Aristotle’s Politics

For nearly a thousand years before him, Christians had thought of Christ’s Kingdom in Platonic terms drawn from Augustine of Hippo, which tended to devalue the world of experience in favor of usually unattainable spiritual visions. Aristotle, known to Medieval Christian thinkers as “the Philosopher,” did the Western world an incalculable service by creating a basic political theory grounded in keen observation of the actual affairs of people in real societies. When Christians recovered Aristotle’s ethical and political texts in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, their thinking about how faith impacts and changes society underwent a major reformation the results of which are still felt today. Indeed, it has been argued that much of Modern political thought is distinctively a reaction to Aristotle, and that this has, on balance, not been a good thing for human societies.

This 16-week (1 semester) course will acquaint the student with the basic political theories of Aristotle and show how they impacted Christian thought in the Middle Ages and beyond.

Course Objectives:

1. To master the basics of Aristotle’s ethics and politics as Greek cultural achievements
2. To gain understanding of Aristotle’s impact on Christian political thinking
3. To practice and refine the skills of close analytical reading of a smaller amount of text as both a way to better interpret texts in general and as preparation for such study requirements on the college level

Texts:

• Joe Sachs, trans., Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics - ISBN-10: 1585100358
• Joe Sachs, trans., Aristotle, Politics - ISBN-10: 1585103764