Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Shervin Moghimi

Faculty Member of Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies

Abstract

The Socratic political philosophy is aimed at educating the competent souls to return to the best way of life, the philosophical way of life. The Platonic version of this way of life implies a narrow meaning, so that it cannot be achieved except through negating the political way of life as a naturally limited one. But the Socratic political philosophy is not restricted to the Platonic narrative. In the 7th book of the Politics, Aristotle contrives a plan of Socratic political philosophy that, according to him, can solve the insufficiency of the Platonic version. There, Aristotle tries to expand the meaning of the philosophical way of life to such an extent that it can be considered as a set of teachings of the best regime. In other words, in the Aristotelian narrative, there is an explicit reference to the desirability of the political way of life, while the Socratic purpose is not lost. This article is an effort to clarify this narrative and reflect on the most important Socratic moments in the 7th book of Aristotle's Politics.

Keywords

• “Socratic political philosophy”
• “Aristotle”
• “Plato”
• “Politics”
• "political and philosophical way of life"

Main Subjects

• philosophy