Thammasat University students are cordially invited to participate in a free online lecture from Oxford University, the United Kingdom, on Tuesday, 4 May 2021 at 11:30pm Bangkok time.
The title of the online lecture is Reconstructing Aristotle’s Political Philosophy.
The speaker will be Revd Dr Patrick Riordan, Senior Fellow in Political Philosophy and Catholic Social Thought at Oxford University.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes several books by and about Aristotle, a philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece.
Aristotle wrote about many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, meteorology, geology and government.
He is highly important in the Western tradition of thought and influenced every aspect of knowledge in the West.
Among Aristotle’s most famous projects was tutoring Alexander the Great, who later was king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon.
Aristotle wrote hundreds of books, but only about one third of these have survived.
Among them are his thoughts about what cities are and should be, in his book entitled Politics.
Aristotle saw cities as natural communities.
One of his most celebrated statements is that humans are by nature political animals.
He saw politics as more like an organism than a machine, a collection of parts which are interdependent.
His idea of the city as an organic creation, rather than a mechanical one, was highly original.
Aristotle saw cities as political communities or partnerships intended to prevent injustice and guarantee economic stability, but also meant to allow some citizens to live good lives and do admirable deeds:
The political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together.
Here are some further thoughts from Aristotle’s Politics:
- Nature does nothing uselessly.
Book I, 1253a.8
- Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.
Book I, 1296a.4
- 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.
Book I, 1253a.27
- Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.
Book I, 1253a.31
- Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
Book II, 1269a.4
- Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
Book II, 1269a.9
- That judges of important causes should hold office for life is a disputable thing, for the mind grows old as well as the body.
Book II, 1270b.39
- They should rule who are able to rule best.
Book II, 1273b.5
- A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange…. Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.
Book III, 1280b.30–1281a.3
- The Law is reason free from passion.
Book III, 1287a.32
- If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
Book IV, 1291b.34
- Democracy arose from men’s thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal absolutely [in all respects].
Aristotle, Politics, Book V 1301a.29-31
- A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
Book V,1314b.39
The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
Book VI, 1317a.40
- Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.
Book VII, 1323b.1
- Law is order, and good law is good order.
Book VII, 1326a.29
- Those who live in a cold climate and in [northern] Europe are full of spirit, but wanting in intelligence and skill; and therefore they keep their freedom, but have no political organization, and are incapable of ruling over others. Whereas the natives of Asia are intelligent and inventive, but they are wanting in spirit, and therefore they are always in a state of subjection and slavery. But the Hellenic race, which is situated between them, is likewise intermediate in character, being high-spirited and also intelligent. Hence it continues free, and is the best governed of any nation, and, if it could be formed into one state, would be able to rule the world.
Book VII, 7, 1327b
- It is not easy to determine the nature of music, or why anyone should have a knowledge of it.
Book VIII, 5, 1339a
- If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
- All paid jobs … absorb and degrade the mind.
Opinions about Aristotle
The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wrote about Aristotle: He penetrated into the whole universe of things, and subjected its scattered wealth to intelligence; and to him the greater number of the philosophical sciences owe their origin and distinction.
The English playwright Ben Jonson stated: Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge — nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had; for he noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men’s perfections in a science he formed still one Art.
However, another reader of Aristotle, the philosopher Bertrand Russell, had reservations about the Greek author: Aristotle, as a philosopher, is in many ways very different from all his predecessors. He is the first to write like a professor: his treatises are systematic, his discussions are divided into heads, he is a professional teacher, not an inspired prophet. His work is critical, careful, pedestrian, without any trace of Bacchic enthusiasm. The Orphic elements in Plato are watered down in Aristotle, and mixed with a strong dose of common sense; where he is Platonic, one feels that his natural temperament has been overpowered by the teaching to which he has been subjected. He is not passionate, or in any profound sense religious. The errors of his predecessors were the glorious errors of youth attempting the impossible; his errors are those of age which cannot free itself of habitual prejudices. He is best in detail and in criticism; he fails in large construction, for lack of fundamental clarity and Titanic fire… Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully; after him, all have, in one form or another, a philosophy of retreat… Aristotle, so far as I know, was the first man to proclaim explicitly that man is a rational animal. His reason for this view was one which does not now seem very impressive; it was, that some people can do sums.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945),
The lecturer, Revd Dr Patrick Riordan, SJ is author of books that TU students may request from the TU Library Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service, including: Recovering Common Goods; Philippine Common Goods: A Good Life for All; Global Ethics and Global Common Goods; A Grammar of the Common Good: Speaking of Globalization; and Philosophical Perspectives on People Power.
The 4 May event is part of an ongoing lecture series, The Martin D’Arcy Memorial Lectures.
Martin Cyril D’Arcy SJ (1888–1976) was a Roman Catholic priest, philosopher, and a correspondent, friend, and adviser of many English writers, including Evelyn Waugh, Dorothy L. Sayers, and W. H. Auden.
Books by these authors are available in the TU Library circulating collection.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)