[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
Over the last 15 years, a team of Italian scholars, under the auspices of the Istituto italiano per la storia antica and directed by Lucio Bertelli and Mauro Moggi, have produced a six-volume edition of Aristotle’s Politics. Each volume provides a revised Greek text of one or two books of the Politics (with extensive critical apparatus), Italian translation, commentary, and bibliography.[1] The volume under review is titled a Guida—although not exactly a “Guide” in the modern sense of a “companion” or “critical guide.” Rather, the edited volume offers synthetic surveys of concepts or themes that go beyond any single book of the Politics. Distinctive of the overall project and the Guida (and somewhat in contrast with mainstream North American scholarship on the Politics) is the goal of embedding analysis of Aristotle’s Politics within rigorous historical-critical philology and contextualized history of political thought. I shall summarize the objectives of the individual chapters and then offer some general comments about method in Aristotle’s Politics and the advantages that a focus on historical context provides.
The editors of the Guida, Canevaro and Zizza, co-author the book’s first chapter, which is an Introduction to the Politics as a whole that addresses the work’s reception (or lack thereof until the thirteenth century), its basic concepts (such as legislation and constitutions), the sometimes perplexing internal order of its chapters, and the work’s historical embeddedness in the fourth-century world of the Hellenic polis. Bertelli and De Luna, in separate chapters, take up the vexed question of what method(s) Aristotle employs in the Politics: whereas Bertelli focuses on the evidence from Politics Books 1, 2, and 7, De Luna focuses on the evidence in Book 5. Canevaro (in his second contribution to the volume), Pezzoli, Faraguna, and Zizza each examine a major concept that is touched upon in numerous places in the Politics. Canevaro looks at the concept of law (νόμος), Pezzoli looks at the concept of constitution (πολιτεία), Faraguna looks at the concept of the citizen (πολίτης), and Zizza looks at the concepts of tyranny and of the master or mastership (δεσπότης or δεσποτεία). Finally, Curnis and Besso produce studies on the reception of Aristotle’s Politics, first in the case of the eastern Byzantine scholar and political advisor Theodore Metochites and then more generally in the case of the Latin western reception of the Politics in the high middle ages and the renaissance (which space does not allow me to reflect upon at greater length).
I shall speak first to the question of methodology in the Politics. In order to answer whether Aristotle makes use of a general method in the Politics, Bertelli first surveys Aristotle’s “strumenti della ricerca” (or “research tools”) which Bertelli enumerates as (1) the method of political science outlined in the opening pages of the Nicomachean Ethics (EN 1.1, 1094b2), (2) the method of general or philosophical “dialectic” (sometimes also referred to as the “method of endoxa”) described in the Topics (Top. 1.2, 101a35–b4) and perhaps in the Nicomachean Ethics (EN 7.1, 1145b3–7), and (3) the method of diaresis or division, as one finds in Plato’s Sophist or Statesman. In the conclusion of the chapter, Bertelli rejects Werner Jaeger’s claim that the Politics exhibited two fundamentally different methods, namely a Platonic “logischer Einteilungsschematismus” (which a “young” Aristotle embraced) and a “biologischer Formensinn” (which the “mature” Aristotle embraced) on the grounds that the Politics employs a method of dialectical argumentation that is sufficiently capacious to make sense not only of passages and books in which Aristotle examines and “puzzles through” opinions of others (such as in Politics 1 and 2), but also the empirical and taxonomic passages (such as are found in Politics 4–6) that seek to categorize different forms of political organization. De Luna’s chapter embraces a similar goal but focusses on discussions of stasis in Politics 5.
Although I am sympathetic to Bertelli’s general objective—namely a rejection of the claim that the Politics embraces two different and potentially conflicting methods (i.e., an “idealist” and “moralizing” one versus an “empirical” or “value-neutral” one)—I think one must exercise greater caution in characterizing Aristotle’s method as “dialectical” or a “method of endoxa” for two different reasons. First, as Bertelli himself acknowledges, the Topics defines terms like “dialectic” or “endoxon” rather narrowly, primarily within the framework of logical exercises. But although scholars have found in Nicomachean Ethics 7.1 a “general method” of dialectic or an “endoxic method” that they claimed Aristotle used throughout the Ethics, over the last decade scholars like Salmieri, Natali, Frede, and Karbowski have raised serious doubts about whether the method characterized in EN 7.1 is used anywhere else in the Ethics, much less whether its program of “saving the appearances” is an accurate characterization of the numerous diaporetic passages in Aristotle’s ethical and political works.[2] Although Aristotle clearly draws upon the opinions of others and puzzles about them, it is not at all clear that it is the goal of the puzzles to somehow preserve the most reputable opinions.
A second reason for urging caution about characterizing Aristotle’s discussion of opposing views as “dialectical” or “endoxic” is that it obscures the methodological (and indeed, even literary) diversity that Aristotle displays in his discussions of the views of others. Bertelli devotes most of his chapter to arguing that Politics 1, 2, and 7 exhibit dialectical reasoning. So, for instance, the first page of the Politics announces that some thinkers (perhaps Xenophon and/or Plato) are wrong to claim that ruling in a city is no different than ruling a slave, a household, or a subject (1.1, 1252a7–16), and most of Book 1 of the Politics is devoted to refuting such a view. But it seems to me wrong to characterize this extended discussion of ruling as in any way “saving the appearances”. Rather, Politics 1 states a viewpoint, and then employs methods of analysis, definition, division, and puzzles to show the falsehood of that viewpoint. I worry that it may not be useful to characterize Politics 1 as “dialectical” just because it is oriented around refuting a viewpoint about the nature of ruling. Indeed, the taxonomic or “empirical” texts, like Politics 4, commence with “opinions” about political classification that presentations of empirical data are meant to refute. Should we also think of the middle books of the Politics as practicing “endoxic method” because of their invocation of such opinions?[3] Or consider Politics 7.1–3, which Bertelli correctly notes involves widely held viewpoints advanced about what is the best way of life for both an individual and a polis (Pol. 7.1, 1323b40–1324a4; cf. 7.3, 1325b30–32). But although the text explicitly records others’ viewpoints and works through puzzles, its methodology is formulated as a contest in which competing views about the best way of life for an individual and a city are ranked such that we can identify a “winner,” much like the contest about the best way of life that begins and ends the Nicomachean Ethics. To characterize Politics 7.1–3 as practicing “endoxic method” stretches that term too broadly. In the language of NE 7.1, although there is a great deal of “working through the puzzles” (διαπορήσαντας) in the Politics, it is far less clear that the text either “sets down the phenomena” (τιθέντας τὰ φαινόμενα) in any organized fashion or that it “seeks to prove especially the truth of all the reputable opinions” (δεικνύναι μάλιστα μὲν πάντα τὰ ἔνδοξα, EN 7.1, 1145b2–7).
Next, I turn to to the question of the historical contextualization of the Politics. On the one hand, Pezzoli, Canevaro, Faraguna, and Zizza amply cover the sort of material that arises only from an overview of the Politics as a whole, since Aristotle often treats the same concept in very different ways in different parts of the Politics. So, for instance, Pezzoli brings out well that Aristotle’s familiar six-fold taxonomy of constitution-types in Politics 3 becomes substantially more complicated in Politics 4, where he introduces for the first time the notion that “pure” constitution-types (like democracy or oligarchy) generally admit of mixtures and even species (161–5). Canevaro shows that although Politics 3 often invokes hyperbolic praise of the “rule of law” (especially within the framework of debates about monarchy), Politics 4 makes clear that Aristotle views the concept of law as derivative from or dependent upon the more fundamental notion of constitution (183–7). Faraguna makes clear that although Aristotle’s explicit definition of a citizen in Politics 3.1 (1275b18–20) is primarily functional (215–16), elsewhere he includes much more than merely legally defined roles. And Zizza correctly notes that although in Politics 3 and 4 Aristotle uses the term tyrannis to indicate a form of oppression that lacks any justice or friendship, in Politics 5 Aristotle counter-intuitively articulates the notion of a “moderate” tyrant (253). All four points are crucial for understanding the basics of Aristotle’s political thought, but they only arise from synthetic analyses that range across numerous passages in the Politics.
But on the other hand, all four authors bring historical context to bear on these concepts in a way that not only enriches our understanding of them, but also helps the reader understand why Aristotle’s positions are so remarkable. For instance, Pezzoli reflects at length on Aristotle’s remarkable characterization of Carthage—a northern African, non-Greek regime—as a constitution, since the criteria “mostrano tuttavia come il concetto di πολιτεία possa adattarsi all’interpretazione di qualsiasi fenomeno politico che possa contare su di un corpo politico” (168). Thus, according to his analysis of Carthage, she claims that Aristotle “universalizes” a “Greek” political concept and makes it available for understanding communities far removed from the urban centers of the classical polis-world. On the other hand, as Canevaro puts it, “La discussione aristotelica sublima dunque, e fonda su basi teoreticamente più salde, distinzioni e gerarchie comuni nel pensiero e nella pratica della politica e del diritto delle città greche” (181). Consider Aristotle’s discussion of Hippodamus’ proposal to reward those who innovate or reform of law (nomos) a distinction between nomos and psephisma (or decree) that emerges out of the Athenian oligarchic revolutions of the late fifth century that limited the Council and the Assembly to making decrees rather than laws. Changing “the law” is a matter of altering the permanent legal (and thus ethical and educational) framework of a community. Appreciation of the historical origins of the distinction between nomos and psephisma in Athenian practice makes much clearer what is at stake in the discussion of reforming the laws in Politics 2.8.
Faraguna offers an especially well-contextualized account of Aristotle’s account of citizenship. In part, his target is Josine Blok’s Citizenship in Classical Athens (Cambridge University Press, 2017), which argued that Aristotle’s functional definition of citizenship obscured other aspects of being a citizen in the classical world, for instance being allowed to own land or participate in cultic and religious activity. But surveying the entire Politics, Faraguna finds ways to augment Aristotle’s narrow definition of citizenship, for instance in his account of land ownership in the best constitution (230–2) and in his account of the role of the “priestly” or cultic part of the polis. Although Faraguna’s chapter explicates Aristotle’s narrow account of citizenship in 3.1, it shows that Aristotle is aware of the other ways in which citizenship is contextualized in the classical polis world, far beyond merely civic practices in political offices.
However much I have raised questions in my review, the Guida should be mandatory reading for all scholars of Aristotle’s Politics. Non-experts will find in the Guida rich, careful, synthetic, and sophisticated introductions to major concepts in Aristotle’s Politics; in the six previous volumes of translation and commentary of Aristotle’s Politics, they will find a storehouse of erudite scholarly reference that ranges across historical, philological, and exegetical insights.
Authors and Titles
Introduzione, Mirko Canevaro & Cesare Zizza
Metodo o metodi della Politica?, Lucio Bertelli
Uno storico sui generis: la metodologia argomentativa nel libro V della Politica, Maria Elena De Luna
Le costituzioni reali e i modelli teorici: il concetto di πολιτεία, Federica Pezzoli
La legge nella Politica (e oltre), Mirko Canevaro
Aristotele, la polis, il cittadino: prospettive storiche e filosofiche, Michele Faraguna
Tirannidi e dispotismi nella Politica, Cesare Zizza
Leggere la Politica nell’età dei Paleologi: Teodoro Metochita e le Semeioseis gnomikai, Michele Curnis
La Politica tra il tardo Medioevo e l’età umanistico-rinascimentale: «la dottrina degli ottimi governi, una lucerna necessaria a tutti i mortali», Giuliana Besso
Notes
[1] Several of the volumes have been previously reviewed in BMCR: see Volume 2 on Politics 2 (https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013.08.23/); Volume 3 on Politics 3 (https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2014/2014.04.24/); Volume 4 on Politics 4 (https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2016/2016.11.16/); and Volume 6 on Politics 7-8 (https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2024/2024.01.04/).
[2] N. Borçin, “On the Alleged Epitome of Dialectic: Nicomachean Ethics vii 1.1145b2–7,” Ancient Philosophy 44 (2024): 201–3 at 201–3, provides references to and lays out the main positions of this scholarly debate. Although Bertelli acknowledges the position of Carlo Natali in this debate, he does not consider the problems raised either by Frede or Karbowski about the general applicability of “endoxic method” beyond the Topics.
[3] For instance, Politics I4.2, 1289b5–10 articulates a ranking of constitutions in explicit opposition to “an earlier thinker” (e.g., Plato, in the Statesman, 302e–303b); Politics 4.3, 1290a13–27 articulates a doctrine of right and deviant constitutions in opposition to the generally held position that all constitutions are variations of oligarchy and democracy.