Aristotle's "The Polis"

1) What does Aristotle mean when he says that the polis "exists by nature"?


Human beings or animals have the same natural needs to survive and to reproduce; that's why all of these creatures live in pairs or form families for their own. Human beings however have further needs because no one is good in everything he or she does. One is apt at something; the other is apt at something else. Therefore, the need to establish more crowded and more collective groups of families grows into what is called a village, then finally a city. Because the primary urge for the sake of procreation is not a deliberate choice, the task of living together for survival is considered a very natural task as described by Aristotle in the following paragraph:


First, then, those who cannot exist without each other necessarily form a couple, as [1] Female and male do for the sake of procreation (they do not do so from DELIBERATE CHOICE, but, like other animals and plants, because the urge to leave behind something of the same kind as themselves is natural), and [2] as a natural ruler and what is naturally ruled do for the sake of survival. (Aristotle 1252a-25)


2) What does he mean by saying that the polis is "by nature prior to the household and to each of us individually"?


What he means is that he takes the example of the whole body to be the support for his reasoning that if the body is dead, other parts such as the leg, the hand cannot operate either, and so is the city-state. If the city-state is not naturally established, the households will be less likely to survive. However, this is not a strong and logic reasoning because actually the body is dead when the heart which is a part of it stops beating first. If there is one counter example that can prove that the body's operation is dependent of other parts then it is not prior in nature in comparison to other parts. But it is still correct that if the body is somehow dead then some parts will not continue to function either. Thus, mainly, Aristotle says that like the relationship between the body and its parts, the relationship between the city and its household is the same as that of the body and its parts. He says:


The city-state is also PRIOR in nature to the household and to each of us individually, since the whole is necessarily prior to the part. For if the whole body is dead, there will no longer be a foot or a hand, except homonymously, as one might speak of a stone "hand" (for a dead hand will be like that); but everything is defined by its TASK and by its capacity; so that in such condition they should not be said to be the samet things but homonylous ones. Hence that the city-state is natural and prior in nature to the individual is clear. (Aristotle 1253a-20)


The relationship between the community and the individual is rather a mutual relationship than the prior relationship since people who form a community are not self-sufficient and in need of one another and since there are still people who can live without a big community like a city-state; for example, the natural clans or tribes that live in some rural areas still exist in today's modern world. But this is another living type that is not mentioned by the kind of a political community under Aristotle's conceptual definitions.


Since still there are people who are not self-sufficient when separated, they form a community in which they can share the goods that they need, and this kind of community is the kind that Aristotle is considering.


3) By what does Aristotle think a polis should be unified, and in what ways does he think it should be diverse?


The largest unit of these natural communities is called a city-state, but the name has a more extensive meaning than just a collective group of people in need of one another. It means that this kind of community is a political one, and it is a kind of community that has deliberately and purposefully grown out from the original natural community. It is a kind of an alliance in which the relationships among its inhabitants are reciprocal ones as described by him in the following paragraph:


A city-state consists not only of a number of people, but of people of different kinds, since a city-state does not come from people who are alike. For a city-state is different from a military alliance. An alliance is useful because of the weight of numbers, even if they are all of the same kind, since the natural aim of a military alliance is the sort of mutual assistance that a heavier weight provides if placed on a scales. (Aristotle 1261a-20)


Thus, we see that the kind of a city-state that Aristotle is talking about is not a military alliance but has different kind of people, and among these people, there are people who are apt to rule and there are people who are apt to be ruled. In addition, they have different professions and responsibilities. Thus, this city-state is not a uniform one. He says:


But things from which a unity must come differ in kind. That is why reciprocal EQUALITY preserves city-states, as we said earlier in the Ethics, since this must exist even among people who are free and equal. For they cannot all rule at the same time, but each can rule for a year or some other period. As a result, they all rule, just as all would be shoemakers and carpenters if they changed places, instead of the same people always being shomakers and the others always carpenters. (Aristotle 1261a-25)


And:


It is evident that these considerations that a city-state is not a natural unity in the say some people say it is, and that what has been alleged to be the greatest good for city-state destroys them, whereas what is good for a thing perserves it. (Aristotle 1261b-5)


Moreover, Aristotle thinks that if a city-state becomes a uniform one, it will lose its size of a large community, a city or a state, and will become more like a household because he thinks a household is the smallest unit that has absolute unity for a family of husband and wife and children is always a unified one. He says:


It is also evident that on other ground that to try to make a city-state too much a unity is not a better policy. For a household is more self-sufficient than a single person, and a city-state than a household; and a city-state tends to come about as soon as a community's population is large enough to be fully self-sufficient. (Aristotle 1261b-10)


In addition, Aristotle says that a city-state is a multitude of people, and he thinks all people who live in it should takes turn to rule and to be ruled. In general education, a city-state should be unified, but in other manners, such as economics, politics, it should be diverged. This means there are always different political groups and different constitutions for these political groups such as democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy, etc. He says;


But a city-state consists of a multitude, as we said before, and should be unified and made into a community by means of education. It is strange, at any rate, that the one who aimed to bring in education, and who believed that through it the city-state would be excellent, should think to see it straight by measures of this sort, and not by habits, philosophy, and laws... (Aristotle 1263b-35)


He doesn't think Socrates' concept of city-state is politically correct because the class who rules the city-state under Socrates' system is a divine-appointed one not any kind of class:


The say Socrates selects his rulers is also risky. He makes the same people rule all the time, which becomes a cause of conflict even among people with no merit, and all the more so among spirited and warlike men. But it is evident that he has to make the same people rulers, since the gold from the god has not been mixed into the souls of one lot of people at one time and another at another, but always into the same ones. He says that the god, immediately at their birth, mixed the gold into the souls of some, silver into others, and bronze and iron into those who are going to be craftmens and farmers. (Aristotle 1264b-10)


In economics, the way people posses wealth and property causes them to be classified in different kind of groups too. Thus, not only in politics but in economy, there are different types of classes in a city-state. Aristotle says:


The amount of property should also be looked at, to see whether it would not be better to determine it differently and on a clearer basis. He says that a person should have as much as he needs in order to live temperately, which is like saying "as much as he needs to live well." For the formulation is much too general. Besides, it is possible to live a temperate life but a wretched one. A better definition is "temperately and generously"; for when separated, the one will lead to poverty, the other to luxury. For these are the only choiceworthy states that bear on the use of property. One cannot use property either mildly or courageously, example, but one can use it temperately and generously. Hence too the states concerned with its use must be these. (Aristotle 1265a-35)


And:


That leveling property has some influence on political communities was evidently understood even by some people long ago; for example, both by Solon in his laws, and the law in force elsewhere which prohibits anyone from getting as much land as he might wish. (Aristotle 1266b-15)


Those are the things and constitutions that are considered by other philosophers regarding the different functions under an economic system is used by Aristotle again in his investigation of the important matters concerning the people in the city-state. Thus, we see that Aristotle's city-state is not as simple as Socrates' system of guardians and the education for them and the soldiers as well as for the citizens. In education, he thinks Socrates can have the same general and ethical education for everyone, but in other matters, it is impossible to educate all of them the same ways.


The purpose of the ending goal of a polis according to Aristotle should be political virtue. He doesn't think that people should aim only at the sake of life, but at the sake of living well. The sake of life according to him is the sake of family and property, and other tangible things. He says:


For purpose people constituted a community and came together for the sake of property; then their participation in a city-state would be proportional to their property, and the oligarchic argument would as a result seem to be a powerful one... But suppose [2] they do not do so only for the sake of life, but rather for the sake of living well, since otherwise there could be a city-state of SLAVES or animals, whereas in fact there is not, because these neither in HAPPINESS nor in a life guided by DELIBERATE CHOICE. (Aristotle 1280-30)


Aristotle also states clearly why he thinks the end of a city-state must be political virtue in the following paragraph:


What, then, is the reason for this? Surely, it is not because of the non-proximate nature of their community. For suppose they joined together while continuing to share in that way, but each nevertheless treated his own household like a city-state, and the others like a defensive alliance formed to provide aid against wrongdoers only. Even then this still would not be thought a city-state by those who make a precise study of such things, if indeed they continued to associate with one another in the same manner when together as when separated. (Aristotle 1280b-25)


The purpose of a city-state is also not a sharing of common location and does not exist just for the purpose of preventing mutual wrongdoing or exchanging goods. And not only when households and families live well as a community is what the city-state should aim for because things for this sort are the results of friendship. He says:


The end of a city-state is living well, then, but these other things are for the sake of the end. And a city-state is the community of families and villages in a complete and self-sufficient life, which we say is living happily and NOBLY. (Aristotle 1280-40)


Here, another word is added; that is nobly. So according to Aristotle, living well is not just having happy families but living nobly and virtuously. And noble virtue here is political virtue not family happiness or family freedom:


So political communities must be taken to exist for the sake of noble actions, and not for the sake of living together. Hence those who contribute the most to this sort of community have a larger share in the city-state than those who are equal or superior in freedom or family but inferior in political virtue, and those who surpass in wealth but are surpassed in virtue. (Aristotle 1281-5)


I do agree that some kind of virtue and living well should be the goal of a city-state, and according to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, virtue is the excellent of the soul through reasoning, choice and deliberate actions. Also living well is aimed towards virtue as defined in the above statement. Our society, American society seems to be piorneering in this matter but there are still a lot of problems need to be adjusted. No society is perfect and virtue is always a universal concept to many people; different people have different views about virtue and how to live well. One of the evidence for the imperfection of our societies is the criminal problem; if a society is ideal and virtuous as said by Aristotle, crimes would have no place to exist and to continue.




References


Aristotle. Politics. Trans. C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998.