Aristotle's Criticism Of Unity In The Republic And The Law

Aristotle expressed many criticisms in The Politics of ideas that Plato presents in The Republic and The Laws. One of Aristotle’s main criticisms to Plato is that Plato’s proposed unity of the polis was unfeasible and would eventually break down the political association itself. Plato’s response to this specific criticism would be to mostly disagree with it, using The Statesman as a reference point for his beliefs. In The Politics, Aristotle harshly criticizes the unity that Plato proposes a polis should have. Plato believes that in a community of women and children, unity of the polis is something that is required to strengthen this political association. Aristotle quickly disagrees, citing that, if a city continued to unite and become a unit, it would cease to be a city at all. He states that a city, by nature, is a plurality. If the polis continues to unite, it would reduce itself into a

When the city becomes an individual, it no longer exists as the city, therefore resulting in its own destruction(The Politics, 1261a-10). Aristotle then continues with the argument, stating that if Plato’s unity actually were to occur, people would have to abolish the differences between each other, something which was unrealistic. The city could not unite in the way Plato said due to all the people in the polis being different. He says that a city cannot ever contain people who are the exact same as each other, as real unity is achieved only when people that are different come together. If the polis was to have unity that would shrink it down to the level of an individual, it would mean that everyone would have to be the same,