Značenje Aristotelove politike
The Meaning of Aristotle's Politics

Summary/Abstract: In all the history of political ideas we know of only two distinctly separate conceptions with reference to the nature of society: one considers man to be a social creature by his nature, and the other one believes society to be man's artifice There is no third conception, and all the theories that we have known so far can be reduced to one of these conceptions. The first theory was systematically worked out by Aristotle. He does not consider nature and society as equal but only suggests the essential dimension of man's life, and this is the fact that man cannot eschew the conditions of life in a group. In his individual autarchy he cannot fulfill his humanity. This mutual need is the condition for the constitution of a political community to be possible. The other theory begins with Hobbes. Establishing society us an artificial entity, politics, according to this postulate, is a matter of will and convention. On the basis of this theory many utopias have been developed. In today's crisis of contemporary life and man Aristotle's conception that stresses the natural boundaries of man and the conditions that man must not break if he is to remain man affects us as being most topical and admonishing.

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