Aristotle and the Politics of Determination

NATURE AND RULE

Just as Socrates and Plato before him, Aristotle’s arguments concern themselves chiefly through category. When constructing a complex argument from its simplest features, we must be certain of that which everything following it is to rest on. As if we were to build a pyramid upside down, the brick that makes up the smallest region must bear the weight of the entire structure. In his opening Aristotle thinks he is being perhaps more axiomatic then he truly is. That is not to say that there are not axioms within, however his pivot-points begin in the semantic categorical foundation of The Politics in general; showcased in particular through the ‘natural’ ‘unnatural’ dichotomy.
Aristotle is right in supposing that the state, as it were, is a creation of nature and man by nature political, yet what is unfocused in the first three books is the condition in which Aristotle affords parts of social bodies in being natural or unnatural. The clearest examples are bedded in the most rudimentary form of rule, the family. The natural dominant (ruler) is the father to the dominated (ruled) child, and the husband to the wife. One could easily argue that the family is without a doubt of natural consistency, but of what partly lies beneath The Politics is a concern in explicating familial relationships. It could also be said that between only father and child the father naturally rules, however, by Aristotle’s own estimation, the natural stasis of the mother is of domesticity; not true of the father, leaving more then an ample amount of time in which the mother, or at the very least someone else, rules the child, irrespective of whatever rule the father might have, even if his presence takes precedent. What is the measure of natural domination between husband and wife? Aristotle elapses the entire query in a sentence; is its measure simply out of causal necessity? If so nothing in essence would keep from being natural, the shoemaker by contrast is unnatural. It must be, then, a measure of force. The husband, by nature, possesses more physical excellence then the wife thus she is dominated, conversely Aristotle says moreover that the union of the two in marriage is natural; would not physical domination be an unnecessary prerequisite for order if their very union is a natural agreement?
On another side of the coin lies the master/slave relation, in which the slave is by nature of slavish quality. Certainly physical capacity is not the qualification of the ruler here; the slave in so many respects benefits his master from his own physical excellence, which in turn benefit the slave for they have the same interests. Does the master then hold education or intellect above the slave, something of which, in Aristotle’s approximation, human capacity is attributed to? He begins to make light of the slave’s nature, blazoning it “expedient and right” and further justifying it, “For that some rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked of for subjection, others for rule.” (Aristotle 6, 1254a 20-24).
It seems that the natural prerequisite itself, in Aristotle, requires a force relation, in which one party rules and the other ruled; Aristotle’s very ontology imposes domination. The familial and master/slave roles discussed in the preceding paragraph become the class justifications for his citizens and non-citizens, and the same model of ruler/ruled becomes the analytical focus of all the types of states and governments speculated upon. Through this he retains something of Plato’s justice, of the most or common good, if not for any other reason then for its applicability. Nevertheless, Aristotle’s preoccupation in The Politics is, aside from nearly obligatory justice, rule implicit; even in discussing law, corporeal or not, it is always a matter of rule aimed at the most good.







CONTROL, CATEGORY, AND LIMITATION

The domination built into the entirety of Aristotle’s political theory is justified by the condition in which it maintains order; politics for Aristotle is thus. Rather it could be said that, in The Politics, order (reason) is the basic component that naturally gives humanity specificity, and as it gives us our character it is the most good/just. When reflected back on the constitution of a state, what then, is at stake within order and without it? Although on an effectual level, almost every notion concerning the configuration of politics, ethical, lawful or practical, has some impetus held in the Chimera; ‘natural’ order, reason, domination, and rule. However what is precisely at stake can be demonstrated simply through control and freedom.
Implicit in control as a means of order or rule as a means of control is limitation, not just for the geography and constitution of a state, but the limitation of every component within a state. “… to introduce order into the unlimited is the work of a divine power – of such a power as holds together the universe”, (Aristotle 162, 1326a 19-20). What is necessary for control is determination, both in direction and conception. It is necessary first for a determinant cause (the constitution of a state, a beginning and end) and its correlative determinant effects (the due interactions of citizens within a state according to the state, a means to an end) must have a finite relation to the world. More simply, finite quantity must presuppose quality, so that determination can first be brought forth out of control and a level of order and rule may be achieved. Accordingly, what a state gains in determination and control it loses proportionately in freedom, freedom prevails only in the lack of limitation, the true multitude.
As we said, order, as well as domination through it, is a Chimera; the error of the Aristotelian and dialectical methodology is seen necessarily in how it makes things intelligible. Again this is enumerated in limitation. The method is conflicted by the idea that things are only intelligible by those characteristics that make it unique, coupled with the fact that if implemented, it can make no differentiation unless some component is separated from others. Everything, then, must be confined to the finite, and finally it may be categorized. Each category is defined by its own ‘nature’, in so far as it is of its ‘nature’; this is the way in Aristotle is allowed to theorize the perfect state while excluding those residents who will disrupt its perfection i.e. slaves, women, resident aliens and other ‘non-citizens’. Likewise each category spawns its own model, in reciprocation, thus making the model an impossibility of being, and outside of language, an impossibility of thought.
Chance denudes the entire Aristotelian method, it is therefore the enemy of the state and of the stately citizen. Chance affirms the possible, the indeterminate, the infinite, and subsumes all control, even in domination. Aristotle himself knew this yet his hindsight disavows him, “And herein of necessity lies the difference between good fortune and happiness; for external goods come of themselves, and chance is the author of them…”, (Aristotle 157, 1323b 24-27). He later describes in Book VII happiness in a like manner of the relationship between external goods, one third of what from necessity a happy man must have (Aristotle 156), and that of chance, “Others again, who possess the conditions of happiness, go utterly wrong from the first in their pursuit of it.” (Aristotle 174 1332a 3-4), as if to say that happiness itself were authored by chance. In the freedom of chance, all are equal, and no one results the same. Happiness is found not in securing welfare or in excellence as such, but in the realm of the possible. Chance is what is just indiscriminately and what truly causes suffering is the reaction to ‘the unlimited’ with the retaliation of limitation; suffering for what it not in lieu of what is.