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In this paper, I engage with the works of Richard Bodéüs about Aristotle’s understanding of the relationship between law, virtue, and education. I argue that there is an important difference between the demands of the law and those of reason, especially in the defective, but more common, regimes. This difference is also found in the best regime possible for most cities, the mixed regime Aristotle calls ‘polity’ (or, in Greek,politeia), insofar as it represents a balance between oligarchy and democracy. To educate citizens in this regime requires what Aristotle calls “political philosophy.”

In her magisterial Plato's Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert presents a radically new interpretation of Plato's dialogues. In doing so, she insists we must overcome reading them through the lens of Aristotle, whose influence has obscured the true nature of Plato's philosophy. However, in her works dealing with Aristotle's political science, Zuckert indicates several advantages of his approach to understanding politics. In this article, I explore the reasons why Zuckert finds Aristotle a problematic guide to Plato's philosophy as well as what she sees as the character and benefits of Aristotle's political theory. I conclude by suggesting a possible reconciliation between Zuckert's Aristotle and her Plato, insofar as both the Socrates whom Plato made his hero and Aristotle agree that political communities will rarely direct citizens toward virtue by means of law and that we must instead look to informal means of doing so.

Political theorists have recently emphasized the popular dimension of Aristotle’s political thought, and many have called attention to Aristotle’s assertion that certain multitudes should share in the city’s deliberations. In this article, I explore the “part of virtue and prudence” Aristotle believes necessary for a multitude to participate in political life. I argue, first, that military service helps citizens develop the “part of virtue” necessary for political participation and, second, that the “part of prudence” Aristotle has in mind is sunesis. I argue, moreover, that military virtue helps citizens acquire sunesis and guides its exercise. Aristotle recognizes the limitations and potential dangers of military virtue and attempts to avoid these, in part by offering a new understanding of military virtue to offset the Spartan. Understanding the “part of virtue and prudence” citizens have helps understand their role in a polity but also points to how those citizens, and their regime, can be improved.

Aristotle uses the same word—politeia—to describe both the genus of “regimes” and a particular species within that genus. I argue that this usage is a common practice in Aristotle's practical works and identifies the most developed species within its genus. Aristotle thus sees the regime of polity as more appropriate for developed communities than the regimes often taken to represent his ideals, i.e., kingship and aristocracy. Aristotle's understanding of the capacities, and limitations, of the multitude leads him to propose the mixed regime of polity as the best regime generally possible. While polity differs from the best regime simply discussed in Book VII, it still offers rich possibilities for both political and theoretical activity.

This article argues that Book I of the Politics represents Aristotle's critique of Plato's Eleatic Stranger on the specific character of political rule and the knowledge required for political rule, and that this critique produces a different understanding of the proper division of regimes and the relationship between political theory and practice. These differences can be traced to a more fundamental disagreement about nature: Aristotle sees nature as generally hospitable to human life and argues that the natural end or goal of political association is not mere life but the good life, while the Eleatic perceives nature as hostile and proposes a minimalist politics, aimed primarily at preserving life. Although the Eleatic's view of nature might appear to be closer to and more compatible with modern political thought, the conception of nature Aristotle presents in his Politics offers richer possibilities for political theory and political life.