The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics
One of the most influential works in the history of political theory, Aristotle's 'Politics' is a treatise in practical philosophy, intended to inform legislators and to create the conditions for virtuous and self-sufficient lives for the citizens of a state. In this 'Companion', distinguished scholars offer new perspectives on the work and its themes. After an opening exploration of the relation between Aristotle's ethics and his politics, the central chapters follow the sequence of the eight books of the 'Politics', taking up questions such as the role of reason in legitimizing rule, the common good, justice, slavery, private property, citizenship, democracy and deliberation, unity, conflict, law and authority, and education. The closing chapters discuss the interaction between Aristotle's political thought and contemporary democratic theory. The volume will provide a valuable resource for those studying ancient philosophy, classics, and the history of political thought.
Public Discourse between Counterfactual Idealisations and Practical Realisation in Public Sphere
Abstract The article explores different approaches to the theoretical grounding of public use of reason developed by Habermas, Kant and Rawls. It is focused on Habermas’s idea of communicative rationality and the public sphere, and then this approach is related to Kantian practical reason and Rawls’s idea of public reason. The article highlights liberal and republican elements in Habermas’s concept of public sphere, and emphasises that liberal concepts of democracy require public reason as a device of justification of constitutional norms, while the republican idea of popular sovereignty opens up the popular public sphere. The second part of the article describes the tension between the counterfactual nature of Habermas’s discourse ethics and its practical realisation in deliberative politics in institutions of the state.
Aristotle: the growth and structure of his thought
Preface Abbreviations Part I. Intellectual Development: 1. Life and writings 2. The pupil of Plato 3. The critic of Plato 4. The philosopher of nature 5. The founder of systematic research Part II. Fundamentals of Aristotle's Thought: 6. Logic and metaphysics 7. The physics of the heavenly region 8. The physics of the sublunary region 9. Psychology 10. Ethics 11. Politics 12. Literary criticism 13. Conclusion Suggestions for further reading Glossary of Greek terms Index of passages referred to General index.