THE USES AND ABUSES OF PHILOSOPHY: ARISTOTLES POLITICS V AS AN EXAMPLE Eugene Garver1

Abstract: Virtuous people, unlike the rich and poor, do not form factions. What, then, is the role of philosophical argument within political argument? Politics V can be read as a handbook of practical advice that will help any rulers to stay in power, but it in fact develops a more subtle, and radical, role for philosophy in political argument. Like virtue, philosophy cannot be partisan, but the philosophical understanding of faction that Aristotle presents here makes its own contribution to political stability.

Erotic necessities are probably better than geometrical necessities at persuading and compelling most people (Republic V.458d).2

Philosophy as Useless and as Authoritarian Thales was the first philosopher, and charges of the irrelevance of philosophy began with the story of him watching the stars and so falling into a well. A few generations later, Socrates brought philosophy down from the heavens and ethical philosophy generated a new and contrary accusation, that of imposing a grand rational plan on people and so denying human choice. Philosophy is either as useless as Thales or as authoritarian as Socrates.3 Politics III looks like a paradigm of philosophy, with all the standard dangers of possible uselessness and imperialism. It establishes scientific definitions for key terms, formulates demonstrative connections among the terms, and erects normative standards concerning justice to which all states and citizens should be responsive. It defines city, citizen and constitution, and shows that, of the three, constitution is the fundamental term which sets the meaning for city and citizen.4 Book III also provides the normative standards for politics. Correct constitutions aim at the good of all citizens, while in corrupt constitutions the rulers
Regents Professor of Philosophy, Saint Johns University, Collegeville, MN, 56321, USA. Email: egarver@csbsju.edu 2 Ou gemetrikais he, all ertikais anagkais, hai kinduneuousin ekinn drimuterai einai pros to peithein te kai elkein ton polun len. Reeve translates it slightly more literally as the necessities arent geometrical but erotic, and theyre probably better than the others at persuading and compelling the majority of people. Plato, Republic (2nd edn.), trans. G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis, 1992). 3 Of all those who start out on philosophy . . . most become quite queer, not to say completely vicious; while the ones who seem perfectly decent, do nevertheless suffer at least one consequence of the practice you are praising they become useless to cities (Republic VI.487c6d5). 4 Politics III.1.1275a22, b1321, 5.1278a15. HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXVI. No. 2. Summer 2005
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try to benefit only themselves.5 Correct constitutions live by rule of law, while deviant constitutions rule by decree and the individual decisions of the rulers. Correct constitutions aim at living well, while corrupt constitutions, like vulgar men, aim at life itself, at material goods such as wealth or honour. All constitutions, correct or not, embody their own sense of justice; each conception of justice is only a partial truth.6 If Aristotle succeeds in constructing this train of definitions and demonstrations, he will make it seem obvious that constitution is the fundamental term, and that it defines citizen and polis. The necessities of philosophical demonstrations can be seen as empty tautologies and circularities philosophy as useless or as an iron cage of necessity denying choice and autonomy philosophy as domination. To get a little distance from these necessities, we should ask: When Aristotle says that the constitution defines who is a citizen, whats the alternative? Who could disagree? What is at stake in this thesis? In fact, the priority of the constitution is not as obvious as he makes it seem. One could instead put the polis first. The polis stays the same despite constitutional changes. The polis is defined by historical continuity and the nomos of tradition. Alternatively, the people, the citizens, could come first. Start from people with natural rights. A sufficient number of those make a polis. In both those cases, something outside politics, history or natural rights, defines the central concepts of politics. Aristotle has avoided the two dangers of philosophy that I have represented by Thales and Socrates, by not standing outside politics. However, that success creates a new danger of abuse of philosophy, that of becoming a partisan. Philosophy as Partisan If philosophy stands outside politics, it is either useless or imperial, but if philosophy exists within politics, then it can be partisan and ideological. The issue of the practical uses of philosophy concerns the relationship between Aristotles discourse and thought and the discourse and thought of the statesman. Plato is criticized in Book II because he, and the others discussed there, try to solve political problems in a way that preempts any further deliberation in particular circumstances. How does Aristotle carve out a role for philosophy that doesnt usurp the workings of phronsis?7
Ibid., 6.1278b301279a21. I have explored the argument of Book III in E. Garver, Politics III and the Incompleteness of the Normative, Ancient Philosophy, 18 (1998), pp. 381416. 7 The right property arrangements are supposed to be a permanent escape from the contingencies of deliberation. Aristotles own emphasis on education as the fundamental way of addressing political problems makes political wisdom a continuing task rather than a settled body of knowledge. Aristotle is just as confident as Plato that he knows the truth about what is the best life; he differs on the relevance of that knowledge to practice. When education is fundamental to politics, there will be a continuity between political
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This ambiguity in the relationship between the Politics and ordinary political activity is reflected most crucially in the recurring issue about justice: is justice according to merit a third conception of justice alongside democratic and oligarchic justice, which respectively distribute offices according to equal freedom or unequal wealth, or are there only two possibilities, arithmetic vs. geometric equality, with justice according to merit a variant of the latter?8 The difficulty of securely placing justice according to merit as either a third kind of justice or as a species of geometric equality alongside oligarchic justice, present throughout the Politics, becomes especially acute in Book V. It would be much easier to understand the relation between philosophy and politics if justice according to merit were clearly either a third kind of justice or a kind of geometric equality. But either univocal answer to that question would provide a reductive answer to the question of the uses of philosophy. Relative to Book III, Book V is practical politics, and problems about the uses and abuses of philosophy emerge acutely there. The discussion of Book III generates a pair of issues about the uses of philosophy for Book V. First, Book III shows that who is a citizen, and what citizenship involves, depend on the constitution. Book V raises questions about how the statesman is to make use of this analysis. Those establishing a constitution dictate who is a citizen, and Aristotle has proved that there can be no appeal beyond what they do. Factions, though, arise because that direct imitation of Aristotles argument backfires. What, then, is the proper use of philosophy? Second, since Aristotle identifies the partial conceptions of justice on which all constitutions, or at least all democracies and oligarchies, rely, he himself must have a conception of absolute justice relative to which he can declare the conceptions of justice embodied in particular constitutions as partial. He does: such absolute justice is simply proportion to merit. One must wonder whether the truth Aristotle knows can be directly instantiated in a constitution of its own. That is precisely the question of the uses of philosophy. If absolute justice can be directly instantiated, does it follow that that is what we should do? If it cannot be directly instantiated, what does that failure tell us about the uses of philosophy, and about the nature of political wisdom?
philosophy and the activity of the statesman. As we will see, Book V ends with a criticism of Plato. Plato gets wrong the answers to my two questions. He fails practically and ethically. There is, according to Plato, no deliberation in an ideal state because it is ruled by theoretical reason, and no deliberation about constitutional change either because it is subject to necessity rather than practical thought. 8 Aristotle Politics Books V and VI, ed. David Keyt (Oxford, 1999), p. 147 (note to V.101310b3140). The word axia is a key term in Aristotles political philosophy and sometimes has a broad and sometimes a narrow sense. In the section before us he uses the word in a narrow sense in which it signifies one specific standard of worth, the aristocratic (see also III.5.1278a1920), rather than in the broad sense of his theory of justice where it is a mere place-holder for an unspecified standard of worth (see EN V.3.1131a249 and the note to 1.1301a25b4 above).

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Puzzles about the uses and abuses of philosophy come from the ambiguity in whether Aristotle is a partisan in disputes about justice, speaking in the name of virtue against those who will make justice proportional either to freedom or wealth, or speaking as a neutral analyst standing apart from factional disputes. The dangers of philosophy I have outlined suggest that neither partisan nor analyst can be a stable role for Aristotelian political philosophy. The problem of justice is the substantive version of the problem of the relation between political philosophy and practical wisdom, between Aristotle and the statesman. Constitutions are characterized by their conceptions of justice. Both Books III and V say that democracy and oligarchy judge partially, thinking that equality or inequality in one respect means equality or inequality as such.
All fasten on a certain sort of justice, but proceed only to a certain point, and do not speak of the whole of justice in its authoritative sense. For example, justice is held to be equality, and it is, but for equals and not for all; and inequality is held to be just and is indeed, but for equals and not for all; for they disregard this element of persons and judge badly.9 Though all agree about the just and the proportionately equal, they make a mistake about it . . . For democracy arose as a result of those who are equal in some respect supposing themselves to be wholly equal . . . whereas oligarchy arose as a result of those who are unequal in one respect conceiving themselves to be wholly unequal . . ..10

But Book V omits a normative consideration present in Book III. In III.9, democrats and oligarchs are doubly mistaken. They not only generalize about equality and inequality, thinking either that someone equal in some respect is simply equal, or that someone unequal in some respect is simply unequal, but in addition, of the most authoritative consideration they say nothing.11 Like the democrats and oligarchs, Aristotle himself in Book V says nothing of justice according to merit and its connection to the end of the city, the good life. Hence the conclusion of III.9 is absent from Book V: Those who contribute most to a partnership [in living well] have a greater part in the city than
Politics III.9.1280a913. Ibid., V.1.1301a2633. The Greek text of the Politics used here is W.D. Ross, Aristotelis: Political (Oxford, 1957). My translations are based on Carnes Lord, Aristotle: The Politics (Chicago, 1984); I make some modifications, and always substitute constitution for Lords preferred regime. For the Greek text of the Nicomachean Ethics, I have used Bywaters Oxford Classical Text edition (Oxford, 1894). I have consulted a variety of translations to keep the work fresh in my mind. Most of my translations are based primarily on, Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence C. Irwin (Indianapolis, 1985). For the Rhetoric, the text is R. Kassel, Aristotelis Ars Rhetorica (Berlin, 1971). My translations are based on Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, newly translated with Introduction, Notes and Appendixes by George A. Kennedy (New York and Oxford, 1991). 11 Politics III.9.1280a25.
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those who are equal or greater in freedom and family but unequal in political virtue, or those who outdo them in wealth but are outdone in virtue.12 Book V is silent where Book III offered normative standards. Is this a sign of the uselessness of philosophy? There is good reason for the normative standards of Book III to disappear when Aristotle faces the more practical issues of Book V. Book III notices the variability in the nature of citizen and constitution in different poleis. There are better and worse constitutions and so better and worse ways of defining citizen, but that doesnt mean that some constitutions fail to define citizen. What a given constitution says goes. I may have given my son a name that will cause him no end of unhappiness in his life, but I have still named him. Normative distinctions among constitutions seem irrelevant to the constitutions power to decide on the nature of citizenship. At the same time that philosophy becomes useless when it faces issues that concern power, philosophy also looks positively pernicious as it becomes a weapon of power of its own, which is what happens when the normative orientation of Book III is abandoned. One of the appeals of philosophy is that it rises above contests of strength to decide things by more objective standards. The corresponding danger is that such ascent is just another way of exercising power. The extreme democrats and oligarchs of Book V try to make the definition of citizen into a performative utterance in which saying makes it so. Who is a citizen is defined by the constitution; therefore by being in charge of the constitution we can define citizens as we like, and there is no appeal to a standard beyond what we say, no appeal to heaven. These democrats and oligarchs are simply doing to their opponents what Aristotle himself does in Book III. This is the revenge of the politicians on the philosophers: good philosophy becomes bad rhetoric.13 Democrats and oligarchs legislate their opponents out of the state through their definitions of citizenship, constitution and justice. I want to figure out what precisely they do wrong in seeming to follow Aristotle. Philosophical Necessity and Coercion The coherence and interdependence among the definitions in Book III is part of their scientific character. Performative utterances, in which saying makes it so, and to which there is no reply, are the practical imitations of necessary philosophical connections. And the extreme democrat or oligarch imitates Book III in another respect. These rulers dont simply take control of the state for themselves; they do so in the name of justice. Many different constitutions have come into being because, though all agree about the just and the
Ibid., 1281a37. Thomas Hobbes, On the Citizen, ed. and trans. Richard Tuck (Cambridge, 1998), p. 32: The method of starting with definitions and avoiding equivocation is of course the proper method for those who leave no opportunity for counter-argument.
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proportionately equal, they make a mistake (hamartia) about it.14 These corrupt rulers are in the happy position of believing that whatever is in their interest is just. They rule for the sake of the ruling class, not the polis as a whole, but they believe they rule for the benefit of the whole, since they get to define the whole. Aristotles neutral analysis can be used as a weapon by whoever is in power. That by itself is not criticism of Aristotle: there are no philosophical reflections that cannot be so used.15 But it will be a flaw in Aristotle if he has no philosophical response. Prior to a response, I can at least offer a diagnosis. The extreme democrats and oligarchs pictured in Book V go wrong because they want convention to do a job that only nature can do. The practical discourse of the statesman cannot fully imitate Aristotles own performance. It is true, as Aristotle demonstrated, that constitutions define citizenship. Therefore politicians infer that they can make their constitution define citizenship as they like. But theyre more ambitious than that. They claim both that whatever they say goes and that they are right, two assertions that dont sit easily together. If their dicta about who is a citizen and what citizenship is are claims about justice, then they are responsive to criteria outside themselves, and so cannot be performatives. If saying makes it so, then the propositions are not just except insofar as justice is defined by might. Without their adherence to partial definitions of justice, there would be no factions fighting over justice, only two sides competing for power. Aristotle does not take the assertions of justice in stasis as mere cover for the play of power. If all rulers were fully successful in combining performative power with justice, as those in Books VII and VIII are, factions would not arise. The definitions proclaimed by those rulers succeed not because they are better at performative utterances than the rulers of inferior states, but because in their ideal world considerations of birth, wealth and merit coincide. Only in the ideal state would we not have to worry about whether absolute justice was a third formula for justice alongside democratic and oligarchic conceptions. When a constitution embodies absolute justice, philosophy has direct implications for practice and does not have to try to be a neutral arbiter or a partisan. Gods propositions are performative let there be light and are just it was good, very good. The judgments of statesmen in the ideal state are
Politics V.1.1301a2526. As a human being is the best of the animals when perfected, so when separated from law and justice he is worst of all. For injustice is harshest when it has weapons, and a human being grows up with weapons for virtue and phronsis to use, which are particularly open to being used for opposite purposes (Politics I.2.1253a3235; see Republic I.333e334a). If it is argued that great harm can be done by unjustly using such power of words [as rhetoric], this objection applies to all good things except for virtue, and most of all to the most useful things, like strength, health, and military strategy (Aristotle, Rhetoric I.1.1355b25).
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similar. But what can philosophy say in Books IVVI, where attempts at such direct application generate my choice of sins? Philosophy and Appeals to Nature Since I will praise Aristotle for recognizing the limitations of philosophy and leaving room for a political wisdom imbued with character, I want to contrast the complexities of Book V with the simplicities of Book I, as well as those of Books VII and VIII. Who ought to be a citizen is a different sort of question from the question of who should be a slave addressed in Book I. The power of philosophy to answer particular practical questions is smaller and the need for phronsis consequently greater when the issue is the relation of free people to each other than when it is a question of the relation of natural masters and slaves. The nature discerned by the philosopher has direct practical implications for slavery, but not for political questions. Politicians who try to imitate Aristotle by making the definition of citizen into a performative utterance elide that difference. They end up treating free people as slaves as a result of confusing political with despotic rule. Therefore the central criticism Aristotle gives of Plato in Book II is that Plato reduced the practical unity of the polis to the natural unity of the family, destroying the polis in the process. A natural slave ought to be a slave in any polis. Conventional variations in who is a slave are errors. But there is no similarly natural answer to the question of who should be a citizen. Answers to that latter question have a variability that means that convention cannot be abandoned in favour of nature. The pre-political inquiry of Book I is far simpler than the questions central to politics itself. Seeing who ought to be a citizen, and making sense out of that question, take more practical intelligence than knowing who should be a slave. The Politics begins and ends with practical situations in which argument is unnecessary.16 Slaves must be made to obey. If words work better than force, by all means the master should use words. But commands are not arguments, and there is no talking back. Should a wife, child or slave dispute the head of households claim to rule, they should be punished and put in their place. These are not disagreements to be taken seriously. At the other extreme, in the perfect state, since claims to rule based on freedom, wealth and virtue coincide, there are no disputes about justice. Slaves may be necessary, as Book I argues, but can never be parts of the state. In the ideal state of Books VII and VIII, mechanics and labourers are similarly necessary conditions that are not parts of the state, while other states include such people as citizens.
16 I dont mean this as an argument about the order of the books. But it does make the ordering that ends with the ideal state appealing. Equally, if one prefers the other ordering, renaming Books IVVI as Books VIVIII, then the Politics will move towards practical problems for which the uses of philosophy are increasingly indirect. That ordering has its attractions, too. More on this at the end of this article.

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Disputes about justice are a permanent part of the circumstances of politics, and Book V looks at how those disputes cause factions and generate problems of stability. In such circumstances, can philosophy be anything more than rhetoric deployed as a weapon? Does the variability of politics silence philosophy? To illustrate the difference between the direct use of philosophy with regard to slavery and its indirect use for strictly political questions, consider these lines from Book IV:
If one were to regard soul as more a part of an animal than body, things of this sort the military element and the element sharing in justice as it relates to adjudication, and in addition the deliberative element . . . must be regarded as more a part of cities than things relating to necessary needs.17

In Book Is discussion of slavery, the mind/body analogy made slaves into necessary conditions rather than parts of the state. In Books IVVI these things are a matter of degree. The determinacy of who is a natural slave is replaced here by a flexibility of a more circumstantial inquiry. What does philosophy have to say in these more contingent circumstances in which words are both opposed to power and are a form of power? The issue is whether there is a role for philosophy beyond becoming a rhetorical weapon. Philosophy gives less determinate answers to political questions because people grasp only a part of justice. Oligarchs and democrats who aim at wealth and freedom engage in praxis, although a limited form, while slaves are merely instruments of praxis. Oligarchs and democrats do not aim at wealth and freedom as opposed to aiming at living well; wealth and freedom are their ways of living well. Oligarchies made wealth a thing of honor.18 Mankind meet together and maintain the political community also for the sake of mere life (in which there is possibly some noble element).19 Those who aim at wealth and freedom have their own sense of justice. While it diverges from justice according to merit, it still has to be taken into account, unlike the desires and opinions of slaves, which can be dismissed as simply mistaken. For the philosopher to step in and give his own full account of justice in such a situation would reduce the claims of oligarchs and democrats to rationalizations. In Book III constitutions that aim at freedom or wealth are corrupt constitutions, but here in Book V, aiming at wealth and freedom, as oligarchs and
17 Politics IV.4.1291a2428. See too VI.8.1321b67: Without the necessary offices it is impossible for a city to exist; without those that relate to its good arrangement and order, it is impossible for it to be finely administered. Books VII and VIII can follow Books IIII in opposing life to the good life, while in Books IVVI, living well will be living, aiming at wealth and honour, but in such a way that the good life emerges as the perfection, not the contrary, of such more vulgar ends. 18 Politics III.15.1286b15. 19 Ibid., III.6.1278b25.

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democrats do, is a truncated way of aiming at the good life, not a matter of satisfying immediate needs, which is supposedly all that slaves are capable of. Direct philosophical intervention would denigrate those partial ways of aiming at living well.20 Debunking the claims to justice on the part of democrats and oligarchs will be philosophy as authoritarian, making things worse. The distinction between correct and corrupt constitutions, so fundamental to Book III, is absent from Book V. When Aristotle talks about the measures statesmen can take to improve the constitution, it is unclear whether the reformed democracy or oligarchy becomes a polity or aristocracy or simply a better democracy or oligarchy, unclear because those distinctions do not exist for the statesman of Book V.21 The distinction between correct and corrupt constitutions, so fundamental to Book III, is absent from Book V. Book V doesnt treat aristocracies and polities in chapters 57 and monarchies in chapters 10 and 11 any differently from how it analyses the democracy and oligarchy. The fact that the correct/corrupt distinction, crucial to Book III, does no work in Book V, is symptomatic of the difference between Books III and V that constitutes the practical use of philosophy. When these normative distinctions disappear, philosophy is not silent, but Book V will not distinguish preserving the state from improving it. The statesman in circumstances of faction achieves reform of the state only by aiming at stability.22 Because oligarchs and democrats aim at justice and therefore at living well,23 albeit in an incomplete way, their voices need to be heard. Democrats and oligarchs assume that because they are equal or unequal in some salient respect, they are equal or unequal in virtue.24 While their claims to justice may be partial, these are claims about justice. Factions are not mere conflicts of interest, but conflicts between people who think they have justice on their side. Therefore philosophy has to figure out a way to become dialogical. How
Ibid., I.2.1252b2829. Peter Simpson, A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle (Chapel Hill and London, 1998), p. 288, n. 8: Some scholars believe that Aristotles proposals for reforming regimes in the books that follow all involve changing the existing regime into another one, as say into a measured form from an extreme one so, R.G. Mulgan, Aristotles Political Theory, An Introduction for Students of Political Theory (Oxford, 1977), p. 134, and C.J. Rowe, Aims and Methods in Aristotles Politics, Classical Quarterly, 27 (1977), pp. 15972. But in fact a regime that is made less extreme, or stabilized where it is, is reformed but is still the same regime, for it will still have the same ruling body (which is what defines regimes) save that this ruling body will be less self-destructive in the way it exercises control. 22 This thesis about Politics V requires separate treatment, which I give in E. Garver, Factions and Constitutional Change, Polity (forthcoming), and in E. Garver, The Revolt of the Just, Aristotles Politics and Contemporary Politics, ed. Lenn Goodman and Robert Tallesio (forthcoming). 23 Politics III.9.1280a911, III.13.1283a2342, V.1.1301a25b4. 24 Ibid., III.9.1280a2225, V.1.1301a28b1.
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can statesmen use philosophy to learn how to persuade, rather than command, the opposition? Philosophy as Dialogical The most obvious way for philosophy to enter the world of factions is to become rhetorical and supply arguments on both sides of any question. Philosophy participates in political argument as a hired gun available for partisan uses. Politics V doesnt do that. Even Aristotles Rhetoric doesnt present a hired gun conception of rhetoric, and political philosophy can learn something from the Rhetoric about how to avoid this particular philosophical temptation. While the art of rhetoric can find arguments on both sides, the rhetorician shouldnt argue indifferently on either side, like the sophist who will advocate whatever would serve his client. The orator should have the power to convince about (peithein) opposites, as in syllogisms . . . not that we should do both (for one ought not to convince people to do wrong), but that we will not miss the way things really are.25 Both the philosophers advice in Book V and the rhetoricians behaviour in the Rhetoric are one-sided. In rhetoric, the rhetorician who follows Aristotles precepts argues on the side of what is right. But Politics V sets its sights lower than in rhetoric, on the side of the existing constitution. According to the programme announced at the beginning of Book V, we have to understand the causes of constitutional change, but we have to know how to preserve constitutions.26 Preserving the constitution is part of the statesmans art; overthrowing a constitution is not. The rhetorician has to understand arguments on both sides in order not to be surprised and to know which arguments to make on the side of the right; the statesman has to know the causes of faction, not to cause faction, but to know how to resist it. By restricting himself to methods of achieving stability, Aristotle seems to take the side of the extreme democrats and oligarchs who imitate him by trying to solve political problems by definitional fiat. They act as though whoever is in power should stay in power, that might makes right. Here is where Aristotles own method avoids the abuses of philosophy. He takes that partial truth grasped by democrats and oligarchs and makes it into a complete truth, as methods of preservation become methods of converting corrupt into correct constitutions, correct by the measure of Book V. Rhetoric is a faculty for arguing both sides of any question, but still is oriented to truth. The Rhetoric shows how finding arguments, even in aid of a bad or losing cause, can be a noble activity. Political wisdom encounters a situation in which both sides grasp partial truths about justice. It is the task of political wisdom to preserve existing constitutions. Politics V shows how preserving
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Aristotle, Rhetoric I.1.1355a2932. Politics V.1301a2025.

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the constitution can be a noble activity. This is how philosophy can be dialogical instead of either imperial or rhetorical. Especially in V.9, some of the methods of preservation are actually methods for improving the constitution.27 While for purposes of governance someone excluded from citizenship is not a part of the state, for purposes of understanding factions, people who fail the test of a particular constitution but who could be citizens in other poleis still are citizens. They are citizens in the sense that they have to be persuaded, not commanded. Definitional fiat will legislate problems out of existence, but that is a self-defeating strategy. Monarchies no longer exist because too many people think themselves capable of ruling and wont recognize anyone as superior.28 People dont sit still for definitional fiat. Greeks show how civilized they are by distinguishing between despotic and political rule, and consequently between despotic and political kinds of persuasion. While Ethics V.6 says that we can only have relations of justice and injustice among fellow citizens, Politics V.8 shows that we have to have relations of justice towards the free men who are not citizens. This is not a shift from a more idealistic to a more realistic view, but a new challenge to political wisdom and to the uses of philosophy.
The justice of a master and that of a father are not the same as the justice of citizens, though they are like it; for there can be no injustice in the unqualified sense towards things that are ones own, but a mans chattel, and his child until it reaches a certain age and sets up for itself, are as it were part of himself, and no one chooses to hurt himself (for which reason there can be no injustice towards oneself). Therefore the justice or injustice of citizens is not manifested in these relations; for it was as we saw according to law, and between people naturally subject to law, and these as we saw are people who have an equal share in ruling and being ruled.29 One should see that not only some aristocracies but even some oligarchies last, not because the constitutions are stable, but because those occupying the offices treat well those outside the regime as well as those in the governing body those who do not have a share, but not acting unjustly toward them and by bringing into the constitution those among them who have the mark of leaders, not acting unjustly toward the ambitious by depriving them of prerogatives or toward the many with regard to profit.30

The partial definitions of democracy and oligarchy put those whom they exclude into a practically unstable position, not quite out of the state and not quite in it either, citizens by one standard and not by another. This instability
27 I consider this tacit shift from preservation to reform in Garver, Factions and Constitutional Change. 28 Politics III.1286b422. 29 Nicomachean Ethics V.6.1134b1017. 30 Politics V.8.1308a39.

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comes from the attempted combination I noted earlier of a performative utterance with claims to following normative standards outside the utterance itself. The excluded arent slaves, or resident aliens, and they arent quite citizens either. Faction is the rational response to such an ambiguous position. Once the democrats and oligarchs in power realize that, they have to rethink how to treat the opposition. Being dialogical means that the constitution should define citizenship in such a way that it continues to be a democracy or an oligarchy, but with the recognition that it is one constitution among several possibilities. While the great distinction between correct and corrupt constitutions disappears from Book V, recognizing that ones constitution is one among many possibilities makes any constitution better. Specifically, when I know that my democratic or oligarchic justice is only partial justice, I will extend relations of justice to non-citizens. That is a powerful contribution of philosophy to practice. Book III equates the distinction between corrupt and correct constitutions with that between constitutions that aim at mere life and at the good life, and between those which rule for the benefit of the rulers or for the whole polis. Book V approaches correct constitutions, the good life, and the benefit of the whole through the statesmans rational methods of achieving stability. The crucial distinction is between despotism and political rule, between command and persuasion: Those constitutions that look to the common benefit turn out, according to what is unqualifiedly just, to be correct, whereas those which look only to the benefit of the rulers are mistaken and are deviations from the correct constitutions. For they are like rule by a master, whereas a polis is a community of free people.31 The political science of Book III constructs the strongest scientific connections between terms: necessary connections. The strongest corresponding practical connection is a performative utterance. Science succeeds when its opposition is silenced. There are no counterarguments against necessary connections. Performative utterances, in which saying makes it so, similarly admit no rejoinders. But praxis fails when it tries to silence the opposition. Necessary connections become coercive. Tyranny, we learn at the end of Book V, is unstable. The statesman is better off with a weaker connection between constitution, city and citizen, not a definition of constitution in which saying makes it so, but a persuasive and circumstantial definition of constitution which establishes probable, and desirable, connections between constitution, city and citizen.32
Ibid., III.6.1279a1621. For a contemporary example of what is to one party philosophical necessity, but looks to another party like coercion, see Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (Princeton and Oxford, 2001), p. 20: The idea of rights as trumps implies that when rights are introduced into a political discussion, they serve to resolve the discussion. In fact, the opposite is the case. When political demands are turned into rights
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It might sound odd to prefer a weaker argument, but there is an important sense in which we should. Book V is one long argument that shows that moderation, which might otherwise be seen as weakness, is the source of stability and of political excellence. In the same way, politicians should not think that they can profit from the necessary connections of the philosopher. Outsiders have to be persuaded that they will not be injured by being excluded, and that others should rule. As Aristotle says: People governed in this way are necessarily governed well; the offices will always be in the hands of the best, while the people being willing and not envious of the respectable.33 The active citizenship of the Greek polis takes energy, commitment and abilities that many people dont have and dont want to have, so it would be easier to persuade them not to participate in the constitution than it would be to persuade people today, with our less active conception of citizenship. At the same time, citizens must be persuaded to act politically rather than despotically. The end result of a correct constitution is friendship (philia and homonoia) of both citizens and non-citizens toward the constitution, and consequently friendship among the citizens and between citizens and non-citizens. Philosophy and Phronsis: Logos and thos Thinking that some connection among ideas is necessary removes the need to create, develop and fortify the relationship between people. Justice then makes friendship unnecessary. Philosophy makes bad rhetoric certainty is unpersuasive because it makes us think our job is done once we have made connections among ideas. When people refuse to accept putatively necessary relationships, the temptation is then to use compulsion, to force people to be free. Necessary connections remove the need for engaging the thos and passions of the parties being related. We should be glad that attempts to depopulate the moral world by replacing people with ideas fail. Demonstrative connections are too strong for politics, certainly for the world of political factions. But simply weakening the connections among terms by itself doesnt make things better. It doesnt help to say that a constitution usually or partially defines the citizen. For example, one could think that while the constitution defines who is a citizen, considerations of interest or sympathy imply that we shouldnt act despotically towards those whom we exclude from the constitution. Outsiders have no rights that we should respect, but we should still hold back from doing everything that our position in power allows. The trouble with that line of thought is that it balances Aristotles demonstrations from Book III with further, distinct, ethical claims. It maintains that Aristotles science is incomplete because there are further considerations he doesnt think about. While this is a coherent and respectable
claims, there is a real risk that the issue at stake will become irreconcilable, since to call a claim a right is to call it nonnegotiable . . .. 33 Politics VI.4.1318b3336.

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form of moral reasoning, it is very far from Aristotles own way of thinking. This is no way to treat a scientific demonstration. When facing constitutional change, the interdependence between constitution, city and citizen that was a scientific virtue becomes a vicious circle. Non-citizens have no reason to accept the claims of the constitution, since those claims are partisan. Anything said in such a context is partisan, regardless of the truth or honesty of the speaker. That Aristotle is on their side makes the claims no less partisan, only more self-righteous. In disputes between factions, both sides uphold competing conceptions of justice. Even though Aristotle may be offering a true analysis of constitutions, in such a world it cannot exist as anything other than a partisan statement. In the same way, true justice consists in proportion to merit. But in the context of factions, claims to true justice cannot exist as anything other than a partisan statement, which is why Aristotle does not promote a party of virtue.34 Using performative definitions to imitate Aristotle is an attempt to escape the world of partisanship into a pure realm of truth and justice. Demonstrative necessities become the pretext for silence and coercion. That is almost a definition of self-righteousness.35 What, then, is the alternative to refuting Book III by showing its practical irrelevance? In the world of factions, nothing is impartial. Does philosophy have any role in such a world? The statesman shouldnt ignore Aristotles demonstrative connections. He should instead convert them from being purely logical into ethical connections. The politician who tries to rely on Aristotle or succeed by definitional fiat lives by logos alone. The statesman should instead make Aristotles thesis, that constitutions define citizens, into an ethical proposition: that citizenship acknowledges something that is embodied in his character.36 In my epigram I quoted Plato, Erotic necessities are probably better than geometrical necessities at persuading and compelling most people.37 Aristotle repeats Platos point, but as usual, toning down the passion. The crucial issue then is how the statesman can convert logical truths into ethical ones. What does it mean to change a logical truth into an ethical one? That general problem of the relation between political philosophy and phronsis is especially acute here, not only because Book Vs world of factions seems to call for a hermeneutics of suspicion since it looks like a place where reason fails to function but because the logical or scientific
See Garver, The Revolt of the Just. I consider the performance of Socrates in the Protagoras, a situation where all claims will be heard as interested and combative, in E. Garver, Can Virtue Be Bought?, Philosophy and Rhetoric (forthcoming). 36 That connection between logical and ethical connections is the subject of E. Garver, For the Sake of Argument: Practical Reasoning, Character and the Ethics of Belief (Chicago, 2004). 37 Plato, Republic V.458d.
35 34

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truth in question is a definition, and its apparent rhetorical counterpart the pure assertion. Since practical argument will be more sensitive to circumstances, a single logical truth can be embodied in several different ethical arguments. How the necessary connections of Book III become practical truths depends on the thos of the particular constitution.38 Ethical reasoning has more stages than the logical simplicities of Book III. When Aristotle says in the Rhetoric that premises cannot be too far from their conclusions, he reminds us that rhetorical and ethical argument can contain more stages than a theoretical argument, since each probable connection has to be made plausible to its audience. Ethos gives meaning to abstract propositions; it determines which of the logically possible implications of a given proposition can be affirmed. In this case, an ethical argument must begin with the constitution which defines who is a citizen, and, via the democratic or oligarchic thos, lead to the conclusion that rulers must treat non-citizens well. That seems like a long distance to travel. Philosophy, Aristotle says, begins with wonder. We start by marvelling that the diagonal could be incommensurable with the sides of a square, and end by marvelling that anyone could think otherwise. Here we start by marvelling that anyone with the power to define citizenship should act moderately rather than despotically, and we end wondering why anyone should be so short-sighted as to choose despotism. The philosopher offers two discoveries to statesmen about the relations between their respective activities. First, philosophy is incomplete. Except in rare circumstances exemplified in Politics I and then in VII and VIII philosophical truths cannot be directly instantiated; except in those circumstances it is a mistake, an ethical and practical mistake, to try. The incompleteness of philosophy creates an opportunity for freedom and autonomous decisions by the statesman. Second, the statesman has to learn the harder truth that such freedom does not mean the freedom to do as one likes, as democrats like to believe, or that might makes right, as oligarchs tend to think. The indeterminate nature of philosophical truth is an opportunity for practical deliberation about what is best in the circumstances. Philosophical truths are incomplete, but true nevertheless; they cannot be ignored, but have to be incorporated into the statesmans character. Man, as a principle of action, is a union of desire and intellect.39 Practical philosophy is incomplete without thos. Extreme democrats and oligarchs start from the same thesis from Politics III and reason more simply: since the constitution defines who is a citizen, rulers can do as they like, and can treat non-citizens as they like. The constitution necessarily defines the citizen. But once that definition is made, we leave necessity for the realm of the arbitrary. This is the same fallacy we find when
38 39

Politics IV.11.1295a40b1, VII.8.1328a41b2. Nicomachean Ethics VI.2.1139b45.

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people discover that a founding document like the US Constitution doesnt uniquely determine all practical issues. The thought is that if we leave a field of total determinacy, we enter into the realm of the indeterminate. If those are the only alternatives, then persuasion is fraud, and political friendship impossible. Logic is the only way to bind ideas together, and interest is the only means of binding people. If extreme democrats and oligarchs think that rulers can do as they like, how can statesmen with political wisdom criticize that inference and substitute a better one? What is the ethical argument that replaces that simple retracing of Aristotles logical argument? The function of philosophy is to provide logoi which are made determinate through a particular thos. Decision requires both understanding and thought and also a state of character; for acting well or badly requires both thought and character.40 Political philosophy offers reasonings which are made determinate by the thos of a particular constitution. Book V, and Books IVVIII overall, are still philosophy, but they help supply continuity between the necessity of Book III and the probability of actual ethical arguments made by statesmen in particular circumstances. Practical wisdom acknowledges that the constitution defines who is a citizen but it sees that thesis as raising the question of how citizenship should be defined. Freedom here is not the ability to do as one likes but to do what is best. When we leave the realm of necessity we dont enter that of the arbitrary but the field of deliberation. This is the field of the probable, and it takes thos to judge probabilities. The constitution defines who is a citizen, and therefore the thos of the particular constitution will lead from the general principles of Book III to decisions about what to do. The particular thos of a particular constitution will lead from general principles to determinate decisions. It goes where philosophy cannot. Philosophy and Phronsis as Practical Activities All deliberation is guided by a conception of what is best. The best, though, we learn at the beginning of IV.1, is ambiguous. The meaning of best appropriate for Book V is best on a hypothesis.41 When the statesman finds himself in a democracy or an oligarchy, aiming at the best means aiming at preserving the given constitution. Democratic and oligarchic constitutions are best maintained through an education in harmony with the constitution. The greatest of all the things [that make] constitutions lasting though it is now slighted by all is education relative to the constitution.42 With such an thos, the statesman, whether in a democracy or an oligarchy, lives politically. The ruler with a constitutional thos will treat outsiders well, not out of
40 41 42

Politics VI.2.1139a35. Ibid., IV.1.1288b1733. Ibid., V.9.1310a1214.

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sympathy or interest, but because mutuality and friendship are part of his character, his thos as a ruler within this constitution. The rich are citizens in a democracy, although not qua rich. Treating them justly means letting them continue to be rich precisely how rich will be a prudential judgment that Aristotle cannot make, but must leave to the statesman. Being a citizen in a democracy does not preclude one from being wealthy. The situation is more complicated in the question of how oligarchy treats the poor. If the oligarchy treats them justly, they become citizens in the modern sense of rights holders rather than potential rulers. They are excluded from important offices, but not from justice. The offices with the most authority, which should be retained by those in the constitution, must have expensive public services attached to them, so that the people may be willing to forego sharing in them, and may feel indulgence for their rulers as having paid heavily for the office.43 The ethical and practical argument of Book V draws on another feature of the logos of Book III. The definition of citizen in Book III applies best in a democracy. There is no implication there, or elsewhere, that we should therefore prefer democracy. But we learn at V.8.1308a15 that all constitutions contain a dmos within the rulers, who should treat each other equally and democratically. Even without the indefinite offices which Aristotle says define the constitution most properly in a democracy, there is an element of democratic thos in every constitution. Since factions arise not only from the people excluded from the constitution, but, especially in oligarchies, from within the ruling class,44 preservation is as much a matter of how best to treat fellow citizens as how to treat the outsiders. Rulers treat fellow rulers democratically. Although they cant extend that courtesy to those excluded from the constitution, they can treat these outsiders politically. While the strategy with regard to slavery is to maximize the distance between masters and slaves, the statesman aiming at security and trying to dampen the threat of factions should behave in the opposite way. Treating outsiders politically means, minimally, refraining from injustice. Injustice is only possible towards fellow members of a community.45 Therefore, however the constitution defines citizenship, and however justice is limited to fellowcitizens, the constitution never defines our relations to non-citizens despotically. The statesman will maintain his constitutions distinction between citizens and non-citizens, but will not identify that distinction as a line between people one must treat justly and those outside the law whom one can treat despotically. The constitution may be restrictive, but not the thos of its rulers.
Many practices that are held to be characteristically democratic overturn democracies and many of those that are held to be oligarchical overturn
43 44 45

Ibid., VI.7.1321a3234. Ibid., V.6.1305b1137, 1306a1320. Recall Nicomachean Ethics V.6.1134b1017, quoted above.

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oligarchies. Those who suppose this to be the single virtue pull the constitution to an extreme.46

A constitution may be primarily a democracy or an oligarchy and only secondarily a constitution, but the thos of a good ruler is primarily the thos of a citizen living constitutionally, and only secondarily someone living democratically or oligarchically. Man is a political animal, not a democratic or oligarchic animal. Becoming dialogical means recognizing this truth about oneself. This ethical improvement will often imply institutional changes in the constitution, and these are the detailed methods of preservation of Book V. But Book V is saved from being a handbook of preservation by recognizing that preservation is actually a means to constitutional improvement. Restricting justice in the full sense to the relations among fellow citizens does not preclude, but indeed implies the application of justice in a looser sense to the other free people in the polis. In Book V, there is no access to who should be a citizen apart from the partisan claims of democrats and oligarchs. The crux of the ethical argument comes in the discovery in V.9 that the best means of preserving states improve them. In the Rhetoric Aristotle rejects the uses of thos defined outside the argument, ones reputation or the trappings of character for a modern example, the need of contemporary politicians to surround themselves with a multiracial backdrop to make room for an thos developed by the argument itself.47 When one argues ethically, one argues better. Similarly, Politics V rejects antecedent distinctions of better and worse some states are better than others, some revolts more justified in order to develop the goodness of a constitution that comes from choosing the right methods of achieving stability. Insisting on the distinctions of Book III between correct and corrupt constitutions, between aiming at life and the good life, would only impede the ethical project of Book V.48 This, then, is an ethical argument not only because the character of those making and receiving the argument is involved the extreme democrats and oligarchs who see their position as the opportunity for despotism reveal their thos too but in the more restricted and normative sense that phronsis as well as the more abstract reasoning of Book III is engaged. The phronimos abandons what are here external standards of value in order to develop forms of political goodness within his own ethical activities. The statesman can know that the considerations of Book III are not by themselves a complete guide to action, and that he must also rely on ethical considerations. Just as the statesman discovers democratic equality within any constitution, so he discovers justice as proportion to merit within the operations of stability.
46 47 48

Politics V.9.1309b1924. Aristotle, Rhetoric I.2.1356a813. See Garver, The Revolt of the Just.

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Aristotle investigates the circumstances under which non-citizens will be satisfied with the rule of others, since that is how constitutions are preserved. For most people, he thinks, not being treated unjustly is good enough, and they are happy to avoid heavy burdens of active citizenship, especially if they cant make a profit from being in office.49 Instead of relying on definitional fiat, the statesman gets rid of faction by aiming at the good life. We aim at the good life under the flag of preservation. A constitution that aims at the good life, then, does not stop being a democracy or an oligarchy; it just becomes a correct rule of the many or of the wealthy. Ethical argument creates a distinction, unknown to extreme democrats and oligarchs, between living democratically or oligarchically and ruling democratically or oligarchically. To be educated relative to the constitution is not to do the things enjoyed by oligarchs or proponents of democracy, but rather to do the things that will enable them, respectively, to govern in an oligarchic or democratic way.50 This distinction replaces the correct/corrupt distinction of Book III. The democratic or oligarchic constitutional thos expresses itself in ruling democratically or oligarchically. It interprets its power to define citizenship who is a citizen, what are the powers of citizenship, what is the relation between citizens and non-citizens according to its peculiar constitutional thos. Aristotles own argument in Politics V embodies no thos. It has to be judged by scientific, not ethical, standards. The statesman using it takes those logoi and thinks through them ethically, deliberates about how they can lead to decisions and actions. He has to figure out what they mean in particular circumstances. The statesman will know how to mollify outsiders, making them less disposed to engage in faction, prevent the injustices against which factions react, and remove the occasions of faction that give them hope of success. That is the practical use of philosophy.51 I have identified a very common fallacy. It consists in thinking that one can impose patterns of reasoning on people. It is often misdiagnosed as forgetting that something can be true in theory but not in practice. If the abuse of reason consists in trying to rely on reason alone, then maybe the remedy is to use less reason. I doubt that that diagnosis is faithful to Aristotles own way of thinking. While the fallacy is easy to identify, the corresponding valid way of thinking is not. There is no general remedy to this fallacy, except to reason ethically. The statesman will understand Aristotles argument and interpret it according to the thos of his constitution and according to his particular circumstances. The
See too Politics IV.13.1297b610. Ibid., V.9.1310a1922; see too VI.5.1319b331320a4. 51 Lest one be too harsh on the policy of making outsiders satisfied with their fate, especially by refraining from injustice towards them, at least those outsiders know that they arent part of the polis. It seems to me ethically and politically superior to an oligarchy consolidating its rule by persuading most of the people that they are living in a democracy when they are not.
50 49

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thos, in turn, allows the statesman to go where argument alone cannot, to confront the particulars unintelligible to reason alone. Ethical argument is more circumstantial than purely logical reasoning, which is why there is no general remedy. Instead one can only point to examples such as Aristotles performance in Politics V.52 Eugene Garver SAINT JOHNS UNIVERSITY

52 This paper was improved by the useful criticisms of Sandra Peterson and Betty Belfiore, as well as the editor of HPT.