Dimka Gocheva
ON THE (IM)POSSIBLE APPLICATION
OF THE ARISTOTELIAN POLITICAL
IDEAS HERE-AND-NOW
Dimka Gocheva
The article claims that Aristotle is not only a great thinker, but also a thinker
important for us here-and-now. In the introduction it is stated that the political
ideas of Plato and Aristotle are very provocative and might be productively
rethought even nowadays especially in a country like ours, where the society and
the economy are undergoing an essential transformation. No wonder that they
have inspired many interpretations by eminent contemporary thinkers especially
in the second half of the 20th century.
The first chapter is entitled "The amazingly modern political ideas of
Aristotle". In it many of the components of the political theory, exposed by him
in Politics, are enumerated. It is stressed that some of the most interesting theses
in the ever-lasting debate on human nature, the essence of law and the types
of human co-existence in the polis had been expressed even earlier by the
Sophists in the 5th century BC. It is also reminded that some of the ideas, proposed
in Politics, had been not only a conception of an admirable Greek. They
were a real practice in the social life of the Athenians, established more than a
century before the writing of the treatise by great politicians and constitutionalists,
the most prominent of which is Klisthenes.
However, the intellectual power of Aristotle is seen in the result: he had succeeded
to create a convincing comprehensive political theory, in which many of
the ideas of his predecessors (philosophers and political figures) are melted and
conceptually defended. His ever green appeal and suggestiveness as a political
thinker is created precisely by this peculiar coherence and analytical reasoning,
which makes Politics a systematic treatise, where the ideas are not only
expressed, but also argued and proved.
The second chapter is entitled "The application of the Aristotelianism in The
political debate and the transition in Bulgaria, by Eugene Daynov.