Aristotle's Politics of Morals

Cashdollar, Stanford

doi:10.1353/hph.2008.0771

Cited by 28 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The amazing neglect of the methodological statementswhich, as we will soon see, show that Aristotle's main (not sole) purpose is not so much theoretical as practical-is connected with the fact, to which T. Smith objects, that "while several scholars have noticed Aristotle's insistence on the practical intent of the philosophy of human affairs, for the most part it has not been raised to the status of guiding interpretive principle" (1994, 309 n. 5). Thus, attempts made by Cashdollar (1973); Schofield (2006); Striker (2006); and others to take into account "the practical intent of the philosophy of human affairs" suffer because they make about political things, something of the utmost significance, which is either omitted or distorted when we try to reduce politics to a science (Flyvbjerg 2001;Grant 2002;Sandel 2014;Taylor 1985;Wolin 1969).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Problem of Political Science: Political Relevance and Scientific Rigor in Aristotle's “Philosophy of Human Affairs”

Sebell

2015

American J Political Sci

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Treatments of Aristotle's moral-political science have largely disregarded the methodological statements that he delivers as he embarks on his "philosophy of human affairs" in book I of the Nicomachean Ethics. A consideration of these statements, however, lends critical support to the view that Aristotle sought to give the sharpest possible expression to ordinary moralpolitical opinion. Moreover, apart from revealing the by-no-means ordinary reasons that induced Aristotle to do so (and to do so in contrast to Plato), such a consideration sheds light on the source of the vagueness or ambiguity that defines moral-political opinion as such. Indeed, the methodological statements are perhaps the first entries in the old quarrel of "relevance versus rigor." And, through them, Aristotle suggests how political scientists today might walk a fine line between "politics," on one hand, and "science," on the other, without losing sight of the ultimate tension between them.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%