A Good Man and a Good Citizen; a Contrastive Study of the Political Thoughts of Plato and Aristotle

Pursuing the desired perfection and reaching this goal is the only alternative for achieving a meaningful life and for having purposeful human acitvities in this world. The ancient philosophers¨ views about the way of achieving this goal are hotly disputed by modern philosophers; each philosopher perceives things according to his own philosophical, political and moral inclination. Observing man¨s characteristics and conditions, both individually and socially, is of great importance.As one of the ancient Greek philosophers, Plato sees that man¨s individual aspect plays a major role in this respect and a citizen¨s excellence go alogside human excellence. According to Plato being a good man has priority over being a good citizen. As for Aristotle, he considers the citizen as the cornerstone in pursuing perfection and he lays more emphasis on citizens¨ excellence. He think¨s that citizen¨s excellence, when compared to man¨s excellence, is more attainable, owing to the fact that the first has an idealistic nature. The study contains a comparison between Plato¨s thoughts and Aristotle¨s thoughts.