The City and Its Parts

Chapter 2

1. The Natural Development of Communities

• Study of Origins: Aristotle emphasizes the importance of studying things by looking at their natural development from the beginning.
• Conjoining for Necessity: Communities form from the necessity of individuals coming together, beginning with:
  • Male and female for the sake of reproduction (a natural instinct shared with animals and plants).
  • Ruler and ruled for the sake of preservation (the ruler, using foresight, governs the ruled, who labor for the community’s needs).
• Natural Ruling and Ruled: The distinction between ruler and ruled is natural, with the mind ruling the body, and master and slave benefiting equally from this structure.

2. Distinction Between Female and Slave, and the Barbarian Misconception

• Natural Roles of Female and Slave: Aristotle makes it clear that women are distinct from slaves by nature. Nature designs everything for a specific function, unlike tools which may serve multiple purposes.
• Barbarian Confusion: Among barbarians, there is no natural distinction between the roles of women and slaves. Their communities resemble those of slaves, leading to the belief that barbarians are naturally slaves.
• It is natural for Greeks to rule over barbarians.

3. The Formation of the Household and Village

• Household as the First Community: The household arises naturally from the union of male and female, and master and slave, to fulfill daily needs.
• Village as an Extension of the Household: The next stage in community development is the village, which arises from several households combining to fulfill needs that go beyond daily survival.
• Villages form a kinship-based structure, often under a king or elder figure, as a continuation of household authority.

4. The City as the Final and Complete Community

• The Self-Sufficiency of the City: The city (polis) is the complete form of community, arising from multiple villages. It achieves self-sufficiency, moving from mere survival to allowing its citizens to live well.
• Nature and the City: Since the city is the end of natural development, it is natural, and man is by nature a political animal.
• Someone without a city is either a beast or a god, as humans naturally seek to live in communities.

5. Speech, Reason, and Political Life

• Man as a Political Animal: Unlike other animals that communicate pleasure and pain through voice, human beings have speech, which allows them to express concepts of justice, injustice, good, and bad.
• This ability makes humans more political than any other animal, as communities are formed around shared ideas of justice and the good.

6. The City’s Priority over Individuals

• The Whole Before the Parts: Aristotle argues that the city is prior to the individual because the whole must exist before the parts. Just as a hand is not truly a hand without the body, individuals cannot achieve full self-sufficiency outside of the city.
• Humans are defined by their capacity to live in communities, and if they do not participate in the city, they are incomplete.

7. The Role of Law and Justice in Human Nature

• Human Capacity for Good and Evil: Humans are capable of great virtue when living according to law and justice, but without these guiding principles, they can become

  
  

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