1. Part I Aristotle’s thesis: “From this it is clear that that the polis exists by nature and that the human being is by nature a political animal.” 1252b32 o anthrōpos phusei politikon zōon. Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animal is evident. 1253a10

2. 1.Zōon  [transliterated as zōon] includes all living beings, men, animals and Gods. zōon/zōē is not pejorative. It means “ensouled being” or “living being” in a wide and non-pejorative sense, which excludes only plants, but includes animals and Gods. (Animal by contrast, in the Roman and Christian traditions is pejorative.)

3. Hans Jonas puts it  “does not mean animal ( = bestia), but every ensouled (= living) being, excluding plants but including demons, Gods, ensouled stars, indeed the ensouled universe as the greatest and most perfect living being itself.” (Hans Jonas, ‘Zwischen Nichts und Ewigkeit. Zur Lehre vom Menachen’ cited in Günther Bien, Die Grundlegung der Politischen Philosophie bei Aristoteles, Freiburg, Karl Alber, 1973, p. 123.)

4. Zōon = man’s natural existence, or the social existence of the polis existence “by nature” where this expression does not refer to (but specifically) excludes the teleological meaning of nature. The instinctual basis of the polis – desire for companionship. The metaphysical/reproductive basis of the polis. The drive for self-preservation. The economic and material basis of the polis.

5. Martin Heidegger interprets the phrase “politikon zōon” as a reference to man’s animal existence. Martin Heidegger, On Humanism, 1949, p13 “We must be clear that human beings in the final analysis are enclosed in the sphere of animal being (animalitas), even if he is not equated with beasts, but is given a specific difference. In principle one must always think of the homo animalis…this positioning is a kind of metaphysics.” So Heidegger thinks that man’s status as a zōon, marks him out as an animal.

6. 2.Politikon It is commonly claimed that Aristotle define the human beings as a Zōon Politikon. A.Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality vol. III, p. 188 “Ever since Aristotle defined man as a “political animal” … modern man is an animal whose politics calls his existence as a living being into question.” B. Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer p. 2 “It is true that in a famous passage… Aristotle defines man as a politikon zōon (Politics 1253a4)

7. C.Hannah Arendt “Aristotle’s definition of man as a zōon politikon was not only unrelated and even opposed to the natural association experienced in household life; it can be fully understood only if one adds his second famous definition of man as a zōon logon ekhon.” Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Chicago, 1954, p. 27

8. Still Arendt implies that Aristotle has several definitions of man/human being/ and she is right about this. Man is the only animal who can speak. Man is the only animal who can deliberate and decide. Man is the only animal who can act. Man is the only animal who can count. Man is the only animal who can remember. Man is the only animal who can do science. These are much better candidate definitions of man.

9. For in his biological writings, Aristotle allows that there are several different kinds of ‘political animal’. In History of the Animals he distinguishes between gregarious animals [tōn angelaiōn] and solitary animals [tōn monadikōn]. Some gregarious animals are political animals “Animals that live politically are those that have any kind of activity in common, which is not true of all gregarious animals. Of this sort are: man, bee, wasp and crane.” Aristotle, (HA 1.1. 487 b33ff)

10. ‘Political’ is a biological attribute and differentium of a small sub-class of gregarious animals, including human beings but not limited to them. Look again at Aristotle’s supposed ‘definition’ of man in Book I of The Politics: “It is clear that man is a political animal more than any bee or any gregarious animal. Aristotle, (Politics, 1253a7)” This cannot be a definition because it does not distinguish man from other animals, and therefore does not define the human being

11. The specific difference that determines the genus of political animalsis that human beings have logos “man is the only animal who has speech/reason” [logon de monon anthrōpos ekhei tōn zōōn] (1253a9). Through reason he works out his advantage, and what is just/unjust and good/evil. The shared collective endeavour that marks human beings out as political animals is organized on the basis of the reason for the end of justice.This is peculiar to humans, and makes them the most political among animals. For, “the virtue of justice [dikaiosunē] is what is political, and justice [dikē] is the basis on which the political association is ordered, and the virtue of justice is a judgement about what is just”. (1253a33-5)

12. Part II: Aristotle’s Critique of Plato’s Republic Republic Book IV 420c Suppose while we were painting statues some one should approach us and find fault with us for not applying the most beautiful colors to the most beautiful parts of the body, because the eyes, which possess the highest beauty, were not painted in purple but in black, I think we should make a reasonable reply to him by saying, My good sir, do not imagine that we must make the eyes so beautiful that they would not appear to be eyes, or that we should do the like to the other parts; but observe whether by giving to the several parts what rightly belongs to them we make the whole beautiful. Therefore do not now compel us to bestow upon our guardians happiness of such a kind as shall make them anything but guardians.

13. PlatoStatesman 259b-c Str. And the householder and master are the same? Soc. Of course. Str. Again, a large household may be compared to a small state:-will they differ at all, as far as government is concerned? Soc. They will not.

14. Republic book V 462 Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individual — as in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn towards the soul as a center and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected… Very true, he replied; and I agree with you that in the best-ordered State there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe. Shall they be a family in name only; or shall they in all their actions be true to the name? For example, in the use of the word "father," would the care of a father be implied and the filial reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law commands…

15. Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will be more often beard than in any other. Is this the attempt to make the class of guardians into one big family – trying to transform the fellow felling between the members of a meritocratic elite into thick relations of affection and kinship. Well known device for strengthening political unity. Arranged marriages.

16. Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxillaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. …the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. Just so, he said. Republic III 415b-d

17. This has been taken to imply a very illiberal view of citizenship, and even implicit totalitarianism. “Further, the polis is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except homonymously, as we might speak of a stone hand; for when destroyed the hand will be no better than that. But things are defined by their function and power; and we ought not to say that they are the same when they no longer have their proper quality, but only that they are homonymous. The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individuaol, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole. But he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a God, he is no part of the polis.” (1253a19) “the whole is naturally superior to the part.” 1288a25.

18. For these reasons Plato has been called a totalitarian, famously by Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945 "The identification of the fate of the state with that of the ruling class; the exclusive interest in this class, and in its unity; and subservient to this unity, the rigid rules for breeding and educating this class, and the strict supervision and collectivization of the interests of its members." OS

19. What is meant by totalitarian: 1.Those regimes in which the political power is concentrated in one bloc, and the ruled have no alternative. 2.Those regimes that exercise propagandistic control over the values and interests of the ruled. 3.Any regime that has an extensive or almost total reach over individual live, that regulate every area of individual conduct. 4.Any régime that governs by systematic deception.

20. Part III: Aristotle’s Critique of Plato. (There is no form of the good, there are only various things that are good.) 1.Communism is unworkable and undesirable. Note Aristotle’s alternative (1263b1). 2.The idea of a community of women is impracticable, against nature, and a misguided attempt at forging social soldarity/unity. 2.1.It is a unity of the wrong kind because the state is not a family write large. (1252a8-16 &1261a1) 2.2 The polis is not an individual – a person writ large.

21. Plato/Socrates “claims that it is best for the whole polis to be as unified as possible. Is it not obvious that a [polis may at length attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a polis? – sine the nature of a polis is to be a plurality/multitide, and in tending to greater unity, from being a polis, it becomes a family, and from the family and individual…So that we ought not to attain this greatest unity even if we could because it would be the destruction of the polis.” (1261a16-25 & 1263b31-35)

22. 3.Plato deprives the guardians of happiness. “But the whole cannot be happy unless most, or all, or some of its parts enjoy happiness. In this respect happiness is not like the even number principle in numbers, which may exist only in the whole, and not in either of the parts. (1264b19)

23. Part IV: Aristotle’s totalitarianism? Jonathan Barnes, Richard Mulgan, David Keyt, C.C. Taylor, Giorgio Agamben among other have all implied that Aristotle’s also has totalitarian tendencies. Evidence: “the city is prior by nature to the household and to each of us, since it is necessary for the whole to be prior to the part,,,So that the city both exists by nature and is prior to each individual is clear. (1253a-19) One ought not even to consider that anyone of the citizens belongs to himself, for they all belong to the polis and are each of them a part of the polis…1337a27-30.

24. Aristotle recommends that the statesman legislate on questions like: The health and physical fitness of its citizens. Who may marry? The age at which men should cease siring children? The behaviour and manners of its womenfolk. Punishments for adultery What should be done to deformed or weakly children – they should be exposed, hardened. Book VII and VIII Is this totalitarian?

25. But there was no private realm/private life in ancient Greece. The polis was a small a face to face, society, Mediterranean society, and almost every aspect of life was open to public scrutiny and government regulation M.I. Finley, Politics in the Ancient World, p. 82. All private actions were submitted to a severe surveillance. No importance was given to individual independence neither in relation to opinions, nor to labour, nor, above all to religion….Among the Spartans, Therpandrus could not string his lyre without causing offence to the ephors. In the most domestic of relations the public authority again and again intervened. The young Lacadaimonian could hardly visit his new bride freely… The laws regulated customs, and as customs touch on everything, there was hardly anything that the laws did not regulate.” Constant, ‘The Liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns’ in Constant: Political Writings, p.311.

26. What is meant by totalitarian: 1.Those regimes in which the political power is concentrated in one bloc, and the ruled have no alternative. 2.Those regimes that exercise propagandistic control over the values and interests of the ruled. 3.Any regime that has an extensive or almost total reach over individual live, that regulate every area of individual conduct. 4.Any régime that governs by systematic deception.

27. Calvert, B.: 'Plato and the Equality of Women', Phoenix xxix (1975) 231—243 Saxonhouse, A.W.: 'The Philosopher and the Female in the Political Thought of Plato', Political Theory iv (1976) 195—212, reprinted in (8) 95—113 Annas, J.E.: 'Plato's Republic and Feminism', Philosophy li (1976) 307—21, reprinted in (33) 265—79 Lesser, H. : 'Plato's Feminism', Philosophy liv (1979) 113— 17 Vlastos, G.: 'Was Plato a Feminist?', Times Literary Supplement 4485 (17 March 1989) 276, 288—9, reprinted in (34) ii 133—43 and in (8) 115—28 Cohen, D.: 'The Social Context of Adultery at Athens', in P. Cartledge, P. Millett & S. Todd, ed. Nomos: essays in Athenian law, politics and society (Cambridge University Press, 1990)