{"product_id":"2940015114386","title":"A TREATISE ON GOVERNMENT","description":"INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Politics of Aristotle is the second part of a treatise of which\u003cbr\u003ethe Ethics is the first part. It looks back to the Ethics as the Ethics\u003cbr\u003elooks forward to the Politics. For Aristotle did not separate, as we are\u003cbr\u003einclined to do, the spheres of the statesman and the moralist. In the\u003cbr\u003eEthics he has described the character necessary for the good life, but\u003cbr\u003ethat life is for him essentially to be lived in society, and when in the\u003cbr\u003elast chapters of the Ethics he comes to the practical application of his\u003cbr\u003einquiries, that finds expression not in moral exhortations addressed to\u003cbr\u003ethe individual but in a description of the legislative opportunities\u003cbr\u003eof the statesman. It is the legislator's task to frame a society which\u003cbr\u003eshall make the good life possible. Politics for Aristotle is not a\u003cbr\u003estruggle between individuals or classes for power, nor a device for\u003cbr\u003egetting done such elementary tasks as the maintenance of order and\u003cbr\u003esecurity without too great encroachments on individual liberty. The\u003cbr\u003estate is \"a community of well-being in families and aggregations\u003cbr\u003eof families for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life.\" The\u003cbr\u003elegislator is a craftsman whose material is society and whose aim is the\u003cbr\u003egood life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn an early dialogue of Plato's, the Protagoras, Socrates asks\u003cbr\u003eProtagoras why it is not as easy to find teachers of virtue as it is to\u003cbr\u003efind teachers of swordsmanship, riding, or any other art. Protagoras'\u003cbr\u003eanswer is that there are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue\u003cbr\u003eis taught by the whole community. Plato and Aristotle both accept the\u003cbr\u003eview of moral education implied in this answer. In a passage of the\u003cbr\u003eRepublic (492 b) Plato repudiates the notion that the sophists have a\u003cbr\u003ecorrupting moral influence upon young men. The public themselves,\u003cbr\u003ehe says, are the real sophists and the most complete and thorough\u003cbr\u003eeducators. No private education can hold out against the irresistible\u003cbr\u003eforce of public opinion and the ordinary moral standards of society.\u003cbr\u003eBut that makes it all the more essential that public opinion and\u003cbr\u003esocial environment should not be left to grow up at haphazard as they\u003cbr\u003eordinarily do, but should be made by the wise legislator the expression\u003cbr\u003eof the good and be informed in all their details by his knowledge. The\u003cbr\u003elegislator is the only possible teacher of virtue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch a programme for a treatise on government might lead us to expect in\u003cbr\u003ethe Politics mainly a description of a Utopia or ideal state which\u003cbr\u003emight inspire poets or philosophers but have little direct effect upon\u003cbr\u003epolitical institutions. Plato's Republic is obviously impracticable, for\u003cbr\u003eits author had turned away in despair from existing politics. He has no\u003cbr\u003eproposals, in that dialogue at least, for making the best of things as\u003cbr\u003ethey are. The first lesson his philosopher has to learn is to turn away\u003cbr\u003efrom this world of becoming and decay, and to look upon the unchanging\u003cbr\u003eeternal world of ideas. Thus his ideal city is, as he says, a pattern\u003cbr\u003elaid up in heaven by which the just man may rule his life, a pattern\u003cbr\u003etherefore in the meantime for the individual and not for the statesman.\u003cbr\u003eIt is a city, he admits in the Laws, for gods or the children of gods,\u003cbr\u003enot for men as they are.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAristotle has none of the high enthusiasm or poetic imagination of\u003cbr\u003ePlato. He is even unduly impatient of Plato's idealism, as is shown\u003cbr\u003eby the criticisms in the second book. But he has a power to see the\u003cbr\u003epossibilities of good in things that are imperfect, and the patience of\u003cbr\u003ethe true politician who has learned that if he would make men what\u003cbr\u003ethey ought to be, he must take them as he finds them. His ideal\u003cbr\u003eis constructed not of pure reason or poetry, but from careful and\u003cbr\u003esympathetic study of a wide range of facts. His criticism of Plato in\u003cbr\u003ethe light of history, in Book II. chap, v., though as a criticism it is\u003cbr\u003ecuriously inept, reveals his own attitude admirably: \"Let us remember\u003cbr\u003ethat we should not disregard the experience of ages; in the multitude\u003cbr\u003eof years, these things, if they were good, would certainly not have been\u003cbr\u003eunknown; for almost everything has been found out, although sometimes\u003cbr\u003ethey are not put together; in other cases men do not use the knowledge\u003cbr\u003ewhich they have.\" Aristotle in his Constitutions had made a study of one\u003cbr\u003ehundred and fifty-eight constitutions of the states of his day, and the\u003cbr\u003efruits of that study are seen in the continual reference to concrete\u003cbr\u003epolitical experience, which makes the Politics in some respects a\u003cbr\u003ecritical history of the workings of the institutions of the Greek city\u003cbr\u003estate. In Books IV., V., and VI. the ideal state seems far away, and\u003cbr\u003ewe find a dispassionate survey of imperfect states, the best ways of\u003cbr\u003epreserving them, and an analysis of the causes of their instability.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47074156708080,"sku":"2940015114386","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015114386","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}