INTRODUCTION





ALLA MAN EI OI PHULAKES MA EUDAIMONES, TINES ETEPOI;

If those who guard [the community] are not happy, who else will be?

POLITICS 2.5.1264B21-22.



The 1990s is producing a boom in scholarship concerning Aristotelian political philosophy. This reawakened interest in Aristotle's political thought, and thus all the new attention to the Politics, seems due in part to the belief that liberal democracy needs a renewed link to the common good.(1) This is needed in order to escape the trend to social apathy inherent in liberalism's tendency towards moral individualism. Many authors are attracted to the Aristotelian attempt to strengthen democratic principles by linking them to the attempt to form the just political community.(2)

The recent collapse of the Soviet Union and other Marxist regimes around the world has been popularly understood to be a rejection of Marxism and Marxist political ideas. As Francis Fukuyama argues, with Marxism removed, the conflict among differing ideologies seems to have been resolved with liberal democracy as the only survivor.(3) Although this may be the political reality of the 1990s, many scholars of political thought still find liberal democratic principles objectionable.(4)

The opponents of liberal democracy see it resting on a rights-based theory that has no room for either the common good or justice.(5) They reject liberal democracy on the grounds that it does not create genuine communities because of its excessive individualism. These opponents of liberal democracy, sometimes called "communitarians," attempt to use Aristotle to support their criticisms. Yet I think the communitarians distort Aristotle for their own political purposes.(6)

Although Aristotle would not support all aspects of liberal democracy, he nevertheless provides the argument that because human beings are naturally sociable, democracy is the regime type that most closely helps man reach his highest potential as a human being.(7) Aristotle argues that because of human nature, it is inevitable as time passes that democracies will tend to prevail over any other regime. In this argument, Aristotle seems to anticipate Tocqueville's claim in Democracy in America that in the future, only democracies or despotism will come into being as political systems. It seems that not only is Aristotle's view of democracy still defensible in the modern world, but that it is superior to most other theories of democracy that currently claim authoritative status.(8)

It is my contention that Aristotle, even in the way that he structures the arguments of Politics 3, is not only presenting a defence of democracy, as some scholars argue,(9) but suggesting that it also may meet the criteria for the best regime. Such a reading would be supported by two historical interpretations of Aristotle's Politics, those of Thomas Hobbes and Algernon Sidney. Hobbes sees in Aristotle an enemy, one who must be overcome if Hobbes' absolutist politics is to be defended. Hobbes' absolutist politics, although in many ways a response to the conditions created during the English Civil War, is a fundamental rejection of Aristotle's Politics. Hobbes claims, that Aristotle's philosophy is responsible for advancing the argument that 1) "to call all manner of commonwealths but the popular ..., tyranny" and 2) "in the well-ordered commonwealth, not men should govern, but the laws."(10) Unlike Hobbes, Sidney is a defender of popular government and an opponent of absolutist rule. Sidney points to Aristotle (as well as to the Bible) to attack the arguments advanced by Filmer for absolute kingship. Sidney not only criticizes Filmer's use of Aristotle, but he also shows how Aristotle ultimately denies the claims Filmer advances in Patriarcha.(11)

Also, Thomas Jefferson, who is central to our own American heritage of democratic thought, did not think Aristotle hostile to popular rule. In a letter to Henry Lee on May 8, 1825, Jefferson cites Aristotle along with Cicero, Locke, and Sidney as sources for The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the American democratic faith.(12) Jefferson's reference to Sidney is important, in that Sidney also refers positively to Aristotle's defense of the rule of the many restrained by law.

In contemporary political thought the question of democracy appears to be divided between two camps--the proponents of participatory democracy and the proponents of elite theory. The first group argues that democracy should be expanded and brought into every aspect of human life.(13) This group believes that more participation is better. The reason that this form of governance should be expanded is that this group accepts the theory that politics is only legitimate when it is derived from the consent of the governed.(14)

The second group argues that any complicated social system will necessitate a rule of either experts or certain powerful people.(15) This group tends to believe that administration or law should govern society, either because the people are generally incapable of running things, or because if they did, only political selfishness would prevail.(16) Political apathy is a good thing, and the less people participate and do other things instead, the better off the political system. The reason that things are better off when fewer participate is that when too many people participate the political system goes into what Samuel Huntington calls "overload."(17) "Overload" is the condition of a political system's inability to respond to all the demands made on it. A democratic regime's inability to respond to all those making demands only raises the level of discontent of those making the demands. This leads either to greater apathy or to the people's resorting to revolutionary means to get their demands redressed.(18) This group nevertheless argues that it is democratic--in that it is held that only democracies are legitimate political systems--but it argues that democracy has given the people the results they need and/or want, not to have the people participate in the process.(19)

These two approaches either belittle politics or expect too much from it.(20) The former seems to value democracy because it is democracy and not for any other discernible reason.(21) The latter confuses the issue by calling its rule--not in any sense the rule of the people but of the few--democratic.(22) The former romanticizes the people, the latter underrates them. Aristotle, and his argument that democracy restrained by the rule of law is best, is a sounder position between those two extremes. For he sees the people as they really are and nevertheless believes their rule is ultimately better than all the competing forms.(23)

Aristotle's defense of the democracy restrained by the rule of law does not engage in either polis worship or demos worship. Aristotle nowhere says that individually the demos is superior to either the respectable or the nobles. He does not deny that individually they are morally defective.(24) The supporters of participatory democracy would reject such a position as anti-democratic.(25) But this is Aristotle's defense of democracy, that regardless of the moral inferiority of the people, the people when acting together and "not overtly slavish" are no worse and possibly slightly better than the best.(26)

To say that democracy restrained by the rule of law is the best regime is not to say that greater popular participation is better. It is rather to say that the laws should rule and guide the political life of the political community when they can; when law cannot do so because of the defects of law, then the deliberations of the many reached through majority rule should make up for the law's defectiveness. This view does not advocate the position that in order to fulfill one's nature as political animal one needs to participate fully in political life. Instead, this view argues that one fulfills one's political nature by living in a political community.(27) The act of merely living together in a political community--by living under the laws of the city--is to participate, to some degree, in the deliberative activity of politics.(28)

Also, as animals are said to be bettered through their ownership by human beings--in that they will therefore participate in reason--human beings benefit by living together in political community.(29) They benefit because in living together those lacking excellence in reason will benefit from both the deliberations and the laws of the city.(30) Given the variations in different people's capacity, how they individually fulfill their political natures varies greatly. Some will benefit from political association merely by living under the laws, thereby fulfilling their political natures. Others will fulfill their political natures by exercising political authority in holding a ruling office. The degree to which they will participate in political life will be determined by their need to participate. Their need to participate is derived from their individual make-up, i.e., their individual natures.(31)

Following the structure of Politics 3, it can be said that there are two peaks in the argument: 1) the defense of democracy found in praise of the many's excellences (or virtues) and 2) the defense of the rule of law found in the presentation of the absolute king, pambasileia.(32)

The first peak is found in the debate between the oligarch and the democrat at Politics 3.10.(33) There, Aristotle puts forth the claims made by the many and indicates that, although remaining problematic, those claims are nevertheless true.(34) The second peak occurs in a debate between a partisan for the rule of law and a partisan for the rule of the best man.(35) The rule of the best man is said to be a form of kingship called pambasileia. Thinking through both peaks, individually and together, one discovers that Aristotle not only defends democracy, but is presenting a form of it as the best regime.

Aristotle's Relevance

In any attempt to use Aristotle to understand the contemporary problem of the rule of democracy versus the rule of the politically expert--read as the rule of judges or the rule of public bureaucrats--one is faced with a double opposition. The first consists of those who ask, what is the relevance of Aristotle to us? Why should we bother to study Aristotle? A proponent of this position is Stephen Holmes.(36) Those who hold this view assert that since Aristotle lived and wrote long ago he cannot address a modern audience because he is limited to his own historical and cultural experiences, which are fundamentally different from ours.

The second group of critics is made up of those who say that any attempt to compare Aristotle's method and approach with contemporary methods and approaches is impossible or unnecessary.(37) They argue that to do so is impossible, because Aristotle did not either foresee or experience the history or the particular difficulties out of which our particular political problems arise. Curtis Johnson's position in a review of a recent attempt to compare Aristotle's social and political sciences to those of contemporary social and political science--arguing for Aristotle's superiority--is typical of this approach.(38) Such scholars see Aristotle as bound to the 5th century BC, and they approach him merely as a historical artifact, although this may not be strictly true about Johnson. He says that "Aristotle's political science will no doubt continue to shed light on important contemporary concerns for those who are interested, even if he did not get everything right."(39) The first group of critics argue that it is acceptable to turn to Aristotle, "if you are interested" but that there is no necessity to turn to him. There is no need to turn to him because there are other, more contemporary thinkers who are saying things more directly applicable to contemporary political concerns. I, on the other hand, along with Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, argue that if we wish to preserve democracy we must turn to Aristotle and his defense of democracy. It is necessary to turn to him because Aristotle's understanding is far superior, contrary to Johnson's claim, to all the contemporary approaches to either democracy or political life.

Both of these approaches to Aristotle are openly historicist. Thus, they either restrict him only to questions that were possible in his time and circumstances or by in assuming that the historical distance equates an equal intellectual gulf between us and him.(40) The approach I take, similar to Strauss, Voegelin, and Richard Bodeus, rejects the historicist premises of both of the earlier-mentioned approaches. Those who take the second approach fail to consider that, if one has to treat Aristotle merely as an antiquarian subject, then one cannot answer the first approach's objection to Aristotle's relevance to our political life, here and now.

I maintain that Aristotle's importance to political thought cannot be merely of antiquarian or historical interest. Rather, his teaching speaks directly to our lives and our political problems. For this reason one turns to Aristotle's defense of the democracy restrained by the rule of law as the best regime. Clearly, Aristotle's treatment of both democracy and the rule of law is much needed in that liberal democracy appears to be in a crisis of self-understanding. This crisis of self-understanding is to be addressed in terms of whether liberal democracy's aim is nothing more than the aggregation of rights--either political, civil, social, or economic--or aims at some notion of the common good. Regardless, Aristotle is a thinker who avoids the nihilism inherent in most of what passes itself off as social thought today while embracing a naturalistic position that is sustainable from the view of modern biological science.(41)

How to Read Aristotle's 'Politics'

The question, "what is the structure and genre of the Politics?" is a serious one, if one desires to interpret the text accurately. What type of genre does it have? Genre is a literary term which is used to describe different types (narrative, drama, poetry, etc.) or modes (e.g., tragedy, comedy, epic, etc.) of literary expression. The concept of dialogism addresses these questions.

Dialogism is an interpretive concept proposed by M. M. Bakhtin, a Russian literary and linguistic theorist. It is to be used where one notices the interplay of two or more different genres within the same text.(42) It is through the interplay of the differing genres that the reader is able to discover the meaning--or authorial argument--of the given text.(43) In literature, dialogism is usually found in menippean works, such as those by Rabelais, Cervantes, or Dostoyevsky--where the text mixes several genre types together in one narrative.(44)

I suggest that Aristotle's Politics, while not a work of literature as traditionally understood, is nevertheless dialogic. For it has the appearance of a treatise, a work where the author usually speaks authoritatively in his own name, and yet it also includes several dialogues within its structure. These two genres --treatise and dialogue--require different reading strategies. In a treatise, one can safely assume that what is argued is what the author thinks to be the case.(45) In a dialogue, the author's teaching, as it were, is subject to question. For in a dialogue, the author does not speak in his own name but through characters presented in dramatic settings. Nor can one assume that any single character is merely the spokesman for the author. Rather one must engage in a complex reading strategy that pays attention to the dramatic action as well as to what is being said by whom and for what reason.(46)

Traditionally, Aristotle's Politics has been argued to be simply a treatise.(47) But if one looks carefully, there exist within the text several logoi which have the appearance of debates between two or more alternative answers to a question that was earlier asked. Clearly, these debates, or logoi, are dialogues that present different sides of a line of inquiry. Thus, to restate, the Politics is a mixture of two genres--treatise and dialogue--and not a mere treatise as it is usually read. Therefore, to read the text properly requires one to pay close attention to the interplay between two different genres.(48)

Eric Voegelin's claim that the Politics is a series of logoi, in fact several logoi, supports the approach this book adopts.(49) He argues that the logoi are used to present Aristotle's teaching on the subject of political life in terms of questions that are at first raised and discussed, later to be abandoned for new and more insightful questions.

Traditionally, the Politics has been said to be a treatise. Even Leo Strauss argues that the Politics is a treatise and should be read as such.(50) But, as I have just argued, it has both the elements of a treatise and a dialogue--thus it is also dialogic. Since the text is dialogic, to read the Politics as merely a treatise is to misread the text, by ignoring how the text is both presented and developed. In trying to find in what particular style the text is presented, the tradition is extremely helpful. Taking a dialogic approach in coming to the text provides the needed sensitivity to "what is going on in the body of the text"--both in terms of structure and of argument.

The tradition says that the Politics, along with most of the writings we possess of Aristotle, are class lectures --recorded either by his students or himself and given to his students.(51) As such, we now possess a clue as to what genre the Politics belongs. Clearly, it cannot be simply a treatise, because lectures are rarely given in treatise form. But it is nevertheless apparently presented in a treatise form. What we clearly have are a series of logoi in the sense that the text poses propositions that a teacher offers to force his students to ponder the material or the questions raised on their own terms.(52) Thus it appears to be a treatise, but it is also a series of dialogues--between several possible alternatives that each question raises. These dialogues allow the reader or listener to weigh the various arguments and to judge which of them are more valid than the others, as well as which one are true in themselves.

The Question of the Text

The structure of the Politics has long been a problem in understanding how to interpret the text. The question of how to order the seven books has troubled those who look at the text for a unified argument, ever since Werner Jaeger proposed his theory that Politics 7 and 8 should follow Politics 3. He said this would make sense in that Politics 1-3 and 7-8 seem to be from Aristotle's earlier--"more Platonic" period, while Books 4-6 appear to be written later, during his more "realist" stage of development.(53)

The arguments usually made for moving Politics 7 and 8 are: 1) The two books present a double teaching about the best way of life as the best regime, about the limits of politics and the role of education in shaping the character of the regime and 2) the position of the two books in the Politics is questionable because the opening sentence of Book 7 is located also at the end of Book 3.(54) To repeat: this problem began with Jaeger's rejection of the traditional ordering of the books. I suggest that Aristotle leaves the ordering ambiguous to force us to see the centrality of Book 3 for the rest of his argument in the Politics.

Carnes Lord, in his introduction to the Politics, as well as an essay on this question, defends the traditional ordering of the books, against the view of Jaeger.(55) Lord sees a unity in the given structure that seems to be missing if one adopts Jaeger's view. He rejects Jaeger's view because he fundamentally rejects Jaeger's historicist assumption of various stages in Aristotle's intellectual development.(56) Lord also argues that all the evidence we have concerning how to order the text defend the traditional ordering of the books more than any alternative.(57) Since all the evidence seems to support the order of the books that has been passed down through the tradition, and the case is not overwhelming to alter it, one should leave the order as it is.(58)

Lord has a very good point in that it is impossible for us to know what book, as well as what text, was written when and before and after what. We have no accurate chronology of when Aristotle's books were written. Nor do we have an ordering of his works by the author himself. However, we do have an ordering of his works by one of his later students, who put together his writing and edited them.(59)

We also must face the fact that the manuscript tradition of the Aristotelian corpus is one of strong editorial influence--this is to say that what we have are copies of copies of copies made from the time of their authorship up to the Renaissance.(60) This poses two problems for our condifence in the text itself: 1) the assurance that we have in our possession the untouched writings of the historical Aristotle and 2) the conviction that there are no undue editorial changes in the original document. The latter is usually argued by philologists who contend that we cannot get a unified teaching from the text.(61) But this would lead us to the conclusion that if we are interested in what Aristotle himself has to say, we should not bother to read the Politics because too many hands have despoiled the text. If this is so, then why should we read it? The only answer usually given is one of antiquarian interest, which fundamentally assumes a historicist conceptualization of thought.

There is an alternative way out of this dilemma that accepts the historical reality of the manuscript tradition of the Aristotelian corpus. Let us grant that editorial influence exists, but that that influence only supports the argument that the text has a teaching subject to right interpretation, in that those who preserved the Politics generally left us a text that is neither perfect nor unintelligible.(62)

Given the condition of the text, we must assume that the editors left it in this condition. Why? Because if they desired to change, to correct or to improve upon the text they would have done so. This is to say, if they cleaned up the text we would find no blemishes or mutilated sections within it. Since they did not change the text (because we find many blemishes and mutilated sections within it), it is reasonable that they had a reason to leave it in its present condition. This would seem to suggest that the editors desired to preserve clues as to how to read the text, left by Aristotle, rather than to perfect the text--by making the text clearer than Aristotle himself. This view suggests that we are not attempting to understand the meaning of the historical Aristotle, but the author of the text, whom the tradition calls Aristotle. This asserts that since we have a text, and a text presumes an author, we have an author with something to say. Also, the text usually names that author, who has something to say, and since the name given to the author of the Politics is Aristotle, the arguments made in the text are those made by the posited author, Aristotle--regardless of the number of hands involved in the historical product. In the rest of this work I will refer to Aristotle, to be consistent with this argument, and when I do so I do not mean the "historical Aristotle" but the Aristotle that the text posits.

Another issue to be careful about is the problem of translations. It is not my intention to pass judgment on other translations of either the Politics or the Nicomachean Ethics; however, any attempt to interpret a text must deal with the problem of translation. When we come to a book like the Politics in a language that is no longer alive and vital, one cannot escape the difficulty of accessing the original work. Thus we cannot avoid using translations.

Yet all translations are by implication interpretations. Since we have no direct access to the language of the object of inquiry, we have to make working assumptions about it based upon scholarly consensus about the language. Those assumptions are now the basis of one's understanding of the text. But in doing so we must be suspicious of translations when we attempt to interpret. For, given what was said, all translation is interpretation. Thus the dilemma we face is twofold: 1) we do not want our interpretation of the text to be guided by a translation which is guided by inaccurate assumptions about words or structure within the given text and 2) we do not want our translations to be guided by our interpretations about the text. Therefore, in the following chapters, I discuss the Greek text itself and do not merely rely upon translations.

The Structure of the 'Politics'

Let us address the structure of the Politics. The Politics has three beginnings: Book 1, the account of the origins of the city; Book 2, the historical account of the best regimes in theory and practice, and Book 3, the regime model.(63) The first two beginnings are reasonably called failures, in that they are viewed as insufficient for understanding the fullness of political life.(64) The genetic account of the city leaves us within the household--the fundamental element of the city--and the relations implicit within it, but does not help us to understand the phenomenon of the city in any greater depth.

The account of the history of the best regimes fails as the starting point to address politics in that we are given models of proposed best cities yet are not given a means to measure their success or failure. In essence both accounts given in Books 1 and 2 fail because they presuppose the regime but fail to explain it or define what it is. In Book 3, not only do we get the definition of what a regime is, we are also told what it is not. Harvey Mansfield argues that Book 3 starts with human speech about politics, which allows one to "discern its nature and judge it."(65)

Book 3 also sets up the line of inquiry for the rest of the Politics--what is the most choiceworthy regime for the city? Yet this involves several questions. 1) What is the most choiceworthy simply? 2) What is choiceworthy for a particular city in its particular circumstances? 3) How can one preserve what is best for each city? 4) How can one bring into being what is best for each city? And 5) what are the limits of the best city?

In this light, there are two remaining sections of the Politics. Books 4-6 deal with all but the last question, whereas Books 7-8 deal with the last question, as well as with the role of education and music in the city. The schema of the Politics would be the following:

I: 	Book 1 	The origins of the city.


II: 	Book 2	The best regimes in theory and practice.


III:	Book 3	The regime and the inquiry concerning what is the best.


IV:        Books 4-6 Aristotle's political science or his
examination of actual political systems and their problems.(66)


V: 	Books 7-8 Limits of the best and the role of education in the city.(67)

In one sense, the ordering of Politics 7-8 is unimportant, because moving them to follow Book 3 still retains the proposed structure of the text.(68)

The above structuring insists upon the centrality of Politics 3 to an understanding of the Politics as a whole.(69) It is my argument that Politics 3 is the logical center of the whole text---it is the middle of the Politics. If one moves Books 7 and 8 to follow Book 3, as the alternative ordering goes, the logical middle of the Politics would still be Book 3. The importance of the middle is that it is the point of the argument within the text that the rest of the text depends upon to hold it together. It is like the hub of a wheel, in that, like the hub, the regime holds together Aristotle's Politics.

This analytic outline for the Politics leaves open the possibility for a different ordering of the last two sections, or it allows for the paired view held by Fred Miller and David Keyt in their introduction to a collection of essays on the Politics.(70) The paired view of the Politics text argues that the outline of the books is the following:







In such a reading, the exact ordering of the Politics is not overly important in an overall interpretation of the text. Instead, this view avoids the argument concerning which books are historically prior to the others, as in Jaeger's schema. In other words, the view advanced here both by Miller and Keyt and by myself is that the historicity of the various books should not be an integral part of understanding the text. Thus, the overall structure of how the books are to be ordered should not play an important role in interpreting the text. Therefore, I support maintaining the ambiguity of the ordering, which forces the reader to confront the different possibilities and to judge which are more persuasive than the others.

Also, Politics 3 is a very theoretical book. One can argue that it is the most theoretical or philosophic of all the books in the Politics. It is where political philosophy is mentioned as well as the definition of the regime, which is the key concept that holds together the seven books of the Politics.(71) Yet it is also a very aporetic book(72) or, more correctly, a highly dialectical book. It is a dialectical book in that, "unlike a normal treatise," where the author pro se speaks authoritatively in his own voice, spelling out his position both logically and completely, we have here a series of arguments or debates, were questions are first raised and argued.(73) Both sides are presented fully and no side is simply excluded. Why is this done? It is done so that the reader can figure out which arguments are better argued and hence persuasive and which are not. Thus, the style pursued is one that encourages readers to engage in the arguments themselves and to figure out the answers to the questions proposed. Thus, the style is didactic in that its aim is to educate rather than simply to present Aristotle's positions concerning politics. But, in doing so, he nevertheless tenders his understanding of politics, in this case of what is the best regime, in that the answers that reasonable readers adopt are generally those that Aristotle himself would come to.

Now we must turn to the text of Politics 3, where I contend three questions are raised and attempted to be answered: 1) What is the regime?; 2) which regime is the most choiceworthy?; and 3) should law or man have ultimate authority?(74)

The first question is addressed immediately at Politics 3.7-9, where it is argued that the regime is the ruling element of the polis, and it is defined by its claim about what is just. The first peak of Politics 3 deals with the second question--raised at 3.10--and the answer seems to be the rule of the many, which I claim is democracy. The second peak deals with the third question--put in the form of the debate whether the best laws or the best man should rule, at Politics 3.15-17--and the answer appears to be that, for the most part, law should be authoritative.

1. Galston 1991; Yack 1993; Salkever 1991; Nussbaum 1990a, 1992; and Sullivan 1984.

2. Yack 1993; Nussbaum 1990a, 1992; and Salkever 1991.

3. Fukuyama 1992.

4. This group is usually of a neo-Marxist orientation, either in the tradition of C. B. Macpherson or Jurgen Habermas.

5. Galston 1991.

6. Yack 1993.

7. See Salkever 1991 and Lindsay 1994.

8. See Mueller 1992a and 1992b for an alterative but likeminded defence of democracy.

9. Lindsay 1992a, 1992b; Nichols 1991; Rasmussen and Den Uyl 1991; and Salkever 1991.

10. Hobbes 1991, 471-2.

11. See Sidney 1990, 84-86, 121-23, 133-35, 278-91, and 452-55.

12. Another modern scholar who claims that Aristotle supports democracy ruled by law as practically best is Charles McCoy. See McCoy 1963 and 1989.

13. See Barber 1984. Also see Macpherson 1973, Finley 1985, Wolin 1993 and Euben 1993. Contrast to Saxonhouse 1993.

14. In the social contract tradition of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. See Sullivan 1984, Macpherson 1973 and Barber 1984.

15. See Michels 1962. Also see Robert Dahl 1964 and 1956. Dahl is another important member of this school usually known as the pluralists or democratic elitists. Bachrach 1967 takes the pluralists to task by insisting that elitism and democracy are fundamentally opposing concepts. Bachrach's view of democracy is in agreement with the democracy as political participation group. See Barber 1984.

16. Michels 1962 and Mosca 1939.

17. Huntington 1981. Also see Michels 1962, in that the argument for democratic "overload" is merely another version of the "Iron Law of Oligarchy." Contrast to Finley 1985 and Ober 1993 and 1989.

18. See Dahl 1964 and 1956.

19. See Huntington 1981 and Dahl 1956.

20. See Macpherson 1973 and Finley 1985. Contrast to Huntington 1981 and Michels 1962.

21. See Barber 1984, Finley 1985, Wolin 1993, and Macpherson 1973.

22. See Huntington 1981, Dahl 1956 and Mosca 1939.

23. See Salkever 1991, Galston 1991, and Nichols 1991.

24. See Garrett 1993.

25. See Macpherson 1973, Barber 1984, and Finley 1985.

26. Politics 3.11.1282a17-18

27. See Wilson 1993a and 1993b, Arnhart 1988 and Masters 1989.

28. This is one way in which one can, and perhaps should, read Aristotle's famous maxim--man is a political animal.

29. See Arnhart 1994, 1993, 1990, 1988a, 1988b and Masters 1989.

30. See Arnhart 1981.

31. See Arendt 1958. Compare Yack 1993 and Arnhart 1993.

32.

32. The citation to Aristotle's Politics is usually from Lord 1984 with my own alterations of certain terms or phrases. The Greek editions of the Politics I referred to for Section I and II are Ross 1957 and Susemihl and Hicks 1894 and for Section III Dreizehnter 1970 and Newman 1973. The reason for the use of Ross's edition over Dreizehnter's was I no longer had access to the copy I was using when I was working on Section I and II. Also, the absence of Susemihl and Hicks in Section III was due to not having access to a copy until I went to Brown to work on finishing this work. I also benefited from having access to Laurence Berns unfinished translation of Politics 3 published by The Collegian of St. John's College in Maryland.

33. Strauss 1978, 21.

34. Politics 3.11.

35. Politics 3.14-18.

36. Holmes 1993 and 1979.

37. Johnson 1993, 446.

38. Johnson 1993.

39. Johnson 1993, 447.

40. Rosen 1987, 165-167.

41. See Arnhart 1988, 1990, 1993, and 1994 and Masters 1989.

42. See Bakhtin 1993, 1986, 1984a, 1984b, 1981. Also see Clark and Holquist 1984, Holquist 1990, Morson and Emerson 1990, and Todorov 1984.

43. See Todorov 1984.

44. See Bakhtin 1981 and 1984a.

45. Strauss 1978, 21 and 50-51.

46. See Strauss 1978, 50-53.

47. See Strauss 1987, 21 and 50. Note that Strauss says that "the most fundamental discussion of the Politics includes what is almost a dialogue between the oligarch and democrat" (1978, 21). I argue that it is a dialogue and Strauss for some unknown reason refuses to admit that it is one. Also, see Lord 1987, 120.

48. See Lord 1981.

49. Voegelin 1957, 279.

50. Strauss 1978, 21.

51. See Lord 1981, 164-62.

52. Voegelin, 1957, 279-282. Voegelin says that we have here "at least three clearly distinguishable literary strata." He says that Book 2 is introductory and summarizes what others have thought about politics. He says that Books 3, 7, and 8 deal with the best regime and that Books 4, 5, and 6 deal with practical politics. He also says that Book 1 was probably added on at the last moment, "prefixed to the other books" (1957, 281). I am unsure if his account supports my proposed division of the text. I cannot see how he can make the case he does in that Book 1 tends to be considered written at the same time as Book 3--where both predominately mention nature (see Bodeus 1993).

53. Jaeger 1948. See Simpson 1993 for a insightful review of a recent German commentary on Politics 1, 2, and 3, by a modern follower of Jaeger. Simpson is highly critical of Schutrumpf's uncritical acceptance of Jaeger's assumption about the arrangement of the text.

54. Jaeger 1948.

55. Lord 1984 and 1981.

56. Lord 1984.

57. See Lord 1981 and 1984.

58. See Lord 1981.

59. Lord 1981, 465.

60. Lord 1981, 466-468.

61. Rosen 1987, 164-168.

62. See Lord 1981.

63. Mansfield 1989, 31, 33.

64. Mansfield 1989, 33.

65. Mansfield 1989, 33.

66. See Zuckert 1992, 144-165 and Nichols 1991, 85-123, for treatment of Aristotle's practical examination of the regime in actual and historical occurance.

67. For treatments of the Best Regime presented in Poltiics 7-8, see Lord 1982, Bartlett 1994, Nichols 1991, 125-167, and Wilson 1992.

68. For the traditional outline of the Politics Lord 1984 or Miller and Keyt 1991, 34.

69. Wolff 1988 and 1993.

70. Keyt and Miller 1991, 5; Also see Miller 1995, 8-20. Miller 1995, 23-25, points to Newman 1973, 2:xxxi, which stresses the centrality of Book 3 for the whole of the Politics.

71. Political philosophy is mentioned at Politics 3.12.1282b23.

72. Davis 1992. Davis, although not citing During 1966, appears to be fundamentally agreeing that Aristotle is an aporetic thinker.

73. See Jacob 1993 and Bodeus 1993. Also, McCoy 1963 says that Politics 3 is a serious of puzzles in which the reader is forced to work through and understand. For the importance in rhetorical reasoning in Aristotle, see Arnhart 1981.

74. Other questions of Politics 3 are "what is the polis?" and "who is a citizen?." Although these questions will be raised as a prelude to the investigation regarding the regime in Section I, they are not as central to the ones mentioned in the text.