Aristotle’s Theory of Partisanship
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6107771 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven Skultety (corresponding author), Steven C Skultety |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 208-232 |
| Publication date | 2008-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Polis The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0142-257X • E-ISSN: 2051-2996 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/20512996-90000132 |
| OpenAlex | W2057585672 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
This paper develops and defends a new interpretation of Aristotle’s conception of democratic and oligarchic identity. Rejecting interpretations that ground partisan identities in class, greed, or conceptions of justice, this interpretation posits that Aristotle thought of democrats and oligarchs as being defined by the confluence of four distinct traits: (1) having an incorrect conception of happiness, (2) having an incorrect conception of political desert, (3) suffering from an emotional defect, and (4) habitually inferring equality/inequality in all respects from one respect. The argument for this interpretation is that it best explains why Aristotle attributes a despotic attitude to partisans and it explains why democrats and oligarchs are depicted as being unstintingly hostile towards one another. The paper concludes by arguing that Aristotle chose these four traits in order to show that partisans are citizens who devote themselves to a life of discriminatory elitism
Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis · Chose · Class (philosophy · Democracy · Desert (philosophy · Economic Justice · Economics · Elitism · Epistemology · Happiness · Identity (music · Inequality · Interpretation (philosophy · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Sociology · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.38 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2020 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |