Aristotle doctrine that

1
Aristotle doctrine that Man is by Nature a Zoon
Politikon
2

• a) Richard Mulgan, Aristotles Political Theory
  chs. 12.
• b) Bernard Yack, Community and Conflict... pp.
  92-103.
• c) Wolfgang Kullman, Man as a Political Animal
  in Keyt and Miller.
• d) Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition 7-37.
• Aristotle - 1253a1-15.

3

• 1. Zoon
• ???? transliterated as zoon includes all
  living beings, men, animals and Gods.
• Some common mistakes even by famous philosophers
• A. Giorgio Agamben in Homo Sacer argues that
  Aristotle conceives of human animal life this
  sense (zoe), and distinguishes it from mans
  political and ethical life (bios). Agamben
  interprets (zoe), as simple natural life la
  semplice vita naturale and explains that this
  kind of life mere living was excluded from the
  polis and confined to the oikos or household,
  which was a sphere concerned exclusively with
  reproduction riproduzione and subsistence
  sussistenza. This is the meaning he
  subsequently assigns to bare life la nuda
  vita.

4

• Zoon mans natural existence, or the social
  existence of the polis existence by nature
  where this expression does not refer to (but
  specifically) excludes the teleological meaning
  of nature.
• The instinctual basis of the polis desire for
  companionship.
• The metaphysical/reproductive basis of the polis.
• The drive for self-preservation.
• The economic and material basis of the polis.

5

• B. Martin Heidegger interprets the phrase
  politikon zoon as a reference to mans animal
  existence.
• Martin Heidegger, On Humanism, 1949, p13
• We must be clear that human beings in the final
  analysis are enclosed in the sphere of animal
  being (animalitas), even if he is not equated
  with beasts, but is given a specific difference.
  In principle one must always think of the homo
  animalisthis positioning is a kind of
  metaphysics.
• So Heidegger thinks that mans status as a zoon,
  marks him out as an animal.

6

• However, zoon/zoe is not a pejorative
  designation. It means ensouled being or living
  being in a wide and non-pejorative sense, which
  excludes only plants, but includes animals and
  Gods. (Animal by contrast, in the Roman and
  Christian traditions is pejorative.)
• C. As Hans Jonas puts it ???? does not mean
  animal ( bestia), but every ensouled ( living)
  being, excluding plants but including demons,
  Gods, ensouled stars, indeed the ensouled
  universe as the greatest and most perfect living
  being itself. (Hans Jonas, Zwischen Nichts und
  Ewigkeit. Zur Lehre vom Menachen cited in
  Günther Bien, Die Grundlegung der Politischen
  Philosophie bei Aristoteles, Freiburg, Karl
  Alber, 1973, p. 123.)

7

• Remember the sphere of human existence or
  properly human affairs in which politics and
  ethics have their proper place, like human
  existence itself, is demarcated from above and
  from below, suspended between the divine (the
  life of the Gods and the heavenly bodies) and the
  animal.
• So Aristotle means it literally when he says that
  he who is by nature and not by luck without a
  polis is either a bad man, or above all men.
  1252a3
• Humans as living beings share some features of
  their existence with animals/beasts, and some
  with Gods.

8

• Politikon
• It is commonly claimed that Aristotle define the
  human beings as a Zoon Politikon.
• Lets take some famous examples.
• A. Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality vol.
  III, p. 188
• Ever since Aristotle defined man as a
  political animal modern man is an animal
  whose politics calls his existence as a living
  being into question.

9

• B. Hannah Arendt
• Aristotles definition of man as a zoon
  politikon was not only unrelated and even opposed
  to the natural association experienced in
  household life it can be fully understood only
  if one adds his second famous definition of man
  as a zoon logon ekhon. Hannah Arendt, The Human
  Condition, Chicago, 1954, p. 27
• N.B. The only opposition here is that the life
  of citizens sharing in the constitution that is
  ruling and being ruled in turn and hence
  participating in a just political order, is
  opposed to the natural hierarchies of the
  household master/(natural) slave, and man woman,
  which are based on instinct, affection and exist
  for the purpose of survival and economic and
  material need.

10

• Aristotle is not claiming that the social glue
  that cements the family plays not role in
  cementing the political community.
• He claims that it is necessary but not
  sufficient to do this, in addition to all this
  one needs a constitution, laws, a just political
  order.
• There is no opposition as such between the bases
  of natural association (that are sufficient for
  family ties) and the bases of political order.

11

• Still Arendt implies that Aristotle has several
  definitions of man/human being/ and she is right
  about this.
• Aristotle offers lots of other much better
  candidate definitions of man.
• Man is the only animal who can speak.
• Man is the only animal who can deliberate and
  decide.
• Man is the only animal who can act.
• Man is the only animal who can count.
• Man is the only animal who can remember.
• Man is the only animal who can do science.

12

• In his biological writings, Aristotle notes that
  there are several different kinds of political
  animal.
• In History of the Animals he distinguishes
  between gregarious animals ton angelaion and
  solitary animals ton monadikon.
• Some gregarious animals, (not those that herd or
  flock together or swim together in shoals) are
  political animals
• Animals that live politically are those that
  have any kind of activity in common, which is not
  true of all gregarious animals. Of this sort are
  man, bee, wasp and crane. Aristotle, (HA 1.1.
  487 b33ff)
• Political as a biological attribute and
  differentium of a small sub-class of gregarious
  animals, including human beings but not limited
  to them.

13

• Look again at Aristotles supposed definition
  of man in Book I of The Politics
• It is clear that man is a political animal more
  than any bee or any gregarious animal. Aristotle,
  (Politics, 1253a7 my emphasis.
• The specific difference that determines the
  genus of political animals, insofar as Aristotle
  canvasses one, is that human beings have
  logos.2 Aristotles claims that
• man is the only animal who has speech/reason
  logon de monon anthropos ekhei ton zoon
  (1253a9).
• Man is thE only animal with a sense of justice.
  
• (See also 1334b15 where Aristotle claims that
  both reason logos and intellection nous are
  the end toward which nature strives emintes
  phuseos telos, so that birth and education in
  customs should be ordered with a view to them.)

14

• speechserves to make clear what is beneficial
  and what is harmful, and so also what is just and
  unjust. For by contrast with the other animals
  ta alla zoa he alone can perceive what is good
  and bad, and just and unjust) Politics
  (1251a16-19) See also Politics 1332b5. Man and
  man alone has reason monos gar echei logon.
• the virtue of justice dikaiosune is what is
  political, and justice dike is the basis on
  which the political association is ordered, and
  the virtue of justice is a judgement about what
  is just. (1253a33-5)

15

• Mulgan versus Kullmann
• Richard Mulgan. p. 24
• 1. The political animal, in the narrow sense,
  means the polis-animal.
• Mulgan claims this is its literal meaning.
• 2. Aristotle uses the term in the wider sense of
  social animal to denote any species which
  co-operates in a common enterprise. Calls this
  its metaphorical meaning.
• 3. Aristotle unsuccessfully tries to align both
  meanings at 1253 a1-15 with the claim that man
  is more of a political animal than a bee or any
  other gregarious animal.
• What he should have said is that other animals
  in a metaphorical sense only whereas man is
  political in a literal sense too.

16

• 4. Mulgan suggests that the proposition, Man is
  a political animal is a premise, which is to be
  used to prove that the polis is natural. p.24.
• The mistake he diagnoses is that Aristotle only
  shows the biological basis of mans social
  nature, not that this society and state must be
  of the polis-type. Mulgan, p.25.
• Look at the text. The proposition is presented
  not as the premise but as a conclusion of
  argument, which shows first, that the polis
  exists by nature, and that man is a political
  animal.
• Hence it clearly follows that the state exists
  by nature, and that man is a political animal.
  1253a1
• 5. Mulgan In order to do this Aristotle has to
  make unwarranted claims of biological
  universality for values which are, at least in
  part, peculiar to one social context. p. 25