Arystotelesowska filozofia spraw ludzkich

Abstract

Aristotle’s “Nicomachaean Ethics” and his Politics have an intentionally complementary nature: together they form what their author called “the philosophy of human affairs”. The two works present a practical and integrative approach to the philosophy of man and his affairs, treating the subject from the psychological, the sociological, the ethical and the political aspects, though these respective viewpoints on man are not handled in isolation from each other. The fact that Aristotle assumes a hypothesis on man’s social nature precludes any other approach to matters concerning him other than the observation of man through the community in which he lives. In Greek tradition man, the state, and the universe (ϰόσμος) all shared the same nature, defined by the Divine Wisdom, Logos (Λόγος). The laws governing the state were a reflection of the cosmic laws, hence the mutual intermingling of the questions of ethics with those of politics. The author shows how certain ideas were common to both disciplines: concepts from ethics such as justice, law, and friendship could be found, with the appropriate qualifications, in the field of politics, too, as civil amity, political justice, or statutory law. The concept of happiness was also a feature shared by the two disciplines, since happiness was regarded as the objective both of man and of the state. In his discussion of the successive component parts contributing to the subject the author shows how in Aristotle’s view of the question the two constituents, ethics and politics, were united in an integral “philosophy of the affairs of man”.