In what sense exactly are human beings more political according to Aristotle?

Abstract

According to Aristotle, human beings are by nature political animals. It is now common knowledge that being political is not a human privilege for him: bees, wasps, ants and cranes are other political species. Although they are not the only political animals, human beings, for Aristotle, are still more political than the other political animals. The present article investigates the precise sense of this comparison; and it claims that the higher degree of human politicalness is not to be explained by reference to those exclusively human features like having capacity for speech and moral perception. It is claimed that human beings are more political rather because they live in a multiplicity of communities differing in form.

Keywords

• Aristotle
• political animals
• language
• nature