Book I
1.What is the aim or goal of all human communities/associations as Aristotle understands it? (p. 1.)
2.Why, as Aristotle understands it, do humans come together into community in the first place? What is Aristotle’s understanding of why human beings are social animals? What is the glue that brings people together and keeps them together?
3.Aristotle says the city-state or polis, comes to be for the sake of living, but it remains in existence for the sake of living well. What does he mean by that? (Chap 2)
4.Aristotle lists 4 types of human communities indicated below. What are the characteristics of each and what is the goal, purpose or function of each? (Chaps 2-3)Aristotle says that bees or any other gregarious animals are political, but that human beings are the most political animal. First what makes a bee a political animal? Then, what makes human beings the most political animal? (Chap 2)
Male & Female
The Household
The Village
The City-State/Polis
5.How is a political community a form of “Imagined order”?
6.Aristotle talks about masters and slaves, who or what are they and what is their relationship to each other? Why are their slaves at all? (Chapters 4-7)
7.What does it mean to be a citizen as Aristotle understands it? What do citizens do? How is Aristotles understanding of citizenship different from our own modern American notion of it? (Book III)
