• VI Of demokratia, oligarchy and the distribution
  of offices. 2-5 Features of demokratia
• VII The Ideal State. Happiness and the good life
  for individuals and the polis
• VIII Education of the Citizens

4

• Every polis is a community of some kind and
  every community is established with a view to
  some good for everyone always acts in order to
  obtain that which they think good. But if all
  communitiesaim at some good, the state or
  political community, which is the highest (most
  magisterial) of all, and which embraces all the
  rest, aims at a good which is greater and more
  magisterial than any other. (1252a1 Jowett)

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• 1. Political Science is about the highest good or
  the happiness/eudaimonia of the city.
• 1253b30 the polis ...originates in the bare
  needs of life and continues in existence for
  the sake of the good life
• 1281a1 The telos of the city-state is the good
  life.
• 1280a31 a polis exists for the sake of the good
  life and not for the sake of mere life.
• 1328a35 for a polis is a community of equals
  aiming at the best life possible
• Politics ta politika
• Political Science e politike techne
• Citizen polites
• Polis a form of association or community that
  exists for the sake of some (common) good. A
  city state.

6

• 2.2 What is a polis? Or Why is the polis as it
  is?
• 1. material cause of the polis location, space
• human beings (their needs, desires,
  instincts), walls, stones, water, harbour
• 2. moving cause of the polis (social instinct
  economic need?) actions of the lawmaker -
  demiurge, human reason, logos
• formal cause of the polis the constitution/régime
  1276b1
• laws and practices
• 4. final cause of the polis economic
  self-sufficiency 1253a1
• the good life III, 9 1280 b25
• eudaimonia I, 2, 1252 b30

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• 1253a1 Besides the final cause and end of a
  thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is
  the end and the best.
• 1253b30 the polis ...originates in the bare
  needs of life and continues in existence for
  the sake of the good life.
• 1281a1 The telos of the city-state is the good
  life.
• 1280a 31 a polis exists for the sake of the
  good life and not for the sake of mere life.
• 1328a35 for a polis is a community of equals
  aiming at the best life possible

8

• Recall the idea of the ethics that happiness is
  mainly up to us. (So are character and virtue.)
  Like ethics (the doctrine of good character)
  which falls under it, political (and legislative)
  science is
• the philosophy of human affairs 1181 b15
• (e peri ta anthropina philosophia).
• This means that it has a properly defined object
  domain. Not every object is appropriate object or
  practical deliberation. Why?
• Because We deliberate only about what is up to
  us and in the reach of our actions.
  (bouleuometha de peri ton eph hemin kai prakton)
  NE 1112a3-

9

• Not Open Open
• eternal and necessary things temporal and
  contingent things
• what is not up to us what is within our
  practical control
• what an idiot might deliberate what a rational
  person would
• i.e. nature, (phusis) necessity
  (ananke) everything that works by human
• chance/luck (tuche). mind or
  human agency
• other peoples affairs our own affairs
• we do not deliberate about all human affairs.
  No Spartan deliberates about how the Scythians
  might have the best political system.Rather each
  group of human beings deliberates about the
  actions they can do. NE 1112a28

10

• Problem
• 1. According to Aristotle political deliberation
  is about all those things in the realm of human
  affairs that are up to us and are open to
  political practical deliberation.
• But also
• 2. According to Aristotle the state exists by
  nature, and man is by nature a political nature.
• 2. Has been taken to imply 3.
• 3. Human beings citizens are parts of a
  larger organic social whole the polis.

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• This has been taken to imply a very illiberal
  view of citizenship, and even implicit
  totalitarianism.
• Further, the polis is by nature clearly prior
  to the family and to the individual, since the
  whole is of necessity prior to the part for
  example if the whole body be destroyed, there
  will be no foot or hand, except homonymously, as
  we might speak of a stone hand for when
  destroyed the hand will be no better than that.
  But things are defined by their function and
  power and we ought not to say that they are the
  same when they no longer have their proper
  quality, but only that they are homonymous. The
  proof that the state is a creation of nature and
  prior to the individual is that the individuaol,
  when isolated, is not self-sufficing and
  therefore he is like a part in relation to the
  whole. But he who is unable to live in society,
  or who has no need because he is sufficient for
  himself, must be either a beast or a God, he is
  no part of the polis. (1253a19)
• the whole is naturally superior to the part.
  1288a25.

12

• We are speaking of the best form of government,
  i.e. that under which the polis will be most
  happy 1328a34.
• On this reading then Aristotle looks like a
  theorist of positive freedom. The
  self-determination of the whole political
  community is paramount, and the (negative)
  freedom of its individual citizens is of only
  secondary importance.
• Is this an inconsistency. Can this inconsistency
  be reconciled? Can it be the case both
• a) that the polis exists by nature.
• b) that political matters are open to practical
  deliberation.
• Why does Aristtotle claim a) and what does he
  mean by it?

13

• When several villages are united in a single
  complete community, large enough to be nearly or
  quite sufficing, the polis comes into existence,
  originating in mere life, and existing
  essentially for the sake of a good life. And
  therefore, if the earlier forms of society are
  natural, so is the state, for it is the end of
  them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For
  what each thing is when fully developed, we call
  its nature, whether we are speaking of a man a
  horse or a household. Besides the final cause and
  end of a thing is the best, and to be
  self-sufficing is the end and the best.
• Hence it is evident that the state is a creation
  of nature, and that man is by nature a political
  animal. 1252b28-1253a2

14

• The meaning of by nature (phusei).
• 1. (context the so -called nomos phusis debate)
• by nature (phusei) not by convention (nomoi)
• 2. By a process which when left not by chance
• unhindered leads always or for
• the most part to a certain result.
• What is usual or the norm unusual/anomolous
• EE nature s the cause of what is the same and
  for the most part, chance of the contrary.
• Phys A thing is due to natureimpediment. 199b15
• Coming about under its own by artifice, by the
• steam or automatically. human hand

15

• 4. Context Aristotles teleology)
• In accordance with the final end not in
  accordance
• or the perfection of something with the final
  end.
• the telos of human life eudaimonia.
• The state exists by nature, then, in several
  different senses. It comes into existence
• because of mans sexual/metaphysical urges (not
  by choice). 1252a30
• Because of mans instinct for self-preservation
  (also not by choice) 1252a31
• Because it meets mans economic needs (among
  other things). N.B. 1280a 31 1280 b25.

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• 4. Because it satisfies human beings instinctive
  fundamental sociality the desire for human
  company etc.
• 1253 a 30 A social instinct (horme) is
  implanted in all men by nature....
• 1278b 20 ...man is by nature a political
  animal. And therefore, men even when they do not
  require one anothers help, desire to live
  together, although they are also brought together
  by their common interest insofar as they each
  attain a measure of well-being.
• All these things probably count among the moving
  causes of the polis. But they are also part of
  what maintains it in existence its nature.

17

• 5. Because living in a polis is the way in which
  human beings reach their final end - eudaimonia
• NB It looks like The Polis has two final ends
  self-sufficiency and eudaimonia
• Besides the final cause and end of a thing is
  the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and
  the best. 1253a1
• Complex function Economic self-sufficiency,
  capable of being defended militarily, and being
  socially self-reproducing.
• the polis ...originates in the bare needs of
  life and continues in existence for the sake of
  the good life 1253b30
• Why cannot one be virtuous alone? For several
  reasons

18

• i. Many virtues e.g. generosity magnanimity can
  only be exercised among other people.
• ii. Virtues can only be acquired through
  socialisation and education in family and then
  through habits acquired through living according
  to custom and law.
• iii Eudaimonia has certain material threshold
  conditions that can only be met by living in an
  economically self-sufficient political community.
• iv One has to have friendship and love to be
  happy.
• v On one reading eudaimonia takes the form of the
  practical life, life of the statesman, of which a
  necessary part is the activity of holding office.