ABSTRACT
The idea of the political extreme is rooted in the ancient Greek ethics of moderation. In every action situation, there is a mean (mesotês) between too much (huperbolê) and too little (elleipsis), the excessive and the moderate. An elaborate system of terminological categories is found in Plato’s writings of the middle and late periods. Plato connected the ethics of moderation to the constitutional doctrine. His form of government continuum spread out between the extremes of despoteia/tyrannis and anomic/lawless democracy (in the sense of the rule of the rabble). Oligarchy, basileia (kingdom), aristocracy and legal democracy were located between the extremes. The mean (meson), at the same time guaranteeing moderation (metrion) and virtuousness (arete), was reached through a mixture (meikte) and the balancing of constitutional elements which, by themselves, are harmful (kakon) and extreme (akron). The ontological phenomenological dimension of the differentiation of the forms of government was in this way connected to the normative axiological dimension of the mesotês doctrine. Aristotle freed the Platonic terms from their theological, ontological fra-
mework, embedded them into a comprehensive scientific system and gave them a politically realistic calibre. In his Nichomachean Ethics, he established virtue or moral competence (arete) as the mean (meson) or the centre (mesotês) between too much (huperbolê) and too little (elleipsis), which were meant to be the farthest ends or extremes (akron, eschatôn) of an action continuum. In his Politics, he connected the ethical mesotês doctrine with the concept of the mixed constitution. The interests of the upper and the lower classes were to be balanced in a society carried by the middle classes (mesoi) and to be balanced by the means of an artful composition of politically institutional organizational elements from different constitutional forms. Under the condition of the humanly possible, Aristotle recommended ‘polity’, a mixture of ‘oligarchic’ and ‘democratic’ elements, as the relatively best form of government, in which the maxim of the avoidance of extremes was to lead to a constitution while at the same time guaranteeing stability such as the liberty of the citizens.
