Notes on Aristotle's "Politics"

Aristotle

I'll be writing my thoughts and notes on important philosophical and political studies. They will be generally focused important parts of the works. I hope they'll come handy in your research. Have a nice day.

Aristotle's "Politics", Book I

Starts with an explaning of state, or “polis”, which is a community with a view of good that everyone in this community acts in order to obtain it. Then there is explained distinction between king and statesman: When goverment is personal there is a king; when there is rule of political sciences there is a stateman. There is a concluding general assumption by Aristotle according to all this, which is “man is by nature is a political animal”. Before this conclusion, he talks about units of state. Most basic one is household and the biggest one is city. Which all struggle to achieve highest quality of life. For households there is specifically three kinds of relationships within it; which are parent/child, master/slave, husband/wife; there is also a fourth element which is “art of acquisition”. Aristotle has further views over “slaves” while defending the very concept of it. He points out the concepts of “ruler” and “ruled”, naturally there are ones who rules and also naturally there are ones who are being ruled over. He talks about art of acquisition with involving satisfaction of basic needs. There are different ways of satisfying for different kinds of people.

Aristotle (1991). Politics. In Jonathan Barnes (Ed.). The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2 (pp. 1018-1035 | [Book I;
1252a1-1260b24]). Princeton: Princeton University Press.