Suchergebnisse

In Vorbereitung der eigenen Untersuchungen über den besten Staat unterzieht Aristoteles in Buch II staatstheoretische Entwürfe (des Platon, des Phaleas von Chalkedon, des Hippodamos von Milet) und historische Verfassungen (Sparta, Kreta, Karthago) einer kritischen Betrachtung. Buch III bietet nach grundsätzlichen Bestimmungen zur Verfassung und zum Bürger als dem Teil, aus dem die polis zusammengesetzt ist, eine Übersicht über die Gesamtzahl der Verfassungen, von denen eine, das Königtum, genauer behandelt wird.

In seiner berühmten Definition charakterisiert Aristoteles den Menschen als zoon politikon, das heißt als seiner Natur nach für das Leben in der (Polis-)Gemeinschaft bestimmt. Entschiedener als jeder andere antike Ansatz zeugt diese Bestimmung von der Einsicht in das soziale Wesen des Menschen. Das vorliegende Buch I der ""Politik"" macht deutlich, dass Aristoteles die Differenzierungen in der Gesellschaft als naturgegeben ansieht. Naturgewollt sein zum Beispiel die Herrschaft des Hausvorstehers über die Familie, des Mannes über die Frau, des Herren über den Sklaven. Die Verteidigung der Sklav

Cicero's views on the theoretical–practical life controversy in De Re republica book 1 reflect his own career and accomplishments and are phrased in terms of the success of defending the state against those who wanted to destroy it. Cicero places himself in a tradition of men, from Miltiades to Cato, who entered the fracas of public life and saved the res publica. Plato addresses in Politeia 6 496b-e the theoretical–practical life controversy from the same perspective of defending or saving a desirable condition, however, for him it is not the government but the integrity of a philosophical life that needs to be protected. Philosophy is the highest form of existence and deserves all effort. Getting involved in politics would first of all jeopardize the integrity of a philosophical existence. Aristotle at Politics 7 ch. 2-3 approaches in a more Hellenistic manner the theoretical–practical life controversy from the personal perspective, that is the most desirable life. This is one of virtue which consists in acting. However, the highest form of activity is not that of the practical life but that of theory like that of god who is not engaged in "outside actions". Cicero will follow Aristotle in focusing on virtus, however, he will do away with the theoretical side of human excellence which for both Plato and Aristotle deserved priority.

This study goes back ultimately to a response I gave on two papers presented on "Translating Aristotle's Politics in Medieval and Renaissance Europe" at the "International Conference on Translation. The History of Political Thought," at CUNY in 2005. Immersing myself in the more recent scholarly literature on Humanist translations of Greek philosophical texts I learned that one voice was all but absent—the voice of classicists whose scholarly focus is the Greek texts that were translated from the 13th century onwards. Such a voice needs to be heard especially for an assessment of the style of the Greek originals and for the ancient tradition behind the emerging political terminology in the 14th century, e.g. the changing meaning of res publica. For both issues an informed reference to classical texts will at times lead to different results than those drawn by Medievalists. This study examines the earliest Latin translations of Aristotle's politics from the angle of a classicist. I presented arguments of this study at the Humboldt University Berlin, University of Cologne, University of Colorado at Boulder, Universidad Carlos Terzero Madrid, and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. I am grateful for the critical comments I received. My former student Dr. S. Farrington and my daughter Caroline Schütrumpf checked the English of this text; any remaining flaws are my responsibility. I would like to thank the directors of the Morphomata Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Cologne, Professors Dr. G. Blamberger and Dr. D. Boschung, for accepting this study for the MLC series and Dr. Sidonie Kellerer for thorough copy editing.

E. Barker twice wrote essays entitled 'The composition and structure of Aristotle's Politics', first as a journal article in 1931, and later in 1946 as part of the introduction to his translation of the Politics. In these two essays, he came to exactly the opposite conclusions. In the first paper, he distinguished three periods in Aristotle's life and assigned to each of them three 'blocks' in the Politics, based on the criterion of how closely these blocks were related to, or are removed from, Plato's political theory. In doing so, he not only followed W. Jaeger's genetic approach, but also went beyond it by assuming that there were three different strata of Aristotle's political philosophy. In 1946, however, Barker rejected not only Jaeger's approach, but his own method of reading Aristotle's Politics. This paper evaluates the merit of Barker's arguments and comes to the conclusion not only that Barker's essay from 1946 ignored the intellectual context of the Politics, but also that his view of the Politics as unitary in composition and structure overlooks many problems this work poses.