Aristotle's Understanding of the Naturalness of the City

Abstract

The characteristically Aristotelian defense of the city's authority over its members is summarized in the statements “every city exists by nature” and “man is by nature a political animal.” These doctrines distinguish Aristotle not only from such of his predecessors as the Sophists and Plato but also from two leading schools of contemporary political thought, liberalism and Marxism. Aspiring to assess the merits of Aristotle's unique approach to the problem of political authority, this paper examines Aristotle's teaching on the relationship between nature and the city. This relationship is shown to be far more complex than is implied in the doctrine that the city is natural. I conclude by wondering why Aristotle addressed the problem of political authority with a doctrine he shows to be merely provisional and why he addressed it with this particular provisional doctrine.