Aristotle argues in Chapter 2 of Book I of the Politics that the polis exists by nature. I argue that this notion of a natural polis, what I call the Naturalness Thesis, is fundamentally important to Aristotle's political philosophy. The Naturalness Thesis is discussed in only one place by Aristotle, and it is found alongside two further claims—the claim that humans are the most political animal and the claim that the polis is naturally prior to the individual. Together these three ideas constitute Aristotle's political naturalism. I begin by examining the relationship between the Naturalness Thesis and the other two claims. I argue that the Naturalness Thesis is the central idea in Aristotle's political naturalism. I then proceed to defend the argument Aristotle gives in support of the Naturalness Thesis from David Keyt's critique of it. Keyt argues that Aristotle's argument is unsuccessful and that, furthermore, Aristotle himself has reason to believe the polis exists by art rather than nature. Because of this, Keyt believes that there is a blunder in Aristotle's political naturalism. I argue that it is Keyt, and not Aristotle, who blunders. Keyt makes the mistake of interpreting Aristotle's account of the rise of the polis out of the village and household as an account of three distinct social arrangements. As I see it, Aristotle is instead suggesting that village, household, and polis are three stages in the development (or growth) of one thing, namely the polis. That is, households and villages are essentially the same (they contain the same form) as the polis, though they are underdeveloped. Finally, I expound on the Naturalness Thesis by interpreting Aristotle's account of the rise of the natural polis from a number of perspectives. First, the account is sociobiological: Aristotle's polis is literally a naturally living thing. Second, the account is historical: it alludes to other accounts of prehistory and reveals Aristotle's ascription to the theory of a perpetual rise and fall of civilization. Third, the account is ethical: it seeks to break down the distinction between nomos (=law) and phusis (=nature) to ground politics in nature. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-15 19:10:03.993

<p>This dissertation seeks to identify what makes Cicero’s approach to politics unique. The author's methodology is to turn to Cicero’s unique interpretation of Plato as the crux of what made his thinking neither Stoic nor Aristotelian nor even Platonic (at least, in the usual sense of the word) but Ciceronian. As the author demonstrates in his reading of Cicero’s correspondences and dialogues during the downward spiral of a decade that ended in the fall of the Republic (that is, from Cicero’s return from exile in 57 BC to Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon in 49 BC), it is through Cicero's reading of Plato that the former develops his characteristically Ciceronian approach to politics—that is, his appreciation for the tension between the political ideal on the one hand and the reality of human nature on the other as well as the need for rhetoric to fuse a practicable compromise between the two. This triangulation of political ideal, human nature, and rhetoric is developed by Cicero through his dialogues "de Oratore," "de Re publica," and "de Legibus."</p> / Dissertation

Ce mémoire vise à analyser l’importance du cosmopolitisme dans la pensée de Cicéron. Dans l’introduction, nous présentons d’abord une histoire de la réhabilitation de Cicéron en tant que philosophe et une chronologie de la pensée cosmopolite. La deuxième partie consiste en une analyse de trois textes de Cicéron : De Finibus, De Officiis et De Re Publica, pour trouver une réponse à notre problématique. La conclusion qui sort de cette analyse est que Cicéron a toujours effectué un compromis entre le cosmopolitisme et l’appartenance à une communauté locale, sans prendre catégoriquement un parti, même si son coeur penche davantage vers Rome. Nous avons mis en parallèle ce compromis avec l’ambiguïté de Cicéron quant à la problématique des genres de vie. Ce parallélisme montre que la tension entre cosmopolitisme et appartenance à une communauté locale n’est qu’un cas particulier d’une ambiguïté plus générale des oeuvres de Cicéron, envers la philosophie. / The goal of this thesis is to study the significance of the ideology of cosmopolitanism in Cicero’s philosophical works. In the introduction, we present a history of the rehabilitation of Cicero the philosopher and a chronology of cosmopolitan thought. In the second part we analyse three texts of Cicero: De Finibus, De Officiis and De Re Publica, in search of passages pertaining to cosmopolitanism. From this analysis, we must conclude that Cicero always compromises between cosmopolitanism and his sense of belonging to a local community, even if he is a fervent Roman patriot. Similar to this compromise is the ambiguous answer of Cicero to the problem of which is the best way of life: the political or philosophical life. This similarity informs us that the tension between cosmopolitanism and patriotism is just a special case of a more general ambiguity present in Cicero’s work, toward philosophy itself.