Factions and the Paradox of Aristotelian Practical Science

Abstract

Politics V presents preserving and destroying the constitution as exhaustive alternatives, leaving no apparent room for improving the constitution. Aristotle claims that ‘if we know the causes by which constitutions are destroyed we also know the causes by which they are preserved; for opposites create opposites, and destruction is the opposite of security’ (V.8.1307b26–29). The first seven chapters present the causes by which constitutions are destroyed, and then chapters 8 and 9 show the causes by which they are preserved. Yet in important ways, the dictum is false: knowing the causes of constitutional change is not equivalent to knowing how constitutions are preserved, and, more radically, destruction and security are not the only alternatives facing someone in potentially revolutionary situations. The many ways in which knowledge of the causes of factions and knowledge of the methods of preservation are not equivalent supply the energy and interest that drive Book V’s argument.