The Philosophy of Aristotle and the Hellenic-Macedonian Policy

Abstract

I -O F ALL the activities of the mind on which the Aristotelian philosophy has exercised its influence throughout the last two thousand years, on none has the teaching of the Stagira sage acted so directly and so decisively as on ethical and political theory-an influence still apparent at the present day. The almost divine authority which Aristotle enjoyed in the sphere of the natural sciences has long since disappeared; his logic, once admired as the emanation of absolute truth, has been deposed, though only a few generations ago, from its hitherto commanding position. But the profound respect accorded to his Ethics and Politics remains undiminished. Their influence on the thought of our time can scarcely be overestimated. Modern scientific treatments of the problems of a moral world-order and of a juridical state community still, in very great measure, betray the stamp of the Aristotelian system. But in that system Aristotle's Ethics and Politics are essentially connected with his Metaphysics." And thus it is the Metaphysics which appears as the foundation of the moral system of values, whether these values be knowingly accepted in