دانلود کتاب فلسفه سیاسی ارسطو تحقیقی در اخلاق، سیاست و بلاغت نیکوماخوس

The ethical and political phenomena that Aristotle examines are the starting point for all political action and understanding. My first purpose is to clarify these phenomena. My second, related purpose is to explore Aristotle’s view of them, in a single work. Aristotle is the first thinker to address these phenomena directly in their own terms. He is vital in helping us disperse the contemporary haze that obscures or distorts them. My third purpose is to examine whether today’s opinions and institutions negate the importance of the phenomena Aristotle addresses or the truth of his understanding. Aristotle argues that practical happiness is achieved through ethical virtue and that virtue is linked to practical reason and to a natural, rationally comprehensible order of political excellence. But many today believe that happiness consists simply in satisfying desire. Others claim that judgment and meaning are encapsulated within various competing group identities. And some claim that morality consists of universal rules that should restrain behavior but do not constitute happiness. Aristotle also argues that the heart of politics is a community’s form of government (or “regime”) and the competing claims to rule of the virtuous, wealthy, and equally free. But we today apparently are governed democratically through formal, legitimate political parties and extensive administrative bureaucracies and directed by vast “private” institutions that shape commerce, education, and public opinion. In any event, Aristotle studies the political life of slave-holding cities with perhaps at most 40,000 citizens and 150,000 inhabitants, not countries with populations in the tens or hundreds of millions. How, then, can what he examines still be significant? In these areas and others, I show how what Aristotle examines remains the basis on which to understand and evaluate practical life.1 Aristotle’s view of ethics and politics is powerful because it uncovers what still, or necessarily, belongs to common understanding and action. The phenomena he discusses allow us to clarify what we take for granted but do not appreciate or think through and what has become occluded but is still fundamental. He makes evident what these phenomena are and how they first appear to philosophical reflection. I discuss Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and Rhetoric. I do not offer commentaries on these works but explore the central phenomena they bring to light. I therefore sometimes use evidence from one work to clarify what is said in another, adjusting as necessary for different levels in Aristotle’s arguments. Most but not all of my analyses follow the order of his presentation in the three works, and I divide my book into three parts, “Virtue,” “Politics,” and “Speech.” I usually summarize a portion of his presentation and then follow with a discussion. Aristotle’s Ethics, Politics, and Rhetoric intend to improve action, but they are based on observation or contemplation. This is how Aristotle describes his activity throughout the works. Indeed, he suggests that a life of observation or at least one that observes certain matters is the happiest and most divine, or pure, human life. So Aristotle’s intention in his practical works is not merely to improve our actions. He also means to advance theoretical activity, and he therefore often discusses matters (such as the various intellectual virtues, pleasure, and friendship) beyond what improving ordinary practice seems to require.