 Hi, my name is Monty Johnson. I teach philosophy at the University of California San Diego And this is the first of two lectures on Aristotle's politics book two on the criticism of model Constitutions beginning with Plato's Republic and laws And I'm using the translation of Benjamin Jowett Oxford 1921, which is in the public domain Now first of all an outline of the overall book in chapter one Aristotle discusses the study of model Constitutions both fictional and real the purpose of studying them and he says a little about the method of studying them then chapters two to six are Dedicated to a detailed criticism of two of Plato's dialogues in In chapters two to five his Republic and then the single chapter six devoted to his laws After that in chapter seven and eight We have a criticism of other fictional proposals including those of Phalaeus and Hippodamus Then in chapters nine to eleven a criticism of real constitutional models actually existing Constitutions the Constitutions of the Spartans of the Cretans and the Carthaginians Then in the final chapter, which Somewhat appears like an appendix Aristotle discusses Solon and other famous legislators But there's actually a an organized Methodology and reason why Aristotle follows this process and it basically has to do with him thinking that Plato's Proposals in the Republic are the most radical and most detailed and Those in the laws are less radical those of Phalaeus and Hippodamus even less so and then Even less radical than all of those are the actually existing models beginning with the most complete and Radical in its own way Spartan Constitution of which the Cretan and Carthaginian Can be discussed in terms of their differences with that and then Aristotle concludes by discussing those who whose political theory doesn't extend to the Entire Constitution and in time and conceiving of an entire Constitution of a state But rather just to specific laws and pieces of legislation So here's what he says about the examination of model Constitutions in the first chapter. He says that our purpose This is a quote is to consider what form of political community is best of all For those who are most able to realize their ideal of life so One purpose of what we're doing is to conceive of the best form of community of political community For those most able to realize their ideal and of life So it's ideal in two senses both that all of the people Reach the their ideal of life and that the political community itself is best of all But he adds quote we must therefore examine not only this but other Constitutions both such as actually exist in well-governed states and any theoretical forms which are held in esteem That what is good and useful may be brought to light so the point is to look both at fictional proposals and Actually existing states and see if there's anything good in any of them which we ought to bring into our consideration Now in a later book book four in the first chapter Aristotle distinguishes between actually four related inquiries first the inquiry into what is the best Constitution under any circumstances whatsoever Second what is the best constitution under specific circumstances or for specific kinds of people? He says quote for the best is often unattainable and therefore the true Legislator and statesmen ought to be acquainted not only with that which is best in the abstract But also with that which is best relatively to circumstances and Those two questions are distinguished from a third question What is the best means of preserving any given kind of Constitution on the hypothesis that it would be good to Preserve it and that those can again be distinguished from a fourth question What is the Constitution that's best suited for most circumstances and for most kinds of people? quote not only what form of government is best, but also what is possible and What is easily? Attainable by all so each of those are different questions And it seems that in this book to we're mostly concerned with the first question What is the best Constitution under any? Circumstances because people like Plato seem to have proposed an answer to such a question and Aristotle has criticisms of them But some of these criticisms pertain to what is actually possible under specific circumstances What is best hypothetically? supposing we want to promote a certain kind of virtue and Also, what is what would really be best under for most circumstances in most kinds of people? So those four inquiries which are presented as distinct in book four are In a way all pursued in this second book now the first and most important issue that divides these Model Constitutions and distinguishes them from one another and then from really existing constitutions Is their approach to? Property private versus common property and Aristotle discusses that the theoretical Possibilities for constitutions are determined by what is or is not shared in common by the citizens And he discusses three conceivable alternatives first the members of a state could have nothing in common second the members of the state Could have all things so far as possible in common Or a third possibility the members of the state may have some things in common and other things not in common Now the first alternative he immediately eliminates. It is quote clearly impossible for the members of a state to have nothing in common because the Constitution is a community and at any rate must have at least a common place that they all live together so they must share that and So it's not possible to imagine that members of a state elements of a state have nothing in common So the real possibilities are that the members of the state have all things in common So far as that's possible or that they merely have some things in common So for the second possibility that they may have all things in common so far as possible He presents the example of citizens having wives and children and all of their property in common as Socrates proposes in the Republic of Plato Now as for the view that the members of the state should have some things in common but other things not in common and Among the things they should not have in common in Aristotle's view our wives and children So this third option ends up being Aristotle's view So he criticizes Plato in general for trying to make all The citizens have all things as far as that's possible in common and Aristotle asks Which is better our present condition where we do have some things in common in our state but other things not like wives and children are not held in common or What he calls the proposed new order of society as if Plato's Republic is a proposal for a new order of society in which as many things as possible are held in Common a kind of communism that extends even into families to include wives and children Now that brings us to Aristotle's criticism of Plato's Republic Just say a couple of things about Plato's Republic in general because even though you've read Book two of Aristotle's politics. You may not have had a chance to read Plato's Republic though It's one of the most famous works of philosophy We call it Plato's Republic in English because the Latin title is De Re publica the Greek title is Politea It's in ten books So it's a fairly long and extensive work in which Aristotle Socrates is depicted as discussing the ideal political Arrangement and various inferior alternatives including democracy Now note that the Greek title of Plato's book means something like commonwealth or constitutional government that is constitution of the state or Paulus and the title of Aristotle's politics Which we take from the Latin politica really means things concerned with the state or the polis Now in a later chapter at the end of book two Aristotle actually returns very briefly to discuss and Summarize Plato's views in the Republic and he summarizes that in one sentence that divides into four parts He says particular to Plato and he's referring to the Republic is One the community of women children and property which we've just been discussing second the common meals of women and third the law about drinking that the sober should be masters of the feast and For that the training of soldiers to acquire by practice equal skill with both hands So that one should be as useful as the other Now this kind of looks like a grab bag of topics and hardly like a crisp summary of the entire point of the Republic or Even of the Republic and the laws which he may be meaning to summarize Here as well but the first pertains to the communism of women children and Property and that is a major issue and that is the major issue on which Aristotle will engage Plato's views The importance of common wheel common meals for women is that it means giving women equality in education military and political spheres, so that's actually a completely radical suggestion and a Separate suggestion from holding women children and property in common. This is that women ought to be educated Equally and deployed equally for military and political purposes The third the law about drinking that the sober should be masters of the feast Is really something discussed in book two of Plato's laws most extensively and the idea there is that the state should get involved in regulating the temperance and moderation encouraging those virtues and So should actually encourage controlled situations in which drinking occurs to ensure that people Are able to enjoy and take pleasure in moderation and Temporately so that we're trading them not only for the virtue of courage like the Spartans do but also for a Virtue that is useful in peacetime the enjoyment of pleasure and leisure So that is a pretty important and innovative Point of Plato's Now the fourth point about the which looks like on the surface a point about Ambidexterity of training of soldiers so that they can use swords with their left or their right hand Might be an underhanded reference to the involvement of women in the military the Pythagoreans considered The male factor to be on the right the female factor to be on the left hand side And this may be related to again that radical idea of Incorporating both women and men into the military or it may actually be a point about training Ambidexterity which Plato does lead Lee put some emphasis on in the Republic So that's an interesting summary of how Plato's Republic is conceived in so far as it relates to the project of the second book of the politics and that's determining proposals relevant to the entire Constitution Now Aristotle's overarching criticism of Plato in a way pertaining to each of these ideas is that Plato has his Socrates advocate an excessive unification of the state So Aristotle says quote the argument of Socrates proceeds that the greater the unity of the state the better So Plato wants a maximally unified state. He wants everybody agreeing about not just the ends of the state but the means that are used to reach them and this agreement and Consensus Plato takes to be a sign of a of a healthy and well functioning political Society, but Aristotle rejects that principle as stated So he does not think that the greater the unity is necessarily the better because the greater degree of unity He thinks must come at the cost of a lesser degree of Self-sufficiency and so here he sets up a comparison between three degrees of unity and Three degrees of self-sufficiency So if we take an individual person an individual person is as unified as it gets they have organic unity They're a single organism, but in Aristotle's political philosophy. They are the least self-sufficient they There's very little that an individual totally isolated from any family or City can do as a human as he says in book one anybody that could Flourish outside of a city must be either a beast or a god humans can't humans or political animals And they are only self-sufficient within the context of a family which is in the context of a city So a family is a somewhat unified entity clearly not as unified as an individual person But it is somewhat more Self-sufficient than an individual so an individual can flourish and do a lot more in a family Context and they can as an isolated Hermit in which they can barely do anything or cultivate any virtue But the family as a single family unit Compared to a city is The family unit might be more unified, but it is less self-sufficient. So the city is the least degree of Unity because it is a unity of several families and families are Unities of several individuals. So the city is the least unified, but it is the most self-sufficient Self-sufficient because the city can exist without any particular family but a Family cannot exist in Aristotle sense without being in some kind of city and just as Aristotle thinks that a Family consists of individuals. So he thinks a city consists of several families but there is a Substantial or existential priority here that the city can exist without the Family or without any individual, but an individual or a family cannot exist without Any city so therefore the unity that Socrates seeks in Plato's Republic he seeks to turn a city into a greater degree of unity to become something more like a family and even possibly pushing it to become something like an individual when he compares it to the Psychological unity of the three parts of the soul But his political proposals amount to unifying the city to become like a single family Which certainly makes it more unified, but it thereby according to Aristotle makes it less self-sufficient So since self-sufficiency is a good This excessive unification of the city into a family Has at least one disadvantage and having that disadvantage means that it's not always good So that's not the best thing for him to do Now Aristotle's alternative to unifying the state into a family He calls reciprocal equality that exists between ruler and ruled basically taking turns Ruling and being ruled. He says that the excessive unification of the kind Proposed by Plato in the Republic would lead to the destruction of the state Reciprocal equality on the other hand, which he advocates leads to its salvation So let's look in some more detail why he thinks this reciprocal equality is the salvation of the state that the excessive unification would be the destruction of Well, he says quote where for the principle of compensation or reciprocal equality as I have already remarked in the ethics is the salvation of States now by the way, that's he's referring there to the second common book of the ethics on justice That's Eudemian ethics book for Nicomachean ethics book 5 and he's referring specifically to the arguments in chapter 5 there Where he describes reciprocal equality meaning that each party to a transaction The paradigm example is some kind of exchange or trade between a buyer and seller Where buyer and seller are treated as exact equals and it's just the difference We look at the differences between the things that they're exchanging and try to equalize those We don't try to equalize the buyer and seller We assume that they are Equal if we were to assume that they were unequal then we would have to equalize not just the goods that are exchanged But somehow compensate for the value or preeminence of one of the parties to the exchange Now Aristotle says quote even among freemen and equals This is a principle this principle of reciprocal equality Which must be maintained for they cannot all rule together But must change at the end of a year or some other period of time or in some order of succession The result is that upon this plan they all govern just as if Shoemakers and carpenters were to exchange their occupations and the same persons did not always continue shoemakers and carpenters now I That's the end of the quote and I provide this whole quote because it shows Aristotle bringing in his own political analysis into a criticism of Plato here his preference would be that all of the people doing the governing are treated as equals not treated as Parts of the same family but is are treated as equal to each other and then they exchange by some kind of order of succession or after some period of time the job or the office of Ruling and they are equally willing to take up being ruled and this Ruling and being ruled is the essence of politics according to Aristotle and so he would Rather maintain this which he considers a political structure and not convert the political structure of equality into a dense and overly Tightened unified family structure in which there is not politics, but rather there's Forms of Power and rule and domination that may be analogous to politics, but really have some other purpose some paternalistic or even does poddock purpose So in Aristotle's view and here he asserts it equals should take up and rule in turn and when they're out of rule they should be treated as Equals as well and that equality is what we should be searching for in politics not Unification now he Presents several criticisms of Plato's communism of property He repeats the criticisms that we've just been discussing that the state should have less Unity than a family Excessive excessive unification would destroy itself sufficiency presumably by destroying the possibility of division of labor So Again, we could talk about pushing the unity of the family if unity is such a great thing We could unify the family and conceive of the family is just being like a single Individual, but then we wouldn't be able to divide the kinds of labor that happened within the household And just as we wouldn't be able to do that if we were to unify the family into an individual So if we were to unify the state into an individual family, we would lose some Articulation or division of labor and that's why we would lose self-sufficiency Aristotle also criticizes Plato's proposed linguistic reform according to which Everyone should say mine and not mine at the same time and with respect to the same things Socrates says that this would be a sign of the perfect unity the state But Aristotle criticizes this distinguishing two senses of the term all He says there's a distributive sense for example if all say this is my son Then this all seems to apply to each and every one But the object is multiple several sons So it's understood if I say this is my son and my friend says this is my son that they're pointing to different people And there are several different objects and thus the feeling of ownership is strong But there's also a collective sense of all So if all say this is my city then the all clearly Applies to everyone and the object is singular. Well, we're all referring to one city You know this San Diego is my city multiple people living here in San Diego can say this is my city But the feeling of ownership is weak a Lot different than if I said this is my son or this is my daughter Now Plato's proposal Aristotle suggests would only result in a weak Feeling I would say. Oh, that's my son about some random Child I saw across the street, but the feeling would be very weak not at all like the one I really have if I think that it's my biological offspring or my adopted child And so this would not in fact unify the state this distinction between a distributive and a collective sense would still be observed and so There would not be a strong effective unifying the state Now Aristotle also points out or asserts that what is held in common is the least taken care of He says quote for that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it Everyone thinks chiefly of his own Hardly at all of the common interest and only when he is himself concerned as an individual for besides other considerations Everyone is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill as in families many attendants are often less useful than a few end of quote now This has become known recently as the so-called tragedy of the commons that if for example Grazing land is held in common. It will be less taken care of people will tend to over graze it Whereas they wouldn't do that to their own property that they held privately because they wouldn't want it to be destroyed Now that's asserted to be a principle Essentially, what is held in common is less taken care of than what is held privately But it's not at all clear what the warrant for that Claim is and it certainly doesn't really have the status of a self-evident Principle if you think about it the story about grazing land might suggest something but if we really look at Property that's held privately and compare it with property that's held By the public do we always find that private property holders take better care of their property Than property that's held by the state Probably not so this is a questionable assumption of Aristotle's but there's some persuasive element that leads to it and it can be Leveled as a criticism of Plato's communism Now Aristotle goes into a lot of detail over chapters 3 and 4 about problems with Plato's community of wives and children To the extent that children were actually commonly held he argues This would result in a lot of neglect in accordance with the principle to state it that what is held in common is most neglected So you would essentially be encouraging child neglect by saying that all of Putting them in a common store and saying that we all own them in common or have them in common and But Aristotle asserts that really People again wouldn't have that strong of a feeling about that and they would tend to identify their own children because of inherited Resemblances Resemblances that he has a theory about how they are inherited in his biological work The generation of animals and he says there's nothing that could avoid people saying that's obviously that person's Child and so my claim that it's my child as well in accordance with this communistic slogan wouldn't cut any ice against that Biological recognition Also Socrates proposals about families Aristotle says would make certain crimes worse So there would be a greater chance that assaults and homicides are committed unwittingly Against fathers and mothers or near relations But this would be both harder to detect and Expatiate now to some extent this works against the previous point This assumes that it wouldn't be that easy to identify one's own children or parents And so that children would sometimes make mistakes and while they just meant to kill someone They didn't really mean to kill their father But then supposedly it would be difficult to establish that actually did kill their father And it would be more difficult to go through the process of expatiating that particular crime Also Socrates proposals about ancestors said to be confused so he outlaws homosexual intercourse But he permits kissing and touching and Aristotle says this the one leads to the other and so that Proposal will be impracticable Also the proposed communism of wives and children is better suited He thinks for the lowest classes then for the higher classes or the guardian class But Plato proposes just the reverse that the ruling or guardian class would be the one holding wives and children in common But it's not clear that that would happen or clear that it wouldn't happen for the lower producing class Now Socrates proposals Aristotle argues would destroy friendship, which is the key to holding states together So if we have communism of wives and children It'll water down our love and affection which is naturally held between those that we know are Biologically related to us directly and within our own family And there's something important about the love and friendship of a family unit that would be broken down and destroyed If I'm supposed to treat everyone as if they were part of this family unit furthermore Transferring between the classes would be problematic So there's no way to know in advance who from among the lower class should be transferred to the ruling guardian class and vice versa and When transferred to another class anyone would have less reason to refrain from crime Because the consanguinity would be removed so Plato thinks that you know Natural born rulers ought to be part of the guardian class and those who aren't fit to rule Even if they are born to guardian parents should be transferred into the lower class and be farmers and producers But the the scheme of holding wives and children in common would make this more difficult Now in chapter 5 Aristotle returns to the discussion of Common property and not just wives and children and how those are held in common But private property itself as opposed to common property. He says quote next Let us consider what should be our arrangements about property should the citizens of the perfect state have their possessions in common or not This question may be discussed separately from the enactments about women and children So there are three possible arrangements. Whatever we do with with women and children when we're talking about things now like Land livestock buildings tools and so on There are several possible arrangements for holding this property in common The first is that the soil or the land may be appropriated But the produce so whatever we're growing from it the corn or whatever May be thrown for consumption into the common stock This is the practice of some nations and this ends up being Aristotle's considered preference. He thinks that Land should be privately owned but from what is produced on that land some should be extracted basically in the form of taxation and put into The common stock and then somehow distributed from there but another option is that the soil is held in common and Cultivated in common, but then we take the produce like the corn from it and we distribute that Among individuals for their private use He says this is a form of common property which is said to exist among certain barbarians And the third option is that we would hold both the soil and the produce In common alike now both two and three Aristotle argues so any Option of holding the land in common will occasion quarrels when some end up toiling more on that land But receive less in the produce While others toil less but end up receiving more of the produce neither of those are available avoidable on The second or third options and that's why Aristotle prefers that you have private property But some kind some way to to bring in Common the consumption or the use of it So here are several problems that he discusses with the common property arrangements again holding property in common occasions disputes and He supports this by appealing to some homely examples like the example of fellow travelers If you and I are traveling hitchhiking through Europe together Then we'll probably end up falling out over everyday matters and trifles Similarly, if we hold all of our property in common then little things about for example not putting tools back in exactly the right place We'll end up causing Disputes and even falling out and this will affect the unity and consensus in the state Another example is Servants Aristotle says that one is most offended by the failures of those servants with whom one works most closely So if we all work so closely together as we would with our Individual servants then we would become most offended by each other's disappointing Failures and again the unity of the state would be undermined The best arrangement he says is when property is owned privately but made available for common use For then owners don't neglect their property because they love it But they make it available for their friends whom they all they also love So this achieves the best of both worlds now examples of this can be found among the Spartans Who use one another slaves horses and dogs as if they were their own? And he says the legislator should try to cultivate such a Benevolent disposition among all citizens so that they will all willingly share the property that they all in fact hold privately Common property also he says deprive citizens citizens of an opportunity to exercise the virtues of Liberality and temperance Liberality because if all things are held in common then one can't show any generosity or kindness like I can't give Give you something because you already own it I can't give you flowers or chocolates because we already hold those in Commons are not giving them to you They were already yours. So generosity or kindness of that type becomes impossible But he says temperance becomes impossible Because if all what wives are held in common then I did won't have an opportunity to show moderation by refraining or abstaining from intercourse with other people's wives Since they aren't those other people's wives anymore. There won't be any problem with doing it. And so As if everybody's moderation will disappear at that point and they won't be temperate Further more and perhaps more seriously he says common property doesn't have the benefits that it appears to have but has many disadvantages So supposedly it would eliminate suits over contracts Convictions for perjury flattery of the rich and so on which are said to be due to private property But in fact all of these bad things Okay suits suing people over contracts Perjury flattery of the rich all of those bad things Aristotle says are due to human vices they're not due to the property itself and It's due to quarrels among those holding property in common that can be expected to remain The same if their characters do so If you do nothing to affect their characters, but just change who is supposed to own the property the characters will remain the same the vices will remain the same and the litigious society the perjury People the flattery of the rich all of that will continue because it's root cause hasn't been addressed and In fact those things will all be made much worse Now besides the criticism of the scheme for holding wives and children in common and then the communism of property Aristotle also offers some general criticisms of Plato's Republic one general theoretical Criticism that he again repeats in this chapter is that the excessive unification of anything will destroy it there is theoretical value in maintaining diversity and plurality among the elements and This is eliminated when we try to squeeze all of the diverse and plural elements of the city into a single family He makes the argument here, but he but introduces some new examples From music so he says, you know harmonies are destroyed when they're reduced to unison and rhythm is Destroyed when it's reduced to a single foot and so the city would be destroyed if it reduced to a single family He also says, you know on the basis of experience He rejects these proposals quote we should not disregard the experience of ages in the multitude of years These things if they were good would certainly not have been unknown for almost everything has been found out Although sometimes they are not put together in other cases men do not use the knowledge which they have So this relates to Aristotle's project of empirical investigation of the histories of actual constitutions he himself or with the assistance of his students and other collaborators wanted to study a hundred and More than a hundred and fifty Greek Constitutions get the histories of them all and take that kind of data and then come up with a theory to explain the data and he notices that In the midst of this research, we don't find anything like Plato's Republic And so it hasn't been tried if it was a good idea. It's probably something that would have been tried and this is interesting for what it says about Plato's concept of the possibility of Progressive politics of doing something entirely new in politics and we've seen for example with the case of Slavery or his rejection of the equality of women that Aristotle's proposals end up being fairly conservative They don't Radically upset the order of society as it's been seen in the empirical examples that he's investigated Extensive though those are Now Plato's Entire account and this is a pretty major criticism he makes Plato's entire account is Entirely focused on the Guardians and he says almost nothing about the lowest class the producers Which are in fact the majority of his city But this kind of treatment gives rise to a dilemma says Aristotle either the lowest class will also Hold wives and children in common and have the same kind of education as the Guardians in which case They don't differ from the Guardians and have no reason to submit to their rule or The lowest class would hold wives and children privately like other states do and have the Different kinds of education than the ruling class like other states do in which case Plato's state won't be a unity at all But rather will be two different states the state of the Guardians in the state of the Producing class the working class working in ruling class would essentially form two different cities and The ruling class of the Guardians would be like an occupying garrison of the other city Even if quarrels are eliminated among the Guardians the problem of quarrels among Farmers and artists will remain and Plato says nothing about that Also another major criticism is that the Guardians Can't be happy happy here Aristotle uses in a very conventional sense They can't enjoy the use of private property and they can't exercise all of the virtues for example He showed why they can't exercise liberality or certain kinds of Temperance and not being able to exercise those virtues they can't be perfectly happy and also not being able to enjoy Private property they can't be perfectly happy But neither can his lowest class be happy because they don't have much private property And they certainly can't exercise all the virtues because they don't have any time to cultivate virtues since they're doing all the work So if happiness exists in neither of these parts of the city then it would be absurd to think that it exists in the whole state So then Aristotle Compares it to a mathematical case. It's not like the even which may exist in a whole for example for the number four even if it's not an either part of the number four so both three and one are Odd but when they are summed together they create something that's even he says Politics isn't like this You have to be able to have happiness in each class in order to say that the city is happy But Plato's proposal removes and precludes This possibility of happiness and with it the ultimate end of the state because again as he says at the beginning of book one the Purpose of politics and the purpose of a state is to create an association for the sake of the good life and for happiness So after all of those criticisms of Plato's Republic Aristotle moves on to criticize Plato's laws He says in many ways Plato's Republic is not an adequate account Not only is it vulnerable to the preceding objections, but it also lacks an account of many crucial issues Such as the ones we've just been discussing the lowest class Now the laws was Plato's Latest work and it's a quite long work 12 books even longer than the Republic But it's taken to be kind of Plato's final word on politics and also to be a either a recasting of the utopian scheme of the Republic or even a less Utopian idea and something that's more practically realizable But against this idea that it's more practically realizable Is the fact that it's lacking an account on so many crucial issues and according to Aristotle the proposals of the laws Basically amount to the same thing as the Republic just without the controversial community of women and property Even though common meals are extended to women and there's also little direct discussion of the Constitution in Plato's laws Presumably because it's focused on laws and not the Constitution Now Aristotle considers Plato's projection of 5,000 citizens to be Unrealistic given how large the population of wives and slaves unless the territory to house them would have to be and He in making this criticism It's interesting for a couple of reasons one Because he says in framing an ideal we may assume what we wish but should avoid impossibilities So we have to reject utopian proposals that aren't in some sense pragmatic second it shows the Limit of the size of what Aristotle considers a legitimate political entity It actually has to be quite small fewer than 5,000 Citizens and Aristotle does not imagine a political a purse a political Association possible that is larger than that his is a very small scale conception of politics We're basically all the citizens being equal know each other recognize each other basically are on a first-name basis with each other and then they can Work out their differences and find a way to create what they all agree to be the good life But when you get too many people you can't speak to them all you can't know them all they can't all hear all the political speeches that each other are making and so you can't really have an effective form of government and he thinks that Plato basically Proposes a population that's too high to make effective government possible Plato also supposedly ignores the relationship between his state and others by focusing only on the people and the country and Aristotle says that his account of military forces is inadequate It's not clear by the way how much more adequate Aristotle's own account is but that doesn't necessarily Undercut the criticism that Plato's is not adequate Also, Plato is unclear about how much property the citizens are supposed to possess quote Socrates says that a man should have so much property as will enable him to live Temporately which is only a way of saying to live well This is too general a conception further man furthermore a man may live Temporately and yet miserably That's the end of the quote so according to Aristotle a better standard would be That quote a man must have so much property as will enable him to live not only Temporately but also liberally that is that means with generosity if the two are parted Liberality will combine with luxury and temperance will be associated with toil So if we don't allow enough property in here Aristotle seems to mean private property then Again, we can't be liberal or generous in giving it away can't give you something you already own and if I or if I don't have enough of it to give away and thus Liberality will require a luxurious amount of goods that's excessive to what other people have and then Temperance or you know only having a moderate amount of goods will be associated with mere toil and considered practically a vice so those would be the effects again of Concepts of property even in Plato's laws where property isn't all held and isn't necessarily held in common Now Aristotle also makes a criticism of the Constitution as it's conceived in Plato's laws. He's already said that he doesn't say much about the Constitution Or that it's very similar to what he says in the Republic Aristotle specifically says quote in the laws it is maintained that the best constitution is made up of democracy and tyranny Which are either not Constitutions at all or are the worst of all so he thinks that Plato is constructing in supposedly ideal Constitution out of two corrupt forms of constitution Democracy and tyranny, but that's impossible or that's difficult Now later in later books where Aristotle himself argues that we can create a legitimate form of constitutional government by combining democracy and oligarchy Which themselves are bad and corrupt forms of Constitution He seems to be subject to the same criticism that he here levels against Plato But this criticism is tempered by Some nuances in the laws Plato actually advocates something like what Aristotle calls a constitutional government or polity or Republic quote the whole system of government tends to be neither democracy nor oligarchy But something in a mean between them, which is usually called a polity That's the end of the quote now a polity is probably the best kind of Constitution Which is attainable by most states, but it is certainly not the best kind of Constitution in an ideal sense That would be either an aristocracy or some kind of mixed Constitution like the Spartan Which has elements of oligarchy monarchy and kingship Because as Aristotle says the Constitution is better, which is made up of more numerous elements Finally Aristotle argues that the Constitution the laws is actually essentially an oligarchy and its democratic aspects are very weak For example in appointing magistrates, although Plato advocates using lots Which would normally be considered a democratic measure He limits the candidates to those that have already been selected which tends to entrench those who are already in power He also compels the rich to attend the assembly and vote on magistrates But he does not compel the poor to do so probably by fines And he also seeks to have candidates selected from the richest The greatest number and highest number of offices So all of those are oligarchic elements when you have that many oligarchic elements They dwarf and crush the democratic elements and you essentially end up with an oligarchy and So This ideal form of Constitution is nothing more than an oligarchy in Aristotle's views Now those are the criticisms of the Republic and the laws I'll conclude though Aristotle himself doesn't give an overall conclusion to the book I'll just give some general observations about his criticisms of Plato here in the politics book 2 First Aristotle discusses Plato's Republican laws first not out of deference, but according to a methodology that he proceeds From the most radical proposals for a constitution to less radical proposals beginning with Plato's own Republican laws and then carrying on to other name political theorists Which we'll discuss in the next lecture Phalaeus and hippodamus and then to actually existing models Sparta Crete and Carthage, which are also treated in a specific order with the Spartan being the most radical and general Paradigmatic of existing constitutions the others being Deviations from this that are less radical and then Aristotle ends up with a discussion of famous political theorists Who's theorizing did not reach to the entire constitutional structure, but just to individual laws or pieces of legislation Now Aristotle elsewhere criticizes other aspects of these works of Plato, especially the Republic Not only in his politics, but also in other works such as on the soul and metaphysics The criticisms here are narrowly focused on Constitutional proposals and not meant to be comprehensive criticisms even of those works like even of the detailed proposals for laws much less are they supposed to be a General criticism or rejection of Platonic philosophy in general Also Aristotle criticizes Plato on the basis of his own assumptions. We saw that in several cases For example about the nature of democracy oligarchy and constitutional government And he doesn't just use Plato's own assumptions and for this reason they may seem He may seem occasionally uncharitable against Plato But if one accepts Aristotle's definitions and classifications, then the arguments probably seem more reasonable and finally I Think it goes without saying that one of the things that Aristotle considers most ridiculous about Plato's Republic His position on women may seem on the contrary the most reasonable aspect of any of this to us So Aristotle's criticisms however were very likely to be persuasive to his immediate audience Which also would have considered ridiculous the idea of making Women equal to men in education military and politics But such arguments are much less persuasive than us. It's not even clear that their arguments are not just appeals to bias since We or at least most of us have come to accept the equality of women in education Military and politics that Plato in his Republic had merely imagined as a utopian ideal Thank you