Plan:

1 . Introduction

2. Main body

2.1. Aristotle on the state

2.2. Aristotle on Law

3. Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

One of the characteristic features of Aristotle's scientific activity is its versatility. With his works, Aristotle enriched almost all the branches of science that existed in his time. The state and society did not remain out of sight of the philosopher. The main place among his works devoted to the study of the state and society is occupied by the treatise "Politics".

There can be no doubt that even the purely theoretical constructions of ancient thinkers, such as Plato's "State" and "Laws" or those projects that are considered in the second book of "Politics", are more or less connected with real life Greek policies, which gives the right to modern researchers to use these works as sources for understanding some aspects of the existence of these policies.

The topic I have chosen has been studied by various scientists, but I should dwell on only a few of them. So, Blinnikov A.K. in his work considered the activities of Aristotle. The work of Dovatur A. consecrates the types of government according to Aristotle, the problems of law.

The purpose of this essay is to consider Aristotle's views on the state and law, to identify the main elements of the state.

2. Main body

2.1 Aristotle on the state

Aristotle in his work attempted a comprehensive development of the science of politics. Politics as a science is closely connected with ethics. Scientific understanding politics presupposes, according to Aristotle, developed ideas about morality (virtues), knowledge of ethics (mores).

In Aristotle's treatise Politics, society and the state are essentially the same.

The state appears in his work as a natural and necessary way of existence of people - "the communication of people similar to each other for the purpose of the best possible existence." And “communication, which naturally arose to satisfy everyday needs, is a family,” says Aristotle.

For Aristotle, the state is a whole and the unity of its constituent elements, but he criticizes Plato's attempt to "make the state excessively unified." The state consists of many elements, and an excessive desire for their unity, for example, the community of property, wives and children proposed by Plato, leads to the destruction of the state.

The state, Aristotle notes, is a complex concept. In its form, it represents a certain kind of organization and unites a certain set of citizens. From this point of view, we are no longer talking about such primary elements of the state as the individual, family, etc., but about the citizen. The definition of the state as a form depends on who is considered a citizen, that is, on the concept of a citizen. A citizen, according to Aristotle, is someone who can participate in the legislative and judicial power of a given state.

The state, on the other hand, is a collection of citizens sufficient for self-sufficient existence.

According to Aristotle, man is a political being, i.e. social, and it carries in itself an instinctive desire for "cohabitation". Man is distinguished by the ability to intellectual and moral life, "man by nature is a political being." Only man is capable of perceiving such concepts as good and evil, justice and injustice. First result social life he considered the formation of the family - husband and wife, parents and children. The need for mutual exchange led to communication between families and villages. This is how the state was born.

Having identified society with the state, Aristotle was forced to look for elements of the state. He understood the dependence of the goals, interests and nature of people's activities on their property status and used this criterion in characterizing various strata of society. According to Aristotle, the poor and the rich "turn out to be elements in the state that are diametrically opposed to each other, so that, depending on the preponderance of one or another of the elements, the corresponding form of the state system is established." He identified three main strata of citizens: the very wealthy, the extremely poor, and the middle class, standing between the two. Aristotle was hostile to the first two social groups. He believed that the life of people with excessive wealth is based on an unnatural kind of gaining property 1 . This, according to Aristotle, does not manifest the desire for a “good life”, but only the desire for life in general. Since the thirst for life is irrepressible, the desire for the means of satisfying this life is also irrepressible.

Putting everything at the service of excessive personal gain, "people of the first category" trample on social traditions and laws. Striving for power, they themselves cannot obey, thereby violating the tranquility of public life. Almost all of them are arrogant and arrogant, prone to luxury and boasting. The state is created not in order to live in general, but mainly in order to live happily.

The perfection of man presupposes the perfect citizen, and the perfection of the citizen, in turn, the perfection of the state. At the same time, the nature of the state stands "ahead" of the family and the individual. This deep idea is characterized as follows: the perfection of a citizen is determined by the quality of the society to which he belongs: whoever wants to create perfect people must create perfect citizens, and who wants to create perfect citizens must create a perfect state.

Aristotle identifies the following elements of the state:

· single territory(which should be small in size);

Collective of citizens (a citizen is one who participates in legislative and judicial power);

a single cult

general stock;

unified ideas about justice.

“Having clarified what elements the state consists of, we must

first of all, to talk about the organization of the family ... Let us first of all dwell on the master and the slave and look at their relationship from the point of view of practical benefits.

Aristotle distinguished three types of communication in the family:

Husband's power over his wife

the power of the father over the children;

power of the householder over the slaves.

Slavery is equally beneficial to both slave and master. At the same time, "power

master over a slave, as based on violence, is unjust.

Aristotle is a flexible enough thinker not to unambiguously determine the belonging to the state of precisely those and not other persons. He perfectly understands that the position of a person in society is determined by property. Therefore, he criticizes Plato, who in his utopia destroys private property among the upper classes, specifically emphasizing that the community of property is impossible. It causes discontent and quarrels, reduces interest in work, deprives a person of the “natural” enjoyment of possession, and so on.

Thus, Aristotle justifies private property. “Private property,” says Aristotle, “is rooted in the nature of man, in his own love for himself.” Property should be shared only in a relative sense, but private in general: "What is the object of the possession of a very large number of people, the least care is applied." People care most about what belongs to them personally.

Consideration of various theories of government Aristotle begins with an analysis of Plato's project. He especially emphasizes the difficulty of implementing this project in practice, criticizing Plato's theoretical position - his desire to introduce complete unity into the state, ignoring the real-life plurality. In the "Laws" of Plato, Aristotle finds arbitrary statements, and in some cases ill-conceived provisions that threaten their implementation with certain difficulties and undesirable results.

The state structure (politeia) is the order in the organization of public offices in general, and first of all the supreme power: the supreme power is everywhere connected with the order of state administration (politeyma), and the latter is the state structure. “I mean, for example, that in democratic states the supreme power is in the hands of the people; in oligarchies, on the contrary, in the hands of a few; therefore, we call the state structure in them different.

“Aristotle analyzed 156 types of policies and based on this the classification of forms of government” 1, notes A. K. Blinnikov.

The form of the state is determined by the number of those in power (one, few, majority).

There are correct forms of government - in them the rulers have in mind the common good (they take care of the welfare of the people) and wrong forms of government - in them the rulers care only about their personal welfare.

Monarchical government, meaning the common good, "we usually call royal power"; the power of the few, but more than one, by the aristocracy; and when the majority rules for the common good, then we use the designation common to all types of government - polity. "And such a distinction turns out to be logically correct."

The correct forms of the state are monarchical rule (royal power), aristocracy and polity, and the corresponding erroneous deviations from them are tyranny, oligarchy and democracy.

Aristotle's scheme may seem artificial, if you do not take into account the fact that all 6 terms were in use among the Greeks in the 4th century. BC It is unlikely that there were serious disagreements about what is meant by royal power, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy. Plato in the Laws speaks of all these species as something well known, requiring no explanation.

"Aristotle strives to make his scheme flexible, capable of embracing the entire diversity of reality" 1 . Citing as an example the states of his day and looking back at history, he, firstly, states the existence of various varieties within certain types of state structure; secondly, he notes that the political system of some states combines the features of various state structures and that there are intermediate forms between royal and tyrannical power - an aristocracy with a bias towards an oligarchy, a polity close to democracy, etc.

According to Aristotle, the main reason for the formation of the state lies in the natural desire of man for collective life, in the desire that is inherent in him by nature. Aristotle considered such a virtue as friendship to be very important: it is in this virtue that a person passes from his individual isolated existence to public life.

Aristotle suggested that the process of state formation consists of a number of stages. Initially, there is a closed family community, which includes spouses, their children and slaves. The individual family communities then come together to form a single rural community. Polis - a specific form of ancient Greek statehood - arises when several rural communities unite. At the same time, Aristotle considered the desire of communities to unite as natural and logical, since only the presence of statehood can make the association of people independent.

Aristotle was the first to describe the state structure of 158 states, although only a fragment of this description, known as the Athenian polity, has survived to this day. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Aristotle considered polity (moderate democracy) of the Athenian type as one of the most stable and harmonious forms of government. However, Aristotle is extremely restrained in his assessments: if his predecessor Plato described his vision of an ideal state, then Aristotle as a whole did not give such categorical assessments, preferring to talk about what really exists in the world.

Aristotle identified six main forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. Aristotle defined monarchy and tyranny as the power of one person, aristocracy and oligarchy as the power of the few, and democracy and democracy as the power of all.

Aristotle considered the first three forms to be correct, the last three forms to be incorrect. Aristotle substantiated such a division by the fact that in the first forms, power strives for the good of citizens, while in the last forms this principle is not respected. At the same time, he believed that the "correct" forms can turn into incorrect ones, respectively, the monarchy can turn into tyranny, the aristocracy - into an oligarchy, democracy - into democracy. The best, from the point of view of Aristotle, is the state structure in which the middle class is the basis (in our days we would start talking about the middle class).

Aristotle saw inequality as a natural phenomenon. For this reason, he never spoke disapprovingly of slavery, and also generally appreciated private property and the wealth associated with it. Aristotle also recognized the validity of inequality within the family.

Philosophy of cynicism

The founder of Cynicism was Antisthenes (444/435 - 370/360 BC). He founded his school in the gymnasium of Kinosarga (dr. gr. "frisky dogs"), hence the name of the philosophical school - cynics. Since he was a student of Socrates, it would be more logical to talk about him after we have become acquainted with Socratic philosophy. But the logic of the development of philosophy makes us mention the philosophy of Cynicism after Aristotle.

Antisthenes brought the moral component of Socratic philosophy to its limit. He radicalized the Socratic principle of "autarky" - self-control, self-sufficiency. For Antisthenes, physical pleasure becomes an unambiguous evil. The ethics of Antisthenes requires a person's constant effort on himself, the suppression of the desire for pleasure. Consistently developing our ethical views, Antisthenes came to the conclusion that it is necessary to break a person with a social way of life.

Another cynic, Diogenes of Sinop, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, became a symbol of cynicism. The efforts of Diogenes were aimed at revealing the true destiny of man. To live up to one's destiny means to reject all prejudices, whims, social prejudices and stereotypes. According to Diogenes, a person always has everything that is necessary for his life. Only he who is free from more needs. Therefore, from the point of view of the cynic Diogenes, all sciences - physics, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy are equally useless for a person who is looking for his true destiny.

According to Diogenes, the way leading to virtue is asceticism - the training of the soul and body, consisting in the constant readiness to withstand the hardships of fate. Self-sufficiency, apathy and indifference are the ideals of the Cynic way of life.

According to another cynic, Crates (3rd century BC), a person should be apolitical. For a cynic there is no true homeland, said Crates. Thus, we see that, despite the radical divergence of their schools, Cynics and Cyrenaics converge in total cosmopolitanism. The ancient Greek policy begins to decompose from within, undermining the self-awareness of its citizens, individualizing their lives.

After themselves, the Cynics left "diatribes" - short dialogues of an ethical orientation with sarcastic content. Since cynicism, in fact, reduced a person to his animal state, the philosophical school did not last long, especially since cynicism practically denied the need for any sciences, and, consequently, its own philosophy.

Philosophy of Epicureanism

Epicurean philosophy was the first of philosophical schools Hellenism - the era of the collapse of the Greek identity, which began after the aggressive campaigns in the East of Alexander the Great. The founder of Epicureanism was Epicurus (342/341 - 271/270 BC). The philosophical results of the work of Epicureanism were the following provisions:

1) reality lends itself to comprehension by the forces of the human mind;

2) human happiness consists in getting rid of suffering and anxiety;

3) to achieve happiness, a person does not need anything other than himself;

4) a person is autarkic (self-sufficient), the state, wealth and gods are superfluous to him.

Epicurus was one of the first to proclaim the equality of all people: slaves, barbarians and Greeks. To prove this thesis, the school of Epicurus opened its doors to everyone who had not previously been allowed to enlightenment: the rootless, slaves, women.

The philosophy of Epicurus divided all knowledge into three parts: logic, physics and ethics. Logic studies the canons according to which a person cognizes the world. Physics studies the structure of being. Ethics reveals the secrets of happiness and the goals of human life.

Epicurus believed that human feelings are not wrong. Feelings are objective and true because they adequately reflect the world. He believed that things come from their likeness, which is felt by our senses. Thus, feelings are passive receivers of objective images of things.

The physics of Epicurus, according to him, is necessary only as the foundation of ethics. The fundamentals of Epicurus' physics can be represented as follows:

1) reality is eternal, since nothing is born from nothing;

2) the whole reality is formed from two components: bodies and emptiness;

3) reality is infinite in extent (space) and the number of bodies that make it up;

The ethics of Epicurus reformed the ethics of hedonism. Epicurus understands pleasure as peace - the ultimate limit of happiness. True pleasure, according to Epicurus, consists in the absence of bodily suffering, in the equanimity of the soul. If Epicurus' reasoning is consistently carried out, then happiness does not consist in experiencing physical pleasure, but in the judgments of the mind about the moderation of pleasures. Epicurus distinguishes: 1) natural and necessary pleasures, 2) natural but not necessary, 3) pleasures not natural and not necessary. At the same time, he believes that pleasures that are natural and necessary are objectively achievable.

Regarding political life, Epicurus believes that it is fundamentally unnatural, because. leads to endless unrest, hinders the achievement of personal happiness. Thus, Epicurus can be considered, along with the Cynics and Cyrenaics, another source of ancient cosmopolitanism.

Philosophy of Stoicism

The founder of the philosophy of Stoicism was Zeno of Kition (333/332 - 264/262 BC). The school was called so because Zeno gave his lectures in a painted portico (stand). This is the name of the covered gallery, the ceiling of which is supported by columns.

There are three periods of the philosophy of Stoicism: 1) the period of the ancient Stoa (Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus): the end of the 4th century. - III century. BC.; 2) period " middle Stoya» II-I centuries. BC. (Panetius, Posidonius); 3) the period of the Roman Stoa, which existed until the end of ancient philosophy.

Zeno accepts the division of the common philosophical knowledge into three parts: logic, physics and ethics. The image of the ratio of these parts in Zeno becomes an orchard. The fence of the garden is logic, the trees in the garden are physics, fruits, what the garden is planted for is ethics.

The purpose of logic, according to the Stoics, is to work out the criteria of truth. Sensations are the basis of human cognition. As a result of sensation, an idea arises. From representations, we move on to concepts that, according to the Stoics, are inherent in human nature itself.

Stoic physics became the first form of pantheistic materialism. Its basis is the assertion that being is only that which is capable of activity and suffering. Such is only the body, and, consequently, "being and the body are one and the same."

The Stoics in their physics proceed from two principles of being, "passive" - ​​matter and "active" - ​​form or divine mind, logos. According to the Stoics, everything in the world arises from the Logos, capable of being objectified into the multitude of things. At the same time, since the Logos is an active principle of being, it is inseparable from matter, and since there is no matter without a form, the Logos is everything, i.e. immanent in the being of many things.

The physics of the Stoics is associated with finalism, which consists in the assertion that everything that exists is fulfilled in the best possible way. At the same time, the Stoics believed that the world would someday be cleansed, burn, and then be reborn again and everything would be repeated all over again.

Stoya's ethics is the most interesting and original part of her philosophy. For both the Epicureans and the Stoics, the goal of life is to achieve happiness. For the Stoics, achieving happiness consists in following nature. The Stoics deduced the basic principles of ethics from the principle of striving for life common to all living things. To live in accordance with nature means to live in such a way as to ensure the growth and development of the qualities inherent in man, in particular, the rational principle. Since the natural principle of the living is the instinct for the preservation of being, it is good for the Stoics that which preserves the growth and preservation of being.

Everything that relates to bodily existence, the Stoics consider morally indifferent. From this thesis, the Stoics conclude that it is necessary for a person to be indifferent to the events taking place in society. Happiness does not depend on external events, the Stoics believed, therefore, a person captured by physical torture and illness and social upheaval can be happy.

The Stoics believed that most people are incapable of moral behavior. They attributed this to the fact that rational behavior is formed along with the study of philosophy, which not every person is able to comprehend. Therefore, the Stoics proposed the concept of duty as accessible to understanding and implementation by many people.

Since all people are capable of achieving virtue, the Stoics rejected the division into estates, slavery, declaring freedom not a social, but an intellectual concept. Free, according to the Stoics, is the sage, and the ignoramus is a slave, because. he is in the grip of his delusion.

Errors arise from passions, which are the result of a weak mind. A sage is able to restrain passions, to prevent their appearance in his heart. This state is a state of apathy. The sage in Stoic philosophy must, in the limit of apathy, strive for anesthesia, in which passion gradually disappears. The ideal state of mind for the Stoics is pure, cold reasoning, in which there is no place for vice, sympathy, or pity.

Philosophy of skepticism

Skepticism(ancient Greek "skepticos" - considering, researching) is a philosophy, the main principle of thinking of which is doubt about the reliability of philosophical truth. The philosophy of skepticism arose thanks to Pyrrho (360 - 275/270 BC) in the city of Elis.

The philosophy of skepticism was based on the belief that happiness is possible even in the absence of truth and values, which are only a reflection of vanity. It was no longer Greek, but Eastern worldview. Pyrrho got acquainted with ideas about the vanity of the world in the East, being a participant in the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Skepticism, therefore, was created as an alternative to the classical Greek way of life among the ruins of traditional values.

Pyrrho believed that in order to ensure happiness, a person must answer three questions:

1) what are things by nature; 2) what should be our attitude towards them; 3) what they will be and how to behave.

Pyrrho answered these questions as follows: firstly, all things are the same, indistinguishable and impermanent, since they appear to be appearances, therefore, it is impossible to separate truth from falsehood.

Secondly, it is necessary to live without inclining to any opinion, i.e. live without opinions, refrain from judging things. The second thesis may have been borrowed by skeptics from the Stoics, since they also have the principle of refraining from judgment.

Thirdly happiness is provided by apathy and steadfastness. Pyrrho speaks of aphasia (silence) close to ataraxia, arising from a state of inner peace. Pyrrho himself was an example of equanimity and indifference. At the same time, Pyrrho insisted that the goal of man is not the absolute non-existence of man, but in understanding the divinity of human nature, devoid of the weight of things.

Philosophy of Neoplatonism

The last distinctive philosophy of Greek antiquity was the philosophy of Neoplatonism. Its creator was Plotinus (205 - 270)

The beginning of the formation of the philosophy of Neoplatonism can be considered 244 BC, when Plotinus opens his school in Rome. After a break, devoted to lecturing based on the teachings of Ammonius, Plotinus writes down his lectures in the composition of the Ennead. Together with the dialogues of Plato and the writings of Aristotle, the Enneads became the classic masterpieces of ancient Greek philosophy. Plotinus's school did not aim to teach future rulers or scholars. He pursued another new goal- to show the vanity of the earthly world, to teach your students to rise to contemplate the divine.

Plotinus tried to realize his dream - to found the city of philosophers - Platonopolis. But, despite the support of the Roman emperor Gallienus, this dream remained at the project level.

According to the philosophy of Plotinus, everything in the world is the way it is only due to its unity. Otherwise, in order to deprive a thing of existence, it is only necessary to take away its unity. The highest essence is the concept of the infinite One, which cannot be characterized in any way, because. all characteristics are finite. The One is simply as the beginning, as "the potency of all things." That. The One is neither life, nor being, nor thought. It is maximally transcendent to everything and at the same time is the cause of everything that exists.

The One is a self-producing activity in which will and being coincide. It is not clear, in this case, why the One thing, i.e. why does the One not remain itself and in itself? But the One does not create things. They flow from him as light comes from fire. One is always the same. At the One, thus. there are two kinds of activity: 1) the activity emanating from the One, due to which it becomes the beginning of everything; 2) the activity of free creation of oneself. In Plotinus' philosophy, the One is first hypostasis being.

Second hypostasis Plotinus' philosophy is Nous or Spirit. This is the highest intellectual principle, containing the entire Platonic world of ideas. Spirit (nous) shapes the activity of the One. Nous is also the cause of the duality of being and thinking. Since Nous is a form of the One, it can be assumed that it is Nous who is the embodiment of the idea of ​​Beauty - the essential form of things.

third hypostasis being is the Soul, which proceeds from the Spirit (Nusa). The specificity of the Soul lies not in pure thinking, but in providing all living things with life, in its ordering. Since the Soul gives life, it, according to Plotinus, is the beginning of the whole movement. The soul is hierarchical. There is a higher a pure soul and the Soul, understood as a creative force. The third step of the hierarchy of the Soul is the particular souls that animate specific living bodies.

Matter, according to Plotinus, is the pure opposite of the One, which consists in the loss by matter of the potency of becoming. Matter, thus is non-existence, because it experiences a deficit of the positive, it is evil in the sense of the negativity of potency.

The physical world appears in the following way: 1) the Soul posits matter, 2) a form is given to matter, thereby it acquires outlines, “clarifies”, 3) time “temporality” arises, which reflects the activity of the Soul in the creation of the world.

Man comes to the One at a certain stage of contemplation, spiritual activity. Thus, all human life there is a desire to return to the One with the help of ecstasy - separation from everything earthly.

MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

Federal State Educational Institution

higher professional education

"NORTH-WESTERN ACADEMY OF PUBLIC SERVICE"

Philosophies

Abstract on the topic:

Aristotle's doctrine of the state and its modern meaning

3rd year students 3176 groups

Plekhova Natalya Sergeevna

Checked by: Associate Professor,

Abramova Larisa Petrovna

St. Petersburg

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………3

Chapter I. The state according to Aristotle……………………………………………4

1.1 The essence of the state in the philosophy of Aristotle………………………..4

1.2 Aristotle on the state…………………………………………………….10

Chapter II. Aristotle's ideal state and its modern meaning.14

1.1. The project of an ideal state…………………………………………….14

1.2 Modern meaning Aristotle's teachings about the state………………19

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………21

References…………………………………………………………….22

Introduction

ancient greek philosophy was a very broad science, uniting almost all branches of knowledge. It included what we now call natural science, philosophical problems proper, and the whole complex of modern humanities - philology, sociology, cultural studies, political science, etc. The doctrine of the ideal state belongs precisely to the sphere of political science. ancient greek philosophers, especially in the later period, they were much more interested in the problems of man, the meaning of his life, the problems of the life of society, rather than natural science problems.

The content of ancient political and legal concepts was greatly influenced by the development of ethics, the establishment of individualistic morality in a slave-owning society. The crisis of the mythological worldview and the development of philosophy forced the ideologists of the polis nobility to reconsider their outdated views, to create philosophical doctrines that are capable of resisting the ideas of the democratic camp. The ideology of the ancient Greek aristocracy reaches its highest development in the philosophy of Aristotle.

This trend has been outlined since Socrates, and finally formed in Plato, who was practically not interested in “physical” problems. Aristotle, although he was the founder of the development of natural science knowledge, and the entire medieval natural Science was based on the system of Aristotle, but nevertheless, being a universal philosopher, he devoted a place in his system to the problems of human society and the state system.

Chapter I. The state according to Aristotle.

1.1. The essence of the state in the philosophy of Aristotle.

Aristotle reveals the essence of the state and politics through its goal, and according to the philosopher, it is the highest - educational and consists in giving citizens good qualities and make them people doing great things. In other words, "the goal of politics is the good, moreover, the fair, that is, the common good." Therefore, the politician must look for the best, that is, the most appropriate political structure for the specified goal.

The objects of political science are the beautiful and the just, but the same objects are also studied in ethics as virtues. Ethics appears as the beginning of politics, an introduction to it.

The main result of ethical research, essential for politics, is the position that political justice is possible only between free and equal people belonging to the same community, and is aimed at their self-satisfaction.

The state, according to Aristotle, is formed as a result of natural

people's attraction to communication: "We see that every state is a kind of communication." The first type of communication is the family, from several families a clan, a village appears, and the union of several villages makes up the state - the highest form of human community.

Any communication is organized for the sake of some good (after all, every activity has in mind the supposed good), then, obviously, all communication strives for one or another good, and more than others, and that communication, which is the most important of all and embraces all other communication. This communication is called the state or political communication.

A society consisting of several villages is a completely completed state.

The political structure is the order that underlies the distribution of state powers and determines both the supreme power and the norm of any society in it.

The political structure presupposes the rule of law; for where laws do not rule, there is no political order.

The state is formed through moral communication between people. The political community is based on the unanimity of citizens in

regards to virtue. As the most perfect form of living together, the state precedes the family and the village, that is, it is the purpose of their existence.

“The state is not a community of residence, it is not created to prevent mutual insults or for the sake of convenience of exchange. Of course, all these conditions must be present for the existence of the state, but even with all of them taken together, there will still be no state; it appears only when communication is formed between families and clans for the sake of a good life.

Aristotle also singles out in the state the grateful and the ungrateful, the rich and the poor, the educated and the ill-bred, the free and the slaves. He describes in detail the elements necessary for the existence of the state, distinguishing between elements of quality and elements of quantity: by the elements of quality he means freedom, education and nobility of birth, and by the elements of quantity - the numerical superiority of the masses.

State structure, according to Aristotle, is a routine in the field of organizing public offices in general, and in the first place

the turn of the supreme power: the supreme power is everywhere connected with the order of state administration, and the latter is the state structure: “I mean, for example, that in democratic states the supreme power is in the hands of the people; in oligarchies, on the contrary, in the hands of a few; therefore, we call the state structure in them different.

The variety of forms of political structure is explained by the fact that the state is a complex whole, a multitude, consisting of many and different, unlike parts. Each part has its own ideas about happiness and the means to achieve it; each part seeks to take power into its own hands, to establish its own form of government.

In addition, some peoples succumb only to despotic power, others can live under royal power, while others need free political life.

But the main reason is that in every state there is a “clash of rights”, because the noble, the free, the rich, the worthy, and also the majority in general, which always has advantages over the minority, claim power. Therefore, different political structures arise and replace each other. When the state changes, people remain the same, only the form of government changes.

Aristotle divides political structures according to quantitative, qualitative and property characteristics. States differ, first of all, in whose hands the power is in one person, a minority or a majority. And one person, and a minority, and the majority can rule correctly and incorrectly.

In addition, a minority or a majority may be rich or poor. But since usually the poor in the state make up the majority of the population, and the rich are a minority, the division according to property

sign coincides with the division on the basis of quantitative. The result is six forms of political organization: three correct and three incorrect.

main task political theory Aristotle saw it in finding the perfect state system. To this end, he analyzed in detail the existing forms of the state, their shortcomings, as well as the causes of coup d'état.

The correct forms of the state are monarchical rule (royal power), aristocracy and polity, and the corresponding erroneous deviations from them are tyranny, oligarchy and democracy.

Aristotle calls the best form of government polity. In the polity, the majority governs in the interests of the common good. All other forms represent one or another deviation from the polity.

Among the signs of polity are the following:

the predominance of the middle class;

ruled by the majority

· Merchants and artisans should be deprived of political rights;

· Moderate property qualification for ruling positions.

Monarchy- the oldest, "first and most divine" form

political device. Aristotle lists the types of royal power, speaks of patriarchal and absolute monarchy. The latter is permissible if there is a person in the state who surpasses absolutely all others. Such people exist, and there is no law for them; such a person is "like a god between people", "trying to subordinate them ... to the law ... is ridiculous", "they themselves are the law."

aristocracy in fairness, only that kind can be recognized

government, when men govern, by far the best in terms of virtue, and not those who are valiant under certain premises; after all, only with this type of state structure good husband and a good citizen are one and the same thing, while in the case of the rest, they are good in relation to a given state system.

An aristocracy, however, is preferable to a kingdom. Under an aristocracy, power is in the hands of a few with personal merit, and it is possible where personal merit is valued by the people. Since personal dignity is usually inherent in the noble, the nobles rule under the aristocracy - Eupatrides.

According to the teachings of Aristotle on the state, a person does not live for himself alone, but by nature he is created for social life - sexual and blood ties, language, innate moral instincts connect him with other people. He needs them for the most successful protection from dangers, for the satisfaction of urgent needs, and also and simply for the satisfaction of his social instincts. A person, Aristotle teaches, needs to communicate with people like himself not only to maintain and improve his bodily life, but also because only in human society is it possible to have a good upbringing and streamlining of life by law and law.

Aristotle. Sculpture by Lysippus

A perfect society, embracing in itself all other forms of society, is a state - a "polis". The purpose of this perfect society is not exclusively economic. According to the teachings of Aristotle, the state is not an economic association, and the goal it pursues is not the protection of private interests. The goal of the state is the highest good in general - "eudaimonia", the happiness of citizens in a perfect community, communication in a happy life. Therefore, the end of the state is not conquest or war, but the virtue of the citizens and the totality of all the means necessary for its implementation; like Plato, the humane education of citizens in virtue is the main task of the state.

Aristotle believes that the state is higher than the family, higher than private individuals; it is to its members as the whole is to its parts; it is first in nature. But in time, in the order of occurrence, the family and the community preceded the state. First, under the influence of natural attraction, a human family was formed, then, under the pressure of various circumstances, families rallied into communities (“choirs”), from which, under further development human society, states were formed.

In his "Politics" Aristotle, apparently, prefaced whole line preparatory works: he subjected to a thorough criticism of the political writings of Plato, as well as the constitutions of various peoples.

Citizens participate in state administration, in court, in the army; but merchants, artisans, farmers are excluded from the number of full-fledged citizens. Craft and trade are recognized in the teachings of Aristotle as low occupations, incompatible with political virtue; agriculture also robs her of the leisure she needs. Therefore, the land is cultivated by slaves or quitrent perieks, and immovable property is partly in the hands of the state, partly in the hands of full-fledged citizens, so that they have the necessary prosperity for the development of virtue in themselves and for the care of the state. On the other hand, these citizens brought up state. In the teachings of Aristotle, a similar pedagogical project of public education of citizens is developing, similar in many respects to the project of Plato (the goal of ethical and theoretical development through aesthetic education).

Policy and Policy Objects

3. State according to Aristotle

3.1. Man in the state

3.2 Private property

3.3 Forms of government by the state

The ultimate goal of politics should be to approach this ideal social order, which allows all citizens to participate in the rule of law and reason. However, within the framework of those distorted forms that really exist in the history of mankind, the politician should strive to avoid extreme perversions, judiciously mixing oligarchy with democracy and thus achieving relative stability, when peace and order make possible the further education of citizens and the progress of society. Aristotle's politics, parts of which were written at different times, was the most important political text of antiquity. The influence of Politics can be traced in Cicero, Boethius, John of Damascus, Michael of Ephesus, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau and other authors.
The population of the best state should be sufficient and easily visible. The territory of the best state should be equally well oriented in relation to the sea and the mainland. The territory, in addition, should be sufficient to meet moderate needs.
It is easy to see that behind every political term used by Aristotle lies a very specific content. The philosopher strives to make his scheme flexible, capable of embracing all the diversity of reality. Citing as an example contemporary states and looking back at history, he, firstly, states the existence of various varieties within certain types of state structure, and secondly, notes that the political system of some states combines the features of various state structures and that there are intermediate forms between royal and tyrannical power - an aristocracy with a bias towards the oligarchy, a polity close to democracy, etc. Aristotle pays great attention to the issue of coup d'état. His arguments about the causes and causes of coups in states with different structures are richly illustrated by examples of their long and very recent past. The same feature is distinguished by the presentation of his views on ways to prevent coups and the preservation of certain types of state structures.
Summing up our reasoning about the "average" system in Aristotle's reasoning, we can conclude: polity, the "average" state structure, which should be supported by citizens of average income, was not only of theoretical interest to Aristotle. Pinning hopes on the Macedonian king, Aristotle believed that he had reason to look at his conditionally exemplary system as the future of the Greek policies.
The last two books of the "Politics" contain an exposition of a blueprint for the best state system in which citizens lead a happy life. The writing of such projects was not an innovation in the time of Aristotle: the philosopher had predecessors whose theories are dealt with in the second book of Politics. As can be seen from the words of Aristotle, as well as from the works of Plato, which are well known to us, the authors of the projects did not really care about the practical implementationtheir proposals. Such projects did not satisfy Aristotle. Outlining his doctrine of the ideal system, he proceeds from the fact that this doctrine does not contain anything impracticable. fourteen
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