The Politics - Aristotle

The Politics ''   Aristotle

    ▪ Aristotle conducts his philosophical inquiries based on the presuppositions that the universe is a rational and ordered whole in which each part has a distinct purpose and function. Reason can discern a thing's purpose by looking at its origin and characteristics in order to determine the end for which it exists.

    - "For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is more dangerous"
    - "Man is by nature a political animal" because he along among the animals has the ability to communicate his ideas about justice and good.
    - The city is prior to the individual in important because the individual apart from the city is not self-sufficient.
    - Natural slaves are those who perceive reason but do not have it. It is mutually beneficial that such people should be ruled. Mastery is rule over slaves, but political rule is rule over free and equal persons.
    - Yet those who believe that slavery is unjust are correct in a sense, because, in addition to natural slaves, there are also slaves according to law. Legal slavery, usually the result of military conquest, is unjust because not all the conquered people are slaves by nature. If someone who is not a natural slave is enslaved by force, the situation is disadvantageous both to the master and the slave.
    - Mastery and political rule is not the same thing, because political rule is over those who are free and equal.
    - On gaining wealth: "The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest."
    - A citizen in the strict sense is one who shares in making decisions and holding office. Citizenship is therefore essentially democratic, but the notion of citizenship in practice must differ according to the nature...