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Kompass

Thinkers and political figures

Marble bust of Aristotle, Roman copy after a Greek original.

Portrait: Roman copy after Lysippos, photograph by Jastrow, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain

Aristotle

Country
Macedon and Athens
Era
384–322 BCE
Tradition
Classical republicanism

The first systematic comparative political scientist, who collected the constitutions of 158 states and concluded that stable government rests on a large middle class rather than on rule by the rich or the poor.

01

Documented positions

Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.

  • Held that humans are political animals who can only fully develop within a political community
  • Argued that the most stable constitution is a mixed one dominated by a broad middle class
  • Classified rule by one, few and many, each with a corrupted form, and judged them by whether they served the common good
  • Held that the rule of law is preferable to the rule of any individual, however wise
  • Defended slavery as natural for some people — a position rejected here and recorded because it was his
  • Treated extreme concentrations of wealth as politically destabilising
02

Where it sits on each dimension

Personal liberty

40

Evidence: Documented

Tradition and change

25

Evidence: Documented

Power and its limits

58

Evidence: Documented

Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Wealth and inequality, The state in the economy, Nation and the world, Religion and the state, Environment and growth, Crime and punishment

Sources

  • Aristotle, Politics · c. 350 BCE
  • Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics · c. 340 BCE

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