Humans and Other Political Animals in Aristotle's History of Animals
David J. Depew
Phronesis 1995, Vol. XL/2

"R.G. Mulgan has pointed out that there are three senses of 'political animal' (politikon zoon) in the Aristotelian corpus. In the Eudemian Ethics (EE) and at one locus in the Nicomachean (EN), humans are said to be political animals in the sense that they have an ability to take part in government (EE VII.10.1242a22-24; EE VIII.12.1162a16-19). On this view, humans are political animals in contrast to householding animals (oikonomika zoa). In both Politics (Pol.) and EN, however, Aristotle sometimes speaks of humans as political animals in a way that includes householding and public engagement within a more encompassing 'citified' way of life (EN I.7.1097b8-11, IX.9.1169b16-22; Pol. III.6.1278b15-30). Finally, there is an even wider 'zoological' sense found twice in History of Animals (HA) and once in Pol. (HA I.1.488a8; VIII(VII).1.589a3; Pol. I.2.1253a7-9). It refers to the way of life of species, including humans and social insects, among whom, as Aristotle puts it, 'something one and common (hen kai koinon) is the work (ergon) of all' (HA I.1.488a8)." (DEPEW-1995, p. 156)

"I hypothesize that the four traits with which we are dealing fall along a continuum ranging from the solitary at one pole to the politically intensified form of gregarious life at the other. Discriminations are made along this continuum by using the notions of excess and deficiency to mark off segments of the continuum that differ from one another to the same extent.... Thus the scattered way of life falls short of the mean for gregarious ways of life by about as much as the political way of life exceeds it. By the same token, the solitary way of life falls short of the scattered by about as much as the norm for gregarious ways of life rises above it." (DEPEW-1995, p. 161)

"The worst mistake one can make about 'political animal,' for example, is to think that this phrase picks out the defining essence of humankind, and to hold that in consequence Aristotle must be speaking metaphorically when he says that animals other than humans are political." (DEPEW-1995, p. 162)

"Aristotle is a great respecter of the irreducible complexity of nature. This sensitivity virtually demands that there will be individuals or groups within species, or species within genera, that fail to conform fully to an expected distributions of traits." (DEPEW-1995, p. 164) [PSA: Within humankind, such groups might be associated with different cultures or ways of life (bioi).]

"[H]umans, at least in HA, are not politikos because they latently desire to live in cities, but because (exceptions notwithstanding) they typically cooperate in making a living and other matters of common concern, and most often and most successfully do so in poleis." (DEPEW-1995, p. 167)

"At HA VIII(VII).1.588a17-20, Aristotle says that 'activities and ways of life vary with (diapherousin) habits (ethe) and food (trophas)'; and at Pol. I.8.1256a20-26, he writes: 'There are many kinds of food. Therefore there are also many ways of life, both of animals and of men.'" (DEPEW-1995, p. 168) [PSA: Consider for instance hunting, gathering, nomadism, farming.]

"[O]nly political animals, among the wider array of gregarious animals, cooperate to achieve 'something one and common that is the work of all' (HA I.1.488a9).... [M]erely gregarious animals separately perform the *same* activities (praxeis) in physical proximity to others of their kind... by contrast, political animals perform *different* activities in the course of engaging in and contributing to a single (hen) way of life.... 'politikos' names a qualitatively different way of life, in which the shared work (koinon ergon) of a community (koinonia), whatever it happens to be, appears as the common object of distinguishable contributions." (DEPEW-1995, pp. 169-170)

"[A]nimals live 'on a more political (politikoteros)' basis [than this] only if and when 'they live in community (koinonounta) with their offspring for a longer period' than procreating and rearing them requires (HA VIII(VII).a.588b30-589a3)." (DEPEW-1995, p. 171)

"Aristotle regards food sources as a key to different ways of life, and recognizes that humans can live more ways of life than other animal kinds in virtue of the fact that, with the help of technical rationality, they can adapt to many diets (Pol. I.8.1256a20-31). They are even adept at combining several ways of life (Pol. I.8.1256b1-7).... the majority make their living from settled agriculture, which concentrates populations, thickens kinship networks, and facilities the development of city life proper (Pol. I.8.1256a39-b2).... [farming] provides economic underpinnings for an eligible range of leisured ways of life in cities, in which reason can be used for purposes other than mere survival (Pol. I.2.1252b10-30)." (DEPEW-1995, pp. 175-176)

"[R]eason and articulate speech (logos) bestow a flexibility, creativity, and diversity on human bioi that is absent from the lives of other animals....  As social differentiation proceeds, the exercise of reason leads not only to more and better ways of making a living, but to the emergence of objects of common concern and engagement (koina erga) that go well beyond the preoccupation with feeding and procreating that circumscribes the lives of other animals (HA VIII(VII).1.588b24-589a6)." (DEPEW-1995, pp. 179-180)

"Precisely because habituation (ethismos) and rational choice (prohairesis) must take the place of instinct for rational beings (Pol. VII.13.1332a38-39), and because Aristotle is so sensitive to the lasting effects of environmental and cultural influences (Pol. VII.7.1327b19-33), the development and expression of the rational powers that inform human ways of life is held hostage to many contingencies. Poor socialization cuts so deeply that it prevents the development in many humans of even a disposable capacity for rational choice, let alone its exercise." (DEPEW-1995, p. 180)

"[H]umans ... occupy every conceivable relationship to rationality, from that which fitfully approximates the life of a god to that of natural slaves, who are distinguished from tame animals only because they are capable of heeding reason rather than merely responding to sounds (Pol. I.5.1254b16-1255a2). We should not imagine, accordingly, as the tradition has encouraged us to do, that when Aristotle says that humans are rational animals he imagines that a deep well of sociality, intelligence, and capacity for autonomous choice lurks just below the surface, waiting to express itself in each and every human being. By the same token, neither should we generally assume (as political theory since Hobbes often has) that there lurks within the breast of all of us a deep well of generic solitude ready to assert itself at the drop of a hat. Rather, what Aristotle means when he says that the human essence is characterized by rationality is that a range of possible relationships to rationality explains the distribution of human beings along a continuum that stretches from the most refined political life to the savage life of distant barbarians and vicious defectors from civilization." (DEPEW-1995, pp. 180-181)

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