ABSTRACT
Aristotle differs so much from Plato that it is sometimes said that all thinking men must, knowingly or unknowingly, be followers of one or the other. All such generalisations are at best partial and unsure; and to those who consider the political philosophy of the two masters there appears at first glance to be little truth in the remark; they had so much in common. To begin with, there is the whole background of political thought and moral and educational theory from Homer to Socrates. This inheritance belonged to both; but Aristotle received it a generation later, with yet another layer of thought and experience added. Both looked with alarm on the instability of Greek political life and on the moral anarchy which they believed to be its cause; and both accordingly believed that the antidote lay in education for a better way of living. Both believed that the good life could only be lived in a πόλις of moderate size, could not be attained by all men, but only by those who had sufficient means and sufficient schooling to do so. Both therefore wished to limit citizenship so as to make this possible, and both thought it right that all manual labour should be done by slaves or by non-citizens. It would, however, be a mistake to conclude that Aristotle has but little to add to Plato or to the Greek view of life, and wrong to suppose that Aristotle’s express criticisms of Plato are all that marks the difference between them. These are indeed frequent, sometimes significant, sometimes trivial and carping, but they are not all that separates them.
