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Easily, At a Glance: Aristotle's Political Optics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2010

David Janssens
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Abstract

In book VII of the Politics, Aristotle requires that the best regime be eusunoptos, “easily taken in at a glance.” Throughout the history of political thought, the attendant ideal of the polis as a compact and surveyable society was particularly influential. However, closer scrutiny of the way in which Aristotle uses eusunoptos suggests that it designates a problem rather than a solution, to wit, the problems of defining political unity and of attuning the individual and the common good. Exploring the different contexts in which eusunoptos occurs in Aristotle's works, this paper argues that it has political, rhetorical, and poetical meanings that cannot be entirely distinguished from each other. As such, the notion is shown to be germane to the general design of book VII, which constructs the best regime in order to bring to light the limits of politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , Summer 2010 , pp. 385 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2010

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References

1 See Harris Rackham's translation in the Loeb Classical Library edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), and Richard Kraut's translation in the Clarendon Aristotle Series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).

2 Cf. Thucydides The Peloponnesian War 8.66.3.

3 “Synoptic” is used throughout in the primary meaning given by Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: “affording a general view of a whole.” See Laslett, Peter, “The Face to Face Society,” in Philosophy, Politics and Society, ed. Laslett, Peter (Oxford: Blackwell, 1956), 157–48Google Scholar; Finley, Moses I., Politics in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 28–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Finley, Moses I., Democracy Ancient and Modern (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1973), 30–31Google Scholar.

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10 Yack, Bernard, The Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Political Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 73Google Scholar. See also Yack, Bernard, “The Problem of Community,” in Aristotle on Modern Politics: The Persistence of Political Philosophy, ed. Tessitore, Aristide (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2002), 33Google Scholar.

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14 Interestingly enough, the only occurrence of eusunoptos in the Politics before book VII is in a context associated with poetic plot. Referring to the location of the tombs of Philolaus, lawgiver of Thebes, and his lover Diocles, Aristotle tells us: “even now they show their tombs, in full view of each other (allēlois eusunoptous); but one is visible from Corinthian territory, the other not. For they tell the story (muthos) that they planned the sites of the tombs themselves, Diocles so that the land of Corinth with its bitter memories of his suffering should be invisible from his grave, Philolaus that it might be visible from his” (Politics 1274a36–41).

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19 It may give pause that Aristotle should resort to prayer so emphatically just after he has presented the philosophic life as a model of the happy life.

20 Cf. Burger, Ronna, Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates: On the “Nicomachean Ethics” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 285–86 n. 45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aristide Tessitore, “MacIntyre and Aristotle on the Foundation of Virtue,” in Aristotle on Modern Politics, 142, 146.

21 See Appian The Foreign Wars XVIII.118; Polybius Histories V.24.6 and VI.49.9; Josephus The Jewish Wars I.57, III.146, 242 and 447.

22 See Aeschines Against Ctesiphon 3.118.

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24 P. Manent, Cours familier de philosophie politique, 77. See Janssens, David, “Habeas Corpus? Pierre Manent and the Politics of Europe,” The European Journal of Political Theory 5, no. 2 (2006): 171–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 According to D. Brendan Nagle, “normal” poleis like Aphytis or Asea, with a citizen body between 230 and 910 citizens representing 200–1000 households, “would have been eusunoptos both in terms of their territory and their population” (The Household as the Foundation of Aristotle's Polis, 56, 74). The lowest number, it is true, would seem to approximate a face-to-face society. However, even for one of 230 citizens to see the others as a surveyable whole would not be easy.

26 For a vivid evocation of this problem, see Keillor's, Garrison hilarious story of Flag Day in Lake Wobegon Days (New York: Viking, 1986), 123–24Google Scholar.

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29 See Fredal, James, “Seeing Ancient Rhetoric, Easily at a Glance,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 36, no. 2 (2006): 181–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Cf. Politics 1265a18–19, where Aristotle anticipates the discussion of the best regime and criticizes “the Socratic speeches” for speculating too wildly: “It is proper to set conditions according to prayer (kat' euchēn), but not the impossible.” Ironically enough, “the Socratic speeches” refers to Plato's Laws, from which Socrates is absent.

31 The unusual pleonastic “presupposed in advance” reflects the original Greek (prohupotetheisthai kathaper euchomenous). The verb prohupotithēmi is quite rare in ancient Greek. In fact, its exact meaning—“hypothesized beforehand”—is pleonastic, indeed, just like “pre-supposition” in English.

32 Kraut, Commentary on “Politics,” 77.

33 Cf. Frank, A Democracy of Distinction, 59–61. As Frank explains, the work of the chorēgos chiefly consists in making itself invisible behind the opsis of the spectacle.

34 Kraut, Commentary on “Politics,” 77. Cf. Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal, 242–43.

35 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. and trans. Gourevitch, Victor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 71Google Scholar.

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38 It is interesting to note that the only two examples of crafts Aristotle supplies in this context are those that Plato coined as metaphors for politics: weaving and seafaring. See Plato Statesman 305e–311c; Republic 488a–489c.

39 See Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal, 263.

40 See Tessitore, “MacIntyre and Aristotle on the Foundation of Virtue,” in Aristotle and Modern Politics, 146.

41 Politics 1255a1–b16. Cf. Politics 1281b24–34; Nicomachean Ethics 1134a.

42 Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal, 76–77; see also 168–69.

43 Cf. Burger, Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates, 211. Cf. Politics 1334a11–12.

44 Cf. Salkever, “Whose Prayer?” 38–39.

45 Davis, The Politics of Philosophy, 130–31.

46 Cf. Plato Republic 620d.

47 Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal, 170.

48 Davis, The Poetry of Philosophy, xviii. See also his remark that “all action is always already an imitation of action” (ibid.). In this respect, political participants do not differ from spectators of a drama: “drama requires that spectators be induced to attempt to complete the whole before it is complete” (56).

49 See Nichols, Mary P., Citizens and Statesmen: A Study of Aristotle's “Politics” (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1992), 164–65Google Scholar.

50 Cf. Poetics 1447a13–16.

51 In this respect, the construction of the best regime in book VII is comparable to the noble lie that Socrates introduces in Plato's Republic, the Phoenician myth of autochthony designed to constitute political community (Republic 414c–415c).

52 Frank, A Democracy of Distinction, 11.

53 See Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal, 6–7, 16–17, 62–71; Frank, A Democracy of Distinction, 48–49, 64. David Keyt even argues that Aristotle's claim is fundamentally untenable and should be abandoned in favor of the Hobbesian view (Keyt, David, “Three Basic Theorems in Aristotle's Politics,” Phronesis 32, no. 1 [1987]: 54–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

54 Lefort, Claude, Essais sur le politique: XIXe–XXe siècles (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1986), 20Google Scholar; see also 9–10.

55 Ibid., 20, 124, 282.

56 Ibid., 124.

57 Ibid., 14.

58 Frank, A Democracy of Distinction, 12.

59 Historia Animalium 491b9–11. I am indebted to the following people for valuable feedback in writing and revising the present paper: Hans Lindahl, Bert van Roermund, the members of the research group on philosophy of law at the Department of Philosophy of Tilburg University, Clifford Bates, and five anonymous referees.