Politics, Music and Contemplation in Aristotle's Ideal State

David J. Depew
The editor of the Corpus Aristotelicum, presumably Andronicus of Rhodes, placed Aristotle's inquiry into the best
state at the very end of his edition of the Politics, where it appears today as Books VII and VIII. It is far from clear
that it has to be situated there. The reasons that led Newman, the greatest modern scholar of these texts, to placee the
treatise on the best state immediately after Book III still hold. From the very outset of the Politics, Aristotle seems to
be itching to talk about the ideal state. Think initlaly of the Politics as having been put togher out of a set of relateily
discrete Inquiries" (methodoi), lines of argument agout a particualr problem whose termini are the tating of the
probvlem and the solving of it. Book I, while it certainly may have been ontinuously amended as part of a l3cture
sreies, is a self-contained inquiryu in this sense centerd on the household and its contstiutent partsAt the end of I, we
read: "Let us leave off the presnt discourses as having reached an end and make another beginning to the argument.
Let us investigate in the first instance the views that have been put forward about the best regime" (l260a2l-25). Book
II follows suit starts off by stating "an intention to study the sort of political partnership that is superior for all who are
capable of alivng as far as possible in the manner one would pray for." As a preliminary to doing that Arisotle decides
to study preious literature about the subject--not nly Plato's two attempts, but pedoiposals about city planning by, and
certain ffeatures of several actually exiting (or recently existing) constitujons that are reputed to be as good as one can
get--Spartans, Cretans. the "review of previous work" strategy is, of course, widespread tyhrough the corpus as a
whole. Onbe might expect Aristltle to follow this preliminary discourse with the solution the porobome posed, hius
view, and so might expelct him to move direclty oon to the presnt VII-VIII. Perhaps he did so. But there are intrinsic
reasons for delay. Book III, which is concerend with the identiy conditions of cities and with who is entitled to bes a
citizen. Ina ny case, the delya of the promosed subject matter is not withheld after III. III itself is a pastishce. For at
l288a37, at the end of III, Arisotle says taht the discussion of whou is an is nt a citizen is part of a preivous discourse,
aljthough both topics are now in Book III. I think III shows the hend of an editor more stronlgy than otehr books, and
in effect derails the orignla proposal. Buyt the promios to go immeatiely on to the solutoin to the iddal state problem
still shows its hand. For the very end of III, Aristotle ays "\
These things having been determined we must now attempt to speak about the best regime--in what manner ita oords
with tis nature to arise and to be establihsined. It is necesary then for one who is gong to undertake the invetigation
approprite to it ...."
But, lo and behold, book VII beginxz witnb the same words "It is one is is.
There are things in III that are prerequired for this tanssition that re not handled in BIII. In aprticualr, what is needed
is a notion of citizenship as self-goernance--sharing in rule and being ruled--and the city as a function of who is a
proper part. These things are handled in III. But III also recognizes that ths topic is relative to teh regime.--a different
probme, and goes off onto the kinds of regimes. In any case it is
In any case, I iuntend in this chaptrer to discuss the best state ,pore closelyin accrod with what I take to be the orignal
design. ....modified, however, by leaving aside the problem, and treating ARistote's critqiue of Plato's ideal staess not
as a preimlimary to his own, but after it. For I am concinved that the thratust of that crteqiue presupposees much taht
appears in Aristtole's preferredf mdel.

Politics VII-VIII contains Aristotle's portrait of a best or aristocratic (aristos = best) state. The treatise begins with a
preface (Pol. VII.l-3), in which Aristotle sets forth certain normative principles for an ideal constitution. He says that
the best state must be a happy state; that if a state is to be happy, its citizens must lead an active life (bios praktikos)
(for happiness is activity of the soul in accord with virtue); and that contemplation (theoria) is an activity. The first
section of this essay is an interpretation of this prefatory argument. I take Aristotle to mean that only when
contemplation is regarded by the citizens as the highest of all activities can the entire range of other intrinsically good
pursuits, such as political engagement, be clearly discriminated from activities having merely instrumental worth, and
so be pursued as intrinsic goods. This implies that Aristotle is envisioning what has come to be called an 'inclusive
ends' conception of happiness, in which the good life consists in engaging in a range of excellent activities.l But the
kind of inclusivism I see in Pol. VII.l-3 differs in important respects from most versions of that doctrine, especially in
the role it assigns to contemplation.
In the second section I argue that Aristotle's sketch of a best constitution, which occupies the extant remainder of
Pol. VII-VIII, embodies the principles of this prefatory argument. Aristotle's main contentions in these portions of
Pol.VII-VIII are the following. Laborers, craftsmen and merchants are merely necessary conditions, rather than proper
parts, of a best polis. Citizenship is restricted to landowning males, who serve as soldiers when they are young, hold
political offices rotationally when they mature further (ages 35-70), and eventually retire to civic priesthood.
Exclusion of the producing and distributing classes allows the citizens to dissociate their activities--and the very
concept of activity itself (praxis, eupraxia)--from the pursuit of instrumental goods, enabling them to conceive a life
devoted to intrinsically good leisure pursuits (diagoge en tei scholei) as an active life (bios praktikos). The educational
system, with which Aristotle is particularly concerned, is designed to foster virtues that enable citizens to use their
leisure well. Chief among these virtues is love of wisdom (philosophia). Because this education seems to be focused
on music (mousike)--the whole range of imaginative literature and performance attended by music in the literal sense--
rather than on more abstract studies, some interpreters have been led to take 'philosophia' broadly and to ascribe to
Aristotle an intention to offer music as a political analogue of and substitute for contemplation proper, which they
presume to be politically inaccessible, even in a best regime.2 I agree that 'philosophia' should be taken broadly. But I
do not think that music substitutes for contemplation in the political sphere. I argue that contemplation is conceived as
an intensification of the learning (mathesis) that goes on in music; that in the best regime theoretical pursuits will be
continuous with, and to some extent will emerge naturally from, musical pursuits; and that contemplation will be
regarded as the highest pursuit even by those citizens who are themselves incapable of engaging in it, in virtue of the
practical wisdom (phronesis) they can all be expected to have.
Aristotle's portrait of an ideal aristocracy differs markedly from Plato's ideal regimes. Seen in this light, Pol. VII-
VIII is intended to avoid the mistakes in the Republic and the Laws that Aristotle identifies in Pol. II. At the heart of
Aristotle's objections to Plato is his contention that the latter thinks of good politics as something like 'applied
contemplation' (theoria). For Aristotle, on the contrary, practical reason (together with practice-oriented reflection on
practical matters) is entirely adequate for politics; and the value of purely contemplative wisdom does not depend on or
increase with any instrumental or practical purposes it might serve. Practical reason itself recognizes this. If
contemplation is valued instrumentally, as Aristotle thinks it is in Plato's ideal states, citizens will be unable to
discriminate well between intrinsic and instrumental goods. Such a state cannot be ideal. In the third part of the essay I
show why Aristotle thinks that this is Plato's crucial mistake, and why misinterpretations of Pol. VII-VIII commonly
rest on tacit regression to Platonic assumptions about the relation between theory and practice.

l. An Inclusive Ends Interpretation of Politics VII.l-3

Aristotle clearly intends the first three chapters of Pol. VII to set out principles in accord with which he can lay down
specifications for a best state (VII.4.l325b33-4). His strategy is to apply what has been learned elsewhere, especially
in the Ethics,3 about individual happiness to the parallel question of the happiness of states (VII.l.l323al4-23; l323b37-
24a5; VII.l2. l332a7-l0). Accordingly, Aristotle brings over from the Ethics the following threefold conceptual
analysis of the components of happiness (eudaimonia):

The Virtue Component: A choiceworthy life--a life that,

barring great misfortune, can be expected to be happy--
must be focused on cultivating virtue for its own sake
(VII.l.l323a27-bl2; b40-l324al; VII.l2.l332a9-l9; see
EE II.l.l2l9a26-28; EN I.7.l097bl7-l8; I.8.l098b30-32).

The Activity Component: Happiness requires activity (in

accord with virtue) over a lifetime (VII.l.l323b22-33; b40-24a2;
see EE l2l9bl-l2; EN I.7.l097bl8-20; I.8.l098b32-99a7).

The Instrumental Goods Component: In a happy life,

goods of the body [e.g. health and beauty]
as well as external goods [e.g. wealth, property, power,
reputation and friends] are necessary conditions, but not
constituents. These goods are to be acquired and used pursuant
to the purposes of, and in amounts required by, activity in
accord with virtue (VII.l.l323a24-27; l323a39-b2l; VII.l2.
l332al9-34; see EE II.l.l2l9b2-4; VIII.3.l248b26-38;
l249a22-b25; EN I.8.l099a3l-b8).
 The argument of Pol. VII.l-3 is centered on the fact that two ways of life (bioi) seem sufficiently conformable to this
analysis to be candidates for the way of life of a happy state. These are the overtly 'political and practical life' of the
statesman (the political life, bios politikos) and the 'free' life devoted to 'speculations and thoughts' (the contemplative
life, bios theoretikos) (VII.2.l324a25-34). Which should be the focus of an ideal state?
To resolve this question, Aristotle constructs a dialectical debate between two extreme types--the conventionally
political man, who is suspicious of intellectuals, and the exclusively contemplative man, who is in turn contemptuous
of the self-styled 'man of action' (and whom I shall sometimes call an 'apolitical intellectual'). In adjudicating their
dispute Aristotle assures us that both sides have got hold of something relevant to the project of reading individual into
civic happiness. Defenders of the conventionally political life are right to insist that a good life is an active one
(VII.3.l325a 3l-4; bl2-l5). But they are wrong in taking political life, and hence activity and happiness, to be tied
ineluctably to exercising power over others (VII.3.l325a26-30; 37-b6). Defenders of the exclusively contemplative life
are right in thinking of a happy life as free from debilitating dependence on external goods, and on the wearisome task
of securing and deploying them, which the pursuit of power involves (VII.3.l325a24-7). In what way, then, are these
apolitical intellectuals wrong? They are wrong, Aristotle says, in assuming that all ruling is domination
(VII.3.l325a27-3l) and in taking their way of life to be best precisely on the ground that it is inactive (apraktos)
(VII.3.l325a3l-2).
Aristotle's corrective to both sides is to insist that contemplation is an activity, indeed the highest sort of activity:
But if these things are argued rightly and happiness is to be
regarded as acting well (eupraxia), the best way of life both
in common for every city and for the individual would be the
active one (bios praktikos). Yet the active life is not necessarily
to be regarded as being in relation to others, as some suppose.
Nor are those thoughts alone active that arise from activity for
the sake of what results, but rather much more active are those
that are complete in themselves (autoteleis), and the sorts of
study and ways of thinking (theorias) that are for their own sake.
For acting well (eupraxia) is the end, so it too is a certain action
(praxis tis); and even in the case of external actions, we speak
of those who by means of their thoughts are master craftsmen
as acting in the authoritative sense. Indeed, not even cities that
are situated by themselves and intentionally choose to live in
this way are necessarily inactive. For this [activity] can come
about on the basis of [a city's] parts: There are
many sorts of partnership that belong to the city in relation to
one another (VII.3.l325bl3-26)4.
It is tempting to take this to imply that contemplation (theoria, a term loosely embracing a wide variety of purely
theoretical virtues, including scientific knowledge [episteme], intellectual intuition [nous] and contemplative wisdom
[sophia] [EN VI.2-7.ll39bl4-ll4lb9]) is to be the preferred activity of a best state, to which other activities are
subordinated as means. If the life of the exclusively contemplative person is made politically normative, Aristotle
seems to say, the best state will isolate itself, avoiding political relations with its neighbors, just as the apolitical
intellectual avoids participation in public affairs. In this way the orientation to domination over other cities, as well as
over one's fellow citizens, which seems to be endemic in political life, would be cut at the root.5
But there are difficulties with this view: (l) Aristotle nowhere concedes--indeed he flatly denies (VII.2.l324b22-35;
VII.3.l325a26-bll) --that politics necessarily implies domination, and that a good state must isolate itself. He says that a
best state will incorporate everything for which we can wish or pray (II.3.l265al9;IV.ll.l295a30; VII.3.l325b38), and
that will include interactions with neighboring states whenever possible (II.3.l265a2l-4; VII.5.l327b5-7). In the long
passage just quoted, moreover, the isolation of a best state seems to be conceded rather than ideal: Even if such a state
were isolated, Aristotle seems to say, rather than living a properly political life with its neighbors, it would still have
internal political relations (see VII.2.l325al-6). (2) Aristotle seems to deny that all the citizens of his best state will
have a capacity for contemplation (VII.l3.l333a24-5), even if he does say that their way of life is to be in some sense
philosophical (VII.l5.l334a23-4). An ideal state in which some citizens would be unable to participate in the definitive
good of the political community to which they belong would be very odd, particularly since in Aristotle's best state
good citizens are coextensive with good persons (III.4.l277al-5). (3) The passage quoted does not, in any case, say or
imply that contemplation will be the exclusive or dominant activity in this state. Nor does it say that other pursuits are
instrumental to contemplation. It claims only that when the concept of action is properly understood, contemplation
will be seen as having a more active character than instrumental activities.
But even if these points are well taken we must still wonder how Aristotle can call contemplation an activity at all, or
regard its cultivation as a kind of active or practical life. In ordinary discourse, which Aristotle usually takes as a guide
to his work,6 the contemplative and practical lives look too much like alternatives for this kind of definitional high-
handedness. Aristotle himself says that active life is the political life (VII.2.l324a40), and the political life is presumed
throughout to be distinct from the life of contemplation. One way to blunt this difficulty would be to treat the
instrumentally effective actions that flow from contemplation by way of applied or technical scientific expertise as the
source of its practical or active character.7 But this idea is directly contradicted by the text cited above, which claims
that instrinsically good pursuits, even when unaccompanied by good effects, have a more active (praktikos) character
than those that are in addition instrumentally valuable. Moreover, Aristotle does not in fact think that contemplation has
instrumental value; or, if it does, that this increases its intrinsic worth. For God's contemplative activity
paradigmatically defines this concept, and God has no instrumental activities at all (VII.l.l323b23-25; VII.3.l325b28-
30). Alternatively, it might be said that the active character of contemplation rests on an implicit invocation of
Aristotle's metaphysics of energeia, which can forge a link between contemplation and action on non-instrumental
grounds. Actions that are complete in themselves are actualizations (energeiai); and contemplation is the most perfect
of actualizations.8 This notion is probably intimated in the text at hand. But in the present context this metaphysical
claim is premature. If the point of Aristotle's adjudication of the quarrel between the conventionally political man and
the apolitical intellectual were merely to let the latter win by redefining the contemplative life as active just because
intrinsically good activity (eupraxia) is actualization (energeia), the conventionally political man might fairly claim that
the question has been begged. If the political man is genuinely right, as Aristotle says he is, in holding that the best life
for states as well as individuals is an active life, the term activity (praxis) must mean something recognizably and
genuinely active--and not just 'actualization'. At the very least, actualization would have to be defined and brought to
bear on this issue concretely. Similarly, the exclusively contemplative man must be genuinely wrong in holding that
the best life is inactive. There can be no objection to Aristotle backing up his substantive link between action and
contemplation by a metaphysics showing that contemplation can be an activity because it is actualization. But the first-
order connection must be made independently on the political level.
My own view is that in Pol.VII.l-3 Aristotle does not intend to privilege and politicize the contemplative life, or to
redefine it stipulatively as an active life. Rather, he rejects the ways of life of both apolitical intellectuals and
conventionally political men as models for the happy life of both the individual and of the best state. The claim that
contemplation is an activity serves to cancel both extremes, and to construct a space in which political and
contemplative engagements can fuse into a sui generis way of life, or rather into a pair of possible lives that have more
in common with each other than either has with conventionally political or exclusively contemplative lives. Aristotle
wants to demonstrate that unless contemplation is regarded as an activity by both contemplative and politically
engaged persons, the intrinsically worthwhile, virtuous aspects of political life cannot be identified or pursued. Failure
to acknowledge that contemplation is an activity will, on this view, render both parties incapable of discerning and
pursuing what is good in political life. Conversely, acknowledging this claim will reveal what contemplation and good
political activity have in common, in contrast to merely instrumentally good activities, which makes them both worth
pursuing for their own sake. Only when this point is appreciated, I suggest, will we be in a position clearly to see what
conception of activity is presupposed in virtue of which Aristotle can, without trivialization or empty stipulation, call
contemplation an activity; and why failure to acknowledge this proposition must prevent anyone from either
speculating well about or approximating in practice a best or ideal state.
Note first that once it has been admitted that the contemplative life is prima facie a virtuous and happy way of life,
the proposition that contemplation is a kind of activity is already formally entailed by the conjunction of two of the
components into which Aristotle has analyzed happiness: the virtue component and the activity component. Anyone
who admits that devotion to contemplation makes for a virtuously happy life (quite apart from the different question of
who can live such a life, or to what extent), but who at the same time fails to acknowledge its active character must,
accordingly, question either Aristotle's analysis of happiness, or his stipulation that individual happiness and the
happiness of the state are parallel. (It is perhaps for this reason that at this point Aristotle interrupts the flow of his
argument to justify this stipulation by a commonsense argument according to which 'Those who ascribe living well to
wealth in the case of a single person also call the city as a whole blessed if it is wealthy,' just as 'those who honor the
tyrannical way of life assert that the city is happiest which rules the greatest number of persons.' Similarly, he
concludes 'if anyone accepts that the individual is happy on account of virtue he will also assert that the more virtuous
city is the one that is happier' [VII.2. l324a5-l3]). It follows from all these considerations that, even if we are unable at
this stage fully to justify the proposition that contemplation is an activity, or even to know what that might mean, we
are invited to inquire what effect failure to subscribe to this proposition might have on those wishing to speculate
coherently about political ideals.
This inquiry can profitably begin by returning once more to the dialectic between the conventionally political man
and his exclusively contemplative opponent to see more clearly what Aristotle thinks is right and wrong with each.
Proponents of the exclusively contemplative life are explicitly apolitical. However, in their ideal of freedom from
domination by external concerns, they do pick up an important element of an idea central to Aristotle's conception of
the state--self-sufficiency or autonomy (autarkeia, I.l.l252b27-53al). According to the powerful genetic account of Pol.
l, a state can be distinguished from earlier forms of community, such as the family and the village, only when
economic self-sufficiency is attained (I.l.l252b27-30; II.2.l26lbl4; III.l.l275b20-2l; VII.5. l326b30). Under these
conditions, political associates can cease implicitly assuming that the aim of their association is biological and
economic reproduction--'mere life'--and can begin thinking of such reproduction as a means to living well (eu zen). To
live well means to lack nothing essential to a good and happy life. That is what Aristotle means by self-sufficiency in
the fullest sense, which he considers a mark of the happy life (EE VII.2.l238all.l3; EN I.7. l097b7-2l) and accordingly
attributes to the gods, to philosophers, to (virtuous) friends--and to political life.9 The political life considered from
this perspective is self-sufficient precisely because, by its committed pursuit of intrinsically good things, it transcends
the burdens, that is, the heteronomies and dependencies, imposed by the pursuit of necessary things. The autonomy of
political life in this sense is closely connected to the availability and proper use of leisure. For leisure constitutes the
contrast class to necessity, and Aristotle's analysis of the life of virtuous leisure in Pol. VIII is, as we shall see, a
development of his discussion of self-sufficiency in Pol. I. We may see already, however, that self-sufficiency does not
consist only in the de facto achievement of material plenty, but in a condition where the attitudes of political associates
are no longer dominated or distorted by a means-oriented mentality--a mentality that, having inevitably arisen in a
world of scarcity, can live on even in a world of great abundance, as it does in deviant states.
Important parts of this analysis are assumed by the exclusively contemplative man. He is unwilling to let his life be
dominated by necessities, and he is acccordingly as contemptuous of despotic masters as he is of slaves--both of whom,
in his view, are caught up in a life of dependency. That is why the exclusively contemplative man, Aristotle says, sees
his life as a free one (VII.2.l325a23-5). That is all to the good. The problem is that these apolitical intellectuals falsely
believe that the ideal of self-sufficiency can be realized only by breaking with the political life that made such an ideal
possible in the first place, arrogating to themselves the life of a god.
Why do they think this? One reason is that they are loathe to expose themselves to the contingencies that threaten
social and political life. More to the point is the fact that in most actual states, self-sufficiency, as I have characterized
it, will seldom have been attained, and then only fitfully. Many states will have only imperfectly emerged from the
values of pre-political forms of community. Others, under the compulsion of difficulties and the defective governments
they bring in train, will tend to regress toward despotic rule and devotion to mere life. In such states means are
systematically confused with ends. Domination and war, or alternatively indefinitely increased consumption and
luxury, are seen as the essential point of holding and exercising power (VII.l.l323a35-37). Aristotle goes on at some
length about the confusions to which people in such communities are prone (VII.2.l324a39-3.l325bll). He considers,
for example, a person who proclaims the excellence and nobility of a despotic way of life on the ground that one who
has absolute power always has the greatest number of occasions to do excellent deeds (VII.3.l325a34-40). This can be
true, Aristotle says, only for a person who fails to grasp the idea of excellent activity that he is invoking, which
demands (in its virtue component) that we never sacrifice virtue for a gain in external goods (VII.3.l325b5-6), and (in
its instrumental goods component) that we strictly tailor things and acts having only instrumental value, such as wealth
or power, to intrinsically good purposes (VII.l. l323b7-l0). There is no intrinsic value in having power over slaves
(VII.3.l325a25), Aristotle says. Far less noble, therefore, indeed positively evil, is having power over those who do not
deserve by nature to be enslaved (VII.2.l324b22-40). A despotic way of life can be exercised, therefore, in most cases
only by violating the very norms that the despot invokes to justify his way of life.
But this is not just the despot's problem. Even well-disposed politicians, living in reasonably good states, are
constantly subject to these sorts of incoherences. For political life requires, by its very nature, acquisition and complex
use of external goods. This being so, one may easily, if self- deceptively, come to regard these goods as one's end, and
devotion to virtue as a means to acquiring them (VII.l.l323a35-b2l; VII.l2.l332a25-28). A utilitarian view of virtue such
as this will be too weak actually to sustain a person's commitment to the virtue component of happiness, especially
under duress or the influence of desire (EE VIII.3.l249al5-l7).
No one is more likely to be as sensitive to these incoherences, or as repelled by them, as the exclusively
contemplative person, since seen against the background of his ideal so much in the political world seems defective.
He will not see much difference, therefore, between the case of the well-intended but weak political man and the
despot. For his part, he would avoid both sorts of life as an impediment to happiness (VII.2.l324a36-8). But for this
very reason no one is as likely as the exclusively contemplative person to fail to distinguish within the world of actual
states cases that are better or more promising than others, let alone cases where the good life is genuinely prized over
mere life. Instead, he may be tempted, not least because of the fact that his concerns enable him to reduce his own
material needs to a minimum, to dismiss the political world as a whole and to refuse to acknowledge that it aims at or
achieves any real excellence. But in so concluding, he, no less than the despot, will fail to distinguish political from
pre-political life, and political rule from despotism (VII.3.l325a23-30). For in proportion as political life generally is
thought to exclude intrinsic goods and to be bent toward the compulsions of mere life, the master-slave relation will be
predicated of political life as such, where it can, through this very universalization, be rejected in toto.
Of even greater importance to us is the fact that the apolitical intellectual does not have any marked reason to
identify his way of life as an active one. His interest is to defend it as free (VII.3.l325a2l-24). Thus his dismissal of the
political life identifies virtue, happiness and leisure exclusively with contemplation and fatally concedes the
conventionally political man's conception of himself alone as leading an active life. He disputes only the latter's claim
that 'the man who does nothing attains no good' (VII.3.l325a22-3, 3l-3). Friedrich Solmsen correctly describes this
attitude when he writes that 'In disgusted reaction to the injustice and subjugation of others held to be inevitable
concomitants of political activity,' the apolitical intellectual takes his own life to be gloriously impractical
(VII.3.l325a3l-2), thus identifying virtue, happiness and leisure with inactivity.l0 From Aristotle's perspective, the
trouble with this reaction is that in his retreat from any conjunction of activity and genuine excellence, the apolitical
intellectual leaves intact a defective conception of activity, which does not enable one to distinguish well between
actions that are endlike and those that are at best instrumentally valuable. This bias toward an instrumental conception
of activity, and away from intrinsically excellent action, reinforces the conventionally political man's tendency to
regard external goods--wealth, money, power, reputation, etc. (VII.l.l323a35-8) as the end of politics--and to value the
virtues only to the extent that they are useful in achieving this end (VII.l.l323a35-38). At the same time it leaves the
apolitical intellectual himself incapable of acknowledging that 'the actions of the just and the moderate are the
realization of much that is noble' (VII.3.l325a33-4).
This situation renders both the apolitical intellectual and the conventionally political man incapable of giving an
adequate account of political reality insofar as it corresponds to the analysis of Pol. I. For neither party will see the
extent to which the acquisitive and despotical lives are antithetical to the political life properly construed
(VII.2.l324a3l-7; VII.3.l325a25-3l). A fortiori, neither party will be in a position to think well about a best state. For
we may characterize a best state as one in which the differences between mere life and good life, necessity and leisure,
and domination and politics are most clearly drawn. In fact, in his retreat from politics, the apolitical intellectual may
be in a worse position to make these discriminations than the conventionally practical man. For the latter can recognize
that exercise of the moral virtues is 'the realization of much that is noble.' But the apolitical intellectual has foreclosed
this possibility from the outset. At most, he may regard these virtues as means (and these dubiously necessary) to the
contemplative life, in which case their exercise will not actually be a component of the happy life. If the
conventionally political man is to be cured of his regressions toward greed and despotism, then, it will certainly be
without the help of the exclusively contemplative person, whose prejudices assume that no such cure is possible.
Aristotle's reason for insisting that contemplation is activity now comes clearly into view. The impasse between the
exclusively contemplative person and the conventionally political man can be overcome, he concludes, only if both
parties acknowledge this proposition. This can be seen clearly if we represent the views just described in terms of the
analysis of happiness Aristotle has imported into the Politics from the Ethics. For his part, the apolitical intellectual is
strongly committed to the virtue component of this analysis. But he holds that if one's life is really focused on virtue,
he will distance himself from instrumental goods, and from the actions required to get and use them, as far as possible
(VII.3.l325a24-6). The more instrumental goods are required for engaging in a particular kind of life, he probably
thinks, the more threatened is one's commitment to virtue for its own sake. A life devoted exclusively to contemplation
minimizes this dependence on instrumentalities and creates a presumptively negative attitude even toward goods that
are physically required (EE VII.3.l7-24; EN X.8.ll78a24-5). The apolitical intellectual exhibits, then, an ambiguous
attitude toward the instrumental goods component of Aristotle's analysis of happiness. He may admit in principle that
such goods are necessary for the practice of virtue. But the plain fact is that instrumental goods are external goods and
goods of the body, and, as such, are dependent on fortune's whims (VII.l2.l332a3l-2; EN I.8.l099a8). They thus create
dependencies that threaten to compromise the intellectual's freedom and self-sufficiency. When confronted, therefore,
with a commonly acknowledged virtue whose practice requires a significant measure of these goods he would sooner
disqualify the proposed practice as virtuous than countenance the requisite goods and the acts required to procure them
(see II.2.l263b6-l2). Since the virtues and practices most obviously threatened in this way are connected with the socio-
political or active life, the apolitical intellectual's admitted indifference to an active self-conception leads him to define
happiness and virtue in terms of an absence of activity. He thus denies in effect the activity component of Aristotle's
analysis of happiness and so disqualifies himself, in Aristotle's view, from adequately considering the nature of the best
and happiest state. For the instrumentalist conception of activity with which he is left makes it impossible for him fully
to grasp and wield the distinction between despotical and political life, and to see the latter as inherently valuable.
One who takes the contemplative life to be devoted to intrinsic goods must, therefore, acknowledge the active nature
of that life unless he is prepared to deny that happiness is activity of the soul in accord with virtue, and in so doing
forfeit the use of concepts necessary for thinking coherently about politics. But when one who prizes contemplation for
its own sake does construe it as excellent activity, he will also be able to see that noble political practice is more like
contemplation than good politics is like instrumental activity. For both contemplation and the performance of excellent
acts in the moral and political sphere are engaged in for their own sake. The lover of contemplation thereby
distinguishes genuine from distorted politics, rather than politics generally from contemplation, and so avoids the
mistake of the apolitical intellectual, who 'considers every sort of rule as a kind of mastery' (VII.3.l325a27-30).
The conventionally political man's problems are a mirror image of his contemplative counterpart's. He does well to
affirm the activity and instrumental goods components of Aristotle's analysis (VII.3.l325a23). But his conception of
the virtue component, even when he fully intends to praise a life devoted to the various excellences, excludes
contemplative virtues on the ground that 'he who does nothing does nothing well' (VII.3.l325a22). That is, the
conventionally political man--perhaps noting the intellectual's own dissociation from the active life--concludes that the
latter is not living a virtuous or happy life at all, since such a life consists of excellent actions. But this judgment leaves
the conventionally political man with an inadequate and incomplete conception of virtue. This has important
consequences. Those who pursue an exclusively political life typically mistake means for ends, treating virtue as an
instrumental good useful for acquiring external goods such as power, money, and reputation, which they regard as
ends. Contemplation, precisely because its value does not increase with the addition of instrumental value, and
because its adepts have a strictly functional attitude toward necessities, is far less subject to this confusion. Thus if one
construes contemplation as antithetical to the active life, and if one's conception of virtue does not extend to the
contemplative virtues, one must become insensitive to the distinction between the inherently and the instrumentally
good, on which in turn rests the distinction between mere life and political life, and thus one's ability to reflect
coherently on a best state. If, however, a self-defined man of action accedes to the proposition that contemplation is an
activity, even if it has no utilitarian worth--indeed precisely because it does not--his conception of excellent activity
will enable him to distinguish well between inherently good and instrumental aspects of politics, and a fortiori between
the latter and the values of the despot.
This puts the matter psychologically and prudentially. But Aristotle means to make the point a conceptual and
normative one. In the Eudemian Ethics he says:
The majority of those engaged in politics are not correctly
designated politicians, since they are not truly political.
For the political man is one who purposely chooses noble actions
for their own sake, whereas the majority embrace the political life
for the sake of money or excess (I.5.l2l6a23-7, trans. Rackham).
The lesson of the present argument in the Politics is the same. A person will count as genuinely political only if he
regards both kinds of virtue as connected to happiness through noble activity done for its own sake. This analysis does
not, it is important to note, depend on the degree to which the genuinely political person is himself able to participate
in contemplative activity. It is sufficient that he love learning for its own sake, pursue it as far as possible, and honor
those whose learning penetrates further than his own. At the same time, an appreciation of genuine political life, so
understood, requires that one whose own way of life is centered on contemplation own his political identity and the
political context within which his leisured way of life arises. He must reject the apolitical intellectual's view that
political life is, as such, an impediment to happiness and his contention that apolitical intellectualism is the 'only
philosophical way of life' (VII.2.l324a29). The civic life which the genuinely political person and the politically open
intellectual jointly share can itself, then, be called 'philosophical' with some justice. For when the soi-disant activist is
open to contemplation, and the intellectual to political engagement, learning and contemplation can be pursued
vigorously within the framework of a social life devoted to all forms of intrinsically worthwhile activities, and
contemptuous of an overestimation of the merely instrumental, rather than of the political as such. The received
distinction between the contemplative and political lives is not rendered void by this analysis. It is, however,
reconceived in such a way that the latter is not the only kind of active life (VII.3. l325bl7-2l), and the former is not the
only kind of philosophical life (VII.2.l324a29). The two lives arise within a common framework and diverge only as a
function of each citizen trying to realize his own highest capabilities (VII.l4.l333a29-30). Under these conditions, it
would be jejune to ask why a person who shows contemplative ability should pay lip service to politics, since it plays
no role in his actual life, or, for the same reason, why the practical man should honor contemplation. Recognizing that
the excluded value does not form part of one's own happiness, and therefore one's self-interest, is relevant only when a
narrow conception of self-interest is assumed. Such a conception unwittingly reveals that those asking such questions
do not yet possess an adequate enough conception of happiness and its analytical components to pose the proper
questions.
We are now in a position to see more clearly what conception of activity is presupposed by Aristotle's claim that
'contemplation is an activity.' When Aristotle says that 'Much more active [than instrumentally good thoughts] are
those thoughts ... that are for their own sake' and that 'even in the case of external actions we speak of those who by
means of their thoughts are master craftsmen as acting in an authoritative sense' (VII.3.l325bl7-23), he is asserting that
activity is most properly predicated of pursuits that do not share in the dependency, heteronomy (the opposite of self-
sufficiency, autarkeia) and hence passivity (the opposite of activity) that attend merely instrumental and necessary
things, persons or behaviors. Of these, activity is predicated only imperfectly and derivitively, whereas it is properly
said of the practice of the moral and intellectual virtues. But while both political and contemplative pursuits are fully
active by this measure, contemplation appears more paradigmatic of the conception than does political activity. It is
less entangled with instrumentality, and hence potential dependency and inactivity, than are even the best political
actions (EN X.8.ll78a24-b8). That is why God's exclusively contemplative life is mentioned in this context as
exemplary for life in the best state. God is perfectly happy, perfectly contemplative, perfectly active--and totally
devoid of any external actions that must be performed as conditions of his proper activity or that flow from it
(VII.l.I323b2l-9; 3.l325b27-3l). This is untrue of humans, whose proper activities depend on many such things.
Nonetheless, God's life is a proper model for us. For it suggests that we should use the performance of intrinsically
good actions, of which contemplation is the highest, as a measure of the natural and external goods that are necessary
conditions for our own excellent activity, given the constraints of our compound nature (EE VIII.3.l249bl7-23)ll.
This conception of the happy life falls within the range of those that in recent years have been called 'inclusive ends'
interpretations of Aristotelian happiness. On this view, now ascendant among scholars, Aristotelian happiness, at least
in most of its formulations, countenances a lifetime of excellent activity in both the political-moral and contemplative
spheres. There is a preference for contemplation, for those capable of it (VII.l3.l333a27-30), but no implication that
this ranking reduces the moral virtues to mere means for contemplative activity, nor any implication that those who
lack contemplative ability cannot be genuinely happy. As such, 'inclusivism' contrasts with 'strict intellectualism,' both
in a radical form, where the truly happy, contemplative person regards himself as altogether free from social
obligations, and in a weaker, more plausible version, according to which moral duties are necessary conditions for, but
not proper parts of, happiness.l2 Inclusivism itself has weaker and stronger versions. The weaker version is a view in
which happiness is considered merely the additive sum of practices commonly regarded as constituents of the happy
life, with no strong ordering principle among them. Since this countenances the unconstrained trading off of one good
to realize another, it has been called the 'trade-off view'.l3 A stronger sort of inclusivism asserts that the contemplative
virtues serve as an ordering principle, according to which contemplation is to be pursued as vigorously as possible
within the bounds of social obligations, which must be met first. 'Moral virtue comes first,' writes John Cooper, an
advocate of this view. 'But once moral virtue is securely entrenched intellectual goods are allowed to predominate.'
This has been called 'the superstructure view'.l4 This interpretation rightly forbids unconstrained trade offs between the
moral and the intellectual virtues. But, in several of its formulations, this account has the disadvantage of suggesting
that practice of the moral or social virtues is a constraint on time that would be better spent contemplating. It has about
it an air of annoying, but managable, tension in how citizens are to allocate their time and energy among competing
goods. This may be a genuine problem. But it cannot be properly resolved unless we appreciate first the degree to
which Aristotle thinks that good politics and contemplative activity are mutually supportive, indeed mutually entailing;
and until we are acquainted fully with the constitutional conditions under which any tension between them is
minimized, that is, the conditions of an ideal aristocracy.l5

2. Leisure, Music and Philosophy in Aristotle's Ideal Aristocracy.

Confirmation of this interpretation of Pol. VII.l-3 comes from the fit between this account and the constitutional
structure of the aristocracy Aristotle actually describes in the remainder of Pol. VII-VIII. Aristotle argues there that
the norms set down in Pol. VII.l-3 are best embodied in a state whose way of life centers on the cultivation and exercise
of the virtues proper to leisure activity, especially love of wisdom (philosophia) (VII.l3. l333a3l-34bl.) If this is to be
achieved, he says, the citizens must be able to take full advantage of the goods and services provided by the productive
and commercial classes, while at the same time these unleisured classes are excluded from citizenship. Further, a best
state must possess an educational system designed to enable its citizens to be 'capable of using good things ... in leisure'
(VII.l3.l334a37-8). In this section I review Aristotle's arguments for these two claims, showing how they affirm and
apply the principles laid down in Pol. VII.l-3. I go on to suggest what these arguments imply about the relation
between music and contemplation in Aristotle's ideal state, a topic that has invited conflicting views.
Aristotle begins by considering what material conditions must be presupposed (VII.4.l325b36) if a best city is to be
realized (Pol. VII.4-7). Every state must have, or have access to, farmers to grow food, craftsmen to provide
implements and weapons, and agents of both internal and external trade (VII.6.l328b6-22) Since this is to be a happy
state, it must be amply provided with the material goods that enable its citizens to live well--with liberality
(eleutherios), but moderately (sophronos) (VII.4.l326b33). A state living on the ragged edge of material sufficiency
may look adequate to the exclusively contemplative man, whose material needs are minimal. But the fact is that this
condition will generate a state always threatening to regress into a vulgar and debilitating concern with basic
necessities. To prevent this, the best state must be well situated and physically well endowed so that it can produce an
agricultural surplus on the private (and public) farms (VII.8.l329al9-22; 9.l330a9-l3), worked by imported slaves or
indigenous barbarians (VII.8.l329a25-6), which constitute the foundation of its economy. But Aristotle does not think
this will suffice. A well-provisioned state must rely on imports of items it cannot itself produce (VII.5.l327a26-9). But
here we reach a problem troublesome to all aristocratic political theories. Experience suggests that an extensive supply
of commodities can be acquired only by pursuing an energetic imperialistic policy, or by taking in the benefits of trade
by giving free rein to the commercial classes, or by a combination of both (VII.5.l327a29-32). Pursuit of the second
course will, however, shift influence in the city to people whose values, concerned as they are with external goods, are
hopelessly instrumental, generating a state that cannot in principle be happy; while pursuit of the first course will tilt
civic consciousness toward despotism, and will so increase the prestige of instrumental goods, especially power, that
political men will come to regard domination of others as the end of the state (VII.2.l324b23-25al5). A combination of
commercialism and militarism will be especially deadly. How, then, can the socio-economic substructure for a
genuinely excellent state be institutionalized in a way that allows both for generous provisioning and the pursuit of
intrinsically good values?
Aristotle's solution is to leave craftsmanship and commerce in the hands of foreign-born residents (metoikoi, xenoi),
who are to dwell at a port some distance from the city proper (VII.5.l327al6-39) and who are to interact with the
citizens only in a specially designed commercial meeting place, under the strict control of magistrates (VII.5.l327a37-9;
6.l33lbl-4). Since these classes lead a life inescapably focused on the unleisured (ascholia = [lat.] neg-otium = [eng.]
busy-ness) production, exchange and consumption of instrumental goods, they cannot share in the life of a city devoted
to the pursuit of the intrinsic goods of leisure. Accordingly, they are to be totally excluded from citizenship
(VII.8.l328b33-29a2; 29al9-20, 35-39). This would be unjust if this population were composed of free born natives.
For just claims on citizenship derive from free birth, as well as from wealth and virtue (III.7.l283al4-42).l6 But
Aristotle is envisoning a city which, whether by chance or providence, embodies 'everything for which we might wish
and pray' (II.3.l265a9; VII.3.l325b37; l2.l332a29-35; l332a29-35), and so feels free to imagine a situation in which
such claims are neither valid nor pressed. This solution presupposes that, like the goods they produce and procure, these
craftsmen, merchants and laborers are--and are experienced by the citizens as--merely necessary conditions for the
citizens' own activities, just as slaves are necessary conditions for the activities of the free members of a household
(VII.7.l328a22-36; l328b34-29a2; 8.l329a35-39).
This exclusion has an important consequence in applying the principles of Pol. VII.l-3. The citizens' perception that
farmers, craftsmen and merchants are analogous to domestic slaves will intensify when such persons have no claim on
citizenship. For this similarity, undamped by any need to recognize these persons as fellow citizens, will reinforce the
contempt in which the citizens hold these persons and their utilitarian tasks and values. This perception will incline the
citizens, as a point of aristocratic pride, to favor values and practices differing as far as possible from those of the
vulgar. Overt dissociation--physical, psychological and political--of the citizens from craftsmen, merchants and
laborers is, therefore, an indispensible condition under which the pursuit of the intrinsically good activities of leisure
can be set afoot. For the citizens of Aristotle's best state will then be led consciously to contrast their own way of life
with the busy, unleisured lives of the other classes. It follows that
the citizens should not live a vulgar or a merchant's way of life, for
this sort of life is ignoble and contrary to virtue; nor should
those who are citizens be farmers, for there is a need for leisure
both with a view to virtue and with a view to political
activities (VII.8.l328b38-29a2).
Under these conditions, Aristotle does not fear to vest political power in the hands of property-owners who rule and
are ruled in turn (VII.8.l329a3-9; l3. l332b25-27.) Whatever tendencies such men might have to turn power and wealth
into ends, or to regard virtue in a utilitarian light, can be countered through an educational system that reinforces the
contempt for vulgar, instrumentalist values built into the fundamental structure of social experience itself. Under these
conditions, those who bear arms can be entrusted with property ownership and later the full citizenship of office-
holding. This will not leave the state vulnerable to revolt by honor-cherishing, but imprudent, youths (as Plato had
feared). For these young citizens, whose virtues will have been developed as soldiers, can expect to hold political
offices when their deliberative ability and practical wisdom will have begun to develop (VII.8.l329al2-22; l3.l332b25-
40); and the same men, having internalized and protected the values of their city throughout their adult lives, will
fittingly honor and symbolize those same values by serving as priests in old age (VII.8. l329a26-34). Aristotle regards
this as the most natural form of the rotational rule of equal over equal (VII.8l329al5-l6).
The most important function of the legislator, therefore, is to design legal and educational institutions that capitalize
on the city's natural advantages, especially its exclusion of the working classes from citizenship, to produce a fully
excellent way of life (VII.8.,l334a9-l0; VIII.2.l337b3l-35). As Aristotle's remarks about natural rotational rule suggest,
the value system inculcated by these legal and educational institutions is to be based on invariant principles of social
and psychological development, which he has analyzed in detail in other treatises and now quickly reviews. Lower
capacities, he reminds us, emerge earlier in psychological development, no less than in physical, and they exist for the
sake of later, higher capacities (VII.l3.l333a2l-23). Thus the emotional parts of the soul develop before the rational
parts, and are less choiceworthy than the latter. Similarly the part of the rational soul that gives orders to the emotional
part is less choiceworthy than contemplative reason--at least for those capable of both (VII.l3.l333al6-30). Aristotle
goes on to say that this psychic hierarchy is to be mirrored in the structure of social activity, according to which 'war is
for the sake of peace, occupation for the sake of leisure, and necessary and useful things for the sake of noble things'
(VII.l3.l333a33-6). The point of this important remark is that the necesary and utilitarian will prevail over the noble, as
emotion will prevail over reason, unless peace is truly preferred to war; and war will indeed prevail over peace unless
leisure, and the rationally virtuous practices that flourish in it, including contemplative knowledge, are preferred to all
forms of occupation (ascholia), especially war-oriented politics and the consumer-ethic with which it is frequently and
fatally linked. A legislator must above all else see that these principles inform the best constitution (VII.l3.l333a37.40).
To the theoretical rationale that grounds this value system Aristotle adds a cautionary empirical tale (VII.l3.l333b5-
34al0). When legislators violate this hierarchy, they produce unstable and unhappy regimes. Even the legislator of the
Spartans, he says, 'who are commonly thought to be the best governed of the Greeks,' lacked wisdom. For 'he
legislated everything with a view to domination and war.' But the Spartans, having now lost their empire, are unhappy
because 'states of this sort preserve themselves only when they are warring; and when they remain at peace, they lose
their edge, like iron . . . because their legislator did not educate them to be capable of being at leisure'. It is relatively
easy, Aristotle explains, to be virtuous under conditions of danger and duress, such as the Spartan life invites and
requires, for 'war compels men to be just and to behave with moderation'. But when danger is past, those possessing
only virtues useful in times of stress fail, 'for the enjoyment of good fortune and leisure in peacetime tends to make
them arrogant' (VII.l3.l334a25-27). 'But it is disgraceful not to be capable of using good things, and still more so to be
incapable of using them in leisure, but to be seen as good men only while occupied and at war, and servile when
remaining at peace and being at leisure' (VII.l3.l334a36-39). For the virtues exercised under duress 'have their nobility
only in a necessary way, and it would be more choiceworthy if no man or city required anything of the sort'
(VII.l2.l332al2-l5). But the virtues that enable citizens to make good use of their leisure 'are noble in an unqualified
way' (VII.l2.l332al6-l7). Happy states and their citizens will, therefore, 'be most in need of love of wisdom
(philosophia), as well as of moderation and justice, to the extent that they are at leisure in the midst of an abundance of
good things' (VII.l3.l334a32-34).
These arguments lead Aristotle to conclude that the natural hierarchy of psychic powers can be preserved, developed
and exercised only in a state that prizes the correct employment of leisure as its highest good, and rank orders the
virtues in a way that fosters precisely this goal. Leisure emerges with the increasing economic self-sufficiency of cities
(I.l.l252b28-30), and comes, we may presume, to be increasingly prized. But it doesn't follow from this that every
person or state conceives of leisure in the same way, or that all such conceptions are equally valuable. Indeed, only in a
best state will that particular conception of leisure obtain which fully conforms to the requirements just reviewed,
according to which leisure-time provides an occasion for activities in and through which the highest capacities and
virtues are exercised--and in which, accordingly, leisure itself is conceived as activity.l7
This certainly cannot be the conception of leisure that obtains in deviant constitutions or barbarian regimes. For these
bear the scars of pre-political forms of association by adopting a view of leisure as passive enjoyment and freedom
from work. Leisure is reserved for a ruling class that uses its power to deflect work onto others, reserving consumption
and enjoyment for itself. Activity is construed as work, and the good life therefore as enjoyable inactivity. The world-
view of such states focuses on the never-ceasing systole and diastole of production and consumption. This
consumption-oriented and pleasure-loving way of life can be best observed in the way of life followed by the rulers of
Asian cities, which, due to defects in human material, have never fully emerged from a conflation of economic with
political life, and from a confusion between despotism and political rule properly so-called. But this ideal, in the form
of the apolaustic life, or life of enjoyment, also exercises a deleterious influence on Greek men and cities, which, for
Aristotle, are by nature and circumstance capable of transcending these confusions, and are reprehensible when they do
not (EN I.5.l095bl9-2l).
In contrast to the passive ideal of vulgar cities, it would at first sight seem that the possibility of correlating leisure
with excellent activity occurs in dominantly military states, whose representative men self-consciously distance
themselves from the values of the vulgar. Persons and cities of this sort can recognize that the biosocial function of
leisure, construed as enjoyment, is to provide the rest (anapausis) that follows the exhaustion of effort and makes
renewed activity possible (VIII.2.l337b36-38a2). They can also recognize that this cycle of work and relaxation, and
the persons whose lives it dominates, is instrumental as a whole, and that this cycle is embedded within and
subordinated to a higher cycle that alternates between peace and war (VII.l3.l333a3l-32). But, although timocratic
cities do contemptuously reject the apolaustic life, they are likely to find their own paradigms of virtuous activity
within the war-oriented phase of this higher cycle, since war provides the occasion for the exercise of the excellences
such men value most. This gives rise to the problem to which Aristotle refers in his discussion of Sparta. The virtues
practiced in such cities are not fully noble or active, since they are exercised under duress (VII.l2.l332al-l9) and in
times of peace there is a threat that degeneration toward laxity will set in (VII.l3.l334a34-b3). For since activity is
correlated in such cities with war, and the virtues useful for peacetime are not well cultivated, the conception of leisure
that becomes current will be borrowed, for the most part, from the passive pleasure ethic of the vulgar. Under such
conditions, rulers can easily construe the blandishments of consumption and enjoyment as threats to the cultivation and
exercise of excellence, and can therefore regard war as an antidote to the unfortunate effects of a lax peace. A
conventionally political, militarily oriented city comes perilously close, therefore, to denying the self-evident principle
that 'war is for the sake of peace, as work is for the sake of leisure' (VII.l3.l333a35-37). It tacitly assumes that where
leisure is left to the whims of spontaneity, it will soon degenerate into frivolity and inactivity (VII.l3.l334a6-l0).
Aristotle senses this underlying tension in Plato, who seeks, as I will show later, to repress it rather than transcend it.
Aristotle's own aim is to break out of this dialectic altogether. Thus his citizens are be educated 'not only to be occupied
in a correct fashion (ascholein orthos) but also to be capable of being at leisure in a noble fashion (scholazein dunasthai
kalos). For this is the beginning point of everything--if we may speak of this once again' (VIII.2.l337b3l-33).
This remark occurs, significantly enough, at the outset of Aristotle's extended discussion of music. Aristotle lists
three possible social functions for music: amusement or play (paidia); character formation (ethike, paideia), and
leisure processes (diagoge en tei scholei) (VIII.4. l339al6-27; l339bl4; VIII.2. l337b29). (Later, he adds a reference to
'catharsis' to these 'uses' or functions of music: VIII.7.l34lb39). It is tempting to correlate these three functions with the
different conceptions of leisure prevailing in different sorts of cities. In most states, where leisure is construed as rest
from labor, the dominant function of music is play or entertainment (paidia) (VIII.2. l337b29-42; 5.l339b32-33).
Aristotle criticizes this as more appropriate to children than to adults, except in legitimate subordinate roles
(VIII.2.l337b35-38a2). In conventionally political cities, where leisure is construed as peace between wars, music is
dominantly oriented toward character formation (VII.4.l339a4l-b4). It is, however, a mistake, Aristotle says, to think
of this as the highest function of music (as Plato did). For this too is an instrumental role, whereas, he assures us, 'those
who in earlier times arranged that music would be in education did so not as something necessary, for it involves
nothing of the sort, nor as something useful . . . but for the pastime that is in leisure (diagoge en tei scholei) . . . of free
persons (VIII.2. l338al3-23). In explanation of this conception Aristotle refers to a passage from Homer in which
Odysseus, reclining after many trials in the banquet hall of Alcinoos, suggests that feasting, listening to bardic tales,
remembering, reflecting and conversing are the 'most gracious end (telos chariesteron)' and the 'very best (kalliston)' of
the good things in life (VIII.2.l338a23-3l). The point is that music, considered as an end (telos) rather than a means, is
partially constitutive of the good life itself; and that it is incumbent on the legislator of the best constitution to ensure
that the citizens can engage in it, and in related leisure activities, in precisely this way.l8
Aristotle refers positively to dithyrambs and other choral and instrumental forms (VIII.5.l340a8-l4; l34lal4-24);
provides 'theatrical music' for both high and low-minded audiences (VII.7.l342al6-28); and allows citizens past a
certain age to attend satires and comedies (VII.l5.l336b20). The functions of these musical or musically accompanied
forms are various and overlapping. They include entertainment, catharsis, and character development. But at least
some of them qualify for the endlike leisure time processes of which Aristotle sees a simple but compelling example in
Homer's scene in Alcinoos' banquet hall. I cannot enter here into which forms these might be . The matter is textually
tangled. It can, however, be said that all and only those forms reaching this level do so because they have a cognitive
dimension that transcends mere entertainment, psychological catharsis, and character building by inducing reflection
and learning. Aristotle says plainly that leisure processes (diagoge en tei scholei) are for the sake of practical wisdom
(phronesis) (VII.4.l339a26) and learning (mathesis) (VIII.4.l339a37; 6.l34la23). This is exactly what we would expect
him to say. For unless music engages rationality, the distinctive human function (ergon), on both the producing and
receiving end, it cannot be fully endlike according to Aristotle's general principles. Thus Aristotle clearly insists that
young citizens engage in music, not only for the sake of character formation, but so that they might develop ability to
judge (kritein) musical performances correctly, especially those in which correct response is required to 'respectable
characters and noble actions' (VIII.5.l340al3-l8). Aristotle goes on to make much of the fact that such judgments
presuppose active participation in music-making from childhood, and not just the passive exposure characteristic of
'Persian and Median kings' (VIII.4.l339a35-36)--even if this active involvement brings with it some risk that technical
proficiency might result in vulgar professionalism (VII.6.l340b20-4la9). Apparantly the ability to judge music implies
knowing it in a technical way; and this technical knowledge is crucial to the subsequent development of both practical
and theoretical knowledge. Passive reception of music, Aristotle implies, will result in little or no learning of any sort,
and declines into mere play or entertainment (paidia). It is activity that teaches us about right action.
Thus far I have not mentioned tragedies. It is inviting to see an approval of tragedy and tragic festivals as an element
of the endlike leisure processes (diagoge en tei scholei) Aristotle prizes as the highest function of music. Tragedy,
especially as it is analyzed in the Poetics, seems to pass all the tests just laid down for cognitive relevance to virtuous
activity and learning. Nonetheless, two cautionary notes are necessary. First, there is no direct mention of tragedy or
tragic festivals in what remains of Pol. VIII. Second, use of the mention of catharsis at VIII.7.l34lb39 as a link between
Pol. VIII and the Poetics has been conclusively discredited.l9 The catharsis of the Politics is a psychological effect
paradigmatically seen in people who throw themselves into the frenzy of Dionysian music (VIII.7.l342a5-l6); in the
Poetics catharsis has little directly to do with this. Although music is part of tragedy, it cannot be said that tragedy is
part of music; and it is the non-musical part in which tragic catharsis resides. Nor is it entirely clear that Aristotle's
mention at VIII.7.l34lb40 of a work on poetics refers to the Poetics, or to the part of it we possess. These arguments
establish that one cannot project the catharsis of the Politics onto the theory of tragedy in the Poetics and then read the
latter back into the Politics, as has commonly been done. Nonetheless, it would be to conclude too much from these
facts that inferences between the two works should altogether be forbidden. For recent views about tragedy, as it is
independently analyzed in the Poetics, fit quite well into the endlike leisure activities described in Pol. VIII.
These connections do not, however, run directly through the concept of catharsis. Instead, they run through the
concept of learning (mathesis). That is because tragic catharsis, we learn in the Poetics (3.l448bl5-l6), rests on the
learning involved in actively following a plot to its resolution, with the result that the experience of the tragic character,
and at the same time the excellence of its representation (mimesis), is worked through, clarified and properly judged.20
This can be done only by those who can follow the development and resolution of the plot, and the moral deserts of its
characters, with their minds no less than their (well educated) feelings. Thus tragedy affords a kind of learning which,
although it is not education (paideia)--in fact it presupposes it--does have normative import. It sharpens and exercises
practical judgment--and at the same time opens out onto a wider, more contemplative understanding of human affairs.
That is just what is required of the endlike leisure processes of Pol. VIII. I conclude, therefore, that there is an
important place for tragedy in Aristotle's ideal state as part of its leisured life.
The link between practical and contemplative wisdom just mentioned can be envisioned as follows. The activity of
judging poetic representations involves, Aristotle says, an implicit, reflective grasp of the universals, both factual and
normative, which govern excellent human activity (Poet. 9.l45lb5-ll). This suggests that the technical judgment and
practical wisdom called into play by musically attended forms like tragedy also have a certain relevance to
contemplative wisdom. Art, conversation and other dimensions of endlike leisure processes (diagoge en tei scholei)
undoubtedly begin with, and remain intensely concerned with, norms of human action. But in learning about the human
condition, in and by judging the correctness of representations of it, practical wisdom itself learns to understand a
lesson vividly taught by the art we judge to be best. That lesson is that humans are not the highest beings in the cosmos,
and hence practical wisdom is not the highest kind of knowledge (EN VI.7.ll4la20-2; 38-bl). In contrast to the
humanistic, sophistic insistence on the centrality of human life, tragic authors from Homer to Sophocles and Euripides
teach the same lesson Aristotle does: Even though human life is a worthy object of reflective attention, its value can be
properly judged only when it is acknowledged that man is not the measure of all things. Nor is it a cure for this vice to
underestimate and belittle man, as Plato does when he allows the Athenian Stranger to call humans playthings of the
gods, a conceit against which his interlocutors rightly protest (Laws 803c-e). For both over- and underestimation of
the human place in the scheme of things are vices of one who lacks practical wisdom. That is perhaps why, in the
Eudemian Ethics, practical wisdom (phronesis) is seen as a mean between overreaching cleverness and pusillanimous
subordination (EE II.3.l22lal2).
Music, from this perspective, aids in the development of practical wisdom, but it also does more than this. Proper
understanding of the place of human beings, with a view to action, brings with it incipient wonder about the things that
are more valuable than human beings, and that are above all worth contemplating for their own sake.2l Accordingly,
practical reason can be relied on, by its very nature, to adopt a principle of choice such that the development and
exercise of contemplative capacities is prized by all citizens of a best state, and is intensively pursued by those having
talent for it within the framework of a share, leisured political life. The men of practical wisdom who rule, therefore, in
Aristotle's best state will put no boundary on the intensification of leisured learning in the direction of scientific
knowledge and contemplative wisdom, nor will any politically relevant contrast emerge between those who are and are
not capable of such activities. For contemplative wisdom will be seen from the perspective of genuine practical wisdom
itself as emergent from and continuous with the musical and musically attended leisure activities that occupy a
prominent place in the life of a best state. Music and similar engagements will be seen, therefore, to have mediated
rather than blocked or replaced this ascent toward contemplation (just as the ascent toward contemplation sustains and
deepens practical wisdom itself). For these reasons, it can be argued that Aristotle is envisioning the non-musical
leisure pursuits characteristic of mature civilizations, such as the sophisticated conversations of symposia, dialectical
encounters, and philosophical lectures such as his own, as extensions of, and to some degree commentaries on, the
musically accompanied leisure activities whose paradigm he sees in Homer.
Musical leisure is, therefore, an important scene for the exercise of the reflective virtues concerned with the proper
employment of leisure, which Aristotle collectively calls philosophy (philosophia). Philosophy thus conceived does
indeed, as Solmsen and Lord have argued, presuppose the broad sense of this term used by Thucydides when he speaks
of the Athenians as prizing 'philosophy without softness.'22 But philosophy seems in this context to imply for Aristotle
something even more specific--an ascent from musical practice to practical wisdom and to contemplation, by which
rationality, which marks the exercise of virtues and so happiness, is developed and intensified in increasingly profound
ways. All of these cognitively rich pursuits, of which contemplative knowledge of divine and eternal things is highest,
will be seen as activities in a more proper sense than those instrumental actions normally called 'practical', whose
dependencies, in respects explicated above, disqualify them for this status. This conception of contemplation as
activity, fostered by devotion to music and other leisure activities, fully accords with the principles set forth in Pol.
VII.l-3. For musically mediated leisure activities so construed complete the dissociation of Aristotle's citizens from the
instrumentalistic conception of activity initiated by the exclusion of the working classes from citizenship. In Aristotle's
best state, therefore, contemplation will indeed be seen as activity, as the prefatory argument of Pol. VII.l-3 requires,
and this understanding of contemplation will produce precisely the political consequences demanded by that argument
for a best state. The body of Pol. VII-VIII is thus a direct application of the principles laid down in Pol. VII.l-3.
This interpretation is at odds with the view, first proposed by Solmsen, according to which music is a political
substitute or surrogate for contemplation, rather than a stimulus to it.23 For, I shall argue, one cannot say this and at the
same time abide consistently within the assumptions Aristotle lays down in Pol. VII.l-3. In saying that music is a
surrogate for contemplation in Pol. VII-VIII Solmsen was rightly reacting to commentators, who, influenced by strict
intellectualistic preconceptions about Aristotelian happiness, tended to make contemplation a 'dominant end' in
Aristotle's ideal state, and suggested that after completing his treatise on music Aristotle would have gone on, or in fact
did go on in parts of the Politics now missing, to specify abstract intellectual training for all the citizens.24 Solmsen
pointed out that Aristotle implies that all citizens share in the proper good of this city and have the same education
(VII.l.l337a22-7; 34-5), but that only some are capable of contemplation (VII.l3.l333a27-30). He suggested, therefore,
that on any common sense view of the matter too few could possess enough contemplative ability to justify strongly
orienting an entire city toward it. Accordingly, Solmsen judged the musically focused educational system outlined in
Pol. VIII to be essentially complete, even if textually truncated. For, he claimed, private musical leisure-time
pursuits--the sort of thing prized by people in Hellenistic, if not in classical, cities--are treated there as an analogue to,
and substitute for, contemplation properly so-called, since it is around the interests and abilities of the majority of good
men, rather than of a theoretical few, that an ideal regime must be organized. Such a state can allow its contemplative
minority to develop their special capacities. But these pursuits will be treated as their peculiar form of private leisure,
different but not incompatible with the musical interests of the majority, provision for which is the main object of
statecraft.25
Solmsen himself concedes that music, and adult leisure activities (diagoge en tei scholei) generally, will be
indistinguishable, on this account, from mere play or entertainment (paidia) unless they have a moral dimension.26
But, given his stress on the private satisfactions of the leisured class in Hellenistic cities, it is hard to see how Solmsen's
own account meets this demand. In recently taking up Solmsen's suggestion, Carnes Lord has tried to meet this
difficulty by holding that music substitutes for contemplation, not because of Aristotle's concern for the private
enjoyments of the citizens of post-political, Hellenistic cities, but because something like contemplation, but more
widely sharable, is necessary to moderate the inherent aggressiveness of the political men who rule Aristotle's ideal
state--their drive to dominate, which, Lord holds, has an inherent tendency to undermine virtue even as it bonds
politically active men in devotion to the state.27 The assumption is that contemplation undergirds the virtuous conduct
of fully contemplative persons, and that music can similarly, though less perfectly, restrain political 'gentlemen' from
giving way to their baser, political selves. Musical leisure is thus an integral support for and part of the public life of
the ideal city, and not a concession to what Solmsen thinks of as a characteristically Hellenistic concern for the citizen's
private sensibilities.28 Lord has much to say about how music performs this role, assigning an especially important
role to participation in 'theatrical music' (VIII.7.l342al8) and tragic festivals.29 He thus provides the moral dimension
that Solmsen asks for. But in so doing he holds that for Aristotle participation in traditional Greek music, and
especially in dramatic festivals, serves to provide 'grown men' with a 'continuing education in virtue and prudence'30 in
which tragic catharsis has the effect of controlling a range of hostile and destructive emotions endemic among political
men. On his view Aristotle's adult leisure activities are distinguished from the education of the young primarily because
the cathartic function of music serves to restore and foster moral equilibrium in passionate adults.
One difficulty with this approach is that Lord has to go beyond anything Aristotle says, here or in the Poetics, by
postulating a wider range of cathartic effects than pity and fear.3l More importantly, there is something wrong with the
very notion of education for adults. The Greek word for education, paideia, comes from the word pais, meaning child,
suggesting that paideia is restricted to the training of the young (VIII.l.l337all-34; VII.l3.l333b3-4). It is true that
Aristotle sometimes uses paideia more widely, as when he refers to 'the educated person' (EN I.4.l094b23-95a2); and
Lord cites a passage from the Nicomachean Ethics (X.9.ll80al-l9), in which Aristotle says that adults stand in need of
continued habituation in virtue.32 But when Aristotle uses paideia in the sense of 'educated' he refers precisely to
someone who has profited, in childhood and youth, from good education; and at EN X.9.ll80al-l9, where Aristotle
speaks of continued habituation (ethismos) for adults, the term paideia is conspicuous by its absence--and the context,
in any case, is explicitly restricted to the uneducated many (hoi polloi) rather than to Lord's 'gentlemen.' Aristotle says,
moreover, that education (paideia) comes to an end at some point (VII.l3.l333b4). Finally, at VIII.7.l34lb32-42al6
catharsis, which Lord takes to be the primary instrument of adult education, is listed as a different use of music from
education.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that just as Solmsen inappropriately reduces the endlike leisure processes
(diagoge en tei schole) Aristotle so prizes to mere play, so Lord reduces them to mere education. Accordingly, neither
preserves Aristotle's clear differentiation between the various functions of music, and his insistence that its highest
function is fully endlike. In the process the rational element of Aristotle's endlike leisure processes is deeply subverted.
Lord recognizes that if there is to be an education of adults it must be an education in prudence or practical wisdom
(phronesis).33 But for him, Aristotle's clear belief that proper moral habituation is a necessary condition for practical
wisdom (EN I.5.l095b4-l0; VI.5.ll40bllll4) is interpreted in such a way that practical wisdom is itself rendered less an
intellectual than a moral virtue.34 For Lord's vision of adult education focuses on continued training of affective
responses more than on the development of autonomous rational judgment. This is a Platonic view because Plato thinks
that only very few persons--those possessing contemplative virtue--have their feelings fully formed. The rest are not all
that different from children. There are for Plato, in any case, no autonomous agents possessing practical, but not
contemplative wisdom.
The consequences of Lord's analysis for the relation between action and contemplation in Pol VII-VIII are, in any
event, profoundly at odds with the thrust of Aristotle's argument. If music were conceived by Aristotle as a substitute
for contemplation within the political sphere, music would be construed, from within the political sphere, as 'active',
that is, as political in some sense. Contemplation proper would, by contrast, be seen by those who engage in it, as well
as by their fellow citizens, as inactive because apolitical. This would result in violating Aristotle's principle that
'contemplation is activity', and would open up precisely the antinomies Aristotle seeks to preclude. 'Men of action'
would be unable to discriminate well between instrumental and intrinsically good activity, even if they could be led to
repress the former, or to sublimate it into music. With activity conceived instrumentally, meanwhile, 'men of
contemplation' would dissociate themselves altogether from the sphere of action, with the result that the continuity
betweeen genuine politics and contemplation as spheres of excellent leisured activity would be at risk.
That this is in fact the upshot of Lord's interpretation is inescapably clear in his remark that
To speak of an active or practical life which consists in
the pursuit of 'speculations' which have no end beyond
themselves is to speak of a way of life which is no longer
'active' in any tolerable sense of the term . . . happiness
in the truest sense belongs not with activity but with leisure.35
It is central to Aristotle's purposes in Pol. VII-VIII to block precisely these claims. It is ironic that they appear here
as an interpretation of this text.

CONTEMPLATIVE AND PRACTICAL LIVES IN ARISTOTLE'S POLITICS AND ETHICS

Few issues have caused Aristotle's recent interpreters to become as exercised as whether he favors an exclusively
theoretical or contemplative life as the ideally happy life for humans, or thinks that the pursuit of theoria must be
linked, even for those with philosophical talent, with the development and practice of the ethical virtues, and thus with
excellence in social and political life as well. Proponents of the former view have come to be called "strict
intellectualists," or advocates of a "dominant end" interpretation of the Ethics, where 'dominant' implies that theoria can
and should displace other virtues and goods. Those holding the second view are said to favor an "inclusive ends"
conception of happiness. The basis of their argument is that when Aristotle claims that 'happiness is activity in accord
with complete virtue (teleia arete)' (EE l2l9a35-39; NE ll00a4-5), he intends 'complete' to mean 'including all virtues,
moral as well as intellectual, in the flourishing or happy life (eudaimonia),' as well as the intrinsically good things--
pleasure, honor, friends--that can be honorably procured only by exercising all these virtues. Strong evidence for
this interpretation of 'complete' is provided by the fact that even though honor and friendship, for example, are external
goods, they are said by Aristotle to be intrinsically good, and therefore, apparantly, to be components of happiness:
"Honor, pleasure, understanding and every virtue we choose because of themselves, for if nothing resulted we would
choose each of them," even if it is no less true that "we also choose them for the sake of happiness," which alone is
chosen for its own sake (NE l.7.l097b2-5). What Aristotle opposes, then, is not the intrinsic worth of goods of the
body, such as health and beauty, and of external goods, but the notion that the virtues by which such goods are
acquired and used are only instrumentally valuable. These "goods of the soul," like the physical and external goods
that they they procure and regulate, are chosen for their own sake as well as for their relation to happiness. For thi
reason, as Socrates and Plato had insisted, and Aristotle again asserts, virtue cannot be traded off for even a slight gain
in external goods.
In recent years the inclusivist view has gained favor. Its advocates include
J. L. Ackrill, John Cooper, David Keyt, Terrence Irwin, Martha Nussbaum and Timothy Roche.l Several issues,
however, divide inclusivists among themselves. Not all of them think that Aristote consistently maintains this position,
lapsing, as he appears to do, into strict intellectualism on at least one occasion at the end of NE X. More importantly
for the present, even if the preservation of virtue generally constrains the pursuit of external goods, it is still an open
question unconstrained "trade-offs" are permitted among the virtues themselves, and the acts that exercise them, or
whether there is a hierarchical ordering principle which bids one to pursue the theoretical virtues, to the extent that one
has the capacity for them and occasion to develop and exercise them, only when the demands of justice and the other
moral and social virtues have been minimally satisfied.
In the course of pursuing these issues, inclusivism seems to have come to mean two different things:

(l) Maximization Inclusivisml: Happiness consists in the greatest

possible sum of all compossible intrinsic goods made
available through, regulated by, or constrained in accordance
with, the practice of the various virtues
and

(2) Superstructuralist Inclusivism2: The happiest life consists a lifetime of excellent activity in both the
moral and political sphere and in contemplation, with contemplation predominating where possible.

The initial reason for the emergence of inclusivism2 is that inclusivisml

appears to do insufficient justice to Aristotle's repeated rank ordering of the virtues themselves, even the intelletual
virtues, in favor of theoria, as when he says, in Pol. VII.l4 that reason is divided into two parts, "reason of the active
sort and of the theoretical sort" and that "because what is most choiceworthy for each individual is the highest it is
possible for him to achieve," reason of the active sort must be for the sake of reason of the theoretical sort, "for those
who are capable of achieving all of them" (l333a24-30). Similarly, at the end of the Eudemian Ethics (EE) we are
admonished to acquire and use external goods srictly in proportion as they facilitate contemplation. More notoriously
still, Aristotle remarks in Nicomachean Ethics (NE) I, where happiness is said generally to consist of activity in accord
with virtue, that "if there is more than one excellence then [happiness will be activity] in accord with the highest." In
EN X that condition appears to be fulfilled by a life that is happy only insofar as and to the extent that it consists of
contemplation. "As far as contemplation extends," Aristotle writes, "thus far happiness extends, and those who have
more contempation also have more happiness" (X.8.ll78b28-30).
Acknowledging this hierarchy has led Cooper and Keyt into what the latter calls the 'superstructuralist' interpretation
of inclusivism. "Moral virtue comes first," writes Cooper. "But once moral virtue is securely entrenched intellectual
goods are allowed to predominate." Charles Young has wistfully dubbed this "moderate intellectualism" the
"department chairman" view of the theoretical life, an apt phrase when one remembers that Aristotle himself was
something of a department chairman. One is admonished to contemplate when one's moral, social and political duties
have been fulfilled, that is, when that component of the happy life has been exercised. The problem with
'superstructuralism', however, is that it doesn't say when enough is enough, when one is free from duties to develop
and exercise his or her highest powers; or why, for that matter, one should abide by these constraints at all if
contemplation is incommensurably better than other goods.
Both Cooper and Keyt maintain that inclusivism2 can be brought into line with the problematic texts at the end of the
NE, even if inclusivisml cannot be, Keyt having maintained this from the start, and Cooper having changed his mind
on the subject recently. Their arguments for the compatibility of NE X with the rest of the corpus differ from each
other, however, and are sometimes tangled. That might have been taken as a sign of trouble. But there matter seemed to
lie, with strict intellectualists in retreat--until the recent appearance of Richard Kraut's, Aristotle on the Human Good, a
sustained effort to refute what Kraut calls the "current orthodoxy" and to establish strict intellectualism:

(3) Strict intellectualism: the happiest life is a life in

accordance with (kata) understanding; it is not a
life in accordance with practical virtue (24).

Kraut justly points out that for Aristotle there can never be too much of what is best for us. Since theoretical virtue
and its objects are incommensurably better than practical virtues and their objects, as 'superstruturalists' concede, it is
an ultimate, dominant and exclusive end for those who can attain it; while for those who can't, practical wisdom is
such an end, constituting, as Aristotle says in NE X, a sort of 'second rate' happiness in the form of the bios politikos
or praktikos. In any case, happiness itself is co-extensive only with exercise of the virtue that defines one's highest end.
Thus for the theoretical person, the exercise of moral, social and political virtues constitutes no part of one's happiness.
 The usual objection to (3) is that it appears to lead directly to

(4) Moral nihilism: The theoretically competant person

has no obligation to spend time that would otherwise be spent contemplating practicing the
moral, social and political virtues.

Whether this means neglecting elementary moral and social obligations, or more actively violating moral norms, the
moral nihilism to which this seems to lead is the main cause of the recent retreat from strict intellectualism. Any
version of strict intellectualism worthy of the name and wishing to gain credence, therefore, must find some way to get
around (4).
Kraut's way is as follows. We act "in accord with" (kata) only the virtue that stands at the pinnacle of our hierarchy
of goods, as that for the sake of which we do other things, while it is not done for the sake of something else.
Conformity to the demands of moral virtue is, therefore, for someone with theoretical capacity, not a life "in accord
with" practical virtues, "because those virtues do not have primacy in it" (25). Nonetheless, exercise of the moral
virtues is "for the sake of" (hou heneka) contemplation. Thus moral and social virtues are necessary conditions for or
means of practicing theoretical virtues, as, for example, the steadfastness provided by temperance and the collaboration
afforded by intelligent friendship facilitates contemplation. Thus, on empirical grounds, one may not dispense with
moral virtues, even though one is not acting in accordance with (kata) them, and they form no part of one's happiness
proper.
Put otherwise, Kraut argues that the inference from

(3) the happiest life is a life in

accordance with (kata) understanding; it is not a
life in accordance with practical virtue (24)
to
(5) the happiest life is that of someone who has understanding
but not practical virtue

is invalid; and thus the inference from (5) to

(4) The theoretically competant person

has no obligation to spend time that would otherwise be spent contemplating practicing the
moral, social and political virtues

cannot be made. The inference from (3) to (5) follows, according to Kraut, only if one assumes that

(6) Maximizing egoism: happiness consists in maximizing what is

good for oneself, even when it conflicts with what is good
for others.

Thus Kraut spends most of his time denying that Aristotle was a maximizing egoist--a view that he attributes not
only to his inclusivist opponents, but to previous strict intellectualists as well. In the course of making this case, Kraut
returns with increasing pathos to the hypothetical case of a theoretically talented young person, perhaps a student in the
Lyceum, who is the son of a king, groomed to inherit and govern his father's kingdom. Should this unfortunate prince
do so, even at the cost of his own happiness? Keyt and Cooper would doubtless advise him to study by the light of a
candle when everyone else has gone to bed; and would content themselves with saying that a life containing some
contemplation within the parameters of a largely political life is not all that different from a life in which the priorities
are reversed. The lives of kings and of department chairs do not differ all that much. Kraut's view, on the contrary, is
that the prince should indeed return home: He has obligations to others independent of and prior to the cultivation of his
own happiness. But he shouldn't kid himself that the life he takes up will make him happy, or at least as happy as he
might have been, if it means not developing and exercising his highest talents. Even though the pursuit of
contemplation is what makes, or would make, one happy, one should not always choose the act that maximizes one's
own happiness. There is thus a deontological shadow hanging over Aristotle's moral teleology.
 In evaluating Kraut's interpretation, one issue is certainly whether "in accord with", kata, means what Kraut says it
means. For inclusivists the phrase seems to imply 'facilitative of' or 'constrained by,' whereas for Kraut it means
'uniquely expressive of.' Similarly, inclusivists may want to quarrel with Kraut's interpretation of 'for the sake of,'
which on his view reduces to 'instrumental to' a higher good. As the Greek will tolerate a variety of readings, the matter
may not be resolvable by recourse to philology.
A more tractable and philosophically interesting issue is whether Kraut is right about egoism. There is, he claims,
simply no evidence for the notion that happiness consists in maximizing the sum total of intrinsic goods. For from the
fact that goods of the body, like health and beauty, and the external goods--goods in the securing of which there is an
element of dependence on fortune and the actions of others--are said to be good in themselves, in the sense that "we
would choose them for themselves as well as for their benefits," it does not follow that happiness in general, or one's
own happiness, consists in these things at all. You would "see no incompatibility between saying that a good is
desirable in itself and saying that it should be pursued only to the extent that it contributes to some other good" unless
you simply assume that Aristotle is a maximizing egoist, for whom happiness consists in acquiring the greatest number
of compossible goods for oneself. It is consistent with Kraut's view, and with what Aristotle says, that in general the
happy person does desire and possess external and bodily goods. But the mere possession of them does not constitute or
add to happiness, although, as Aristotle plainly acknowledges, they are intrinsically good things and a happy life will
contain them. Moreover, Kraut argues, the idea that increments of external goods constitute or add to happiness, which
is most fully expressed by Ackrill and Irwin, is inconsistent with the "function argument" of NE I.7, which holds that
happiness consists exclusively in the actualization of the goods of the soul, the virtues, in spite of the fact that there are
other admittedly intrinsically desirable and choiceworthy things which faciliate it, attend it, and, like pleasure,
supervene on virtuous action.
On this account, Kraut's rejection of inclusivism is premised on the identity of inclusivism with (l). For (l) does
indeed presuppose (6). I think Kraut is entirely right in rejecting this view and the maximization assumption on which it
rests. This thesis is an artifact of the roughly utilitarian and consequentialist ways of thinking that shadow our own
moral theorizing, which we have been led to project onto Aristote ever since Sidgwick too quickly identified
utilitarianism and Aristotelianism as "teleological" theories, thus allowing the maximization assumptions of the former
to seep into interpretations of the latter. I do not, however, think that Kraut sufficiently distinguishes (l) from (2),
despite the fact that he is aware that alternatives are possible between (l) and (3):

In virtue of the very fact that happiness consists

exclusively in the development and pratice of virtues,
it might be argued, against my inerpretation, that .. .
the ultimate end of the best life consists not in just
contemplation, but in a composite of many different types
of virtuous activites. Although I shall reject that
interpretations, it should be be emphasized that even if
it is accepted, the function arugment is still equating the
human good with virtuous activities and with no other
type of goods (l99).

This implies that (2) might be interpreted in such a way that maximizing the goods made available through the
various virtues is separated from exercising a range of virtues themselves. A particularly attractive version of this idea
is that phronesis, because it serves for Aristotle as the ground of a strong "unity of the virtues" thesis, is both necessary
and sufficient for the correct practice of the various moral virtues that it unifies and regulates; while phronesis is a
component of happiness for one who has contemplative abilities as well as for a person with practical reason only.
Kraut concedes that something along these lines might be called inclusivism because it "consists in [is inclusive of] two
or more goods" while it rejects the claim that "happiness consists in all intrinsic goods" (8.n.l3). Since, however, this
view plainly rejects the thesis that happiness consists in maximizing all compossible intrinsic goods--or, alternatively,
puts some real teeth into the notion of compossibility--it allows one to enjoy the pure light of inclusivism by stepping
out of the shadow of maximization.
I can think of several good reasons for urging this view as an alternative to the usual inclusivism. (l) is clearly false.
But the superstructuralists who have argued for (2) have themselves failed to separate (2) from (l). Cooper, for
example, construes (2) as a modification of (l), simply setting up a constrained principle of maximization, and so
preserving what might be called the "imagination of maximization." In effect he modifies (6) from

(6) Maximizing egoism: happiness consists in maximizing what is

good for oneself, even when it conflicts with what is good
for others
to

(7) Constrained egoism: happiness consists in maximizing what is

good for oneself when it does not conflict with what is good
for others.

The element of constraint on what one loves and is best at hardly suggests a componetn of happiness, especially if
happiness means maximization, whether unconconstrained or constrained.
Second, inclusivists have had a tendency to conflate the question whether ideal happiness involves a combination of
practical and theoretical virtues with the different question whether the happiest way of life is a combination of the bios
theoretikos and the bios politikos. This idea of a combined good is a product of the imagination of maximization. This
generates, however, an incoherent principle for choosing external goods, anyway it is sliced. From the point of view
of the theoretical life, the external goods cultivated and used for the political life must always be excessive; while from
the point of view of the political life, the principle of choice of external goods recommended by dominance of the
theoretical life must always appear too niggardly and mean. Kraut thereupon rejects the notion of a combined way of
life, arguing correctly that the bios theoretikos and the bios politikos are alternatives. Does it follow from this,
however, that the happiest life does not conjoin the practice of the practical and the theoretical virtues as joint
components?

I think this is, in fact, the natural interpretation. It clearly seems implied by Aristotle's statement in Pol. VII.l that

Those things that are by nature good are for the sake of the
good of the soul and it is necesary that all those judging well (eu phronountas) choose the latter, and
not the soul for the sake
of the other things. To each person there falls just
as much happiness as of virtue and phronesis, and of action
in accord with these things.

Kraut's argument against interpreting such passages embracing all the virtues as components of happiness is as
follows. He has successfuylly demonstrated that in the absense of maximization assumptions , external goods are not
components of happiness, even thoughthey intrincialy good, because they are also for the sake of virtuous actvity. This
principle is then extended to include the relationship between virtues themselves. If, like external goods, therefore,
practical wisdom is exercised for the sake of theoria, as well as for its own sake, it will not be a component of
happiness. Only that which it subserves will be. Since Aristotle, both at the end of the EE and the NE stipulates that
practical wisdom stands in precisley this relation to theoria, it follows that praactical resaon, and all the otehr moral
virutes that it perfects and unifies, will not be a component of the happiness of the theoretical perosn
Suppose that contemplation is one's highest capacity and good. Then one will choose other goods for its sake, as
Kraut says. Aristotle acnowledges at the end of EE that it is practical reason that makes these choices, even when its
decision is to minimize dependence on external goods to properly pursue theoria.

God is not a ruler in the sence of issuing commands, but is the

end on behalf of whom (hou heneka) phronesis gives commands.
Therefore whatever mode of choosing and acquiring things good
by nature, whether goods of the body or wealth or friends or other
goods, will best promote contemplation of the God, that is the
best mode, and the finest standard (EE VIII.3.l249bl4-l9).
 This shows that the exercise of the practical virtues is quite separable from maximizing the external goods available
through them, and that it is necessary for the correct practice of contemplation. But it also shows that practical wisdom
is exercised for the sake of contemplation, and thus might not form an inherent part of the contemplative person's
happiness. God's own contemplative life, for example, does not require a corresponding exercise in phronesis because
he is not dependent on external goods: "He is happy and blessed, although he makes use of no external goods at all,
through his own self and by way of the characteristics he possesses by nature [Pol. VII.l.l323bl8-26]). But that is not
true of humans, but only because of their defects. Accordingly, pursuing theoria as one's highest good involves
exercising practical reason as well, but it seems to involve it as a means, and not as a constituent end.
Simialrly, and even more categorically, at the end of the EN Aristltel says that contempaltion alone is valued for its
own sake, and shares in a variety of marks that we identify as criteria of happiness. And Arisotle says that nonehteles
the contempatife man will have practial wisodm, even thgouth he is a mna. But he does not say it will be part of his
happiness. Indeed, he seems to say quite the reverse.

What would be needed to undercut this argument is a proof that once inclusive ends conception is cut loose from
maximization assumptions, practical and theoretical wisdom are mutually dependent components of happiness. that is,
whoe acknowling the inherent supoeiror ity of contmplation over action is a condtion not for subordinating the virutres
govering action to subordinate ends, but of suggesting a mutual dependence such that valuing contmmpatlion is a
necesary cnditon for engaging in excellent aciton, while acing is a necesary conditon for contempaltion.I wish to
suggest this bvy arguing that this mutual dependence at the same time shows the theoretical and political lives to be
mutually exclusive, but that the exericse of theoretical and practical reason are mutulaly entailing only oon the
assumpiton that contmeplation is higher in the scalle of values than practial reason. The man of practial rason, engaged
in the polticial life, will acknowledge that as much as the contempltive man. Thus the recogniton that contem,pation
alone is engaged in for its own sake crates a rank order of values which makes possible boht the political and
theoretical lives. Only th recogion of theintrinsic superiorty of contempaltion, on the part of both teh bios theoreitckos
and the bios politikos, can lead to the exercise of both the contempaltive and practical virtues.

In this paper I want to pursue the unexplored possibility of an inclusivism without maximization by studying in
detail the extended and illuminating discussion of the virtuous two lives and their relationship, the bios theoretikos and
the bios praktikos, ain Pol VII.l-3 and l3-l5. These chapters form a sort of prologue to Aristotel's attempt to draw a
protrait of an ideal regime, a happy state. It is strange that they have not been more closely studied. For they explicitly
rely on the principle of happiness that Aristotle lays down in the Ethics to project happiness from the individual to the
civic plane, and in so doing they provide an epitome of Aristotle's theory of happiness. Kraut will bre pleased to see
that they support the view that only virtuous activity is constitutive of happiness, all other goods being instrumental or
supervenient; and that the two lives are presented as alternatives. Aristotle also claims that only when contemplation is
regarded by all the citizens, including those who are only practially virtuous, as the highest of all activities can the
entire range of other intrinsically good pursuits, such as political engagement, be clearly discriminated from activities
having merely instrumental worth, and so be pursued as intrinsic goods. But he also says that only when the theoretical
perosn recognizes the practical virtues as having intrsinci worth and happiness, only by retaining his own politial
identiy ncan be practice theoria iitself. Thus the man of action who fails to accord primary to contempoaltion,a dn the
man of comntempatlion who does not recognize virtuos social activity, and his own relation to it, cannot achieve the
end of his own virtue. This mutula recognition and mutual entialment btween the values recognized by men of
knowledge and men of action have, I think, implications for the exercise of capacities, which reulst in something that
can more readily be called 'inclusivist' than 'intellecutlaist' but nonetheless contrasts vividly with existing forms of
inclusivism. After showing how this view is developed in the Pol, I will inquire whtehr it throws new light on the EE
and the NE. I will conclude that it is consistent with both, and thus represents Aristotle's considered view.

Notes
l.Proponents of an 'inclusive ends conception of happiness', or 'inclusivists', include J. L. Ackrill, 'Aristotle on
eudaimonia', Proceedings of the British Academy 60 (l974), pp. 339-59; John M. Cooper, Reason and Human Good
in Aristotle (Cambridge, Mass., l975); David Keyt, 'Intellectualism in Aristotle', in Essays in Ancient Greek
Philosophy, ed. John P. Anton and A. Preus, Vol. 2,
(Albany, l983), pp. 364-87; T. Irwin, Aristotle's First Principles (Oxford, l988), pp. 608, n. 40; 6l6-7, n. 24; Martha C.
Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, Mass., l986), p. 375; Timothy D. Roche, 'Ergon and eudaimonia in
Nicomachean Ethics I: Reconsidering the intellectualist interpretation' Journal of the History of Philosophy 26 (l988),
pp. l75-l94. When Aristotle claims that 'happiness is activity in accord with complete virtue (teleia arete)' (EE l2l9a35-
39; NE ll00a4-5), inclusivists interpret 'complete' to mean 'including all virtues, moral as well as intellectual, in the
flourishing or happy life (eudaimonia)'. Not all proponents of attributing this view to Aristotle think he does so
consistently. See note l2-l5 below.

2. Friedrich Solmsen, 'Leisure and play in Aristotle's ideal state', Rheinisches Museum l07 (l964), pp. l93-220,
reprinted in Solmsen, Kleine Schriften II (Hildesheim, l968), pp. l-28. (All references are to the latter text); Carnes
Lord, 'Politics and philosophy in Aristotle's Politics', Hermes l06 (2) (l978), pp. 336-357, and Education and Culture in
the Political Thought of Aristotle
(Ithaca, l982); P. A. Vander Waerdt, 'Kingship and philosophy in Aristotle's best regime', Phronesis 30 (l985), pp. 249-
273.

3.Aristotle's references in Pol. VII-VIII to the Ethics probably are to Eudemian Ethics, for reasons first suggested by J.
Bendixon, Philologus l0 (l856), p. 575, and developed in detail by Werner Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the
History of His Development, 2nd edn, tr. R. Robinson (Oxford, l948), p. 282, 284, n. 2. Jaeger's work is outdated in
numerous respects, but not in this (even though he is quite wrong to assimilate the EE to the earlier, Platonizing
Protrepticus). For this reason, I refer as often as possible in the text to EE rather than to EN. Nonetheless, I provide
many references to EN as well, particularly to the so-called 'common books' (IV-VI) shared by both EE and EN. The
reader should, however, continuously bear in mind the greater distance from Pol. VII-VIII of references taken from EN.

4.All references unless otherwise indicated are to the Politics. This and all extended translations from Politics are taken,
sometimes with minor emendations, from C. Lord, tr., The Politics of Aristotle (Chicago, l984). My disagreement with
Lord's interpretation does not affect my admiration for his translation. Authors of extended translations from other
works of Aristotle are identified in the text.

5.The text of Politics breaks off during a discussion of musical education. It is thus difficult to know whether Aristotle's
specifications for musical education would have been, or in non-extant texts in fact was, followed by a discussion of
mandatory training for contemplative virtues. Commentators who assert or imply that it was or would have been
include J. Burnet, Aristotle on Education
(Cambridge, l9l3), pp. l34; and Ernest Barker, The Politics of Aristotle (Oxford, l946), p. 352. W. L. Newman, in his
great commentary, The Politics of Aristotle (Oxford, l887; reprinted l950), is more cagey on the issue. At one point he
says 'The direct education of the reason . . . will be directed to the development both of the practical and the
contemplative reason, and will make the development of the latter its supreme end' (Vol. III, p. xlv). This speculation
tends to support the view that contemplation is a 'dominant end' in Aristotle's ideal state. But he also says that Politics
VII l-3 'represents the political and the contemplative lives as akin, both being rich in kalai praxeis,' in contrast to EN
X, which privileges contemplation (Vol. I, p. 303; see Newman's interpretation of the argument of Pol. VIII.l-3, Vol. I,
pp. 398-305). 'Dominant end' readings of the role of contemplation in Pol VII-VIII have invited criticism by Solmsen,
'Leisure', pp. 25-7, who points out that it is not clear that all the citizens are presumed capable of contemplative
knowledge (VII.l3.l333a28-30), and that we ought to infer as much from texts at hand as possible. What we can infer
is that musical leisure activities are regarded as constitutive parts of the good life, rather than as instrumental to it or in
subordinate to it in other ways. This already conflicts with views that make contemplation a 'dominant end' in the ideal
state.

6.Our understanding of Aristotle's philosophical method has been revolutionized by G.E.L. Owen's demonstration that
the phenomena of which philosophical theories give accounts are, for the most part, the things people commonly and
reputably say (legomena, endoxa). Cf. G.E. L. Owen, 'Tithenai ta phainomena', in S. Mansion, Aristote et les problemes
de methode (Louvain, l96l), pp. 83-l03, reprinted in J. Barnes et al., Articles on Aristotle I (London, l975) pp. ll3-l26,
and in Owen, G. E. L., Logic, Science and Dialectic: Collected Papers in Greek Philosophy, ed. M. Nussbaum
(London l986), pp. 239-25l. In M. Nussbaum, 'Saving the appearances', in M. Schofield and M. Nussbaum, eds.
Language and Logos: Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy in Honor of G.E.L. Owen (Cambridge, l982), pp. 267-93,
and in Nussbaum, Fragility, pp. 240-263, Nussbaum takes Owen's insight in a strongly pragmatic direction, according
to which the point of philosophical theory is to introduce 'wide reflective equilibrium' (Rawls) among our beliefs. This
view does not, in my view, do sufficient justice to Aristotle's drive toward theoretical adequacy.

7.Jaeger writes, 'Aristotle can combine the philosopher's ideal life with the view of the purpose of the state [as active]
only by representing philosophic contemplation as itself a sort of creative "action". . .[Aristotle] comes forward . . . to
build a state in which this intellectual form of action may obtain recognition and become effective as the crown of all
the human activities that further the common good.' Jaeger, Aristotle, p. 282. The words I have italicized suggest that
activity retains for Jaeger too close a connection to instrumental value, since the presumption is left open that
contemplation in itself is not activity, because not 'effective'.

8.On the distinction between kinesis and energeia see J. L. Ackrill, 'Aristotle's distinction between energeia and
kinesis', in New Essays in Plato and Aristotle ed. R. Bambrough (London, l965), pp. l2l-l4l; but more recently and
insightfully, L. A. Kosman, 'Substance, being and energeia', Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2 (l984), pp. l2l-
l49. Following Kosman, an 'energeia is the sort of thing which is perfected or completed in the very instant of its being
enacted' (p. l24), and 'the difference between kinesis and energeia is the difference between a process or activity (in the
broad sense) whose end and completion lies outside itself (in some other entity which it is devoted to bringing into
being), and a process or activity whose end is nothing other than itself, which constitutes and contains its own ends, and
is thus enteleis or perfect' (p. l27). Virtuous activity is, for Aristotle, an energeia.

9.For an analysis of self-sufficiency (autarkeia) along these lines and an enumeration of the things to which it is
ascribed, see E. B. Cole, "Autarkeia in Aristotle," University of Dayton Review, Fall, l988, pp.

l0.Solmsen, 'Leisure,' p.3.

ll.At the end of EE Aristotle writes : 'Whatever choice and possession of things good by nature will most produce the
contemplation of God--whether goods of the body, or money, or friends, or other goods--this is best, and the finest
principle of determination' (trans. Cooper). Jaeger, Aristotle, pp. 239-43, used this text to support his contention that
the EE (allegedly following the Protrepticus) has an intellectualist or Platonic view of the good life. Cooper, Reason,
pp. l36-39, has shown that this is a false reading. The text does not privilege the contemplative over the political life,
but gives a measure for valuing natural and external goods. The same principle for prizing and allocating external and
natural goods appears in Pol. VII.l-3. On my reading it means: Only by openness to contemplation can one have a
proper measure of external goods, that is, use them as instruments of virtuous action rather than using virtue as an
instrument to gain external goods. That such choices take into account our compound nature is implicit in Aristotle's
claim in the same context that we should regard God's totally leisured, contemplative life as our exemplar, even though,
being men and not gods, we are to practice the moral as well as the intellectual virtues (VII.ll323b2l; 33-5). At
VII.3.l325b28-3l, moreover, Aristotle is not out to defend the view that contemplation is the only true excellence, but
that is both an excellence and an activity. Thus the view that the best state is to live an isolated life exclusively or
dominantly devoted to contemplation does not receive support from the texts in which God's life is mentioned as an
exemplar.

l2.'Strict intellectualism' is often called a 'dominant end' interpretation of Aristotelian happiness, because in recognizing
the superior value of contemplation it puts at risk the value of the moral-political virtues and their practice as
constituents of happiness. The focal text is EN X.7. ll77al2-l9, where it appears that the happy life as such is a
contemplative one, and that the moral-political life is reduced to a 'second-best' sort of happiness (X.7.ll78a6-9). This
view seems to imply either that the moral-political virtues are necessary means (for some obscure reason) to the
contemplative life or that they may be dispensed with by the contemplative person. That is why intellectualism has
usually been seen more as a problem into which Aristotle stumbles in EN X than his considered view. For a review of
the issue, see Cooper, Reason, pp. l48-l54, especially nn. 5-l0; and Ackrill, 'Aristotle on eudaimonia'. Strict
intellectualism, however, has been looked upon as Aristotle's positive ideal, come what may, by Richard Kraut,

l3.Keyt dubs this 'the trade-off view' in 'Intellectualism'. In these terms, Ackrill, 'Aristotle on eudaimonia'; Nussbaum,
Fragility, p. 375; and Roche, 'Ergon', pp. l75-l94, appear to me to subscribe to this account.

l4.Cooper, Reason, p. l43. Keyt calls this view 'superstructuralist' in 'Intellectualism' because the contemplative virtues
arise on a base of moral and political virtues. 'Complete virtue' on this account involves an ordering principle in which
contemplation is intrinsically higher than moral-political virtues, but the latter remain basic constituents of happiness.
This results in 'moderate intellectualism'. Keyt, 'Intellectualism', fits this pattern, as well as Cooper, Reason, l42-3 ;
and Irwin, First Principles, pp. 6l6-7, n. 24. 'The moral life,' Keyt writes, 'sets certain minimum requirements that must
be satisfied before one is to engage in theoretical activity' (p. 370).

l5.Can EN X.7 be accommodated to 'superstructuralism', or is this text an exception to the inclusivist view of EE VIII.3
and Pol. VII.l-3? Cooper, Reason, pp. l55-l77, thinks it is incontestably and unfortunately strict intellectualist.
Nussbaum, Fragility, pp. 375-377, and Anthony Kenny, The Aristotelian Ethics (Oxford, l978), agree. Kenny is so
scandalized by EN X.7 that he implausibly argues that most of it predates the EE; and Nussbaum simply regards
Aristotle (with no evidence) as having noted this Platonic view in EN X.7 without strongly sponsoring it. Keyt,
'Intellectualism', was the first to argue that EN X.7 is itself a version of 'superstructuralist' inclusivism. Cooper has
since retreated from his original view and argued that EN X.7 fits this pattern, although on different grounds than Keyt
offers. See J. Cooper, 'Contemplation and happiness: a reconsideration', Synthese 72 (l987), pp. l87-2l6. My own view
is that an ordering principle in which other good things cannot be intended or achieved as intrinsic goods unless
contemplation is regarded as the highest of all goods--a view I see in EE VIII.3 and Pol. VII l-3--should make it easier
to accommodate EN X.7 to some sort of inclusive ends interpretation than any conception in which contemplation is
merely 'added' as a culminating perfection to other virtues, as it seems to be for Cooper and Keyt, or a fortiori is merely
an item on an unordered list of goods.

l6.Pol. III.9.l28la3-7; l3.l283a23-42. See D. Keyt, 'Distributive justice in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics', Topoi 4
(l985), pp. 23-45.

l7.The distinction between a single, invariant concept and differing conceptions of it is derived from John Rawls and
H.L.A. Hart. But Hart found it in Aristotle. For example, EN I discusses various conceptions of the concept of
happiness: 'The many, the most vulgar, seemingly conceive the good and happiness as pleasure . . . Cultivated people,
those active [in politics], conceive the good as honor' (EN I.5.l095bl5-33, trans. Irwin).

l8.Odyssey IX.5-l6, slightly garbled by Aristotle. I disagree with Lord, 'Education', pp. 57, 76-77, who denies that
Aristotle speaks positively of this Homeric text. Lord says that for the ancients, music reduces to enjoyable play
(paidia) and thus lacks the intensely moral dimension that Lord requires of Aristotle's theory of music. Lord concedes
that this interpretation is difficult to reconcile with the text (p. 57). But his view fails on other grounds as well. Lord
wants to assimilates moral learning to 'adult' character formation. But Aristotle's primary interest in music is more
cognitive than that, and in this light he judges the musically accompanied reflective narrative portrayed by Homer (and
embodied in Homeric poetic practice itself) as an early form of reflective learning, which will be developed further
into more abstract and theoretical forms of learning and knowing as culture itself matures.

l9.The view in question goes back to J. Bernays, Grundzuge der verloren Abhandlung des Aristoteles uber Wirkung der
Tragoedie (Breslau, l897), reprinted in Zwei Abhandlungen uber die aristotelische Theorie des Drama, (Berlin l880).
A summary of arguments against this view can be found in S. Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics (Chapel Hill, l986), pp. l90-
8; 353-4.

20.The general view of catharsis as 'clarification' sketched here is argued, in various (sometimes conflicting) ways, by
all of the following: H. House, Aristotle's Poetics (London, l956); L. Golden, 'Mimesis and catharsis', Classical
Philology 64 (l969), pp. l45-53; Lord, Education, pp. l56-64; Nussbaum, Fragility, pp. 240-263; R. Janko, Aristotle's
Poetics
 (Indianapolis, l987), pp. xviii-xix; and Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, p. l73-4. This approach may be distinguished
from the (false) view of G.F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, Mass., l957), that the catharsis of
the Poetics is predicated of the plot, and not of the audience. J. Lear, 'Catharsis', Phronesis 33/3 (l988), pp. 297-326,
calls the 'clarification' view the 'educational' view of catharsis. But Lear, like many of those whose interpretation he is
contesting, fails to differentiate cathartic 'clarification' aimed at training feeling responses and inducing habituation
(ethismos)--which is indeed 'educational' in Aristotle's sense--from the sort of learning by cathartic clarification that
awakens and exercises cognitive abilities--practical judgment and contemplative learning. The latter is not a matter of
education (paideia). Nussbaum's formulation comes closest to my own.

2l.Nussbaum's account of the wisdom taught by poetry, Fragility, pp. 240-63, misses this point largely because of her
explicitly anthropocentric perspective. This is not unrelated to her view of philosophy as coordination of human
opinions (from a human perspective). Put otherwise, if Aristotle's philosophy tries to find middle ground between Plato
and Protagoras, Nussbaum inclines too far in the direction of Protagoras.

22.Solmson, 'Leisure', 24-6; Lord, Education, pp. l98-200. The reference to Thucydides is to Peloponnesian War
II.40.l.

23.Solmsen, 'Leisure,' pp. 25-6.

24.See note 5.

25.Solmsen, 'Leisure', pp. 25-8.

26.Ibid., pp. 23, 27.

27.Lord, Education, pp. l89-202.

28.Ibid., p. 202, n. 27.

29.Ibid. pp. l56-l79.

30.Ibid., p. 35.

3l.Ibid., pp. l59-64.

32.Ibid. p. l56.

33.Ibid. p. l55.

34.Ibid., p. l57-8. Contrast M. Burnyeat, 'On learning to be good', in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amelie Rorty
(Berkeley, l980), pp. 69-92.

35.Ibid., pp. l87-88; Lord, 'Politics', p. 344. For Lord, Aristotle 'manages' (p. l89) to get the citizens to think of
philosophy as activity (when it really isn't?) because political philosophy is a kind of rhetoric. See Lord, Education, p.
32. This too is part of Lord's Platonism, reflecting his subscription to the views of Leo Strauss.

36.Ibid. p. 35.

37.Ibid.

38.Jaeger, Aristotle, p. 284-87.

39.For instance, G. Morrow, 'Aristotle's comments on Plato's Laws', in Aristotle and Plato in Mid-Fourth Century, ed.
I. During and G. Owen (Goteborg, l960), pp. l45-l62. See also Newman, Politics, Vol. I, pp. 433-454, especially 453-
4; and E. Barker, Greek Political Theory (London, l9l8), pp. 380-2.

40.Jaeger, Aristotle, p. 275-82.

4l.Solmsen, p. 26; Lord, Education, p. 202. Lord's approach has been taken a revealing step further by P. A. Vander
Waerdt, 'Kingship and philosophy'. He argues that Aristotle's tendency to regard kingship, rather than rotational
aristocratic rule, as the absolutely best form of government (he cites l284b25-34; l288al5-29; l325bl0-l4; l332bl6-27)
holds even for an ideal state. For all power should be transferred to one is who is so far above others in point of virtue
that practical matters can be left in his competent hands, with the result that almost exclusive preoccupation with
musical leisure will even more successfully keep the soldiers and citizens from degenerating into the love of
domination that will be awakened inevitably in every man concerned with politics except the absolutely best. Vander
Waerdt says that Aristotle seems to prefer rotational rule only as a concession to his aristocratic hearers. This approach,
like Lord's, shows the influence of Leo Strauss in its reiterated Platonic assumption that only the philosophers have
their emotions and imaginations in hand--and can be talked to straight. Vander Waerdt confesses implicit distrust of
the practical reason of non-philosophers bluntly when he says that 'Phronesis is by itself morally neutral, capable of
securing base as well as virtuous ends' (p. 263). I can think of no proposition Aristotle would deny more strenuously.

42.Many people have read and criticized this manuscript in one or another of its drafts. I should like to thank in
particular Elizabeth Belfiori, Tom Brickhouse, David Charles, Norman Dahl, Mary Depew, Allan Gotthelf, Marjorie
Grene, David Keyt, Fred Miller, Merrill Ring, and Nick Smith.

Summary
 The opening chapters of Politics VII-VIII portray the happy life, for both individuals and states, as one in which
ethical and political virtues can be exercised as intrinsic goods only if the contemplative virtues are valued as the most
perfect good. This 'inclusive ends' conception of the happy life fully informs Aristotle's concrete portrait of an ideal
aristocracy in the remainder of Pol. VII-VIII. Musical leisure activities are an important part of this way of life. But
music is not, as some commentators have suggested, a surrogate for contemplation in this state. Instead, it facilitates
the development of both practical wisdom (phronesis) and of contemplative virtues for those citizens capable of them.
Aristotle's vision of an ideal state contrasts with Plato's. Whereas Aristotle thinks the citizens of an excellent state can
act autonomously in virtue of the practical wisdom they can all be presumed to be capable of, Plato thinks the political
good can be achieved only by those with contemplative abilities. I show that Platonic assumptions like this often
undercut interpretations of Pol. VII-VIII itself.

Vita

David J. Depew is Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Fullerton. He is editor of The Greeks and the
Good Life (Indianapolis, l980), and co-editor of Evolution at a Crossroads (Cambridge, l986) and Entropy, Information
and Evolution. He is at work on a book entitled Biology, Politics and Philosophy in Aristotle's Politics. He received
his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego.