The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle

by Ernest Barker

This clear and accurate exposition of Greek political thought offers a comprehensive exploration of the works of Plato and Aristotle. Students of political science and the history of Western philosophy will appreciate its insights into the sources of state power, the nature of political organization, the aims of the state, citizenship, justice, law, and related concepts. In addition to point-by-point discussions of Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics, this survey presents critical examinations of several of Plato's other dialogues along with Aristotle's Ethics. Further, it considers the origin of these ideas in the Greek political experience and in the contributions of other Greek theorists, including Heraclitus, Pythagoras, the Cyrenaics, and the Encyclopaedists. This classic of scholarship also includes epilogues that discuss the influence of Greek political ideas on such thinkers as Aquinas, Marsilio of Padua, Machiavelli, Spinoza, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel.

Genres: Political Science, Philosophy

592 pages, Paperback

First published June 21, 1959

About the author

Sir Ernest Barker FBA (1874 - 1960) was an English political scientist who served as Principal of King's College London from 1920 to 1927.

Barker was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford. He was a don at Oxford and spent a brief time at the London School of Economics. He was Principal of King's College London from 1920 to 1927, and subsequently became Professor of Political Science in the University of Cambridge in 1928, being the first holder of the chair endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation. In June 1936 he was elected to serve on the Liberal Party Council. He was knighted in 1944. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958. There is a memorial stone to him in St Botolph's Church, Cambridge.

Reviews

[Peter Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, fairly straight-laced textbook on the writing on Politics of both Plato and Aristotle. It's a bit dated (first published in 1906) but it's comprehensive and looks beyond Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics - the most obvious texts to cover in each case - to review each thinker's general approach and philosophy. The weakest sections, as you might expect, are those where Barker draws comparisons to the 'modern' British constitution and generally to more recent theories of politics - but this is simply what you might expect from a book of this age. That the author is writing from an essentially 19th century academic perspective is obvious. But if you can screen that out, then this is a useful guide to both Plato and Aristotle's political writing - I've seen nothing else which covers these specific aspects of their thinking this comprehensively.

I added some rough thoughts on Aristotle's politics to my blog here https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...