Notes towards a definition of politics

• Autores: James Alexander
• Localización: Philosophy, ISSN-e 1469-817X, Vol. 89, Nº. 2, 2014, págs. 273-300
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Politics has been defined in different and contradictory ways in the last century or so. If politics is to be a single subject of study then contradictory theories should be capable of being related together. In this article I argue that they can be related in terms of what I call the Aristotelian criterion. The article is in four parts. Firstly, I discuss the problem of defining politics; secondly, I introduce the criterion; thirdly, I consider five modern theories of politics (those of Arendt, Oakeshott, Collingwood, Schmitt and Rancière) in relation to the criterion; and fourthly, I use the criterion to put forward an original and capacious definition of politics.1