Aristotle and Augustine About the City, Essay Example

The ancient philosophy, as well as the religion-based philosophy of the middle ages, had much in common in terms of approaching some universal issues, e.g. the origin and purpose of the human world, the role of man in it, the concepts of virtue, citizenship, duty, evil etc. Though the universal truths exist even nowadays, there are recognizable differences in the voiced wisdoms depending on the socio-economic, religious and other conditions that shaped the opinions of great thinkers and marked their philosophy. An example of such a disparity in the discussion of universal concepts can be found in the viewpoint on the concept of the city in the works of Aristotle and Augustine. The analysis of that disparity will be made on the work of Aristotle The Politics and the work of St. Augustine The City of God.

Starting with the philosophy of Aristotle about the city, one has to note that his opinion was influenced by the position of cities at that time: the city, polis in Greek, constituted the main political power unit in Greece because of the subordinate position of surrounding villages. Hence, the citizenship in the city was a privilege of free people, and Aristotle considered being a citizen and living in a city the greatest virtue that a human being could be ever granted. Such an opinion derived from Aristotle’s vision of the city as the greatest authoritative form of power designed to help its citizens strive to the greatest well-being, happiness and virtue by being obedient citizens. Aristotle saw a city as a partnership between citizens of the following form:

“The partnership arising from [the union of] several villages that is complete is the city. It reaches a level of full self-sufficiency, so to speak; and while coming into being for the sake of living, it exists for the sake of living well” (Aristotle 1252b27).

The theory of the city’s origin by Aristotle presupposes a natural character of the latter; the philosopher argues that any city derives logically from the two types of partnership: of a man and a woman, and a master and a slave. All of them cannot exist without one another, hence they form their unions. As soon as the family forms, it expands in the course of time, initiates interactions with other families and consequently forms a village. Villages later on form a city, which is a completely different form of citizen unity than a village is.

Aristotle is sure that human beings cannot live outside the city as they will never achieve the greatest good, happiness and well-being. Living in the city is even necessary for being human:  “One who is incapable of participating or who is in need of nothing through being self-sufficient is no part of a city, and so is either a beast or a god” (Aristotle 1253a27). Therefore, all citizens have to realize their dependence on the city in which they live, and all those duties they have regarding other citizens and the city: the city “is prior by nature to the household and to each of us” (Aristotle 1253a19).

Continuing the discussion of the relationships in which a citizen is with the city in which he lives, Aristotle assumes that the human being is physically a part of it and actually belongs to it: “one ought not even consider that a citizen belongs to himself, but rather that all belong to the city; for each individual is a part of the city” (1337a26). Thus, in the Aristotle’s viewpoint, all citizens are constituent parts of the city, and the latter can exist without one of them, but they will never survive outside its borders.

Aristotle drew his conclusions about the role of the city and its relationship with citizens from the contemporary conditions of his life; however, later on the role of cities changed drastically. Together with the conquests of Greece, the influence of Greek culture and mode of living expanded, and Alexandria became as important in terms of education as Athens. From the first to the sixth century AD, the Patristic period of the philosophical and educational influence took place, and St. Augustine was one of the most prominent enlighteners of that time. He wrote many distinguished works based on the Christian religion and arguing the postulates of Greeks. One of his works, The City of God, has much evidence on the concept of the city and the role of citizens in it. From the very beginning of his work, he states that there are only two cities in the world: the City of God and the earthly city. He attributes the following characteristics to the both of them:

“There is a city of God, and its Founder has inspired us with a love which makes us covet its citizenship.  To this Founder of the holy city the citizens of the earthly city prefer their own gods, not knowing that He is the God of gods, not of false, i.e., of impious and proud gods, who… eagerly grasp at their own private privileges, and seek divine honors from their deluded subjects…who would rather worship God than be worshipped as God (Augustine IV.1).

As one can see from the citation, Augustine points out that the citizenship in any of those cities is universal, which contradicts the close connection of every citizen to his city marked by Aristotle. The viewpoint of Augustine focuses on the inner world of citizens rather than on their physical belonging to this or that geographical territory. Hence, the author states that those who give little tribute to the real God are likely to belong to the earthly city, and those who cherish God will become the citizens of the blessed City of God. The human beliefs drive the choice of citizenship:

“This race we have distributed into two parts, the one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God.  And these we also mystically call the two cities, or the two communities of men, of which the one is predestined to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil” (Augustine XV.1).

Surely, the idea of the city as seen by Augustine is not fully detached from the political reality, and the author still recognizes that the physical cities exist and have to be taken a proper account of. He even notes that every city (polis) would be much better in case all citizens in it were Christians, because they would realize their duty to cherish God and to be faithful, virtuous citizens. However, Augustine also notes that a true polis in the sense applied by Aristotle may be only the City of God:

“In the earthly city, then, we find two things—its own obvious presence, and its symbolic presentation of the heavenly city.  Now citizens are begotten to the earthly city by nature vitiated by sin, but to the heavenly city by grace freeing nature from sin; whence the former are called “vessels of wrath,” the latter “vessels of mercy” (Augustine XV.1).

As one can see from the present analysis, the concept of city was perceived in a completely different way by the ancient Greeks and the Christians who came to rule several centuries later. The main difference is driven from the different attitude to the origin of the world, to religion (paganism and Christianity), hence implying different approaches to identifying the place and duties of man on the Earth. Polis as meant in the Ancient philosophy was a city-state governing the nearby territories, while Christian leaders wanted to emphasize the spiritual meaning of community and to divide the humanity into sinners and virtuous and conscious religious followers.

References

Aristotle. The Politics. New York: Penguin Publishing, 1981.

St. Augustine. Augustine: The City of God against the Pagans. Cambridge University Press, 1998.