The Ideas That Formed the Constitution, Part 5: Aristotle

He was born in Macedonia in 384 B.C.E. At the age of 17, he moved to Athens and enrolled as a student in Plato’s Academy. Aristotle always paid tribute to his teacher, although Aristotle took a very different intellectual direction from Plato.
After Plato died in 346, Aristotle moved to northwestern Asia Minor (Turkey). There, he directed his attention to classifying marine animals. He identified more than 500 species. He’s credited with founding the science of zoology.
In 343 or 342, Phillip II, king of Macedonia (and thus Aristotle’s sovereign), summoned the scholar home to tutor Phillip’s son. This was the boy later known as Alexander the Great. Aristotle remained in Macedonia for two years. In subsequent times, when Alexander was on his mission of conquest, he frequently sent his former teacher biological specimens from distant lands.
Sometime before 336, Aristotle returned to Athens. There he founded his own school, the Lyceum, and began the most productive period of his life. Along with a staff of assistants, he delved into botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, politics, psychology, physics, poetics, and rhetoric. His scope was astounding.
Most of Aristotle’s polished writings have been lost. The number of writings that survive is vast, but they often seem unfinished—much like lecture notes or lesson plans. This is true of the “Politeia.” The book is crammed with ideas, but sometimes they are underdeveloped or even contradictory.
Despite being unfinished, the “Politeia” was an astonishing achievement, both because of the quality of Aristotle’s analysis and the number of his sources: The book rests on a survey of no fewer than 150 existing constitutions.
Modern Americans may recognize some of the ideas in the “Politeia.” For example, Aristotle divided government officials into three kinds: (1) the deliberators, (2) the magistrates, and (3) the judiciary. This was the precursor to our constitutional division between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government.
Indicative of Aristotle’s influence was that when a committee of the Confederation Congress recommended that Congress acquire certain foundational books, the “Politeia” was on the list. The members of the committee were Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania, and James Madison of Virginia—all of whom later served as delegates at the Constitutional Convention.
In his second “Farmer” essay, Mercer argued that the world hadn’t learned much about political science since Aristotle wrote the “Politeia.” In other words, he thought the Greek scholar knew as much about politics as his own generation did.
Madison admired the “Politeia.” Although many trace his famous theory of “factions” in the 10th Federalist paper to the Scottish philosopher David Hume, you can find an early version of the theory in the “Politeia.” Aristotle, like Madison, argued that factions (special interests) cause less harm when the participating citizenry is large than when it’s small.
The next installment will explore the contributions of yet another Greek. He was a historian who also was a man of action: Polybius.