Aristotle, political animal

[beavisshakur]

Aristotle asserts that 'man is by nature a political animal'

Anyone have any knowledge of exactly what Aristotle means, ive been reading up on this nad have discovered some commentators referring to man as a SOCIAL animal, whats the difference?

Much thanks!

[Clanad]

Attempting to present a more cognitive discussion than the previous post will be difficult, I suppose, but nevertheless... to understand Aristotle's intent in his The Politics it's helpful to read your excerpted quote in context: "... If the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature... Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal..." As you're probably aware, Aristotle believed that to understand nearly anything, his method was to compare the undeveloped to the full-blown, so to speak. That's self-evident in his writing in this case. Man cannot function as Aristotle believed he could or should unless involved in politcal exchange. As you've surmised, the difference between politcal and social is a matter of semantics and are interchangeable as applies to the process of discourse... humans are in need of other humans...

[BigMac]

It's too late at night for me to get drawn into a fully political/philosophical discussion, but one other meaning ot the Aristotelian phrase that "Man is ... a political animal" relates to the City-States in which Greeks lived - the Polis. To say that man is a political animal is to say that man functions best in a society like that of the Polis - that man's natural envoronment is the polis, hence man is a political (of/from the Polis) animal.

Hope this helps.

HNY

[MarcusPCato]

Men were seen as best suited to live in a 'polis,' a free city state, where each could take part in the common life, in the making of the laws and the administration. It would be equally unnatural to live a solitary and to live in a supra-national empire, like the despotic regimes of the near-eastern barbarians that all Hellenes despised.

[MarcusPCato]

By that he meant that the ideal life was lived in a 'polis,' a free city state where the people made the laws and administered the state. It was unnatural for man to live a solitary life, and equally unnatural to live in one of the despotic empires of the near east.