Aug 062013
Politics
EVERY STATE is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.
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Missing last book and a half,
This is a review on the physical format of the book, not on the content. I don’t know if this was just a manufacturing error, but I was missing 40 pages in my copy, such that I had to scan pages from another person’s book to complete my reading assignment, which did not make me happy.
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|The Politics not relevant?,
I wasn’t going to write a review but I must disagree with the notion expressed by a few reviewers that there is little relevance in the Politics for today. If nothing else, Aristotle’s is a voice of warning. I found Book Three highly relevant in understanding the corruptions of government and what is truly meant by the common interest. It is as if he went to the future, saw our “constitutional government” and wrote almost exactly how our system has become perverted. Our problem today seems to be that we have slipped into the corruption of constitutional government that Aristotle calls democracy. Basically, we have discovered the art of voting ourselves goodies and have lost the vision of the common good. The corruption of the three political systems Aristotle writes about is the promotion of private interest over the general welfare. (This concept of Aristotle’s also gave me insight into the possible original meanings of the US Constitution’s GENERAL welfare and COMMON defense clauses which, ironically, have been used to promote private rather than common interests.)
Overall, Aristotle’s Politics is a must read for every intelligent citizen and must be at the heart of any understanding of political philosophy and Jowett’s translation offers a readable edition.
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