John Wallach - Contemporary Aristotelianism PDF

Contemporary Aristotelianism
Author(s): John R. Wallach

Source: Political Theory, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Nov., 1992), pp. 613-641
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/191971
Accessed: 30-12-2017 17:27 UTC
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/191971?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Political Theory
This content downloaded from 177.182.103.220 on Sat, 30 Dec 2017 17:27:40 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
CONTEMPORARY ARISTOTELIANISM
JOHNR. WALLACH
Hunter College, City University of New York
L THE ARISTOTELlAN TURN
The persuasive power of political theory depends on its ability to addres

and illuminate major sentiments, intuitions, and beliefs of its audience abou
political life. To achieve these effects, political theorists often draw on
explanatory languages that stand at some distance from ordinary political
discourse. Such languages may stem from present usage and social practices,
as do the languages of rights and contract, neoclassical economics, natural
science, or sexuality. But political thinkers from Roman times forward1 have
also drawn on discourses that come specifically from the past in order to
obtain an otherwise unavailable critical perspective on the present and to
project a better future.2 This is no less true today. A wide range of social
theorists have conjugated the past in the present, going back to the future, by
turning to Aristotle. In particular, they claim to have found in Aristotle's
discourse of politike the correct foundation, or at least proper point of
departure, for a new and more satisfying kind of ethical and political thought.
Aristotle has become a contemporary in the discourse of political theory.
Insofar as Aristotle merely provides rhetorical support for a particular
aspect of a theorist's argument, the contemporary appropriation of Aristotle
is not particularly unusual or surprising. It certainly is not unusual. Ever since
Aristotle died, his words have assumed a life of their own, regularly perform-
A UTHOR'S NOTE: Considerable energy for this article came from a conversation I had with
Raymond Geuss in April 1988. I presented a primitive version of it at a panel of the Society for
Greek Political Thought in Washington, DC, August 1989, in the wake of which Curtis Johnson
and Roland Polansky sent me detailed, useful comments. In revising it I have benefited greatly
from the astute criticisms and generous encouragement of Julia Annas, John Cooper, Rogers
Smith, Tracy Strong, and Amanda Thornton, as well as from responsive audiences at Yale,
Berkeley, Hunter, and Columbia. I also want to thank Martha Nussbaum for making available
to me some of her articles on Aristotle andAristotelianism and Stephen Salkeverfor sending me
the manuscript version of his book
POL1TICALTHEORY, Vol. 20 No. 4, November 1992 613-641

? 1992 Sage Publications, Inc.
613
614 POLMCAL THEORY / November 1992
ing parts in plays that he did not write. The nature of Aristotle's wisdom has
been remade almost continually since his death -by the Peripatetics who
succeeded him in his school in Athens; by Thomas Aquinas, as he sought to
develop a natural, social grounding for Catholic doctrine; by Thomas Hobbes,
as he tried to discard the Scholastic tradition of teleology; by Spanish jurists,
who sought to justify their domination of native Americans; by Karl Marx,
as he devised a theory to undercut the new science of political economy. And
this appropriation is not terribly surprising. Because his philosophy is neither
Marxist nor liberal, neither reductively empirical nor rigidly metaphysical,
neither sectarian nor atheist, neither capitalist nor socialist; because it pro-
vides rhetorical support for democratic deliberation and enlightened rule by
virtuous elites, for a kind of feminine care for the particular and private along
with a kind of masculine confidence in the virtue of public activity, Aristotle
has something for nearly all theorists searching for new avenues of social
thought.3 But many contemporary theorists take Aristotle more seriously,
often calling their own moral and/or political theory "Aristotelian." For them,
Aristotle amounts to more than an inspiration; he becomes an authority and
chief means of argumentative defense. These theorists have found in Aristotle
not only intellectual sustenance but philosophical anchors for an alternative
or supplement to liberalism.4
This is a rather curious development. After all, Aristotle sanctions a vast
array of invidious social, racial, and sexual prejudices and displays severe
analytical and observational limitations. Moreover, characteristic features of
Aristotelian political science, such as its teleological naturalism, were di-
rectly or indirectly employed in ethical and political theories that resisted
advances in scientific inquiry and extensions of political power to lower
orders of society - advances and extensions that virtually no one today
publicly wants to retract. But nowadays, the anachronism of Aristotle's
thought constitutes much of its appeal, for contemporary Aristotelians be-
lieve that the victories of liberalism and the Enlightenment have come at great
cost. They cite liberalism's reliance on the Enlightenment's hubristic faith in
reason and its consequent inability to endorse or establish an overarching
ethical and communal order as sources for, if not the causes of, moral and
political crises in today's Western societies. Amid the proliferating types of
social understanding and stubborn problems in the social world, theorists
have sought a measured and comprehensive system that could bring order to
the intellectual chaos and a sense of constant value into our rapidly changing
world. For the illnesses of liberalism and modernity, many believe that
Aristotelian politike can provide the best cure.
Wallach / CONTEMPORARY ARISTOTELIANISM 615
But while major thinkers of disparate intellectual and political persua-

sions ground their critique of liberalism in Aristotle's views, it is not at all
clear what their Aristotelianism really means or entails. When we meet the
Aristotle of contemporary Aristotelians, we greet only certain members of
his family of thought. Aristotle is not invoked to subjugate women or revive
slavery but to enrich our view of ethical and political inquiry. And even this
new, improved Aristotle assumes many, often contradictory, political and
theoretical forms. When he is played in the discursive games of liberalism
versus communitarianism, virtue versus rights, teleology versus deontology/
utilitarianism, or naturalism versus historicism, Aristotle may, depending on
which neo-Aristotelian you read, augment or condemn Rawlsian liberalism,
revive or undercut Straussian naturalism, rehabilitate or discredit the tradition
of Thomism, support or oppose humanistic Marxism.' And so I ask, where
are we going by turning to Aristotle? What does it mean to be an Aristotelian
today?
To answer these questions, I shall briefly identify the referents of Aristotle's
conception of politike within his philosophy as a whole and then characterize
the varieties of neo-Aristotelianism as constructions of politike. I do so in
order to judge the uses of Aristotle by these theorists as logical arguments,
modes of historical interpretation, and strategies of ethical and political
rhetoric. My intent is neither to discourage attention to Aristotle's ideas nor
to reduce them to ideological expressions of a partisan interest nor to presume
to identify the "real" Aristotle. It is rather to analyze critically a particular
body of ethical and political thought that raises basic issues about the
interpretation of the history of political theory and its use in contemporary
political argument. To ask "How does one differentiate the essential and
contingent in Aristotelian political science?" leads one to ask "How does one
define the crucial character of a past theorist's beliefs?" To ask "How may
Aristotle's political theory properly transcend its original time and place?"
suggests the question of "How heavy should arguments of the dead weigh on
those of the living?" To ask "What constitutes reasonable use, as opposed to
rhetorical abuse, of Aristotle's authority?" makes one wonder, "In making
use of the history of political theory in contemporary argument, may anything
go?" And to ask "Is there a kind of politics that colors contemporary
Aristotelianism?" confronts one with the question of "How do a theorist's
politics affect his or her interpretive approach to the history of political
theory?" I can only broach these more general questions in my discussion of
contemporary Aristotelianism; I only mention them to point out the stakes
involved in one's conceptual map of the current Aristotelian turn.
616 POLITICAL THEORY / November 1992
II. POLITIKE AND THE VARIETIES

OF NEO-ARISTOTELIANISM
Politike defies any simple translation,6 and insofar as contemporary Ar

telians build their own theories from an interpretation of the meaning
politike, its definition constitutes the issue at hand. But to evaluate what
happens to Aristotle in neo-Aristotelianism, one has to start somewhere. And
insofar as its proponents grant Aristotle a historical as well as a fictional
existence, that somewhere could be partially independent of their interpretive
frames. The following is designed simply to provide several textual and
conceptual points of reference for the interpretation of neo-Aristotelian
politike.7 Politike is the term Aristotle used to identify his art or science of
ethical and political understanding and action, the subject matter of which he
explains primarily in theNicomachean Ethics (NE) and Politics (P) (although
the Rhetoric is pertinent as well). At one point, he referred to its compass as
"the philosophy of human affairs" (he peri ta anthropeia philosophia), yet a
decent translation would be political science (however incongruous to stu-
dents of the contemporary academic discipline of political science). For-
mally, politike ranged across the realms of theory and practice, involving the
activity of ordinary citizens engaged in the official business of the polis, the
work of everyday politicians who contributed to the making of decrees, the
practical wisdom and performance of extraordinary leaders, such as Pericles,
and, finally, the teaching and writing of theorists of politics, such as Aristotle,
who try to understand the virtues of human beings and constitutions and make
them more just.8 Substantively, politike concerned the virtues of individuals
acting by themselves or as members of associations. In particular, it focused
on the associational involvements of individuals that pertained to the actual-
ization of virtue (arete) and happiness (eudaimonia). For man, the most
political animal, these associations or communities (koinoniai) included the
necessarily hierarchical relations of master and slave, husband and wife, and
parents and children, as well as the ideally egalitarian relations of friends and
fellow citizens. In the proper state of these associations, each partner con-
tributed to the common advantage of their associations as well as to their
ultimate, highest "end" (telos). Given man's nature, the highest association,
for Aristotle, was the political association or community, that is, the polis
(P, 1252al-6, 1253bl-14). Virtue could only be fully realized in a rightly
constituted political community. Politike identified the ultimate good of
individuals and associations in terms of the good of the polis and the proper
way in which particular arts and sciences within the polis could benefit the
political community as a whole. The end or goal of politike was action (praxis),
and doing politike was necessarily virtuous (NE, 1095a5-16, 1103b26-29,

1139b3-5; cf. 1141b21, 1143b23).
Knowledge of political science, like all knowledge for Aristotle, stemmed
from its "natural" correspondence to the telos of a universal reality that itself
was natural. That nature was fully realized in its telos, and the telos of natural
phenomena involved both form and matter. The formal character of a
phenomenon referred to a thing's shape (morphe) or form (eidos) according
to reason (logon). The nature of a thing could not be explained solely by
reference to its material character, but that nature also could not be explained
wholly by reference to its formal character.9 Knowledge of Aristotelian
political science was not natural in the sense of being innate. Not everyone
was capable of having or doing politike, and those who were had to develop
their capacity. Yet knowledge of politike was not merely a matter of compre-
hending particular customs, laws, or conventions (nomoi). Aristotle believed
that politike had a natural dimension, comparable to the natural character of
the art and science of medicine. Practicing the latter architectonically regu-
lated the health of the body; practicing politike did the same with respect to
the health of the soul. The artful sciences of medicine and politics were not
regulated by algorithmic rules.10 And yet the disciplines consisted of more
than a compendia of fitful judgments; they displayed the coherence of natural
wholes.
The nature of politike, therefore, involved both formal epistemology and sub-
stantive, material conceptions of the natural character of political phenomena
- especially the natural character of "man" as a political animal whose telos
can only be fully realized in the life of the good (natural) polis. Whatever the
perceptual sources for Aristotle's own judgments, the "natural" character of
political man and political associations sets the "natural" determinants of
politike and the naturally objective teleology of the political realm."1 Indeed,
Aristotle's naturalist teleology glues together the formal and material or
substantive aspects of both Aristotelian politike and the political realm.
Summarily put, the glue works in the following way. The rational and ethical
core of politike is the intellectual virtue of phronesis, which essentially
involves deliberation. To elucidate the concept of practical wisdom, Aristotle
directs the reader to his perceptions of "natural" virtue - in the Ethics, for
individuals in their personal associations; in the Politics, for individuals in
their institutional associations. Ultimately, he analyzes the constitutional
structure of the polis, the highest form of association. Here, the political
deliberations of ordinary citizens and a relationship of political equality
among them promote its virtue and well-being. But Aristotle's belief in the
natural character of human and social inequality prevents his ideal constitu-
tion from being democratic. As a result, the best constitution includes

and excludes most workers and all women from the full rights and privi
of citizenship (P, 1329a 17-21, 34-39). These natural perceptions make
theoretical system both coherent and workable as a whole.
Four beliefs about Aristotle's conception of politike constitute the core

the neo-Aristotelian project. First, Aristotle's conception of politike ex
cised in practical reason or practical wisdom (phronesis) properly and
cessfully reconciles the dichotomies of nature/convention and unive
particular. Second, Aristotle's disagreeable, naturalistic prejudices are c
tingent features of his theoretical system; they can be shorn from that sy
without eliminating its coherence or emptying its substance. Third, t
agreeable components of Aristotle's thought either are not so shaped b
historical circumstances of their creation as to make them irrelevant f
or are shaped by historical circumstances that resemble our own in cer
fundamental ways; serious neo-Aristotelians cannot be thoroughly his
cist. Finally, Aristotelian politike offers a model for reasoning about pol
life that qualitatively improves on those offered by conventional unders
ings of Kantian morality and/or liberalism and, if properly imitated,
properly guide our judgments about what is rational and just for toda
political communities.
The invocation of Aristotle has become so pervasive in moral and political
theory that no classification of his recent theoretical incarnations will be
either complete or entirely accurate."2 Nevertheless, most fall into one of
three categories: analytical Aristotelianism, fundamentalist Aristotelianism,
and traditional Aristotelianism. Within the first category, which has inter-
pretive and philosophical branches, belongs the work of specialists in clas-
sical philosophy, such as Terence Irwin, Richard Kraut, and Sarah Broadie
and more general, less historically focused philosophers, such as Philippa
Foot and David Wiggins. Within the second category, which has both ethi-
cal and naturalist branches, belong various writings of Martha Nussbaum,
on one hand, and major works of Leo Strauss and Stephen Salkever, on the
other. Within the third category, which has Anglo-American and Continental
branches, belongs much work of Alasdair MacIntyre, on one hand, and
Hans-Georg Gadamer, on the other."3 These scholars have composed illumi-
nating works that make a particular reading of Aristotle central to their
claims. But after summarizing the interpretations of representative members
Wallach / CONTEMPORARY ARISTOTELlANISM 619
of these branches, I shall argue that, to varying degrees, the way they
Aristotle does a disservice to Aristotle's arguments and their own.
AnalyticalAristotelianism
The benchmark work for renewed philosophical interest in Aristotle is

G.E.M. Anscombe's 1958 article, "Modem Moral Philosophy.""4 Among
analytical philosophers, it has spawned a cottage industry of "virtue ethics,"
in which the logic of virtuous action as characterized in Aristotle's Nico-
machean Ethics is favorably contrasted to the rule-governed morality of
Kantian and utilitarian ethics. Unlike the former, in which moral behavior
involves obedience to a universalizable rule, it emphasizes morality as
virtuous action - a disposition to exercise reasoned choice (prohairesis) with
regard to actions and emotions (NE, 1106b36, 1107a2). Unlike the latter, in
which moral behavior results from properly calculating how a particular
action contributes to an external, chosen end, practical morality depends on
an activity whose exercise partially constitutes the end that justifies it.'"
The treatment of Aristotle by these philosophers has returned questions
of character to the menu of professional concerns, but it also has tended to
make Aristotle's conception of ethics appear as if it operated independently
of political concerns. In service of this understanding, moral philosophers
have typically translated Aristotelian politike as "ethical philosophy," "moral
philosophy," "philosophical ethics," or "practical philosophy," and margi-
nalized its political dimension accordingly.'6 Such partial views of Aristote-
lian politike have obscured the simultaneously ethical and political character
of Aristotle's philosophy of human affairs. In Aristotle's rather grand con-
ception of the political realm, no politics are extramoral and no morality is
apolitical.'7 But most of these writers have not written about Aristotelian
politike in a way that encompassed both the Nicomachean Ethics and the
Politics, so their philosophical interest in Aristotle will not be central to our
inquiry. An exception is Terence Irwin, whose explanation of Aristotelian
politike not only informs but also characterizes the work of many other neo-
Aristotelians.
In his carefully reasoned, well-documented reinterpretation of the ancient
philosophical tradition, Terence Irwin has assiduously sought to separate out
its logically sound and good elements from its logically unsound and bad
ones.'8 His work on Aristotle highlights our concern about separating the
substance of Aristotelian political science from its form. Irwin believes that
Aristotle's fundamental philosophical views have much truth in them, truth
we could benefit from now if we understood and appreciated it more fu

In particular, he believes that Aristotle's views about "character and moral
education," such as his belief that virtuous behavior requires not only "wish
or resolution" but also the proper "training, habituation, and environment"
are "in themselves . . . defensible and salutary."19 Moreover, according to
Irwin, they are what lead Aristotle's "ethical" inquiries into the study of
politics. Yet Irwin admits that Aristotle relies on these same views for
troublesome political judgments about, for example, the character of the
demos. Thus Aristotle holds that insofar as a "menial" way of life discourages
the cultivation of virtue, and a majority of citizens in a democracy may well
pursue such a life, the constitutional order of a democracy most likely will
not be virtuous. To Irwin, these views are empirically and logically faulty.
He resolves this paradoxical relationship between the basic principles of
Aristotelian political science and their substantive conclusions by holding
that the "schema" or form of Aristotleian politike is sound; only its "use" is
defective: "We can use [Aristotle's ethical] principles to correct some of
Aristotle's political recommendations."20
To support his interpretation of the philosophical value of Aristotle, Irwin
identifies two modes of dialectical inquiry in Aristotle's investigative ap-
proach. The primary one, which he calls "strong dialectic," possesses self-
critical foundations that nonetheless have roots in an objective reality. The
secondary one is "pure dialectic." It relies on received, reputable public
opinions (endoxa) for its points of departure. To Irwin, Aristotle mistakenly
relies too heavily on "pure dialectic" when deriving his substantive claims
about ethics and politics. As a result, many of these unseemly views are
contingent, unfortunate conclusions drawn from admirable premises.21 But
this does not discredit the premises because Aristotle's faulty derivations
simply reflect logical flaws in his struggle with the perennial problem of how
to reconcile the particulars of experience with the universals of principle.
Irwin believes that we should attend to Aristotle because his general effort
to accommodate reliance on endoxa as the foundations of philosophical
dialectic with the ability of philosophical inquiry to disclose objective
principles about the nature of reality provides a penetrating treatment of this
problem.22 Indeed, what Irwin shares with other analytical Aristotelians is the
view that the proper context for analyzing Aristotelian politike is a philo-
sophical problem that fundamentally has nothing to do with history or
politics. Other analytical philosophers today follow his approach when they
compare Hobbes's and Aristotle's views on political nature and the state as
if both provided rhythm to the same historical beat (a matter which is
complicated by the fact that Hobbes developed his own ideas in reaction to
the scholastic Aristotelianism of his own time).23
FundamentalistAristotelianism
For fundamentalist Aristotelians, Aristotle is the primal source. When it

comes to theorizing about society, his intellectual authority overshadows that
of all others. All rational thought about ethical and political life, in this view,
constitutes an anticipation or footnote to Aristotle, rightly understood. The
merit of his views primarily derive from his conceptions of nature and the
human good and their expression in his conception of practical reason/
wisdom (phronesis). Phronesis provides what liberalism lacks -an objec-
tive, morally infused standard of reason that elucidates a rational hierarchy
of purposive human value which also flexibly adapts to the variegated
character of ethical and political life. The most prominent versions of
fundamentalist Aristotelianism are those of Martha Nussbaum and Stephen
Salkever. These neo-Aristotelians decry the use of philosophy as a lever to
move the world and so would want their Aristotelianism to be flexible; yet,
for both, we are to replace the values and principles rooted in our world with
those of Aristotelian politike as our starting points for ethical and political
thought.
Since 1978, with her publication of a translation of Aristotle's De Motu
Animalium and accompanying series of essays on Aristotle's ethics, Martha
Nussbaum has formulated an Aristotelian theory that would add ethical depth
to Rawlsian liberalism and salve the corrosive effects of calculative rational-
ity on moral reasoning, forging "a middle ground between sophistic relativ-
ism and scientific deductivism."24 Like Irwin, Nussbaum believes that Aris-
totle has written a theory of ethics and politics whose rationality can be
isolated from his application of it. She presents this case by arguing that
Aristotle's natural teleology is essentially constituted by its rational form
rather than its practical substance, which then enables her to carve out of the
Aristotelian corpus his view of what is "essentially human." This separation
of form from substance opens Nussbaum to the charge of Platonizing
Aristotle - detaching the basis of his conception of nature from material life
and deregulating, if not mystifying, its connection to practical affairs. How-
ever, she counters this charge by asserting that the starting point for deter-
mining the practical meaning of natural forms is the dialectical inquiry of
reason (logos) itself, which only works with contextualized particulars of
human experience.
At this point, Nussbaum introduces her view of Aristotelian deliberation.
For her, rational and moral deliberation - the deliberation of the best human
being, the man of practical wisdom (ho phronimos) -connects particulars
and universals, means and ends, his beliefs and perceptions to his natural
telos in a way that is perpetually open to critical revision. No particular
Aristotelian judgnent of hierarchical relations indicates a necessary deter-

mination of Aristotelian practical reason. According to Nussbaum, "Aristo
objects to the idea of any antecedently fixed ordering of rank ends," even
he ranks hierarchically any particular arrangement of those ends. No emp
ical determination of what is rational or just in Aristotelian politike necessa
ily reflects the substantive ethical principles of his natural teleology. 5 Th
Aristotle's perceptions do not need to be ours, because "perception . . . is
process of loving conversation between rules and concrete responses, gene
conceptions and unique cases, in which the general articulates the particu
and is in turn further articulated by it."26 Such an understanding of Aristot
lian deliberation enables us to separate the wheat from the chaff of Aristote
lian politike and still be Aristotelians, as long as we adhere to the rational
kernel of his natural teleology, which is lodged in a theory of foundational
ethics.
This foundationalism appears in her theory of human functioning, in
which she articulates the basic spheres of life, or "grounding experiences,"
which are to constitute the human capacity for rational choice. Logos reflects
the order of nature, insofar as it refers to the basicftnctions that provide the
material, ethical, and ultimately rational sustenance for the fully developed
human being.27 Logos is natural insofar as its exercise concerns that which
constitutes it. Objective human morality consists in the appropriate function-
ing of each sphere, which altogether express the "features of common [full]
humanity." For Aristotle, such humanity excluded the majority of the human
race. As a result, to illustrate her view of human functioning according to
Aristotle, she turns to the work of the early Marx, from which she derives the
following illustrations of proper human functioning: the health of the body,
the recognition of mortality, the experience of pleasure and pain, cognitive
capability, infant development, the fulfillment of sexual desire, the satisfac-
tion of hunger and thirst, humor and play, as well as the possession of
property, education, and political participation. These are the conditions that
can make the liberal promise of freedom and equality come true.'
Yet the practical instantiation of these capacities might seem to be dan-
gerous, insofar as it could produce rigidly circumscribed social definitions
of the good human life and prosperous political community. How are we to
understand the relationship of the natural order found by Aristotle's exercise
of logos, which affirmed slavery, the subordination of women, and the
exclusion of the majority of the working population from full citizenship -
judgments that Nussbaum has called "silly and unfounded" - to a fully
rational, natural order, one that would be congenial to more egalitarian views
and yet also be fairly called Aristotelian? Nussbaum believes that we ought
Wallach / CONTEMPORARY ARISTOTELLANISM 623
not to be worried, for Aristotle's grounding of human nature is not like

of a scientific fact that constrains us from "the outside" but is part of "t
evaluative quest of the best human being." Moreover, it is flexible enoug
relate to the experiences of virtually any culture, enabling the participa
the inquiry to proceed as though they were "discussing the same human
problem."29 The natural order to her foundational ethics has become, unlike
Aristotle's, inclusive rather than exclusive: "Nature comes into the ethical
enterprise, not as an external, fixed point, but as a humanly experienced
context for human lives, evolving in history yet relatively constant, present-
ing certain possibilities and foreclosing others, our sphere of hope and
finitude."' When the actual political constraints that informed Aristotle's
thought have unseemly effects, Nussbaum liberates her Aristotelianism from
them. She can tell us that an Aristotelian view of the task of politics enables
us "to imagine forms of interdependence that are human rather than slavish"
without a trace of irony.31
Stephen Salkever'sAristotelianism shares many featureswith Nussbaum's.32

Like her, he turned to Aristotle out of exasperation with prevailing philoso-
phies of social understanding and explanation, such as scientific deductivism
or cultural relativism, as well as the ethical weakness of liberalism as a
political philosophy. But his perspective on these problems stems from the
work of Leo Strauss, and it emphasizes the naturalist dimension of Aristote-
lian teleology.33 Salkever and Strauss root their endorsement of Aristotle in
their opposition to two liberal beliefs: (1) that securing the exercise of
individual freedom is the central human value and (2) that legitimizing
political rule by achieving the consent of free individuals comprises the
central political value. For them, such tenents of liberalism do not rely on
rational justification for their applicatiop. As a result, when liberalism is
democratized, in accord with what Strauss calls "egalitarian natural right,"
collective power unguided by reason or virtue becomes ascendant. For
Salkever, democracy and the enlightenment enthrone freedom and power
above reason.-' The ascendancy of egalitarian natural right threatens reason
itself, especially when coupled to the supposedly nonpolitical standards of
reason that liberal societies do accept, namely, the dualism of facts and values
and a kind of historicism in the understanding of human values themselves.
The former opposes "science" and "morality"; the latter destroys the possi-
bility of natural, objective standards -without which, for Strauss, no value
can be both rationally and noninstrumentally justified. These liberal impos-
ters of scientific reason and historical understanding promote nihilism

Strauss, this calls for a return to "classic [i.e., the correct understandin
natural right."
Strauss's political understanding of natural right is primarily Arist
lian,35 and it gives rise to Salkever's contemporary interest in Aristotl
Strauss, Aristotle's Politics provides "the fully conscious form of the
mon sense understanding of political things," which in turn provide
perceptual foundations from which those of us who are "more or less per
gentlemen" may remove the blinders of the cave and see the light of n
right.36 Aristotelian natural right revealed the nature of moral virtue -w
Athenian democracy lacked - and therefore can provide the standard
perfection, which contemporary liberalism lacks, for guiding the exerc
freedom. For Salkever, Periclean democracy sanctioned the love of p
and the politics of virility; Aristotelian politike authorized moderation.
Today, it can satisfy the need for political education created by the moral
ambiguity of democracy and provide the intellectual foundation for good
citizenship.37
In Finding the Mean: Theory and Practice inAristotelianPoliticalPhilos-
ophy, Salkever offers a "characteristically Aristotelian approach to problems
of ethics and politics" because "Aristotelian practical philosophy supplies a
plausible and appropriate set of terms and questions for contemporary
discussions of liberal democracy."38 It provides a biologically based natural
science for human beings that is not reductionist and a teleological concep-
tion of human morality that is not dogmatist. It also offers hope for ethical
rationality in politics, unlike the neo-Nietzscheans, and a unifying standpoint
for critical education, unlike the relativists.39 Following Strauss, and in ac-
cord with Nussbaum, Salkever argues that it provides a hierarchical ordering
of natural ends that flexibly adapts to the exigencies of practical action.40
As with Nussbaum and Irwin, we can extract the good of Aristotle and
leave the bad behind. But SaLkever's emphasis on the natural dimension of
Aristotelian teleology forces him to consider in greater depth Aristotle's
explanation of the natural existence of slaves and the natural subordination
of women. How does this work? How are we to provide an Aristotelian
account of the place of, say, women in the political order, without viewing
his account as justifying that subordination? Here, Salkever's argument
follows that of Arlene Saxonhouse.41 For both, Aristotelian teleology justifies
natural subordination but not necessarily the subordination of women as a
class. Aristotle's discussion of women (or, for that matter, slaves, manual
laborers, and craftsmen as well) occurs in a discussion of defects in virtue
more generally. Thus as long as it no longer seems that women embody
defective virtue as a class, Aristotelian politike need not endorse their sub-
Wallach / CONTEMPORARY ARISTOTEUANISM 625
ordination as a class. Moreover, claim Saxonhouse and Salkever, Aristotle's

account must be understood as part of a critique of virility, insofar as it is part
of a theory that, relative to the participatory politics of democratic Athens,
highlights the virtues of private life and contemplation over those of public
life and participation, which catalyzed war and promoted male domination.
As a result, both manage to transforn Aristotle's naturalization of the
subordination of women into a brief for feminist care and family life. We
have nothing to fear from a political philosophy that assumes the existence
of natural hierarchies among kinds of people and ways of life. When the
time comes to draw lessons from Aristotle for contemporary political life,
Salkever relies on this interpretation of Aristotelian politike to argue for
"moderate alienation" from political life. This is Salkever's clearest indica-
tion of the direction our political life would take if we found and lived by the
Aristotelian mean.42
TraditionalAristotelianism
The single work that has done the most to fuel the Aristotelian turn is
Alasdair Maclntyre's 1981 book, After Virtue. Maclntyre posed the moral
choice for Westerners of the late twentieth century in the peculiarly ahis-
torical form of the question "Nietzsche or Aristotle?" That is, unless we return
to the Aristotelian tradition in which moral rules typified in Rawlsian
liberalism find a subordinate place within a larger context of moral virtue,
Nietzsche's critique of modern morality -namely, that it is rationally un-
justifiable because of being ultimately driven by self-interest and passion -
will prevail.43 More recently, MacIntyre has sought to establish the rationality
of the Aristotelian alternative as an exemplar of a rational tradition or
tradition of rational inquiry. It is only one among four he describes in his
1988 book, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?-the others being Thomism
(Maclntyre's favorite), the Scottish Enlightenment, and liberalism, but the
way he establishes Aristotelianism as a rational tradition provides the model
for his characterization of the rationality of the others.
Traditions antecedently define the idea of the good that serves as the basis
of moral argumentation for its members." They possess relatively determi-
nate notions of what can and what cannot belong to them, making their
rational schemes more or less exclusive. They are open to critical revision,
but only from within, or as a result of contact and conflict with other
traditions. With respect to his interpretation of the Aristotelian tradition,
Maclntyre's work differs from that of the fundamentalists by his insistence
that Aristotle's historical context has irreduceably affected "the Aristotelian
tradition." Aristotelian politike cannot be formulated without regard t

actual beliefs and ptactices that originally gave it meaning. This differen
Maclntyre's concept of a tradition from that of another "traditional" Ar
telian, Hans-Georg Gadamer.45 As a result, Maclntyre provides a qua
historical narrative of its emergence as a rational tradition of inquiry
polis "provided the framework within which Aristotle developed his acco
of justice, of practical reasoning, and of the relationship between them ...
the form of social order whose shared mode of life already expresses the
collective answer or answers of its citizens to the question 'What is the best
mode of life for human beings."' There is no ethical or political standard in
Aristotelian politike that is "external to the polis."' Yet it remains available
to us. On the margins of the prevailing tradition of liberalism exist remnants
or Aristotelian practices, and it remains possible for us to abandon "the
standpoint of modernity" and "to identify ourselves imaginatively with the
standpoint of the citizen of the well-orderedpolis" through our understanding
of its "essential" appearance in the Aristotelian tradition.47
Despite the historicizing character of his work, Maclntyre also seeks to
salvage a rational core out of the Aristotelian corpus. Like Irwin, Nussbaum,
and Salkever, he believes that Aristotle's theory of justice and practical
reasoning contained serious "mistakes," which Maclntyre refers to as "un-
fortunate." Like the others, he believes that these are inessential, stemming
from a poor application of Aristotelian standards.48 He differs from them -
particularly Nussbaum -in rooting these standards in the first principles
understood by Aristotle's conception of mind (nous).49 Because these are
apprehended by dialectic rather than by deliberation, they are less mutable,
less affected by the particular circumstances and features of deliberative
agents. The analogies he selects to illustrate how these dialectical principles
relate to the deliberations of practical agents come from two, relatively
apolitical domains: that of a problem-solving scientific community and that
of a hockey game. In each case, there clearly are right moves to make,
although the players may not make them.50 This makes possible ethical
"mistakes" by Aristotelians, including Aristotle himself. Aristotelian practi-
cal reason in MacIntyre's view (in contrast to Nussbaum's) is not essentially
constituted by deliberative choice, despite its more historicist roots. Its
rationality can operate on a plane that is unsullied by the choices and mistakes
of its members. This enables Maclntyre, like Nussbaum and Salkever (albeit
on different grounds), to posit the existence of an Aristotelian hierarchy
where domination does not exist. Indeed, for MacIntyre, Aristotelian practi-
cal philosophy represents all that is rational in the traditions of the Greek
polis. Not only does Aristotle's theory of practical reason and justice em-
body the polis; the polis is rationally embodied in Aristotle's theories. It is
Aristotle's philosophical system -more than Homer's epics, Sophocles'

plays, Thucydides' history or Plato's dialogues-that registers the rational
character of Greek beliefs and social practices. For Maclntyre, it proved itself
to be "rationally superior" to its predecessors.
Maclntyre's emphasis on the scientific character of inquiry as the model
for practical reason, its relative independence from the phenomena of human
choice, enabled him to draw connections between it and "rational theology,"
which neither Nussbaum nor Salkever did. Moreover, Aristotle's belief in
contemplative life (theoria) as the highest form of human life, his character-
ization of it as "god-like," and his discussion of "the Unmoved Mover" en-
abled Maclntyre to find in Aristotle direct anticipations of Thomas Aquinas.
The rational order of the polis could anticipate the rational order of the
kosmos. Of course, there were differences between the two traditions. First,
Aristotle was not a Christian; second, he "failed" to recognize the essential
character of human insufficiency and the important role played by the human
will. As a result, in the conflict between the two traditions, Maclntyre
believes that Thomism proved itself to be rationally superior. But apart from
its Christian foundations, Thomist practical reason is "fundamentally Aris-
totelian." For Maclntyre, Thomism corrects for the rational defects of the
Aristotelian tradition while enhancing its virtues and hence has been ration-
ally vindicated by history.5"
III. POLITICAL THEORYIN HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION
Although no neo-Aristotelian finds in Aristotle's texts a script from

we modems should take our cues, all find in Aristotelian politike an attra
alternative to prevailing modes of social understanding. But what hap
Aristotle in the hands of neo-Aristotelians? Our brief identification of
elements of Aristotelian politike indicated the interconnection between
and substance in Aristotle's conception of nature and the interconnections
among nature, practical reason, and the polis. These linkages make the
meaning and significance of politike more complex than contemporary
Aristotelians admit; indeed, they make sure that any determination of the
"essential" identity of Aristotelian politike is essentially an interpretive
construct. To be sure, all judgments that Aristotle makes do not equally reflect
the central tenets of his thought, but determining which ones do cannot be
derived from the texts themselves. Simply by reading Aristotle, one cannot
know which parts of his portrayal of that natural order constitute its more
parochial and contextual or more enduring and rational features. Aristotle's
own philosophical project resists any simple construction of his authori

identity.52 This means that the identity of Aristotelian politike is an inte
pretive construct. Whatever then serves as the "essential" Aristotle in th
contemporary theoretical discourse is necessarily a construction of a co
struction. (Indeed, it would seem that it is this very resistance to determinat
interpretation that has made possible the rich variety of uses to which
Aristotle's ideas have been put.) As a result, invocation of Aristotle that
transports the foundations of ethical and political reflection from the presen
to the past, from contemporary theorization to "Aristotle," is typically, even
if unintentionally, disingenuous. Contemporary Aristotelians do not ac-
knowledge either the ambiguity of their theoretical authority or the constru
tive character of their own project.
What are the conceptual consequences of this authorial disguise in the
reading given of Aristotle by contemporary Aristotelians? And what does th
say about their own theoretical endeavor? It suggests that the points at whic
contemporary Aristotelians deem insignificant the political judgments
domination which gave substance to the hierarchical form of Aristotle's
natural teleology are the points at which Aristotle's theory no longer is reall
Aristotle's and becomes, instead, their own. The effect of the interpretiv
strategy of contemporary Aristotelians depoliticizes and dehistoricizes Ari
totelian politike; it also promotes a theoretical perspective of their own th
diminishes the role of practical, political activity in constituting ethical an
philosophical truths. How so?
1. Irwin's analytical, relatively ahistorical interpretation of Aristotelia
politike enables both Aristotle's view and his own to avoid being implicat
in any political posture -even though Aristotle connects his discussion o
politike to the world in ways he does not when matters of theoretical
knowledge are involved. This enables us to read Aristotle's arguments as
directly as, we would those of our colleagues. Politically, this suggests th
philosophers can become neutral experts who provide the "logic" th
political arguments often lack.
2. Nussbaum assumes that Aristotle's functionalism has no political
element that affirms domination - even though his discussion of the mutual
supportive functions of the diverse elements of the polis fit together becaus
inequalities of power and authority have been accepted as natural. Withou
its practical political judgments, Aristotle's thought in the hands of Nussbau
is released from its historical moorings. It thus becomes capable of matin
with the thought of, say, Marx and Rawls, in a way that indeed may soun
attractive. But she has managed to do so only by modifying the politica
dimension which gave shape and point to the arguments of each. She give
us Aristotle without slavery, Marx without communistic politics, Rawls
Wallach / CONTEMPORARY ARISTOTELLANISM 629
without the veil of ignorance. The new whole she produces celebrates hu-
man functioning, but it, too, lacks a clear political dimension, for it either dis-
guises the monocratic effects that characterize functional political orders or
is politically incoherent53 Insofar as her Aristotelian humanism would be polit-
ically determinate, it appears to authorize a new class of world-philosophers,
who would advise leaders and legislators about how to make the world more
functional for human beings. Such a new world order might be called
"humanocracy." Insofar as her essentialist philosophy could be applied more
pluralistically, it tends to elide the hard edges and actual dimensions of
practical, political life. There is an unacknowledged slippage within her
Aristotelianism between first-order perceptions and desires and second-order
"essentials" and human needs. She assumes their complementarity, even
though the politics of power and justice presuppose that these (inevitably) do
not (comfortably) cohere.54 Her vision of "cross-cultural attunement" would
reconcile the particular with the universal and promises a common ground
between local customs and international standards of decency, but her
examples of how Aristotelianism can overcome traditional authorization of
menstruation taboos or illiteracy notably avoid reference to the experiences
and concerns of actual political entities today -citizens, corporations, and
nation-states. They have become marginal components in her philosophical
picture of the human condition. Her "essential" Aristotelianism obscures the
relationship between human functioning and political functioning. Sexual
equality, decent health care for all, and an end to illiteracy are surely laudable
political goals, but resistance to them domestically and internationally is
philosophically unimportant. Resistance to them is not addressed by, and
advocacy of them does not depend on, "Aristotelian" views.
3. Salkever believes that Aristotle's endorsement of a relative withdrawal
from the political realm as ethical -what Salkever called "moderate alienation"
-produces no particular harm to any segment of society, even though it
serves in Aristotle's theory to deprive the lower classes of Athenian society
of their privileges of citizenship. For him, the existence of natural hierarchies
entails no determinate view on the virtue of democracy -even though any
view of nature as hierarchical automatically undercuts the possibility of there
being rational and/or virtuous claims made via democratic politics.
4. Maclntyre assumes that traditions cause no pain or harm to that which
they exclude. His identification of the enduring rational elements of Greek
discourses and practices with Aristotle's theoretical rendition of the ethic of
the polis not only dismisses the rich social and philosophical heritage on
which Aristotle drew as less than rational but also suggests that the "rational
superiority" and "vindication" achieved by "the Aristotelian tradition" in
history involved all gains and no losses. Although Maclntyre's willingness
to root his conception of Aristotelian politike in a tradition that has irre

able historical roots indicates greater appreciation than either analyt
Aristotelianism or fundamentalist Aristotelianism of the constitutive rol
practices play in the formation of ethical and political ideas, his histo
bloodless. His traditions, which operate at the level of discourse, do no
reflect any injurious, practical conflict between the individuals or institu
that affirm them. From reading Maclntyre, one very likely would forge
accompanying Thomas's humanitarian advances in his conception of the
moral universe - such as its potential openness to the whole human race -
were other kinds of exclusions. Outside the boundaries of his new world of
human freedom were two kinds of "enemies": Jews, who Thomas found
tolerable because they reminded Christians of the meaning of what they had
rejected, and Christian heretics, who he did not find tolerable because of their
corrupting influence.55
As contemporary Aristotelians separate the form and substance of Aristo-
telian politike, they formulate a belief in natural teleology that dismisses the
effects of rational hierarchy in history as politically insignificant. They also
assert the primacy of philosophical first principles in determining the mean-
ing of historical theories of political justice. They hold that the principal
problem which Aristotle's theory of politike addressed was primarily theo-
retical and interpretive; they deny that historical conflicts and political
problems play any constitutive role in the formation of his theoretical truths.
This suggests that contemporary Aristotelians offer us not only a particular
kind of Aristotle but a particular understanding of the relationship of history
to philosophy and power to ethics. Reliance on Aristotle for a theoretical
foundation of contemporary moral and political discourse not only distorts
Aristotle's arguments by obscuring the irreduceable links between form and
substance in Aristotelian politike; it also disregards the way in which exigen-
cies of history and problems of political power constitute its identity.
With respect to understanding the relationship between the ideas of Plato
and Aristotle, for example, this has the following effects. When contemporary
Aristotelians interpret Aristotle's relationship to Plato, they suggest that
epistemological questions -rather than differing political commitments or
eventful historical developments - provided the primary context in which
Aristotle developed his unique theoretical identity. Irwin believed that Plato
and Aristotle addressed a single problem: how to reconcile the particulars of
experience with the universals of principles. For Nussbaum, Aristotle's
distinctive philosophy emerges primarily from his metaphysical critique of
Plato's disregard for appearances and failure to recognize how lived experi-
ence constitutes the truth that would inform flourishing human lives. Al-
though Salkever, like Strauss, often suggests agreement between Plato and
Aristotle on many important issues, he, like Strauss, affirms Aristotle's
philosophical superiority to Plato when it comes to dealing with political
affairs. Maclntyre holds that Aristotle "solved" a philosophical problem that
Plato had not because Aristotle's views enabled him to make philosophical
sense of "the actuality" of the polis. But the theoretical identity of Aristotelian
politike resists reduction into a philosophical reading of metaphysical first
principles.56 Such resistance not only comes from the intimate interconnec-
tion between form and substance in his teleological system; it reflects
Aristotle's own interpretive approach. The endoxa that provide the starting
points (archai) for the inquiries of Aristotelian politike are not arbitrary
beginnings that have no connection to the natural order he is trying to explain.
His formal and substantive judgments cannot be readily disconnected from
the practical, political context in which they intervene. That context is the
Athenian polis, and the relative power of Athens in Greece (and, to that
extent, the democratic capacities of its citizens) in Aristotle's time, compared
to Athenian power in Plato's time, had been seriously weakened by Macedon.
Insofar as the meaning of theoretical arguments is significantly constituted
by the political problems they address, such historical/political factors have
theoretical significance.57 A complete understanding of the constitutive ele-
ments of Aristotelian politike would have to consider other theoretical,
historical, and political influences on his philosophical arguments.58 But the
role contemporary Aristotelians assign to political and historical factors in,
for example, understanding the relationship of Plato to Aristotle, only affirms
the overall rationality of Aristotle's conception of politike. As a result, they
either implicitly endorse the political direction taken by Aristotle or consign
political factors to a secondary, if not marginal, role in the formation of
theoretical truths. The problems of politics are then properly understood from
the standpoint of philosophical first principles. The project of contemporary
Aristotelians either prevents the experiences, desires, and hopes of ordinary
citizens from constituting the foundation of justice in a political order or
quietly sanctions them by (implicitly or explicitly) rationalizing natural
hierarchies. In either event, the result limits our vision of democratic possi-
bility, of the rational possibilities of citizens' political actions. In this respect,
the direction taken by the current Aristotelian turn is politically problematic,
for it denies the structural connection between words and deeds that enlivens
political ethics. The result distracts our attention from the full range of
possibilities of ethical and political action, which thereby foreshortens theo-
retical prospects for democracy. To this extent (not in all respects), the project
is antidemocratic.
How would one make use of Aristotle or, for that matter, any author o
"tradition" in the history of political thought that would avoid the anti-
democratic tendencies that characterize contemporary Aristotelianism? How
does one make democracy and politics central components of the interpreta-
tion of historical texts? In a democratic approach to the history of political
theory - let us call it democratic historicism - words and deeds, discourses
and power, theory and practice, ideals and practical exigencies would be read
as elements of creative tensions. A democratically minded historicism would
not authorize the immutable primacy of practices or discourses as constitu-
ents of political rationality - logos over ergon or ergon over logos. Accepting
the former unnecessarily restricts the critical authority of existing citizens;
accepting the latter tends to reduce justice to power and majority rules. In
addition, this approach would not view discourses and practices equivalently.
Words may be a kind of deeds, but they are not the same as all kinds of deeds.
Discourse before and after a political decision, voiced by those directing or
criticizing the exercise of power, exhibits distinctive characteristics, and what
produces those distinctions is not the expression of political discourse but the
experience of political power. Theorists may exercise a kind of political
power and politicians express a kind of political discourse, but we know all
too well how their roles do not coincide. The approach of democratic
historicism would highlight the many dimensions of the interaction between
logos and ergon because the relationship between them provides the major
indices of the condition of democratic deliberation in the various segments
of a particular society, of whether the citizenry are authoritative and how that
authority is (or is not) informed by reason and ethical concerns. This inter-
pretive focus generates historical narratives about the natures of political
limits rather than theories about the limits of political nature in history. By
deemphasizing the natural authority of either logos or ergon as a rational limit
on political action, it emphasizes the historical possibilities of democracy.
This approach differs not only from that followed by neo-Aristotelians but
from that followed by the many political theorists who cobble together
arguments of historically disconnected theorists, concocting new perspec-
tives on current debates out of a hodgepodge of historical-theoretical ingre-
dients. A little bit of Hegelian grandeur, hardened by a healthy amount of
Hobbesian realism, rounded by some Aristotelian practical wisdom, and
energized by the young Marx may make for an interesting literary brew, but
it cannot really count for much as an argument that seriously attends to
questions of power without the historical, literary, and philosophical analyses
of the author's context which these new recipes invariable leave out. Such
consideration of historical, as well as philosophical concerns, is a nec

albeit insufficient, condition of understanding, for example, Aristotelian
politike. Taking them into account prevents simple constructions of an
Aristotelian theory of friendship or community from a careful reading of "the
text," which are then introduced into highly un-Aristotelian settings; it also
undermines Aristotle's authority in contemporary theoretical argument. The
irreduceable role played by interpreters in constituting their inquiries pre-
vents revelations of the "real" Aristotle in opposition to a particular, contem-
porary appropriation of his ethical and political thought, but attending to
these concerns would at least impede the proliferation of unreal Aristotles. It
would more straightforwardly recognize the way in which political theory is
not written sub species aeternitatas and that the history of political theory is
not simply a matter of interpretive representation.
The unreality of contemporary Aristotelianism, then, stems not only from
the manner in which it denies the historical and political character of their
philosophical hero but also from the way its authors deny the irreduceably
partial and fictive character of their theoretical authority. They claim to be
"more" than novelists -to be, rather, "Aristotelians" whose Aristotle and
Aristotelianism are more than figments of their theoretical imagination."9
This disingenuous character of contemporary Aristotelianism characterizes
the arguments of anyone who proceeds by constructing a seamless dialectic
among "Augustinian" or "Nietzschean" or "Kantian" arguments. To use
Aristotle to refute Hobbes or Kant, to invoke phronesis as a critical alternative
to contemporary views of practical reason, ignores the complex context that
informs their respective views. It denies the role of power, history, and
literary form in constituting discourse then; it distracts our attention from our
actual capacities to reform our discourse now. If we became less eager to turn
to Aristotle, or Locke, or Kant, or Marx as a basis for solving our problems,
we could more fruitfully tap the resources of their thought for theoretical
work that, in the end, must be fundamentally our own. If we acknowledged
how the meaning of our references to an argument in our theoretical discourse
as "Platonic" or "Lockean" was essentially constituted by the form and
substance of our own narratives, there might be more careful interpretation
and appropriation of the history of political theory.
My argument for the denial of historical authority in contemporary
discourse could appear to debunk the significance of the tradition of political
theory for contemporary argument. The contrary, however, is true. A demo-
cratic use of the history of political theory not only undermines foundations
of the past, it destabilizes the taken-for-granted foundations of the present. It
continues the conversation of political theory but does not isolate traditions
of philosophical discourse about politics from the historical problematics of
the exercise of political power. It suggests that we leam from the past no
creating new ancestors or imitating old heroes but by learning how ident
have been temporarily constructed out of differences. Accordingly, the m
ing of neither Aristotle nor the Constitution of the United States shou
completely isolated from the slavery each endorsed, but insofar as we d
live in the good society, our perspective is also compromised and each o
theirs still may be highly significant as a source of political understandin
political reform. Unlike the hermeneutic approach to traditions of disc
that contemporary Aristotelians share (which presupposes the actualit
their unity in the past as a condition of their understanding now), a m
democratic understanding of the history of political theory would view
discursive identity as potentially actualized only in the future. Democra
identities that make room for difference never entirely settle. If doing
history of political theory in the present would contribute to the formati
democratic identity and community, to the enhancement ofjustice and cr
democracy, the truths that history offers must remain open-ended -op
the continuously enacted judgments of citizens and citizenship. For as
democratic citizens, we construct democracy in the present, with the mate-
rials of the past, on behalf of the future. Only in this respect does democracy
blur temporal horizons.
I do not mean to suggest either that democratic interests have a fixed,
rational character or that they necessarily produce the best or most just
understanding of the past or the present. Moreover, I well understand that a
wide array of critical explorations of the history of ideas or contemporary
political affairs can be useful without endorsing democratically structured
social arrangements. I have no interest in promoting a politically correct way
of understanding the history of ideas. However, certain approaches to the
history of ideas fail to recognize the way that various theoretical beliefs or
historical practices inhibited the articulation of democratic solutions to
political problems. Contemporary Aristotelianism is one of these because it
posits a theoretical perspective on the political realm that forecloses the
possibility of democratic practice constituting political virtue. Only by under-
standing this other side, the underside, of Aristotle, can we make use of his
wisdom in a way that could improve, rather than delimit, the prospects of
democracy in our time.
If this approach to understanding the history of political theory brings us
closer to its truths, how then are we to understand where we are going by
turning to Aristotle? How does contemporary Aristotelianism indicate fea-
tures of the discursive and practical context from which it has emerged? As
I suggested earlier, it certainly reflects deep dissatisfaction with the capacities
of liberal discourse to address the basic ethical and political problems of our
time. And in this light, there is no harm done by turning to Aristotle, f

so may destablize the prejudices of conventional political thought an
new avenues of understanding.60 An Aristotelian turn may encoura
denaturalize, rather than renaturalize, our political thought - as do many
critical inquiries into various aspects of the tradition of political theory.
However, neo-Aristotelians do not take us down this path. They direct us to
Aristotle not just for the sake of gaining a potentially critical perspective on
the present but for resolving our most basic ethical and political quandaries.
As a result, their foundational turn has more determinant and less salutary
consequences. First, it leads neo-Aristotelians away from the path of discur-
sively justifying their own theoretical and political commitments and serves
to disguise the political content or logical lacunae of their own views. Second,
it tends to distort the meaning of Aristotle's thought, by disconnecting the
form and substance of his political theory and disregarding the way that
Aristotle's historical context constitutes the meaning and scope of his views.
The result depoliticizes Aristotle's ethical, social, and political thought.
Finally, by taking refuge in Aristotle for the foundations of our political
views, it devalues the possibilities offered by contemporary politics and our
fellow citizens in contributing to the understanding and realization of justice.
There may well be a link that connects Aristotelian and neo-Aristotelian
politike, but it is not of the kind that contemporary Aristotelians intend. Here
I only speculate, but I would suggest that insofar as a bond exists between
Aristotle and us it may not be "theoretical," consisting in the putatively
enduring value of his theoretical resolution of the problems of political
communities. The attraction and appeal of Aristotle today may be rather more
"practical," involving a shared historical sensibility. For Aristotle wrote in,
and we recently have lived in, an age when democratic capacities to control
the common future seemed hitched to a destiny of inexorable decline. Were
our age to advance toward the elusive, complicated goals projected by the
desire for more democracy, contemporary Aristotelianism might begin to lose
its current theoretical allure.
NOTES
1. Both the notion of a tradition and its authoritative use in political argument were m
characteristically Roman than Greek. See Hannah Arendt, "What Is Authority?" in Between
and Future (New York: Viking, 1968), 91-141, esp. 104, 120-25.
2. The distinction between "past" and "present" languages is somewhat artificial: languag
of the past are not entirely so-if they were they would not be available to us- wher
636 POLITICAL THEORY ! November 1992
languages of the present clearly have a past of their own. Nevertheless, the distinction is worth
preserving. The turn to Aristotle, for example, is advocated as a refreshing vantage point from
"the past" on "the present," even if the terrain of the past is positioned within a highly
contemporary landscape. On how political languages and linguistic traditions provide material
for the construction of political ideas, see J.G.A. Pocock, Politics, Language and Time: Essays
in Political Thought and History (New York: Atheneum, 1973), chap. 1 and 7.
3. Thus Aristotle has become part of narratives that would harmonize the welfare state (Sen)
or strengthen democratic diversity (Castoriadis), articulate a theory of ethical skepticism
(Williams) or disintegrate the rationality of political science (Lyotard), demonstrate the mascu-
linity of traditional political theory (Brown) or develop a feminine-based ethic of care (Tronto).
Now, as before, many (including this author) believe that thinking along or against Aristotelian
lines may enrich their own perspectives. See my "Liberals, Communitarians, and the Tasks of
Political Theory," Political Theory 15, no. 4 (November 1987): 602-3.
4. To be safe, and brief, I understand by liberalism the set of political and ethical principles
that undergirds the prevailing higher values of Western industrial democracies. Under its
umbrella are the theories of Locke, Madison, Kant, and Mill and the practices rhetorically
endorsed by virtually all Western political orders and constitutions.
5. Previous interpretations of neo-Aristotelianisms have not appreciated their political and
intellectual variety. See, apparently, Habermas's paper, "Kohlberg and Neo-Aristotelianism," cited
by Thomas McCarthy in his introduction to Jurgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Commu-
nicativeAction, translated by Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1990), x-xi and xii n. 1. Also see Herbert Schnaedelbach, "What Is Neo-Aristotelianism,"
Praxis International 7, nos. 3-4 (October 1987): 225-37 and the reply by Maurizio Passerin
d'Entreves, "Aristotle or Burke? Some Comments on Herbert Schnaedelbach's 'What Is Neo-
Aristotelianism,"' Praxis International 7, nos. 3-4 (October 1987): 238-45.
6. The single, most literal translation of politike may be "the science of the political art,"
but its meaning in Aristotle's works changed with its context and use -varying from its most
theoretical application, in which it may be rendered best as "practical philosophy" or "political
science," to its application by political agents, in which it may be better rendered as "political art."
7. 1 provide a fuller account of Aristotelian politike in a chapter of my forthcoming book,
The Political Art inAncient Greek Thought, entitled "Aristotelian Political Science."
8. The principal discussions and applications of politike appear in Aristotle'sNicomachean
Ethics (NE), 1. 1-2; 6.5, 7; 10.9, and Politics (P), 4.1.9.
9. See John M. Cooper, "Aristotle on Natural Teleology," in Language and Logos, edited
by Malcolm Schofield and Martha Nussbaum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982),
197-222, esp. 199. Also see John M. Cooper, "Hypothetical Necessity and Natural Teleology,"
in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology, edited by Allan Gotthelf and James G. Lennox
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 243-74.
10. See NE, 1102al6-26, as well as 10.ix, etc. See Werner Jaeger, "Aristotle's Use of
Medicine as Model of Method in His Ethics,"Journal of Hellenic Studies 77, pt. 1 (1957): 54-61,
esp. 58-59; G.E.R. Lloyd, "The Role of Medical and Biological Analogies in Aristotle's Ethics,"
Phronesis 13, no. 1 (1968): 68-83; cf. Cooper, Reason and Human Good iAnAstotle (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), chap. 1.
11. Terence Irwin offers the best analysis and defense of the objective character of Aristote-
lian ethics. See Irwin, Aistotle's First Principals (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988).
12. Absent from the following list are a number of younger political theorists who appear to
like Aristotle but have less systematic views of what to do with him. Such writers include William
Galston, Ronald Beiner, J. Budzeszewski, Steven Smith, and Ian Shapiro. I have deliberately not
considered these authors' use of Aristotle. While each explicitly cites a major debt to Aristotle,
none provides a full or coherent explanation of what is theoretically involved in ha

contracted such a debt. For Galston's Aristotelianism, see Justice and the Human Go
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), esp. ix-xi, 121ff. and Liberal Purposes: Go
Virtues, andDiversity in the Liberal State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)
Ronald Beiner's, see Political Judgment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), a
more particularly, "The Classical Method of Political Science, and Its Relation to the Stud
Contemporary Politics," Government and Opposition 19 (1984): 471-85, and "On the Disun
of theory and Practice," in Praxis International 7, no. 1 (April 1987): 25-34. For Budzeszew
see The Resurrection ofNature: Political Theory and theHuman Character (Ithaca, NY: Cor
University Press, 1986) and The Nearest Coast of Darkness: A Vindication of the Politi
Virtues (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988). For Smith's, see "Goodness, Nobility,
Virtue in Aristotle's Political Science," Polity 19, no. 1 (Fall 1986): 5-26, and "What Is 'Rig
in Hegel's Philosophy of Right," American Political Science Review 83, no. 1 (March 1
3-18, esp. 12-14. Smith's rational kernel, or what is "right," in Hegel's Philosophy of R
appears to reduce to what he (Smith) finds valuable in Aristotle. For Shapiro's, see Pol
Criticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), esp. chaps. 8-9.
13. Again, to have learned much from Aristotle does not make one a neo-Aristotelian. T
absent from this matrix are major theorists whose work has been influenced but not determin
by Aristotle, such as Hannah Arendt, who made much use of Aristotle's conception of praxis f
her own view of authentic political activity, and J.G.A. Pocock. Pocock indeed inaugurated muc
of the renewed interest in Aristotle. His Machiavellian Moment (Princeton, NJ: Princ
University Press, 1975) introduced "civic republicanism" into professional discourse,
Pocock takes Aristotle as its ancestral hero. But Pocock's observance of his professiona
strictures as a historian of ideas prevented him from explicitly inflating Aristotelian poli
science into the foundation of a contemporary moral or political theory, and now he is ch
about making Aristotle's own arguments, rather than the appropriation of them, central to
republican tradition.
14. Philosophy 33, no. 124 (1958): 1-19.
15. Important works in this area include Philippa Foot's Virtue and Vices (Berkeley
University of California Press, 1978); James D. Wallace's Virtues and Vices (Ithaca, NY: Co
University Press, 1978); and Amelie Rorty's edited collection of articles from the 1970s, Es
onAristotle's Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). The emergence of "vir
ethics" as a cottage industry was signaled by the collection of articles under that title publi
in Midwest Studies in Philosophy 13 (1988).
16. Cf. Sir David Ross, Aristotle (London: Methuen, 1964 [1923]); Cooper, Reason a
Human Good in Aristotle; W.K.C. Guthrie,A History of Greek Philosophy, VoL 6. Aristot
Encounter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Irwin,Aristotle's First Princip
Jonathan Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pr
1988); Richard Kraut,Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University P
1989); and Sarah Broadie, Ethics WithAristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991
17. In his ground-breaking commentary on the Politics, still useful over 100 years after
publication, W. L. Newman viewed Aristotle's inquiry into politike as having two branches,
of which stemmed from the Nicomachean Ethics and could be called Aristotle's "moral the
or "moral philosophy," and another of which stemmed from the Politics and could be called
"political theory" or "political science." Other commentators have followed suit (see
Cooper, Reason and Human Good, 71 n. 98). Perhaps the first piece of more recent scholars
to point out the integral linkages between ethics and politics in Aristotelian politike was Stanf
Cashdollar's "Aristotle's Politics of Morals," Journal of the History of Philosophy 11,
(1973): 145-60.
18. See Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977);Aristotte's First Princ
and Classical Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). The "logic" that Irwin em
derives from the language of English analytical philosophy of the late 1960s and early 1
Indeed, one of the most troublesome aspects of Irwin's work is his failure to recognize
idiosyncratic character of his own conceptual categories. But to describe this phenomenon an
explain it as a "failure" would take us too far astray from our primary interest in Aristotle
19. Terence Irwin, "Moral Science and Political Theory," History of Political Thought
1-2 (Summer 1985), at 166.
20. Irwin, "Moral Science and Political Theory," 167 and Aristotle's First Principles, 416.
These passages demonstrate how Irwin has translated the Aristotelian unity of form and
substance into the Kantian dualism of schema and content, apriori and empirical reasoning
(cf. p. 477).
21. Aristotle's First Principles, 14-15, 476-81.
22. Aristotle's First Principles, 14-25.
23. Good examples of such inquiries appear in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr., eds., A
Companion toAristotle's Politics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).
24. Martha Nussbaum, Aristotle 's De Motu Animalium, text with translation, commentary,
and interpretive essays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), hereafter DMA - the
quotation appears on p. 219; The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and
Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), hereafter FG; "The Discemment
of Perception: An Aristotelian Conception of Private and Public Rationality," Proceedings of
the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, vol. 1 (1986), 151-201, reprinted in Love's
Knowledge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), hereafter"DP"; "Non-Relative Virtues:
An Aristotelian Approach," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 13 (1988): 32-53, hereafter "NRV";
"Nature, Function and Capability: Aristotle on Political Distribution," WIDER working paper
no. 31 (December 1987), 1-50, hereafter "NFC" (now most easily available in Marx and
Aristotle: Nineteenth Century German Social Theory and ClassicalAntiquity, edited by George
E. McCarthy [Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992]); "Aristotelian Social Democracy,"
in Liberalism and the Good, edited by R. Bruce Douglas, Gerald M. Mara, and Henry S.
Richardson (New York: Routledge, 1990), 203-52, hereafter "ASD"; "Aristotle on Human
Nature and the Foundations of Ethics" (Manuscript, 1990), hereafter "HNFE"; and "Human
Functioning and Social Justice: In Defense of Aristotelian Essentialism," Political Theory 20,
no. 2 (May 1992): 202-46, hereafter "HFSJ."
25. "DP," 163; DMA, essay 4, "Practical Syllogisms and Practical Science."
26. "DP," 199. With respect to the perception of ethical ends, this amounts to an emotionally
charged version of Rawls's conception of "reflective equilibrium." But, of course, Nussbaum
has turned to Aristotle to supplement Rawls, to invert his placement of "the Aristotelian
Principle" from a subordinate to an architectonic position in a theory of justice, and to provide
a rational foundation for ethical human ends. For Nussbaum on Rawls, see DMA, 211; "Shame,
Separateness, and Political Unity," in A. Rorty, ed., Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, 395-435;
"NFC"; and "ASD." For Rawls's account of reflective equilibrium and the Aristotelian Principle,
see A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 20-21, 48-51,
120-21, 432, 434, 579, 424-33.
27. See DMA, essay 1, "Aristotle on Telelogical Explanation," and appendix, "The Function
of Man."
28. See "NRV," "ASD," and "HFSJ."
29. "NRV," 41-42, 46-47.
30. "HNFE," 47.
31. "ASD," 243.
Wallach / CONTEMPORARY ARISTOTEUANISM 639
32. Stephen Salkever, Finding the Mean: Theory and Practice in Aristotelian Political
Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), hereafter FM. For an earlier
rendition of Salkever's central argument, see "Aristotelian Social Science," Political Theory 9,
no. 4 (November 1981): 479-508.
33. See Leo Strauss, NaturalRight and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1953),
particularly chaps. 3-4, hereafterNRH, and The City and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1964), particularly the Introduction and chap. 1, hereafter CM. Strauss's basic arguments
provide the interpretive framework within which Salkever operates, but insofar as the latter's
work is innovative and concems the problems of rule-governed morality addressed by the
advocates of "virtue ethics," it is more emblematic of today's neo-Aristotelianism that Strauss's
work of over a generation ago. As a result, I shall concentrate my attention on it.
34. For example, in Natural Right and History, Strauss wrote, "From the point of view of
egalitarian natural right, consent takes precedence overwisdom, from the point of view of classic
natural right, wisdom takes precedence over consent" (p. 141); Salkever, FM, 21, 29-31.
35. Classic natural right has three expressions: Socratic-Platonic, Aristotelian, and Thomistic
natural right. But not all are equally valuable. Thomas made natural right dependent on theology
and made theology hold to the unchangeable basic principles of natural law. As a result, natural
right becomes unknowable by unassisted human reason, which spurred the liberal revolt against
classic natural right (NRH, 157-59, 163-64). Although the doctrine of classic natural right
appears most clearly for Strauss in Plato's Republic, its practical implications for the understand-
ing of political society are most evident in the work of Aristotle. The notion of natural right fully
emerges only with the idea of political science, and the idea of political science is discovered
by Aristotle (NRH, 81-85; CM, 11-12). Along with Socratic-Platonic natural right, Aristotelian
natural right responded to the irrationality and immorality of Athenian democracy. It most clearly
reconciles nature and convention in the political community and therefore provides the best
guide to political understanding.
36. CM, 25,28.
37. FM, 29-31, 85, 170-72, 208, 246, 249, 259.
38. FM, 3,5.
39. FM, 7.
40. See FM, 149 n. 91, where Salkever quotes Strauss from Natural Right and History, who
at that point in his book (p. 163) was interpreting the views of Plato and Aristotle: "The only
universally valid standard is the hierarchy of ends. This standard is sufficient for passing
judgment on the level of nobility of individuals and groups and of actions and institutions. But
it is insufficient for guiding our actions." Bernard Yack, in "Natural Right and Aristotle's
Conception of Justice," Political Theory 18, no. 2 (May 1990): 216-37, offers another revival
of this Straussian view.
41. See FM, 178-95, where Salkever explains Aristotle's understanding of women and fre-
quently cites Saxonhouse. Saxonhouse's argument is nicely spelled out in the article "Aristotle:
Defective Males, Hierarchy, and the Limits of Politics," originally published as a chapter in her
Women in the History of Political Thought: Ancient Greece to Machiavelli (New York: Praeger,
1985) and now available (in an abridged version) in Feminist Readings in Political Theory,
edited by Mary L. Shanley and Carole Pateman (University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1991), 32-52.
42. FM, 199ff. For Salkever's discussion of the Aristotelian "mean," see FM, 78-79,116-17,
130ff., 161. Oddly, in two of these three examples, the Aristotelian mean is not formulated by
Aristotle. In the second, it appears as an interpretation of a late Platonic dialogue; in the third,
it appears as Salkever's interpretation of an E. M. Forster novel.
640 POLMCAL THEORY / November 1992
43. After Vrtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981; 2d ed., 1984
written an extensive review of the first edition, which appeared in Telos, no. 57 (Fal
233-40.
44. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
1988), hereafter WJ. See the reviews by Thomas Nagel, in the Times Literary Supplement of
July 8-14, 1988,747-48; Terence Irwin, inSocial Philosophy and Policy 7, no. 1 (Autumn 1989):
45-68; Martha Nussbaum, inNew YorkReview ofBooks, December 7,1989, pp. 36-41; and Julia
Annas, Philosophy and PublicAffairs 18, no. 4 (Fall 1989): 388-404. Maclntyre has published
another book since then, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopedia, Genealogy, and
Tradition (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). However, it does not add
to his discussion of, or attitude toward, Aristotle. In fact, Maclntyre introduces that book by
expressing his exasperation in failing to convince his audiences of the possibility of rationally
overcoming the problems of incommensurability and untranslatability that arise when traditions
come into conflict with each other.
45. Gadamer, like MacIntyre, makes tradition constitutive of rational understanding and views
the authority of such traditions as intellectually and politically harmless. Unlike Maclntyre's
understanding of a rational tradition, however, Gadamer's placement of texts within traditions
pays little attention to the way in which historical practices condition the discourse of the "clas-
sic" texts with which we are to achieve a "fusion of horizons" between their past and our present.
See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), pp. 245-274.
46. WJ, 101, 133,122-23.
47. WJ, 110-11, 391-92.
48. WJ, 104-6.
49. WJ, 91-93, 116-19. The debate between MacIntyre and Nussbaum appears on pages 165
and 187 of WJ and in Nussbaum's review of the book. See note 46, supra.
50. WJ 134, 141, and 132-43 more generally.
51. WJ, 101-2, 142-43, 183-208,402-3.
52. In fact, it is not clear from Aristotle's own conduct that he tried to develop such an
authorial identity. Aristotle may have had global ambitions, but it is not evident that he satisfied
them by formulating a global theoretical system. He saw a multiplicity of problems, and he
addressed them. To be sure, the way he did so reflects characteristic features of his mind, but
burdening him with the imperative of systematic consistency probably projects onto him
orthodoxies of philosophical argument that emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
when scholars began to associate philosophical systems with individual personalities, when the
idea of the history of philosophy first appeared. (These comments stem from a conversation I
had with Michael Frede in May 1991.)
53. Functionalism locates authority in the correct operation of the function. Insofar as the
participants in the functional social activity are to be constrained by what counts as its proper
function, determining what that is can be achieved by objective means, by experts who interpret
the objective standards of functional virtue. For examples of functionalism in political theory,
see the works of Niklas Luhmann and Samuel Huntington, which confirm its antidemocratic
dimensions.
54. "HFSJ," 235-37, 224-27.
55. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 2a 2ae 9-11. In fact, Thomas cited Aristotle's
authorization of the master's use of his slave as an instrument to argue that believers should
dominate unbelievers.
56. See Metaphysics 933b20-23, 1025b6; NE 1139a6-8, 1140b35-1141al.
57. On how historical problems insert themselves into the problems of philosophy and how
a "problematic" framework enhances our understanding of the history of philosophical and
political thought, see R. G. Collingwood,Autobiography (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939), chaps. 5-8;

and Michel Foucault, in The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon,
1984), 38485,388-90.
58. See Michael Frede, "Introduction: The Study of Ancient Philosophy," in Essays in
Ancient Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), ix-xxvii, whe
discusses how multiple histories may constitute a proper history of philosophy.
59. Hayden White helpfully points out the fictive character of all forms of historical
representation. See his Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1978). But he also observes the distinction between fictive events and
historical events. The "event" of a political theory operates on the borderland between these two
kinds of events. Contemporary Aristotelians deny the historicity of Aristotelian politike and then
produce their particular theoretical authority by denying the fictive character of their own
appropriation of Aristotle.
60. I disagree strongly with the rejectionist view argued by Stephen Holmes in his article,
"Aristippus in and out of Athens,"American Political Science Review 73 (March 1979): 113-28.
This piece begins from two false premises, which he incorrectly claims are "premises of Greek
political thinking" (p. 113). It proceeds by attributing as "Greek" beliefs that cannot be plausibly
linked to any major Greek political thinker (e.g., Thucydides, Socrates, Xenophon, Plato,
Aristotle) and then suggesting that such (false) beliefs cannot legitimately provide a basis for
contemporary political thought. The success of Holmes's argument depends on his oversimpli-
fication of the beliefs of both Greek thinkers and those (e.g., Popper, Arendt, and Strauss) who
have drawn inspiration (in the case of Popper, mostly negative) from their work and his
employment of the kind of anachronistic argument which he otherwise rightly condemns. Four
examples may suffice. First, Holmes characterizes life in the polis as "heavily politicized"
(p. 117). But the notion of politicization presupposes the transgression of a border that clearly
separates apolitical and political social spheres, a boundary that Holmes himself recognizes as
alien in many ways to Greek thought. Second, Holmes argues for the inappropriateness of the
politically participatory character of polis society by identifying its participatory character in
modern terms. Participating in the life of the polis was not solely connected to activities that
would result in binding authoritative decisions on the body politic as a whole (pp. 121-23). Third,
Holmes argues for the irrelevance of Aristotelian politike by noting its much larger scope than
that of contemporary political science (p. 125). But that does not by itself justify rejecting any
statement made within the Aristotelian framework as hopelessly obsolete - unless one has reified
the reigning (and yet constantly changing) definition of what constitutes the political realm as
necessarily accurate and just. Finally, Holmes claims that Plato and Aristotle emphasize "duties"
over "rights" (p. 127) when neither employs such conceptual categories. Indeed, this contrast
can only be understood within a liberalist framework with which neither Plato nor Aristotle were
familiar-but which Holmes anachronistically employs to reject reference to "Greek thinkers"
in contemporary political argument.
John R. Wallach is nowAssistant Professor of Political Science atHunter College of the

City University ofNew York Hispublications have concerned ancient and contemporary
political theory and American politics. He isfinishing a manuscript titled The Political
Art in Ancient Greek Thought: A Study of Critical Reason and Democracy.

John Wallach - Contemporary Aristotelianism PDF

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

John Wallach - Contemporary Aristotelianism PDF

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Contemporary Aristotelianism

Author(s): John R. Wallach

L THE ARISTOTELlAN TURN

The persuasive power of political theory depends on its ability to addres

POL1TICALTHEORY, Vol. 20 No. 4, November 1992 613-641

But while major thinkers of disparate intellectual and political persua-

II. POLITIKE AND THE VARIETIES

Politike defies any simple translation,6 and insofar as contemporary Ar

and doing politike was necessarily virtuous (NE, 1095a5-16, 1103b26-29,

tion from being democratic. As a result, the best constitution includes

Four beliefs about Aristotle's conception of politike constitute the core

The benchmark work for renewed philosophical interest in Aristotle is

we could benefit from now if we understood and appreciated it more fu

For fundamentalist Aristotelians, Aristotle is the primal source. When it

Aristotelian judgnent of hierarchical relations indicates a necessary deter-

not to be worried, for Aristotle's grounding of human nature is not like

Stephen Salkever'sAristotelianism shares many featureswith Nussbaum's.32

ters of scientific reason and historical understanding promote nihilism

ordination as a class. Moreover, claim Saxonhouse and Salkever, Aristotle's

tradition." Aristotelian politike cannot be formulated without regard t

Aristotle's philosophical system -more than Homer's epics, Sophocles'

III. POLITICAL THEORYIN HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION

Although no neo-Aristotelian finds in Aristotle's texts a script from

own philosophical project resists any simple construction of his authori

to root his conception of Aristotelian politike in a tradition that has irre

consideration of historical, as well as philosophical concerns, is a nec

time. And in this light, there is no harm done by turning to Aristotle, f

none provides a full or coherent explanation of what is theoretically involved in ha

political thought, see R. G. Collingwood,Autobiography (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939), chaps. 5-8;

John R. Wallach is nowAssistant Professor of Political Science atHunter College of the

Вам также может понравиться