Aristotle's Works
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Aristotle presented in his works a compendium of the knowledge of his time and examined issues and facts to discover how things worked, what was believed about them, and also to separate this knowledge into categories. He did not do this simply as a compiler but filtered what he found through his own sensibilities and philosophical thought. He examined the different Greek states and the way these states were structured and how they operated, and from this he determined what sort of government would work best. He did this, however, based on his view of what the proper goal of a state should be. His major interest was in ethical philosophy, and the operation of the state thus was considered in terms of its goals or ends, known as the teleological approach. A democratic theorist would view politics in terms of some form of representative government, with power deriving from the people rather than from God. As a theorist of democracy, Aristotle set forth principles for the ethical conduct of the state, but he also had reservations about unfettered democracy and about the feasibility of having certain classes of people in society involved in governing. Aristotle's political teaching is available to us today primarily in the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle made a distinction between "theoretical" sciences, those pursued for the sake of knowledge, and "practical" sciences, or those pursued for the sake of the benefits deriving from them. Politics for Aristo
. . .
else, who then did the same for him.
Aristotle calls his version of democracy by the name "polity" and describes its constitution as assuring political control to be exercised by the mass of the populace in the common interest. Participation is determined according to a specific need of the body politic:
And that is why in this constitution the defensive element is the most sovereign body, and those who share in the constitution are those who bear arms.
Aristotle does not see all men as equal and emphasizes the ways in which they are in fact different for the purposes of making a claim to office and privilege. He concludes finally that it is less what the person has than what he contributes that should be the determining factor. He says that the purpose of the association which is a state is not for the purpose of living together but for the sake of noble actions:
Those who contribute most to this kind of association are for that very reason entitled to a larger share in the state than those who, though they may be equal or even superior in free birth and in family, are inferior in the virtue that belongs to a citizen. Similarly they are entitled to a larger share than those who are superior in riches but infer
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Ethics Aristotle, , Athenian Plato, Mark Halfon, III Nature, Ethics Politics, political science, Nicomachean Ethics, Introduction Aristotle's, Ethics Links, nicomachean ethics, Cambridge Blackwell, nicomachean ethics aristotle, association free, ethics aristotle, democratic theorist, ethics politics, political animal, own benefit, practical wisdom, politics nicomachean, politics nicomachean ethics, sciences pursued sake, branch political science, study mankind ethics,
Approximate Word count = 2648
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Aristotle Works
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
