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Aristotle's Works

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 Aristotle was a practical science. The Ethics and the Politics are clearly linked. A.W.H. Adkins holds that the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics were intended by Aristotle to be read together and that they can be properly understood only if they are read in this fashion.

Aristotle believes that every art and inquiry is aimed at some good, that everything has as its goal some good. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle identifies political science as the discipli...

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Aristotle's Works. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 14:34, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1680735.html