aristotle: democracy and political science

A thought-provoking exploration of assertiveness within Aristotle’s work and how it affects democratic functioning.

Today, democracy is seen as the best or even the only legitimate form of govern­ment. With this book, Delba Winthrop punctures this complacency and takes up the chal­lenge of justifying democracy through Aristotle’s political science. In Aristotle’s time and in ours, democrats want inclu­siveness; they want above all to include everyone as a part of a whole. But what makes a whole? This is a question for both politics and philosophy, and Winthrop shows that Aristotle pursues the answer in the Politics. She uncovers in his political science the insights philoso­phy brings to politics and, especially, the insights politics brings to philosophy. Through her appreciation of this dual purpose and her skilled execution of her argument, Winthrop makes profound discoveries. Central to politics, she main­tains, is the quality of assertiveness--the kind of speech that demands to be heard. Aristotle, she shows for the first time, carries assertive speech into philosophy, where human reason claims its due as a contribution to the universe. Political science has the high role of teaching ordinary folk about democracy and what sustains it.

This posthumous publication is more than an honor to Delba Winthrop’s memory. It is a gift to partisans of democ­racy, advocates of justice, and students of Aristotle.

Delba Winthrop (1945-2006) was a lec­turer at the Harvard Extension School and director of the Program on Constitutional Government. With Harvey C. Mansfield, she was editor and translator of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Harvey C. Mansfield is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University and the author of sever­al books, including Machiavelli’s Virtue.