The concept of citizen in Aristotle's 'Politics'

• Grant number: 13/26821-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2014
• End date: December 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Marisa da Silva Lopes
• Grantee: Misrael Eber Santana da Silva
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In Book III of the Politics, Aristotle defines citizen as who may participate in the magistracy of the city. However, he describes six forms of regime, where three are straight (royalty, aristocracy and constitutional regime) and three are diverted (tyranny, oligarchy and democracy). Given that the definition of a citizen depends of the nature of each regime, the question that arises is about the possibility of the existence of a principle of access to citizenship prior to the nature of each regime. A principle of this kind would avoid, it seems to us, the exclusion of the grand majority of members of the city's status as citizen, which would occur in the monarchical regime, for example. Moreover, held the definition of citizen as who that can participate of the magistracies and of the straight regime as who in which the government has a view of the good of the citizens, could whether be the case of a monarchical regime like whether identify with the tyrannical, since the few citizens would, at the same time, governments and recipients of property in the city. (AU)