With Aristotle’s Teaching in the “Politics,” Thomas L. Pangle offers a masterly new interpretation of this classic philosophical work. It is widely believed that the Politics originated as a written record of a series of lectures given by Aristotle, and scholars have relied on that fact to explain seeming inconsistencies and instances of discontinuity throughout the text. Breaking from this tradition, Pangle makes the work’s origin his starting point, reconceiving the Politics as the pedagogical tool of a master teacher. With the Politics, Pangle argues, Aristotle seeks to lead his students down a deliberately difficult path of critical thinking about civic republican life. He adopts a Socratic approach, encouraging his students—and readers—to become active participants in a dialogue. Seen from this perspective, features of the work that have perplexed previous commentators become perfectly comprehensible as artful devices of a didactic approach. Ultimately, Pangle’s close and careful analysis shows that to understand the Politics, one must first appreciate how Aristotle’s rhetorical strategy is inextricably entwined with the subject of his work.

What can Aristotle teach us that is relevant to contemporary moral and educational concerns? What can we learn from him about the nature of moral development, the justifiability and educability of emotions, the possibility of friendship between parents and their children, or the fundamental aims of teaching? The message of this book is that Aristotle has much to teach us about those issues and many others. In a formidable display of boundary-breaking scholarship, drawing upon the domains of philosophy, education and psychology, Kristján Kristjánsson analyses and dispels myriad misconceptions about Aristotle’s views on morality, emotions and education that abound in the current literature - including the claims of the emotional intelligence theorists that they have revitalised Aristotle’s message for the present day. The book proceeds by enlightening and astute forays into areas covered by Aristotle’s canonical works, while simultaneously gauging their pertinence for recent trends in moral education. This is an arresting book on how to balance the demands of head and heart: a book that deepens the contemporary discourse on emotion cultivation and virtuous living and one that will excite any student of moral education, whether academic or practitioner.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics deals with character and its proper development in the acquisition of thoughtful habits directed toward appropriate ends. The articles in this unique collection, many new or not readily available, form a continuos commentary on the Ethics. Philosophers and classicists alike will welcome them. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics deals with character and its proper development in the acquisition of thoughtful habits directed toward appropriate ends. The articles in this unique collection, many new or not readily available, form a continuos com

The collapse of the Soviet Union and other Marxist regimes around the world seems to have left liberal democracy as the only surviving ideology, and yet many scholars of political thought still find liberal democracy objectionable, using Aristotle's Politics to support their views. In this detailed analysis of Book 3 of Aristotle's work, Clifford Angell Bates, Jr., challenges these scholars, demonstrating that Aristotle was actually a defender of democracy. Proving the relevance of classical political philosophy to modern democratic problems, Bates argues that Aristotle not only defends popular rule but suggests that democracy, restrained by the rule of law, is the best form of government. According to Aristotle, because human beings are naturally sociable, democracy is the regime that best helps man reach his potential; and because of human nature, it is inevitable democracies will prevail. Bates explains why Aristotle's is a sound position between two extremes -- participatory democracy, which romanticizes the people, and elite theory, which underrates them. Aristotle, he shows, sees the people as they really are and nevertheless believes their self-rule, under law, is ultimately better than all competing forms. However, the philosopher does not believe democracy should be imposed universally. It must arise out of the given cultural, environmental, and historical traditions of a people or its will fall into tyranny. Bates's fresh interpretation rests on innovative approaches to reading Book 3 -- which he deems vital to understanding all of Aristotle's Politics. Examining the work in the original Greek as well as in translation, he addresses questions about the historical Aristotle versus the posited Aristotle, the genre and structure of the text, and both the theoretical and the dialogic nature of the work. Carting Aristotle's rhetorical strategies, Bates shows that Book 3 is not simply a treatise but a series of dialogues that develop a nuanced defense of democratic rule. Bates's accessible and faithful exposition of Aristotle's work confirms that the philosopher's teachings are not merely of historical interest but speak directly to liberal democracy's current crisis of self-understanding.