Aristotle insists that man is either a political animal (the natural state) or an outcast like a “bird which flies alone” (4thC BC)
About this Quotation:
Aristotle’s statement that man is a “political animal” can be taken in a number of ways. One reading is to say that man is naturally sociable (the Pufendorf-Grotius line) and that they are naturally drawn to various political associations in order to satisfy their social needs. Another reading, which sees the word “political” in a less charitable light, might state that, since politics is based upon violence and threats of violence, the phrase emphasises the “animal” side of human nature rather than its rational and cooperative side. Those who turn their back on the violence inherent in politics, in Aristotle’s view, also turn their back on society - they declare themselves to be outlaws, without a “tribe”, and without a heart. His likening them to a “bird which flies alone” reminds me of the Rudyard Kipling story in The Just So Stories (1902) about “The Cat who walked by Himself”, because he of all the wild animals refused to be domesticated by human beings. Of course, there is also Robert Frost’s poem “The Road not Taken” (1920) with the line about choosing “the one less traveled by”. Is this such a bad thing?
Other quotes from this week:
- 2009: Mercy Otis Warren asks why people are so willing to obey the government and answers that it is supineness, fear of resisting, and the long habit of obedience (1805)
- 2006: Voltaire argued that religious intolerance was against the law of nature and was worse than the “right of the tiger” (1763)
- 2005: William Emerson, in his oration to commemorate the Declaration of Independence, reminded his listeners of the “unconquerable sense of liberty” which Americans had (1802)
Other quotes about Philosophy:
- 2010: Wollaston on crimes against person or property as contradictions of fundamental truths (1722)
- 2008: Plato believed that great souls and creative talents produce “offspring” which can be enjoyed by others: wisdom, virtue, poetry, art, temperance, justice, and the law (340s BC)
- 2006: J.S. Mill’s great principle was that “over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign” (1859)
- 2005: Wilhelm von Humboldt argued that freedom was the “Grand and Indispensable Condition” (1792)
- 2005: Thomas Hobbes sings a hymn of praise for Reason as “the pace”, scientific knowledge is “the way”, and the benefit of mankind is “the end” (1651)
- 2005: Voltaire lampooned the excessively optimistic Leibnitzian philosophers in his philosophic tale Candide by exposing his characters to one disaster after another, like a tsunami in Lisbon, to show that this was not “the best of all possible worlds” (1759)
- 2004: Jean Barbeyrac on the Virtues which all free Men should have (1718)
17 March, 2008
 | Aristotle insists that man is either a political animal (the natural state) or an outcast like a “bird which flies alone” (4thC BC) |
In his Politics, Aristotle believed man was a "political animal" because he is a social creature with the power of speech and moral reasoning:
Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either above humanity, or below it; he is the ‘Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one,’ whom Homera denounces—the outcast who is a lover of war; he may be compared to a bird which flies alone.
The full passage from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either above humanity, or below it; he is the ‘Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one,’ whom Homera denounces—the outcast who is a lover of war; he may be compared to a bird which flies alone.
Now the reason why man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere sound is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and likewise the just and the unjust. And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state.