The political community, which is sovereign over the communities gathered around it, is the city. The city is the composition of homes and villages, being a last degree of community. However, she is sovereign and seeks the sovereign good. Let's see how communities are formed:
The first community is the home, which is formed by three relationships:
1. Couple (male-female) – this relationship is natural and aims at procreation. It is a necessity, where the two depend on each other for their existence and perpetuation of the species. It is the universality between male and female for the satisfaction of a good, a human being's lack. Here is the political power between free and equal beings. However, this power differs from man to man. In the couple, the power to govern is permanently the man's, since he is able to order, while the woman is only responsible for obeying;
2. Father and son – it is the royal power, over free and unequal beings. This inequality is based on the age difference, it being up to the child to obey the father;
3. Master and slave – the master is naturally able to govern and the slave to obey and perform manual work. It is despotic power over unfree beings.
The second community is the village. The community, according to Aristotle, naturally evolves from a child to an adult and from an adult to an elderly person. The village is the evolution of the home. It satisfies, in addition to reproducing the species and nutrition of the individual, the administration of justice and religious ceremonies.
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The third and last community is the city, the end of natural evolution. It is in the city that man can fulfill his needs to live in common because of his needs. The city is autarchic, and a perfect community is the only way for men to enjoy full happiness, because this consists in the improvement of the intellect, in the construction of virtues and in the satisfaction of the spirit.
The city is, therefore, the end in both senses of the term. End of natural evolution and it is also its own end, that is, it is by itself. In addition to man being a political animal, he is also, among all animals, the most political, as he has language, the capacity not only for pleasure or pain, but to have a concept of just and unjust, good and bad. It is this common concept that makes a community.
Thus, it can be seen that the good of the individual and the good of the State are of the same nature. And although these consist in seeking completeness, only in the realization of the State, satisfying material and spiritual ends is perfection. Therefore, it is in the State that man is really a man, because he is naturally political, as apart from that, he is a servile animal like the others.
By João Francisco P. Cabral
Brazil School Collaborator
Graduated in Philosophy from the Federal University of Uberlândia - UFU
Master's student in Philosophy at the State University of Campinas - UNICAMP
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
CABRAL, João Francisco Pereira. "The Definition of the State in Aristotelian Politics"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/filosofia/a-definicao-estado-na-politica-aristotelica.htm. Accessed on June 29, 2021.
