LES MEILLEURES RAISONS SELON ARISTOTE POUR VIVRE EN DÉMOCRATIE

Abstract

In his Politics, Aristotle argues in favour of a moderate democratic regime, what he calls politeia, which starting from Book IV – but in accordance with the developments already seen in Book III, chap. 11 especially – represents the new best regime (ἀρίστη πολιτεία), a regime counting a large amount of middle class citizens all in turn taking parts in public affairs, a regime that is appropriate to the vast majority of peoples and cities and which, moreover, is more stable than all others, a constitution of the future, as he himself pronounces it. No other form of government in the treatise receives such a praise, no doubt a serious turn in political history, when we compare it to previous thinkers, especially to the way Plato viewed democracy. The paper therefore contrasts the widespread commonplace of an Aristotle politically acquiescent to the authoritarian orientation of the Macedonian monarchy or a follower of Plato, more or less, in his political preferences. Such a radical rethinking of the intellectual message of the Politics compels us to reflect further on the historical impact of the organization of the corpus on its reception: we cannot exclude the possibility that the relevance of Aristotle’s arguments in favour of some sort of moderate democracy is obscured by their location in Politics books III-IV, making it seem as if their theory of ‘the best politeia’ was a transitional position meant to be superseded by the final books VII-VIII, whose position was already questioned in the nineteenth century but has been more accepted in recent times.