Proč jsou podle Aristotela demokracie a oligarchie nejdůležitější "ústavy" a v čem se zásadně liší?

• Authors: Miroslav Novák

Title variants

EN

Why are democracy and oligarchy the most important ‘constitutions’ in Aristotle’s view and how do they fundamentally differ?

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

According to Aristotle, democracy and oligarchy are empirically the most widespread and analytically fundamental ‘constitutions’. I analyse how in different places in his Aristotle ‘positively’ defines and differentiates between democracy and oligarchy. At the same time, I substantiate in detail a new interpretation of Aristotle‘s view that significantly differs from the current interpretation. ‘Combining’ the elements, procedures, and principles of democracy and oligarchy gives rise to mixed 'constitutions', a special place among which is occupied by the politeia or republic, which is the best regime ‘for most states and for most people’. I show the ways in which it is possible, according to Aristotle, to form such a regime. Carl Schmitt and, later somewhat differently, Bernard Manin draw a link between Aristotle’s mixed regime and the representative democracies of today.

Keywords

EN

Aristotle; democracy; oligarchy; equality and inequality; mixed ‘constitutions’; politeia or republic; representative democracy; elections

Discipline

• SOCIOLOGY: SOCIOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Sociologický časopis. Czech Sociological Review
• Year: 2024
• Volume: 60
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 187-211
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Miroslav Novák

• Sociologický časopis, redakce, Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic