Article ID: CBB803080395

Servile Spartans and Free Citizen-soldiers in Aristotle’s Politics 7–8 (2018)

unapi

In the last two books of the Politics, Aristotle articulates an education program for his best regime in contrast to what he takes to be the goal and practices of Sparta’s educational system. Although Aristotle never refers to his program as liberal education, clearly he takes its goal to be the production of free male and female citizens. By contrast, he characterizes the results of the Spartan system as ‘crude’ (φορτικός), ‘slavish’ (ἀνδραποδώδης), and ‘servile’ (βάναυσος). I argue that Aristotle’s criticisms of Spartan education elucidate his general understanding of Sparta and provide an interpretative key to understanding Politics 7–8. But although Aristotle contrasts the goals and methods of Spartan education with that of his own best regime, the citizens of his best regime are more like Spartan citizen-soldiers than Athenian participatory-citizens.

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Authors & Contributors
Brecht Buekenhout
Soardi, Marzia
Diana Quarantotto
Balla, Chloe
Jada Twedt Strabbing
Baziotopoulou-Valavani, Effie
Concepts
Philosophy
Philosophy and politics
Natural philosophy
Education
Time
Platonism
Time Periods
Ancient
Renaissance
Medieval
14th century
Places
Greece
Italy
China
Rome (Italy)
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